‘There’s just one thing, though, Mum.’
‘What?’
‘Promise me. No Bruno Mars.’
The End
Author Bio Sophie Claire writes emotional stories set in England and in sunny Provence, where she spent her summers as a child.
Previously, she worked in marketing and proofreading academic papers, but now she’s delighted to spend her days dreaming up heartwarming contemporary romance stories set in beautiful places. Find out more about Sophie
The Girl Who Didn’t Win
by
Kate Field
It was raining – of course it was. Clare had just spent her last £20 on her first cut and blow dry in over six months, so what else had she expected? The weather had already ruined her life. It was hardly going to baulk at messing up a hairstyle.
She dashed along the pavement towards the bus stop, fat dollops of rain pounding on the top of her head and squeezing down the gap between her neck and the collar of her jacket. A taxi roared past, too close to the kerb, drenching her in the dirty water that was bubbling back up from the drains. She hadn’t seen rain like this since January, not since the floods that had washed away the final traces of her life with Ed…
Stopping to empty water from her shoe, Clare leant on a gate outside a shop she’d barely glanced at before – Miss Moonshine’s Wonderful Emporium. Lights glowed in the tall windows, brightening the gloom of the afternoon and drawing her in with the promise of warmth inside. She headed down the path to the door, which creaked and jingled as she pushed it open.
‘Oh my dear, whatever happened? You’re soaked through!’
A lady of indeterminate age, with a shock of white hair and a kind smile, approached Clare as she stepped into the shop.
‘I was caught in the rain,’ Clare began, but as she gestured at the window, instead of the rain-speckled glass she had intended to point out, a streak of sunshine filtered through the dusty pane.
‘This summer weather is so fickle, isn’t it?’ the lady said, holding out a towel that she seemed to produce from nowhere. ‘Here, rub yourself down. You’ll soon dry off. Why don’t you take your time and have a little browse? There’s something for everyone here.’
Clare thought it unlikely that there’d be anything for her, unless Miss Moonshine was giving things away, but after the kindness with the towel she felt obliged to feign some interest. Only she didn’t have to feign it. As she wandered through the higgledy-piggledy rooms that made up the shop, table after drawer after cupboard held something to catch her eye: vintage clutch bags in vibrant jewel colours, pretty glass perfume bottles, exquisitely embroidered samplers, cases of glittering costume jewellery… It had all been laid out with obvious love and care.
She wandered upstairs and through to the furthest room, under the eaves. A gate-legged mahogany table filled the centre of the room, and on top of it stood a magnificent Georgian-style doll’s house. And beyond that… Clare’s feet were irresistibly drawn to the bookcase in the corner, where every space was crammed with old books: some antiquarian with their plain spines and elegant gold lettering, others more modern with a rainbow of glossy dust jackets. She picked out a book and flicked carefully through the pages, inhaling the faint, musty smell and letting the memories unfurl around her.
‘Ah, you’re interested in the books?’ Miss Moonshine had followed her without her noticing.
‘This is valuable. It’s a first edition.’ Clare opened it and showed it to Miss Moonshine. ‘You should be selling this for at least ten times as much.’
‘Really? I had no idea. You know your books. Are you a collector?’
‘I sell them. Sold them.’ Clare sighed. Six months on, and the pain and disappointment were no less acute. ‘We had a second-hand bookshop, down in the Cotswolds.’
‘How lovely! But you no longer have it?’
‘No.’ Clare tried a shrug, but grief lay too heavily on her shoulders. ‘Everything was lost in the floods last January.’
Everything in the shop, and every hope of replacing it, because Clare had discovered that they didn’t have insurance for the stock, or for the interruption to the business. Her fiancé, Ed, had always sorted out the insurance, and last year, without him, she had simply renewed the same policy without giving it a thought. Losing all they had built together had been like losing him all over again.
She was dragged back to the present by a gentle pressure on her arm.
‘You’ve had some bad luck,’ Miss Moonshine said. ‘It won’t last, my dear. I’m very grateful to you for telling me about this book. Is there anything I can tempt you with?’
‘No, I’m sorry, not today.’
Clare wandered back downstairs to the front of the shop. Weak sunshine still filtered through the windows.
‘I know what might suit you.’ Miss Moonshine opened an ornate walnut cupboard to reveal several boxes piled on shelves. ‘I call these my Lucky Dip boxes. There’s all sorts in them, and only £20 a box. I have one here that’s mainly books.’
She picked out a box and put it down on the counter, next to a tiny chihuahua that had curled up to sleep in a patch of sun. The top item was a slim volume of love poetry, identical to one Ed had given Clare many years ago at university, and that had been lost in the flood. She reached out to stroke the cover.
‘I’m sorry, I really don’t have the money…’
She pushed her hands into her pockets to prevent the temptation to rummage further through the box. Her fingers snagged on a crumpled piece of paper. She pulled it out and stared at the screwed-up £20 note in her hand.
Miss Moonshine laughed.
‘It’s almost as if it were meant to be…’
*
Half an hour later, Clare returned to her parents’ house, Miss Moonshine’s Lucky Dip box in her arms. She had lived here for four months now, boomeranging back when it was clear that her business – her life – had no future.
‘Hello love, how was your day? Your hair looks nice.’ Michelle, Clare’s mum, met her in the hall. ‘What have you got there?’ She peered in at the top of the box. ‘Books? Ooh, does this mean you’re thinking of getting back on your feet again?’
The hope on Michelle’s face was hard to bear. Clare’s parents had taken her in without hesitation when she had needed them, devastated first by Ed’s death and then by the loss of the bookshop. They tiptoed round her despair, cheering her on as if she were an unsteady toddler, needing encouragement to walk after taking her first tumble. Her head told her how lucky she was. Her heart was too numb to feel it.
‘No. I don’t know…’
She couldn’t if she wanted to. She had no money. All her savings were tied up in the shop, which no one wanted to buy now it was a known flood risk. And even if she’d had the money, how could she ever replace what she’d lost? There could never be another Ed. The bookshop had been their dream; they had worked long hours in jobs they hated for years to save up the money to buy it. She had already experienced the best that life could offer. How could she follow that?
‘Well, there’s no rush, is there? We love having you here.’
Her mum was still smiling as Clare hurried up the stairs to her room. She put the Lucky Dip box in the centre of the bed and started to take out the items, starting with the poetry book, which she carefully laid to one side. There were five other books, mainly of nominal value, although one first edition easily justified the price of the box. Below the books lay a bizarre collection of odds and ends: a pack of Royal Wedding playing cards, a tarnished compact mirror with beaded case, and buried right at the bottom, almost hidden below the base flap of the box, was a small sequinned purse. It looked like something belonging to a child, and Clare was about to toss it to one side when she felt something heavy inside.
The teeth of the zip were bent, and it took several forceful attempts to open the purse. The zip finally gave way and a splash of silver flew out and landed on the bed. It was a charm bracelet, real silver according
to the hallmark, but it only had one charm attached in the shape of a lucky four-leaf clover.
Clare fastened it onto her wrist. It was a perfect fit, and the clover shone as it caught the sunlight bursting through the window. It could have been made for her. Her conscience prickled. Miss Moonshine couldn’t have known this bracelet was there, or she wouldn’t have left it to languish in a box of scraps. Perhaps she ought to take it back… But she knew, as she ran her fingers over the intricate chain, that she wouldn’t. Perhaps, as Miss Moonshine had said, this was meant to be. She was due some luck at last, wasn’t she?
*
The following Friday lunchtime, Clare headed to the newsagent’s opposite the Haven Bridge Picture House. It was her regular end-of-week indulgence: one scratch card, in the hope that she would win the jackpot. She hadn’t thought through what she would do if she did win. The money wasn’t even the point; since the first time, buying a card had become an addiction, the tiny flare of hope like a needle prick, reminding her that she was still capable of feeling something.
She arrived at the door of the newsagent’s at the same time as a glamorous young woman, beautifully made up and with straight blonde hair as glossy as a mirror. They reached for the handle at the same time, clashing hands.
‘Sorry,’ Clare said, automatically drawing back. She opened the door and stepped aside. ‘After you.’
‘No, it’s fine, after you.’
‘No, I insist.’
The other woman smiled and entered the shop, heading straight to the counter at the back. The shop assistant nodded in recognition at Clare, while the woman dithered over her selection of chocolate bars.
‘And I’ll take one of those scratch cards as well,’ she said with a pretty laugh, pointing at the roll of scratch cards that Clare always chose. It was a special contest, with a top prize of £100,000, which always seemed just the right amount to do something with, even if she didn’t know what that something would be. ‘You never know your luck, do you?’
Clare had a pretty good idea of her luck, but nevertheless as the blonde woman moved to one side to put her change away, Clare handed over her money for a scratch card and immediately scratched away at it, the charm bracelet banging against her wrist as she did. The weekly flicker of hope soared and then died, and she crumpled up the card.
‘Better luck next week,’ the shop assistant said, as he always did. ‘It will –’
Whatever else he had planned to say was drowned out by a shriek. The other customer was staring at the card in her hand.
‘I think I’ve won,’ she said, but from the puzzled frown on her face she clearly doubted her own words. ‘Is this right? Can you check?’
She held out the scratch card to Clare, who took it in stunned silence. How unbelievable was this? She had bought a scratch card from the same shop at the same time every Friday for the last four months, without ever coming close to winning, and now, on the day she had let – no, insisted – that someone went before her in the queue, she had missed out on what – £50? £100?
But it was so much worse than that. Clare looked at the card, then at the woman, then handed it over to the shop assistant.
‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘You’ve only gone and won the jackpot. A hundred grand? That’s all right, innit?’ He looked at Clare and grinned. ‘Could have been yours if you’d got in first. Bit unlucky there, weren’t you, love?’
*
Clare wasn’t going to bother going to the newsagent’s the following Friday – what were the chances of finding two winning scratch cards in the same shop? – but Nicky, Clare’s boss at the pharmacy where she worked, took one look at the drizzle and asked Clare to pop out and pick up the latest edition of her favourite magazine. Of course, this Friday there was no rush for the door, no queue for scratch cards, Clare noted, twirling the lucky charm bracelet on her wrist in a way that had become a habit already. In fact, the shop was empty except for the usual shop assistant and a tall, dark-haired man flicking through the magazines.
‘Here she is!’ the shop assistant cried as Clare walked between the shelves of confectionery to the counter. ‘Didn’t I tell you she’d be in? She’s not missed a week these last four months.’
Was he talking about her? But who was he talking to? Clare looked round. The other customer shoved his magazine on the shelf and walked over.
‘Hi, I’m Ben Murphy from the West Yorkshire Times.’
Clare didn’t need the introduction. She knew exactly who he was. He was Ben Murphy from Haven Bridge High School; that wide, slanting smile was instantly familiar, even though it must be almost sixteen years since she had last seen him. Clearly she had no features worth remembering, or perhaps grief had stained them beyond recognition. She took a step nearer the counter, sure that there must have been a mistake. What could he want with her?
‘Hang on, I know you, don’t I?’ he said, frowning. ‘Were you in my year at school? Chloe…?’
‘Clare. It’s Clare.’ There had been a Chloe in their year: riotous blonde curls, a bust to rival the South Pennines, and a father who owned an off-licence – all irresistible attributes to teenage boys. Including Ben Murphy, if Clare remembered rightly, from what she had glimpsed from behind the safety of her books.
‘Of course! You were the bright one of the year, weren’t you? Spent your time working hard, unlike me. I never concentrated unless there was a ball heading my way.’
Ben hadn’t needed to work. He had been destined to take over the family business, a successful construction company, so exam results were a bonus, not a necessity. But hadn’t he said he was from a newspaper? Clare shrank even further from him. The press had crawled – or waded, more accurately – all over the ruins of her bookshop and the other buildings that had been damaged in the flood, hunting down “human interest” stories. They had homed in on her, somehow discovering that the loss of the business had come barely 18 months after losing Ed, reducing her personal tragedy to a story that would be forgotten within hours…
‘What do you want?’ she asked.
His smile froze at the ill-disguised aggression in her voice.
‘You!’ He laughed, and his face creased into well-worn lines that testified to a happy life. Lucky him. ‘Or I think it is. Were you here last week when the winning scratch card was bought?’
‘Yes, but I didn’t buy it. You’ve got the wrong person. You can tell him,’ Clare said, appealing to the shop assistant. ‘I’m not the winner, am I?’
‘No, it was the pretty blonde lass. But he knows that.’
‘Kitty has already given an interview,’ Ben said. ‘That’s the girl who won. Haven’t you seen the paper?’ He delved in his bag. ‘We’re trying to find the girl who didn’t win.’
The girl who didn’t win! That could be the title of her autobiography, Clare reflected. It certainly summed up the last two years. She peered at the paper that Ben held out to her. There was a large photo of Kitty, holding one of those over-sized fake cheques and smiling ecstatically, as well she might. She had a hundred thousand reasons to smile, didn’t she?
The headline below the photograph read, ‘Do you know the unluckiest girl in Yorkshire?’ Clare skimmed the article. The whole tale was there: how the two of them had arrived at the shop at the same moment; how she had held the door open and allowed Kitty to go first; how that one act of politeness had cost her £100,000. Clare tossed the newspaper onto the counter.
‘How did you find me?’ she asked.
‘Easy. I asked Kevin here if he knew you.’ The shop assistant nodded and grinned, clearly enjoying his 15 minutes in the spotlight more than Clare was. ‘He didn’t know your name, so he suggested that if I came here today I’d be sure to catch you.’
Because her life had become so small, so predictable, that the only date in her diary was the weekly intimate encounter with a scratch card? It was humiliating and true.
‘And why are you so keen to catch me?’
Ben grinned at that, and Clare pressed a
gainst the shop counter, mortified. She hoped he didn’t think she was flirting. Nothing could be further from her mind.
‘Because it’s a great story,’ he said. ‘It’s always good to show both sides of the coin – the winners and the losers. Readers love a human-interest story.’
‘No.’ As if calling her a loser wasn’t bad enough, he sealed his fate with that phrase. ‘You mean you want to rake over my life, show the world how miserable it is, and how devastated I am not to have won the money. You’ll sacrifice anyone to sell a few papers. Well, you’re not sacrificing me. I’ve lost far more important things than money. I don’t give a stuff about that.’
She turned to go, but Ben caught her arm.
‘Clare. Wait –’
There were no laughter lines about his face now. There was genuine concern in the way he looked at her, sympathy in his conker-brown eyes. She jerked her arm away from him, but the charm bracelet had caught on his jumper. As she yanked to free it, her handbag swung off her arm and dropped to the floor, and the poetry book from the Lucky Dip box fell out. A photograph slipped from between the pages and slid towards Ben. He picked it up and studied it.
‘Good-looking couple,’ he said. ‘Family? That man reminds me of someone…’
Her curiosity was burning but Clare wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. She snatched the photo off him, picked up the book and walked out.
*
The afternoon in the pharmacy dragged. Nicky was sulking because Clare had forgotten her magazine, and she made sure that Clare had to deal with all the customers who were most graphic about their complaints. It was a relief to finally arrive home, and Clare dashed past her mum’s solicitous enquiry about her day and into her bedroom, where she pulled out the photograph from her bag and took her first good look at it.
It was a black and white photograph of a couple sitting on a picnic rug. The man was wearing formal trousers and shirt, his collar button open and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The woman was several years younger and wore a floral dress with a nipped-in waist. But it wasn’t the old-fashioned clothes that caught Clare’s attention, it was the happiness that radiated off the couple and brought the photograph to life. They were leaning towards each other, only touching where their shoulders brushed, but the connection between them was palpable.
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