Once Evelyn left too, another silence fell. An awkward one. They didn’t need Gage, a stranger, hanging around while they dissected this piece of news. He made his own excuses and headed for the door.
‘Don’t judge Evelyn too harshly.’ Tamara caught up with him, grasping his arm. ‘It must’ve knocked her for six. I didn’t even know shehada sister.’ A wry smile wreathed her face. ‘Every time you think you know someone well, this sort of thing happens.’
‘We all keep secrets. Even from those we’re closest to.’
‘Sad, isn’t it?’
For a few fleeting seconds, Gage felt a complete affinity with this woman he barely knew, and who he’d been swift to decide was as uncompromising as himself.
‘Yeah.’ His voice came out in a croak. ‘I’d better be going. Lots to do at the shop.’ If he stayed any longer, he’d be tempted to do something stupid. Like be honest with her.
Chapter Five
Tamara was at a loose end. After she’d finished making the puddings for Sunday lunch, Pixie had shooed her away.
‘Don’t worry, you’ll still get your full pay, but Christos is coming in to help me,’ her friend had said. ‘We don’t have a ton of bookings today, so it’ll be a good chance for him to get some more experience.’
So far, Tamara wasn’t impressed by Christos’s idea of ‘work’. It seemed to consist of chatting up the female customers, the youngest and most attractive ones, and being nowhere to be found when a barrel needed changing.
‘You could work on some more recipes for our Decadent December Desserts specials?’ Pixie suggested. The idea was to tempt customers with something new for each day of the month and prove there was more to festive treats than the ubiquitous mince pies.
‘I’m not really in a baking mood.’
Now, Tamara had already speed-cleaned the house and the week’s washing was out on the line, so what should she do with the rest of the day? She had no intention of turning up on Toby and Chloe’s doorstep to intrude on their rare free Sunday together.
There was the usual flea market in Par, but she needed to tighten her belt even further now and not fritter away money she didn’t have. It’d be fruitless to promise herself she’d only buy suitable items for reselling, because if she spotted a porcelain pig, all bets would be off.
Her obsession had started on her fifth birthday when her late Aunt Edith had given her a bright pink money bank, which squeaked a cheerful oink every time a coin was put in its slot. Even Toby didn’t know the full extent of her collection because most of it was boxed up in the attic, ready to be displayed oneday. Some people would call it sad, but she logged her porcelain pig purchases in a special pink notebook and gave them all names, recording when and where they’d been bought and how much she’d paid for them.
There was no milk in the fridge so she could take a wander down to Vernon Bull’s shop, which opened on Sundays albeit for slightly shorter hours. The shop was a lot smarter these days, thanks to Chloe’s success in persuading the stick-in-the-mud shopkeeper to make changes. Toby’s partner had worked there full time for a while before starting her new university course and still picked up a few shifts whenever she could. Tamara might even treat herself to a pizza if there were any fresh out of the oven.
The weather was mild for late October, so she didn’t stop to put anything on over her thin T-shirt. She’d learned to swim in the cold Cornish seas, long before it was labelled ‘wild swimming’, has been part of a gig-boat racing crew as a teenager and still surfed whenever she had the chance. A little cool air didn’t bother her.
The sun warmed her shoulders and a straggle of puffy clouds dotted the almost Mediterranean-blue sky, making it hard to believe in only a couple of months it’d be Christmas. Tamara ordered herself to stop being such an ungrateful cow. She had her health, a roof over her head, a loving son and his partner, and great friends, and she lived in a beautiful part of the world.
Instead of heading straight to the shop, she impulsively turned onto Poltaire Road and strode past the doctor’s house and surgery to see what the new development looked like now. The last time she’d checked, only two of the houses were finished, while the others were still in various stages of construction.
Despite lingering misgivings about whether places like this were an asset or a curse, it was clear that whoever haddesigned Trelawney Court had done an excellent job. With the sympathetic use of local granite, typical Cornish slate roofs and mellow paint shades in light pinks, soft blues and pale green, the new homes blended in better than she’d envisaged. Two sets of six houses, none of which were cookie-cutter identical, fanned out on either side of the entrance road.
‘Not a bad spot, is it?’ A well-built older man with iron-grey hair and a slight stoop strolled out from the nearest garden, or at least what would be a garden when it was more than a square of recently laid turf. ‘This one’s mine.’
‘It’s very nice.’
‘But you’re local and aren’t sure about more incomers. That’s understandable.’
Tamara shifted awkwardly under the strength of the man’s piercing blue eyes. ‘Villages that don’t expand eventually die, but those that do often end up losing the sense of community that drew people there in the first place.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s a conundrum.’ Remembering her manners, she stuck out her hand and introduced herself.
He smiled. ‘Wilf Buckingham. My family were from these parts originally before they moved to the London area, so maybe that makes me a little more acceptable?’ His eyes twinkled.
‘More than a little.’
‘I’ve recently retired from the hotel business, but I’ll need to find something to keep me out of trouble. My wife, Karen, is a great crafter, so she’ll be looking for like-minded people and she’d love to find a local choir to join as well. Is there anything like that going on in the village at Christmas, perhaps?’
‘There’s the Christmas Eve service at the church, and we have a free lunch on Christmas Day at the pub for anyone who’s on their own or simply needs a meal.’
Wilf nodded in approval.
‘A lot more people put up lights outside their homes these days, so the village looks really pretty at Christmas.’
