“I need to go immediately,” Bryn was saying. “Otherwise the daffodils will be gone.”
“Can’t it wait for next Spring?” Nina heard herself saying.
“I doubt very much that I would have received this letter now if it could wait for another full year.” Bryn scanned the letter. “Ah, it says here that I have six months to make a decision.”
“But you could put her on the mantle until next Spring.” Nina knew it sounded selfish, probably petty. But really, he’d just been away – she blushed guiltily; she’d still not read the news articles – and as she’d been bullied into the fete she could see no reason for Bryn to escape the build-up.
Bryn was unpersuaded.
“It can wait until Maudie gets back, after the fete?” Nina was begging. She didn’t want to beg, had never begged in her life except in relation to Greg. There would no more be daffodils in six months time than there would be in two weeks. Maudie had gone. Miss Clapham had gone. Bryn would leave. She and Mayor Laud and Mrs Potts were the only ones to remain.
“I’ll call the funeral home today,” Bryn said. “Right now, in fact.” And he was gone, filled with a strange elation that showed in his step.
The boy at the funeral home – his voice had not yet fully broken – assured Bryn that he could collect Jen’s ashes anytime he liked, with business hours being nine to five. Yes, he could come the following day. What did he intend to do with the ashes? No, he couldn’t bury them on public land, but yes, he could scatter them over the daffodils which Jen had loved so much. Yes, they would expect him by mid-afternoon on the morrow. He merely had to produce the letter and Jen’s death certificate to provide proof of his relationship to her. Or her relationship to him, Bryn decided later.
For now, there was a lot to be done. Unfortunately, he had a shop which must be closed for a couple of days. Unfortunately, Maudie was away and, kind and generous as Claudia and Old Tom (and even the taciturn Mrs Potts) might be, there was a limit to how many places they could be in at one time.
As he counted up the meager takings, he realised he could not afford to close the store even for one day. Miss Clapham had invested in him; he could only return the investment to her with a full commitment. He had already closed the shop for a full day and with Nina closing Sweet Treats every Saturday….
He went back to see Nina.
“I’ve thought it through,” Bryn said. “I’m going to have to close the shop, but I wondered if you’d be able to stock a few papers and some of our most commonly-bought foods – chips and chocolate, fruit juice, tomatoes, and cereal. Oh, and bread of course, perhaps a few potatoes.” He looked at his watch. “It’s Wednesday tomorrow, which means the Smiths will be in town to get their weekly supply of fruit and veges, and on Thursday the Jones’ will want to bring their butter and cheese for trading.” He rubbed his head and sighed. “It’s impossible, isn’t it?” he said. “There’s no time for getting away.”
“There’s also the fete to consider,” Nina said. “And the investigation against Mayor Laud.” She sighed. “But it’s you who has to decide – is family more important than business? Or is business more important than family?”
Bryn cringed. “But Nina,” he said, and his voice was hoarse, “Jen was my family. And Jen’s up there, and I wish she would tell me what to do.”
Impatience made Nina’s voice tart. “Oh, for goodness sake. Did you never make a decision of your own? What do you want to do?”
“Put Jen’s ashes in the daffodils.”
“Then go and do it! Leave me with your shop and your keys and your newspapers and veges. I’ll be fine. Just go! Go!”
“But will you cope?”
“Oh what does that matter?” Nina said, biting her tongue against a litany of people who had already abandoned her. “People will understand.”
“The Mayor wouldn’t.”
“Forget about the Mayor,” Nina said. “Forget about everything.”
“I’ll have to leave tonight,” Bryn said. “Are you sure you’ll be alright?”
Nina nodded, although she was not sure that she’d be alright at all. “Don’t worry so much,” she said. “Get some closure.”
“I should be back before the fete.”
“Yes,” Nina said. “You’d better get cracking. You have work to do.”
Chapter 48
c. AD 1344, FRANCE: candied oranges, lemons, limes, and tamarinds are served at the coronation feast for Pope Clement VI.
“You’re very quiet,” Mrs Potts said at dinner that night.
Nina looked up from her plate of sauerkraut. How did the Germans eat this stuff? It tasted like rotten cabbage. And what did Mrs Potts care about her? She was always telling her to quieten down.
“I need your help.”
“Bah!” Mrs Potts said. “Help? Nobody’s asked me for help for many a long year.”
Nina trailed her fork through the sauerkraut. “Bryn is taking Jen’s ashes somewhere distant,” she said. “I told him I’d sell his newspapers and veges from Sweet Treats but I think we need to keep both places open, even if it’s only for part of the day each. I’m afraid Laud Mayor will come by and see one of us closed.”
“Bah,” Mrs Potts said again. “Huh.”
“Will you help?”
“I should think not,” Mrs Potts said. “Not with Laud Mayor likely to put his irritating face in the doorway.”
Nina joined Mrs Potts with cleaning the plates. Neither said a word. The silence was not comfortable, nor was it uncomfortable. It was somewhere in-between. When the kitchen was once more stickily clean, Nina sighed and went to her room.
She could hear the television through the wall. She heard the grandmother clock chime the hour and the half-hour, then the hour again. Cicadas screeched in the dark. Occasionally a car could be heard on the main road. Perhaps if she juggled things carefully she could manage until Bryn and Maudie returned.
She found a scrap of paper in her bag. On one side was a picture Greg had drawn – a horse drawn carriage with a cat looking out the carriage window. All around the edge of the carriage he had drawn oversized lollipops. The children’s therapist had encouraged Greg to have a go; he’d been talking about his dreams and she had asked him to draw one.
“This dream,” he had said, “makes me feel like the world is a magic place.”
The back of the paper was blank. Nina had thought she could write lightly but decided she could not deface in any way Greg’s dream. An old receipt was the only other paper, but its waxy surface did not encourage the pen to leave a mark.
She eyed the chest of drawers. Perhaps Mrs Potts had a little paper in one of those drawers.
The top drawer held an array of knitting needles, darning needles, sewing needles, and pins. There was no need to rummage; the drawer was immaculately arranged.
The second drawer held a small stack of folded brown paper, probably saved to wrap a parcel to send in the post. Perhaps a strip could be cut from one side, Nina thought. Mrs Potts wouldn’t even know it had gone. Beneath the brown paper was folded cellophane and tissue paper. A little crepe paper stuffed down the side completed the contents of the drawer.
The third drawer contained nothing except for a couple of faded chocolate boxes. The boxes were empty – Mrs Potts must have perhaps liked the picture on the box. Maybe the boxes reminded her of a special someone.
Curiosity drew her onwards. She took a look in the fourth drawer. It was packed full of art magazines, just as Mrs Potts had said. A little more than half were opened, slightly tatty with regular reading, becoming less tatty as the dates became more recent. Presumably only one or two people had been reading the later issues. The most recent – which were still fairly ancient – were all in their wrappers, every single one of them addressed to Miss M Clapham, Mrs N Potts, and Mrs L O’Brien. Definitely Bryn’s mother.
She heard Mrs Potts moving about in the kitchen, and then she heard voices. There came a knock on her door, Nina started. “Hang on a minu
te,” she said as she slid the drawer shut, praying it would not squeak on its runners.
“Bryn wants to see you.” Mrs Potts shouted through the door. “I’ve reminded him of his responsibilities. Told him he could wait until next Spring. Told him, too, that you’d keep his shop open.”
Nina sagged. Meddling old woman, she thought. Poor Bryn.
*
Bryn had come to tell Nina he was on his way. He gave her the key to his shop. “Only open the shop if you really want to,” he said. “It’s more important that you keep Sweet Treats going. There’s no alarm. Be careful with the kauri floors. There’s a soft broom out back beside the mop and bucket. Don’t be pushing the bucket along the floor – you’ll need to lift it. When you push it, it gouges the timber.
“You’ll receive some deliveries in the next couple of days. I’ve organised them all. Just check the inward goods against the delivery documents. If you don’t balance at the end of the day, leave a note and start fresh the next day. I’ll figure it out when I get back. There’s a book beneath the counter which is where I record Laud Mayor’s purchases. I’ve made a sign to go on the door so customers will come to you if they need something when you’re not there.” He paused for breath. “You’re not to worry about Staceys.”
“You will be back in soon, won’t you?” Nina said. “It’s just that you sound like you’re going away for a month.”
Bryn tossed his keys from hand to hand. “If Laud Mayor asks any questions, just tell him that I’m off to buy a new car – probably a Porsche on account of my successful business career. That will give him something to think about. Or you could tell him I’ve gone to buy a star, or something equally ridiculous.”
“Will you just go?” Nina said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Here’s my number,” Bryn said, and he rattled off a number about a million digits long. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
“You won’t be back until you’re done,” Nina said. “Now, go!”
Chapter 49
c. AD 1390, CHINA: hollow sugar figures become a confectioner’s specialty.
“Dear God, please don’t let the Mayor come today. Please, please, please, keep him busy somewhere else.”
“Is there a problem?”
Nina’s eyes opened wide. She knew that voice. Without even looking she knew it belonged to Laud Mayor himself.
“No problem,” Nina said. “No problem at all.”
“Why is Staceys closed?”
“Goodness, you’ll need to ask Bryn that,” Nina said, and hoped the Mayor had not already heard about Bryn’s temporary departure.
“And where will I find him?”
Nina gritted her teeth, at the same time trying to appear relaxed. “I don’t know,” she said, tiredness etched into her voice. “I don’t know. Is there a reason I should know?”
“It doesn’t take much of an imagination to guess that you and Maudie and Bryn will be thick as thieves. You are, after all, all managing one woman’s interests, and you’re also all the major (cough, cough) retailers in this godforsaken place.”
“Well, I don’t know where he is. Honestly.” And she was being honest, Nina thought to herself. He could be anywhere – in a motel, at the funeral parlour, on a grassy hill, perhaps even still driving. “If I knew, I would most definitely tell you,” she said, nodding her head vigorously, hoping he’d believe her and leave.
Laud Mayor narrowed his eyes and looked Nina up and down. “Bryn has a signed contract which he must honour,” he said. “As do you. All shops must remain open seven days a week. Even yours.”
Nina bit her tongue. She would not get involved. She would honour her beliefs; she would not be bullied or coerced into doing something she did not want to do.
Laud Mayor jingled a handful of coins. “Two Irish moss,” he said, and dropped the coins onto the counter where they promptly rolled away onto the floor. “Two Irish moss, and five aniseed wheels.”
Nina found it in herself to smile at him as he left the shop. She would not lower herself to his standards. Nor would she deign to scrummage on the floor and find his coins. They could stay there, they would be a reminder that she had some dignity. It might be a bit shaky a lot of the time, but it was still there.
Greg, she knew, would be cheering her on. Then he would scrounge on the floor himself for the shiny coins, asking if he could add them to his piggy bank. He was so close to buying a third length of track for his trains. She could give him money for his birthday and then he’d have enough.
Except he wasn’t here anymore to save money and collect trains, Nina remembered with a dull shudder. The pain of remembering far outweighed the pleasure of those memories. Her gut wrenched, and bile rose in her throat. She felt hot, she felt cold. Sweat dampened her hands, and drenched the back of her neck, trickling down her spine. She put her head against the cool wood of the table and pressed her eyes shut, willing the nausea and the pain and the misery of life without Greg to go away.
It was Old Tom who found her. It was Old Tom who shuffled away, silently, to fetch his wife. She would know what to do. She would know what to say. He would stick to the practicalities – chopping more wood, hauling more water, washing the shop windows.
But it was Vonnie whose tread was first heard on the wooden floor only seconds before an entire busload of people spilled onto the footpath. She bustled into Sweet Treats, took one look at the shaking Nina and locked the door. “We’ll have a pot of tea,” she said, looking about for the kettle, and when she saw none and registered there was no electricity, she set upon Claudia who had slipped in the back door and was even now setting a frilled cap upon her head.
“Nice to meet you.” Claudia nodded at Vonnie even though no introductions had been made and wedged the front door open.
“How could there not be even the tiniest buzz of electric current in this place,” Vonnie demanded. “Look at the poor child – worn out, ill, and with not even a light switch to her name. It is appalling.”
Old Tom shuffled uncomfortably beside the fire. Would he add more wood, or would he simply refill the woodbox? “Miss Clapham has never needed the electrics,” he muttered. “And Nina is hardly a child.”
“She is barely old enough to have left school.”
“I’m nearly twenty-five,” Nina whispered, but Vonnie took no notice.
“And she hasn’t had a decent meal since I was here last,” Vonnie said. “It’s no wonder she’s wrung out. The poor child.”
Up until now, Nina hadn’t felt like a child at all, but now as her breathing returned to normal and the blood returned to her head she realised she rather liked having a moment as a child. It had been a long time since she’d been anything but a mother. Or a not-mother.
Another ragged breath caught in her throat, but this time Nina had her wits about her enough to crush the nausea before it enveloped her. “I’ll be alright now,” she said to Claudia. “Truly. It just comes over me sometimes.”
Vonnie nodded, but made no attempt to leave. “Does this happen to you very often? Have you seen a doctor?”
Nina nodded. “I’m alright,” she said again. Vonnie looked dubious, but her next words were kind.
“Whoever owns Sweet Treats would be inordinately proud of you,” she said. “There are not many girls these days who would work in a difficult situation such as this.”
“No!”
Vonnie, misunderstanding, nodded her head. “You are a one-in-a-million girl. Your parents must be proud of you.”
“No! I mean, no! The Mayor. Laud Mayor. I must see! Is he at the café?”
Vonnie shrugged. “If he’s a little fellow with a paunch and an air of false grandeur, petting a stray cat, then that would be him sitting at the bus stop,” she said, “Probably he’s having a wee gloat, but that’s nothing for us to worry about.”
“Not worry!” Nina shrieked. “He worries us all sick!”
“Ah, he’s only a man,” Vonnie said, patting Nina’s hand. “And all men are
the same. Give him food in his belly and he’ll be happy.”
“He’s not that easy,” Nina said.
“She’s right, you know,” Claudia said when the last customer had gone. “He’s a difficult one and he’s even more difficult now that Miss Clapham has gone.”
Vonnie looked from one to the other, shrewdly, causing them both to look at each other in case they were somehow to blame for Laud Mayor’s behaviour.
It was Claudia who broke the silence. “Miss Clapham will get him sorted. She’ll be back.”
Chapter 50
c. AD 1429, PORTUGAL: Prince Henry succeeds in growing sugarcane on the Canary Islands and Madeira.
Sweet Treats Page 13
