by Agatha Frost
“What is it?” he asked, hurrying to her side. “Is something wrong?”
“I think I just felt the first kick.”
Julia grabbed Barker’s hand and pressed it firmly against the spot. There was another gentle thud, and Barker’s eyes lit up. Neither of them moved for the next ten minutes, and the baby kicked twice more.
“He’s going to be a footballer,” Barker said after the baby finally settled. “I can feel it.”
“Or she.” Julia followed him up the stairs, glad to see the rain had eased off a little. “And while we’re on the subject, don’t you go thinking these cases will get you out of putting up that flatpack. The baby will be here, kicking and screaming in front of us, in no time, and I’d quite like to have a nursery before that happens.”
“Plenty of time yet.” Barker held open the kitchen door and ushered her inside, his hand resting gently on the small of her back. “But for now, I want to try one of those cakes Evelyn made. People can’t seem to get enough of them.”
The party continued on late into the evening, the villagers dropping off one by one until only family remained. While Jessie and Barker helped Sue and Katie clean up, and Percy and Brian played a game of poker, Julia followed Dot around the waterlogged village green and into her cottage.
When they were settled in the sitting room with cups of tea, Dot handed over a rectangular object concealed in Christmas wrapping paper.
“It’s all I had in,” she explained, waving at the red and green paper.
Julia ripped back the paper to reveal a small book with ‘MEMORIES’ embossed in gold on the black leather cover. On the first page, Dot’s familiar handwriting greeted her:
You never know when you might need to look back at the good times.
Julia flicked through the album, surprised and touched to see a photograph taken while on the second week of the holiday on every page. She remembered posing for a handful of Dot’s shots, but the rest were candid pictures taken of Julia, Barker, and Jessie. They were smiling or laughing in most of them, seemingly unaware of the camera.
“How did you do this so quickly?”
“Jessie helped me send the pictures ahead of time,” Dot said after sipping her tea. “Alfie put the book together for me. I wanted you to have it as thanks for what you did.”
“I didn’t solve this one on my own,” she replied, “but thank you.”
“But even when you gave up hope, you still kept plodding along, and that’s all that matters.” Dot looked down into her cup as she swirled the tea in it. “Life can be a long slog, Julia. Everything will change when that baby gets here. You’re going to have good days and bad days, but if you’re anything like me, those pictures will get you through and remind you what’s important.”
“Family.”
“Exactly.” Dot smiled. “You get it.”
Julia held the album tight to her chest. She’d treasure it for the rest of her life – not just because of the pictures it contained, but because of everything they’d gone through to have enough happy moments to fill the pages. The two of them had been tested in very different ways, but the experience had created even closer bonds – something Julia hadn’t thought possible until Savega.
“What now?” Julia asked, glancing through the rain as the twilight settled in. “Should we go help them clear up the mess your honoured guests made in my café?”
“We should.” Dot lifted her teacup in a salute. “But first, I intend on savouring every last drop of this miraculous brew. Oh, how I missed thee.”
Rain pattered softly against the windowpane as they sipped their tea, and the comfortable silence between them was a sign that their lives were well on their way back to normal – or as normal, Julia supposed with a smile, as things ever truly were in Peridale.
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Vanilla Bean Vengeance - Chapter 1
Claires Candles Book 1 - Available NOW on Amazon!
The small shop was perfect. Claire Harris walked around the empty space, her heart fluttering with excitement. She knew exactly how she would decorate it, how she would arrange the displays. How could she not? She’d spent years daydreaming about owning her very own candle shop.
“I’d put the counter right here,” she said, standing where she would spend her days and looking out the single-paned bay window onto the village square. The spring daylight streamed into the shop in dusty golden lines. “And the seasonal candles right here.”
“It’s the perfect size,” said Sally Halliwell, the estate agent. “Places like this don’t come up often.”
“I know.”
Claire had spent years waiting for the perfect shop, but things rarely changed in the small Lancashire village of Northash. Jane’s Tearoom had only closed because Jane’s daughter, happy being a yoga instructor, hadn’t wanted to take over the family business. Jane clung on for as long as she could, more for the sake of her regulars than anything else. Single-handedly running a café wasn’t as easy fifteen years past retirement, according to Jane’s emotional speech on closing day.
“I’d make the candles in here.” Claire walked through to the kitchen at the back. “It’s compact, but perfect for what I need. Small runs of artisan candles, made in Northash, sold in Northash. Nobody is doing it.”
“I can smell them now.”
“And the flat upstairs!” Claire spun around, clinging to the doorframe. “I’d only have to come down a single flight of stairs to work.”
“The dream.”
“I could wake up ten minutes before opening.”
“Would you like to see the flat again?”
Claire nodded, beaming from ear to ear.
Sally led the way through the side door in the kitchen, up the narrow staircase, and into the living quarters above. The flat was made up of an open-plan kitchen, living, and dining area, with two small bedrooms and a bathroom. The roof sloped at the front and the back, but Claire was short enough that her head was well shy of grazing the ceiling. It was dated and small by anyone’s standards, but so were most places in Northash. For Claire, it beat living with her parents.
“South-facing front windows,” Sally explained, consulting the brochure. “No damp, good attic insulation, and the gas safety certificate is up to date. A lick of paint and a new carpet would drag it into 2020.”
<
br /> The floral wallpaper wasn’t to Claire’s tastes, but somehow, for the sake of her dream, she didn’t mind it. She had never visited when it was Jane’s flat, but she could easily imagine the inevitable high-backed velvet chairs, porcelain ornaments, and lace doilies. Like most everyone else in town, she still couldn’t believe quiet and meek Jane Brindle had left Northash for a new life in France.
“Big enough for one,” Claire said almost to herself as she walked over to the front window. “And pets are allowed.”
“Rare around here.”
Claire looked through the small window, and it felt strange to be seeing the village square from up above. Beyond the small clock tower in the middle of the square stood The Hesketh Arms pub, doubtless already filled with people having a pint and pie on their lunch breaks. Similar-sized shops with similar flats above lined the rest of the square, all quietly busy, keeping the village’s small economy ticking. Northash, at least, was still valiantly fending off corporate invasion in favour of small local businesses.
“I’ll take it.”
Claire spun around, and for a brief moment, she and Sally stared at each other with the same pursed lips. The laughter broke free, bursting Claire’s fantasy with it.
Sally joined her at the window, and they looked out together. Mrs Beaton, one of Claire’s elderly neighbours at the cul-de-sac, was out with one of her many reluctant cats fastened into a pink harness, picking up the odd bits of rubbish and putting them in the bins. Sally rested a hand on Claire’s shoulder, the weight of reality behind it.
“It won’t stay on the market forever,” Sally said softly, her professional tone gone. “We’ve had a bit of interest already.”
“I know.”
“Can you still not afford it?”
Claire pulled her phone from her pocket and opened up her banking app. Using her thumbprint as the password, she revealed the £456.89 in her current account and the £2.34 in savings. She didn’t mind showing Sally. They’d been close friends since their school days.
“Not even enough for the deposit and first month’s rent.” Claire slotted the phone back into her pocket. “Can barely get shifts at the factory since Nicola brought in the zero-hours contracts.”
“You know your—”
“Parents would lend me the money?” Claire interjected. “I know, I know. But it’s not their dream, it’s mine.”
“Your dad would give it to you in a heartbeat.”
“I couldn’t ask him.”
“Well, if you don’t want to be stuck working at the candle factory for the rest of your life, you need to act sooner rather than later.” Sally squeezed Claire’s shoulder a final time before pulling away. “Right, I need to get back to work. Got a couple of viewings over in Skipton.”
“Real viewings, you mean.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I know.” Claire smiled. “Thanks for showing it to me again.”
They were on their third viewing, and Claire was no closer to being able to afford it. She had hoped glimpsing her dream again would have inspired the money in her bank account to grow; it had not.
“You make the best candles,” Sally said as they descended the narrow staircase. “Even my mother-in-law loved that new vanilla one you gave me, and she doesn’t like anything.”
Claire had spent weeks perfecting her latest vanilla creation. People always assumed it was as simple as throwing vanilla extract into wax, but Claire knew differently. Base notes of vanilla, middle notes of caramel and white musk, and a top note of sugar had resulted in Claire’s best vanilla candle yet. Simple, yet sweet and seductive, and powerful enough to fill an entire room as soon as the lid was taken off, all without being cloying. She appreciated the praise, but scents were one of the few things she knew she was good at without needing validation. Her nose did the work for her.
“We’ll have dinner soon, okay?” Sally locked the front door. “Paul is still working his behind off for that promotion, and the kids are driving me up the wall now they’re on Easter break. Who knew adulthood would be so stressful, eh? I could use a girl’s night out.”
They hugged before Sally climbed into her car. Claire lingered outside the shop, waving Sally off. As she watched the car leave the village square, she knew Sally’s girl’s night out was as much a fantasy as Claire’s dream of opening a shop.
At thirty-five, they were the same age, but their lives couldn’t have worked out more differently. Claire and Sally had attended school together, inseparable through it all. Best friends for life – and they had the matching necklaces to prove it. Sally stopped wearing hers in their early twenties, but she insisted she had it in a drawer somewhere. Claire hadn’t seen it in years. Claire kept her necklace in her jewellery box; it meant more to her than it did to Sally.
Sally provided a glimpse into an alternate reality where the focus was climbing the career ladder and being a wife and mother. Sally had always dreamed of having a family, and she had it.
Claire had only ever dreamed of the candle shop.
The shop was just as perfect from the outside looking in, even with the lights off. Claire didn’t resent Sally for her life. She was truly happy for her oldest friend. It wasn’t Sally’s fault Claire had spent the past seventeen years working on the assembly line in the candle factory. A job close enough to her dream to get her out of bed in the morning, but low-paying enough to keep her real dream always just out of reach.
Pulling herself away from the shop and her dream, she crossed the square, smiling and waving at Mrs Beaton as she went. The old woman squinted through her saucer bifocals, waving back but not seeming to recognise Claire at all. Nobody knew Mrs Beaton’s first name. Nobody knew Mrs Beaton’s age. Nobody knew how many cats Mrs Beaton actually shared her home with. All Claire knew was that Mrs Beaton had lived in the same cul-de-sac as her parents longer than anyone could remember and had been an old woman for all that time.
Claire climbed the two steps into Marley’s Café, the only option for a cup of tea and a slice of cake since Jane’s Tearoom closed its doors for the final time. Marley’s vegan café had always struggled to fill all its seats on any given day, even though it was smaller than Jane’s place. Clearly, he no longer had this problem.
“Sorry I’m late.” Claire kissed her father, Alan Harris, on the cheek and sat across from him, the café bustling with life around her. “Lost track of time.”
Claire’s father was her favourite person in the whole world, and she didn’t mind admitting it to anyone who asked. She didn’t make a habit of lying to him, but she hadn’t told him about her fantasy viewings of the empty shop. She wouldn’t have even told Sally if she hadn’t been the estate agent, though she doubted she would have gone to see it at all if she weren’t.
Maybe she should have stuck to staring through the window like she had for a month before plucking up the courage to ask for a look inside.
“It’s all right, love.” Alan rested his pen on the paper, the crossword half filled in. “Was just training my brain. Your mother says I’ve gone slow since I retired.”
“You only retired last year.”
“Try telling her that.” He winked. “Forty years in the police force, twenty of those a detective, and she thinks my brain has turned to mush after a year of pottering around the garden.” He glanced down at the paper, scratching the side of his bald head. “She might be onto something. Can’t for the life of me figure this one out.”
“Go on.”
“Eight across, seven letters.” He peered over his glasses. “Derogatory word for non-country dwellers.”
“Townies.”
From her angle, Claire saw the ‘i’ in ‘zinc’ crossed at the correct place; her father grinned and jotted it down.
“Townies!” He dropped the pen again. “You always were a clever girl.”
“Tell that to my teachers at school.”
“Exams mean nothing. You have a brain, and you know how to use it.”
“I
wish my brain could figure out a way to make more money.”
“Whatever for?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She looked down at the chocolate brownie on his plate. “Mum would do a backflip if she knew you’d ordered a brownie.”
He grinned and pushed the plate across to her. “This one is for you. I already had mine.”
Claire bit into the brownie, so creamy and chocolatey she never would have guessed half its ingredients were substituted. Like most of the villagers, she’d always favoured Jane’s Tearoom and had never given the vegan café much of a chance. Still, as much as she had liked Jane’s traditional baking, she wasn’t too proud to admit she preferred everything she’d tried of Marley’s so far, vegan or not.
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” she mumbled through the mouthful. “Diets are boring anyway. And it’s vegan. That must mean it’s healthy, right?”
“Nothing tasting that good could ever be healthy.”
“A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”
“Now you sound like your mother.”
Janet, her mother, had been trying to put Claire on a diet ever since she had been forced to move back in with them. Her mother was a tall and slender woman by nature, and she didn’t seem to understand why Claire didn’t look like her. Claire had inherited her father’s body. Round and short, with the thin mousy hair and lousy eyesight to match. An apple shape on two stilts, she had always called it. She’d given up the dream of wanting to look like everyone else a long time ago. Only her mother still seemed to care.