The Beachside Sweetshop

by Karen Clarke

  ‘Still do,’ Beth said, with a sympathetic pout. ‘Take no notice.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s everything in moderation,’ said Harry, squatting to scribble down a measurement. ‘It’s not like people eat sweets instead of meals.’

  Beth and I raised our eyebrows at each other. It wasn’t like Harry to be supportive where I was concerned.

  ‘Some might,’ I said, coming to a standstill. ‘I remember trying to persuade Celia once that strawberry-flavoured laces were practically a vegetable so I didn’t have to eat my cabbage.’

  ‘You could always start selling something else,’ he added, spoiling the moment. ‘There hasn’t been a decent ice-cream place on the parade since Vincent’s closed last year.’

  ‘I heard rumours it’s going to be a dance school,’ Beth butted in. ‘I’d go, wouldn’t you, Marnie?’

  ‘Why is ice-cream any better than sweets?’ I said to Harry, refusing to be swerved. ‘And anyway, ice-cream’s more seasonal, which is why he went out of business. People want sweets all year round, and if it was good enough for my granddad—’

  ‘Can’t have it both ways,’ he butted in. ‘Maybe you should sell fruit and veg instead.’

  ‘Harry!’ Beth gave me an apologetic look, and for the hundredth time, I wished I could get to the bottom of Harry’s ambivalence. Beth and I had discussed it once and she agreed to talk to him, but apparently he’d said I ‘wasn’t his cup of tea’.

  ‘He’s one of those people who doesn’t like someone knowing her as well as he does,’ Alex had concluded, when he first met Harry – at a fancy-dress party Beth had arranged for one of her history buddies; dress code, medieval (obviously). Beth and I went as wenches, Harry was in a codpiece and tights, and Alex was dressed as an ermine-cloaked aristocrat. Despite Harry’s efforts to bond, Alex had been guarded on my behalf and conversation had stalled. We hadn’t met up as a foursome again.

  ‘People buy their fruit and veg at supermarkets,’ I said to Harry, unwilling to give him the upper hand. ‘And all I know about is sweets.’

  ‘Maybe you need to think about a change of career.’

  ‘Hey, whose side are you on?’ said Beth, throwing a lollipop at him. He caught it deftly and threw me a grin that relaxed his face.

  ‘You’re the one who was complaining,’ he said. ‘Now, where do you want the new shelving unit?’

  I showed him and stood back while he measured up, half-wishing Josh had stayed. He’d left at five, explaining he’d arranged to meet friends. I could hardly complain, especially as he’d reorganised the stockroom while the shop was quiet, and brought me several cups of coffee, reassuring me the woman who’d threatened me was just making empty threats.

  ‘Watch this,’ he’d said at one point, popping a jelly baby beneath each of our empty mugs, and somehow making one vanish.

  ‘How do you do that?’ I’d made him turn out his pockets to show they were empty.

  ‘A magician never reveals his tricks,’ he said, lifting the mug to reveal the jelly baby I’d thought had gone.

  ‘You should do that for a living.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ he confessed. ‘I quite fancy working on cruise ships, that way I’d see a bit of the world too.’

  ‘So, why don’t you?’

  He looked bashful. ‘I don’t think I’m good enough yet. Plus the parents don’t approve.’

  ‘They should be proud.’

  He’d given me a warm, appreciative look that had sent me scuttling to prop open the door to let some fresh air in.

  A warm salty breeze was flowing through now, and the last of the day’s sunshine had turned the beach a rich gold.

  It really was the perfect spot to work, I reflected. My great-grandfather had known what he was doing when he bought the place back in the twenties. For a moment I felt the weight of history pressing down, and the importance of hanging onto it.

  Avoiding Beth’s speculative stare, I politely thanked Harry as he finished measuring up.

  ‘I’ll pop the quote in tomorrow,’ he said, his gaze not quite meeting mine as he keyed some figures into his tablet computer.

  I squashed down a flare of irritation at his off-hand tone, sensing Beth tensing up.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said coolly, locking up as we left the shop.

  A gang of youths had congregated on the beach, laughing and shoulder-barging each other. Although I knew they were simply bored teenagers with nothing better to do, I didn’t protest when Beth said pointedly that Harry would drop me home.

  ‘Laura called,’ Celia greeted me, placing a bowl of steamed chicken with vegetables on the table as I entered the kitchen. Chester hovered, nose twitching, and she dished up another portion on his special china plate.

  ‘Ooh, goody,’ I said. My mother rarely called the house phone, in case she had to endure a tortured exchange with Celia, about the weather – if Celia was in the mood for talking. She’d recently discovered Skype, but hadn’t quite got to grips with it, and for the first five minutes after calling, only her back-combed hive of hair had been visible on-screen, then she pressed the wrong key and cut us off. ‘What did she want?’

  ‘She wants you to call her back,’ said Celia, lips pursed. I guessed they hadn’t managed a cordial exchange, and wondered if they ever would.

  As a child, I’d sometimes hear them arguing when I sneaked out onto the landing at Celia’s. Peering through the banisters I’d see Mum’s earrings swinging, her freckled shoulders bare in whichever dress she was wearing; usually something long and brightly patterned.

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt you to read her a story, before you go,’ Celia said once in a tired sort of way. ‘It’s about time you started behaving like a mother.’

  ‘Marnie’s fine,’ Mum had said, reaching for her tapestry-woven bag. I knew inside, among other things, was a tube of apricot lipstick called Hippie Chic, a powder compact, some spearmint chewing gum, and a bottle of scent she called patchouli, which smelt of nuts and spice. She’d talked me through each item once, scattering them across the kitchen table, and I’d wanted to snatch them up, like a magpie, and keep them.

  ‘I don’t know why you need to go out every night,’ my grandmother said one evening, her hand pressing the front door. ‘I suppose you’re still looking for a man to make everything right.’

  ‘I’m open to options from the universe, Ma,’ Mum had said with a shrug. She never lost her temper, but although she took Celia’s disapproval in her stride, she never acted as though she deserved it either. She was a ‘free spirit’ she’d say, blowing wherever the wind took her, and I’d imagine her as a leaf, fluttering away from me.

  My grandfather always calmed things down with a careful word and a smile, while my mother shot into the night like a bird from a cage, and I’d feel her absence like a draught.

  I sometimes wondered if it troubled Celia, that she could train a dog with simple commands, but couldn’t control her daughter.

  ‘Did she say anything else?’ I asked now, as I tucked into my dinner. I’d decided not to tell her about Isabel Sinclair’s visit to the shop, knowing it would only worry her.

  ‘Nope.’ Celia’s grip tightened on her knife and fork, and I knew she wouldn’t be drawn into further comment.

  ‘Do you want me to let Chester out?’ I said after we’d eaten and I’d washed the dishes – the one job she was happy to relinquish.

  ‘I’ll do it.’ She rose from the table, more easily than she had in a while. ‘I could do with a breath of fresh air.’

  I watched her go out of the back door and into the garden, then snatched up the phone and ran to my bedroom to call Mum.

  I flicked on my bedside light and sat on my unmade bed, and was about to dial her number when my mobile burst into life, on the dressing table where I’d left it charging.

  Alex. My heart gave a thud. For a while we’d tried to keep in touch, but knowing he was so far away, having experiences we couldn’t share, had proved too hard – it was like Mum, all over again. And
as I was the one who’d insisted he go, I could hardly complain if he was trying to make the best of it.

  Still, I felt a flare of longing as the phone screen flashed up his name.

  No. I wouldn’t be drawn in to talking to him.

  There was no point.

  I reached over and pressed the ‘end call’ button, then used the house phone to ring Mum.

  ‘Marnie, sweetheart, how are you?’ she cried, her raspy voice oozing warmth down the line. She always sounded delighted to hear from me, and a smile spread over my face.

  ‘Celia said you’d called.’

  Her voice became confidential. ‘I hear you won an award!’

  My smile broadened. ‘How?’

  ‘I was looking online for news back home, and came across the little television clip of your interview.’

  ‘You were looking for news about Shipley?’ This was unprecedented. Mum had spent so long wanting to escape it was hard to imagine her scouring websites for snippets about the town she once referred to as ‘the seventh circle of hell’.

  ‘I sometimes miss it,’ she said, with a hint of defiance. I pictured her, lolling by a sparkling pool in her oversized shades and a kaftan, a sun-drenched olive grove in the background. Mario’s family were wealthy wine-exporters, and Mum and Mario lived in a villa on the estate his father owned. Mum kept inviting me over, but as much as I was desperate to visit, I hadn’t yet had the chance.

  ‘You’re living in Italian splendour, but you’re missing Shipley?’ I said, wondering if I’d got the right number.

  ‘Look, I just wanted to say congratulations, that’s all.’ The words came out on a gusty sigh, and some deep-rooted instinct told me that all was not well in Mario-land. Their relationship had lasted longer than any she’d had before, and I’d let her convince me she’d found true love at last, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  ‘Well, thanks,’ I said, knowing better than to ask. ‘I didn’t know anything about the competition, Beth entered on my behalf.’

  ‘Good for her,’ Mum approved. ‘You deserve it, Marnie.’

  There was something in her voice I couldn’t remember hearing before … nostalgia? Regret? Surely she wasn’t genuinely hankering for home?

  ‘I’m still saving up to go travelling,’ I told her, fidgeting up the bed and making myself comfortable. Downstairs, I could hear the Coronation Street music. It was the only thing Celia watched, apart from the news, and reruns of The Dog Whisperer featuring her hero, Cesar Millan. ‘I thought I might start with Thailand.’

  ‘Oh, Thailand.’ I’d been hoping to prompt her favourite story, about the steamy summer she’d spent hiking through the jungle with her old friend, Dee, but she sounded as if I’d reminded her of a trip to the dentist’s. ‘Do you remember when we used to make sweets together?’ she said, out of the blue.

  ‘Of course I do.’ A memory of pink and white coconut ice popped into my head. Batches and batches of it, laid out in foil trays that Mum brought home from the supermarket in Weymouth where she’d worked briefly, when I was eight or nine. ‘I ate so much of it, I was sick.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Mum, with her throaty laugh. I imagined her head thrown back, revealing her long, slender neck. ‘And the fudge! Do you remember the fudge?’

  ‘Oh god, yes.’ A smile tugged at my mouth. ‘You wanted to invent a new flavour, and kept adding different ingredients …’

  ‘Chilli powder, Marmite, pecans!’ Mum took the baton and ran with it. ‘The pecans worked really well actually. The strawberry jam, less so.’

  She sounded animated. I’d forgotten how much she’d liked cooking, when she was in the mood. Sometimes I helped, but I’d loved to sit and watch her, the tip of her tongue poking out in concentration, and sometimes we sang along to one of her country and western CDs. We’d sample the results together, laughing and exclaiming with excitement when one of her ‘experiments’ worked.

  ‘You were ahead of your time,’ I said, admiring my coral toenails. ‘Everyone’s adding chilli and salt to chocolate now.’

  ‘Those were the days,’ she said, and hearing the smile in her voice I felt close to her, as if we’d been transported back to that tiny, steamy kitchen in the cluttered flat above the supermarket where we’d lived when she was seeing the manager, Derek; a kind man who’d tried to be fatherly.

  ‘Good times,’ I said. If you ignored the bit where she dumped him and we had to move out.

  There was the sound of ice-cubes in glasses clinking in the background, followed by the low rumble of a man’s voice.

  ‘I’m so jealous of you, being over there,’ I said.

  She gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘My dinner’s ready, sweetheart,’ she said, still with a trace of wistfulness. ‘Got to go.’

  Abruptly, the dialling tone sounded in my ear.

  ‘Bye,’ I murmured, unsettled by her tone.

  For a long moment I stared at my bathrobe, hanging on the back of my bedroom door, while outside the window the sunset streaked the sky crimson.

  An idea was taking shape for the sweet shop.

  I got off the bed, pulse pattering, and paced the rug by my bed.

  ‘What if I make my own sweets?’ I said, aloud.

  ‘Great idea,’ replied a tinny voice.

  I spun around, clutching my throat.

  ‘Sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing.’

  What the hell? It sounded like Alex.

  Pulse bouncing I snatched up my phone, realisation dawning.

  I hadn’t ended his call earlier.

  I’d answered it.

  Nine

  ‘Why did you stay on the line?’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t have,’ said Alex, an apology in his warm-caramel voice. ‘I shouted your name a couple of times and I was going to hang up, then I realised you were talking to your mum and couldn’t resist listening in.’ He’d always been honest to a fault.

  ‘You heard everything?’ Heat shot to my face at the thought that I could have been talking about him.

  ‘Well, only your side of things.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘I was going to stop, but I really wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘Alex …’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he said, and I pictured him threading his fingers through his hair, the way he used to. He’d grown it longer since leaving, and it suited him. Beth had showed me a photo on his Twitter feed, and I’d stared at it for ages, torturing myself that he looked happier without me.

  ‘So, what’s with the homemade sweets?’ he said, his familiar Dorset lilt – no hint of an American twang – shredding my resolve to be firm.

  I ended up back on the bed, telling him about my award, and the newspaper article, and the woman who’d called me a sugar monster.

  ‘She’s clearly the monster,’ he said, with gratifying outrage. ‘How bloody rude.’

  ‘I’m trying not to take it seriously,’ I said, thinking of Josh’s reaction. ‘But Mum just reminded me that we used to make sweets when I was little, and it gave me the idea of making some for the shop. If I could adapt them and use less sugar.’

  He seemed to consider for a moment. ‘That could work,’ he said. ‘At least you’ll have some control.’

  I was glad he got it, rather than trying to talk me out of it, and decided not to remind him I was a terrible cook. I couldn’t even toast bread without burning it.

  ‘Do you remember when you tried to make caramel and it turned into lava?’ So, he hadn’t forgotten. ‘I can’t even remember why you were making it.’ He sounded like he was trying not to laugh.

  ‘I was concocting a sticky toffee pudding,’ I said, wincing at the memory. ‘But I didn’t have the right ingredients.’

  ‘You should get a recipe book, do it all by the letter.’

  ‘I think my mum had one.’ I could see it suddenly – bright red cover, well-thumbed pages. ‘I’m sure it belonged to Celia.’

  ‘You should see if she’s still got it.’

  Silenc
e fell as if he’d suddenly remembered we weren’t a couple any more.

  ‘What time is it there?’ I said, hearing the music downstairs that signalled the end of Coronation Street. ‘Shouldn’t you be working?’

  ‘Half-three,’ he said, and I could tell he’d flicked his wrist up to look at the gold watch his dad had given him for his twenty-first birthday. ‘I’ve got the day off,’ he said.

  ‘It must be so great over there,’ I said, trying to picture it, as I had so many times.

  ‘Well, it’s just work.’ His voice sounded a bit flat. ‘I mean, I love the job, but I could be anywhere now the novelty’s worn off.’

  ‘Isn’t your contract nearly up?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘There’s another job coming up in Canada …’

  ‘Canada, that’s amazing!’ I felt like crying. Though whether it was the thought of him travelling without me, or because it meant he might never come back, I couldn’t tell.

  ‘It’s a job, Marnie.’ He sounded the teensiest bit exasperated now. ‘You always think something amazing is happening on the other side of the world, but it’s just people working and doing normal stuff.’

  ‘Yes, but in fantastic surroundings!’

  ‘Anyway, I’m not taking the job.’

  ‘You’re not?’

  In the pause that followed I guessed what was coming, and my body grew as taut as a violin string. It was the thing I’d been dreading since he left.

  ‘I’m coming home for a few days next Friday,’ he said, and I silently breathed out my relief. ‘It’s my parents’ thirtieth anniversary and they’re having a party.’

  ‘I know,’ I said brightly. I’d got on well with Max and Helen and they were upset when Alex and I broke up. ‘I got my invite last month.’ I didn’t add that I’d hoped he might turn up. He’d probably guessed.

  My heart lifted as I imagined falling into his arms to a string accompaniment, and kissing that tender spot on his neck that made him groan.

  ‘The thing is, Marnie, I’ve … I’ve met someone.’ He stumbled over the words and cleared his throat. ‘She’ll be coming with me.’ My spirits slammed down again. ‘And that’s why I’ve decided to stay in New York.’