Chapter 17
Monday morning saw me back in the shop for another week of work, one I was determined to get through without any more upsets or early closings.
I just wanted things to go back to normal.
To that end, I showed up fifteen minutes early to put the kettle on and get things ready for opening before Emma showed up.
‘Morning,’ she called from outside, as I unlatched the door. ‘You’re keen.’
‘Ready to get back into a routine,’ I said. ‘I looked at property listings for three hours yesterday and there’s nothing going right now, so that means I might have to pay for the flat on my own for a few months.’
‘Is that… doable?’ Emma asked, shedding her black spider-web coat.
‘It’s going to have to be. I can do it, as long as I cut back on some things.’
Like buying coffee, my Audible subscription and eating anything that wasn’t from the yellow-sticker section of the supermarket.
I’d also need the shop to start making more money and, to be honest, I’d probably also need to put some stuff on eBay just to try and bridge the gap.
God knows how I’d manage once the pre-paid rent on the shop ran out.
But I could do it. What was the alternative?
Ask my one friend and sole employee to also move in with me?
That was too much pressure to put on Emma and there was no way I was going to be able to move back in with Mum and Dad after Saturday’s disaster.
‘Hey, what’s that?’ Emma went back to the door and pulled a piece of paper out of the letterbox. It was set low in the door, so low down that most of the junk mail distributors didn’t even bother to shove takeaway leaflets in there.
‘Probably a parish newsletter or something,’ I muttered, double-checking the amount in the till so I could note it down before we opened.
‘It’s an envelope, unsealed… oh, my GOD!’
‘What?’ I jumped a little in my seat and looked up to find Emma holding a rectangle of paper up at me. Her eyes were wide and for a moment I thought it was an eviction notice or something even more dreadful, like a Reform leaflet. Then she beamed at me.
‘It’s a cheque! For five grand!?’
I blinked at her. The words made sense individually but not when I put them together. Who the hell would be leaving us a cheque, let alone for that much money?
‘Is there an invoice or something in there?’ I waved her over and Emma tripped across the shop floor.
She handed me the envelope and the cheque.
On the inside of the flap of the envelope someone had written (in appalling chicken scratch) ‘If you’re good at something, never do it for free’.
I looked at the cheque. It was indeed for five grand, made out to ‘Ewe and Me’.
Then I noticed the name of the sender and let out a startled laugh.
Although there wasn’t a full name, it was easy to tell who was behind it.
‘It’s a joke,’ I said, in answer to Emma’s confused expression. ‘From J Cooper – the boat guy?’ It seemed a safe assumption – I’d never met another Cooper in my life. Odd that he was going by his last name. I wondered what ‘J’ stood for?
‘A… joke?’ She looked quite disappointed. I supposed from her perspective the cheque had been the answer to the many crystals and charms placed around the shop. I felt bad for having ruined the mystique.
‘I took his clothes back yesterday and we were talking about how much some of my crochet would cost to make – and I think this is just his way of trying to show that he values it, you know?’ I ran my thumb over the scrawled signature. What a silly… sweet thing to do!
I looked up from the cheque and found Emma looking at me with her brows nearing her hairline.
The last time she’d looked at me like that it was because I’d told a visitor that it was absolutely fine for them to ask me for directions (three times) without buying anything. It was her ‘who are you kidding?’ look.
‘What?’ I asked, more defiantly than I meant to.
‘“What?” she says, like she didn’t just get a cheque for five thousand pounds, from a cute man who “just wants you to know he values you”.’ Emma folded her arms. ‘Who also saved you from a canal.’
‘Not a real cheque,’ I reminded her, stubbornly.
‘And we already talked about the rescue thing and I told you it wasn’t romantic or sexy or anything like that.
It was just a thing that happened. And now I’ve given him his clothes and the hand warmers and I’ll probably never see him again.
’ I thought for a second and then corrected myself.
‘Unless someone messages me about that dog.’
Emma frowned at me. ‘Okay, I have more questions now – what hand warmers and what dog?’ Her expression turned incredulous. ‘Did you… make him something?’
‘Just to say thank-you-slash-sorry for the whole canal incident. I mostly wanted to have a quiet crafting afternoon and he just happened to be the beneficiary of that. Besides I make stuff for everyone.’
‘Except Margaret.’
‘Because she is evil,’ we said, together.
‘Yes, exactly,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t need knitwear because she derives warmth from the fires of hell.
But I make stuff for everyone else, so it’s not a big deal.
And the dog was… look, after I dropped his clothes round, I had to do a weekly shop and I bumped into him at Asda.
He was there buying dog food for a stray dog he’d found and I let him have some of Aunt Lou’s old dog stuff, then gave them a lift home.
He asked me to post in the Facebook group to see if anyone lost him. That’s all.’
‘You went by the flat?’ Emma raised her eyebrows. ‘Together?’
‘I… yes. Just for a second, to get the lead and bits for the dog. It’s not like I haven’t been alone with him in his home before,’ I said, feeling a bit prickly.
Ordinarily would I let a strange man know my address?
No, of course not. But Cooper was different.
I trusted him. Why that was I couldn’t say.
Maybe because out of everyone I knew he’d never hurt me, accidentally or on purpose, with a comment or a criticism.
He just seemed to accept everything I said and did with interest instead of critique.
Even my own mother couldn’t manage that.
‘Hmm.’ Emma drummed her star-and-moon acrylics on the counter. ‘So the cute rescuer also saves sweet little puppies. And he just happened to bump into you?’
‘At the one supermarket in town,’ I pointed out.
‘How did he get there? That’s quite far to walk, right? And he didn’t have a car or a bike with him?’
That brought me up short. I hadn’t considered that before. How had Cooper got to Asda by the time I did? It was a long walk, especially with an unfamiliar dog on an improvised lead.
‘I don’t know, he could have hitch-hiked or… taken the bus,’ I said, suddenly realising. ‘He probably took the bus. They let dogs on. I saw a man with a duck in a cage on there once.’
That seemed to convince Emma at least. She let the subject drop with a hum and went to make tea in the break room.
I finished setting up the shop floor for another day and followed her back there to collect my mug.
We returned to the shop front together and, after unlocking the door and turning the sign over, I sat at the counter with her, waiting for customers.
‘How was your weekend?’ I asked to forestall further Cooper talk. I didn’t want to examine that whole mess too closely.
‘Pretty good – had to pop to Home Bargains for the new Halloween décor, bought some lovely cushions and a new blanket. Then made myself a little Sunday roast and watched a Catherine Cookson.’ Emma blew on her tea. ‘How was the party on Saturday, by the way?’
Crap. I immediately tried to think of a lie but I could tell Emma had already picked up on my pause. She frowned.
‘Did something happen? Oh God, please tell me that Eton mess on your Instagram made it to the party and didn’t fall in the foot well – that happened to me with a trifle. There were sprinkles in my floor mats for months.’
I laughed, but even to me it sounded strained.
‘Nothing like that, thankfully. Um… I had a little falling-out with Mum, that was all. So I went home early.’ At Emma’s surprised expression, I hurriedly corrected myself.
‘Not even a falling-out really. It was nothing – she just didn’t take the news about the break-up the way I thought she would. ’
Understatement of the year. Not even in my most dire imaginings had my mother flatly asked if I was sure I wanted to dump my cheating boyfriend.
‘Oh, hon, you could have called me – what did she say?’ Emma asked.
‘She… asked me if I was sure,’ I said, shrugging. ‘That was it. I probably overreacted.’
‘Sure?’ Emma repeated, as if it was an entirely new word to her. ‘About breaking up with Richard?’
I nodded.
‘Richard, who you walked in on while he was having sex with another woman in your home? On your blanket!?’
I winced at the volume, but nodded again. ‘I didn’t tell her I’d seen him, just that he cheated…’
‘You told her and she still said… wow, no wonder you left. I’m so sorry.’ Emma put her hand on my arm and gave it a squeeze, her gemstone bracelets tinkling together. ‘Have you spoken since?’
‘She rang yesterday morning but we didn’t really talk about it. You know how she is. But I will talk to her about what she said, I just have other stuff to be worried about right now.’
To be honest, the way Emma was reacting made me feel a bit worse about it.
I’d tried to minimise how horrible the whole situation had been.
But hearing Emma be so flabbergasted was making it more and more real to me that Mum’s reaction to the news of Richard cheating had been far from what normal people would consider appropriate from the mother of the injured party.
I didn’t mention Richard showing up drunk because I knew already what Emma would say.
She was love and light when it came to saving spiders and putting crystals over the door but she’d be disappointed in me for not telling Richard where to go and throwing him back out into the night.
I was sort of disappointed in myself. Even if it had been the responsible thing to do, I could have just called him a taxi or made him book an Uber.
I didn’t have to let him stay the night, but I had.
It was hard. I’d thought I could turn off all my feelings for him and to a certain extent I had.
But some of them had deeper roots than I’d anticipated. Illogical, inconvenient roots.
‘Well, let me know if you need some moral support,’ Emma said. ‘Or an alibi.’
‘I will do. Thanks,’ I said, glad the subject was being dropped.
‘And, hey, let’s schedule in that “Stitch and Witch”, hmm?
It can’t hurt.’ While Emma created a new group chat, I thought privately that, despite her reassurances, I didn’t want to keep burdening her with my crap when she had her own life to be concerned with.
I could handle Mum and Richard. As for Cooper, he wasn’t mine to worry about.
He was just a man, on a boat, passing through and soon he’d be off somewhere else doing… whatever it was he did.
Why did that thought make me feel like someone had added weights to my shoes?
In a burst of distracting productivity, I made a free website for the shop and posted links to it in the local Facebook groups.
It was nothing fancy, just a few pictures of the shop and stock, the address and our contact information.
But at least now anyone googling for craft shops nearby would be able to find us.
I’d been na?ve to think we’d survive on foot traffic and word of mouth alone.
I had to get the shop out there and bring people to us if we were ever going to be more than a brief novelty on the high street. An embarrassment under a ‘To Let’ sign.
In between customers I checked my phone for responses to the dog post. Quite a lot of ‘poor thing’ and ‘hope you find the owners’ replies.
A few people had tagged friends and asked ‘Is this Poppy?’ or ‘Looks just like Chalky!’ but so far no one had claimed to know who he actually was.
But it was still early days. I wondered if he was microchipped and how to go about checking that.
I’d have to ask Alistair next time I saw him.
As I was putting my phone away, I got a notification from Mum. I was expecting a reminder about the tea she’d asked me to get for her, but it was a link she’d sent via WhatsApp.
Having a Baby at Thirty: Why You Shouldn’t Wait
Terrific.