The Beachside Sweetshop

by Karen Clarke

  ‘You have to wait for it to harden,’ said Beth, with a dirty grin. ‘What’s next?’

  ‘Well, I thought I could make some coconut ice …’

  ‘Which you will not put in the oven.’

  ‘Which I will not put in the oven,’ I agreed, ‘some salted caramel cups, which I’m going to try now, and maybe some Turkish delight.’

  ‘Yummy,’ said Beth, rubbing her bump. If anything, it seemed to have grown. She looked like she had a space hopper stuffed up her shirt.

  In a fit of optimism that had lasted all afternoon – in addition to my healthy bank account, I was a role model for at least two eleven-year-old girls – I’d decided to take Beth up on her offer of using the oven at her in-laws’ while Steven and Jacky were away.

  ‘Sure you’ll be OK?’ I’d asked Celia, phoning her as I locked up the shop.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, seeming baffled I would think otherwise. ‘Paddy’s here, keeping me company.’ Her voice dropped an octave. ‘He bought me a lollipop to say thank you for training Muttley,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he realised it was shaped like a heart, bless him.’

  I shook my head, relieved she’d taken it as a friendly gesture, but feeling a bit sorry for Paddy. Celia clearly wouldn’t recognise a romantic proposal if it wagged its tail in her face.

  When I arrived at the Fairfaxes’ Grade 2 listed town house, Beth had greeted me with wild enthusiasm, claiming that constantly researching Katherine Parr was doing her head in.

  ‘Thesis is a ball-breaker,’ she groaned. ‘And I can’t believe I’m still pregnant.’

  ‘Watch me cook,’ I’d instructed – three words I never imagined leaving my lips – and she descended with a forceful plonk at the breakfast bar in the Fairfaxes’ sleek kitchen, while I got busy with the ingredients I’d purchased in a health store before catching the bus to Wareham.

  Now, enthused by my success with the peanut brittle, I commenced preparations for the salted caramel cups, bringing up the recipe on Beth’s tablet.

  ‘I thought you were using Ye-Olde Worlde recipe book, á la Appleton,’ Beth said, propping her chin in her palm.

  ‘I was, but most of it’s too old-fashioned, and everything’s crammed with proper sugar.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  She’d spread her legs to accommodate her massive belly, two pencils pinioning her curls to her head, but my wave of affection for her was swallowed by a prickle of guilt. I wasn’t sure Beth would approve of my escape plan. She seemed pleased that I was focused properly on the shop for once.

  As I lobbed medjool dates into Jacky’s flamingo-pink Kenwood food processor, and added cold water, I found myself thinking back to my one and only serious argument with Beth, straight out of university, when I kept banging on about leaving once I’d saved enough money, and she’d asked why I thought running away was such a good idea.

  ‘Just because you’ve got your Shipley future mapped out, doesn’t mean we all want to stay here,’ I’d said, hurt. ‘And anyway, it’s not running away, it’s called Exploring the Big Wide World.’ I’d made quotation marks, which I wasn’t proud of. ‘I take after my mum.’

  When I ended up staying, working at the sweet shop full-time to help support Mum through a break-up, and because Gramps had developed glaucoma and was refusing to have an operation, I think Beth thought I’d forgotten about going away.

  I know she missed me when I finally went with Alex, but she’d seemed thrilled I was finally realising my long-held dream – even if it did end up being cut short and put on hold.

  I decided to put off mentioning anything until after she’d had the baby – which couldn’t be much longer judging by the way she kept wincing, rolling her eyes to the back of her head, and clawing at her lower back.

  ‘I seriously don’t think I can do this labour thing,’ she said, as I took a break from trying to figure out how to make the food processor work.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ I said, in my most reassuring voice. I swivelled the lid onto the processor and pressed start. Nothing. I prodded the button again, then removed the lid and peered in. Everything was where it should be. ‘Why isn’t it working?’ I muttered.

  ‘I’m starting to think my labour-chanting might not be enough to take my mind off the pain,’ Beth said, casually plugging the processor into a socket on the wall.

  Immediately a horrible whining started up, and watery dates spewed in the air.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ I cried, expertly catching a couple before they landed.

  ‘Oops,’ grimaced Beth. ‘Forgot to put the lid on.’

  I rinsed the dates, plopped them back in, and as the processor got to work properly we clapped our hands to our ears. It sounded as if someone was drilling a hole in the wall.

  ‘Jesus,’ I said when it stopped. ‘What a racket.’

  ‘I’m serious though,’ Beth said. ‘What if I can’t do it?’

  ‘You don’t have a choice,’ I pointed out, scooping a handful of date paste and rolling it into a ball. It felt and looked disgusting, like something that might erupt from Chester’s bottom. ‘Imagine you’re Katherine Parr,’ I added.

  Beth brightened. ‘She did have a daughter, aged thirty-six.’

  ‘That’s old, for a baby. They usually come out much younger.’

  ‘Ho ho,’ said Beth. ‘She died soon after.’

  ‘The baby?’

  ‘Katherine Parr.’ Her face became wreathed in worry.

  ‘In that case, don’t imagine you’re her.’

  ‘My mum said I only took forty-five minutes to be born.’

  ‘There you go then,’ I said, smashing up chocolate and placing it in a bowl over a boiling pan of water to melt.

  ‘But she was in labour for three days with my brother.’

  ‘Look, it’s fear of the unknown,’ I said, trying to remember what the midwives on One Born Every Minute had said when Beth made me watch an episode. ‘You just have to remember to breathe.’

  ‘I think I know how to breathe.’ She clamped her hands over her breasts and gave them a jiggle. ‘My pretty duckies are massive,’ she said.

  ‘Please don’t call them that.’ I added some coconut oil to the melted chocolate and stirred it with a spatula shaped like a guitar.

  ‘That’s Steven’s,’ Beth had said when I checked it was OK to use it. ‘He’s learning to play one. I think he’s having a mid-life crisis.’

  I remembered his early morning chat with Celia a few days ago. ‘How’s the dog?’ I said, looking round for the bright-eyed Alsatian.

  ‘She’s great, thanks to your gran,’ said Beth. ‘She kept pooping everywhere, but that was ages ago.’

  ‘Celia?’

  Beth gave me a narrow stare. ‘The dog,’ she said. ‘They’ve taken her away with them.’

  Before I could ask Beth if she knew of an ongoing dispute between her father-in-law and Celia, she said, ‘So, are you going to this party on Saturday?’

  My heart jolted. ‘I wasn’t going to, after Alex told me he was bringing his new paramour,’ I said, pouring a layer of chocolate into the cupcake tin Beth had found in a cupboard. ‘But I’ve decided I should. You know.’ I flicked her a glance. ‘To get closure.’

  She smiled impishly, her worries about childbirth seemingly forgotten for now. ‘You want to see what she looks like.’

  ‘Yes, I want to see what she looks like,’ I admitted, dropping a ball of date-caramel goo over the layer of chocolate, and adding another layer.

  ‘And you’re happy leaving Josh in charge of the shop, even though you hardly know him?’

  ‘I am.’ I thought of his faux pas with Rob and the sugar-free sweets. He’d made a mistake, but his intentions were good, and he was brilliant with customers. ‘Anyway, Agnieszka will be there,’ I said. ‘And so will I for most of the day. The party doesn’t start until five.’

  ‘Maybe seeing them together will help.’

  ‘Josh and Agnieszka?’ I said, sprinkling Himalayan sea-salt o
ver my caramel cups and standing back to admire them.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ I said. ‘You have to take a photo of this, it looks brilliant.’

  She picked up her mobile and clambered off the American-diner-style stool. ‘I want to be in it,’ she said, lumbering around to stand on tip-toe beside me to make herself taller.

  I picked up the cupcake tin and held it out, while she angled the phone to get everything in.

  We did the universal selfie-smile, that looked like we had a sweet in our mouths we were trying not to suck, and she took the picture. ‘I’ll put it on Instagram and tag the shop,’ she said, just as Harry strode in.

  ‘Evening.’ His eyes skimmed over me with the usual flash of disappointment – as if his wife was being monopolised by a tiresome neighbour. His paint-speckled baseball hat had slipped back, trapping his hair. ‘Roof’s on and the floors are finished,’ he said, kissing Beth’s ear. ‘We should be able to move in by the end of the month.’

  ‘That’s brilliant,’ she said, lifting her face to his. ‘Though your mum won’t be pleased. I think she’s hoping to keep us here forever.’

  As they rubbed noses, Harry rested his hands on her bump, and I felt a twinge of envy at the intimate vignette. I tried not to think about Alex and Bobbi-Jo, and immediately imagined them wrapped in each other’s arms.

  ‘I’d better go and catch my bus,’ I said, shoving the tray of caramel cups in the fridge. ‘Feel free to scoff these, by the way.’

  ‘Still not got yourself a car?’ Harry eased his work boots off and crossed to the sink. ‘You’re the only person I know under eighty who still gets the bus.’

  ‘Doing my bit for the environment,’ I said lightly, noticing the mess I’d made on the worktops. ‘Should I load the dishwasher?’

  ‘I’ll do it in the morning,’ Beth said, waving a hand.

  ‘If you had a car you’d find it much easier to drive away from Shipley.’ Harry was focused on scrubbing a particularly stubborn stain from his wrist underneath the tap. ‘I’m surprised you never replaced yours when you came back from Timbuktu.’ He turned and met my gaze, but I couldn’t read his expression.

  ‘I didn’t think I needed one.’

  ‘How’s Alex, by the way?’

  ‘Harry.’ Beth’s voice held a warning and, as I looked from her to Harry, it struck me that they must have discussed my break-up with Alex, and that Harry had a view Beth hadn’t shared with me.

  ‘A lucky escape,’ he muttered so quietly I almost didn’t catch it.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Take no notice,’ Beth beseeched.

  Harry gave a humourless laugh. ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,’ he said, even more quietly.

  ‘Harry!’ Beth threw him an angry look.

  ‘If that’s a slur against my mum you’d better take it back.’ I took a step towards him, not even sure what I would have done next if Beth hadn’t ordered him to apologise.

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, but he didn’t look round, or even sound as if he meant it.

  ‘Here, take this,’ Beth said to me, handing me the cardigan she’d removed earlier. ‘It’ll be chilly out now, and you haven’t got a coat.’

  ‘Are you practising for when you’re a mum?’ I said, pushing my arms in the sleeves, unwilling to let Harry’s words go but not knowing what to say. ‘It’s a bit short.’

  ‘It’ll do,’ said Beth, fussing with the sleeves.

  Harry began whistling, a tuneless sound that grated on my nerves.

  ‘Laters,’ he said, without looking round as Beth ushered me into the hall.

  ‘Take no notice of him.’ She reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘He’s grumpy because he’s not been allowed access to my pretty duckies for a while.’ She dropped me a saucy wink. ‘If you know what I mean.’

  ‘You’re disgusting,’ I said with a laugh, but as I walked down the drive in the growing darkness, Harry’s words reverberated around my head, and I couldn’t help wondering what he’d meant.

  Seventeen

  Before catching my bus I walked down a couple of winding roads to Church Street, and the mid-terrace house where I’d lived on and off with Alex.

  I’d been there a few times since he left, drawn like iron filings to a magnet. On the last occasion I’d stood on the pavement in the pouring rain, crying silently as I pictured the oddly shaped little living room where we’d made love, plans, and once, a chest of drawers from a flat pack that fell apart when we tried to open the drawers.

  I’d stood there so long, in my sweatpants and hoodie, the new tenants called the police, convinced they’d acquired a stalker.

  Now the lights were on upstairs, and a shadow passed across the bedroom window. The thought of them sharing the brass bed Alex and I bought once we were officially an item seemed all wrong, but so did everything about another couple living there.

  Alex’s mother, Helen, kept an eye on the place, but clearly hadn’t noticed the grass in the front garden was badly overgrown. Alex had loved to cut the grass, charging up and down with the petrol mower, while I sat on the doorstep with a glass of wine and judged his performance, like Simon Cowell.

  ‘You know what, you’ve really made that grass your own.’

  ‘You’ve absolutely blown me away, Alex.’

  Leaning over the wall I plucked a blade of grass, jealousy swirling in my stomach. Would he bring Bobbi-Jo here and show her around, while he was back? He owned the house, after all. What if one day he decided to move back with her – or sell the house to pay for a Hollywood wedding?

  Thank god I was leaving soon, and wouldn’t have to think about this sort of thing. Once the anniversary party was out of the way, and I’d found a manager for the shop, and Beth had given birth, I’d be on my way.

  Suddenly, the upstairs window was violently thumped open.

  ‘Arianne!’ called a man’s voice. ‘Come here!’

  I dropped to my hands and knees and scuttled away from the circle of light spilling from the house.

  ‘I think there’s something by the gate,’ the man said urgently. ‘Go and have a look on the badger-cam.’

  There was the sound of a woman’s excited squeal and I shuffled down the pavement, hugging the shadows like a cat-burglar. Without looking back, I straightened and hurried away before Arianne discovered it wasn’t a badger outside the house, but the owner’s disgruntled ex-girlfriend.

  The last bus back to Shipley was empty apart from a snogging couple near the front. I tried not to stare as the man’s hands brazenly frisked his boyfriend’s body, as though checking for hidden weapons.

  The driver slowed to let someone or something cross the road, and I looked out of the window to where a man was standing beside a campervan in a lay-by. He was pacing around, a mobile pressed to his ear, his other arm flailing about as he tried to get his point across. Clearly the person on the receiving end was getting a proper rollicking. Either that or the campervan had broken down, and the man had forgotten to renew his AA membership.

  A car passed in the opposite direction, catching him in the beam of his headlights, and recognition shot through me.

  It was Josh.

  I knocked on the window, but the bus was pulling away, and he was too intent on his conversation to notice. As he faded from view, I began to doubt what I’d seen. Josh hadn’t mentioned a campervan, and why would he be parked in a lay-by near Wareham, when he was staying with friends in Shipley?

  I remembered I still hadn’t got his payment details, and resolved to sort it out first thing in the morning.

  Friday. The day Alex was flying back to England.

  I had a splitting headache by the time I arrived back at Celia’s, and my heart dropped when I saw Paddy’s work boots on the mat in the hall. I wasn’t in the mood to be sociable, and was surprised Celia was still up. She normally turned in about nine, to read one of her spine-cracked thrillers.
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br />   A rumble of laughter emerged from the living room, and I peeped around the door. Celia was holding a dried pig’s ear aloft while Muttley danced on his hind legs.

  My vision swam and I blinked a couple of times.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve got him to do that,’ Paddy was saying. ‘I tried for ages last night and got nowhere.’ He wasn’t bothering to hide his admiration, which seemed to encourage Celia to greater heights. She trotted in a circle – using her stick, I was pleased to see – still holding the treat out of reach so the dog had to follow her movements as if they were dancing.

  Chester was in the corner, growling low in his throat. He hated competition, and Muttley was younger and more agile.

  ‘You should take him on Britain’s Got Talent,’ Paddy gushed (there was no other word for it) leaning forward to pat Muttley’s rump as he finally got his treat and swallowed it whole.

  ‘I think dancing dogs have been done to death,’ said Celia, with a hint of disapproval. She didn’t care for dogs being paraded on television and had predicted an early grave for Pudsey, due to the perils of fame.

  ‘Had a nice time with Beth?’ she said, catching sight of my hovering head. ‘No baby yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I said, smiling at Paddy.

  ‘Alright?’ He scrambled up and shuffled his feet with the embarrassed air of a schoolboy in front of the headmistress.

  I noticed Celia’s cheeks were strawberry, and there was a spark in her eyes. Not so immune to the possibility of romance after all. ‘Sorry I missed dinner,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry. Paddy stayed for a bite.’ She gave him a look that was as close to flirtatious as I’d ever seen, and the world seemed to tilt a little. ‘Have you eaten?’

  I nodded, though I wasn’t sure the dates, chocolate, and peanuts I’d picked at during my sweet-making session counted.

  Muttley came over to investigate and I fussed his silky ears while Chester craned his head and barked a protest.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ I said. ‘It’s been a busy day.’

  ‘I was going to make some hot chocolate.’

  Celia only drank hot chocolate if she had a cold, or the temperature had fallen below freezing.