“Didn’t I drop, like, ten kilos of onions into you this morning?” Maggie laughed.
“Yeah,” agreed Kat, maniacally stuffing her arms full with bunches of coriander and parsley. “But most of those went into the French onion soup special, and then I made tomato sauce for meatballs, and now I haven’t enough to caramelize for the tarts.”
“Blimey.” Maggie began to tip onions into the burlap bag Kat had thrust at her.
By now Kat had added several vines of cherry tomatoes and had a large daikon radish tucked in her armpit. Maggie held out a cardboard box, and Kat gratefully dropped her spoils in.
“How’s it all going with the solstice arrangements and the curios shop?”
“Oh, you know, getting there slowly but surely.”
“Must be nice having your sisters back.”
“Do you know, I never thought I’d say this, but it actually is.”
Saskia Brannigan—Vanessa’s mum—came in for a kilo of clementines and some brussels sprouts, followed by Ellen of Cussing Crocheters infamy.
“Here,” said Ellen, thrusting a paper bag at Maggie. “I’ve made you something.”
Maggie opened the bag and pulled out a crochet hat with crochet mistletoe in the place of the more traditional bobble on the top and the words kiss me, you twat embroidered around the band.
“Wow. Thank you, it’s . . .”
“It’s a double whammy. Keep you warm in the shop and keep that Joe thinking about your lips.” Ellen waggled her eyebrows.
“Oh!” Maggie was taken aback. Despite their afternoon in the tent of intent, she hadn’t yet told anyone that she and Joe were official.
“He’s terribly handsome,” agreed Saskia. “You’d make a lovely couple.”
“Um, thank you,” she said awkwardly.
“I’ve seen people giving him the eye,” said Ellen. “There’s some lonely ladies who make a special effort when they know young Joe will be delivering their veg box.”
Really? Should she start doing all the deliveries herself? Ellen broke her train of thought by asking, “Now does Simone do private consultations? Apparently, she’s got ‘healing hands’ and I’ve got this hip, you see . . .”
* * *
Three hours after he’d left, Patrick strolled back into the shop, looking mightily pleased with himself. He plucked a green apple from a basket, spun it around in his palm, and took a bite, wiping the juice off his chin with the back of his hand.
“How did you get on? All done?” Maggie asked.
“Yep. I dug it all out and then we built up the outside edges with big stones and old bricks we found around the place.”
“And was Louella there?”
Patrick grinned and his windburned cheeks turned pinker.
“You’d better go easy on that girl’s heart. I’ve seen Harini throw a grown man over her shoulder after one too many G and T’s.”
“Ahh, don’t worry, Harini loves me,” he said with due smugness. He finished devouring the apple and bowled the spindly core across the room, where it landed in the bin. “And anyway, you’ve been lecturing me about being careful with people’s hearts since I was like seven. But I can’t be held responsible for all the lovesick ladies I leave in my wake just by being me.” He puffed out his chest and struck a caricature muscleman pose.
“It’s strange.” She rubbed her chin musingly. “I don’t remember raising you to be such a cocky little shit, but there we are.”
Patrick laughed and grabbed a banana.
“Stop eating all my profits!”
He held his arms wide, all innocence. “I’m just trying to get my five-a-day, Ma.”
“Can’t you eat the bruised ones?”
He pulled a disgusted face and then said, “Hand them over and I’ll make chocolate banana bread if you like?”
“You know how to make banana bread?”
“Don’t look so surprised. I cook a lot at uni. How else will I impress women?”
She grabbed a bowl of dark brown bananas she’d set aside as freebies for customers who like to bake and handed it to Patrick. “Here you go, smarty pants. Knock yourself out.” She remembered Ellen and Saskia’s comments earlier. “Patrick?”
“Yeah?”
“Joe and I.” Oh god, how I am supposed to do this? “We’re, well, we’re a bit more than just friends.” This was excruciating. Why did she suddenly feel like a teenager?
Patrick took a measured breath. He managed to look mature and awkward at the same time. “I guessed as much,” he said finally. “Is it serious?”
“I don’t know,” she lied, and hated herself for it.
Patrick brightened. “If it makes you happy, then I’m good with that.” There was a pause. “I just worry because you’ve put your faith in men before who didn’t deserve it.”
That was an understatement.
“I understand your concerns, my darling. We’re just enjoying each other’s company for now.” It was better to make it seem casual, just in case. Despite her reasoning, she couldn’t help feeling as though she was betraying Joe by downplaying things between them. She added guiltily, “But I’d like you to keep an open mind.”
He nodded. “Okay. I’ll try.”
“Thank you.”
He smiled self-consciously and left the shop clutching his bowl of brown bananas. He’d grown into a good man.
She’d not been much older than Patrick when she’d met Josh. She couldn’t remember feeling that young; Josh’s death had rendered her careworn before her time. On her young shoulders, the label “widow” had weighed heavy and she’d reacted by hurling herself into the path of reckless men in the hopes that she could shake off her own morbid title.
Now in her forties, she felt more comfortable in her own skin than ever before. She didn’t need to try to be anything other than her herself, and Joe seemed to love her just as she was. So why couldn’t she throw herself in completely? Though it had felt like a big step telling Patrick, she knew she was holding back by giving him a pared-down version of her feelings for Joe. Neither of them deserved that. She might be older and wiser than her twentysomething self, but she’d carried some of her fears down the decades with her, and those ghosts were proving hard to shake.
32
Over the last couple of days, donations for the bonfire had grown exponentially, and Maggie’s fear that they would be dancing around a wastepaper basket was put to rest. Star left the gate open at the side of the shop for people to drop off their unwanted wood in the garden and then she and Duncan would leave the shop at intervals to pile the wood as Milton had shown them.
They’d been growing closer ever since he kissed her cheek. But as of yet there had been no actual snogging. This was very confusing for Star, whom men usually wanted to snog whether she liked them or not.
They spent all day every day together in the shop, and she learned everything he taught her as though by osmosis. She was thrilled by his knowledge and the history and provenance of the things in her father’s curiosity shop. After a lifetime of happily bobbing around in her head untroubled, her brain was suddenly parched and the only thing that quenched it was dousing it with information.