The Beachside Sweetshop

by Karen Clarke

  He dropped his head. ‘Marnie,’ he began, raising his eyes and looking away again. ‘Fuck.’ He looked as guilty as a murderer.

  ‘So it is true.’ I’d known it must be, or Beth would never have said it, but the acknowledgement still cut through me.

  ‘It’s not what you think—’

  ‘You bastard,’ I butted in. ‘Did he send you here?’

  He rose and took a step towards me. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I can explain.’

  I held up a hand. ‘Let me guess. You were meant to persuade me to start buying my sweets from him again?’

  He closed his eyes. ‘I was supposed to give you the willies.’

  ‘He wanted you to scare me as well?’ I blasted. ‘Well, that’s just—’

  ‘No, no, a box of his liquorice willies.’ His eyes flew open. ‘I was supposed to have ordered some as a “surprise”,’ he made quote marks, ‘because I thought they were an amusing idea, and you wouldn’t have the heart to refuse.’

  ‘Because of your charm, I suppose.’

  He looked at the floor again.

  ‘Where are they then?’

  ‘In my campervan,’ he said, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his surfer shorts. ‘This place is too classy and, anyway, they look more like fingers.’

  I digested that for a second. ‘So, basically, he wanted you to do his dirty work.’

  Josh scuffed the toe of his shoe on the floor. ‘It’s no excuse, but he’s been losing customers since Kandy Kings opened that new production plant. They’re so much cheaper, the independents can’t compete.’

  ‘That’s his problem, not mine,’ I snapped. ‘I’m perfectly entitled to change suppliers if I want to.’

  ‘I know, I know, and I told him,’ he said. His face had paled, throwing his stubble into sharp relief. ‘That night you saw me from the bus, I was telling him I didn’t want to do it, that I liked you too much, it wasn’t fair.’

  I tried to control my breathing. ‘Why do it in the first place?’

  ‘Cos I’m an idiot.’ He looked deeply ashamed. ‘I’m not even close to him,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He’s my mum’s brother, but he moved away from Yorkshire a long time ago.’

  ‘So how come you ended up working for him?’

  ‘I wasn’t exactly.’ Josh sank back down on the pallet, fingertips pressed to his forehead. ‘Everything I told you was true, I swear,’ he said. ‘About not knowing what I wanted to do with myself …’

  ‘You did work in a sweet shop before?’

  ‘Yes, and I loved it.’ He looked up, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, and although part of me wanted to kick him in the shins, another wanted him to continue. ‘Rob asked me down to stay for a bit,’ he said. ‘He’d got wind that I was struggling to know what I wanted to do.’ He shrugged. ‘It was OK at first, just driving about with him now and then while he did his deliveries, seeing my cousins, practising my magic.’

  ‘And then I told him I didn’t want his sweets any more.’

  Josh nodded. ‘He was well pissed off.’

  ‘So he told you to try to change my mind?’

  ‘He knew you were looking for someone to replace your friend.’ He stared at his feet. ‘He said he’d pay me, not much, and I suppose I thought it would be a breeze.’

  My lip did an involuntary curl of disgust. ‘You must have been laughing behind my back.’

  ‘No!’ he said, so vehemently I jumped. ‘I swear to you, Marnie, that once I met you I really, really liked you. We hit it off, didn’t we?’

  His green eyes held an appeal that made me falter.

  ‘I thought we did.’

  ‘I didn’t want to go through with it, I hated how upset you were when you realised that sugar-free delivery was from him. I was intending to take it back, even though I knew he’d be furious.’

  I pressed the pads of my fingers to my eyelids. ‘Christ, what a mess.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Marnie.’

  I sighed into the silence that fell. ‘The other morning …’ I cleared my throat. ‘That wasn’t part of the plan?’

  Josh’s head snapped up. ‘Christ, no,’ he said. ‘I really fancy you.’

  Maybe he was like his uncle, and couldn’t resist trying it on. The thought sent a ripple of confusion through me.

  ‘Let me make it up to you,’ he said, holding out his hands in a plea. ‘I am on your side, I promise.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ It felt wrong to let him off.

  ‘You don’t have to pay me anything.’

  There was a rap of knuckles on the door and it swung open. Toby was there, eyes cast down as if to avoid any possible nudity. ‘Paint’s dry, shall we put up those shelves now?’

  ‘Yes please, that would be marvellous,’ I said, switching to a jolly-teacher voice. ‘Would you like something to drink?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ said Toby, smoothing a paint-smeared hand over his tousled hair. ‘Em has brought a Thermos and some of her fruitcake.’

  ‘Sounds delish,’ I said. ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘Is the boss man having his baby today?’ A pair of inquisitive grey eyes met mine. ‘We’re trying, me and the missus.’

  ‘That’s lovely,’ I said, normality slipping back as I thought of Beth. ‘And yes, I think the boss man may be having his baby today.’

  ‘Look, if you want to zip off I can project-manage for the rest of the day,’ Josh said, as Toby’s head dipped out. ‘It’s the very least I can do.’

  ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

  ‘I suppose you don’t,’ he said, getting to his feet and giving me a steady look. ‘But you have my word.’

  Another thought joined all the others, swirling through my head in a dizzying jumble. I wouldn’t be able to make my sweets at Beth’s in-laws; not with her in hospital. And I still hadn’t bought my ingredients. Or found a recipe for Turkish delight and marzipan.

  I spun around on the spot. Why was everything happening all at once?

  Josh looked on, a flicker of hope in his eyes. ‘Please let me help, Marnie.’

  ‘OK, you can stay because you owe me, big time,’ I said. His face illuminated with relief. ‘But after tomorrow, you don’t work here any more.’

  I left, before I gave in to his stricken expression, and outside the shop I rang the hospital and asked to speak to Harry.

  ‘It could be ages yet,’ he said breathing hard, as though he was the one in labour. ‘She’s only two centimetres dilated.’

  ‘How’s she doing?’

  ‘Screaming for an epidural.’

  ‘I thought she might be.’

  ‘I knew she would be.’

  A moment of mutual understanding passed between us.

  ‘Everything OK at the shop?’ he said, as if suddenly remembering the day had started quite differently. ‘Toby and Em are the best, you know, they won’t let you down.’ It was the most heartfelt thing he’d ever said to me.

  ‘They’re doing a great job.’ No point mentioning Josh’s revelation.

  ‘Right then,’ he said. ‘I’d better get back.’

  ‘Keep me updated, if you can.’

  ‘I will.’

  There was nothing else for me to do but go to Tesco’s.

  Twenty-Five

  ‘What’s all that?’ said Mum, jumping up from the table when I staggered in under the weight of several carrier bags.

  ‘Stuff to make sweets with.’ I dumped it all on the floor. ‘I thought I’d better crack on if I don’t want to be up all night.’

  ‘Aren’t you meant to be at the shop?’

  ‘They don’t need me,’ I said, curious what she’d been doing since I’d left. It looked like she hadn’t moved from the kitchen. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said vaguely. ‘I thought you were going to Beth’s to make your sweets.’

  I filled her in on what had happened.

  ‘Don’t you want to be at the hospital with her?’ Her brow crinkled. ‘She is your be
st friend.’

  ‘She only wants Harry.’ My eyes stung with sudden tears. It did feel odd that my oldest friend was having her baby without me. I’d been there for so many milestones: holding her hair back the first time she got drunk and threw up on her mother’s dahlias; when she confessed she loved Harry-next-door, but didn’t think he would ever look at her ‘like that’. When she developed a stress rash after becoming upset studying violent punishments in the fifteenth century (I’d booked us a spa day and banned her from mentioning anything historical for eight hours) and as her maid-of-honour I’d been there to celebrate every hour of her wedding day.

  But I would miss her most life-changing experience.

  ‘It’s normal to want to share it with her husband,’ Mum said, even though she’d given birth to me alone, upstairs in the bath – in lieu of a birthing pool – giving Celia the fright of her life when she returned to find her daughter calmly frying her placenta, with me strapped across her in a makeshift sling, and the bath like a scene from CSI. ‘And you’re going to be a brilliant auntie.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’ I smiled at her through my tears, and she stretched out her arms for a hug.

  I slid into them, wishing I could stay there. Alex had texted again, asking to meet.

  Just five minutes, Marnie. Two, if that’s all you can spare X

  I can’t

  I’d replied, careful not to put a kiss.

  And anyway there’s nothing to say

  I couldn’t resist adding.

  There’s a lot I want to say X

  Stop with the kisses, they’re inappropriate.

  Not for you X

  Two words – Bobbi-Jo.

  I know how this must look, just give me a chance to tell you a couple of things X

  Tell me now.

  It would be better face to face XX

  While I thought about it he sent another text.

  Remember this? X

  I’d clicked on the attachment, which was a photo of two retriever puppies, cuddling.

  Why?

  I typed, refusing to look at them directly.

  Because you always said it’s impossible to be cross or upset if you’re looking at puppies X

  I was wrong.

  I’d switched off my phone before I could weaken, my head instantly piling up with thoughts of Beth, and the shop, and Isabel Sinclair and her ‘crusade’, and the revelation about Josh. Would he ever have told me, if Beth hadn’t recognised him?

  My brain was still churning like a cement mixer as I pulled away from Mum.

  ‘Why didn’t you take me with you on your travels?’ I said, surprising myself. I’d long ago come to terms with it, but the question had popped out of its own accord.

  ‘Oh, Marnie, it was for your own good,’ she said, paling. ‘You needed a stable home, like I’d had, and who better to give you it, than my parents?’ She tilted her head. ‘I wasn’t cut out to look after you full-time.’

  It was what Celia used to say whenever I asked why Mummy wasn’t there all the time, like other mummies. ‘You could have tried,’ I said, slipping my jacket off.

  ‘Oh, Marnie!’ To my utter amazement, she flung herself down at the table again, and burst into noisy tears.

  My jaw dropped. First Harry, now Mum. I’d seen her cry a bit before – usually after one of her boyfriends left – but nothing like this. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, dropping my jacket. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  ‘You’re so much more forgiving than I deserve,’ she wept, pushing the heels of her hands into her eyes. ‘Why don’t you slap me, or banish me, or tell me you hate me?’

  ‘Because I don’t hate you, silly.’ I dragged a chair beside her and sat down. ‘You did what you could when you could, and when you couldn’t there was Celia and Gramps, and my cousins and Uncle Cliff.’ Her shoulders shook even harder. Was she ill? I wondered suddenly. ‘Mum, why have you come back?’

  She gulped back a sob. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking lately.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘My life has started to seem empty,’ she said, her voice thick with tears. ‘I mean, I do love Mario, but when I saw what you’d achieved with the shop, it made me realise how little I’ve done with my life that has any meaning, apart from giving birth to you …’ her voice stuttered into sobs again.

  ‘But it’s not really my achievement,’ I said. ‘I’m just carrying on what Gramps started – what his grandfather started.’

  ‘You won an AWARD!’ she said, bringing her fist down on the table. ‘And you’re clever, you went to university, and all I’ve ever done is shag around and go on ho … holiday.’ She hiccupped. ‘I’m so … silly.’

  ‘Mum, stop it,’ I said, shocked. ‘Here.’ I passed her a length of kitchen roll. ‘I’ve been marking time at the shop, you know that,’ I said. ‘All I really want to do is go travelling, just like you did.’ I cupped my hand over hers, anticipating her reaction. ‘I’m going to Thailand at the end of July.’

  ‘What?’ She turned to face me, and I couldn’t help noticing that even when her cheeks were tear-blotched and her nose bright red, she still looked stunning. ‘Why would you want to go away?’

  I stared, taken aback. ‘Well … you did.’

  ‘Oh, Marnie, that wasn’t really travelling, it was …’ she paused, and nibbled her lip, her eyes wide and worried. She looked so unlike the mother I knew I felt a twinge of alarm.

  ‘It was what?’

  Before she could reply the back door shot open and Chester padded in, followed by Celia, who was wearing another of her Fair Isle sweaters, with a tartan pleated skirt and pink-spotted wellingtons.

  ‘Still here then?’ she said to Mum, and there was quiet satisfaction in her eyes. ‘You could have got some dinner on.’

  ‘I didn’t know what you’d want to eat,’ Mum said, passing her soggy kitchen roll over her face. If Celia noticed she’d been crying, she didn’t comment.

  ‘There’s some Dover sole in the fridge,’ she said, dropping in the armchair and tugging off her boots. ‘A piece for Chester too, he likes his poached in milk.’

  ‘Of course he does,’ said Mum, and we exchanged a smile. I was relieved to see she looked much more like her old self.

  ‘Oh listen, I need to use the oven,’ I said, standing up in a sudden panic. ‘I’ve got sweets to make for tomorrow, hundreds and hundreds of them.’

  ‘Ooh, can I help?’ Mum brightened. ‘It’ll be like old times.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t approve of my cooker,’ Celia said, with a glimmer in her eye.

  ‘I haven’t got much choice now, Beth’s in hospital, and it could be hours before she has the baby.’

  ‘You only took forty minutes, from start to finish,’ Mum reminded me. ‘And I did it all without drugs.’

  ‘Women go to hospital too early these days,’ said Celia, pushing out of the armchair using her stick. I got the impression there’d be no burning ceremony – she liked it too much. ‘Look at dogs, they just go into a corner and get on with it.’

  ‘Well, Beth can hardly do that,’ I said.

  ‘I was in labour with Cliff for four days, before I called the midwife,’ she continued. ‘By the time she’d cycled here, he was already on the breast.’

  Mum and I looked at each other. ‘Did midwives still use bicycles in the sixties?’ she said.

  ‘Around here they did.’ Celia sounded offended. ‘The cord was round your neck and your father had to come in and untangle you.’ She frowned, remembering. ‘Always was good with knots.’

  ‘It was an umbilical cord, not a length of rope,’ said Mum. ‘They don’t get knotted up.’

  I bit back a giggle, surprised I had the ability to laugh after the day I’d had.

  ‘Anyway.’ Celia slapped a purposeful hand on her thigh. ‘I suppose we could go and eat at Paddy’s,’ she said to Chester. ‘He invited us just now, but I thought you might want some company.’ She glanced at Mum.

  ‘I think we’ll be
fine, if that’s OK,’ Mum said, looking at me to check.

  ‘Of course it’s OK with me.’ I started to unload jars and packets onto the worktop, still puzzled and a little hurt by Mum’s reaction to me going away. I’d expected her to approve, not look at me as if I’d announced I was going to prison.

  ‘I need to get on,’ I said.

  ‘Good.’ Celia gave a firm nod, and after sliding her feet into a pair of lilac Crocs she slipped out again with Chester.

  I watched her cross the garden to the lane that led to Paddy’s, her stick tucked under her arm, and the little bubble of worry that I’d carried in my chest since her fall finally popped.

  ‘Right.’ Mum removed her cardigan, and fastened Celia’s apron around her tiny waist. ‘Where shall we start?’

  Putting my worries about everything else aside, I spent the next few hours in a flurry of mixing, melting, whisking, boiling and pouring, with a sprinkling of inventive expletives from me as Mum didn’t like the F word.

  ‘How the fanjita is this ever going to look like Turkish delight?’ I cried, scraping a wooden spoon around an unappetising mix of water, xylitol, beetroot powder and arrowroot. ‘More like Shipley Horror.’ I wiped my cheek with my forearm, and it came away white. Arrowroot powder seemed to get everywhere. ‘Isn’t the mixture supposed to be thick and stretchy?’

  Mum glanced over. She was flushed and sparkly-eyed. ‘Have you put too much rosewater in?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I measured it properly.’

  She came over and peered in the pan. ‘It should firm up once it cools.’ She whipped it off the hotplate and stood it in a bowl of cold water in the sink.

  ‘Leave it there, and get on with your peanut brittle.’

  She’d already produced three trays of coconut ice, using the ingredients I’d bought, and some chocolate truffles using a bizarre combination of avocado and cocoa powder. Her efforts looked like Bake Off showstoppers, whereas Mary Berry would have consigned my marzipan crunch to the bin.