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

by Helen Pollard

  ‘More or less. She’d found the black spray-paint can in his shed. It was new and they had no other use for it. The morning the window was smashed, he’d told her that work had texted to call him in early, but she checked his phone later, and there was no text.’

  The blood drained from Claudia’s face. How could someone local, someone she knew, hate her so much? Blame her for so much?

  ‘Ms Bennett?’ The officer’s voice seemed far away. ‘Ms Bennett. Head down, please.’ When she didn’t respond, he simply pushed her head to her knees.

  ‘Is there anyone I can call?’ he asked her when some colour had returned to her cheeks.

  ‘Next door. Sarah or Evelyn. Please.’

  When he returned with Evelyn, she clucked and fussed and made the poor man repeat his tale, while brewing Claudia peppermint tea.

  ‘Well, I should go,’ he said when he was sure Claudia would be okay. ‘Can I keep the note?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you for everything.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘What a nice young man,’ Evelyn said as he left. ‘And such a terrible story!’

  ‘Yes.’ One that will be all around Porthsteren by the end of the day.

  Evelyn hugged her tight. ‘Will you be alright, Claudia? Shouldn’t you close up for a while?’

  At that, Claudia gritted her teeth. ‘Can’t afford to. This place has been closed too many days this year already. I’ll be okay.’

  ‘But you’ll phone Tanya?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Jason?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. Well, call us if you need anything.’

  ‘I will. Thank you.’

  Claudia got through the day in a haze, keeping herself busy, Sarah or Evelyn popping in once an hour to check she hadn’t fainted on the floor, and Tanya phoning twice more after Claudia had delivered her initial report.

  By the time she got up to her flat, all she could think about was yoga. All Pudding could think about was dinner, so she saw to him before changing, putting on some South American flute music and settling down on her yoga mat.

  The loud knock on the door did not please her. Nor did seeing Jason on her doorstep.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Good evening to you, too.’

  ‘I’m not in the mood to play games, Jason. I’ve had a crap day. Just say what you want to say, then go.’

  ‘Can I at least come inside? Or do you want everyone to get a bulletin tomorrow morning from Libby at the General Store who got it from the harbour master who got it from that woman walking her dog on the beach?’ He pointed to a prancing Cocker Spaniel and its owner, down on the sand.

  ‘Fine.’ Claudia stood aside to let him pass. ‘Tea?’

  ‘Will it have arsenic in it?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Then I’ll pass, thank you.’

  If he was waiting for an invitation to sit, he would be waiting a very long time. ‘Well?’

  ‘Tanya phoned me today. Twice.’

  Claudia closed her eyes as she tried to subdue the boiling sensation in her arteries. Opening them again, she said, ‘She shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Yes, she should. The second call was to tell me the latest about Healing Waves. I’m sorry, Claudia. I know you must be miserable about it.’

  ‘Yes.’ She shot him a challenging look. ‘Will you be popping into Hester’s Cauldron to apologise to them?’

  ‘Er. No. Best not, I think.’

  ‘Hmmph. And the other call Tanya made to you without my permission?’

  ‘That was to tell me that I’m a stubborn bastard. She was right about that. But she thought I wouldn’t apologise without being pushed, and she was wrong about that. I came by last night, but you weren’t here.’

  ‘Oh, you’re apologising? I’m sorry. I must’ve missed it.’

  Jason took a deep breath. ‘Look, I appreciate you might not want to make this easy for me, Claudia Rose, but if you make it impossible, then I’ll go, and we’ll be at loggerheads forever and a day.’

  It wasn’t his logic that softened her, but his use of her full name.

  ‘Okay.’ She sat and indicated that he should, too, noting that he chose the seat farthest from both her and Pudding, as though he didn’t fancy being injured by either of them.

  ‘What I said was unacceptable. I was fraught and emotional, and I said things I shouldn’t have. I apologise.’ He glared at her. ‘You didn’t miss that, right?’

  ‘I heard. I’m not sure it changes anything, though.’

  Jason sighed. ‘What I said was over the top. I know how much you’ve done for Millie. And I know she opens up to you in a way that she won’t with me.’

  It wasn’t surprising he might resent her for that, at least, Claudia thought.

  ‘She misses her mother,’ she said. ‘But I’m a poor substitute for Gemma, I’m afraid.’

  Jason’s Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘No, you’re not, but nobody’s trying to substitute Gemma here. That’s not possible. What’s important is that Millie has someone in her life who understands her and is happy to spend time with her. Someone who accepts her for who she is.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘I don’t want our differences, the things I said the other night, to come between you and Millie.’

  If Claudia had felt bad before, she felt a darned sight worse now. She’d thought he’d come to apologise for the hurtful things he’d said, but that was just an excuse for him to grovel for his daughter’s sake.

  Claudia walked to the door, indicating they were done, leaving Jason no choice but to stand and follow, a puzzled expression on his face.

  ‘Don’t worry, Jason. I would never deliberately hurt Millie because of what’s going on between us. If I know you sanction her spending time with me, then that’s what matters. If you and I disagree in the future, we’ll have to find a way around that without Millie playing piggy-in-the-middle, but this will do for now.’ She gave him a small, tight smile. ‘Goodnight, Jason.’ And without waiting for whatever he was going to say – because he could only make things worse – she closed the door with a firm click.

  There was a moment’s silence, and then she heard the tap of his feet on the metal stairs. Leaning against the door, she sank down to the floor, her head in her hands. When Pudding, his instinct for upset keen, padded over, clambered into her lap and rubbed his mottled face against hers, the floodgates opened.

  ‘Jason Craig, you are such an idiot! What is wrong with you?’

  It seemed that Claudia had phoned her best friend the previous night to report on Jason’s latest misdemeanours and to tell her off for contacting Jason in the first place.

  And so Tanya had phoned him at work again – his colleagues must think he was having some wild affair – to tell him she had an afternoon meeting twenty minutes from Penzance, and she expected him to meet her after work or else. When he pointed out that that would make him late home to Millie, she uttered a string of swear words he wouldn’t have thought she knew and told him the child would probably live through the ordeal.

  Peering at his arm now, wondering if it would bruise, Jason took a look around the café to see if anyone had seen him being punched by a skinny, five-foot-three blonde.

  ‘I did what you told me to,’ he insisted.

  ‘No, you didn’t. You made things worse.’ Tanya shook her head, muttering to herself, ‘How could you possibly have made things worse?’

  Jason took a gulp of his tea – too weak – and said, ‘I followed your instructions to the letter, Tanya. I went to apologise – which I did well to manage at all, since she was so damned confrontational.’

  ‘Hmm. I wonder why?’ Tanya murmured.

  ‘Then I said a bunch of other stuff, and… It all went wrong.’

  ‘Okay, Jason, think carefully about exactly what you said and how you said it, because what I got from Claudia isn’t what I’m getting from you.’ Tanya rolled her eyes. ‘You two are on different planets to each ot
her, you know that?’

  ‘Very probably. Okay, tell me what I said that I didn’t think I said.’

  ‘You apologised for what you said the other night on the beach.’

  ‘Yes. But she said being sorry didn’t change things.’ Jason frowned in concentration. ‘So then I told her I thought she was good for Millie. She said something about Gemma, and I told her nobody expected her to stand in for Gemma. Was that it?’

  ‘No, that was okay, in the context.’ Running out of patience, Tanya said, ‘You told her you didn’t want your differences to come between her and Millie.’

  ‘Was that so terrible?’

  ‘No, but…’ Tanya pulled at her short blonde hair as though she wanted to tear it out at the roots. ‘Don’t you think she might have wanted to hear that you wanted to put your differences aside for the sake of you as a couple? Not just for your daughter’s sake?’

  ‘I thought that was implied.’

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, I might have got into that, but I was down the stairs before my arse was clear of the doorway. I don’t understand why she was so mad.’

  Taking pity on him, Tanya placed a hand on his across the café table. ‘She wasn’t mad. She was disappointed. Claudia knows you’ll always put your daughter before her. But she was beginning to hope she might at least come a very close second. Last night, you put Millie first. Again.’

  ‘But that wasn’t what I meant! I mean, I did, but there was more to say.’

  ‘Yes, there was.’ Tanya smiled sadly. ‘And you didn’t apologise for the one unforgivable thing you’d said, did you?’

  ‘About her not being a mother,’ he admitted quietly. Tanya was right – it had been unforgivable, after Claudia had opened her heart and soul to him about her hopes of having a family being dashed by that selfish bastard of an ex of hers. ‘I suppose I was trying to ease myself in – you know, start with the general, then move onto the specific. But I never got the chance.’

  ‘If you decide to try again, Jason, put her first. Just this once. Make her feel like she really matters to you.’ Tanya glanced at her watch. ‘You need to get back to Millie.’

  Jason left the café with her. ‘Thanks, Tanya, for what you’re trying to do.’

  ‘You’re welcome. But bear in mind that if Claudia finds out I’m meddling again, she’ll kill me.’

  Jason smiled. ‘Suits me. I don’t want her thinking I need help from a witch to run my love life.’

  Startling him, Tanya reached out to touch his face. ‘You said it. Finally!’

  Jason’s brows knitted together. ‘Said what?’

  ‘Think about it.’

  Walking to his car, he muttered, ‘What did I say? Why do these women expect me to remember the exact wording I used all the time? All I said was that I shouldn’t need a witch to run my love life for me… love. Ah.’

  Climbing into his car, Jason sat for a moment. ‘Love life’ was just an expression, wasn’t it? He wasn’t, was he? In love with Claudia? He dropped his head to the steering wheel and banged it a couple of times in the hope of working out what the hell was going on in there. A passer-by stared at him, concerned.

  He started the car. Whether he was in love with her was a moot point. Firstly, he doubted Claudia wanted him to be. Secondly, Millie might not want him to be, either. And even if she claimed not to mind, there were too many fireworks and variables to drag his daughter into this.

  Jason drove back to Porthsteren in a daze not suitable for rush-hour traffic and winding roads. When he got home, Millie had made pasta. Again. He was going to start looking like fusilli at this rate.

  When they’d eaten – or both pushed it around their plates for a while – he decided there was one matter he could do something about.

  ‘Millie, I’ve been talking to Tanya.’ Perfectly true. ‘We both think you should reconsider learning from her.’ Also true, even if that’s not what we talked about.

  Millie’s shoulders slumped. ‘I told you, I changed my mind.’

  Jason hoisted himself from the bar stool and carried the dishes to the sink. ‘For the wrong reasons.’

  ‘You told Claudia you’d been forced into agreeing.’

  He caught her gaze and held it. ‘I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘You honestly don’t mind if I phone Tanya?’

  ‘Honestly.’ And this time, Jason meant it. although it occurred to him that he ought to text Tanya to forewarn her. ‘I’d leave it till tomorrow, if I were you, or you’ll be late for meditation. I’ll give you a lift.’

  ‘You’re not coming?’

  I’m not welcome until I’ve tried apologising again. And I can’t do that in a room full of people hoping to find some Zen. ‘Not tonight. I have work to do.’

  ‘Okay.’ Millie pounded upstairs to get ready, leaving Jason to grab his phone and send the witch a text.

  Late Sunday afternoon was Millie’s first date for Wicca lessons. Tanya had agreed to drive all the way to their house so that Jason would feel comfortable with it – a generous gesture.

  Jason wasn’t sure he’d ever feel comfortable with it, but he did feel settled about it, and that would have to do.

  He still hadn’t been to see Claudia. On Wednesday, he’d had Millie to pick up after drama, and as she’d been in a chatty mood with him for a change – perhaps because he was being supportive about the Wicca thing – he hadn’t felt he could abscond for a ‘walk’. On Thursday, he’d had a late meeting with a client. He knew that on Friday Claudia and Tanya were spending the evening together, because Tanya had texted to tell him. She’d also told him to pull his finger out, and she’d made it graphically clear from where. Saturday, Millie was working at Healing Waves, and since it was Claudia’s busiest day, he didn’t think it would be the best timing.

  And so here he was on Sunday afternoon, drinking tea out on the decking, procrastinating.

  ‘Dad, are you okay?’ Millie came and sat down in the other chair.

  ‘Fine. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for Tanya?’

  ‘Nothing to get ready.’ Millie stayed there, quietly studying him.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘When are you going to tell Claudia that you love her?’

  Jason sloshed tea all over his feet. ‘What?’

  Millie rolled her eyes. ‘C’mon, Dad. Everybody knows it but her. I do. Tanya does.’

  ‘Has Tanya been talking to you about me and Claudia?’ I’ll kill her!

  ‘No, but I mentioned to her that Claudia seemed down yesterday, and Tanya said she was worried, too.’ Millie drew her knees up to her chest, watching the spilled tea trickle into the cracks between the decking. ‘Claudia puts on a bright face, but…’

  ‘She’s had a lot to deal with, Millie. The damage to the shop, not so long after the storm in the spring. And it’s a long, busy season. She can’t be expected to be on top of the world all the time.’

  Millie gave him a look. ‘Dad, I’m fourteen, not four. I know there was something going on between you two.’

  He looked at her for a long while, then nodded, beaten. ‘You knew, huh?

  ‘Yup.’ She grinned that cheeky grin she used to send his way as a little girl. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it. It sent a pang to his heart.

  ‘Millie, Claudia and I don’t see eye to eye on…’

  ‘On just about everything. Yeah. Got that. Hasn’t stopped you falling in love with her, though, has it?’

  Jeez. He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation with his teenage daughter. ‘No.’

  ‘I knew it!’ Millie leapt to her feet and did a victory dance.

  ‘Alright, smartarse, that’s enough.’

  Laughing, she plopped down onto the decking by his side. ‘Why won’t you tell her?’

  Jason heaved a sigh. ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Because of me?’ Millie asked, serious now.

  Oh, dear lord. How could he tell her yes, because
of her? He opened his mouth, but nothing useful transferred from his brain to his tongue.

  Millie turned to him, her eyes appealing directly to him. ‘I don’t want you to not be happy because of me. If you two like each other, you should do something about it.’

  ‘I could never be unhappy because of you, Millie.’ Jason sighed. ‘But… What about Mum?’

  Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Mum’s gone. And you weren’t happy with her. With each other, I should say.’ When Jason raised an eyebrow at that, she said, ‘I’ve been unfair on you. I knew that, deep down, but with Mum dying…’

  ‘I know.’

  Millie took his hand in hers, a gesture that caused tears to well up in his eyes. She hadn’t held his hand in so long.

  ‘Mum wouldn’t have wanted you to carry on being unhappy, Dad. You were getting divorced anyway. You would’ve found someone else eventually.’

  ‘It’s not just that.’ Jason squeezed Millie’s hand. Took a deep breath. He could be honest with his own daughter, couldn’t he? ‘If Claudia wants anything to do with me – which she may not, because I’ve made an awful mess of it so far – we have no idea how it’ll go. If it works out badly, that might hurt you as well as me and her. It’d be hard for you to be friends with her if she’s not talking to me. Or friends with me if you side with her, which is far more likely.’

  ‘It might not go badly.’

  ‘It’s too early to know that. But even if it went well…’

  Realisation dawned on Millie’s face. ‘We might all end up living together, you might even marry her, and then she’d be my stepmother?’

  ‘It’s… a very distant possibility.’

  ‘Why is that a bad thing?’

  ‘It’s not a bad thing. But it is a big thing. I don’t expect you to accept a replacement for your mum.’

  ‘Dad, I think Claudia’s great. And I wouldn’t see her as a replacement for Mum. She’d be… Well, she’d be Claudia.’

  Jason looked into his daughter’s eyes. She’d come such a long way, these past months.

  He sighed. ‘I think we’re jumping the gun a bit. Claudia’s not even speaking to me.’