Dodie had visited number seventeen as well in the end. As she was on the street anyway it made sense to investigate every lead, even if she wasn’t quite convinced of it. But the young woman with a screaming baby clamped to her hip who’d answered the door had even less information, or inclination, to help than hot-and-cold Ed at number eleven. In some ways Dodie was annoyed at herself for thinking her wild goose chase had been a good idea. People were busy, wrapped up in their own lives. What did they care for a nutty girl who turned up on their step bleating about lost love and ancient letters? What difference did it make to anyone if Dodie’s letter never made it back to Margaret, or her family? It mattered to Dodie, but then she cared about a lot of things that never troubled most people and, if she’d been pushed on the reasons, even she would have found them hard to put into words. All she knew was that she’d gone to sleep thinking about it and woke the next day still thinking about it. In between she’d probably dreamed about it too, if only she could remember.
As the sun rose in a pearl-grey sky and the town awoke, it was business as usual. Dodie threw herself into wet-dusting the shop in between customers, the radio blasting Christmas songs in the corner. As it wasn’t yet December she’d probably be sick of hearing them long before the main event arrived, but for now they took her mind off the miserable failure of the night before. By lunch she’d managed to shift two blouses, a leather satchel and most of the previous week’s dirt from the store shelves. Working on her own for most of the time meant she rarely got time to stop for lunch – not wanting to close the shop or make it smell of any food she might be eating – but today she was ravenous, so she surreptitiously broke off bits of cream cracker from a pack beneath the counter, munching on them as she read through a listing for an online auction site. It was mostly furniture and bric-a-brac rather than clothes, but for some time now she’d had the notion that she might quite like to branch out into retro household furnishings, and there was certainly a market for it from what others had told her. It was all a question of outlay, of course, and she couldn’t afford to have too much money tied up in stock on the shelves at any one time. Then again, it might be a risk worth taking if it turned things around. Perhaps she’d talk to her accountant about it next time she saw him.
Absently, her gaze flicked to her phone, sitting on the counter beside her laptop. It had been silent all morning. She hadn’t really expected anything exciting to come through and it was probably far too soon, but part of her had been hoping she’d hear from Ed Willoughby. She’d thought about him a lot over the course of the morning, when she hadn’t been thinking about George and Margaret, and each time he seemed more of a mystery than before. He’d been like two different men: the one who’d barked at her over the intercom, and the one who’d almost flirted with her on the doorstep. Not for the first time she decided that if men thought women were an enigma, women had twenty times more reasons to think the same of them. And at least a woman would talk to you and tell you what she was thinking, whereas men simply expected you to mind read, and even then the signals weren’t very good.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the bell of the shop door jingling and she looked up to see her gran stagger in under a pile of plastic-wrapped garments. Dodie’s gran was even tinier than Dodie; a dynamo of a woman with steel-grey hair that still had good slices of black and cheeks that were smoother than most women half her age.
‘I called in at the dry cleaners on the way here,’ she said. ‘I knew they’d have some of your stuff and they know me.’
‘I know they know you,’ Dodie said as she raced around the counter to take them from her. ‘But I’ve told you before there’s no need to go and fetch it for me – you’ll do yourself a mischief carrying all that up the road.’ Her gran followed her as she went into the back with the newly cleaned stock. And then followed her back into the shop.
‘Your hair is red,’ she said as she threw a critical gaze at her only granddaughter.
‘It is,’ Dodie replied. She could have done it with a lot more sarcasm but she loved her gran, despite the constant criticism of her hair. And here it comes…
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with your own hair – it’s very pretty. Everyone used to say so when I took you to school.’
‘You took me to school twice when I was ten and Mum had the flu,’ Dodie reminded her. ‘I don’t think you could possibly have managed to talk to everyone about my hair.’
Gran shook her head sombrely, as if she was witnessing the destruction of the Great Wall of China or someone ripping up the Magna Carta rather than the result of her granddaughter’s hair-colouring whims. ‘I like it natural.’
‘I know you do but I happen to like changing it.’
‘I think it’s a crying shame. It’ll fall out if you’re not careful.’
‘I’ll be careful then.’
Gran wandered over to a rail of tweed suits and jackets and began to rifle through it. ‘Have you sold anything this week?’
‘It hasn’t been too bad actually. Although it is only Tuesday, you know.’
‘Is it? I lose track of the days. Comes from being at home all the time.’
‘You’ve been at home all the time since you retired ten years ago.’ Dodie couldn’t help a wry smile. ‘And you’re still not used to it? Besides, you’re barely in.’
‘It’s the dark evenings,’ she replied absently, and Dodie decided it wasn’t worth trying to figure out what that even meant. ‘Ooooh, this is nice,’ she added, pulling a long plum-coloured coat from the rail and holding it against herself.
‘It buries you, Gran,’ Dodie said. ‘Far too long.’
‘You think?’ Gran said, disappointment edging her tone.
‘It’d be too long for me, and you’re a good inch shorter.’
‘But you could take it up for me…’
‘I’d ruin the cut with an alteration that big. Best to leave it, Gran.’
‘Shame… I fancied a nice coat. What else have you got?’
Dodie took a deep breath. She loved her dearly, but Gran was definitely her worst ever customer. Once a week she’d turn up at the shop and spend the afternoon trying on clothes she had no intention of ever buying. Dodie had even offered to give her something she liked free of charge, but whatever she pulled from the rails, it was never quite right once she had it on. There must have been dozens of discarded items over the months; Dodie had once gently suggested that her gran continue to get all her clothes from the Victorian department store that was a stalwart of the town and her gran’s usual garment provider of choice, a suggestion which had wounded her gran so deeply that Dodie had never broached the subject again.
‘I had a big pile of forties and fifties stuff in yesterday. Quite a lot of it’s in the dry cleaning you’ve just brought in. Feel free to rummage if you want to… although the green coat is mine so don’t take that.’
Dodie turned the radio down and closed her laptop as her gran went through to the back room where they’d just left the dry cleaning. She gave her phone a quick check for new messages or calls, but there was nothing. At the sound of her gran coming back into the shop her head flicked up, and she had to hold in a groan as she saw that Gran was wearing the very coat she’d just told her not to pick up.
‘This is nice,’ Gran said, plunging her hands into the pockets and snuggling into the fur collar. ‘How much are you going to put this out for?’
‘I said I was going to… oh, never mind. I’d let you have it for free if you wanted it.’
Gran tripped over and kissed Dodie on the cheek. ‘You’re so kind to your old gran. It’s very warm. I’ll bet it cost a pretty penny when it was new.’
‘I think it must have done. It was a worthwhile investment too – just look how it’s lasted. It still looks new.’
Gran went to the full-length mirror and studied her reflection for a moment. ‘I don’t know whether I like green,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps I’ll try something else on. Have you got any beige? B
eige goes with everything.’
Dodie gave her a patient smile. ‘I’ve got something that’s sort of brownish dogtooth, and something a bit tweedy. Any good?’
‘Camel…’ Gran said firmly. ‘Camel is what I’m after. I saw a lovely camel coat in town.’
‘At the department store, by any chance?’
Her gran stared out of the window for a moment. ‘Yes!’ she said, swinging round with surprising speed, as if she’d suddenly been struck by the meaning of life. ‘Yes, it was! Do you have one like that?’
‘I don’t know because I haven’t seen it,’ Dodie replied patiently. ‘It might be easier for you to look through the rails yourself and see if there’s anything similar.’
‘Good idea,’ Gran said, shrugging off the green coat and handing it back to Dodie. ‘First I’ll put the kettle on for a nice cup of tea, eh?’
Twenty minutes later Gran had forgotten about looking for a coat, much to Dodie’s relief, and they were sitting together in the shop with mugs of tea watching the traffic on the road as it rumbled past the window. Gran had left the teabags in too long, distracted by a pigeon fight on the roof of the newsagent opposite, but Dodie never liked to waste anything and now held back a grimace as she swallowed a mouthful of liquid that could very likely strip the paint from her shop front.
‘I remember when this place was an underwear shop,’ Gran said. ‘My mother used to come here for her girdles.’
‘No girdles now, so don’t even think about asking me to find one,’ Dodie said, raising her eyebrows over the rim of her mug as she took another sip. She was going to drink this tea if it killed her. And it probably would.
‘Oh no, I couldn’t bear to wear one. But my mum was never without hers, even in bed. Never liked my dad to see her wobbly bits. It’s no wonder she was dead at sixty, all that squeezing of everything in…’
Dodie had learned to smile patiently at this story. She’d heard it many times before and at first wasn’t quite sure how she was meant to respond. She soon learned that it was the telling of the story Gran was interested in, not necessarily the reaction to it.
‘I suppose it’s changed a lot around here,’ Dodie said.
‘Oh yes, from what it looked like when I was a girl it’s barely recognisable now. All that new building and shops and students everywhere you look. Foreigners too with all the English-language schools that have popped up. Not that I mind foreigners, of course; I’m not one of those National Front types.’
Dodie laughed. ‘I didn’t think you were.’
‘And my grandmother was half Spanish you know.’
‘I know.’
Gran’s tea sloshed dangerously close to the lip of her cup as she reached to pat Dodie’s hand. ‘I’m ever so happy you came back to live here. I was lost the day your mother said she was moving to Dorchester.’
‘I know you were, and I know you missed her at first, but Dorchester’s not exactly Greenland, is it?’
‘It’s ever so hard for me to get there now I’m not so good on my legs.’
Dodie had seen Olympic athletes slower on their feet than her gran, but it wasn’t worth arguing the point. Some people smoked and others drank, but her gran’s vice was gaining the sympathy of whomever she was with, even if that took a little exaggeration of problems that weren’t there in the first place.
‘You don’t have to get there – Mum comes to you.’
‘She’s too busy most of the time.’
‘She comes every fortnight… it’s a lot more than some people get from their relatives.’
‘I know…’ Gran slurped at her tea as she gazed out of the window. ‘Your grandad – God rest his soul – has a cousin in Poole who never sees her son from one week to the next but when he wants money…’ there was a pause for added drama, though it was hardly dramatic when you’d heard the story ten times before, ‘when he wants money he’s there, making a fuss and bringing her chocolate biscuits. When she’s got a packet of Hobnobs in her cupboard then she’s usually got a hole in her bank balance.’ She patted Dodie’s hand again. ‘But you’d never do that to me, would you? And I’m ever so glad that you live here now so I can see a lot more of you.’
‘Me too,’ Dodie smiled. ‘I love it here. And I can’t afford luxuries like Hobnobs so you’re quite safe.’
‘You need money…?’ Gran plonked her tea on the counter and reached for her bag, but Dodie placed a hand on her arm.
‘No, Gran… I was just joking. I’m fine; I don’t need any money.’
‘Well you’d better tell me if you do. Don’t want you lining up at the soup kitchens when I could help.’
‘Don’t worry, I will,’ Dodie said, giving her a fond smile. ‘The minute I’m down to my last Pot Noodle you’ll be the first to know.’
‘Good girl.’ Gran reclaimed her tea and turned to the window again. ‘Don’t let me forget that green coat before I go.’
‘I thought you didn’t want the green coat.’
‘Oh no, it’s beautiful. It’d look lovely with my black shoes.’
Dodie’s gran owned only black shoes – about ten pairs that were virtually all cloned from the same court shoe that had been cobbled some time around 1965, but like many things where her gran was concerned, it was easier not to open up a debate about it.
‘But I thought you wanted a camel coat.’
‘Oh, I saw a camel coat in the big store… the one I like…’
‘Yes, I know which store. I could take you over there later if you want to try it on.’
‘I might do. What time will that be?’
‘I can’t go until the shop’s shut, but I think the rest of the town’s doing late-night opening tonight so it would be no bother to go.’
‘Oh, I expect Countdown will be on then. Best leave it.’
‘OK.’ Dodie tried to swallow some more tea, if only so she wouldn’t have to keep looking at it. ‘So… do you want the green coat or not?’
Gran was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t think I completely like green,’ she said finally. ‘Makes me look peaky. And your grandad hated green. I had a green skirt once and he sulked every time I wore it. So I wore it all the more. One Sunday he spilled gravy all over it on purpose because I wouldn’t take it back to the shop.’
Dodie smiled. Another story she’d heard before, though she often wondered how much of it was true and how often it had been embellished over time. But talk of the green coat brought to mind again the letter she’d found in the pocket.
‘Gran… do you know the area around Wessex Road at all?’
‘I had a friend who lived in Casterbridge Road and it’s quite nearby. Why do you ask?’
‘Was there a woman named Margaret living there at the time? Or a man named George?’
‘How should I know? I hardly know everyone who lives there. This is a very strange question!’
‘I suppose it is. It’s just that I found a letter to someone named Margaret who lived there in 1944 and I wanted to find out where she’d gone.’
‘Blimey, I know you think I’m old but I’m not that old! I don’t know what happened to someone in 1944!’
‘I thought you were born during the war?’
‘Well, I was but I was only a babe in 1944. I’m hardly going to know anyone if I’m still sucking on my dummy, am I?’
‘I suppose not. It was just a thought.’
Gran ran her eyes over the interior of the shop. ‘About time you got your Christmas decorations up? It’ll soon be upon us.’
‘It’s not even December yet.’
‘Still, all the other shops have theirs up.’
Dodie paused. She supposed Gran had a point, and perhaps it was a much more productive use of her time than fretting about an old letter written by a man she’d never met.
‘I’ll do it this week,’ she decided. ‘Want to come and help?’
‘Depends when you decide to do it. You’ll have to give me some warning so I can cancel arrangements.’
&
nbsp; ‘Don’t cancel anything on my account; I just thought you might want to. I’ll ask Ryan if he’s free and we’ll do it together.’
Gran nodded, then drained her cup and plonked it down with a smack of her lips, seemingly blissfully unaware of the awfulness of her tea. She reached for her handbag. ‘Best be off,’ she said. ‘I’m calling bingo for the old folks at the home later.’
Dodie smiled broadly as she gave her a peck on the cheek. Gran was probably older than most of the people in the home she was visiting but the irony seemed genuinely lost on her. ‘Thanks for coming. Be careful going home, won’t you?’
‘Oh yes,’ Gran said cheerfully. ‘I expect Alastair will be passing with his mobility scooter in a minute – I’ll hop on and catch a lift home.’
‘You’re not still flirting with him, are you?’ Dodie wagged a finger at her. ‘If you’ve no intention of dating him it’s not kind to lead him on.’
‘He doesn’t mind one bit and I do like those custard tarts he brings over every Thursday.’
‘Hmmm, I’m sure…’ Dodie said, arching her eyebrow disapprovingly as she saw her out of the shop. Though it was hard to be disapproving with any level of serious commitment where her gran was concerned. ‘Phone me when you get home!’ she called after her, but Gran was already marching down the street.
Chapter Five
It had started to rain. Not the sort of rain you could walk about in either, but rain that bounces from the pavements, holds up traffic and soaks you to the skin in minutes. The shop had been closed for an hour and Dodie had hardly tasted the quick meal of beans on toast she’d eaten while she watched the teatime news. She didn’t know why she watched the news at all, because it only made her miserable, but it was a duty, somehow, like checking on the elderly neighbour in the next street she’d got talking to one morning the month before or making sure that Nick got a sandwich from time to time… Somehow she felt an inexplicable obligation to know what was going on in the world, like by knowing it was in some way helping.
A Very Vintage Christmas: A Heartwarming Christmas Romance (An Unforgettable Christmas Book 1) Page 5
