by Karen Clarke
With the soaring obesity crisis and a generation of pre-schoolers suffering tooth decay, should we be celebrating a business that basically peddles sugar?
‘Peddles?’ I burst out. ‘They make it sound like cocaine.’
‘It gets worse,’ Beth said. ‘Apparently, The Beachside Sweet Shop is responsible for an increase in visits to the dentist last year.’
I stared at her. ‘How on earth can they prove that?’
‘They probably can’t.’ Beth shook her curls. ‘But it makes for a sensational story, and that’s clearly the angle …’ she leaned over to read the writer’s by-line, ‘Chris Weatherby was going for.’
‘Wasn’t he the guy who took the pictures?’
Beth nodded. ‘Clearly not just a photographer.’
I felt oddly shaken, imagining how Gramps would have felt. ‘Do you think anyone will read this?’
‘Well, they haven’t yet,’ said Beth, as the door opened to admit a clutch of children in uniform, who looked like they were on a school trip.
‘We saw you on TV, and thought we’d stop off and see what the fuss was about,’ said a short, round woman who appeared to be in charge. ‘It really reminds me of the sweet shop near where I lived as a child.’
‘It’s lovely,’ agreed a larger woman, in half-moon glasses. ‘And what a lovely view.’
Everyone turned to look through the window. It was another brightly lit day, sunshine spilling across the sand to the sea, where a couple of yachts were bobbing in the distance, sails billowing in the breeze.
‘You’re so lucky,’ said the first woman, ‘having a job like this.’
I felt a prickle of guilt. I rarely bothered to look at the view when I was at work.
‘What would you like?’ I said briskly, wondering whether Chris Weatherby had a point. Should I really be selling sugar to pre-schoolers – or anyone else, for that matter? Was I on a par with the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?
But if I was, it meant my grandfather had been too, and the thought of Leonard Appleton intending anyone harm was completely ludicrous.
‘Are you OK?’ asked one of the women, and I realised I was gripping the edge of the counter as if about to vault over it.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, trying to relax my face.
‘Go and make some tea,’ Beth hissed, then made the children giggle by pretending to drop a jar of sweets, but catching it at the last minute.
‘Are you famous?’ asked a little boy, before I could make a quick exit. He was pink-cheeked beneath a windswept mop of dark hair, and his cheeks dimpled when he smiled.
‘Not really.’ I smoothed a self-conscious hand across my hair. ‘Not in the sense of someone who’s won an Oscar or …’
‘Yes she is,’ said Beth.
‘Can I have a selfie, please?’ He produced a smart-phone from his blazer pocket, and one of the teachers sucked in air through her teeth.
‘No phones, Christopher,’ she said, snatching it from him and popping it in her bag. ‘You can have it back at the end of the day.’
‘What’s up?’ Beth asked, when the group had finally left, the teachers wishing me all the best and thanking for me for an ‘authentic’ experience.
‘That.’ I pointed to the newspaper. ‘People will turn against us because of him, and it’s not fair. Not after everything Gramps worked for.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ Beth scoffed, grabbing the paper and stuffing it in the recycling bin. ‘I doubt anyone even reads it and, even if they do, you’re hardly responsible for people’s choices. If they don’t want to buy sweets, they don’t have to.’
‘I suppose so,’ I said, but Chris Weatherby’s words had lodged in my brain, and I felt unusually rattled.
‘Don’t let it spoil everything.’ Beth rubbed my arm. ‘You’ve looked happy since Friday. You’ve even done your hair again.’
‘I was feeling good,’ I allowed. ‘I was going to ask you to ask Harry if he’d give me a quote for doing the shop up a bit.’
‘Brilliant!’ Beth’s smile was replaced by a grimace.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I keep getting these twinges,’ she said, cradling her belly with both hands. ‘They’ve been happening on and off over the weekend.’
‘Have you told your midwife?’
‘They’re probably Braxton Hicks,’ Beth said, moving her hands to her lower back and moving them in small circles. ‘Practise contractions.’
It hit me that Beth could actually give birth any minute, and I still hadn’t found anyone to replace her. My Saturday girl, Agnieszka, had several jobs already, and although I’d put a notice in the window, the few applicants I’d had weren’t happy that I couldn’t give an exact start date. Plus, I wasn’t keen on the thought of bringing in a stranger.
‘You should go home and put your feet up,’ I told her, realising how heavily I’d come to rely on her help. Harry complained I saw more of her than he did, though I know it suited her to work at the sweet shop until she got her degree.
‘I’ll sit out the back for five minutes,’ she said, wincing again. She did look rather pale, and there was a sheen of perspiration on her upper lip.
‘Go on,’ I instructed. ‘I’ll make some weak tea.’
‘Who are you, my gran?’
But she did as she was told, which was worrying. From the start, she’d refused to be pampered, insisting pregnancy wasn’t an illness, and she wanted to carry on as normal.
‘I think you should call Harry,’ I said, spooning two sugars into her tea, as though she was in shock. The chimes above the door kept jangling as customers entered the shop, but I didn’t want to leave her.
‘Don’t be silly, I’ll be fine.’ Beth picked up her mug, a defiant spark in her eyes, and I doubted Bunty would dare put in an appearance before her due date.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Just take it easy.’
When I emerged a man was leaning on the counter.
‘Please could I have some sherbet lemons, miss?’ he said, his face lighting up when he saw me.
Despite a Northern accent, there was something of the surfer about him; wavy, blond-streaked hair, green eyes, and golden forearms dusted with fine hairs.
‘I, er, sure, yes,’ I stuttered. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, revealing a tanned and muscled chest, and my pulse started racing in a peculiar fashion.
I fumbled the jar off the shelf behind me, not realising the lid wasn’t on properly. Half the sherbet lemons spilled across the floor.
‘Oh, god, I’m sorry,’ I said, dropping on all fours and scooping up a handful.
‘Five second rule,’ the man said. He was leaning over the counter, a teasing look on his face.
‘Sorry?’
‘If food’s on the floor for five seconds, it’s fine to eat. Longer than that …’ He gave an eloquent shrug. From this angle he looked naked and my face inflamed with heat.
‘It’s been longer than that now,’ I said primly. Flustered, I began chucking sweets in the bin. ‘I’d better wash my hands,’ I said, moving too quickly and smacking my head on the underside of the counter. ‘OW!’ I cried, rubbing my scalp.
‘Are you OK?’ the man said.
Tears of pain pricked my eyes. ‘No, I’m bloody not.’
‘When you’re ready, love, I haven’t got all day,’ someone snapped from the other side of the counter.
‘I thought this place had just won an award.’
‘It can’t have been for good service.’
The man’s head disappeared. ‘Give her a break, she’s here on her own, and she’s just bumped her head,’ he said.
‘Where’s the rest of the staff?’
‘I don’t know, I’ve never been in here before.’
‘It wasn’t like this in her granddad’s day, he was always very professional.’
Oh for heaven’s sake. I stood up, ready to give them a piece of my mind, but before I could speak, the man stuck out a hand and said, ‘I’m Josh. Nice to meet you …’
> ‘Marnie,’ I said automatically, pumping his hand as though we were at a business meeting. ‘Look, I’m sorry about that.’ I took a breath. ‘Let me start again.’
‘No worries.’ His grin made my heart skip a beat. I dusted my hands on my skirt, then picked up the metal scoop and decanted the few sherbet lemons that were left onto the scales, aware of everyone watching with eagle eyes.
‘Enough?’ I met Josh’s amused glance and looked away, cheeks burning. What was wrong with me?
‘I’ll have the rest,’ he said. ‘You can’t have too many sherbet lemons.’ He’d folded his arms, as if settling in for a long wait, while behind him customers fidgeted and muttered.
‘Beth!’ I called, aiming for a light-hearted tone that came out strangled. ‘Need a bit of help here!’
‘Jesus wept,’ said the man behind Josh. He was holding the hand of a little girl with Goldilocks curls, who was sobbing as though her heart was broken. ‘How much longer is this going to take?’
‘My hair’s grown an inch while I’ve been waiting,’ said some bright spark behind them.
‘BETH!’ I called. Was she OK?
Josh stiffened, unfolding his arms. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a bit of experience working in a shop. Why don’t I give you a hand?’
I stared at him. ‘What?’
‘Let me help.’
In a fluid movement, he unfastened a shirt from around his waist and pulled it over his surfer shorts, before joining me behind the counter.
‘What can I get you, sir?’ he said politely to the man with the sobbing child, and within seconds she was smiling through her tears as he handed over a handful of lollipops.
‘Yes?’ I said to the next customer, simultaneously grateful and bemused by the presence of a man by my side – one who looked as if he’d been born to work in a sweet shop.
We worked our way steadily through the queue, choreographing our movements to avoid bumping into each other. I kept casting him covert looks, but he seemed to know how to work the till and find what people wanted without asking where things were.
I’d begun to fret about Beth, when I became aware of a high keening noise rising from somewhere behind us.
‘What the hell’s that?’ asked Josh, poised with a bag of jelly babies in one hand, and a ten-pound note in the other.
‘MARNIE! Heeeeeeeeeeeeelp!’
Dropping a bag of rhubarb-flavoured chews, I shot through to the kitchen to find Beth on her back on the floor, knees drawn up, her face frozen in a grimace.
‘I think I’m having a baby,’ she whispered.
Six
‘So, it was a false alarm?’ I perched on the side of Beth’s hospital bed and smoothed a stray curl off her forehead.
She looked sheepish. ‘I’m really sorry, Marnie.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said, leaning over and plumping her pillows. She was being kept in for a few hours, for monitoring. ‘It looked completely real from where I was standing.’
‘It felt real too,’ she said, eyes shining with tears. I’d never seen Beth so thoroughly unsettled. Going into early labour hadn’t been part of her plan and, false alarm or not, the episode had thrown her.
‘I’ve got to take it easy for the next few weeks, put my feet up, that kind of thing,’ she said crossly, as if she’d been quarantined. ‘I won’t be able to work.’
‘I was going to fire you anyway,’ I joked, in an attempt to bring back her smile.
‘Ha ha,’ she managed. ‘I don’t understand how it could hurt so much and then come to nothing.’
‘Well, the doctor explained the baby could have been lying on a nerve,’ I reminded her. She’d seemed too shocked to take in what he was saying, unable to comprehend why the agony had stopped almost as soon as she was examined. ‘Plus, you have a really low pain threshold.’ I was thinking of the time she twisted her ankle on the way to school, and wailed loudly enough to raise the dead in the graveyard we were passing.
‘Oh god,’ she said, looking panicked. ‘Do you think I might need knocking out when it happens for real?’
To date, Beth’s birthing plan had optimistically involved being in bed at home, doing some light chanting intended to induce a trance-like state that would block her pain receptors.
‘We’ll see,’ I said, handing her a beaker of tepid water. ‘It might not be as bad as you think.’
Straightening up gingerly she shook her head, looking unconvinced. ‘I still can’t believe you left a stranger in charge of the shop.’
‘I didn’t have much choice,’ I said. After seeing Beth writhing on the floor I’d immediately tried to call Harry, but when I got his voicemail rang for an ambulance instead.
‘Don’t worry,’ Josh had said, when I shot out to explain what was happening. ‘I’ll keep an eye on the place if you want to go with your friend.’
His stance was casual but confident, but though his level-headedness had calmed me down, I was reluctant to leave him alone. ‘I don’t even know your surname,’ I said, hunting around for my keys. ‘I should close the shop. People will understand.’
‘It’s Radley, and it seems a pity to close when you’re so busy.’ He nodded at the steady trickle of customers. ‘Honestly, I’ll be fine.’
I hadn’t taken much persuading; mostly because Beth was making such a terrible noise by that point, people were giving me suspicious looks. I’d had to explain that it wasn’t someone being tortured, but that Beth was having a baby – which amounted to much the same thing.
‘I’ll keep an eye on him,’ Doris had said, sticking her hand in the air like a schoolgirl. It was unlike her to make three visits to the shop in a week, but I guessed now my profile had been raised she was keen to capitalise on our connection. ‘You go, sweetheart. Beth needs you.’
It was almost as if they couldn’t wait to be rid of me, but while I wasn’t exactly relaxed about it, I figured not much could go wrong with beady-eyed Doris in charge.
‘What if they’ve robbed the place, and divvied up the takings?’ Beth said, a flush of colour returning to her cheeks. ‘They might run off together.’
‘Unlikely,’ I said. ‘You know what a stickler Doris is for obeying the letter of the law.’ Her husband, Roger, had been a policeman before his retirement, and she was a member of our local Neighbourhood Watch.
‘Well, wotsischops might knock her out and take off with the money.’
‘You’re talking like I’ve thousands of pounds stashed away,’ I said with a laugh. ‘Takings have only gone up since Friday, I’m hardly rolling in cash.’
‘He might be desperate,’ Beth insisted, her forehead creasing. ‘You sound as if you don’t care.’
‘Of course I care,’ I said, feeling as if something had shifted and brought the sweet shop more sharply into focus. Maybe it was winning the competition. I could hardly let down all the people who’d voted by letting the place go to wrack and ruin.
Which brought me back to Josh.
‘I wonder if he’d be interested in a job,’ I said to Beth. ‘Now you’re out of action for the foreseeable.’
‘Talking about work again?’
Harry came through the double doors with three cups of coffee in a cardboard holder, and a bag that smelt of meat underneath his arm. ‘I’ve bought refreshments,’ he said, putting the items on the locker by Beth’s bed and stooping to kiss her hair.
He was still in his paint-splattered overalls, his copper-wire coloured hair sticking up in tufts. Despite being the boss, he wasn’t afraid to muck in and do the dirty work.
Harry was the boy-next-door that Beth had known since the age of six, and married three years ago on her twenty-seventh birthday.
‘When you know, you know,’ she’d say matter-of-factly, when people expressed their astonishment that he was the only man she’d ever been in a relationship with. ‘There’s nothing I need from anyone else that I haven’t got with Harry.’
‘I knew you were working her too hard,’ he sa
id now, his hazel eyes marble hard as they met mine across the bed.
‘Harry,’ Beth warned.
‘It’s OK,’ I said quickly. ‘I think he’s right actually. I should have sent you home as soon as you said you were having twinges.’
‘She tried,’ Beth said, grabbing Harry’s hand and kissing his fingers. ‘You know what I’m like.’
His gaze softened. ‘Will you let me look after you now?’
‘Ugh.’ She laid her head back and rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t like being looked after.’
‘Well, you’ll have to get used to it,’ I said firmly, and the look Harry gave me this time was less hostile.
‘Drink your coffee, it’s decaf,’ he instructed her, clearly relishing being in charge as he handed her one of the cardboard cups. ‘And I don’t want you sitting up studying until all hours, either. You need more sleep.’
‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ she grumbled, letting him crumble up a sausage roll and pop some into her mouth. ‘I suppose I’ve got to do what’s best for Bunty.’
‘Don’t you mean Herbert?’ said Harry, who was equally convinced their baby was a boy.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ I said, sliding off the bed. My stomach growled with hunger, but it was clear Harry hadn’t thought to get me anything to eat. I picked up one of the coffees and kissed Beth goodbye, with a promise to ring her later to see how she was.
I returned to the shop in a taxi to find it empty, and no sign of Josh or Doris. My heart missed a beat. Had Beth been right, and Josh had absconded with the takings? Was he a drifter passing through, conning people on the way, or had I read too many thrillers?
I opened the till, relieved to see it was packed with notes and coins. Though we had a machine for customers to pay by card, the sweet shop was one of those places where people preferred to use cash.
‘Josh?’ The sun dipped behind a cloud, and the shop plunged into gloom. Was he hiding somewhere, waiting to cosh me over the head?
Had he murdered Doris and hidden her body?
‘Out here,’ came a distant voice. ‘I’ve just checked in a delivery.’
I crossed behind the counter, through the office and into the stockroom, where Josh was tearing open a cardboard box.
