Two Fridays in April (38 page)

No, not at all – I’m just postponing it for a bit, that’s all. I’m in no hurry
. And in the event, he stayed on in the house with his father for an entire year – but look how it’s worked out.

Maybe, all things considered, she did him a favour.

His voice is in her ear again: ‘Isobel, we’re OK for everything else, except … would you have any of those long skinny candles?’

She smiles. ‘I certainly would. Do you need candlesticks?’

‘No – we found a load of flowerpots in the shed; they’ll do nicely. Come a bit early and I’ll show you around before the others get here.’

Isobel hasn’t seen the house yet: George has only been living there for a week or so.
It’s small
, Daphne has told her.
A bungalow, two bedrooms. Needs a bit of modernising but there’s a nice little side garden, and a garage
.

Daphne knows the place well: she was the first of them to come across it. She valued it when it was put up for sale just over a year ago, had her car stolen from right around the corner on the very same day.

The house wasn’t sold; it was reclaimed by one of the people who’d inherited it. She decided she’d move in after all, along with her little son who just happened to have George for a teacher. And at some stage romance blossomed, and now George has moved in too, leaving his father to live alone, for however long that will last.

‘You busy?’ George asks, and Isobel tells him it’s been quiet so far this afternoon.

‘But on the whole it’s going well, right?’

Yes, she told him. On the whole, everything was going well.

‘Does it come in blue?’

The woman holds an olive green cushion with an owl motif in rusty oranges and browns on the front. ‘I don’t care for the green, but I think I’d like it in blue.’

Her face is shiny and very pink. A dark brown fringe draws
a dead straight line across the tight skin of her forehead, an inch above her eyebrows. What appears to be a tiny diamond in her left earlobe winks when the light catches it.

‘I’m afraid that particular one doesn’t come in other colours.’

‘Pity. I always think owls are mysterious.’ Tracing the curves of its head with a slender finger. ‘I think they should be witches’ familiars instead of black cats.’

‘Do you really?’ Isobel asks. The things she has to listen to sometimes.

‘Definitely. Those giant eyes, and the way they can twist their heads around, and that sound they make. Sends shivers down my spine when I hear it.’

And yet she wants an owl on her cushion.

‘We do have a blue one, but it’s got an elephant on it. Or how about the gorgeous Siamese cat in navy? I have it myself at home – everyone admires it.’

Isobel doesn’t have the Siamese cat, or any of the other Creature Comfort cushions, in her apartment. Her couch is the pale yellow of wild primroses; the cushions scattered across it are in various shades of cream, with no motifs. But it’s a lie that works surprisingly often: people are easily swayed.

Not this one. ‘It was the owl I was after,’ she says, her eyes sliding away, her gaze wandering over the shop as if other owls might materialise. Fly from the teapots, maybe. Pop out of the toasters, or spring from the cuckoo clock when its door opens.

When she’s alone again Isobel goes into the back room and makes a pot of green tea. While the kettle sings she opens a press
and sees Mo’s ancient adding machine inside. Had it for years, she told Isobel.
Leo got it for me
, she said.
Better than any computer, never lets me down
.

They could well get rid of it now – their new accountant does all his sums on a tablet, would surely laugh at that contraption if they showed it to him. They could bring it to a charity shop – might catch the eye of some collector of antiques. Or they could simply bin it, but so far nobody’s touched it. Not doing anyone any harm.

Back in the shop her phone beeps: a text from Jack.
You need a lift tonight?
he asks.
I’ll be passing your door
.

Thoughtful as ever. She studies the screen, composing a reply. Composing a number of replies.

Thank you
, she types eventually,
but I’ll be travelling early to help with preparations. See you there, looking forward to it
.

After she’d left Alex, she phoned Jack to tell him. She’s not sure why: it just felt like something she should do. She’d met him briefly at Daphne’s on the night it happened, the night of Una’s dramatic disappearance – but of course it wasn’t the time or place, and it wasn’t until four or five days later that she picked up the phone and dialled his number.

Daphne told me
, he said, which Isobel had partly guessed. Still, she felt he should hear it from her too.
I’m sorry
, he added, and it didn’t sound insincere.

There’s nobody else
, she told him, even though he hadn’t asked, even though he probably wasn’t interested. She wanted him to know that another man wasn’t involved this time; for some reason, it seemed important that he know this.

There hasn’t been anyone else since Alex. In over a year she
hasn’t gone on a single date. She hasn’t shared her bed, or anyone else’s, since she and Alex were man and wife. She’s interacted with males in the shop; a few have even flirted mildly with her, but nothing more has come of it. And for now, she’s fine with that. In lots of ways, being alone suits her – it’s the thought of being alone forever that unnerves her.

She’s happy to have Jack back in her orbit, however casually. For years, after she’d renewed contact with him and Daphne, their encounters had, not surprisingly, been strained, and Isobel had assumed that they’d never again achieve anything resembling a normal friendship. But over the past year, since she and Daphne have been repairing their damage, it seems that Isobel and Daphne’s father are achieving their own resolution. Now when they meet, usually at Daphne’s house, there’s an ease between them that Isobel rejoices in – and if she senses a tiny occasional hesitancy in him, a barely discernible pulling back in his manner towards her, she considers it no more than she deserves.

For Daphne’s sake, she’s glad for her and Jack to be where they are, and for her own sake too. He’s a good man.

The shop door opens to admit a couple, mid-thirties, with brightly coloured jackets and the healthy complexions of people who spend a good deal of time out of doors. Boating, maybe: Isobel can see them on a yacht in matching white trousers and striped jumpers.

‘Great window,’ the man says. American or Canadian; she can never distinguish the accents.

‘My granddaughter is responsible,’ Isobel tells him. Granddaughter is easier than trying to explain the relationship
– and now that she’s getting Daphne back, she may as well lay claim to Una too. ‘She changes the window every Saturday – she’s very artistic.’

‘I can see that. How ’bout the bike? Is it for sale?’

The question is regularly asked. Once again, Isobel explains that the bicycle in the window belonged to the previous owner, a relative of hers by marriage, and is not for sale. ‘We keep it there for sentimental reasons,’ she tells them. ‘He wasn’t old when he died.’

For whatever reason, the story tends to go down well. Finn’s blue bicycle, and its constant presence in the window, usually adorned with items from the shop’s supplies – an umbrella dangling from the handlebars, a birdcage sitting on the carrier, a throw draped over the saddle – gives the shop its character, makes people more inclined to bring something away from it.

As the pair wander along the aisles, the door opens again and Una appears, her school tie absent as usual from its official spot, her hair pulled into the high ponytail she’s taken to wearing lately.

‘Anything that needs doing?’ she asks. She’s dropped in most days after school since Mo’s departure – not that she wasn’t a frequent caller before that. ‘Can I help in any way?’

‘I was just talking about you,’ Isobel tells her, and passes on the tourist’s compliment. ‘He was asking about the bike too.’

Una laughs. ‘Another one.’

Wonderful to see how happy she is now, after the loss of both parents in her short life. She delights in the shop; it’s as if she was born to work there. And of course, love helps. Love always helps, and Una is undoubtedly in love. Her choice of
boyfriend might have been a little bewildering, but love doesn’t always allow for choice.

Wonderful, too, how she and Daphne look after one another now, closer than many a mother and daughter. Lovely to see how Daphne, with no children of her own – and, it has to be said, no great memories of being mothered herself – has nurtured that relationship and built it into the fine thing it is now.

And of course Daphne has also had a little luck in the love department lately, which is good to see too.

Isobel checks under the counter. ‘You could bring some bubble wrap out from the back room,’ she tells Una, and off the girl goes.

‘Say.’

Isobel turns. The Americans, or Canadians, are standing before the seascape.

‘You might wrap this one up for us,’ the man says. ‘It’s a little beauty.’

Una stays for an hour or so, working her way along the shelves, lifting objects to dust carefully under them, replacing everything exactly as she found it. Watching her, Isobel wonders if she’s ever reminded of the shop when her father ran it, if she ever thinks back to the time he stood behind the counter.

Of course, it’s changed a lot since then – the renovations were pretty extensive – but one of the features they’ve retained is the old counter, sanded and varnished but still there. Does she ever see him as he was? Is she ever stirred by memories of him here?

‘Are you looking forward to this evening?’ Isobel asks.

Una smiles. ‘Yeah, should be good.’

And before either of them can say more, a car horn toots outside the door. Una instantly blushes: he’s here, the one she’s been waiting for. The one who always collects her as soon as he finishes up at his catering college. She stows the duster in its place behind the counter and lifts her rucksack. ‘See you later,’ she says, slinging it over a shoulder. She strides across the floor and pulls open the door with the effortless grace of the young. Eighteen, and all to live for. Isobel was happy and hopeful too, at eighteen.

When the clocks tell her it’s five twenty she cashes up, looking forward to Daphne’s reaction when she hears that the seascape has been sold. Nice news to get on her birthday.

Mo would surely have something to say about it, if she could. One born every minute, or words to that effect.

S
he listens to his phone ringing.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, George. Kevin says the pups are ready to go. We could bring Josh’s along with us this evening, if you like.’

Dolly had done what came naturally sometime in January.
We’ve no idea who the father is
, Kevin said, when it became apparent that the family dog was in the family way.
We’ll have to wait and see what comes out
– and what came out, around the middle of March, was a glorious tumble of twelve oversized ears and six raggy tails and plump wriggling bodies in coats that
ranged in colour from Dolly’s black and white through caramel brown to chestnut red.

We need to find homes
, Judy said.
Ask anyone you can think of
– so Una put it to George, who consulted with Louise. When the response was positive, Una took photos of each pup on her phone, and a chestnut male with a cream patch over an eye was selected.

‘I’m being given the thumbs-up here,’ George tells her now. ‘Bring it along – he’ll be delighted.’

‘OK, see you later.’

She hangs up and passes the word to Kevin, who goes off in search of a box.

Charlotte spreads butter on a second scone. ‘They’ll have to think up a name,’ she says, reaching for the jam. Charlotte has been eating for two since November.
Eating for half a dozen, more like
, Kevin remarked lately, and got a swipe with a tea towel across his rear end in response.

‘I think they’re going to let Josh name him,’ Una says.