Page 42 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
Cats are weird and mine was weirder than most.
Sitting at the kitchen table over a coffee, I sent a briefcongratulatory email to Will, before beginning to add more things to my shopping list: eggs, butter, bread, cheese – including a piece of Parmesan – salad, fruit … and comfort food for the freezer, like fish fingers and tubs of ice cream.
I glanced at my kitchen clock, currently propped against a stack of Mum’s old cookery books on the work surface, and thought the shops should all be open by now. I could hear Golightly still snoring from his box, so I grabbed the list and a couple of shopping bags and sneaked off, collecting my shoulder bag on the way.
I felt naked without that bag, though the thump of the smallest of my pairs of dressmaker’s shears against my hip was no longer comforting. And why was I still carrying around the tools of my trade? Did I think there might one day be a sewing emergency, and someone would shout, ‘Quick, send for a dressmaker!’ or, from a stage, ‘Is there a costumier in the house?’
No, I’d really have to break myself of the habit.
When I’d looked out of my window earlier, the sky had seemed undecided about whether it wanted to be blue or grey, but now the blue, a pale harebell shade, was winning, and a weak sun was gilding the rooftops and bouncing off the diamond-paned windows at the back of Pelican House. The old black-and-white building looked as if it had grown there slowly, a crooked, higgledy-piggledy structure that was rather charming and fairy tale.
I cast a somewhat furtive glance around, but there was no one to be seen, so I set off briskly past the closed wooden double doors to the museum, admiring the flowerbeds in the small central garden, between the shrubs. It was all very neat and tidy, behind white railings, as was the little square of garden behind Pelican House. I couldn’t really see Honey as a gardener, so I expect she has someone in to do it for her.
It made the mews seem more familiar, knowing who was behind all the doors, even if one of them was Thom Reid. But after my first glance I didn’t look again and went briskly through the narrow entranceway to emerge into the market square.
Like most of its kind, it was actually far from square and used, on non-market days, as a car park. A war memorial stood in the middle and there was a convenient convenience at one end. Several shops, the pub and what looked like a small town hall were grouped cosily around it.
I decided to do a circuit of the square first, just looking in the windows, before going to the nearby minimart on my way back.
I found the art shop and then the one called Spindrift, with a very New Age window display. The deli Honey had mentioned was on the far side of the square, next to the impressive square façade of the Sun in Splendour. This town centre seemed to be thriving, at least.
The few people about wished me good morning, so I felt I’d slipped back into some time warp, although it was very pleasant. In London, it’s always better not even to make eye contact with anyone you don’t know, let alone talk to them!
Once past the town hall, my circuit was completed and I headed down the narrow street that ran along the side of Pelican House and the museum, where I found Rani’s Minimart, which had a narrow front but stretched back a long way and, as Honey had said, had pretty much everything anyone could need.
They had cute little miniature shopping trolleys too, and soon I had accumulated a lot more than I intended.
My bags filled, and with the cheerful goodbyes of the plump lady behind the till, I staggered back out into the street.
It was only when I’d hauled them all the way back past the front of Pelican House that it occurred to me there might be a quicker route back by way of the alley behind my cottage: the gate in the passage between that and the puppet theatre must open into it. I’d have to explore later. I also wondered if you could get funky wheeled shopping bags.
I gave my arms a rest by putting the bags down outside Fallen Idle, so I could gaze into the window. There were a few enticing books displayed there on Perspex stands, including a hardback of one of Honey’s revenge thrillers, all shiny embossed bloodstains, a Victorian fairy book I hadn’t got, and a large and interesting-looking tome on Venetian masks.
While I gazed, raptly, Pearl’s pale face suddenly appeared as she reached over and placed a tiny Tolkien book,Tree and Leaf, on a smaller stand. Then she looked up and spotted me.
Her remote face was warmed by a smile of recognition, or maybe by the prospect of a potential customer, for she mouthed through the glass at me, ‘Come in!’
16
Hidden Pearl
I mouthed back ‘Later’, holding up the shopping bags, but she was already heading to the door, which opened with the tinkle of a bell.
‘Hi! Do come in and have coffee with me,’ she invited. ‘I’ve just put some on in the back room.’
‘That’s kind of you, but I can’t right now, because I’ve been shopping and this big bag is full of frozen stuff,’ I explained.
‘Oh, that’s no problem!’ Pearl held the door wider. ‘My cottage backs on to the shop, so I can just take the bag of frozen things through and drop it into my chest freezer till you go.’
‘Well … all right,’ I said, following her through the crammed bookshelves and into a back room which, though lined with bays of books, was also part office, part sitting room. A computer sat on a large desk in one corner and a sofa and comfortable chairs were arranged around a low table in the middle.
‘Have a seat,’ she said, taking my bag of frozen stuff and vanishing with it through a door at the back of the room, returning a moment later and going across to a coffee machine.
‘I’ve got all kinds of coffee pods – what do you like?’ she asked. ‘Americano?Café au lait? Espresso?’
‘Café au laitwould be lovely,’ I said, and leaned back on the sofa, looking round me. ‘This is cosy … and I can see it’s where you keep the Victorian novels! That’s tempting, but I’ll have to come back when I’ve got more time to browse.’
‘I remembered you said you loved them, so I’m luring you in,’ she said, smiling. ‘I keep them all in here, as well as anything of value, although I’m not really an antiquarian bookseller, just second-hand. My husband was the real bibliophile, but he died four years ago, not that long after we’d opened the shop.’
