from Pain to Pleasure (Gainesville Book 1) (50 page)

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“Hello, Mrs. Agnew! What can I do for you today?” Meg asked. She wiped the counter in preparation for what Mrs. Agnew might place upon it.

“I’d like to leave this in. I’ll get it back in a few weeks, if that’s all right. How much can you give me for it?” she queried, showing a gold watch. The worried look on her face was very familiar to Meg.

“I can give you 100 euros for it. Don’t worry, it’ll be safe here,” Meg assured her. “And there’s no hurry to redeem this, OK?”

As the door closed, Meg turned to look in the mirror. She hadn’t had time earlier to fix herself, and the rain had pelted down on her earlier as she opened the outside shutter over the front door. “Look at the state of me! I look like a wet rat,” she said to herself. Meg continued to do some idle tidying of the counter. She gazed out the shop window at the rain bouncing off the ground.

Meg’s pawnshop was was almost one of a kind now. Her mum and dad bought it over 50 years earlier, and they left it to her after they passed away. Back in their day, a pawnshop did well, as it was a part of many of people’s lives. Now, with the economic growth in Ireland, business wasn’t as good.

Meg loved this quiet time of the morning. It let her look around and remember the old days. She remembered her mum taking her into the shop to visit her dad after they finished shopping up the town. The shop was always the last port of call on those trips. Her father was a tall and wide-shouldered man with a kind smile.

He knew everyone who came in and always made time for a chat. People who visited the shop were often under pressure, and he always tried to soften the situation, if he could. Her mum would lend a hand when needed. Meg would sit and play while waiting. Meg considered herself a very lucky person to have parents admired for their kindness.

“I’m bloody soaked!” Stephen shouted as he rushed inside to get his coat off. “It’s coming down in buckets out there! Sorry if I startled you,” he said to Meg as he shook his head.

“Well, Stephen...” she answered vaguely.

He broke in, “So, Maggie May, it looks like another quiet day today. Not many people will be out and about in that weather.”

“I know. I know,” she said, fed-up. “I don’t know how we’ll get through the day. It makes it even longer.”

Stephen hung his coat up and put on the kettle out the back. He joined her in the shop, bringing a cup of tea in her favorite mug.

“A penny for them?” he asked.

Meg said, “Ah, nothing really. I’m just thinking of the old days, and how this shop used to thrive. We’re the last of a dying breed, ye know. In a way, it’s a good thing, because it means that people don’t have the money worries they used to. There’s more money around, but it’s tough to see this place slipping away.”

Stephen leaned up against the counter sipping his tea and listened. He remembered doing the same thing with her dad. Stephen started working for the family 20 years before, April gone, when he was just 22 years old. He’d been through many of the shop’s ups and downs.

“Come on, Maggie. Since it’s going to be quiet today, let’s finish sorting out the things that the customers don’t want back. Ye have to keep busy. Keep your chin up.”

“First of all, Stephen, I’m not ‘Maggie.’ I’m Meg. ‘Maggie’ is what Mum and Dad called me. I’m a woman now. 28 years old. Please try to remember that. Now, about the sorting. You’re right. Out with the old and in with the new.”

They started to go through the boxes, and Meg told Stephen the changes she was going to make in the shop. A fresh coat of paint and new light shades would contribute to a general brightening of the shop’s interior. Even the outside of the shop would get a facelift.

Stephen smiled and agreed, but deep down he knew that painting here and there wasn’t going to change the store’s profit margins. If painting made her happy, though, then why the hell should he interfere?

There was stock to sort, and Meg needed to determine which pieces she could actually sell. Her practice was, when a customer came in with an item to pawn, Meg gave them the value of the item, and the customer had four months to pay back the loan and redeem the item. If the four months went by and the customer didn’t come back, then Meg was entitled to sell the item.

In some pawnshops, if the customer came back after the four-month period, the broker would charge interest on the loan. Meg hated to do this. She was just glad that the customer’s circumstances had changed, and they could repay the loan.

Sorting the stock was always Meg’s favorite part of the job. She loved going through the old treasures and cleaning them up until they looked brand new. Every item had its own story from before its pawning, and she liked to think about those stories. Shining the jewelery up made her feel like a child again. The colors from some of the jewels were magnificent.

It was a dull day outside, and it made for a dull day inside. It didn’t do the jewellery any justice. On a brighter day, with light streaming in the windows, the jewels sparkled.

“Let’s have a break, Maggie. I mean, ‘Meg.’ I’ll go get us a bun in the Home Bakery across the street, and you put on the kettle,” Stephen said.

Meg didn’t listen to him. She just kept on at what she was doing. She was very eager to get this finished. She put the items she was going to sell to one side. Any item she couldn’t sell went into a clear plastic bag with a nametag on it. When Stephen came back, he put the kettle on himself.

The pawnshop was just one of many shops on Bridge Street. It was in one of the original buildings of what had once been a wee village, not far from Carlow. Many shops had closed, but there were still some of the old ones left. There was the furniture shop next door to Meg’s, O’Brien’s; the Knit and Stitch shop; Larkin’s and the Home Bakery across the street, adjoining the chip shop. All had been there as long as Meg could remember.

Stephen and Meg cleaned up after their lunch and got back into their sorting again. As Meg walked past the window to go to the back, she noticed the sun trying to break through the clouds. The light slowly brightened. The shop always looked fresher when sunlight poured in.

“That morning flew,” Meg said.

“Yeah. I told ye, if you keep busy, it flies. We should get through this lot before we close this evening,” Stephen replied enthusiastically.

The chimes on the door tinkled loudly. A voice calling, “Is there anyone in, or can I help myself?” came from the front of the shop.

“Oh! Hi, Kevin. How are things with you?” Meg replied in a giggly voice as she made her way out to the shop floor.

“Doin’ good, but going to do even better if you come for lunch with me!” Kevin O’Mara said in his husky voice. From her face, he had a bad feeling about what she was going to say. He added, “Ah, come on! Surely, you’re not that busy, and it’s on me. Go on, go on, go on,” he said, imitating the maid from the
Father Ted
TV show.

“I can’t. I’ve already had lunch, Kevin. Nothing else will fit in, but thanks anyway,” she answered, wishing deep down that she could and smiling at his charm.

“Well, I best go on, then. See ye around.” As he turned towards the door, he stopped and winked. “You’re looking well today, Meg,” he said and went out the door.

Meg stood and looked at herself from her feet upwards.
How could he say I’m looking well? Me hair is curly because of the rain
, she thought. Still standing, looking at the door even though he was well gone, she smiled. “Um, that’s nice,” she said without realising she was talking out loud.

Kevin was a local lad. He was an abrupt but kind man; tallish with dark hair, and well-built. He’d made it obvious to Meg that he had a soft spot for her. He asked her out several times, but she wasn’t ready to, although she was flattered.

Stephen, instead of carrying on with his work, had his ear to the back of the door, listening. When he heard Meg talking to the air, he tiptoed back to his seat and threw his gaze up towards heaven.

It was near the end of the day, and everything was in its spot. All of the jewellery was positioned nicely on the shelves behind the glass counter. Other items, such as clocks, ornaments and clothes, were all neatly in their places. What couldn’t be sold was boxed up and placed out in the alley.

Some boxes went on the lower shelf in the back room. When it came to the last box, the only shelf with room was too high for her to reach. She pulled a stepladder over and climbed it, so she could push the box onto the shelf. There was something preventing the box from going back flush against the wall. She stretched up on her tiptoes and tried to reach whatever it was. Eventually, pushing her fingers as far back as she could, she grasped the obstructing object.

It was a small box, and it was obvious that it had been at the back of the shelf a long time. Its cover was worn and dust was thick upon it. When she opened it and saw what was inside, she wobbled on the ladder in surprise.

It was a ring. It had one large oval diamond in the center surrounded by 16 small diamonds set in very small gold claws. The beautiful arrangement sat on an evenly proportioned band of gold.

“Isn’t this just amazing? Absolutely stunning!” she gasped.

“What are you on about?” Stephen shouted.

“This!” she called back, stuck gazing at the ring in the box as she descended the ladder by feel. “This. Look. It’s beautiful.”

“Where on earth did you get it?” Stephen queried, coming closer. Her eyes were still locked on the ring. Meg was so much in awe of the ring that she hated to close its box, but finally found the strength to do so. She slipped the box into her pocket.

“Come on. It’s away past closing time,” Stephen stated as he looked at his watch and turned to leave for the day.

“I’m coming,” she shouted as she skipped out towards the door to lock it. Giving Stephen a wee wave, she got into her Citroen Saxo and went home.

Meg lived in her family home, which was a two-story farmhouse with Georgian windows, in a little townland called Woodbine Hill. The house was 15 miles outside the village.

The gardens to the front and back were full of flowers; mainly roses. Pink and white roses grew through the arch at the front door. The garden smelled like a perfumery.

Inside, it was just as it had been when Meg’s mum and dad were alive. She always meant to redecorate the place, but could never find the courage to do so. It would mean letting go of too much of the past, and she wasn’t yet prepared to do that yet. Her mum had died four years ago, and her dad died two years later on the same day.

Meg walked in the front door, and threw her keys on the little hall table. She went through to the kitchen. There, on the windowsill outside as usual, was Sophie, her cat. Sophie pawed at the window, demanding milk. Meg put the kettle on, took the box out of her pocket and placed it on the kitchen table.

Sitting down with a cup of tea, Meg opened the box. She was speechless in the face of the ring’s beauty. She thought the ring looked like something royalty would wear. She gazed at it and questions came to her mind. Who pawned it? What were the circumstances behind the pawning of the ring? Why had she never seen it before now?

Meg’s up-to-date records were stored in the shop, but the older records were boxed up in the house’s attic. She couldn’t wait to start on her quest for answers, so she got the boxes down. The search would be a lengthy task, but she had to satisfy her curiosity. She placed the boxes in the front sitting room. Before she started her research, she lit a fire.

Sitting on her knees in the armchair, she started to read some of the oldest records. They dated back to the 1950s. The paper was yellow in color and going brown at the edges. When her father made the records, he took note of the usual details: name, address and next of kin. He also made a little personal comment on each entry, believing no-one else would ever read them.

The first record off the top of the pile was for Mrs. McKevitt. The comment Meg’s dad made was that McKevitt pawned a bracelet to pay some household bills that were piling up. Her husband Jack had lost his job at the local butcher. There was another notation dated two months later. Jack bought the bracelet back when he got a new job in the local newspaper shop. Meg sighed aloud with relief, then felt silly for feeling that way over a problem that was resolved before she was born.

The next paper on the pile concerned Mr. Armstrong, who pawned his father’s watch to buy his wife something for their 20
th
anniversary.

The names and reasons went on. Meg began to understand how lucky she was to be living in an era of relative prosperity.
They really had a hard slogging life back then
, she thought.

Meg was roused from her thoughts by her mobile bleeping to tell her she had a text message. Meg read it. “That Sarah one is unreal, wanting me to go for a drink this late in the evening,” she said to herself.

Well, Sarah
, she wrote,
I can’t go tonight, it’s a bit late and I’ll be hitting the sack in a half hour, had a busy day, thanks for the offer, will catch up with you midweek.

Straight away, she got a reply.
No prob, any new crack?

Meg smiled at the expression and a memory of the look she’d seen years before on the face of a visiting American who’d heard her use the expression. “Crack” was something very different to Americans. To the Irish, it meant merely “news, fun” or “goings-on.”

Meg replied,
Just a bit. It’ll keep until Wednesday. Will meet you for coffee. I’ll ring and organize when and where. Sweet dreams.