by Rosie Blake
Louisa appeared in the doorway and Clara heard a startled yelp and then a smash as Gavin dropped the glass he’d been cleaning.
‘Gavin!’ She bounded into the room, her skin deep brown, her eyes twinkling, snow clinging to her red coat. ‘Mulled cider. What a wonderful idea. Yes please,’ she said.
‘It was Clara’s idea, proving popular,’ Gavin called from where he was crouching on the floor behind the bar, sweeping glass into a dustpan.
‘Clara?’ Louisa spun round to where she was sitting, shoulders sagging. Clara felt dreary next to Louisa’s bright coat, straightening up and trying not to hiccough from the early drinking. ‘You found her! Oh Gavin, well done, you are wonderful.’
A red stain crept into Gavin’s cheeks as he handed her a drink.
Louisa skirted round the bar to press her lips on his, and Clara looked away.
‘Clara,’ Louisa said, moving away from Gavin, who now had cherry-red smears all round his mouth, ‘I’m so, so sorry for the desperately rude way I burst in last night. I should never have let you go, but it was so darling to see Joe. I never see him and he looked so relaxed and happy I just couldn’t resist. And then when Gavin appeared and told us he’d turned you away and I realised you’d actually gone, upped and – poof! – left, we looked for you. Joe was terribly ups – Gavin, darling,’ she started to laugh as he moved across to join them, ‘you’ve got lipstick all over your face… So, as I was saying,’ she turned back to Clara, clearly having lost her thread, ‘it’s just heavenly to see you back here now.’
She took a sip of her mulled cider. ‘I think Lady CaCa is in mourning too. She has been quite out of sorts all morning. Usually I put on Top Gun and she cheers right up, but not even Maverick could make the old thing perky. And she’d shedding feathers; it’s desperately sad, you must visit her.’
‘It’s been less than twelve hours.’ Clara felt her mouth lift.
‘She’s a very sensitive bird,’ Louisa said.
Gavin had moved across to the bookshelves and was taking down board games, ready for the customers that afternoon. Many had taken to playing the games by the big fireplace.
‘Oh, did you hear?’ Gavin said, his head emerging from behind an armchair. ‘Bertie’s is opening up again. A restaurant back in the village. Isn’t it great?’
Louisa clapped her hands. ‘How wonderful! I always adored his dessert trolley,’ she said, a dreamy expression on her face. ‘He would never tell me how he made his meringues so light. Mine are always flat as a pancake, and so chewy.’
Clara felt her heart lift at the news, then fall as she realised she wouldn’t be around to see it opening. She couldn’t stay on now, there was nothing for her here. She thought quickly of Joe, whether he was still in the flat, allowed herself a flicker of hope.
‘So will you be moving on now?’ Louisa asked, as if reading her mind, ‘We must give you a proper send-off if so. Something spectacular. Don’t you think, Gavin?’
Gavin was sitting with both legs stuck out in front of him, surrounded by board games. He nodded to the carpet. Then, after a pause, he looked up. ‘Actually,’ he coughed, getting slowly to his feet, ‘I think I’d better show you both something.’
Clara looked at Louisa and frowned. Gavin looked impossibly shifty, as if he was about to tell them a terrible secret.
Louisa clearly felt the same, laughing as she teased him. ‘Very mysterious.’
Gavin fiddled nervously with the cuff of his jumper. ‘It’s, um, upstairs.’
Louisa raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s upstairs?’
‘The…’ Gavin stuttered to a stop. ‘Oh, just come on, I need to show you.’
Clara had shot off the window seat, heart thumping as she realised she might finally find out what was behind the closed door upstairs. That had to be it. She hadn’t dared asked him; he’d always seemed so impossibly jumpy about it. She’d imagined a mad wife in a torn nightie, a room of skeletons, a secret sex dungeon. None of the options had quite fitted with what she knew of gentle Gavin. All her other worries disappeared and she trotted dutifully up the stairs behind him.
‘I’m getting a bit nervous, Gavin,’ Louisa called up as she followed Clara. ‘You’re not going to ask us to start calling you Gail, are you?’
Gavin was completely silent as he stood outside the door in the corridor. Unlocking it, he lifted the latch, took a deep breath and stepped back, gesturing silently that they should go inside.
Clara wavered in the corridor, not sure she really wanted to know any more. A man was entitled to his secrets, and poor Gavin seemed so nervous, pulling at his jumper and looking anywhere but at them.
‘Go on,’ he said gruffly. ‘I should have done this ages ago. Turning you away last night, Clara; it was unforgivable.’
Clara curled her clammy hands together before tentatively pushing on the wooden door and stepping inside, Louisa so close behind she could feel her breath on her neck.
‘Oh my,’ said Louisa.
Clara nodded mutely. So this was the big secret. There was so much to say but she found that all she could do was laugh in relief.
The room was jam-packed with hundreds of different-sized teddy bears. Teddy bears with clothes on, teddy bears missing eyes, teddy bears in browns, blacks, greys. Gavin must have been collecting them for years. Somewhere underneath them was a bed, patches of carpet bare in between teddies on rugs, teddies in different poses.
Gavin appeared, ashen-faced, behind them.
‘Surprise!’ he said, looking so weak he might fall down.
Louisa looked at him for a long moment, then held out her arms and grinned. ‘You great big gorgeous softie,’ she said, and launched herself at him.
They were still laughing about it half an hour later when Louisa checked her watch and stood up, spilling mulled cider all down her top.
‘Darn, I’m late,’ she said, grabbing the back of Clara’s chair to right herself. ‘Wow, that stuff is potent,’ she said, staring at her glass as if it contained diamonds.
‘Where are you off to?’ Clara asked, nudging Gavin. ‘Your move.’
Gavin stared at his tiles once more.
‘A good game is a fast game, et cetera,’ she chided for the millionth time. She felt this game of Scrabble might go on forever. Louisa had had the right idea.
‘I’m off to see Roz,’ Louisa said, rolling her eyes. ‘Dreadful woman.’
‘Louisa,’ Gavin said in a warning voice, looking up. ‘It’s a good offer.’
‘I know, I know,’ Louisa said.
Clara found herself freezing, her tiles forgotten. Before she could ask about what Roz was offering, and for what, she was distracted by Louisa’s next sentence.
‘And Joe said he’d handle it all for me, with the agent.’
‘Joe,’ Clara repeated, blushing deeply as she realised she’d just blurted his name out loud. She coughed, attempting to conceal her interest. ‘Where is he?’
‘Joe?’ Louisa was shrugging on her coat and getting one arm caught in it. ‘Oh, he’s back in the flat. I don’t think he slept. After our search for you, he got a call from a colleague and disappeared into his room on his phone, tapping on his laptop. Typical Joe,’ she smiled. ‘He’ll probably already have left for London. That boy doesn’t stay anywhere for more than a second. It was heavenly to see him last night but I assume it will be back to the grindstone for him. I must text him and tell him we found you.’
‘London,’ Clara repeated, the thought causing her to panic. She stood up abruptly. She couldn’t just let him go back to London without seeing him. Did he even know she was still here? She cursed herself for staying in the pub for so long.
‘All OK?’ Gavin said, raising an eyebrow, watching her fumble with her coat.
‘Need to go…’ Clara mumbled, doing up the buttons all wrong. ‘Must see… remembered… something,’ she said, not meeting his eye.
‘But your tiles!’ Louisa cried. ‘I know you’ve got the X,’ she added.
‘Have it,’ Clara called as she headed for the door.
‘Ooh goody.’ Louisa dived on her tray.
Clara hurtled down the high street, her heart lifting on seeing the burgundy paint of the shopfront. She fumbled with her keys, letting herself in and bounding up the stairs to the flat before pausing to take a breath, smooth her hair, readjust her top. This was it. She turned the key in the lock and stepped inside.
‘Joe,’ she called out, not wanting to surprise him in the middle of a mudbath or a conference call. ‘Joe,’ she said a second time, already feeling the weight of the silence around her.
Then a rustle of feathers alerted her to the sole occupant of the room, Lady CaCa peering at her from her position on high. ‘HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM,’ she called.
The flat was empty, washing-up done, wine glasses drying upside down on a tea towel. The counters had been wiped down and Clara moved across to read from a single sheet of paper left on the side: Mum, have left for London. Will call later. Love you, J x
She sat down heavily on a bar stool, picking up the note and reading the words over and over again. He had already gone back to London, without even waiting to say goodbye to his own mother – or to her, a little voice added in her head. She felt her whole body wilt, all the things she wanted to say draining out of her, all the excitement she’d felt on the way over leaking away. He had gone, back to the City, back to his job. Maybe she’d been wrong about the change in him; maybe he was the same as he’d ever been.
Then something on the table caught her eye: a newspaper, open on a large photo of Clara herself, grinning behind the counter of the shop, children scattered around her, the place looking colourful and alive with joy, noise and people. She peered at it, tracing the outline of her own face. She looked impossibly happy, her smile, her face totally content. She really had loved her time in the shop, seeing the children’s expressions when she changed the display, chatting with the local parents. With a sting, she realised that all that was over. She would be moving on too. There was nothing keeping her here.
Suddenly she noticed the headline of the piece – SAVE OUR SHOP! – and a growing sense of unease filled her as she began to read Sam’s new article. It was a call to arms to stop the shop from being sold, a lot of quotes from locals bemoaning the closure of yet another high-street shop, the rise of online shopping, the damage it was doing to communities. To think some toffee-nosed Londoner can come up here and sell it off, it’s part of the village, the beating heart, an anonymous source was quoted as saying. ‘It’s not my shop,’ Clara Kristensen said, standing wide-eyed in front of the doomed store. The Danish woman who has breathed life back into this toyshop, created a magical place for children in the village, looks heartbroken at the thought of it closing its doors for the last time.
‘Oh no,’ Clara whispered, hand to her mouth as she read to the end. It was damning, and she pictured Joe reading it, seeing her picture, knowing she’d spoken about the shop to a journalist.
She got up slowly, not wanting to believe he had really left, that she couldn’t fix this. As she moved across to his bedroom, she saw that his leather holdall had gone. He had left and she had missed him, and she wasn’t sure when, or if, he’d be back. She leaned against the door frame and stared ahead, at a loss as to what to do next, just wanting to rewind time.
Chapter 32
Everything was back to normal. Joe stepped out onto the pavement, turning to tip the driver, who looked startled but pleased. Pigeons scattered in his wake as he moved towards the revolving doors. He craned his neck, looking up at the blank glass windows, sunlight bouncing off them, unable to make out which was his amongst the uniform rows. Someone swore on a mobile behind him; a cyclist swerved around him, trousers tucked into socks. Joe tried to summon the energy required to take the last few steps towards the building.
He thought back to the previous night, the scene on the rooftop happening in another lifetime now. Clara’s face in the candlelight, her hand resting on the blanket. He’d stared at her fingers for the longest time, plucking up the courage to reach across the space and kiss her. Then his mother’s shock appearance and the way he’d just frozen, knowing already that everything was about to change again. Clara’s face as she’d dragged her backpack across the kitchen, his feet planted as he’d watched her leave.
He pushed through the revolving doors, nodding to the porter and heading towards the lift. He tapped in the floor number and held open the door for someone racing to catch it.
‘Thanks,’ the man huffed, tie askew, bags under his eyes.
‘No problem.’ Joe smiled, unable to rush today, unable to focus, still lost somewhere in Suffolk. He wondered where she’d gone; they’d searched for a while. Why didn’t she have a mobile? His mum had texted to tell him she was still there but he’d already left.
The lift had reached his floor, the doors opened, and then he was striding across the familiar reception area, holding up his ID to be scanned as he pushed open the door.
The sound of raised voices, shouts, keyboards tapping, phones ringing, a photocopier whirring hit him like a wall, and he almost turned on his heel and went straight back the way he’d come. No one looked up as he walked across the space to his desk, everyone too focused on their jobs, shouting down the phone, slamming the receiver down, swearing into space.
The energy, the excitement had been what had first attracted him to the job; no more sleepy Suffolk, no more evenings with just his mum. Here he could be the man he wanted to be, the man his father was, making deals, handling millions of pounds, important. Now the thought of the day ahead, a day that probably wouldn’t end before the early hours, exhausted him: his overflowing in-tray, the emails he hadn’t responded to, the taut faces of his team, eager like greyhounds in the starting blocks, wanting to share their updates first.
He let them rattle on, sipping at his coffee, not switching on his computer, half listening to their words, praising their efforts but looking over their shoulders to the windows behind them, the clear blue sky, a perfect winter day. He wondered if Clara was walking, wellingtons on, cheeks pink, through the woods behind the village. Then he thought of the newspaper article, what she’d said to that journalist. Is that how she’d really felt? He had needed to get out of there. Clearly he didn’t fit in; it had all been a strange, momentary pipe dream of an alternative life. It was over now. His mum was back and he was in London.
‘And Pam is leaving in the new year, of course, so we’ve lined up interviews for your new PA…’
Joe came to. ‘Leaving? Pam’s going?’
Mercer looked at him as if was stupid. ‘She’s retiring. After forty-five years.’
Pam herself appeared at that moment, carrying files, her hair pinned back, skirting an errant office chair.
Joe jumped up, face flooding with shame as he removed the files from her arms. ‘Pam, I had no idea. Retirement!’
Her eyes widened before she collected herself. ‘Oh, that’s quite all right. I put it in your calendar, but you’re a busy man.’
Joe felt terrible. He’d always taken Pam for granted, her stable presence, her no-nonsense approach, her ability to screen calls, make clients feel welcome, never a day off sick or a favour asked. Why hadn’t he valued her more?
‘You’re amazing. How will we ever replace you?’ he said, watching her face flood red at his words.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she huffed, pulling on the cuff of her shirt. ‘We’ll find someone more than capable.’
‘Well, it won’t be the same.’
‘Tsk,’ Pam said, scooping up a dirty mug nearby. ‘The moment I take one of these away, another one appears,’ she added, clearly keen for the focus to be shifted away from her.