‘Yeah, yeah,’ Radia said, sounding like a pre-teen and rolling her eyes while shoving her mum by the bottom through the door and into the mid-August glare.
Chapter Four
‘A digital what now…?’ Mrs Crocombe hovered her scoop over the cone.
‘Nomad,’ Joy repeated, glancing over her shoulder at the open door and hoping to get out again fast.
‘Is that what they’re calling it?Wewere calling youthecomputer ladyat the Village Recovery Committee meetings.’
Joy gave the white-haired woman behind the counter a straight-lipped smile.
‘With sprinkles too, please,’ Radia told the woman firmly, obviously wanting her to stick to the task at hand.
‘Ah, well, there’s sprinklesinthe ice cream already,’ Mrs Crocombe replied, but Radia only looked longingly at the tub of rainbow flecks behind the curved glass counter.
‘Though, of course, there’s no such thing as too many sprinkles,’ Mrs Crocombe added, her voice bubbling with indulgence, while plunging the ice cream into the tub and giving it a colourful coating. ‘Flake?’
Mrs Crocombe knew not to ask the parents. These were things the little ones should decide for themselves. Joy opened her wallet acceptingly and Radia reached up the counter-front for her cone with wide, delighted eyes.
‘We do takeaway coffees, you know, Joyce dear?’ Mrs Crocombe added proudly. ‘New machine.’
Joy could certainly do with a coffee. She’d spotted the espresso maker in the bookshop’s own café that morning, but it had been fresh out of the box and still wrapped in its protective plastic.
‘Actually, coffee would be nice. It’s been a long journey,’ she agreed.
Mrs Crocombe startled her by immediately calling out, ‘Mr Bovis!Coffee!’
A silent wait followed before a red-faced man shuffled through the rainbow ribbon curtain from a back room, pulling awkwardly at the sleeves of his white ‘Crocombe’s Ices’ T-shirt, as though this was his first time ever wearing a T-shirt – especially one embroidered with a pastel-coloured ice-cream sundae.
‘Bit tight, Mrs C.,’ he confided, but she was too busy announcing that this was his first day in his new job.
‘Far cry from being Minty’s estate’s man, eh, Mr Bovis?’
The man sheepishly met Joy’s eyes. ‘’Ol-day maker?’ he deflected, flipping the machine’s chrome switches on then off again as though unsure how it all worked.
‘Red button first, then the steam, Mr Bovis,’ muttered Mrs Crocombe in what might pass for a discreet voice for her. ‘This is Joyce, she’s the…’ Joy’s brows lifted expectantly as the woman searched her memory. The relief of remembering hit her ‘…nomad. She’s a digital nomad. The one that’s doing the bookshop’s… computery things.’
‘Any good at coffee machines?’ Bovis asked, ducking a puff of steam.
‘Or Wi-Fis? We’re having awful trouble with our Wi-Fis,’ Mrs Crocombe added.
‘I’m sure I can have a look at it before we leave, once I’ve got the bookshop set up,’ Joy told her, biting back a sigh.
It was always like this. As soon as anyone found out what she did for a living, there was always just ‘one little thing’ that she could fix for them, and they were always confident it wouldn’t take her long.
Radia had stopped licking her ice cream and was looking between the awkward adults. ‘Mum doesn’t do freebies,’ she said assuredly, instantly throwing Joy into alarm.
‘Rads!’
The little girl was indignant. ‘It’s true though, you’re always saying it.’
‘’Ere we are, one flat white,’ Bovis announced, rescuing them. Joy took the paper cup. ‘I only knows flat white. We’re doing mochas this afternoon.’
Mrs Crocombe wasn’t listening. Ever since the ‘no freebies’ remark, she’d leaned her elbow on the counter and taken a pencil from somewhere inside her round white perm. She had a look in her eye that said,You’re a sparky pair, aren’t you?Joy instinctively didn’t like it. ‘Here until September, did you say?’
Joy hadn’t said anything about leaving dates, so this must also be Village Recovery Committee meeting info. This woman’s memory wasn’t as bad as she let on.
‘That’s right,’ Joy replied. ‘We leave on the first.’
