by Ali McNamara
Lou nods. ‘If there’s anything else you want to know you only have to ask,’ she says. ‘I’ll do my best to help.’
‘Just one more thing,’ I say, suddenly thinking of it. ‘Do you know who used to own the house up on the hill as you enter St Felix? The one with the blue door. I’ve heard it’s up for sale – Noah from the antiques shop did a house clearance for them.’
‘I think it may have had a few owners over the years. I’m not sure who the last ones were though, sorry. You should ask Anita – that wool shop was home to all the local gossip at one time or another. I bet she’d know.’
‘Great, I will. Thank you again, Lou, you’ve really been most helpful.’
‘Any time, dear, any time.’
I leave Lou’s and head eagerly back down into the town towards Jack’s shop. It was time to take a trip back to fifties’ St Felix again.
Eighteen
St Felix ~ August 1957
Clara stands proudly outside the building in Harbour Street. She still couldn’t really believe this was her own shop.
It had all happened so quickly. One minute she had been sewing dresses for herself and a few other ladies in the town who had come to her with fabric and asked her to make up their patterns for them, and then the next the elderly man who had run his rather old-fashioned tailor’s from this building had died unexpectedly and she had discovered through some local gossip that the landlord wanted someone to fill the premises as soon as possible. When Clara had gone to him and suggested she should take on the lease he had laughed at her to begin with, but as she had been expecting that she had presented him with a very detailed plan of how she would run the shop and, more importantly for him, how she was going to make a profit to enable her to pay her rent every week.
After a lot of persuading, and a month’s rent up front, which had used up all her savings, he’d finally agreed and she’d opened her own dressmaker’s, which after a slow start was now starting to attract more work than she could cope with and she was considering taking on more staff.
‘Nice dress,’ Arty says, appearing in the reflection next to Clara as she gazes at her newest window display. She’d dressed one of the old tailor’s dummies in her very newest design – a red and white gingham dress with small yellow primroses scattered over the bodice, and a full skirt with a huge petticoat underneath. To finish off the display she’d added a small bouquet of yellow flowers she had bought from the florist’s down the street, its vase of water disguised by a big straw hat.
‘Thank you,’ Clara says, feeling herself stiffen. Even though it had been over a month now since she’d angrily pushed Maggie in her chair away from Arty’s studio, she still hadn’t properly forgiven him.
‘How’s it all going?’ Arty asks, keen to keep the conversation flowing. He’d missed seeing Clara and Maggie since Maggie’s painting lessons had been suddenly cut short.
‘Very well, thank you,’ Clara answers brusquely.
‘Good. Good. You’ve certainly made quite the impact here in St Felix. I’ve seen quite a number of ladies wearing your creations already.’
‘Have you?’ Clara says, wondering how he knew they were her designs. Had he been keeping an eye on her window displays? Every time she showed a new design she would get at least five ladies and now young girls too wanting it in their size. She could barely keep up with the demand.
‘Yes, and very pretty they look too. Is that one of your own you’re wearing today?’
‘Of course.’
‘Very nice,’ Arty says approvingly, looking her up and down. ‘I like the colour scheme.’
The dress Clara is wearing today is white with a bright blue and green sea print scattered over it. It looked a little like the painting she’d seen Arty doing on the cliffs the day he’d carried Maggie down to his easel. It was something a bit new for her. She’d experimented with embroidering over parts of the print to give the dress a unique texture and she was extremely pleased with the finished result, but as she’d created it on her little Singer sewing machine she’d tried hard not to think about Arty, even though the fabric made her do exactly the opposite.
‘It looks a bit like one of your paintings,’ Clara says.
‘It looks a bit like one of my paintings,’ Arty says at exactly the same time.
Arty smiles. ‘How’s Maggie?’ he asks, sensing perhaps Clara might have softened a little.
‘She’s fine. Doing well actually.’
‘Good. Good. Is she still painting?’
Clara turns away from him back to the dress in the window. ‘Yes,’ she says quietly. ‘You seem to have given her a taste for it.’
‘I’m glad,’ Arty says. He looks through the glass into the shop. ‘Is she around? I’d love to see how she’s getting on.’
‘No, she’s not right now. Since I’ve been working here I’ve been paying one of the local girls to look after her in the afternoons, until she starts school, that is. It’s better than her being stuck in the shop with me all day.’
Arty nods. ‘Good, I’m pleased she’s getting out and about in the fresh air.’
‘I wouldn’t keep her cooped up in here all day if that’s what you’re suggesting?’ Clara says, bristling again.
‘No, not at all. I know she liked being out and about, that’s all. She told me.’
He wasn’t wrong, Maggie did prefer to be out in the fresh air rather than indoors, but Clara wasn’t going to admit he was right.
‘Well, she’s not here at the moment, so if there’s nothing else I have work to be getting on with.’
‘Sure,’ Arty says in his usual relaxed way. ‘So do I. I’m about to do some preliminary sketches for a commission I’ve been asked to paint.’
‘That’s good, what is it of?’
‘The town council have asked me to paint some canvases of St Felix, not only the usual pictures of the harbour and the sea but some of the other areas of the town too, including Harbour Street. So I guess you might be seeing quite a bit of me over the next few days …’
‘How lovely,’ Clara says brightly. ‘For you, that is,’ she adds as a sting in the tail.
‘I think so,’ Arty says, batting her insult away with ease. ‘I’ll look forward to sketching your little shop and you in due course.’
‘No, you’re not putting me in the picture,’ Clara protests. ‘Paint the shop all you like but I’m not to be in it, do you understand?’
Arty shrugs. ‘I was only joking. It’s the buildings they’re interested in anyway.’
‘Oh … good,’ Clara says, feeling a tad embarrassed that she’s overreacted. ‘That’s all right then.’
‘But you’d make a lovely subject if you did want to sit for a portrait,’ Arty offers. ‘Just let me know – any time. No charge. Although I’m not sure even I could do justice to your beautiful face.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Clara says, her face, to her annoyance, blushing furiously.
‘You do that,’ Arty says. ‘Right, gotta go. See you around!’ He waves casually as he sets off down the street with his canvas bag slung across his shoulder carrying, Clara assumes, his sketching equipment.
‘Goodbye, Arthur,’ she says, and she gazes after his disappearing figure slightly longer than is absolutely necessary.
‘Mummy! Was that Arty?’ Clara hears Maggie call, and she turns around to see a young girl wearing one of her own pansy-patterned skirts with a matching bright purple tight-fitting blouse pushing her daughter along the cobbles in her wheelchair. ‘Did he come to see me?’
‘Hello, Babs,’ Clara says to the young girl. ‘Yes, darling,’ she says to Maggie. ‘He did ask after you.’
‘And what did you say?’ Maggie asks.
‘I told him you were doing very well with your painting. Is that another one?’
Maggie proudly holds a piece of what looks like wood in her hand. She passes it to Clara.
‘It’s very good,’ Clara says admiring it. ‘One of the fishing boats in the harbou
r, yes?’
Maggie nods. ‘Freddie helped me do it.’
‘Freddie?’ Clara asks, looking at Babs.
‘The old man that does the paintings from his cottage on the harbour,’ Babs explains. ‘Maggie loves going down there and watching him paint. Today he gave her some paint and let her join in. That is all right, isn’t it?’ Babs asks, looking a bit worried.
Clara nods. ‘Of course it is. I’m just happy you’re enjoying yourself, Maggie.’
‘I’d rather paint with Arty,’ Maggie grumbles. ‘Freddie is very kind, but Arty was much more fun.’
‘Well, thank you, Babs,’ Clara says, taking the handles of the wheelchair from her. ‘Same time tomorrow okay? Or would you prefer the afternoon?’
Babs shrugs. ‘I don’t mind. My fella Bertie is doing his national service at the moment so I don’t have much else to do. Would you like to see a photo of him in his uniform?’ She rifles through her handbag and produces a photo of a young man in a Royal Air Force uniform.
‘Very handsome,’ Clara says, looking at the photo.
‘Yes,’ Babs says proudly. ‘I’ve always liked a man in uniform, haven’t you?’
Clara pauses before she answers. ‘Yes, Babs. As it happens I do – very much.’
The images all blur and whirl together, and as Babs’ bright purple blouse disappears along with everything else, Jack and I turn to each other.
‘Good to see that Maggie is still painting,’ Jack says, as we lean back from the pictures lined up in front of us. ‘That Clara can be a frosty one though. Poor Arty always seems to get it in the neck.’
‘She’s a bit proper, that’s all,’ I say, still thinking about what we’ve just seen. Could the man Maggie was painting with be the same one Lou had spoken to me about? ‘She does like Arty really – you can see it in her face.’
‘Can you?’ Jack asks. ‘If that was me I think I’d be avoiding her by now, rather than trying again and again like our boy Arty does, but then I guess some women are harder to crack than others.’ He gives me a sly glance which I choose to ignore.
‘Harder to crack?’ I question instead. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You have to try a bit harder with some women than others, that’s all.’
‘The ones you don’t have to try with aren’t usually worth it anyway,’ I counter. ‘Not in my experience.’
‘I really don’t know what you mean, Kate,’ Jack grins mischievously. ‘Can you explain further, please?’
‘You know exactly what I mean, Jack. You weren’t in the army for as long as you were without knowing that, I’m sure.’
‘I know. I’m only teasing you.’ Jack winks now. ‘Forgive me, it’s too easy sometimes.’
‘Do you miss it?’ I venture, taking my chance now we’re on the subject, but knowing he’s likely to shut me down immediately. ‘The army, I mean, before you start twisting my words!’
‘Yes, I do,’ Jack says reflectively. ‘Not necessarily the months spent abroad living in the middle of a desert somewhere, but more the structure of it. The daily routine. You always knew what you were doing, and where you were supposed to be. Each day was a challenge. I miss that.’
‘Is that one of the reasons you took a shop here?’ I ask, while he seems in the mood to talk. ‘St Felix is a wonderful place to live, of course, but the shops – they were built so long ago and not really designed for … well, for wheelchairs to get around.’
Jack looks at me with that unwavering gaze he often has.
‘And then there’s the cobbled streets – they must be difficult for you to navigate. That’s a challenge, isn’t it?’ I continue when he doesn’t answer. ‘You could have rented a shop anywhere – somewhere much easier for you to manage – but you chose here. I think you did it so you could challenge yourself again.’
Jack carries on staring at me. ‘You might be right,’ he eventually admits. ‘It’s not the easiest place to be in a chair, that’s for sure, but I knew I had to test myself and see if I could not only manage my own business but manage it in a place that was going to be demanding for me too.’
‘And how are you finding the challenge? Difficult enough for you?’
‘The shop actually hasn’t been as bad as I thought it might be. Bronte’s been a star in that department. I don’t know what I’d have done without her help. St Felix has been fine too, once I got the hang of the cobbles, and I’m loving the beach now I’ve got my new chair, but do you know what the hardest thing has been?’
I shake my head.
‘Meeting you.’
‘Me?’ I ask, totally thrown by this answer. ‘Why me – what have I done?’
‘Blown my mind,’ Jack says to my surprise. ‘I really like you, Kate – you must know that by now. I like you very much. This …’ he waves his hand towards the easel ‘… this has been the best excuse to spend time with you I could have been given. I’d never have got you up here all these evenings otherwise.’
‘That’s not true. How do you know that?’
‘I just know.’
‘But how?’ I demand.
Jack eyes flicker towards his legs.
‘Oh, I get it! Are you saying that because you’re in a wheelchair I wouldn’t have looked twice at you? How shallow do you think I am? That’s lovely, that is.’
‘Kate, I’ve seen it too many times before, I’m afraid.’
‘You’re judging me by the standards of others – that’s not fair.’
‘I’m simply judging you by what I’m used to.’
I glare at him. We’re still sitting next to each other in front of the easel, and as we stare challengingly into each other’s eyes, something strange happens. I suddenly feel something shoot through me, not a bolt of lightning or anything dramatic like that, more a sense of daring.
So, Jack thinks I’m prim and proper, does he, like Clara? I’ll show him!
Before I change my mind I lean forwards and kiss Jack firmly on the lips, pausing just long enough there so he’s in no doubt whatsoever of my intentions. When I sit back in my chair again Jack is still staring at me like he was before, but his expression is much more shock now than defiance.
‘Didn’t expect that, did you?’ I ask, not feeling in the least bit regretful of my actions.
‘No, I certainly didn’t.’
‘Never judge me by the standards of others,’ I tell him. ‘I’m my own person. I make my own choices in life.’
Jack smiles at me. ‘I’d say that was one of your better choices. Want to try it again?’
‘I might … one day.’ I tease, loving the sense of liberation I suddenly feel.
‘Then I’ll look forward to that day,’ Jack says. ‘With great anticipation.’
Nineteen
‘You seem happy this morning, Mum?’ Molly says as she helps me unpack a box of my own creations for the shop. They’re a new line of fabric phone cases that I’ve designed and that Jenny, one of the ladies who sews for me, has recently made up.
It’s Saturday, and Molly is covering for Sebastian who has an emergency dental appointment. ‘What’s happened?’ she asks knowingly. ‘I can tell by your face something has.’
‘Nothing has happened,’ I fib. Something has happened, of course – I’ve kissed Jack – and even now I can still feel the very pleasant sensation on my lips when I think about last night.
After we’d kissed the atmosphere had definitely shifted between us. There was a new frisson of excitement simply being in each other’s presence, which we’d both strangely ignored, talking about anything other than what had just happened. We’d discussed Clara and Arty, the pictures and what Lou had told me about St Felix.
At the end of the evening, when it had been time to leave, I’d simply leant down and kissed Jack on the cheek this time, and told him I’d see him soon.
‘Hmm …’ Molly says, bringing me back to the present. ‘I do know you, Mum. I know when you’re hiding something.’
‘I’m not h
iding anything … honestly. When is Chesney calling for you?’ I ask, changing the subject.
‘In about ten minutes,’ Molly says, looking at her watch.
‘How’s it going?’ I ask casually, knowing Molly will likely be as keen to talk to me about her romantic life as I am to her about mine.
‘Okay, thanks,’ she says, rummaging about in the box again.
‘You seem to be getting on very well,’ I say cautiously. ‘You’re always texting him.’
‘He texts me a lot,’ Molly answers, neatening the pile she’s placed on the shelf. ‘I’m just replying.’
‘Oh, I see. That’s nice though – it shows he’s keen.’
‘Yeah, I guess,’ she says, lifting another packet of colourful fabric from the box. ‘I’m not going to moan about a boyfriend that’s keen. Most of my friends say I’m lucky. The only boyfriends they’ve ever had can barely be bothered to text – they usually have to make all the effort.’
I definitely wouldn’t use the word ‘lucky’ to describe her friendship with Chesney. He was far too cocky and sure of himself for my liking, but sensibly I don’t say anything.
‘It might be nice to see Chesney for a little longer than the few seconds when he collects you,’ I try. ‘Would he like to come for tea one day?’
Molly grimaces. ‘Mum! That would be so uncool. Chesney doesn’t do tea!’
What does he do other than hang around street corners trying to look intimidating? I wonder. Because that’s the only thing I’ve seen him do so far. ‘Okay, I only asked. If you change your mind though, let me know. I’d like to get to know the boy my daughter is so smitten with.’
‘Do you think Sebastian will be back by the time I leave?’ Molly asks, deliberately ending this line of questioning. ‘I don’t want to keep Chesney waiting.’
‘Probably, but he won’t be long even if he’s not. He’s only getting a filling after his check-up the other day.’
‘Ony ge-ing a fewilling?’ a woeful voice says at the door. ‘I cawn aqu-ally spea!’
I smile at Molly. ‘A bit numb, are you?’ I ask Sebastian as he comes through the door looking wretched.