The Beachside Sweetshop

by Karen Clarke

  ‘See!’ cried Mum, putting down her yoghurt to grab my hand. ‘There’ll be no shortage of customers now, and it means we can put your plan into action.’

  ‘Plan?’

  ‘To refit the kitchen at the shop and make the sweets on the premises,’ she said, bright-eyed. ‘We should strike while the iron’s hot.’

  ‘We?’

  She adjusted the fringed scarf draped around her neck.

  ‘I was thinking, Marnie, that if you’re really going to Thailand, I could … well, I could take over running the shop.’

  ‘You?’

  Her eyebrows flew up. ‘Is that so hard to imagine?’

  Frankly it was impossible, but there was no denying her eagerness.

  ‘What about Mario?’ I said, giving up on my cereal.

  ‘He’ll be thrilled.’ She got up and walked around. ‘He’s said for a while that I need something to fill my days, and to fulfil me,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t see it at the time, but I think he’s right.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘He’d be more than happy to move back here, and even buy a little place.’

  ‘And Steven?’

  Her big, grey eyes met mine. ‘That’s definitely over, Marnie.’

  ‘Well, that’s great,’ I said, a familiar tightening in the pit of my stomach. It was the perfect solution. It meant I could bring my trip forward, yet something didn’t feel right.

  Maybe it was because Mum’s past job experience would have embarrassed a work-shy trustafarian. She knew nothing about running a business.

  ‘I phoned your Uncle Cliff after you went to bed last night,’ she chattered on, resuming eating her yoghurt, ‘and he was saying how Phoebe had mentioned moving back this way, and that she’d like to work at the shop.’

  ‘I think she might have changed her mind,’ I said, heart dropping another notch.

  Mum waved her spoon. ‘She could be my assistant.’

  ‘That’s …’ awful, ‘a good idea, but I’m not sure Pheebs will cope as an assistant, when she’s used to being in charge.’

  ‘We could give it a trial run and see how we get on.’ Mum had a soft spot for her niece, though they’d rarely seen eye to eye. ‘Maybe you could ask her.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, but it came out flat. ‘Sounds like you’ve thought it all through.’

  ‘I must admit, I hardly slept all night.’ She finished her yoghurt and scooped her hair back over her shoulders. ‘I’ll ask Mum what she thinks, when she comes back,’ she added.

  ‘Back?’

  ‘She and Chester stayed at Paddy’s last night.’

  ‘Brilliant.’

  I’d wondered where Chester was, but had preferred not to think about his absence. Something to do with Celia’s stick and Crocs being missing too.

  I collected my bag and keys, and pulled a cardigan over my jeans and top. The air was cool, and the putty-coloured sky outside looked heavy with rain. I wondered bleakly if Alex and Bobbi-Jo were at the airport yet.

  ‘We’ll talk later,’ I said to Mum.

  ‘Ooh, I’ll be down to help in the shop later on,’ she said. ‘I’m going to make some more sweets and bring them in, because people are bound to want them after that piece on Morning, Sunshine! We’ll need to settle on a price, and perhaps think about where we can buy the ingredients in bulk.’

  I left her rummaging through the dresser drawers for a notepad and pen, and left the house feeling oddly numb.

  Across the bay, a stiff breeze had rippled the sea into white-topped peaks, while the beach was empty of the half-term visitors who’d swarmed there the day before.

  There was no sign of life at Seaview Cottage, and I wondered if Isabel was lying low. I’d checked her blog the night before, but it hadn’t been updated. Remembering Celia’s assertion that there’d been no publisher meeting, I almost felt sorry for her.

  She was her own worst enemy, I reflected. There’d been nothing wrong with her healthy eating ideals, if only she’d been sincere – and hadn’t tried to take me down in the process.

  This is what she does, Gerry had said. I felt more sorry for little Fitzgerald, estranged from his grandparents, and with a mummy who clearly missed her old celebrity lifestyle.

  Thinking of her, and of Mum and Steven, and Harry, it struck me how dangerously easy it was for adults to get it wrong.

  Thank god for Beth, I thought, who was shaping up to be the mother of the century – even if it meant she wouldn’t get round to finishing her thesis for a while.

  Deep in thought, I let out a yelp of alarm when Doris stepped through her garden gate, dressed head to toe in lilac. ‘I’ve worked it all out,’ she said, pulling her notepad from her jacket pocket.

  ‘I can’t stop.’ I noted with trepidation the dense scribble of words I could see as she flipped the pages open. ‘I’ve got to open the shop.’

  ‘It won’t take long,’ she said, vibrating with importance.

  Resistance was futile. ‘Fine.’ I braced my shoulders. ‘What mysteries have you uncovered?’

  She began speaking in a ponderous tone. ‘Isabel Sinclair has form for this kind of behaviour.’ She checked I was listening. ‘It seems she led a smear campaign against a former friend a couple of years ago, when the woman revealed her plan to open a beauty parlour in Wandsworth. Isabel’s campaign was centred around the idea that women ought to be natural, and that filling your body with parabens and the like was going against nature, and she was going to write a book that would lift the lid on the beauty industry.’ Another sound idea, executed badly. ‘Didn’t pan out,’ Doris confirmed. ‘The friend took out a restraining order against her in the end.’

  Blimey. Isabel did have form. And Doris had been busy.

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘I have my sources,’ she said, out of the side of her mouth.

  ‘Ellen Partridge, whose daughter runs the yoga class?’

  Doris looked up and down the road and behind her lavender bush, as if checking for spies. ‘Between you and me, Ellen does a bit of private investigating on the quiet. Errant husbands usually,’ she said. ‘Not that I really need her, but she’s better on the internet than I am.’

  ‘Right.’ I was rather impressed. ‘Go on.’

  Doris licked her thumb and flicked over a page. ‘Isabel Sinclair was seen spray-painting your shop window at zero six hundred hours on Sunday morning, by a resident of the adjoining guesthouse, and I have it on good authority that she—’

  ‘Paid and persuaded a boy to act as if he’d been adversely affected by my sweets,’ I finished.

  Doris’s mouth fell open. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You should have been there yesterday,’ I said with a smile. ‘It all came out.’

  ‘I was visiting Eric and Lance.’ Doris snapped her notebook shut. ‘They wanted to show me a scan of their baby.’

  ‘That’s lovely, Doris,’ I said. ‘Do you know what it is?’

  ‘A little girl.’ Her cheeks bloomed with colour. ‘I’m afraid I won’t be giving Beth any baby clothes after all.’

  ‘Eric’s baby clothes?’

  ‘They’re mostly pink,’ she said. ‘I was convinced he was going to be a girl.’

  I tried and failed to compose a suitable reply.

  ‘Will you go to the police?’ she said. ‘About, you-know-who?’

  I thought of Fitzgerald again. ‘Probably not,’ I said. ‘And anyway, they’re … ’

  ‘ … returning to London any time now,’ she finished, clearly not wishing to be outdone on the investigative front. ‘Gerry’s got a new job, but it’s a bit of a comedown from being a publishing CEO. He’ll be managing a bookshop near Notting Hill.’

  I smiled. ‘Well, maybe Isabel will get that elusive book deal one day.’

  ‘Is everything alright after the other night?’

  I was touched by the genuine concern in Doris’s face. ‘I think it’s been resolved,’ I said. ‘Thanks for not … you know.’

  She touched my hand. ‘I do
like your mother, but it’s a blessing you take after your grandfather,’ she said. ‘Now I really have to go. I’ve left some porridge on the stove.’

  * * *

  After letting myself into the shop and turning off the alarm, I stood for a moment and absorbed the peace and quiet. I wondered whether Josh would turn up. Then again, if Mum was determined to come and help out, I wouldn’t be needing an assistant.

  In the office, I shook off my cardigan and pulled out my phone to text Phoebe.

  Would you still fancy working at the sweet shop if Mum was in charge? X

  It was odd to think of them carrying on without me.

  The chimes above the door would wear on Phoebe’s nerves, but she’d be great with the money side, and coming up with strategies. She’d have a new website sorted out in no time. And the male customers would fall in love with Mum, because she was … well, she was Mum. And the locals would like that she was an Appleton. Though thinking about her past conduct that might not be a good thing.

  I was absently polishing the scales with my apron, trying to empty my mind, when the chimes indicated a customer was entering the shop.

  Josh entered, and seeing his face I almost screamed. One of his eyes was swollen shut, the skin around it shiny with purple bruising, while his bottom lip was crusty with dried blood.

  ‘Oh my god, what happened to you?’

  He smoothed his dishevelled hair as he approached the counter. ‘Let’s just say, I went to see my uncle on Sunday night.’

  I darted round to him. ‘It looks painful,’ I said. I lifted a hand to his face but he flinched away.

  ‘I wanted to take his stuff back and tell him I wasn’t doing his dirty work any more.’

  ‘And he did this?’

  ‘He …’ Josh hesitated. ‘He said something nasty about you not being able to take a joke, just because he’d …’ the rest of the sentence seemed to get stuck. He cleared his throat. ‘Marnie, was my uncle … inappropriate with you?’

  My silence must have said it all.

  Josh pressed his knuckles to his forehead. ‘The wanker,’ he said. ‘I should have guessed when you said you didn’t want him here any more.’ He sounded close to tears. ‘Anyway, I hit him, and he went for me.’

  Despite my shock, it wasn’t that much of a stretch to imagine.

  ‘Oh, Josh.’

  ‘At least I got the first punch in.’ He tried to smile and winced. ‘Keep forgetting I’ve got a split lip.’

  ‘I can’t believe he did this to you.’

  ‘Yeah well, when my aunt found out she went ballistic and told him to leave.’

  ‘God, what a mess,’ I said. ‘Is this why you didn’t show up yesterday?’

  He nodded. ‘I wanted to,’ he said, looking at me with his good eye. ‘But not like this.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Stayed in the campervan,’ he said, and I noticed it parked outside. ‘Kept a low profile, tried to sleep it off.’

  ‘Oh, Josh,’ I said again.

  ‘I brought it on myself,’ he said, with a self-deprecating shrug. ‘If I hadn’t been such a tosser, I wouldn’t have agreed to his stupid plan in the first place.’

  My eyes itched with tears. ‘We all make mistakes,’ I said. ‘You didn’t deserve this.’

  ‘And I suppose I wouldn’t have met you, otherwise,’ he said softly. ‘So, no regrets.’

  ‘Oh, Josh.’ I was starting to sound like a parrot. ‘It sounds like you’re saying goodbye.’

  ‘I saw how you were when that bloke turned up the other night.’ His eye looked misty. ‘Your ex?’

  My throat was too full to speak.

  ‘It’s obvious you’re not over him,’ he said. ‘And I think maybe I need to get away for a bit.’

  ‘You should do that whole cruise ship thing.’ I could barely speak through a golf-ball-sized lump in my throat. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I was leaving too, but the words wouldn’t make it out.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Or I could take my magic to Britain’s Got Talent.’

  ‘You’d probably win.’ I looked at him, blinking madly. ‘I really do like you, Josh.’

  ‘I really like you too.’ His voice was thick with emotion. ‘And you’re going to be fine here now you’ve made this place your own.’

  I couldn’t speak.

  ‘You’re probably thinking that I need to grow up, and you’re right,’ he went on. ‘I’ve been arsing around on my skateboard too long.’

  I’d actually been thinking how handsome he was, even with a black eye and a fat lip.

  ‘You’re man enough,’ I said, reaching for his hand. ‘And I’m not the only one who thinks so.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘If you’re ever in this neck of the woods again, I’m sure Agnieszka’s got a crush on you.’

  He gave a little laugh. ‘It’s a bit soon to start pairing me off with someone else,’ he said, and then I was crushed against his chest, shedding tears on his rumpled T-shirt knowing, deep in my heart, he wasn’t the man I longed to spend my life with.

  Thirty-Two

  ‘All good?’ Mum drifted into the shop about two hours after I’d waved Josh off, but not before extracting a promise from him to keep in touch.

  ‘Fine,’ I said.

  If she noticed my puffy eyes, she didn’t comment. I’d closed the shop for ten minutes after Josh left to have a good cry in the toilet, and I still felt a bit wrung-out.

  ‘Not busy?’

  I shrugged. ‘A few customers, but they mostly wanted to talk about yesterday, and to know where the homemade sweets were after hearing about them on Morning, Sunshine!’

  ‘Well, that’s good.’ Mum came over and gripped my upper arms. ‘Have you seen The Shipley Examiner?’

  ‘It won’t be out yet,’ I said, limp as a rag doll between her hands.

  ‘Oh Marnie, no one waits for the paper to come out these days.’ She gave an astonished laugh, as though I hadn’t heard her ask Beth the day before what ‘an Instagram’ was.

  ‘I thought it was a new type of stripagram,’ she’d hooted, when Beth explained. ‘That they whipped their clothes off extra quickly, or something.’

  She directed me into the office where the computer now resided, and pressed me down on the swivel chair. ‘That reporter’s posted an article on the news page,’ she said, reaching for the computer keyboard. ‘Look.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said, brushing her hand away. ‘It’s a bit temperamental.’ I really wanted to close the pages I’d been scrolling through before she arrived.

  Particularly the Heathrow one, where I’d been checking times of flights to New York, wondering which one Alex would be on, but also Isabel’s blog.

  Great news peeps,

  she’d written, as if it was still the nineties.

  Darling hubby’s been offered a job in London, so we’ll be upping sticks and moving very soon. This means, sadly, my book is on hold – not because I’ve given up on my super healthy recipe ideas –

  there was a photo of a cabbage and cucumber smoothie that looked like pond-water

  – and I still think sweet shops are a scourge on our society, but I’m going to be focusing more on interior design, after my publisher,

  I wondered if she really believed she had one,

  pointed out my excellent eye for soft furnishings. I’ve always been super creative in that area. For instance, I upcycled this lampshade with a pink feather boa last year,

  another photo, of what looked like a crushed flamingo,

  so WATCH THIS SPACE!!

  At the end of the trickle of ‘Good luck, babe’ comments, her mother had written

  Do you remember that rustic, stripped back, brick and wood look in your first house with Gerry? The walls were running with condensation and I got a splinter in my foot! Now WHEN are you going to pay us a visit? Grandparents have rights you know!

  Isabel had replied, possibly unaware it was visible for anyone who looked,
>
  Had a horrid bank holiday, mummy, me and Fitzy will be coming tomorrow, while Gerry checks out the flat above the bookshop. We’ll probably stay until we move in, I hate it round here.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Mum, craning her neck.

  ‘Just finding The Examiner website.’

  ‘There!’ she said, as I clicked the link

  A Day to Remember.

  ‘Oh, god.’

  ‘Just read it.’

  I skipped through the words through half-shut eyes.

  Shipley sweet shop owner, Marnie Appleton (29) –

  ha!

  – held a sweet-tasting session yesterday that went down a storm with locals and visitors, making the most of the unusually bright bank holiday sunshine. Low-sugar versions of favourites, Turkish delight and coconut ice, were an instant hit, while her peanut brittle and ginger balls were declared ‘better than the real thing’ with one tourist remarking, ‘You wouldn’t know they were low-sugar.’

  Even Morning, Sunshine!’s Donal Kerrigan wasn’t immune, putting in a surprise appearance after being tempted by Ms Appleton’s delights,

  ‘oo-er’ Mum smirked, over my shoulder,

  after they were mentioned on his show.

  ‘But he doesn’t say anything about Isabel.’ I read it again. ‘And there’s a really nice photo of us.’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ agreed Mum, shiny-eyed.

  The sweet shop looked like something from a story book, with its twinkly windows and stripy awning, the gold lettering above catching the morning sunlight. Even the letter ‘e’ I’d sprayed in looked authentic.

  We were standing behind the trestle table, Mum smiling as she tonged a Turkish delight cube into the violin prodigy’s hand, while I watched a bald-headed man eat a chocolate truffle with a playful grin on my face. My hairband gave me a slightly bohemian air, while Mum looked as winsome as ever.