‘I’ve got a new product I think you’ll be interested in.’
‘Go on,’ I said, swapping a jar of mint humbugs with a jar of strawberry sherbets.
‘They’re made of liquorice,’ said Rob Hancock, my long-time supplier, fanning out a selection on the counter.
I already stocked liquorice allsorts, laces, wheels, and toffees with liquorice in the centre. I didn’t even like the stuff. ‘What are they?’
Rob shifted some phlegm in his throat. ‘Willies,’ he announced, as proudly as if he’d invented the word.
Oh god.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see his excited face was redder than ever. As long as I’d known Rob, he’d looked on the verge of a heart attack. Whenever he dropped off a delivery I tried to look away from his straining shirt buttons and sausage fingers, and to not say anything he could interpret as a come-on. He was old enough to be my father. And married with five children.
‘Liquorice-shaped willies?’ I added, for clarification, still switching jars around so I didn’t have to look.
‘That’s right.’ He warmed to his theme, and I heard him rubbing his hands together. ‘They’ll go down a treat for hen parties, you mark my words. The ladies will go mad for them.’
I closed my eyes and rubbed my brow.
‘It’s good to appeal to a broader market,’ he went on, perhaps misinterpreting my silence.
‘And …’ he did a drum roll sound with his tongue. ‘We’ve got some sticks of rock with rude words in the middle.’ He chortled. ‘Teenage lads will love them.’
I’m sure their parents will too.
I often had conversations with Rob that didn’t make it out of my head.
‘Not too rude,’ he added, preparing to be offended at the very suggestion. ‘Nothing that would make your grandmother’s eyes water.’
Nothing made my grandmother’s eyes water, so that wasn’t saying much. I resisted asking him which rude words he deemed suitable, but he was clearly keen to enlighten me.
‘Just your regular bollocks, motherf—’
‘I get the picture,’ I cut in, turning to face him at last, hating how at home he’d made himself, leaning on the counter as if he owned it.
‘And to keep the kiddies happy, we’ve developed a new sweet.’ Never let it be said that Rob wasn’t innovative.
‘Surprise me,’ I said.
‘It’s a chew with a fizzy centre that lasts all day.’ He paused for dramatic effect. ‘I’ve called it The Fizzer.’
Original.
‘I see,’ were the politest two words I could muster.
The sun that had slanted through the window when I opened up, making the sea in the distance glitter and dance, had vanished behind thick clouds, and the stretch of pavement outside reflected the grey sky. For the millionth time, I wished I was somewhere else.
New York for instance, with Alex. Why hadn’t I gone with him while I’d had the chance? Whatever he was doing now, I doubted it involved liquorice willies.
‘I thought they were usually chocolate,’ I said, wondering why I was bothering. ‘Willies, I mean.’
‘But that’s our USP.’ Rob pounced on my words like a rabid dog. ‘Chocolate’s what people expect, so why not ring the changes?’
‘Because people expect confectionery willies to be chocolate?’ I repeated.
‘Ah, but they haven’t tried my liquorice ones.’
Dear god.
‘So, what do you reckon, Mar … nie?’ He always stumbled over my name, as though it had twenty-four syllables.
He’d asked me what it meant once, dislodging a gingery strand of hair as he scratched his scalp. ‘I’ve often wondered, but didn’t like to ask Leonard.’
No, because it might have alerted Gramps to his lecherous tendencies.
‘It means rejoice in Hebrew, and in Latin it’s a variant of Marina, meaning “of the sea”,’ I’d explained automatically.
‘What, your mum thought you were a mermaid or something?’
‘It’s from an Alfred Hitchcock film, actually. My mother was a fan,’ I’d said, stepping away from his garlic-and-beer breath.
‘Which film?’
‘Er, Marnie.’
His face had flushed magenta as though I’d tricked him.
‘I don’t want any liquorice willies,’ I told him now, before he could launch into another sales pitch. ‘I know what my customers like, and so do they.’
‘But …’
‘We mostly appeal to young children and old people,’ I said, keen to get rid of him. ‘I don’t want to upset the locals.’
‘I don’t think it’s fair that you won’t even give them a chance.’ His voice held a veiled threat. ‘I bet Sweetums will snap them up,’ he said, referring to a large chain sweet shop in Weymouth. ‘They’re not scared to take a risk.’
Fury sizzled up. ‘You can supply Sweetums with liquorice bosoms, bums, and fingernails for all I care, Rob. I don’t want them.’
‘Just have a look,’ he wheedled.
On an exasperated sigh, I moved behind the counter, narrowing my eyes so I wouldn’t be able to see his products clearly, and as I drew closer Rob’s arm shot out and snaked around my waist. He yanked me to his side, his hot breath gusting into my ear. ‘Come on love,’ he muttered. ‘Make an old man happy.’
I didn’t know whether he was referring to me placing an order, or something else, but my heart misfired as I wrenched myself from his grasp, bumping my hip on the edge of the counter.
‘For god’s sake, Rob.’ I tried to calm my breathing. ‘I think you should leave.’
He stared for a moment, eyes bulging. ‘It was only a bit of fun,’ he said peevishly, swiping his samples back into his box. ‘Where’s your sense of humour?’
‘I’m saving it for something funny,’ I said, injecting my voice with steel. ‘Now go, and don’t come back.’
‘What?’ As he turned, one of his willies fell on the floor. He picked it up and stuffed it in his pocket. ‘Not ever?’
I shook my head. ‘You’re fired,’ I said.
When he’d gone, muttering under his breath, I stood for a moment, blood pumping through my veins. OK, so ‘You’re fired’ wasn’t quite the right phrase – I wasn’t Sir Alan Sugar – but hopefully he’d got the message.
I fist-pumped the air. Finally, I’d got rid of horrid, leery sex-pest, Rob Hancock.
Then panic rose.
As I paced the office out the back, I mouthed sorry to the photo of Gramps above the desk. Everyone used to comment on his resemblance to Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses, once his hair and beard turned white, but to me he was just Gramps.
Would he have been disappointed I’d mugged off Rob?
The phone rang and I snatched it up.
‘Does that mean you won’t be placing your usual order?’
Certainty flooded through me. ‘Never again,’ I said, and hung up.
It was the most animated I’d been in weeks.
I’d been running The Beachside Sweet Shop for nearly two years, since my grandfather passed away. I hadn’t planned on staying so long, but it meant I could keep an eye on my grandmother, Celia, and carry on saving up for my grand escape.
The one I’d planned with Alex.
We’d managed to get away for a while – we were in Peru when I got the call to say that Gramps was dying – but now Alex was in New York, and I was still in Shipley.
Not that I needed a man to escape with. My mother went to India on her own when she was eighteen, so there was no reason I couldn’t travel solo at the age of twenty-nine.
‘You look odd,’ said Beth, bounding through the door on a blast of damp air. Rain was bouncing energetically off the pavement. ‘Are you constipated?’
‘Ha ha.’ It wasn’t the sort of thing a member of staff should say to her boss, but as my best and oldest friend she could get away with it.
‘I’ve just fired Hancock.’
‘About time.’ Beth shrugged off her coat, revealing her sizeable baby bump. ‘You should have done it ages ago.’
‘But he’s cheap,’ I said. ‘And Hancock’s have been around so long they’re practically an institution. At least, that’s what Gramps used to say.’
‘Rob Hancock should be in an institution,’ Beth said. ‘And your granddad only ever saw the best in people. If he’d known Rob was a perv he’d have sacked him off years ago.’ She patted my arm. ‘Anyway, I heard on the grapevine his business isn’t doing so well.’
It was typical Beth knew more than I did about what was going down in the confectionery world, despite only working at the shop part-time while she studied for a history PhD and waited for her baby to arrive.
‘Where will I find another supplier?’ Doubts were setting in again. ‘I don’t think I can be bothered with all this.’
Beth shuffled past to hang up her coat, looking remarkably unbookish for a history student with her irrepressibly curly blonde hair, button nose, and shining grey eyes. She had a penchant for vintage dresses – when she wasn’t pregnant – and looked more like a primary school teacher, or a PA to a fashion designer.
Next to her I was all ungainly angles, constantly knocking things over with my pointy elbows. My eyes were big and brown, but my nose was more toggle than button, and I’d had the same mid-length brown hair since school. I occasionally wore it in a top-knot that invariably fell down at some point, and not in a sexy way, and I was constantly growing out my fringe and cutting it back in again.
‘I don’t think you’ll have any problems in the supplier department,’ she said, pushing back a lock of her own hair. Pregnancy hormones had lent her curls a luxurious sheen I was deeply envious of.
‘What are you talking about?’ I noticed an aura of suppressed excitement about her that had nothing to do with the approaching birth of Bunty, as she insisted on calling her unborn child.
Beth winked. ‘All I’m saying is, have you checked your emails?’
‘That’s all you’re saying, is it?’
Beth always had plenty to say, and I doubted she’d be able to resist elaborating, but to my surprise she waddled through the office into the kitchen, and didn’t say another word.
This was unprecedented.
Outside, the rain stopped as quickly as it had started, and the clouds parted to reveal a glimmer of sunshine. It felt like an omen.
I turned to the shelf behind the counter – where I’d moved the office computer so I could look on Google Earth when the shop was quiet – and fired it up.
The screen had frozen. ‘Come on, you bugger.’ I slapped it in the time-honoured fashion, but it wouldn’t budge.
Of the two of us, Alex had been the technology expert and would no doubt have suggested something clever to get it working, other than turning it off and on again – which is what I was doing when Doris Day came in.
Not the Doris Day, obviously. I was fairly certain the once-famous actress wouldn’t have chosen to move to an old-fashioned seaside town on the Dorset coast, however picturesque Shipley was to the thousands of tourists who flocked there every year.
Doris – for whom the novelty of being named after a Hollywood icon had never worn thin – clutched her chest as though she’d been shot, as she always did when the chimes jangled over the door.
‘That thing will give me a heart attack one of these days,’ she huffed, smoothing her short, ash-coloured bob. Evidently, her heart was stronger than she gave it credit for as she’d been saying it for years.
She transferred her canvas shopping bag – in use long before it was the norm to reject plastic carrier bags – from the crook of one elbow to the other, her shrewd blue eyes scanning the shelves of jars.
I knew she’d ask for a bag of pineapple cubes, and felt a bit weary at the thought of going through the pretence.
I wondered what would happen if I forced a bag of bonbons upon her, then immediately felt guilty. Gramps used to say that what people were buying when they came into the shop was nostalgia. They liked the sweets they’d enjoyed as children; sweets that reminded them of happy, innocent times.
Most of my customers these days were pensioners, harking after the olden days, unworried about tooth decay now they all had dentures. I sometimes wondered what would happen when that generation had gone, especially with Jamie Oliver urging everyone to give up sugar.
‘How’s your grandmother, dear?’ asked Doris, though she probably knew perfectly well. Not only did she live on the same street as us, she seemed to know everything.
‘She’s OK,’ I said, glancing around for Beth.
I could hear her singing an aria from Madam Butterfly as she made some camomile tea. She was convinced singing opera and reading history books to her belly would ensure Bunty’s future as a cultured intellectual.
God help the child if it turned out like its father, who was a builder by trade, and never missed an episode of EastEnders. Beth adored Harry, and accepted they were polar opposites, but had aspirations for their offspring that extended beyond fish and chip suppers, and darts in the pub on a Sunday lunchtime.
‘Just, OK?’ persisted Doris.
‘Celia’s fine,’ I said, forcing a smile.
My grandmother was well-known locally as ‘the dog-training lady’ and her fall a year ago, after being pulled over by an unnaturally strong Jack Russell, had elicited a lot of sympathy. ‘She’s got a bit of a limp, but otherwise making good progress.’
Celia preferred not to talk about her accident – just as she preferred ‘Celia’ to ‘Grandma’ – but I appreciated people’s thoughtfulness.
It had been lonely caring for her after Alex left, and though Beth had been a rock, working extra hours at the shop, I’d gratefully accepted all offers of help.
‘I thought your mother might have come home to lend a hand,’ said Doris, and I froze in the act of clicking random keys on the computer keyboard. ‘I suppose she’s still gadding around the world with her toyboy,’ she added, cocking an eyebrow.
‘A quarter of pineapple cubes, is it?’ I said, whipping the jar down and shaking the contents onto brass weighing scales my grandfather used to polish reverentially. ‘Maybe you’d like half a pound to see you through to the weekend?’ None of my elderly customers had gone metric.
‘What’s his name again?’ Doris said, swinging her eyes upwards. ‘Pablo, Geronimo, Diablo …?’
‘Mario,’ I butted in, before she could run the gamut of Italian-sounding names. ‘And he’s thirty-eight, so hardly a toyboy.’ I mentally kicked myself for rising to the bait, batting away an image of Mario’s bristling moustache. ‘And they’ve lived in Italy for five years, so she’s hardly gadding about.’ Shut up. ‘And she did come back to visit, but Celia didn’t want her there.’
‘I’m surprised she made it back for your granddad’s funeral.’
‘Of course she did,’ I shot back, moved to defend my mother. ‘He was her father.’
‘She doesn’t take after either of them, does she?’ Doris persisted, as though we were in the habit of having a gossip about my mum.
‘Morning, Doris, how’s tricks?’ Beth appeared, smiling broadly. ‘I bet you know a thing or two about giving birth.’
Doris immediately launched into a sickening tale of a three-day labour, and how her son Eric was so big his head got stuck in the birth canal and he had to be vacuumed out. ‘He looked like a little alien for the first two weeks of his life,’ she said. ‘I was cut from here to here.’ She held her hands apart, in what I hoped was a massively exaggerated demonstration. ‘I could barely sit down for a month,’ she concluded with grim satisfaction. ‘Put paid to the idea of having any more children.’
Beth’s face had paled, and I quickly bagged up Doris’s pineapple cubes and changed a twenty-pound note.
‘I’ve still got some of his baby clothes in the attic,’ Doris went on, tucking her sweets away. ‘I was saving them for when I had grandchildren, but I don’t suppose I’ll be having any now Eric’s come out as a gay.’
Beth nearly choked on her drink, and I didn’t dare catch her eye. We’d known for years that Eric Day preferred boys, but Doris had been in denial until he introduced her to his partner.
‘I’ll let you ladies get on then,’ she said, fluttering her fingers as she headed for the door. ‘Ooh!’ She turned, as if she’d just remembered something. ‘Have you heard about—?’
‘Bye, Doris,’ Beth interrupted.
I shot her a look and caught her signalling something to Doris with her eyebrows.
Doris, seeming to catch on, gave a stuttering laugh.
‘Silly me!’ she yelped, and clapped a hand to her mouth as she hurried off to do whatever it was she did on blustery Wednesday mornings in mid-May. Head to Main Street probably, to buy a lottery ticket at the newsagent’s and pump Mr Flannery for gossip.
‘What was all that about?’ I asked Beth, replacing the half-empty jar of pineapple cubes, noting the shelf was dusty. The thought of cleaning it made me feel as if someone was pressing on my chest.
‘Did you check your emails?’ Beth put down her mug and nudged past me to the computer. She barely fitted behind the counter and we had to do a little dance to accommodate her bulk.
‘It’s not working,’ I said glumly. I supposed I would have to find someone to repair it, or replace it.
Beth jabbed a few keys with the concentration of a Bletchley Park code-breaker.
‘I’ve tried everything,’ I said, just as the screen sprang to life.
‘Looks like I’ve got the magic touch.’ She expertly logged into my email account.
‘How do you know my password?’
‘It’s your date of birth,’ she said. ‘A hacker’s dream.’
‘I keep meaning to change it,’ I grumbled. ‘I just haven’t got round to it yet.’
‘No.’ Beth lifted her gaze and gave me a steady look. We’d known each other since primary school and could usually read each other’s thoughts, but for once I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
She returned her attention to the screen.
‘Oh,’ she said, after scrolling up and down the contents of my inbox. ‘I thought it was today.’ She strummed her lips with her fingers.
‘What was?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ she said lightly.
I wondered if she was planning something for my birthday in November. I was approaching the big 3-0 and she’d mooted the idea of us going away somewhere – though how she’d manage it with a baby I had no idea.
She opened the till and plucked out some twenty-pound notes. ‘I’ll pop to the bank and get some change,’ she said, ‘before it starts raining again.’
‘Can you bring me back a sandwich?’
‘Cheese and pickle on wholemeal?’
As she left, without her coat, a teenage girl paused outside the shop to check her reflection, flicking her hair extensions and baring her braces, oblivious to my presence.
I sighed, a bell sound alerting me to a new email.
Beth had left my inbox open.
Blowing my fringe from my eyes I read the subject header, written in bold capitals.
CONGRATULATIONS!
‘Ooh, I’ve probably won a trillion pounds, as long as I provide my bank details,’ I said crossly.
Preparing to delete the message, I noticed it was from News South-West, the TV station where Alex had worked for a while.
I opened it warily, hoping I wasn’t downloading a virus, and read,
Congratulations, Miss Appleton!
I’m delighted to inform you that viewers of News South-West have overwhelmingly voted The Beachside Sweet Shop the winner of our local, independent business competition! Our roving reporter will be along to interview you on Friday morning at 10 a.m. and present you with £10,000 prize money. In the meantime, if you have any queries please call, or email, Sandi Brent.
WHAT? I read the email three times, trying to work out if it was an elaborate scam.
‘What does this mean?’ I asked Beth when she returned with what looked like half the bakery in a damp bag. It was pouring again, and her hair looked like spaniels’ ears.
She plonked down the bag on the counter and hurried to the computer, dripping raindrops on the floorboards.
As she read it, her face broke into a grin.
‘There’s something I haven’t told you,’ she said.
‘You entered me into a competition?’
‘Yep,’ said Beth, squeezing rain out of her hair. ‘I thought winning might give you a boost.’
‘But … how … when?’ I groped for a fully formed sentence. ‘Why didn’t I know?’
‘Because,’ she was still grinning, ‘it was a secret,’ she said. ‘And a secret is something you keep from someone else.’
‘I know what a secret is,’ I huffed. ‘How did you know I would win?’
She shrugged, eyes sparkling. ‘I just knew.’ Her smile dimmed. ‘Aren’t you pleased?’
I thought about it, as her expression slid into worry.
‘Of course I am, it’s amazing!’ Something flickered in the pit of my stomach. It was amazing, now I thought about it. ‘I’ve never won anything, apart from the three-legged race at school,’ I said, breaking into a grin.
Beth’s eyes narrowed. She knew I only won because everyone else, including her, fell over after a shoving incident. ‘You’re going to be on the telly!’ she said, letting it go, reaching for my hands.
‘I can’t believe the public voted for me,’ I said. ‘It’s not as if I’ve been that busy lately.’
‘People like that the sweet shop has a history,’ said Beth. ‘And social media helped.’ Her grin was back. ‘I’ve been tweeting and Facebooking like mad.’
I’d come off Facebook when Alex left, because the temptation to stalk him had been too strong.
‘So, who was I up against?’
‘Everyone.’ Beth’s bounced my hands up and down. ‘The competition was mentioned on News South-West a couple of times, but I know you don’t watch much television since …’ I knew she was about to say since Alex left, but stopped herself.
It was true. Alex was a sound engineer, and was in New York working on a series of documentaries that a friend recommended him for. If Celia hadn’t broken her leg I’d have been with him.
As it was, I rarely turned the television on, as if it was the whole of broadcasting’s fault that Alex had gone without me.
‘The closing date was last week, and I knew they were announcing the winner today.’ Beth’s smiling enthusiasm was infectious. ‘I just knew you’d win.’
My cheeks were aching from smiling. ‘The prize money will be useful,’ I said. ‘I’ll be able to replace the computer, for a start.’
Beth made a mournful face. She had no more respect for technology than I did. ‘Why not tart the place up? It would be nice to get rid of the brown.’
‘True.’ As a child I’d loved the cave-like interior of the shop, with the concealed lighting that lit up the rows of jars and the pick and mix sweets, but it all looked rather dingy now, like being inside a mud hut.
‘And you know the “e” is still missing from Beachside?’ Beth went on.
‘Yes, I know.’ A gaggle of schoolboys had pointed it out just last week.
‘We’re in The Bachside Sweet Shop,’ the ringleader sniggered. ‘Backside, yeah?’
His mate had fallen about laughing.
‘Can I have a kilo of arses please?’
Even I’d struggled to contain a childish giggle.
‘There’s some gold spray-paint in the drawer, left over. . .
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
