by Ali McNamara
‘Are you kidding? My father was the most extravagant, reckless spendthrift I’ve ever known. He loved splashing his cash around. The more the better as far as he was concerned.’
‘You paint a fine picture of him,’ I say wryly.
‘Ah …’ Julian waves his finger at me. ‘I see what you did there. You’re quite the clever little birdie, aren’t you?’
‘I try,’ I reply politely, wishing someone would come and whisk either myself or Julian away so I had to endure his company no more. Why did no one want to speak to him suddenly? You couldn’t get near him a few minutes ago.
‘So what do you do here?’ Julian asks. ‘I believe some of the guests here tonight are local businessmen and, of course, women,’ he adds, waving his hand graciously in my direction. ‘Are you one of the aforementioned?’
‘Yes, I own one of the shops on Harbour Street,’ I tell him proudly. ‘It’s a craft shop. Kate’s Cornish—’
‘How nice,’ Julian interrupts, not sounding the least bit interested. ‘Your very own shop.’
‘I’m very proud of it.’
‘I’m sure. Here,’ Julian says deftly, reaching into his pocket, ‘why don’t you take my card? Perhaps you’d like to give me a ring some time. We can chat business and other things …’ He winks suggestively and I almost vomit. ‘I’m often down in Cornwall. I have a holiday home here as well as a luxury villa in the South of France.’ He continues listing his properties as if it goes without saying. ‘Plus a flat in South London, but I doubt you get up to the Big Smoke too much, do you? It’s quite the journey from here.’
‘No,’ I reply, taking his card. I want to say so much more but I bite my tongue, I don’t want to create a scene. ‘I don’t get to the South of France much either. Taunton is usually my limit before I get jet lag.’
‘Shame,’ Julian carries on merrily, not realising what I’m saying. ‘Travelling is what I love to do most, you see … Oh … very clever! Jet lag – I get it.’
‘Julian!’ Ophelia calls, hurrying over to us to my immense relief. ‘There you are. You really must meet … Oh, you again,’ she says, not even trying to hide the disdain in her voice as she sees me. ‘Are you having a … pleasant evening?’
‘I am indeed,’ I say brightly, spying the perfect opportunity to get one up. ‘I’ve seen some wonderful paintings, and I’ve just been invited to stay in a luxury villa in the South of France to talk business …’ I tap Julian’s card casually against the palm of my hand so Ophelia can clearly see it, while I cast what I hope is a dazzling smile in his direction. ‘I’d say that’s pretty pleasant for a Tuesday evening, wouldn’t you?’
‘I’ll be in touch,’ I say to a smug-looking Julian as I take my chance to escape them both. ‘Bye, Ophelia. Thanks for an utterly unique evening.’ Astounded, she stares at me blankly. Then I turn and walk away from them as quickly as I can, knowing that if I ever see either of them again it will be far too soon, and that my being ‘in touch’ with Julian is about as likely as a seagull not stealing a tourist’s Cornish pasty this summer.
Two
‘I’m going to take Barney for a walk, Anita!’ I call down the stairs of the shop. ‘Could you or Sebastian come up for a while?’
I attach Barney’s red leather lead to his collar, and he looks up at me appreciatively so I rub behind his blond ears just where he likes it and he nuzzles my hand.
‘Don’t get too excited,’ I tell him, ‘We’re only going for a quick wander – I’ve got sewing to do later.’
Anita appears at the top of the stairs closely followed by her younger colleague Sebastian.
‘You don’t both need to come up,’ I tell them. ‘I won’t be gone long.’
‘Tea break!’ Sebastian says, clutching theatrically at his throat. ‘Gasping for a cuppa, aren’t we, Anita?’
Anita nods her grey head in agreement. ‘We’ve unpacked most of the delivery now. There are just a few fiddly bits left – crochet hooks, packets of embroidery needles … that kind of thing, but that won’t take long.’
‘You two got on with that quickly!’ I say, amazed they’ve unpacked so many of the boxes we’d had delivered to the shop earlier in the day. It was a delivery of craft equipment so the majority of it was fiddly little things that took ages to hang on the wooden rails or stack on the glass shelves downstairs.
‘We don’t mess around when we get going, do we, Anita?’ Sebastian says, putting his young arm around Anita’s much older shoulders. ‘We’re a great team!’
‘We are when you stop nattering for a minute or two,’ Anita says good-naturedly, patting the hand on her shoulder affectionately.
Barney tugs a little at his lead. ‘All right, I’m coming,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll be back in a bit. Molly might be in from school before we get back. If she is, tell her she can have no more than fifteen minutes down here in the shop before she gets on with her homework upstairs. I know you’ll be tempting her with some of your homemade cake, Anita.’
Anita smiles. ‘Ah, but she deserves it. She’s a good girl.’
‘I know she is, but I also know she’d much rather spend her time down here with you two than upstairs doing schoolwork.’
‘How did the pair of you get on at the gallery last night?’ Anita asks. ‘I heard it was a good turn-out.’
‘Yes, it was packed – you could hardly move. Amazing what a couple of free drinks and a vol-au-vent can attract. The exhibition was okay, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing. The paintings weren’t really my cup of tea. I should probably have given you the tickets, Sebastian.’
Sebastian is a student at an art college in London most of the year, but in the holidays he returns home to St Felix to live with his parents, and when he does he helps me out in the shop. We’re so much busier in the summer months that I can just about afford to employ two part-time members of staff.
Sebastian shrugs. ‘Nah, you’re all right. I’ve been to the gallery plenty of times. I don’t really know much about Winston James as it goes … was his work any good?’
I wrinkle my nose. ‘Good isn’t a word I’d use to describe it … childlike maybe?’
‘Surely you mean naive, darling!’ Sebastian says with a flourish of his hands. ‘That’s what the critics always say when something looks like it’s been painted by a three-year-old.’
I loved that about Sebastian – even though he was an art student himself he never really behaved like one. He wasn’t ‘airy fairy’ as Anita had suggested he might be when I told her I was hiring him last summer. He called a spade a spade and I admired his honesty. Yes, he was lively and a bit over the top at times, but he had a good heart, was a hard worker and the customers loved him.
‘I’m sure that word would most definitely have been bandied about last night,’ I say, winking at him. ‘Okay, Barney!’ I tell the golden Labrador nosing into my leg, ‘I really am coming this time.’
‘Before you go, Kate,’ Anita says, ‘I forgot to tell you – Noah called in earlier from the antiques shop. He says he might have something of interest to you.’
‘Really?’ I ask, wondering what on earth Noah could have that I might want. ‘Right, thanks. I’ll pop in after Barney’s walk.’
Barney and I leave Anita and Sebastian to their tea and no doubt a good gossip, and we make our way quickly along the street down towards the harbour.
I’m very lucky to have found such good staff to help me out. Originally it had just been Anita and myself, and she had sort of come with the premises. Before I became the tenant it had been an old-fashioned wool shop owned by a little old lady called Wendy, who had also lived above the store like Molly and I do now.
From what I’d heard, Wendy and Anita used to run the place like a gossip stop for the older ladies of the town and it had been very popular. However, I’m pretty sure they hadn’t been making any profit for some time. When Wendy had sadly passed away there had been much talk about what was to become of Wendy’s Wools, so much so that when I came along
and said I wanted to open a craft shop the landlord had almost hugged me with joy and relief that the beloved place would be re-opening as something along the same lines. He even offered me a discount on my rent if I agreed to keep Anita on, which at the time I wasn’t too sure about. Now, looking back, I don’t know what I’d have done without her knowledge and advice on how to make my little shop work for both the locals and the holiday-makers who flocked to St Felix.
I say ‘little shop’, but we actually have two floors we trade from. To allow us to sell as broad a range of art and craft supplies as possible I’d renovated the basement to hold them all. Upstairs on the ground floor we stock my own textile designs, mostly handmade by me with a little help from some of the ladies of the town, who I’d hired when sales had really taken off last summer.
Having my own shop has been such a long-term ambition of mine that I occasionally have to pinch myself that I am not only ‘living the dream’ but making good money from it too.
In the summer when the tide is out, dogs are allowed on the vast harbour beach that’s created by the expanse of sand the waves leave behind. Once Barney and I have weaved our way through the many grounded fishing boats the outgoing tide has abandoned at odd angles on the wet sand, I let him off his lead and he bounds across the beach until he finds his first interesting smell; then when he’s stopped to sniff it a little too long I give him a whistle and he chases after me. When we’ve walked out far enough so we can see waves lapping against the sand Barney looks up hopefully at me.
‘Oh no, you’re not going swimming right now!’ I tell him before he has time to bound off into the water. ‘I haven’t got time to wash and dry a wet sandy dog this afternoon. You can swim tomorrow if you’re good.’ I pull his ball from my pocket to distract him, and throw it across the sand well away from the lure of the sea.
When we’ve spent about fifteen minutes on the sand together with me throwing and him chasing the ball, all the while avoiding unsuspecting holiday-makers wandering haplessly across the makeshift beach, I call Barney to my side and we walk back towards the harbour again. The tide is already beginning to turn behind us, and I know all too well how quickly the waves will start rushing in to form a deep and dangerous sea once more.
Many an unsuspecting visitor has been caught on one of the high sand-banks in the middle of the harbour while the waves washed in around them. It’s a St Felix tradition that someone has to be rescued at least once a week.
‘Come on, you,’ I say, attaching Barney’s lead again. ‘Let’s head back the long way and we can call in on Noah on our way round.’
Barney, not minding at all that we are taking the long route to get back to the shop, sets off happily in front of me, and we wind our way along the cobbled streets until we come to Noah’s Ark, a charming little antique shop that’s been a part of St Felix much longer than we have.
I open the door a little so the bell rings above me, and I see Noah pop up from the back room.
‘Oh, it’s you, Kate,’ he says, coming into the shop properly. ‘I hoped you’d pop by.’
‘I’ve got Barney with me. He’s a bit sandy so I didn’t want to bring him in.’
‘I run an antiques shop by the sea, Kate. I think I’m used to a little sand by now.’ He grins at me. ‘Bring Barney in. Clarice will be delighted to see him.’
Clarice is his little dog. A bit like me with Anita, Noah inherited her when he inherited this shop from his aunt.
I bring Barney into the shop and the two dogs sniff delightedly around each other at our feet.
‘Anita said you wanted to see me about something?’ I ask tentatively, still not sure what Noah could want. I knew Ana, his partner, well. She was infamous around town with her little red camper van, which she hired out for events. At anything from weddings to school proms Ana seemed to be in attendance driving Daisy-Rose as she called her, putting a smile on the face of everyone who saw them together.
‘Yes, that’s right. I got a job lot in from a house clearance the other day,’ Noah explains, leading me towards the back room. ‘The previous owner of the house was an elderly lady, and she must have been quite arty as the attic was filled with all sorts – paintings, art equipment, craft supplies and this,’ he says, gesturing towards an old wooden box.
‘It looks like a sewing machine,’ I say, as he undoes two brass catches and lifts the lid. ‘Oh, it is a sewing machine! And a pretty old one too.’
‘I like to call it “vintage”,’ Noah says, winking at me. ‘I reckon this one is from the early part of the twentieth century, or possibly before then.’
‘Perhaps,’ I say, looking at it. ‘I doubt it works though.’
‘No, I think this old girl sewed her last petticoat many a year ago! But I didn’t think you’d want it to sew with. I thought you might be able to use it in your shop for display purposes. The machine would really set off your designs perfectly.’
‘I suppose it could look quite cool in the window if I cleaned it up a bit. How much do you want for it?’
Noah shakes his head. ‘Nothing. You’d be doing me a favour taking it off my hands to be honest. These machines don’t make much money, especially in this state, and you did do Ana that favour last year with the interiors for Daisy-Rose. We owe you one.’
‘Nonsense! I was happy to make those cushions for you.’
I look at the sewing machine again. ‘I guess it would be quite a nice display piece … but I have to give you something, Noah.’
‘No, really, Kate, I’ve already made enough money selling all the old art equipment that came with it. A guy came in to browse yesterday and snapped it all up immediately. He’s opening an art supplies shop and he said it would look great in there. That’s when I thought of you and the machine.’
‘Perfect timing! So where’s his shop going to be – somewhere local?
‘Yeah, just up the road from you, in the old butcher’s.’
‘What?’ I exclaim. ‘Here in St Felix? I thought you meant Penzance or Newlyn when you said local …’
‘Nope, he’s just getting set up. I think he hopes to open in the next week or two. Nice guy. Just moved here apparently.’
‘But we sell art equipment,’ I say, my face darkening. ‘In the basement of the shop.’
‘Oh, so you do,’ Noah says, suddenly realising why I’m so peeved. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. I’m sure it won’t make too much difference to you though, will it? I mean, look at all the Cornish pasty shops here – they all seem to make a profit.’
‘There’s a lot more demand for pasties than art equipment though – it’s more specialised. Look at it this way, if someone opened a vintage car hire shop in St Felix renting out retro cars and vehicles for events, would you and Ana be worried?’
‘Sure,’ Noah says, nodding pragmatically. ‘I can see where you’re coming from, Kate, but there’s not really too much you can do about it if his shop is opening soon.’
‘Oh, isn’t there?’ I say, folding my arms. ‘We’ll see about that …’
Three
I leave Noah, thanking him again and promising I’ll pop back for the machine. Then I walk Barney, my mind still buzzing, back to Harbour Street.
Noah was right, of course – I couldn’t physically stop someone from opening an art shop here, but there was no doubt it would definitely put a dent in our profits if they did. Our forte was craft supplies. We didn’t even attempt to stock as much art equipment as a specialist shop as we simply didn’t have the room, but we were the only place in St Felix that supplied anything, so when one of the many amateur artists who flocked to the town every year ran short of ultramarine, cerulean or any number of shades of blue or green paint, as they so frequently seemed to, currently they only had us to turn to.
‘I’m just popping out again,’ I tell Anita as I let Barney through the door, and he heads immediately for his water bowl behind the shop counter. ‘I won’t be long. You and Sebastian are okay for a bit, aren’t you?’
; ‘Of course, dear,’ Anita says, folding some swatches of quilting fabric into neat triangles. ‘Off somewhere nice?’
‘Not exactly,’ I say quickly, not wanting to explain more right now. ‘I won’t be long. Did Molly get in yet?’
‘She did. I’ve hurried her up the stairs to start on her homework just like you said.’
‘You’re a star, Anita!’
‘She may have taken a little piece of cake with her to ease the burden,’ Anita says, smiling serenely as she continues with her folding.
I leave the shop and walk quickly along Harbour Street. I wave to our local bakers Ant and Dec in the Blue Canary Bakery as I pass. Their window, as always, is looking pretty empty by now this late in the afternoon, and their shop much quieter than if I’d walked past earlier in the day, when queues usually stream out on to the cobbles as people wait patiently for their delicious cakes, sandwiches and, of course, traditional pasties.
The old butcher’s shop that Noah had mentioned isn’t on Harbour Street. It’s just off the top, on a small cross-roads that holds more high-street-style shops – including a chemist, a bank, and a newsagent.
I’d noticed there had been some renovations going on when I’d passed by over the last few weeks, but because there had been shutters covering the windows I hadn’t given any thought to what was going to open.
Now I was giving it a lot of thought.
‘Hi,’ I say to a few locals passing me on the pavement as I stare up at the building that had housed the old butcher. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’
One of the upstairs windows is open so I can hear the sound of a radio playing. Someone is definitely in there.
‘Hello!’ I call up to the open window. ‘Is anyone home?’ Whoever is there obviously can’t hear me over the music. I step forwards and rattle on the door, then I stand back again.