‘No,’ she said before picking up her bag. Cass glanced at the bill and dropped her half plus a generous tip onto the side plate. ‘I really have got to be getting back. Thanks…’
As she made her way to the door, Cass was conscious of Mike following close behind, hurrying to catch up like an anxious terrier.
While they had been in the cafe, the day had started to soften into a misty gold autumn afternoon. Despite being barely two o’clock, the daylight was already beginning to fade and the lamps lit in the shop window, protection against the gold grey gloom, welcomed her home—as comforting as any lighthouse.
High Lane had always been one of those good memory places where she and Neil had brought the kids when they were little, walking down the hill first with buggies and later holding their small sticky hands in summer and winter, in shorts and in duffel coats, down to the river and the cafe and the ducks, and then later to lunch on a friend’s narrow boat or walk along the tow path. It had seemed some sort of omen when the shop had come up for sale in the weeks after Neil died.
It had been one of those places that they’d said if they had the money, the chance, the freedom to buy there, then they might just do it. And then there it was and Cass discovered, thanks to Neil’s insurance money, that she did have the chance.
She’d found it so hard being in their old house without Neil, and although friends and family said the feelings would pass and that she should wait before making any big decisions, she’d known they were wrong. All she could see were the kitchen units Neil had put in, the bathroom with the wonky tiles that they’d re-tiled one Christmas when pissed and the garden they’d built and it didn’t bring her comfort, just a constant aching nagging reminder that she had lost her best friend and the person who loved her most in the world.
And so one sunny autumnal afternoon, not unlike this one, she walked down to the shop, looked in through the windows, hands cupped around her face so she could see inside, and knew without a shadow of a doubt Neil would want her to have it. It felt like his final gift to her.
Mike didn’t stand a cat’s chance in hell against memories that powerful. ‘Thanks,’ Cass said as they got to the shop door, realising that she had barely said a word to him on the way home, lost in her own memories. Thanks for what was less clear.
‘My pleasure,’ Mike said. ‘You know that Nita and Rocco have saved me a ticket for the concert tonight? I just wanted to check that you don’t mind? When you didn’t call back…’
Cass tacked on a polite smile. ‘I’m very busy,’ she said. ‘Now I’ve really got to go.’ She turned the keys over in her closed fingers.
‘Okay, well in that case I’ll see you later then,’ Mike said brightly, and with that he leaned in a little closer and, catching hold of her shoulders, kissed her on the cheek before she had a chance to pull away. ‘I’ll ring and let you know about the dresser…’
‘Right,’ she said between gritted teeth, and then he turned and headed off down the lane towards town. Cass watched his progress for a second or two and then wiped her cheek. She really needed to have a word with Nita and Rocco about their choice of men. A purse, for god’s sake…
Humming along to ‘Another One Bites the Dust’, Cass unlocked the shop door and went inside. Buster padded out of the workshop to check up on her, sniffing to see if lunch had stretched to a doggie bag.
Inside the shop was pleasantly warm after the nip of autumn outside. Cass stood in the doorway, slipped off her coat and took a look around. The soft lighting made the shop look inviting and slightly mysterious, the deep patina on the old wood and heavy lamps adding a glow, a promise of treasures hidden inside.
The whole place smelt of lavender and beeswax polish and she hoped was tempting enough to encourage would be buyers to linger, to savour, to buy. There were lamps and bowls and objets d’art on the side tables, shelves and floor, but not so much that people felt overwhelmed, or so cluttered that special things got lost in the melee.
Beyond the window display there were armchairs and a sofa, two Windsor chairs and a deep-buttoned brown leather chaise. Folded into a big basket on one of the dining tables was a pile of household linen, another basket on a little cabinet had paperweights in it and another held old keys.
There was a linen press of snow-white sheets and pillow cases, a period tailor’s dummy dressed in a black felt coat and cloche, and behind that a cabinet from a milliner’s shop, filled with dress jewellery, watches and tie pins. In a bowl by the door to the workshop were antique buttons, some still on their original cards, along with hair slides and combs, brass doorknobs and more keys, and beside that a letter rack in which were a collection of Victorian cards.
Cass spent a lot of time making sure things were shown off to their best advantage. It was almost as big a labour of love as re-upholstering, restoring or re-finishing the furniture in the first place. She trailed her fingers through the basket of buttons. Once customers had found the shop they tended to come back again and again.
Pleased with the way things looked, Cass picked up her apron and headed into the workshop, letting Buster out into the yard en route.
The shop and cottage spread untidily over three floors, with a little workshop and storeroom at the back of the shop and beyond that a small courtyard garden. On the first floor were the kitchen, sitting room and two bedrooms, with a bathroom tucked between them, French windows opening from the kitchen out onto a tiny roof garden that extended out over the workshop. Up under the eaves on the floor above were two long attic bedrooms with dormer windows and a shared bathroom, overlooking the pan-tiled roofs of the hippies across the way. Cass rented the attic rooms out to foreign-language students during the summer to help make ends meet.
Over the years, Cass had built a reputation for dealing in interesting things at good prices and was happy to customise, re-cover, re-stain or even rebuild to order, so that there were several interior designers who used her regularly. Which meant, between selling furniture, collectables, rugs and curtains, some nice dress jewellery, and re-upholstering for herself and customers, as well as renting rooms to students, and doing odd design jobs for Rocco, life was usually very full and just about paid for itself. Although some days she thought it would be brilliant to have a man in her life to share things with, Cass didn’t feel she needed a relationship to make her whole.
She settled down to work and by half-past five had almost finished the work on the armchair, sold a nice gilt mirror and an occasional table, one of the Windsor chairs, a set of cuff links and silver picture frame. Not great, but not bad at all for a slow day. And, as the afternoon crept past, Cass started to think more and more about the evening’s concert. As the clock crept closer to five, Cass was beginning to get twitchy, feeling as if time was ticking by faster—she needed to shower, iron her frock, walk the dog, feed him and the cat…the jobs started to stack up in her head, all clamouring for attention.
Just as she was locking up, humming through the opening bars of a medley of Gershwin numbers, someone rang the shop doorbell. When Cass ignored that, they banged on the shop window. Hard.
She considered her options; the window display was good but not that good. Who was so desperate for a bent-wood rocker and three table lamps that they couldn’t wait until tomorrow? The workshop and most of the shop, where the back stairs led up into the cottage, were in almost complete darkness now the lights were off. Cass edged forward round a particularly pretty rosewood screen and peered out from the shadows into the lane.
Outside, her mother and Rocco were standing back to back under the streetlight. Her mother was wearing a black full-length fun fur coat and a leopard-print hat. They had their mobiles out and were busy tapping in numbers, like busy bookends. An instant later the shop phone rang, followed a nanosecond later by the house phone; three rings later and her mobile rang. They were obviously desperate. Cass watched as they waited and then