She read and read and read. The author had managed to tell the story of his ancestors from their arrival on the back of a wagon pulled by four bullocks over narrow tracks in the middle of a miserable winter. It told of the early efforts to clear the land so food could be grown. There had been a well, dug deep into the ground and lined with bricks brought from England in the ship’s hull. Visitors were welcomed with open arms, with the best of hospitality offered, but life was no holiday and even guests were expected to help on the land and around the house.
Nina didn’t want to skip ahead in the story but she knew she had to if she were to discover the characters who most recently lived in the area.
She found Bryn’s ancestors and was surprised. She’d not realised his long association with the area. In the early 1900’s his great-grandmother married a young Irish boy. Sean O’Brien fathered thirteen children, all of whom survived, primarily due to the stubborn persistence of his wife in feeding their growing brood decent food and encouraging hard work with laughs for fun.
Now for Mrs Potts, Nina muttered. Her father had been the misguided Reginald Winkham, but who was her mother? When had her parents died? What kind of people did others outside the home consider them to be?
The cat yowled on the dot of 4am. Nina put the book down. She couldn’t have stayed awake all night! If she shut her eyes she might manage a couple of hours sleep. She’d just have to get by and be in bed early to catch up.
But it wasn’t to be.
Chapter 45
c. AD 1287, ENGLAND: the royal household uses 677 pounds of sugar, 300 pounds of violet sugar, and 1900 pounds of rose sugar.
Bryn was, as always, first through the door.
“You’ll want to read this,” he said roughly, dropping a well-thumbed copy of An Hysterical History on the shop counter. “It’s fairly accurate – there’s a chapter about the school, which went from Year One to Year Twelve, Primer One to Form Six in the old days. Mrs Potts and Miss Clapham are in the class photos. Along with Mum.”
Nina flicked straight to the school photos. She wouldn’t have recognised anyone in the picture, so she searched the names. Marilla Clapham. Nellie Winkham. Laney Blake was underlined – perhaps she was Bryn’s mother.
They’d all been in the same Historical Art class. A small photograph, looking like a snapshot from a cheap camera took pride of place in the centre of the page. It was unfocused, but the words beneath were clear. Winners of the Historical Art Award – and there were listed Marilla Clapham, Nellie Winkham, and Laney Blake. A short paragraph accompanied the image. The trophy had been presented by one Henry Laud at an official ceremony at a large university.
Nina’s eyes narrowed as she stared towards the images on the wall beneath Queen Victoria. This was the clue – the biggest clue she’d be likely to get. Henry Laud must be the mayor’s father or uncle or even an older brother. Bryn must know what had caused the team to shatter, presumably irreparably.
The bell tinkled and Nina was brought back to the present with a jolt. Laud Mayor stood before her, drumming his fingers impatiently, picking up the weights for the scales, weighing them in his hands. He moved towards the wall where Queen Victoria hung, a quarter-pound weight still in his hand. He studied the pictures on the wall, fist clenching and unclenching, oblivious to Nina. It was the twisting of the metal lid on the jar of sugar sticks that drew his attention back to the present. In AD1274 Prince Henry had been given sticks of rose- and violet-flavoured sugar to make him well; perhaps a bag of sugar sticks would do something to soften Laud Mayor’s hardened heart.
Laud Mayor looked at her outstretched hand and slammed the weight onto the bench. Jars jumped in protest, and the sherbets slid in slow motion to the floor. “You can not buy me,” he roared. “I don’t want your petty gifts.”
Nina was shaking as she swept up the spilled sherbet and realigned the lolly jars. He had taken the sweets she’d proffered, probably unaware he’d even accepted the bag. It dawned on her as he threatened Queen Victoria with a closed fist (she was thankful he’d at least put down the weight) that the poor prince had not recovered from his illness, despite taking all his medicine.
“Where is that woman?” he shouted, turning to Nina. “You’re hiding her, I know. You women are all the same. Conniving cows.”
She wanted to snatch the bag of sweets from him except he was gone. At any rate, her mother would be appalled if she resorted to childlike behaviour and her father would have strapped her bottom. The ache in the bottom of her heart seemed to expand her chest so she could no longer breathe. The sting of tears pricked her eyes, but none fell.
*
Bryn exploded the bag of potato chips in his hands. There was always a chance that the bag would pop from the bottom. Then again, there were always more chips on the shelf. He’d seen Laud Mayor shake his fist through the window and he’d seen the small bag in his hand which could only have been sweets. Nina was obviously still heaping coals on the Mayor’s head. He wondered what he could do to heap burning coals but when he thought of the Mayor’s already long list of debt to the store, he couldn’t see what he could possibly give the Mayor that might make him see the villagers as real people.
Perhaps it wasn’t about giving, Bryn thought. Perhaps it was more about doing. Jen would have known what to do. Jen, he supposed, would have invited Laud Mayor for dinner.
He took a deep breath, took a great fistful of chips, crushed them and poured them into his mouth. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t, have Laud Mayor sit at his table and eat.
Chapter 46
c. AD 1300, EUROPE: fashionable kitchens serve thin, crisp white wafers made by pressing sugar and rosewater paste between hot iron tongs; EUROPE: doctors prescribe manu Christi, a medicinal hard candy made from sugar, flowers, rose water, and sometimes gold leaf or pearls.
How glad Nina was that she’d chosen to take a day of rest each week. To get away from the wood and the fire and the well and the endless bowls of sugar and butter and milk and, and, and…
She walked the length of the beach. When there was no more sand she clambered over sharp rocks embedded with cockles. The shells scraped her fingers, and she grazed a shin when she missed her step. Tinsy little fish swam in hot puddles, waiting for the tide to come in and sweep them back to the sea and on to another puddle in the sun. Crabs skittered beneath rocks when her shadow fell across their world. A jellyfish lay drying in the sun, and Nina eased it slowly into the water. Against her work-hardened hands she felt the thick roughness of the jellyfish’s body and marvelled that a creature so completely at the whim of the tides should survive.
“You make everything good.” Nina looked up into the blue sky as she spoke. She needed to spend more of her daylight hours away from Sweet Treats. She had thought she’d have time to lie on the beach, walk along the sand, read her Bible and listen for God. Yet here she was, up before dawn and back at Mrs Potts’ after the sun dropped over the horizon, collapsing more often than not with exhaustion. It was too easy to get too busy.
She looked across the sea and into the distance. Her father had once told her that Australia could be seen anywhere along the west coast of New Zealand. It wasn’t true, she knew, but there was no harm in using one’s imagination. Her father had also told her to check the hundreds and thousands on the little cupcakes Mum made. The black ones, he said, were ant poo. She’d believed every word he said when she was little; as she grew older she became less gullible, but she never got tired of her father’s silly stories. The happy memories lingered on, and her thoughts turned to the life she had lived with Greg.
They’d had fun together. She’d shared some of her father’s odd stories with Greg and he’d laughed uproariously. Sometimes he’d believed her, other times he didn’t. She should have let him experience the jokes at his grandfather’s knee instead of being such a fool as to separate herself from her family.
She quashed the ever-ready self-criticism before it had a chance to turn into a full-on tsunami of guilt.
<
br /> Old Tom had given her an ancient fishing line. “Not saying that I agree with you closing the shop on Saturday but if you’re going to shut, you’d better make the most of your time away. Go right to the end of the beach, over the rocks to a secluded cove, and catch a fish or two. You can light a little fire and have fish for lunch.” He’d given her his fishing knife too and a small pot of bait which must have been sitting around for at least a decade it smelled so bad! She gave him a bag of coconut ice and a dozen spice biscuits in return.
Nina took one last look back along the beach before rounding the bend. Not a single person lay ahead or behind her. The world was her own.
*
There was a word Nina especially liked: beachcomber. When she was a little girl, she had thought it meant to comb the sand on the beach. She had taken her father’s comb from its drawer one day and diligently combed the beach. As the tide came in and erased her nice, clean comb lines, she had decided there wasn’t much use in combing anything. That meant there couldn’t be much point in brushing anything either. She had refused to have her hair brushed for a whole week until her mother, in desperation, threatened to shave her head.
She had learnt as she grew that a person who trawls among the flotsam and jetsam of the beach for useful or curious items is a beachcomber. Her English teacher had encouraged word study and she still felt a burst of national pride to remember that ‘beachcomber’ was recognised as a word originating in New Zealand.
Today, she combed the sand once again, clawing her fingers and making short scratches into the smooth sand. Her shoulders didn’t ache nearly as much as they had previously – she must be developing muscles from beating fudge all week long. Her nose was burnt from the sun already. But the tide was perfect for fishing and it was a mere five minutes after throwing in the line and sinker that a snapper took the bait and in short shrift was set upon the burning coals to cook.
Nina wrenched An Hysterical History from her bag. She flipped to the page where Mrs Potts, Miss Clapham and Bryn’s mother grinned at the camera. She’d asked Mrs Potts about the award. Mrs Potts had very briefly looked like the girl she had once been before a cloud settled over her face. “Make a cup of tea, girl,” she’d said. “It’s been a long time since I thought about that trophy.”
It had been an achievement, Nina thought, as she licked her fingers of the fish. Clearly, the three had worked closely together towards the goal. The prize had been $500, which had been divided between the three of them, and a five-year subscription to a prominent art magazine, again to be shared among them all. Most of the magazines were in the bottom drawer in Nina’s room, Mrs Potts had said. She’d been the only one who hadn’t gone away, so it had made sense that she keep the magazines. Who would care to lug them all around the place in an already stuffed suitcase?
Mrs Potts had said she could look at them if the urge took her. She rubbed her hands against her shorts, then turned to the Village Business page. She had thought it might be advertising to offset the cost of publication. Instead it listed every business ever known in the village. Butcher, baker, even a candlestick maker. Blacksmith, accountant, book binder, haberdasher, stationery & book stores. The pub, the petrol station, a farm implements store. Tinsmith, bodger, farrier – the list went on and on.
She returned to the index. Clapham. There was one Clapham family, made up of Miss Clapham and her parents. Her father was listed as a sheep farmer, her mother as a housewife. Miss Clapham’s occupation was listed as confectioneer.
If Miss Clapham’s other businesses weren’t mentioned, could it be that she had taken them on only in the past two years since the book went to press? Or could it be that the general public did not know that she owned the café and Staceys? Nina doubted the possibility. It was obvious Laud Mayor knew about the multiple ownerships. And surely the whole community would at least know Miss Clapham owned Staceys after the fiasco of Mrs Potts’ father’s will. It seemed to Nina that she was working in ever-increasing circles with no progress whatsoever being made.
She shoved the book into her backpack and pulled out her Bible. She had no plans what she would read. She’d just open it and read a bit of whatever took her fancy. She wondered where the closest church was – it didn’t matter which denomination. She’d like to listen to a sermon, to wallow in the traditions of a group of worshipers.
The Bible fell open at the small concordance in the last few pages. It was little wonder, Nina thought. The concordance, which was more a list of verses linked by subject material than sharing a common word, was the part Greg liked looking at: how to live peaceably, how to settle disputes, how to be comforted in sorrow, how to respond to criticism. So much practical advice, along with other topics: the Sabbath, Jesus’ second coming, the state of the dead.
Nina’s eyes filled with tears as she stared, mesmerized, at the Bible verses which she had read while Greg lay in the hospital bed, as white as the sheets pulled tight beneath him. Greg would sleep, he would be buried in the ground, he would turn to ashes, to dust, and one day he would rise again when Jesus came to take them home.
How did other people cope, Nina wondered. She was glad she had no need to feel guilty about her private grief, her misery, her outright anguish because he might watch her from heaven. She was glad he wasn’t one of the stars in the sky. When the days were too dark and the nights too long she took comfort knowing that Greg no longer suffered; that he slept, that one day she would see him again and they would never be separated ever again.
A gust of wind blew sand into Nina’s eyes, tearing the fine paper of her Bible. She turned against the wind, and waited for calm to descend once again. It did, and she watched the tide slowly come in. Before it got too late, she clambered over the rocks and back to Mrs Potts’ cabbage soup.
Red cabbage, white cabbage, green cabbage. The soup was really quite pretty, she said to Mrs Potts. She closed her mouth firmly against describing the taste. If she dared describe Mrs Potts’ food, she knew she’d never be able to eat it ever again.
“It tastes like pee,” she wrote in her journal, then crossed heavily through the words. What an awful, awful thing to say. And how did she think she knew what pee tasted like anyway? She tapped her pen against the page. “It tastes like…” she twiddled the pen between her fingers, but the right words evaded her. “Pee.”
Chapter 47
c. AD 1319, ENGLAND: Venetian traders sell 50 tons of sugar for £10,800 in today’s money ($20,460,000US).
Bryn’s letter came before Miss Clapham returned. It came while Maudie was off shopping in the metropolis. It came the same day Nina received a blank postcard from John, adorned with a new array of stamps and telling her nothing at all except that someone remembered her. Someone knew where she was.
Bryn turned up at Sweet Treats with the offending article held between two fingers. “I’ve got to decide what to do with Jen.”
Nina had no idea what Bryn was speaking of. When she realised it was a letter informing Bryn that Jen’s ashes had to be interred somewhere in the near future, she stared at him blankly.
“What do I do?” he said.
“About what exactly?” Nina said. Surely he didn’t want her to tell him what to do with his wife’s ashes.
“The ashes,” Bryn said. Unbidden, a picture snapped into her mind of she and Bryn sailing into the wind, flinging the ashes over the water and back into their faces while singing Abide with Me. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t.
“What would Jen want?” Nina said.
“She’d want to be alive,” Bryn said.
“I’m sure she would.” Nina stalled for time. Perhaps Bryn would come to his own conclusions if she waited long enough.
“She always loved the sea,” Bryn said, uncertainty making his voice waver.
“Hmmmm.” Nina was determined not to get involved.
Bryn re-read the letter. “She did have a favourite tree. It was on a hill, which had a phenomenal display of daffodils and jonquils in the spring. The
hill, I mean, not the tree.”
Nina waited for Bryn to complete his thought. It was interesting that he’d stopped speaking in incomplete sentences as they’d got to know each other better. He really wasn’t a bad sort of guy, she supposed.
“If I were to call the funeral parlour today, perhaps I could spread her ashes over the daffodils. She’d like that.”
Nina nodded. “I’m sure she would.”
“The problem is,” Bryn said, “that this hill with its daffodils isn’t here. It’s hours away. We were there for our honeymoon.”
Nina had nothing to say about that. It was all rather embarrassing and she wished Maudie had not gone away. Maudie should be the one to help her brother make this decision. Maudie could even have gone with Bryn to do the deed. Her eyes widened and her mouth formed a silent ‘o’. Please, don’t ask me to go with you, she begged, silently. I’m not the right person for the job.
There is time, the small voice in her head comforted her. He won’t go before the fete and Maudie will be back by then. Perhaps Miss Clapham will be back too.
Sweet Treats Page 12
