The Beachside Sweetshop

by Karen Clarke

  ‘She wasn’t even a very successful model,’ I said, clicking on a few links. ‘Apart from a Vogue shoot in her twenties, she’s better known for an ad campaign for yoghurt.’

  Josh’s eyes lit up. ‘The one where she smears it all over herself, thinking it’s sun-cream, and that chiselled bloke with the hair starts licking it off?’ He grinned. ‘I thought I recognised her.’

  ‘Traitor.’ I logged off before he could ogle the images. ‘I think I’ll take the morning off tomorrow and practise making some sweets.’ I hadn’t mentioned my already disastrous attempt.

  ‘Oh.’ Dismay clouded his face. ‘Don’t you think you should be here, showing your customers you don’t give a damn about her?’ he said. ‘What will they think?’

  ‘They’ll think I’m at the dentist,’ I said. ‘Especially if you tell them.’

  He looked at me from under his eyebrows. ‘Do you think that’s the best option under the circumstances?’

  Fair point. ‘Optician’s then.’

  He looked like he wanted to protest, but instead said, ‘Well you’d better leave me the keys, and the code for the alarm so the police don’t turn up and arrest me.’

  Thirteen

  As I walked into the kitchen the following morning, Doris Day looked round from the Aga, where she was stirring something in a pan.

  ‘Have you left that young man in charge of the shop again?’

  ‘Yes I have,’ I said, zipping my onesie up to my neck and shuffling my feet into Celia’s sheepskin slippers. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘He’s very handsome, isn’t he?’ She gave a little hip wiggle. ‘Quite the stud.’

  Ew. ‘What are you doing here, Doris?’

  Celia was in the garden, conducting a puppy-training session, a series of yaps and reprimands drifting through the back door.

  ‘I came to see if your grandmother needed anything,’ Doris said, looking at home as she rinsed a couple of mugs at the sink, and passed a cloth over the worktop. ‘Just doing my bit.’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ I said. She did make a good cup of tea, and she’d constructed a pan of fluffy scrambled eggs.

  ‘Have some,’ Doris urged, spooning some onto a plate.

  We stood side by side at the window while I ate, watching Celia instruct several owners to bring their puppies to heel, demonstrating her well-worn technique on a cute retriever.

  ‘She’s looking much better,’ Doris observed.

  Celia was using her walking stick as she moved up and down, seeming to rather enjoy flourishing it about.

  ‘You’ll soon be able to join that young man of yours in … where is it?’ Doris cocked her head and looked at me sideways. ‘China.’

  She clearly knew where it was, though I was sure Celia hadn’t told her. How Doris came by her information was a mystery.

  ‘I won’t be going to America,’ I said bluntly, putting my plate down, appetite fleeing. ‘He’s met someone else.’

  Damn. Still, it was hardly a secret.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Doris said, continuing her bustle around the kitchen, putting away cups and plates as though she came round and did it every day. ‘I thought you made a lovely couple.’

  She removed a bunch of wilting dahlias from a vase and tenderly refilled it with some long-stemmed white flowers she’d brought with her.

  ‘What do you think?’ she said, fussing with the white arrangement. ‘They’re from my garden. I’ve been having a competition with my neighbour, Jane, to see who can grow the best ones.’

  They looked a bit ‘rest in peace’ but I didn’t like to say so. ‘Lovely,’ I said, marching to the corner of the kitchen where I’d left the carrier bag of sweet-making ingredients.

  ‘So, this young man of yours.’

  I swung round to look at her. She was holding the vase, her eyes like lasers over the top. ‘You could try to win him back,’ she went on. ‘That’s what my Eric did, after his Lance went off with a hairdresser chap from Torquay.’ She paused. ‘He said he would do whatever it took, because Lance was the love of his life; that he would even learn how to do highlights.’ She looked a little misty-eyed. ‘And it worked,’ she said. ‘I was telling Celia before you came down that they’re planning a civil ceremony later this year, and a surrogate’s having a baby for them.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ I said, meaning it. ‘But I really need to get on, Doris. I’ve a lot to do this morning.’

  She snapped to attention. ‘My bus isn’t due just yet.’ She plonked the vase down on the table. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I think this is something I need to do on my own,’ I said, regretting it when her eyes lit up.

  ‘Ooh, that sounds mysterious.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘Do tell.’

  ‘I’m going to do some … baking.’ Better not to mention sweets.

  Doris’s hand flew to her throat. ‘But didn’t you almost set the kitchen on fire yesterday morning?’

  How did she know?

  ‘Practise makes perfect!’ I said, pushing my fringe back and praying she wouldn’t ask to look in my bag. I couldn’t face explaining.

  To my relief, the thought of me cooking had her pulling her jacket over her neat, cream blouse, and reaching for her handbag. ‘I suppose I’d better get myself to the bus stop,’ she said, fluffing her hair with her fingers. ‘Tell your grandmother I’ll pop her shopping in later.’

  ‘Will do.’ I gave her a jaunty salute that made her frown.

  ‘Sure you’re alright, Marnie?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Please go. I’d told Josh I’d be at the shop by lunchtime, and it was already approaching ten.

  I still wasn’t dressed, having decided there wasn’t much point if I was going to get messy in the kitchen.

  ‘Hmmm.’ Doris didn’t look convinced. ‘Your grandmother was talking to Steven Fairfax when I got here,’ she said, unexpectedly.

  ‘Steven Fairfax?’ I paused in the act of taking a jar of maple syrup from my Tesco’s bag. ‘Harry’s dad?’

  Doris nodded, tightening her jacket-belt. She was proud of her slim figure and liked to emphasise that she still had a waist. ‘Looked like he was walking his dog and they’d got chatting by the gate. She seemed a bit cross with him, from what I could make out.’

  Her eyes locked on mine, hopeful I’d reveal something.

  I wondered why Beth’s father-in-law was walking his dog in Shipley when they lived in Wareham now. ‘I think there’s some dispute about money,’ I said, surprised Doris didn’t already know.

  She drew in a breath and blew it out again. ‘That’s still ongoing?’ she said.

  Was there any information she wasn’t privy to? ‘Do you know Isabel Sinclair?’

  ‘Seaview Cottage?’ Doris shook her head, mouth turning down. ‘Not really,’ she said, resting her hip against the edge of the table. ‘Only that she moved in there with her husband, Gerry, a month or so ago, after the price had been dropped, and that they used to rent in a posh part of London, and have a baby boy called Fitzgerald and a dog called something ridiculous that I refuse to say out loud.’ She took a pineapple cube from the supply in her pocket and popped it in her mouth. ‘She used to do modelling, had quite the celebrity lifestyle before the baby, and he was a big shot in the publishing world. But he had an affair with a member of staff then lost his job and they had to downsize because she gave up modelling to be one of those yummy-mummies. They haven’t got much cash now.’ She clacked the sweet around her teeth. ‘She’s furious, because she never wanted to come here, but her parents wouldn’t bail them out. They said she should have saved the money she made from modelling instead of blowing it on fancy holidays and silly shoes, and that they should have invested in property instead of renting. His folks coughed up the deposit for Seaview Cottage, it was all they could afford.’ She paused for breath. ‘They used to holiday in the Maldives, but haven’t been away for ages. He watches a lot of Netflix, and she’s into yoga, because it helps relieve tension,
and she doesn’t eat anything with a face. She wants to reinvent herself and be taken seriously, and is trying to write one of them lifestyle books, but it’s not going very well.’

  My mouth was hanging open.

  Doris sniffed. ‘Like I said though, I don’t know them.’

  ‘But how …?’

  ‘My friend Ellen Partridge’s daughter runs yoga classes in the church hall on Thursday evenings and got to know her quite well.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And she has size nine feet.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Isabel. They take their shoes off at yoga, and Ellen’s daughter was shocked, because Isabel is so skinny, but her feet are enormous.’

  ‘Riiight.’

  ‘Look at the time!’ Doris gave a horrified glance at her watch. ‘I can’t stand here chatting all morning.’

  I stood for a moment when she’d gone, head reeling as it absorbed all the new information she’d imparted. I had no idea what to do with any of it.

  ‘Has she gone?’ Celia poked her head round the back door, hair ruffled by the breeze.

  ‘Just left.’

  ‘Thank god.’ She came inside, nudged out a chair with her stick and sat down. ‘She’s got a good heart, but she doesn’t half go on.’

  Tell me about it. ‘Has your session finished?’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said, unzipping her navy puffa jacket. ‘It’s getting warm out there.’ She pointed her stick at the Tupperware box of dog treats she kept for rewards. ‘Could you pass me those, please?’

  As I handed them over, a volley of growls and woofs outside, along with a delicate call for help, indicated the training session had gone awry. Tutting, Celia shot to her feet and went out, Chester at her heels.

  I wondered about her dispute with Steven and resolved to ask her later, then turned my attention to the recipe book.

  Peanut brittle, one of my favourites as a child, but using brown rice syrup instead of sugar.

  As I stared at the words on the page, my mind zoomed back to a cruise down the Amazon with Alex in Peru. We’d stopped at a market on the outskirts of Iquitos, where the stall-holder cut open exotic fruits for us to try: a purplish camu camu, so sour it had made my mouth pucker, then a sugar-apple bursting with sweetness on my tastebuds. Even more delicious, a caimito – or star apple – that left our mouths covered with stickiness.

  ‘Is called a love-fruit,’ the vendor had explained, and Alex leaned forward and sank his mouth onto mine in front of everyone, flicking his tongue over my lips.

  In the steamy surroundings, everything had taken on a seductive air and we couldn’t wait to get back to our hostel and make love, whispering and laughing as we recalled the time Celia had walked in on us ‘topless’ (as she referred to it afterwards), hoping the people next door couldn’t hear us.

  My vision cleared, and the recipe swam back into view. Peanut brittle no longer had any appeal.

  I looked at the clock. I should probably go to work.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ Celia’s head appeared, as if it had only just struck her I should be at the shop.

  ‘I was just wasting time before I go to the optician’s,’ I fibbed, closing the recipe book. ‘I’ve an appointment for a check-up.’

  She looked at my pony-patterned onesie. ‘You’d better put some shoes on with that.’

  Fourteen

  The next few days passed without incident, but I was constantly on edge, waiting for Isabel to reappear, or for customers to start haranguing me.

  ‘Stop worrying,’ Josh hissed on Thursday afternoon.

  He was weighing out wine gums for a couple of French tourists while I peered out at the street, as if someone might sling a petrol bomb through the window. ‘Even our European cousins love your sweets.’

  ‘They remind me of ’olidays in England when I was a leetle girl,’ said the younger woman, overhearing. ‘You cannot buy these in Lille.’

  ‘What sort of sweets would you buy over there?’ I said, grabbing a pen from the drawer underneath the counter.

  ‘Mmmm,’ she pursed her lips and looked to her glamorous, older companion. ‘Mama?’

  ‘Caramel au beurre salé,’ the woman said at once, with a toothy smile. ‘Salted caramel.’ She kissed her fingertips. ‘Exquisite.’

  Salted caramel. I scribbled it down on the back of a till receipt. Salted caramel did indeed sound delicious. I was sure I could make it with less sugar.

  ‘I thought you’d given up that idea,’ Josh said when they’d gone, leaning over my shoulder. ‘You said you felt paralysed every time you looked at the oven.’

  ‘How can I give up?’ I said, discreetly inhaling the warm, outdoorsy scent of him. ‘Apart from anything else, I’ve told everyone now.’

  ‘Hardly everyone.’

  ‘Well most of Shipley will know tomorrow, when The Examiner comes out.’ I felt guilty for snapping. It was hardly his fault I’d announced my intentions to the public, but it was true that every time I opened the recipe book I was overcome with a feeling of ennui. Part of me was hoping the whole thing would go away, but a stronger part kept imagining how Gramps would feel if his business was under threat. I wasn’t sure which part was going to win.

  ‘Look on it as a challenge,’ Beth said, when I nipped into the office to phone her. ‘Why don’t you come round here and make some sweets?’

  ‘Or I could just stick to coconut ice, which apparently doesn’t need cooking.’

  Beth snorted lightly, having heard about my faux pas. ‘You’ll need to boil your low-sugar sugar with water, if you’re going to make anything other than coconut ice, and that requires a state-of-the-art oven like the one my in-laws have.’

  Steven Fairfax floated into my head and out again. ‘I’m not sure they’d take too kindly to me experimenting in their house.’ Harry definitely wouldn’t like it.

  ‘They’re going away for a few days this afternoon,’ Beth said. ‘Visiting Harry’s brother in Oxford. We’ll have the place to ourselves.’

  ‘In that case, you definitely won’t want me interrupting.’

  ‘Interrupting what?’ She laughed. ‘We won’t be having sexy times, if that’s what you’re imagining.’

  ‘I can promise you, I wasn’t imagining that,’ I said. ‘Though maybe you should,’ I added. ‘Isn’t it supposed to help pop the baby out?’

  ‘Pop it out.’ She sighed with longing. ‘If only it were that simple.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be brilliant if Bunty could shrink to the size of a lemon just before being born, and inflate into a baby-shape afterwards?’

  ‘Even a lemon sounds too big.’

  ‘An olive?’

  ‘Might fall out unexpectedly.’

  ‘A pomegranate.’

  ‘That would be so brilliant.’

  We were silent for a moment, picturing it.

  ‘Anyway, she’s not due for another week or so.’

  ‘No more twinges?’

  ‘Nothing serious.’

  ‘How’s Thesis?’

  ‘I’m on a bit of a roll,’ she said. ‘I’m in bed, in my jammies, coffee and biccies to hand, typing away like a demon. At least I was until you phoned.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘How’s lover-boy?’

  My gaze flicked through the doorway, but I couldn’t see Josh from where I was standing. ‘He’s no Beth Fairfax, but he’s popular with the ladies and young children and does a good magic trick.’

  ‘Sounds like he’s popular with you,’ she teased.

  ‘In a work capacity,’ I replied, reverting to what Beth called my Karren-Brady-business-voice, to forestall further probing. ‘I hardly know him, remember?’

  ‘I can’t believe I haven’t seen him yet.’ She’d been wheeled out of the back door and into the ambulance without clapping eyes on him.

  ‘You could always pop down, if you fancy a breath of fresh air.’

  ‘I don’t think I can be bothered to get dressed. Ever again.’


  I ended the call with Beth and went back through to the shop to find Josh studying his phone, a frown marring his face. A couple were browsing some ribbon-wrapped boxes of chocolates, fingers entwined, oblivious to anyone else.

  ‘Won’t be a sec,’ Josh said without looking up, and vanished in the direction of the stockroom. Perhaps he needed to make an urgent call. I could hardly complain, having just spoken to Beth for fifteen minutes.

  I doodled on another till receipt, drawing a salted caramel, but it just looked like a box with wonky edges. I’d never had a gift for art.

  The couple bought two boxes of chocolates, their eyes barely leaving each other’s. I had an unsettling vision of him feeding them to her on a four-poster bed, having blind-folded her first.

  ‘Goodbye,’ I said loudly as they left, but neither responded.

  There was no sign of Josh.

  I wondered idly whether he had a girlfriend. It was hard to imagine he didn’t, though he hadn’t mentioned one. He could probably pick and choose, unlike me, when I was younger. I’d been too gawky and awkward, and suspicious. It had been such a relief to finally meet Alex and know he was The One.

  Or had been.

  Trying not to think about him flying back with Bobbi-Jo the following day, I looked at my apron and decided I’d better take it home to wash. It was smudged with red, from handling some candy melts that had … well, melted, and looked as if I’d been chopping raw meat.

  I could hear voices; faint but unmistakeably male. Cool air wrapped around my ankles, which meant the back door was open.

  I was about to investigate when a woman came in with a smartly dressed boy with neat brown hair, parted in the middle.

  ‘You can have two pounds’ worth,’ his mother said, pulling a purse from her bag while the boy looked around at the sweets with solemn interest. ‘It’s a special treat, as he just passed his Grade 8 violin exam,’ she told me, pride written on her care-worn face.

  ‘That’s amazing,’ I said. Wasn’t five, or six (seven, nine?) a bit young for Grade 8?

  ‘We saw you on the news, but it took ages to find you,’ she said, as though the shop was deep in a forest, only accessible by helicopter. ‘We don’t live around here, you see.’