Diana nodded solemnly. “He bought the pub a few years ago and lives with his mum in the flat above. Works hard, he does. Jacob Peterson, I’m still watching you.”
Jacob slunk off, and the girl with the plaits, clearly not as annoyed as Claire had thought, ran after him.
“You seem to know everyone around here,” Claire remarked.
“Not everyone, but Hartley-by-the-Sea is a small place. Surely you know that, since you grew up here?” Diana gave her a look of smiling curiosity.
“Yes, I suppose I do,” Claire answered. “Although to be honest, I don’t think my family got very involved in things.” Diana waited, clearly wanting to hear more, and hesitantlyClaire continued. “My brother and I went to secondary school in Keswick, and my father worked in Manchester.”
“Ah,” Diana said, nodding, and Claire felt as if she’d understood more than she’d actually said. “But you’re getting involved now, it seems?” She twisted a bag of gummy worms closed and handed it to a sticky-faced Year One.
“Yes,” Claire said slowly. “Yes, I think I am.”
Two hours later she’d sold all her sweets, made seventy pounds, and was aching all over. Diana had left to take her Year Threes back into the school, and the other people were starting to dismantle their stalls. The field was festooned with stray bits of paper, more than a few crumpled, empty sweet bags, and a good deal of pink ribbon from the Easter-bonnet decorating competition.
Although Claire had spent the entire fair behind her stall, she’d enjoyed watching all the activity, including a nail-biting egg-on-a-spoon race and a hair-raising three-legged one, with many of the children collapsing, laughing, onto the grass.
Plenty of people had stopped by her stall, not just for sweets, but to say hello. Abby had come with Noah, and Claire had given him a licorice bootlace that he’d chewed happily. Meghan and Nathan had also stopped by, somewhat to Claire’s surprise. She’d braced herself for Meghan’s acerbic remarks, but Rachel’s sister had only looked tired.
“How’s your mum?” Claire had asked, and Meghan’s face tightened a bit.
“Still in hospital. It’ll be a while yet, they say, until she can come home.”
“But making progress?”
Meghan shrugged. “She’s trying to talk, so that’s something, but the left side of her face and body are paralyzed. They don’t know how long that will last, or if it will be permanent.” Hervoice wobbled a bit at the end, and impulsively Claire leaned over and touched her arm.
“I’m so sorry, Meghan. If there’s anything I can do . . . another meal . . .”
“The macaroni and cheese was great,” Meghan said, shaking her arm off. “Thank you. But we’re fine.”
“Tell Rachel I’m thinking of her.”
Meghan gave her a rather funny look before nodding. “I will,” she said, and moved on.
Claire hadn’t seen Rachel all week, although when she’d come in from work on Thursday she could tell the house had been cleaned. It smelled strongly of lemon polish and lavender, and the floors had seemed shinier than usual. But other than that Claire had no idea how Rachel was coping, or if she’d want to see her again. And she wasn’t quite brave enough yet to find out.
Even though Claire was tired, she was reluctant to pack up and trudge back to Four Gables and another evening alone. Andrew had left several days ago, although he’d promised to come back on the weekend. Claire was looking forward to seeing him again; now that they’d started breaking through their usual roles with Andrew as caretaker and her as supplicant, she found she enjoyed his company.
She was just reaching for the canvas holdalls she’d stuffed underneath her stall when a familiar figure loomed above her.
“Looks like you did well.”
Claire blinked up at Dan. “What are you doing here?”
“Helping you bring all this back.”
“But who’s in the shop?”
“I closed it for ten minutes. It won’t kill me.” He reached for the empty glass jars. “You put the sweets in these?”
“I wanted it to look like an old-fashioned sweet shop,” she explained, bracing herself for the expected, scornful dismissal of such a silly notion.
Dan nodded slowly. “That’s a good idea. Maybe we could use the jars in the shop.”
“Oh . . . yes, of course you could.”
“I’ll reimburse you.”
