Chapter Thirty-One
‘Those are supposed to be for the customers.’
Jackson paused in the act of biting into an icing-topped cupcake.
With a look of pained reluctance, he lowered the confectionery, which now bore a neat indentation of his teeth, and gave a charming shrug that I was willing to bet was one of the reasons Lars had fallen for him.
He was kind of hard to resist or stay mad at.
‘Well, you might as well have it now,’ I said, my eyes going to the counter where several platters of cakes and pastries were set out.
I glanced at the clock. Just ten minutes until we officially opened the doors of Florrie’s.
Flyers had been sent out. There were posters in practically every shop window in the high street, as well as a large ad in the local paper.
But there was still every chance that Jackson could end up eating more cake today than he’d ever be able to devour. What if no one showed up?
With that uncanny way she’d always had of knowing exactly what was troubling me, Mel came up and threw an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in for a hug.
‘Stop worrying.’
‘Who said I was worrying?’
She gave a humph of laughter. ‘You’re kidding, right? You look as tautly strung as a violin string.’
‘And your forehead looks like a before ad for Botox,’ added Jackson around a mouthful of sponge cake.
‘Not helping,’ Mel said, shoving him off towards the counter, which was currently being manned by Beth from Crazy Daisy.
‘I’ll just go and pay for my cake, shall I?’ he said, glancing back over his shoulder. ‘What does it cost anyway? There are no prices on anything.’
I exchanged a smile with Mel. It was something we’d discussed almost from our very first conversation about Florrie’s.
I wanted people to come and spend time here without having to worry about the cost or whether they could afford it.
That was why there was a collection tin, rather than a cash register, on the counter.
‘Just pay whatever you think it was worth or whatever you can spare,’ I said.
Jackson raised his eyebrows and sauntered away.
The shop was ready and as I looked around the premises I wondered if any of the high street establishments were open for business today, because almost every shop owner who’d agreed to be involved in Florrie’s was here for its inaugural opening.
Also present was our guest of honour, Christina, Florrie’s daughter, who was now on her second round of the room, effusively hugging and thanking everyone for helping to make her mother’s dream come true.
She’d finally stopped crying when she did so, although seeing the framed photograph of her mum that I’d hung on the wall had set us both off.
‘Where on earth did you find this photo?’ she’d asked in wonder.
‘Rosemary from the tea shop had it on her phone,’ I’d told her with a smile, ‘and John from the art shop got it framed.’
She’d struggled with her lower lip on hearing that. ‘You’ve all been so incredibly generous, so kind. This is exactly what Mum wanted. I just know it is.’
That had made me happy, because this wasn’t my project, it was everyone’s.
And even though I might have taken on the lion’s share of the admin – with a lot of help from Mel – it was a community effort that we were committed to make a success.
There was no profit or gain for any of us, except the satisfaction of knowing we were doing a really good thing.
And that meant more to me than any commission I could ever have earned from selling the property.
‘The artwork looks really cool,’ Mel said, stepping up to one of half a dozen framed originals that I’d hung on the freshly painted walls. She studied a charcoal drawing of a windswept beach, one of my personal favourites. ‘Rhys is really talented, isn’t he?’
‘That’s what I keep telling him.’
Mel waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
‘I meant as an artist,’ I said, unable to stop a flush from flooding my cheeks.
‘Ellie Harker, are you blushing?’
‘No. Well, maybe a little,’ I admitted, suddenly flustered. I focused my gaze back to the drawings on the wall. ‘One day his pieces will be hung on the walls of a proper gallery, and then everyone will get to see how good he is.’
Another surprised look from Mel.
‘What? Now what have I said?’
‘Nothing,’ Mel replied, trying to button down a smile and failing miserably. ‘It’s just been a long time since I’ve seen you giddy about anyone.’
‘I’m not giddy,’ I denied, turning to straighten up a stack of board games that were positioned on a table.
‘I have my feet firmly planted on the floor. See, rock-steady,’ I said, and then lost my own argument when I caught sight of a tall dark-haired man with brilliant green eyes striding up to the door and promptly walked straight into a stand of donated paperbacks.
‘Sure you are,’ said Mel on a laugh, turning away to answer a question from one of the volunteers as I hurried towards the door to let Rhys in.
When I passed the counter, I caught Beth’s incredulous face as she looked down at the donation tin, into which Jackson had just dropped two fifty-pound notes.
Perhaps that’s why my eyes were sparkling with tears when I slid back the bolt on the door to let Rhys in.
‘I thought you weren’t going to be able to make it today? That you had meetings this morning?’
‘I rescheduled them,’ he said, bending down to drop a kiss on my cheek. ‘I couldn’t miss your big opening.’
‘Not just mine,’ I said, peering beyond him at the empty street and pulling a worried face. ‘But you might have wasted your time as I don’t think anyone is going to show up.’
Rhys gave a knowing smile. ‘Well, I just passed about a dozen people who were patiently queuing around the corner and most of them were clutching flyers in their hands. So, I don’t think that’s something you need to worry about.’
I lit up. And yes, some of that was down to Rhys and the way he was looking at me right then, but perhaps even more was because I was so proud of what we’d all achieved.
I looked around the room, smiling at everyone present.
‘Everyone ready?’ A chorus of yesses and an overly loud whoop and a ‘hell yeah’ which could only have come from Jackson was the reply.
I turned to the door and flipped the Closed sign to Open.
‘Okay then. Let’s do this.’
‘How many good memories do you have of Bee?’
Henry paused in the act of deadheading the flowers in front of him and turned to me with a quizzical look. ‘Someone once told me that any relationship worth having should have at least four good memories,’ I explained. ‘I was just wondering how many you had of Bee.’
His face softened, the way I’d noticed it always did whenever he spoke about the woman he loved.
‘Four thousand, four million, four to infinity,’ he said. He gave a twisted smile. ‘I do realise that’s not a very scientific answer for a former mathematics teacher, but every memory with her was one to treasure. Every single second.’
I sighed, revealing a longing that I was trying very hard to suppress.
‘How many do you have of you and your mother?’ Henry asked, flipping the question right back at me.
I drew in a long breath, like a builder who’d been asked to give an estimate for a particularly tricky job.
‘Hard to say, really. None that come immediately to mind.’
A glint of steel that I don’t think I’d ever seen before flashed momentarily in his eyes.
‘Try harder,’ he urged. ‘There must have been some, even if you have to go way back in the past.’
I was a little taken aback by the unexpected dose of tough love.
I could see what he was trying to do here, I just wasn’t sure I liked it.
Plus, I didn’t think that reframing the past was going to be enough to undo too many years of emotional erosion.
But I didn’t want to refuse, so I cast my mind back, like a fisherman throwing out a net without any hopes of catching anything.
But surprisingly, after a few moments of contemplation, I did.
‘Nicholas Pritchard,’ I said, in the same tone of voice that I imagine Archimedes employed when he cried out ‘Eureka’. ‘Nicholas Pritchard. The boy in Year Nine who everybody wanted to go out with, who asked me out on a date, and then stood me up outside the Empire Cinema.’
‘Thoughtless swine,’ Henry said in mock outrage. ‘I’d have given him a week of detention just for being stupid. And then another for being blind.’
I laughed. ‘I think he’d done it as a dare. I was kind of geeky back then: train track braces, bad skin, and glasses. Not one of the popular girls.’
‘I don’t care. It still shows appalling lack of judgement. I bet he’d regret it if he saw you now.’
‘You’re very kind,’ I said, passing him one of the two chilled bottles of water I’d brought with me.
It was becoming almost an automatic habit to double up on whatever I was bringing with me to the cemetery.
I plucked two apples from the fruit bowl instead of one, ordered two lattes to go from the coffee shop, and picked up two sandwiches from the supermarket shelf.
Somehow, without me even realising it, spending time with Henry had become an intrinsic part of visiting my mother’s grave.
When I looked back on this summer, I knew these memories would be just as strong as those of Rhys and the lightning.
‘So where does your mother fit into the Nicholas Pritchard story?’ Henry asked.
It felt good to smile when I thought of something my mother had done, and I realised how little I must have done that over the years.
‘She didn’t tell me I was being stupid when I eventually gave up waiting and walked back home in floods of tears.
She was the fiercest feminist I’ve ever met and yet on that night, when my fragile teenage heart had its first knock, she didn’t dismiss the pain of being rejected by a boy I was really into.
It was one of the rare moments when I felt she truly understood me.
‘She let me cry it out, and I can remember that after I’d got into my pyjamas and crawled into bed, she’d sat down on the armchair in the corner of my room. I asked her if she’d stay with me until I fell asleep.’
‘And did she?’ Henry asked, his voice hushed as though he was truly invested in this old tale.
I smiled sadly as the memory came back to me with crystal-clear clarity.
‘She was still there when I woke up in the morning.’
The tears caught me by surprise, but they weren’t ones of sadness.
‘That was a good memory,’ I said.