The Beachside Sweetshop

by Karen Clarke

  ‘That’s … that’s lovely,’ I managed. My heart was kick-boxing my ribs. ‘What’s her name?’

  He hesitated. ‘Bobbi-Jo. With an i not a y.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, a little bashful. ‘But she didn’t choose her name.’

  ‘It just sounds so …’ I was going to say American, but didn’t want to sound bitchy. ‘Wholesome.’ It still sounded bitchy. ‘Do you work together?’

  I didn’t know why I was asking. The reality of him doing things with Bobbi-Jo – things he’d once done with me – was worse than I’d imagined. There was an actual ache in my chest, as though someone was squeezing my heart.

  ‘Definitely not,’ he said, as though the idea amused him. ‘She’s my housemate’s sister, actually. We met at a barbecue. She’s a nurse.’

  Brilliant. She might have a silly name, but she saved people’s lives for a living. No poisoning children with sugar for the saintly Bobbi-Jo. ‘Lovely!’ I chirruped. ‘What an amazing job!’ Ugh. I was talking in exclamation marks again. ‘So, how old is she?’

  As if it mattered. Bobbi-Jo would get to hear Alex’s jokes, see the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. She’d watch him topple over trying to put his socks on in the mornings, and smile when he brought her a cup of coffee in bed. She’d discover he drank hot water with a tot of whiskey when he had a cold, because he swore it made him feel better, and that he once ran naked down Wareham High Street for a bet, and got cautioned by the police. She’d get to cuddle into him in the mornings, and feel his strong arms close around her last thing at night.

  ‘She’s thirty-five, divorced, and has a five-year-old son.’

  ‘Oh.’ Emotions clumped in my chest. I desperately wanted to say something positive, but could only manage a half-hearted, ‘Well, it’ll be good to meet her.’

  It wouldn’t. In fact, I probably wouldn’t go to his parents’ anniversary party after all. I wasn’t ready to see Alex playing happy families.

  ‘Marnie, I …’

  ‘Sorry, Alex, I’ve got to go. Celia’s calling me,’ I lied, blinking back hot tears. I didn’t want to cry any more over Alex and, besides, crying made my face swell up.

  ‘OK then.’ He sounded disappointed. I probably hadn’t responded enthusiastically enough to him finding his future wife. ‘How is she?’

  You don’t get to ask me things like that any more. ‘Fine,’ I said shortly. ‘Thanks for calling, have a nice day.’

  I rang off, and opened a photo file on my phone called Marlex – a mashup of our names that had seemed hilarious at the time.

  The first picture was of Alex, looking serious in headphones in the studio News South-West. He’d invited me to watch him at work and I’d sneakily snapped a photo, proud of how popular and clever he was, and how seriously he took his job. In the next picture we were on a boat on the Amazon, tanned and smiling, our heads close together. Alex looked sexy with a half-grown beard, and I was having a good fringe day despite the humidity.

  The third picture was taken the winter it had snowed. Alex had made a snowman in his back garden, and put the carrot somewhere suggestive. He was wearing a woolly scarf and hat, and his eyes were bright with laughter.

  I closed the file and chucked my phone on the floor.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Celia was on the sofa when I entered the living room, her feet up on a pouffe, flicking through Dog Monthly. Chester gave me a cursory glance from the rug, his tail thumping a greeting.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, plumping a couple of cushions with unnecessary force. Mum had made the chintzy covers during a ‘nesting’ phase, and although the stitching was wonky with stuffing poking through, it spoke volumes to me that Celia had kept them.

  She looked at me over her reading glasses. ‘You look flustered.’

  ‘Alex has met someone,’ I blurted out, turning the television volume down. ‘I’m just letting it sink in.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ She put her magazine down, and pulled her glasses to the end of her nose. ‘Well, it had to happen sooner or later,’ she said. ‘At least you can move on now.’

  ‘I don’t want to move on,’ I said, feeling a childish urge to throw myself at her and let her cuddle everything better. ‘I thought he loved me.’

  ‘He does,’ she said matter-of-factly, patting the seat beside her. ‘But you made it clear you didn’t want him, so what could he do?’

  ‘What?’ I dropped down and stared at her. ‘Of course I wanted him!’

  ‘Then why didn’t you go to America with him?’

  Was she being serious? ‘I had to look after you.’

  ‘But you didn’t have to, Marnie.’ She adopted the low, soothing tone she used to calm excitable terriers. ‘I told you I’d be fine, but you chose to stay.’

  I dropped my eyes from her probing gaze. How could I tell her that going, after everything she and Gramps had done for me, was unthinkable? She’d broken her leg, she lived alone now, and I wouldn’t have enjoyed a second of being in America, knowing I’d left her like that.

  ‘You could have gone once I was better,’ she said, with her uncanny ability to read my thoughts.

  ‘There was the shop,’ I said, crossly. ‘I could hardly leave it to run itself.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Her eyes grew round. ‘The shop.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  She looked as if she was weighing up her words. ‘Maybe you used it as an excuse, because you didn’t want to be with Alex any more.’

  I blinked a couple of times. ‘That’s just not true.’

  ‘But you don’t really like working there.’

  My mouth dropped open. Was this some weird side effect of the painkillers she’d been taking? ‘It doesn’t matter whether I like it or not,’ I said. ‘Mum was never going to take it on, Uncle Cliff and my cousins weren’t interested, so that left me.’

  ‘So you feel a sense of duty?’

  ‘Well yes, I suppose so, but not in a bad way.’ I felt suddenly close to tears, my memory stretching back to me and Gramps behind the counter, his comforting smell of barley sugar and soap as he taught me to weigh out sweets, and his shiny-eyed pride whenever a customer complimented him on his ‘little helper’.

  ‘That young lady will be running rings round you one day, Len.’

  That had been Doris’s husband, Roger, in his police uniform, come to buy a pound of Army & Navy sweets for his cough.

  ‘You never look very happy,’ Celia persisted.

  ‘That’s just my face,’ I said, blinking away the past. ‘I always look miserable when I’m not smiling. It’s called “resting bitch face”.’ I’d read it on the Mail Online.

  ‘What absolute nonsense,’ Celia scoffed, examining my features more closely. ‘Your face is lovely.’

  ‘You didn’t want to work at the shop.’

  ‘No,’ she said simply. ‘It was Leonard’s passion, not mine, and that was fine.’

  ‘Do you think selling sweets is immoral?’

  Her eyebrows drew together. ‘Immoral?’ She pulled her chin in. ‘That’s the second silliest thing I’ve ever heard,’ she said, dusting dog hairs off her trousers. ‘I love sweets as much as the next person. I just didn’t want to be stuck indoors all day.’

  ‘Well, now I’ve won that award, I’m thinking of doing something new there,’ I said, determined to steer her away from the subject of Alex and whether or not I was happy. Romantic love must seem like an ancient concept to her now; she was probably too old to remember how it worked.

  ‘What sort of new?’ she said. ‘Don’t let a prize go to your head, Marnie. Things have worked perfectly well at the shop all these years.’

  ‘I know, but I was thinking of selling some homemade sweets.’

  ‘Homemade …?’

  I cut her off before she could launch into why it was a bad idea. ‘You had some recipes, do you remember? Mum used them, and I helped her sometimes.’

  ‘She did?’ Her eyebrows did a disbeli
eving wriggle. ‘They’ll be in the kitchen, I expect.’

  Feeling better I shot through, and found it crammed on a shelf with the others that Celia had collected over the years. Not a proper cookery book, as I’d suspected – more of a notebook, filled with handwritten scribbles.

  ‘Oh that one,’ said Celia, coming through and frowning at the pile of books I’d scattered on the kitchen table. ‘That one belonged to my mother.’

  ‘Coconut ice,’ I murmured, flipping through pages of scrawled ink in various colours. It was a shame there were no pictures, but I could see the coconut ice vividly in my mind.

  ‘Here it is! Look!’ I flapped the page at Celia, who pulled her glasses back on.

  ‘Oh yes.’ She grimaced. ‘I ate so much of the stuff when I was little it put me off for life. Probably why I’ve never made it myself.’

  ‘So, what do you think?’ I said. She looked at me as if I was talking Mandarin. ‘About making it for the sweet shop?’

  ‘There’ll be regulations about that sort of thing.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said. ‘It shouldn’t be a problem.’

  I carried on flicking through the book. Nut brittle, brownie-bites, caramel thins, strawberry fudge … hang on. They weren’t any healthier than the sweets we already sold. I would have to replace the sugar with something else. What, I wasn’t sure. Kale was the latest superfood, but I was fairly positive you couldn’t make sweets with it.

  ‘But what’s wrong with the sweets you already sell?’ Celia’s gaze grew suspicious. ‘It’s not like there isn’t enough choice already, and you’ve just won a competition. You don’t need to do anything different.’

  I feigned fascination in the recipe, not wanting to tell her about Chris Weatherby’s article in The Shipley Examiner, or Isabel Sinclair’s visit. ‘It’s the best time to try new things,’ I improvised, ‘when we’ve got new customers checking out the shop.’

  Celia was studying me forensically and my cheeks began to throb with colour. I was hopeless at lying, but I couldn’t tell her the real reason. I wouldn’t put it past her to call the newspaper editor, to put her own point of view across, which was bound to make things worse, and the stress might set back her recovery.

  ‘I’m not ill, I broke my leg,’ she said, as if my thoughts had flashed in lights across my face. ‘I can handle you making some changes, if you really want to.’

  Phew. ‘Harry’s going to give the shop a facelift,’ I confided, keen to move the conversation along.

  To my surprise, a shadow passed over her face.

  ‘He’ll do it cheaper than anyone else,’ I added, knowing it would appeal to her sense of frugality.

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ she said stiffly.

  I suddenly remembered she’d had a run-in with Harry’s father, Steven, a couple of years ago, over payment for several sessions with a nervous Alsatian he’d bought. Celia had got really tough with him then, but even before that, she’d never seemed to like him very much; I was surprised he’d even asked her to train his dog.

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve got against Steven Fairfax, he’s lovely,’ I said. In fact, Harry’s dad had always been far nicer to me than Harry was. If he’d spotted me next door, at Beth’s house, he always used to ask after my family. She’d said he probably felt sorry for me, because I didn’t have a dad. When I was a bridesmaid at Beth and Harry’s wedding, he’d become emotional after a few drinks at the reception, and said if I wanted someone to walk me down the aisle one day, he’d be honoured.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Celia. Her face had settled into wrinkles of tiredness. ‘It’s up to you what you do, Marnie. I’ll support you, you know that.’

  I did, but as I watched her limp towards the dining room, which we’d fashioned into a makeshift bedroom until she could manage the stairs again, I had the strangest feeling she was hiding something from me.

  Ten

  ‘Make your own sweets?’ Josh’s expression suggested I was deranged. ‘Why bother?’

  ‘They’ll be healthier,’ I said, my sudden rush of euphoria fizzling into flatness. Based on nothing tangible, I’d expected him to be as enthusiastic about the idea as I was. ‘I can use sugar alternatives, like maple syrup, and stevia, and other sugar-free … well, sugars.’

  I’d looked it up online the night before, then lain awake for hours, fixated on images of ribbon-wrapped cellophane bags, stuffed with handmade delicacies, a queue of customers snaking out of the shop, and Sandi Brent falling over herself to interview me again.

  At least it had stopped me dwelling on Alex’s bombshell. If my mind switched from sweets for a nano-second, I started creating images of Alex and Bobbi-Jo, wafting down the aisle in their wedding finery, a cute little page-boy with a bowl-cut trailing behind.

  At one point, I got out of bed and stood at the window, watching the moonlight cast a silvery light across the landscape.

  Celia was wrong, I’d thought, pressing my forehead against the cool glass. I had wanted to go to America with Alex; it was just that the timing had been all wrong.

  ‘I need to show I’m taking the public’s concerns seriously,’ I said to Josh, shaking off thoughts of Alex. ‘You heard that woman yesterday.’

  ‘It was just one woman, and she was bluffing,’ he said easily, filling up a jar with chocolate limes. They were a line that Hancock’s hadn’t stocked, and I’d been thinking of putting them on promotion.

  ‘I still think you should go back to your previous supplier,’ he said, plucking out one of the sweets and rolling it under his nose, as if testing a cigar for quality. ‘These don’t smell fresh to me.’

  How could he tell? ‘I’m not going back to Hancock’s,’ I grumped. He’d been at the shop less than forty-eight hours and was already telling me what to do.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said with a penitent smile. How hadn’t I registered those dimples in his cheeks? The sight of them melted my irritation. ‘Will you make the sweets here?’

  ‘There’s no oven,’ I pointed out. ‘I thought I could make them at home and bring them in.’ My enthusiasm levels were already starting to dip. It would be a lot of hassle, and I had no real idea what the process entailed.

  As a child, I’d taken a trip with Gramps to see how sweets were made, but it had been a factory, with everything on an industrial scale: men in aprons and hats and gloves, stirring sugar and water in massive vats, and pouring it onto metal tables to cool.

  ‘You’ll have to contact the environmental health department,’ Josh said, killing my domestic goddess vibe stone dead with his common sense.

  ‘Whatever,’ I said, heading for the office to fetch the float. ‘I didn’t say I was definitely going to do it, just that I’d had an idea.’

  His hand shot out as I passed and closed gently around my arm. ‘It was a good one,’ he said, eyes penetrating and sincere. He smelt deliciously of the sea, and sunshine and lemons … for god’s sake, Marnie, get a grip.

  One minute, I was tearful over Alex, the next I was swooning over a man young enough to be my … younger brother. Only four years younger. And he seemed mature for his age. Apart from the skateboard, and his candy-pink T-shirt which bore the words I’d like mornings better if they started later, above a silhouette of a snoozing cat.

  But age was only a number. And if Alex could move on, maybe it was time I did too. Not with Josh, obviously. Apart from anything he was my employee, and I knew better than to mix business with pleasure, and I didn’t want anything long-term if I was planning on leaving soon …

  ‘Are you OK?’ Josh’s face had folded into concern and I realised I was staring, as if he was a toffee I wanted to sink my teeth into.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, pulling my arm free and fleeing to the relative safety of the office.

  ‘Oh, someone pushed this through the letterbox,’ he said, holding out an envelope when I returned. I’d taken an extra minute to switch on the kettle in the kitchen and check my appearance, annoyed at my face’s tendency to flush at the slighte
st provocation.

  ‘It’s a quote,’ I said, recognising Harry’s handwriting. Once I’d placed the float in the till I ripped the envelope open. He could have emailed, but Harry preferred to put things in writing. Beth once confessed he’d written her love letters when they were dating, but wouldn’t let me read them no matter how much I begged.

  ‘Quote?’ Josh was eyeing another box of sweets with deep suspicion, as if it contained live snakes, instead of toffee éclairs.

  ‘I’m giving the place a bit of a makeover,’ I said, scanning the neatly written breakdown of work and materials, and total cost. It seemed pretty reasonable. I would have plenty of prize money left to reinvest in stock, and perhaps a new computer and website.

  Looking up, I watched Josh’s gaze sweep over the tired paintwork. ‘Not much point if you’re going to go out of business.’

  It took me a moment to realise he was joking. ‘Less of your lip, sir,’ I said, making a mental note to call Harry and set a date to have the work done. ‘Get those jars filled up and I might even pay you.’

  ‘Pay me, how?’ He quirked an eyebrow and my heart flipped over.

  ‘In penny chews, of course.’ Was he flirting? Was I? I was so out of practice, I couldn’t tell.

  ‘You spoil me,’ he said, clutching his chest. ‘I simply adore penny chews.’

  I tried to stay on target. ‘Actually, I’d better take your bank details later and get you on the system.’

  ‘Say that again,’ he said, leaning on the counter and making his eyes smoulder. ‘I love the way you say, system.’

  Shaking my head with mock indignation – definitely flirting – I flipped the door sign to open, then returned to the office to phone Harry.

  Beth picked up. ‘He’s working, but I’ll let him know you want to go ahead.’ She sounded pleased. ‘How’s it going to happen?’ she said. ‘You’ll have to close the shop.’

  ‘Hmm, I’d rather not,’ I said. ‘Customers are fickle. They might go elsewhere.’