‘Laura?’ The name jumped from her lips as the grocer, and Gray’s girlfriend, approached. ‘You’re wanting something fixed?’
‘You could say that,’ she said, shamefaced.
Jamie looked between the two women and made to go.
‘Just wait a minute, OK?’ Ally stilled him with a spread palm.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I won’t leave without saying goodbye.’ He made his way towards her dad, who was re-attaching a spade to its handle under the gaze of its owner.
It was so like Jamie to want to say goodbye to her parents too. The soft spot grew fonder and ached terribly.
Laura was watching all of this, curiosity etched on her face now. ‘You two are…?’ She pointed between them.
‘No,’ Ally said, then wanted to kick herself. ‘Sort of. Well, we’re good friends.’ She was annoying even herself. ‘Is there something you want, Laura?’ She tried not to be tetchy. It wasn’t Laura she was upset with, never had been. It was herself all along, the overly cautious, content-to-settle-for-unspectacular, stuck in the mud Ally McIntyre, but that version of her was almost completely gone now.
‘I came to say I was sorry,’ said Laura.
‘You really don’t have to?—’
‘I do,’ she cut her off. ‘Gray crawled back and I let him in, and…’ Laura shrugged. ‘It wasn’t very sisterly of me.’
Ally fought the impulse to say, that’s OK, you’re not my sister, but something sad in Laura’s demeanour stopped her.
‘He’s dumped you, hasn’t he?’
Laura nodded, unable to look her in the eye. ‘There’s somebody else, apparently. A new lassie, at his work. I heard one of his pals laughing about it when I delivered the bacon rolls on Friday.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Ally meant it. ‘He wasn’t anything special, honestly. You’ll see that eventually.’
‘I think I already knew, but there’s just not many lads around, is there? And you’re supposed to be settling down around about my age, and here I am delivering bread and cheese, and I’m single all over again.’
‘I know a wee bit about that,’ Ally said, unable to stop herself smiling softly. ‘You’re not missing out on anything, believe me. It’s hard all the way up. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.’ An idea hit Ally. ‘In fact, why don’t you go grab Senga over there. She’d got some ideas for expanding the café, running some baking sessions. It’s all part of this expansion of our offering.’ She swept a hand, gesturing to the bustling room with Roz at the centre, handing out leaflets asking locals to consider volunteering their time and their skills at the shed, and gathering names on a clipboard of interested parties.
‘Aye, I will do that,’ Laura said, stepping back, picturing how that might work and liking what she saw. ‘It’d be nice to come back to the repair shop again. And… if you don’t mind, I’d like to start bringing your deliveries, instead of Keeley doing it. Can I?’
‘Of course you can.’ Ally decided to let Laura discover she wasn’t going to be here come the next repair day in her own good time. ‘The Gifford sisters will get you back in the loop.’
Laura smiled, relieved, and was making her way through the crowd to the café corner, when McIntyre stopped everyone in their tracks.
‘Can I say a few words?’ he was announcing from on top of an actual soap box in the middle of the room. Roz stood by him, supporting him with a hand through his belt loop at the back.
‘It’s wonderful to welcome you all today, and to the first of our skills share and social events. There’s many more to come, just keep an eye on our braw new website…’ This raised a little cheer from Sachin who’d been joined by his wife and adult daughters at the triage desk. ‘And you can follow us on our…’ he looked to Peaches and Willie.
‘Socials?’ they said simultaneously, before exchanging matching amused glances.
‘That’s it, our socials! We’ve had our ups and downs this summer but we’ve emerged stronger, I think we can all agree?’ He was looking straight at his daughter now.
Ally gave him a nod. He wasn’t wrong.
A movement caught her eye. Jamie making his way through the stilled bodies as her father’s speech went on, whispering excuse mes and apologies as he went. Ally’s heartbeat picked up a new erratic rhythm.
‘Someone very clever told me that to make change happen, all we have to do is imagine a world where it’s already happened, and work towards that,’ McIntyre was saying. ‘I can imagine a sustainable world of sharing where we make sure everybody has enough before any one person has too much. I can imagine a world where we’re less isolated and we’re not afraid of reaching out. And since you’re all here today, I believe you can imagine that too.’ He held his coffee mug a little higher. ‘So, here’s a toast. To the repair revolutionaries and the world we’re imagining into being.’
Ally didn’t want to give in to crying, but the impulse made her chest juddery as she sniffed back tears. The whole room was raising cups and cookies and shouting cheers. She should have been jubilant like them. The photographer from the paper captured the moment, capturing also the look on Jamie’s face as he wordlessly conveyed to Ally across the crowded room that he really did have to run for his train if he was going to make it on time.
Jamie fought his way to the door at the same time as the parents and kids and Carenza’s special guest, the speech and language therapist, were shoving inside, and it felt like being caught in a tide, but he really did have to get out of here.
Ally was on her way towards him, and together they were like two salmon swimming upriver, fighting the currents. They both burst out of the doors together at the same time, into the fresh, cool air of the very last days of the summer.
