The Beachside Sweetshop

by Karen Clarke

  ‘They taste delicious,’ Mum assured me, popping a chunk in her mouth. I knew she meant it, because she’d once said she found it physically impossible to swallow anything she didn’t love the taste of.

  She’d fired a meaningful look at her boyfriend at the time, but I was only ten and thankfully missed the double meaning.

  ‘If you’ve got ripe bananas and cinnamon I can make some low-sugar fudge,’ she said, after finding a recipe in the old red book, and looking on my laptop for ways to adapt it. I was surprised and pleased by how wholeheartedly she was embracing the endeavour.

  ‘Here’s the cinnamon,’ I said, sliding the jar across. ‘There are plenty of bananas in the fruit bowl, we hardly ever eat them.’

  ‘And have you got any ginger for your balls?’

  I sniggered. ‘In the bag.’

  ‘It’s a shame we can’t use the ingredients in the book, so you can say the sweets are based on a family recipe.’

  ‘I could say they’ve been adapted from family recipes.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Mum beamed, her cheeks glowing pink.

  I checked the pan. Thankfully, the mixture was taking on the consistency of knicker elastic, which immediately made me think of Beth’s nether regions. I wondered whether she’d had her epidural, and if she’d remember to listen to the history podcast she’d downloaded, to relax her if the chanting didn’t work.

  ‘Your mixture’s boiling,’ Mum said.

  I lurched across to the Aga and gave it a stir.

  ‘Do you remember our cooking song?’ she said, a smile tweaking her lips.

  ‘“Beans, beans, Are good for the heart. The more you eat, The more you fart!”’ I sang, conducting an imaginary orchestra with my spoon. ‘Classy choon.’

  Mum giggled. ‘I’d forgotten that one,’ she said. ‘I was thinking of …’

  ‘ … “Jambalaya on the Bayou”,’ we said together, and broke into a rousing chorus that brought back those precious afternoons in the flat above the supermarket, when Mum would put Hank Williams on the CD player to accompany our sweet-making. She often listened to country and western, rather than what was in ‘the hit parade’ as Celia still called it.

  Her voice was sweet and husky and made me want to stop what I was doing and listen, but she’d become self-conscious if I did, so I’d hum along, watching her face instead.

  ‘That one never made much sense either,’ I said, when we’d finished. ‘Goldfish pie, filly gunboat? What the f … blinking heck?’

  Mum’s shoulders vibrated with laughter. ‘Crawfish pie, filé gumbo,’ she said. ‘Filé’s a spicy powder.’

  ‘I think I prefer my version.’ I looked at the clock. ‘I should really pop back to the shop and see how they’re getting on,’ I said, slotting my cooled peanut brittle into the fridge, which was rapidly filling up.

  ‘Go,’ Mum said, wafting a hand. ‘I’m fine here.’

  She looked it. In fact, she looked happier than I’d seen her in a while. ‘Are you missing Mario?’ I said as I washed my hands.

  ‘He can be a little … intense, but yes I am.’ Some of the laughter left her face. ‘Do you miss Alex?’

  We’d never had the sort of heart-to-hearts about boyfriends some mothers and daughters had. It was Celia who told me the facts of life, after we’d attended a local dog-show she was judging and a spaniel took a liking to a startled-looking dachshund. The rest I’d picked up from friends, school and Hollyoaks.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if I do,’ I said firmly. ‘He’s with someone else.’

  She looked sceptical. ‘You should fight for him, if you want him back.’

  It was odd that Doris had said the same thing.

  ‘I had my chance,’ I said, pushing my arms into my jacket. ‘It’s too late now.’

  My phone buzzed as I picked up my bag.

  ‘It’s from Harry,’ I said. ‘Beth’s nine centimetres dilated!’

  ‘That was nice of him to let you know.’

  ‘I know.’ Maybe becoming a father was changing him.

  I couldn’t help hoping it would last.

  Twenty-Six

  Toby and Em were clearing up as I arrived at the shop. Both had the radiance of a job-well-done, and my jaw swung open as I surveyed their handiwork.

  The paintwork looked warm and light, and the freshly sanded floorboards drew my eye to the front of the counter, which was newly painted in yellow and white stripes. Tiny gold lights adorning the edges of the shelves added a fairy-tale sparkle.

  ‘We’ve put the empty tins out the back for recycling, is that OK?’ asked Toby, flushed with pleasure at my response.

  ‘Everything’s perfect,’ I breathed, tears pricking my eyes. They’d even hung my chimes back over the door, and my award certificate had been framed and was hanging beside the photo of Gramps behind the counter.

  ‘Your man did that,’ Em said, seeing me looking at it. ‘Josh?’

  ‘Oh, he’s not my man.’ Touched, in spite of myself, I wondered where he’d got the frame from.

  ‘He popped out for a bit, and came back with it professionally done,’ Em continued, as if tracking my thoughts.

  ‘Is he still here?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s around,’ she said. ‘He’s done quite a lot actually, and said you’d probably need help putting the stock back out.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said again, overwhelmed. I hadn’t expected to feel so … emotional. It was probably the fallout from seeing Alex with Bobbi-Jo, and Beth going into labour, not to mention Mum’s outburst, but still. The shop looked wonderful.

  ‘We can help too, if you like?’ offered Toby.

  But in spite of their helpful smiles, I imagined he and Em were gagging to get home for a shower and a bite to eat.

  ‘You’ve done more than enough,’ I said. Overcome, I grasped hold of Toby and aimed a kiss at his cheek. Unfortunately, he turned his head at the last moment and I ended up planting a smacker on his lips.

  ‘Oops,’ I said, as he flushed to the roots of his hair.

  Em gave a soft giggle. ‘Awkward!’

  I held out my arms to her. ‘Do you want one too?’ I joked, and managed to peck her flushed, paint-freckled cheek. ‘I’m going to recommend you to everyone,’ I added, before remembering with a pang that I wouldn’t be around in a few months. ‘Honestly, you’ve done a brilliant job.’

  I presented them with a family-sized box of chocolates as an extra thank you, and after they’d gone I stood for a moment longer, soaking up the atmosphere. The paint smell was barely detectable, and I liked the lingering aroma of sanded wood.

  Taking down the photo of my grandfather, I showed him around the shop, hoping he liked the new look, my heart swelling with sadness that he wasn’t there to see it.

  ‘I think he’d approve,’ said Josh, and I spun round to see him in the office doorway. ‘You can make the place your own now.’

  ‘You don’t get to have an opinion,’ I huffed, moving past him to replace the photograph, head swimming a little at his scent – peppery with a dash of mint. ‘Let’s get the sweets back out,’ I said, steeling myself to not speak to him for the next hour or so.

  ‘Listen, are you sure I can’t stay on?’ Josh reached out a hand, then let it drop to his side. ‘I really am so sorry, Marnie.’

  If only he wouldn’t say my name like that, as if we were under a duvet in a passionate clinch.

  ‘How do I know this isn’t still a ploy to get me to buy from your uncle again?’ I was trying to emulate the anger I’d felt before. ‘It could have been you who drew that skull and crossbones on the window, for all I know.’

  ‘Firstly, that doesn’t even make sense,’ he said, folding his arms and crossing one ankle over the other. ‘It would hardly have been in my uncle’s interests to get you closed down, and that’s what the crossbones were about.’ He had a point. ‘And secondly, there is no ploy.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I won’t be going back to my uncle’s, whatever happens,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’ll probably never
speak to him again.’

  That took the wind out of my sails. ‘Even so,’ I said, tugging down the cuffs of my jacket in an effort to look more business-like, before catching my reflection in the window. I still had a dusting of arrowroot powder on my face. Combined with my unfeasibly short fringe, I looked like a medieval king. ‘You were here under false pretences and I can’t forgive that.’ I cringed at my own pomposity, but Josh nodded, as if he’d expected nothing less.

  ‘Fair enough.’ He lifted a shoulder. ‘I’ve been a dickhead.’

  ‘Yes, you have.’ Before my resolve slipped completely, I inched past him and switched on the radio in the office for some distracting background noise. Toby and Em must have been listening to it while they were working, and it was tuned to Radio South-West. Some rather dull show was in full flow, but with Josh’s eyes boring a hole in my back I couldn’t face changing stations. Instead, I shot through to the stockroom.

  As if sensing our conversation was over, Josh refilled the pick and mix, then put the till back on the counter and plugged it in. ‘I found some Brasso and polished the scales,’ he said, carrying them through carefully as if they were a box of kittens.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said primly. I noticed he’d changed his T-shirt since earlier. It was marshmallow-pink with the slogan I’ve Got Your Back atop two hugging stick figures. Surely he couldn’t have had it printed, especially? Perhaps when he’d had my certificate framed. There was a printing shop on Main Street.

  To hide my confusion, I crammed a box of Drumsticks into a shelving cube. It was too big so I yanked it out again, and immediately thought of Beth.

  ‘Hey, what’s this?’ Josh danced over and mimed a hand movement by my ear.

  Alarmed, I ducked my head. ‘What are you doing?’ I said, then did a double take as he opened his palm to reveal a love-heart sweet.

  Forgive me pleaded the message.

  ‘How do you do that?’ I plucked it from his hand and brought it to my nostrils, inhaling its sweetly powdered scent.

  ‘It’s a talent,’ he said with contrived loftiness.

  My mouth twitched. ‘I’m not going to forgive you that easily,’ I said, popping the sweet in my mouth.

  ‘But you might?’

  ‘Maybe.’ His eyelashes were far too luxurious for a man, framing a hopeful gaze. ‘You’re bloody persuasive.’

  ‘Only because your opinion matters to me.’

  As we stood, not moving, the radio presenter’s dulcet tones penetrated my brain. I recognised the voice I’d spoken to the evening before.

  ‘Just a reminder folks,’ Jeremy Taylor was saying, ‘that if you’re looking for some entertainment this Bank Holiday Monday, why not pay a visit to The Beachside Sweet Shop in Shipley and sample award-winning Marnie Appleton’s handmade, low-sugar sweets.’

  ‘Ooh, you’re famous,’ Josh said, widening his eyes.

  ‘After Ms Appleton’s rousing comments on the programme last night, I think you got the message that it’ll take more than a bunch of frustrated bitches to get rid of a business that survived a world war and a potential takeover!’

  I froze.

  ‘This is Jeremy Taylor, and you’re listening to Business Matters.’

  Josh shook with laughter. ‘Did you really say that?’

  ‘Only in my head.’ I dropped my face into my hands. ‘It must have slipped out.’

  ‘Hopefully Isabel Thingy wasn’t listening,’ he said, a smile in his voice. ‘But great publicity for you.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ I fretted. ‘Swearing on-air isn’t really the way forward.’

  He tugged my hands from my face and I knew I should pull away – probably slap him – but somehow, instinctively, I knew Josh wasn’t like his uncle. He’d made a mistake, but he wasn’t a bad person.

  I raised my head. ‘Is your surname really Radley?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘You can ring my mum and check, if you like.’

  A smile curled my lips. ‘It’s OK, I believe you.’

  Sounds drifted in through the open door; a swirl of laughter from the beach and the faint splash of waves, overlaid with a rumble of traffic and a cry from a grumpy seagull.

  ‘Thank you for not mentioning my fringe.’

  ‘It’s cute,’ he said. Slipping an arm round my waist he kissed my temple. ‘And thank you for not, you know, kicking me where it hurts. I know I deserve it.’

  ‘You do,’ I said, leaning against him. For some reason, Alex popped into my head at the exact moment I caught a movement in my peripheral vision. Shifting my eyes I looked up and saw him, poised outside the shop as if I’d conjured him up.

  He was staring right at us, his face unreadable.

  I jerked away from Josh.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Concern crowded his face as I headed for the door.

  Alex had jogged across the road and was climbing into his father’s grey Volvo.

  ‘Wait!’ I ran out, shielding my eyes from the glare of the sun as it sank below the horizon. ‘Alex!’

  He lowered the window.

  Our eyes met, and chunks of memory crashed in; swimming in the sea in Wareham, almost hypothermic with cold; drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows in bed; Christmas at his parents’, unwrapping presents round the tree, then tea at my grandparents’, with Uncle Cliff, and my cousins; a rowdy game of charades that had us crying with laughter when Alex had to mime The Spy Who Shagged Me and Gramps thought it was something horse related and guessed The Dirty Dozen. On the aeroplane to Peru, our hands entwined.

  The way his hair felt beneath my fingers.

  I caught my breath. ‘What did you want?’

  ‘To talk.’ His eyes looked bruised. ‘I was worried when you took off yesterday, and you’ve stopped replying to my texts.’

  Was that all? ‘Well I’m fine, as you can see.’

  ‘I can.’ His jaw tensed. ‘I should have known from the way you were looking at him in the newspaper.’

  He obviously meant Josh.

  ‘Don’t come down here being judgy,’ I said. ‘You’ve moved on, why shouldn’t I?’

  He rubbed his face. ‘It’s funny, you make out you’re desperate to leave this place, but now you’re settling down? I guess it was just me you didn’t want to settle down with.’

  I shot round the car, wrenched open the door and dived into the passenger seat. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, you were the one who left.’

  ‘Because you told me to.’ He glowered at me. ‘You were adamant, as I remember.’

  ‘You knew I couldn’t come, because of Celia. I didn’t want you to miss your big opportunity.’

  ‘Oh, Marnie.’ He looked at me as though his eyes were hurting. ‘I only applied for the job because I thought being out there for ten months would cure you of this idea that you don’t want to be here.’ He gestured angrily through the windscreen. ‘That you’d realise how much you love this place.’

  ‘What?’ I stared at him. ‘All I’ve ever wanted to do is to leave, like my mum did.’

  ‘Really?’ He pulled his head back, as if trying to get a better look at me. ‘Even in Peru, you couldn’t wait to come home.’

  ‘That’s rubbish.’ I tried to hold his gaze. ‘I had to come back for Gramps.’

  ‘Marnie, I know.’ He hesitated. ‘But before then,’ he said. ‘Remember how homesick you were? You wanted me to read to you on our second night because you couldn’t get to sleep. Patricia Cornwell, remember.’

  I’d forgotten that. How soothing the sound of his voice was, even though the story was about a homicidal maniac with a tattoo fetish.

  ‘And you were desperate to find an internet connection, so you could email Beth and find out how everyone was doing.’

  ‘I missed them,’ I said. It sounded childish.

  ‘Oh, Marnie.’ The way he said it – half-sigh, half groan. ‘Our trip was amazing, I loved it, but I could tell you wanted to be home even before your granddad got sick.’

  ‘You’
re wrong,’ was all I could say.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be here.’ His eyes briefly scanned the view. ‘I thought maybe you’d got it all out of your system when you took over running the shop. That even though you were sad about your granddad, you’d turned a corner.’ His face clouded. ‘But then your mum cleared off again, and suddenly you wanted to leave.’

  I was finding it hard to breathe. ‘I thought you wanted to go travelling too.’

  ‘Honestly?’ His gaze was open. ‘I didn’t care where I was as long as it was with you.’ It was true, he’d told me that before, but I’d thought it was the sort of thing people in love said, and didn’t necessarily mean.

  ‘I suggested you join me in New York, once your gran was better, and you still kept making excuses.’

  ‘I couldn’t have left her,’ I said angrily. ‘Not after everything she’s done for me.’

  He sighed. ‘Anyway, I suppose that’s when I knew.’

  ‘Knew?’

  ‘That you’d never leave Shipley.’

  A panicky feeling was building. ‘Actually, you’re wrong,’ I burst out. ‘I’m going to Thailand at the end of July.’

  Shock flared briefly. ‘With him?’

  He meant Josh. ‘Maybe.’

  He looked at me a moment longer. ‘Then I guess I was wrong,’ he said flatly. ‘What about the sweet shop?’

  ‘I’ll get a manager in.’ Saying it out loud made me feel sick.

  Alex nodded. ‘It looks good in there,’ he said quietly, and I wondered how long he’d been outside before I spotted him.

  ‘I thought it needed freshening up.’

  We fell into a troubled silence.

  This is Alex, I thought. We’d never had troubled silences. We barely used to argue.

  Jerking forward, he turned the key in the ignition and a burst of Bon Jovi exploded from the radio.

  ‘Dad’s,’ he said, switching it off.

  ‘Still likes his soft rock.’

  For a second, his face worked. He seemed on the verge of saying something, but appeared to change his mind.