Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams (43 page)

‘It is, it’s beautiful.’

‘I mean, there’s no reason why you couldn’t sell more things here. Little souvenirs maybe. Nothing tacky, just things to add on for holidaymakers to remember their time here, if they wanted to spend more than a pound. And rock.’

Rosie smiled.

‘I mean, it’s doing so well already.’

She lowered her voice as Rosie weighed out some expensive fudge for a cheery-looking family.

‘It sounds like you have lots of ideas,’ said Rosie.

Tina smiled. ‘Well, you know. Once Kent and Emily are at school I have a bit of time on my hands. And I have my divorce settlement …’

‘You’re divorced?’ Rosie said. Tina was so pretty, so obviously nice, with such nice children. Could it really happen to just about anyone?

Tina looked sad.

‘Well, let’s just say he preferred the bottle to me,’ she said.
‘Open secret round these parts, like bloody everything. That’s why I took a final settlement in the divorce,’ she whispered. ‘In case he drinks everything else away.’

She tried a half-smile but Rosie could feel a torrent of pain beneath the words.

‘If you like,’ she said, ‘you could come round one night and I’ll take you through the books.’

‘Really?’ said Tina. ‘But … well, I don’t know. I’d have to employ someone to help.’

‘Oh, it can’t be done alone,’ said Rosie. ‘I’m going half crazy here. Have to shut the shop if I’m to do anything else at all.’

‘But you’re not shutting up today?’

Rosie hadn’t stopped serving for a second since she’d unlocked the front door.

‘Well, I know it sounds a bit daft, but I kind of wanted to see the market-day fair? I won’t be here for it next year, and I thought it would probably be my only chance.’

Tina’s brow furrowed. ‘But this is one of your busiest days of the year!’

Rosie smiled. ‘You definitely have a business brain on you.’

‘You can’t just shut it up and go!’

‘But it’s my shop! And I want to take Edison.’

Tina grinned. ‘OK, how about I mind the shop for you for an hour?’

Rosie was taken aback. But she considered it from all angles. Tina seemed absolutely nice and decent. She was interested in the shop. If the worst happened and she ran away with the cash box, well, Moray would know where she lived. This was a village. Nothing bad would happen.

She made up her mind. ‘OK!’

‘Do you have hand sanitiser?’ asked Tina.

‘Uhm, no, just a sink,’ said Rosie.

‘See, if we put some hand sanitiser in, you wouldn’t have to run the water every five minutes.’

‘Did you say you ran a nursery or an international business conglomerate?’ said Rosie, joyfully taking off her apron. She watched Tina serve a couple of customers – of course she knew nearly all of them, and had a friendly word for each one, including, she noticed, the couple who asked after her exhusband, sadly. Reassured that Tina knew exactly what she was doing (and possibly, Rosie thought, watching her serve a young man in military uniform and talk him into buying one of the largest boxes of chocolates they had, slightly better than she did), Rosie hauled down another box for the tombola and set about persuading Edison.

‘Cows,’ he was explaining to Kent and Emily, who were only a little younger than him, ‘can stampede. That’s when they all run in a big line. They can kill you. Superfast.’

‘Superfast,’ said Kent.

‘Nobody is going to do any stampeding,’ said Rosie. ‘Come on.’

‘Also,’ said Edison, ‘there are pigs. Pigs will eat a man if there’s nuffink else to eat.’

‘Where do you
get
this stuff?’ said Rosie.

‘Vegan Playbees,’ said Edison obediently. Tina and Rosie swapped a look.

‘You know Hester then?’ asked Tina pleasantly.

‘Not well,’ said Rosie, equally pleasantly, as both women tried to avoid discussing Edison’s mother in front of him. ‘And I’ve never even heard of Vegan Playbees.’

‘It’s a vegan playgroup Hester set up,’ said Tina breezily. ‘To teach the correct lifestyle in the village!’

Rosie’s cheeks hurt, she wanted to giggle so much.

‘And was it successful?’

‘I believe Edison is the head of Vegan Playbees, isn’t that right, Edison?’ said Tina. ‘And sole member?’ Edison nodded seriously, then stood up and saluted and sang, very loudly and rather tunelessly:

‘Plants are our friends! Right to the end!

Soya is great and our very best mate!

Hummus is zoomus and kale never fails!

Vegan Playbees SAVE THE WHALES!’

The two women laughed, until Kent jumped up and announced, ‘I wan be Vegan Playbee,’ and Edison started teaching them the song, whereupon Rosie ushered him out.

‘Come on, Vegan Playbee. I promise only to take you to the marrow-growing competition, will that help?’

Edison looked awkward.

‘And the cake stall.’

‘I can’t have anything with eggs in.’

Rosie rolled her eyes. ‘Well, I’ll find you a flapjack then.’

‘And no gelatine.’

‘I’ll read the ingredients.’

‘And I’m allergic to strawberries.’

‘How you ever get out of bed in the morning I have no idea.’

Tina waved. ‘I’ll hold the fort. Enjoy yourself. I will!’

She was already, Rosie noticed, straightening up all the
sweet jars that had been opened and not put back exactly right that morning, and turning to smile at the next customer. This could, Rosie thought to herself, just possibly work.

Chapter Sixteen

Tablet

Ahh. Tablet. Bonnie Prince Tablet.

2.2 lb white cane granulated sugar. Yes. 2.2 lb. Don’t look at me like that, this is a sweetshop.

1 tin sweetened condensed milk

4 oz unsalted butter

a drop of fresh milk to damp sugar

Damp the sugar with cold milk in the pan. Add the butter and the condensed milk, and turn the heat to medium-high.

Stir for 10 mins till it comes to the boil. If you are getting brown streaks, turn down the heat. Once boiling, turn down the heat. Keep stirring for 20 mins. The calories you expend you can pretend will balance out the tablet.

When the mix is ready, a ball will solidify in cold water.

Take the pan off the heat, and whisk extremely quickly. When the mix feels slightly stiffer, pour into a tray and let chill.

Ah. The Prince of Sweets.

Although the day was bright and sunny, there was a chill wind rushing down from the hills that made Rosie pull her cardigan closer around herself. ‘Autumn is coming in,’ she said, almost to herself. It seemed odd that she’d arrived here in high summer – however drenching it had been – and now the seasons were changing. Perhaps it was just because it was so much more obvious here. In London, she barely noticed the leaves drifting off the stunted little trees that grew in iron cages in the parks, spotted with disease and discoloured by petrol fumes and dust. Here, it was as if the entire world had been painted over. The greens and deep blues of the hills had changed to ploughed-up fields and earthy browns; the huge oak trees at the end of the Isitts’ lane were barely believable shades of bright red and orange, leaves everywhere drifting into huge piles by the side of the road. And the north wind was picking up, sending tiny clouds scudding quickly beyond the mountains. The air had a freshness to it, a crisp edge. Rosie could smell bonfires.

‘Don’t you want to kick the leaves?’ she asked Edison.

Edison frowned. ‘Leaves are our friends.’

Rosie smiled. He looked very anxious about the market fair.

‘Don’t worry about anything,’ she said. In response, his little thin hand crept up to meet hers.

Very quietly he said, ‘I worry about everything.’

Feeling she ought to be brandishing her CRB certificate, Rosie squeezed his hand. In this sheltered vale a million miles, she often felt, from the real world, it seemed terrible that a child should worry about anything.

‘You shouldn’t,’ she said. ‘There’s a whole world beyond here, you know.’

‘I know,’ said Edison, dragging the front of his shoes along the ground. ‘Hester says it’s full of hoom rights aboo.’

‘Well, yes,’ said Rosie carefully, feeling in her pocket and handing him a lollipop from the collection she had taken to keeping in there. ‘But there’s lots of things you’d like too. Transport museums and railway lines and all-night supermarkets and … well, lots of things. Lots of nice people too.’

Edison sucked thoughtfully on his lollipop.

‘I’m glad,’ he said suddenly. ‘I’m glad you came to Lipton.’

Rosie was bowled over. She had, on balance, lost her boyfriend, her home probably and lots of lucrative agency work. But, somehow, she felt the same.

‘So am I,’ she said, squeezing his hand.

The main street was empty; everyone was up past the churchyard, in Farmer Stirling’s large pasture, now churned up by van wheels. Over in the next field, teenagers in neon vests pointed out parking, and tinny music played through a sound system so bad it was completely unidentifiable. Edison’s grip grew a little tighter. Over the PA a man was talking so rapidly and in such a thick Derbyshire accent Rosie had trouble following it: something about a pony parade and a cucumber competition. The place was thronged with people, all of them, Rosie
noticed, wearing a waxed jacket and wellingtons. She hadn’t realised that it was the kind of thing that needed wellingtons, she thought, glancing down glumly. She was wearing wedges. They were pretty, comfortable and good for the shop. Now, she was in severe danger of lurching into a bog. She never got it right.

There were wooden walkways, thankfully, round the perimeter of the field, and Rosie stuck to those, as carefully as she could, looking for the tombola stand. Plenty of people nodded at her as she passed and she smiled back politely and tried to say hello to everyone, while clopping along like a particularly ridiculous mare. She peered into tents – there was one full of different types of jam, and some very serious-looking people sniffing and tasting them; one with huge, ridiculous vegetables that looked like they were on steroids; a baking tent, where she would have liked to spend a little bit more time, till she overheard the PA bellow that the tombola draw was about to take place in Tent A. Tent A was, of course, all the way back round the field again, but Rosie decided not to risk cutting through the parade of lambs in her silly shoes, and walked the entire circumference, feeling flustered in the process. When she passed Mrs Isitt, the woman simply looked at her feet and made a loud harrumphing noise, as if you couldn’t expect anything else from a townie like her. Fortunately, just after her came Mr Isitt, walking so much better he was like a different person. As Mrs Isitt stalked into the jam section (Rosie pitied anyone who dared to enter against her), Peter drew her to one side. ‘My tomatoes,’ he said. ‘Best ever.’