Tuesday morning started with discovering Gran’s card on the shop doormat with two ten pound notes inside and the words, ‘To be spent on something frivolous.’
It’s not my thirtieth until the end of September but it took me back to birthdays when I was little, while making me despair at Gran’s trust in the postal system. I immediately decided against telling her how risky sending cash through the mail is. She’d only say, ‘You got it, didn’t you?’ I’ve already sent one of the bookshop postcards straight back to say thank you.
Elliot was gone by the time I’d butter-iced this morning’s cupcakes, off to check on Aldous at the vet’s with Jowan, and I’ve managed both the shop and the café by myself all morning. Not that I was rushed off my feet. It’s drizzled steadily since dawn and there’s only a tiny sliver of blue sky peering out behind clouds now that it’s noon. The rain must be keeping the visitors away from Clove Lore today. I bet those cobbles are deathly slippery.
Elliot’s been back for ten minutes bringing the good news that Aldous is doing really well, although he’s refusing to eat the plain rice Anjali’s been offering him.
‘You should have offered him one of my scones,’ I tell him as he gets into his apron to take over at the café counter.
‘I’m afraid Aldous’s days as a connoisseur of baked goods are over. No more scones and cheese sarnies. It’s rice and shredded chicken for the foreseeable for him.’
‘Chicken soup’s probably all right, isn’t it?’ I say.
‘Hmm, I can’t see why not, as long as it’s salt-free. Jowan told me the daft mutt’s been on a can of cream of chicken soup every day for the past two and a half years down at the Siren.’
‘The little guy’s had a whole village of enablers all this time,’ I say. ‘Indulging him nearly killed him.’
‘He’s grieving though,’ Elliot says, and I see his fondness for the stinky mutt written all over his face.
Just as Elliot is leaving me to my own devices for the afternoon, the shop bell rings out and a familiar-looking woman appears, white-haired and rosy-cheeked, a stubby pencil behind one ear, and literally half Elliot’s height.
‘Hello, me dears. I’ve brought a little treat from the ice-cream cottage,’ she announces, handing over two small tubs. ‘Clotted cream vanilla; my best seller.’
‘Thank you! Mrs… Crocombe?’ I ask, gleefully taking the tub. It’s ages since I had ice cream.
‘We’re practically neighbours; my shop’s only Down-along,’ she says, her eyes darting between me and Elliot.
‘I’ve seen it,’ Elliot says, taking his tub and, as I predicted, starting to eat immediately, even before he’s finished thanking her, with big wolfish gulps. I can’t help smiling at the sight of him working on the tiny tub. He’s what Gran would call approvingly, ‘a good eater’. It’s kind of endearing.
I snap right out of that line of thought when I realise Mrs Crocombe’s eyes are upon me and she’s wearing a salacious sort of triumphant grin.
‘Are you,um, one of the volunteers who help out the bookshop charity trust?’ I say, hoping to keep our visitor’s mind off her plans to repopulate the village school in the space of one summer.
‘In a way,’ she replies. ‘I offer Jowan’s tenants the use of the washer-dryer in the back room of the ice-cream cottage. Here’s a key. It’ll let you in the back door. Laundry room’s separated from my flat above by a locked door so you’ll be quite alone. Powder and softener’s on top of the machine. Feel free to use it any time.’
‘That’s very generous of you, thank you,’ Elliot puts in, now that he’s finished his ice cream. I’ve still only had two bites.
‘Itisa generous offer. I was beginning to worry I’d have to go on an emergency shopping trip for clean pants any day now.’ Why did I say that out loud? Mrs Crocombe’s giving me a look that tells me she’s not sure she wants my DNA in her future vision of Clove Lore.
‘Have you always lived in the village?’ Elliot asks, saving me from mentally kicking myself much longer.
Mrs C.’s eyes light up and she takes a few steps closer towards Elliot. He’s clearly a lot more promising a candidate for prodigious parenthood than I am. ‘All my life, born and raised. You know, Jowan was telling me about Aldous and your trip to Anjali’s practice. Nice girl, isn’t she?’ This is saidverydeliberately. She’s fixed on him like a pointer on a hare and won’t be distracted; not even Izaak stumbling into the shop and coming to stand by me at the counter puts her off. I smile my welcome at him.
‘She is,’ Elliot says, totally unaware that Mrs Crocombe’s half way to having the pair of them married off already. ‘She was very proficient. An excellent surgeon.’
‘She’s single, you know,’ Mrs C. reaches into the pocket on the front of her apron, checks something’s there – I’d be willing to bet it’s her book of eligible villagers – and, satisfied, withdraws her hand once more. ‘Lovely family. They live a little way along the headland, you know?’
‘In the school catchment area, then,’ I whisper to Izaak, and he stifles a laugh.
‘Single, are you?’ she asks Elliot, not missing a beat, and I admit, I look searchingly at Elliot too, and so does Izaak. All three of us are hanging on his next words and he isn’t even aware of the fact.
‘Umm, yes?’ Elliot says, and I see him retreating into himself once more, just like he did when Minty was giving him the third degree. ‘I think that was the bell in the café,’ he says.
‘No it wasn’t,’ cries Mrs Crocombe, quick as a flash, her eyes still fixed on Elliot.
‘Pretty sure it was,’ Elliot calls over his shoulder as he clomps away across the shop, knocking a box set of Marjorie Blackmans and our entire Roald Dahl collection off a display table, and he’s gone, crouching to get through the little door connecting the shop and café.
‘He can move fast for such a tall guy,’ says Izaak.
