The Little Shop in Cornwall: A heartwarming and feel good beach read

by Helen Pollard

  ‘Claudia was like a breath of fresh air to this place, I can tell you,’ Libby went on. ‘And her shop is lovely.’

  ‘I imagine it appeals to the tourists,’ Jason conceded.

  ‘Yes, but the locals love it, too. Her soaps are to die for. She makes them herself, you know.’

  ‘No, I didn’t know,’ Jason murmured, wondering if he was expected to have some input or whether this was just a one-woman Claudia Fan Club monologue.

  ‘She runs her weekly meditation sessions in the upstairs room above The Porthsteren Page Turner. You could try those. Sarah and Evelyn run their monthly book club there, too. Leave the men to their pints at the Smugglers’ Inn, that’s what I say, and grab yourself a bit of peace at the other end of the village. Claudia runs the odd workshop, too. Crystals, oracle cards… They’re really interesting.’

  ‘I bet.’ If you’re gullible. Jason glanced at his watch. ‘Well, I should get on.’

  ‘Oh, of course. Just the milk, is it?’

  He paid and fled.

  The only downside to their new house was the steep climb up the road past the harbour. Jason’s calf muscles weren’t up to it, frankly, but he supposed they would toughen up. The spacious house, with trees providing privacy from the road and a sea view from the back garden, was ample reward – and not something he could have afforded, if it hadn’t been for… Well. Every very large cloud must have an infinitesimally small silver lining, he supposed.

  He and Millie had trudged halfway up the hill before Jason remembered he’d never picked up bread.

  They’d just have to do without toast in the morning. He couldn’t face Libby for a second time in one day. Jason felt like he’d left half his brain behind on the counter, and a chewed-off ear with it.

  ‘The season’s hotting up, and I don’t just mean weather-wise.’ Claudia squinted at the lowering April sun as she flopped into a chair on the terrace outside The Porthsteren Page Turner, a large mug of tea in front of her.

  Sarah and Evelyn, proprietors of the bookshop and her very good friends, did the same.

  Beyond the whitewashed stone wall that surrounded their café terrace lay the varying blue of the sea, the low sun sparkling across it like diamonds. A stiff evening breeze blew wisps of white cloud across the sky, but Claudia didn’t mind. Huddled in her fleece, she warmed her hands on her mug. It was good to be outside after a day indoors.

  To her left as she looked out to sea, the sand led to rocks which gradually increased in size and number until they blocked the beach. There was no access to the bay beyond without going around by road. To the right, the beach stretched in a long, beige swathe to the harbour, where boats huddled in their walled shelter from the elements.

  Paradise.

  ‘Best Saturday of the year so far,’ Sarah declared in her light American drawl mixed with an interesting West Country burr after decades of living in Cornwall. Running her hands through her short crop of bullet-grey hair, she lifted her feet onto the bench opposite so that Evelyn would take them onto her lap to massage.

  ‘It’s good to feel we’re coming out of the slow season,’ Evelyn agreed, her white-blonde plait loosening in the breeze. She obliged her partner by kneading the soles of her feet. ‘Been a slow winter.’

  ‘You won’t be saying that when the tourist hordes are baying for coffee and carrot cake,’ Sarah reminded her.

  ‘Have you heard about the new shop, Claudia?’ Evelyn asked.

  Evelyn acted as a conduit for Porthsteren gossip, and although Claudia didn’t care for gossip herself, she accepted that it was unavoidable in a close-knit community like this.

  ‘What new shop?’

  ‘On Chapel Hill.’

  Claudia frowned. ‘How come I haven’t heard about it?’

  ‘They’ve only just taken it on.’

  Claudia was intrigued. ‘What’s it going to be?’

  ‘Even Libby doesn’t know,’ Evelyn admitted, looking so disappointed at this lack of information, Claudia smiled. ‘But there’ll be builders’ vans there as of Monday.’

  ‘Chapel Hill?’ Leading off from the harbour, Chapel Hill was a steep, narrow road of fishermen’s cottages, most now holiday rentals. The old chapel the road was named after, long since converted into holiday flats, stood at the top. A few of the cottages nearest the harbour had been converted into shops – Jenny’s hair salon, Yvonne’s card and gift shop, Ian’s holiday lets agency. That only left… ‘You don’t mean Hester Moon’s old cottage?’

  Despite housing a newsagent for the past thirty years, that building was still better known as the cottage of a local legend – and purported witch – from the seventeenth century.

  ‘The very same.’ Evelyn held her face up to the last of the sunshine.

  ‘But it’s a wreck!’

  ‘It’s not as bad as it looks, apparently,’ Sarah declared. When Claudia and Evelyn stared at her, she said, ‘What, I can’t have my own lines of enquiry? I bumped into Ian this morning. He knows the agent who let it. It looks a mess, but it’s structurally sound. It only needs tarting up – new window frames, doors and all – and the inside completely doing out.’

  Claudia laughed. ‘Is that all? Who’s taken it on?’

  ‘Ian couldn’t say. All he knows is, they’ve negotiated only paying rent for six months a year, April through October. I guess that means they’re after the tourist trade.’ There was an element of disdain in Sarah’s tone.

  ‘We all make a chunk of our living from tourists,’ Claudia reminded her.

  ‘I suppose you’re right. I’m surprised the agent agreed to that, though,’ Evelyn said.

  ‘That place has been empty for three years now,’ Sarah said. ‘Between the way it got run down and the superstition people have about it, the agent must be grateful for anything they can get. The building’s owners will do repairs and bring plumbing and electrics up to scratch, and the new tenants will do up the inside to suit them. Both sides gain. Remember how Claudia turned next door around.’

  Claudia’s half of the white clapboard building they shared had certainly been run down when she first saw it, forlorn next to the thriving Page Turner, but she’d loved its position at the far end of the village, away from the bustling harbour. The walk along the beach appealed to plenty of people, and the Page Turner’s ongoing popularity drew them there. Once she’d seen it, then met Sarah and Evelyn, she knew it was where she wanted to be. And two years ago – almost a year to the day since she’d left Lee – she had opened the doors of Healing Waves.

  ‘An empty shop spruced up is a good thing for Porthsteren,’ Claudia said.

  ‘But what if it’s another café?’ Evelyn wondered.

  ‘Porthsteren can take another café,’ Sarah reassured her. ‘Especially if it’s only open in the summer months.’

  ‘It couldn’t take another bookshop, though.’

  Sarah only grunted. ‘They’re welcome. Then we could think about retiring!’

  Sarah and Evelyn didn’t live above their shop, as Claudia did, but in a lovely cottage ten minutes inland – the perfect place to consider retirement when the time came… although Claudia hoped that wouldn’t be any time soon.

  Claudia glanced back at her own flat over Healing Waves, set back a little so that it didn’t sit quite flush with the shop frontage. It may be small, but she and Pudding didn’t have far to walk to work, and she couldn’t complain about the view.

  ‘Well. Time for home.’ Sarah reluctantly lifted her aching feet from Evelyn’s capable hands. ‘See you tomorrow, honey.’

  Claudia stood, too. Retrieving her cat from the shop, she climbed the outdoor metal stairs to her flat, Pudding loudly demanding to know where his dinner was. That dealt with, she poured herself a glass of Saturday-night wine and decided everything else could wait, including her evening yoga.

  Barely waiting until she’d sunk onto her squashy sofa amidst blue and green cushions, Pudding jumped onto her lap, circled, then flopped in his chosen position. Sippin
g wine, Claudia closed her eyes and concentrated on centring herself to his rhythmic purr.

  This was the life she wanted, the life she worked hard for, and she was grateful every day that she’d had the courage to make it happen.

  What she wasn’t grateful for were her aching feet and the fact that she had to make her own dinner.

  Chapter Two

  Claudia took advantage of her shorter Sunday hours to spend the morning reading on the beach, wrapped in a shawl, a warm, flat rock at her back.

  The sea drew Claudia like a magnet, and she rarely missed her daily fix – a read, a walk, even just five minutes watching the waves. This morning, the spring sun was a bonus.

  Hearing the playful bark of a dog let off its leash, she glanced up to see it heading like a bullet for the water. It launched itself into the sea, fetched its ball, came back out and shook itself thoroughly, drenching its owner and making Claudia smile. Dogs were the kings of mindfulness, Claudia thought – the present was all that mattered to them. Joy in the moment. Humans could learn a lot from their canine friends.

  Further along, she spotted the girl with vivid hair who’d bought the amethyst the day before, standing morosely at the water’s edge. Unable to ignore the sadness that the girl wore like a cloak, she left her book on a rock and strolled over.

  ‘Hi there. Enjoying your amethyst?’

  The girl turned, startled, her hand at her throat where the purple stone lay flat and smooth. ‘Yes. Thanks.’

  ‘My name’s Claudia.’ She held out a hand.

  The girl shook it awkwardly. ‘I’m Millie.’

  ‘Not with your dad today?’

  ‘He has stuff to do.’

  ‘Ah.’ Claudia noticed how much Millie stood out, black and purple and defiant amidst the muted beiges and blues of the beach. ‘I love to paddle, don’t you?’ She slipped off her canvas pumps and allowed the cold water to slide over her toes and then her ankles, watching out of the corner of her eye as Millie weighed up temptation against the hassle of removing her laced-up boots. Temptation won.

  ‘Your mum’s not here with you, either?’ Claudia asked. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  Millie’s eyes became shuttered. ‘No. She died last year.’

  Claudia’s heart sank. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Millie shrugged, a deliberately casual gesture. ‘We’re used to it, pretty much.’ She eyed Claudia from beneath mascara-laden lashes, and when Claudia didn’t press for more information, she added, ‘She got cancer.’

  ‘That must have been hard for you,’ Claudia said with heartfelt sincerity. ‘For your dad, too.’

  Another shrug. ‘They were getting divorced. Before the diagnosis, anyway.’ There was a hitch in Millie’s voice which Claudia tactfully ignored.

  What could you say about a wretched situation like that? But say something she must. She’d intruded on the girl’s solitude and unwittingly opened a can of worms in the process.

  ‘I know it sounds corny, and you must have heard it from every well-meaning person since your mother died, but it is surprising what time can do. Eventually.’

  ‘How do you know? Did your mother die when you were thirteen?’

  ‘No. My mother’s alive and well and onto her third marriage in the south of France. But I do know people who’ve suffered loss.’

  ‘Not you, though,’ Millie said stubbornly.

  Claudia sighed. She’d led herself down this very difficult cul-de-sac, and now she would have to offer up a small part of herself to get out of it.

  Serves you right for interfering.

  ‘No, but I have been through a painful divorce.’ She looked Millie in the eye. ‘That can’t begin to compare with what you’re going through, but I was very hurt, and I did have to start all over again. With time, the pain got less. The loss of a mother must be a million times worse, but I truly believe the principle’s the same.’

  ‘Do you have children?’ Millie asked curiously.

  ‘No.’ And that was as much personal information as Claudia was willing to give, even if she was responsible for starting this conversation. Picking up a flat pebble, she skimmed it across the water. Three bounces. She tried again. Four this time.

  ‘How do you do that?’

  Claudia showed Millie how to choose a round, flat stone; the sideways stance; the throw.

  Millie tried to copy, and Claudia was struck by how pretty she was when she concentrated and forgot to scowl. Just as she was getting frustrated, she managed a single bounce, then a double. Then she complained her arm was aching, and the scowl came back.

  Claudia began to stroll along the shoreline, pumps in hand, and Millie fell in beside her. Two strangers with nothing to say to each other.

  Claudia didn’t mind the silence. Sometimes it was best not to try to fill it. Silence might help Millie enjoy the sensation of the breeze playing across her skin, the feel of sand between her toes. The sound of the waves, dogs barking, kids laughing, spades digging.

  At the end of the bay, nearing the harbour, Claudia glanced at her watch. ‘I should get back. I open at one on a Sunday.’ She smiled. ‘Until the summer season gets going, then I’ll change it to eleven.’

  ‘You don’t get a day off?’

  Claudia began the walk back, Millie at her side. ‘There’s an informal consensus here in Porthsteren that if we want to close, we do it on Wednesdays. Some take a half-day, but I take the full day. And I don’t open on Sundays at all in the winter, and only Sunday afternoons in the spring and autumn. Even in the summer, Sunday hours are shorter.’ She stopped. Millie wouldn’t be interested in that level of detail.

  But Millie didn’t seem bored. Shyly, she mumbled, ‘I really like your shop.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Let’s go out on a limb. ‘Your dad didn’t, though.’

  Millie laughed. It was brief, but genuine. ‘Nah. He doesn’t believe in all that. Calls it mumbo-jumbo.’

  Claudia smiled, unoffended. She’d met plenty of people who felt that way. ‘How long are you here on holiday for?’

  ‘We’re not. We’ve moved here.’

  ‘Oh! I assumed, with the accent…’

  ‘We came down from Edinburgh. Mum and Dad aren’t Scottish, but we lived there since I was four, so…’

  ‘When did you move?’

  ‘Friday. Dad wanted to do it in the school holidays so we could settle in before I start my new school.’

  Claudia’s sympathy soared. Grieving for her mother. Moving to a new place. A new school. But she sensed that sympathy wouldn’t be wanted.

  ‘Whereabouts is your new house?’ she asked. ‘Is there a lot of work to do on it?’

  Millie waved her arm towards the wooded promontory above the harbour. ‘Up on Cliff Road. There’s not much to do. Dad didn’t want a fixer-upper. He said that’d be like a busman’s holiday, whatever that means.’

  ‘What does your dad do?’

  ‘He’s an architect.’

  They reached the rock where Claudia had abandoned her book. As she picked it up, Millie tugged at her sleeve, a worried look on her face.

  ‘I probably wasn’t supposed to tell you about the divorce thing. Only friends and family knew, back home. It’s easier not to complicate things, Dad says.’

  Claudia gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Your dad’s right. Porthsteren’s a small place. Everyone learns about everyone’s business around here, sooner or later. But don’t worry, I’m good at keeping confidences. If you fancy a chat, pop by the shop any time.’ She grinned. ‘Maybe without your dad next time’ – a comment which elicited a brief but delighted laugh from Millie as they parted.

  Barely a chapter of her book read – but if Claudia had helped Millie settle into her new environment just a little, then it was a morning well spent.

  Jason was delving into a box of wrapped crockery when his phone rang. Grumbling, he fumbled in his back pocket – empty – then hauled himself off his knees to grab it from the breakfast counter.

  His mothe
r-in-law. Great.

  ‘Morning, Jennifer. How are you?’

  ‘Fine. More to the point, how are you both? How did the move go?’

  Jason dutifully filled her in. He’d always got on well enough with his in-laws, but the last couple of years had been… Awkward didn’t cover it. Jennifer and Harry had known about the impending divorce, but not the details. And naturally, as Gemma’s parents, they blamed him. Then came Gemma’s illness and passing. It was unbearable for them, to lose their daughter like that. Relations had been strained ever since – a polite gloss over unspoken recrimination.

  ‘Is Millie around?’ Jennifer asked as soon as the civilities petered out.

  ‘No, sorry. She went for a walk.’

  ‘On her own?’

  ‘She’s fourteen, Jennifer. She only went down the hill to the beach. I have to let her do these things.’

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  Jason pictured her pursed lips and sighed. He would never be an adequate parent in her eyes, not now her beloved Gemma had gone. Still, wouldn’t he feel the same way in her shoes?

  ‘I’ll tell Millie you called and ask her to phone you back.’

  ‘That would be good. And Jason?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I just want to say…’ Jennifer’s voice hitched. ‘Harry and I are so pleased that you’ve moved down south. It means a lot to us that Millie will be nearer, after Gemma…’ Her voice tailed off.

  Jason’s heart went out to her. ‘It’ll be good for Millie, too. We’ll see you some time soon, when we’ve got organised. Take care.’

  Clicking off his phone, he let out a breath. They were good people who missed their daughter, and Millie was all they had left. Besides, Millie needed her grandparents. Jason’s own parents were in New Zealand. Jennifer and Harry were a darned sight nearer in Devon. Another good reason for this move.