Читать книгу An A To Z Of Love - Sophie Pembroke, Sophie Pembroke - Страница 10

Chapter Two

Becky waited until she saw Tony and Mia take the turning down Water Street, towards the Esplanade, before she ducked out of the newsagent’s doorway and over to the A to Z shop next door.

It had been a good idea, having Tony lure Mia away first; this was a family matter, after all. And Mia, for all they’d been friends as kids, before the thing with her dad, was never going to be family. She’d wondered how he’d managed it, but not for very long. Tony always seemed to manage to get what he wanted one way or another, often leaving the other party thinking it had been their idea in the first place. It was one of the reasons Champion Casinos were such a success.

The other reason, of course, was that Becky got what she wanted pretty much all the time, too. When they worked together, they were unstoppable.

The thought made Becky smile. Aberarian was going to roll over and beg for them to save it.

It was a good feeling, knowing she was just one deal away from ruling her old hometown. She hadn’t been ready last time she’d come back. They hadn’t taken her seriously. But this time, they weren’t going to have a choice.

Becky had always known that she would come back to Aberarian one day. It had a strange pull on a person, this place. Even as a teenager, when she’d longed to escape to university, to London, to real life, she’d always known she’d return. When it was time. When she was ready to settle down, start a family, grow up – there had never been any doubt in her mind that Aberarian was where she would do it.

Three years ago, she’d thought it was time. She’d seen her future stretching out before her, Charlie at her side. But when Tony had contacted her with a new business idea, a chance for her to really make her mark… how could she say no? She was still young, she still had time. This was her chance to truly shine, before she settled down.

So she’d taken it. Who wouldn’t?

Well, apart from Charlie, of course. Guilt throbbed in her middle as she remembered his sleeping face, the morning she left. He’d loved her, enough to move to Aberarian for her. And, more importantly, he’d stayed. He was still waiting for her.

And she was ready at last.

Becky smiled, watching the A to Z shop sign creak in the wind. It might not be easy, but this was her chance to make everything right. She’d have her business, and she could win Charlie back, no problem. She could have the future she’d always dreamt of. She could run things in Aberarian, Tony would leave town and Charlie would never need to even know about her fling with her boss. And Tony…. he was a businessman. He’d understand the importance of shaping circumstances to get what you wanted.

She was his protégée, after all. He’d probably be proud of her, once he got over the part about not being able to sleep with her any more.

But first, she had a plan to put into action. Starting with Aunt Ditsy.

Becky paused at the window of the A to Z shop before going in. No customers, of course. She hadn’t seen a single tourist all the way in from the station. That’s why Aberarian needed her.

Ditsy sat behind the counter, pouring over something – either the accounts or the crossword, probably. You could never tell with Aunt Ditsy. Becky paused, hand on the door, remembering better times for the shop, when Uncle Henry was still alive and sneaking sweets to his favourite niece. When she was still the town’s sweetheart and her biggest responsibility was remembering to keep the jars of lemon drops on the L shelf filled.

With a deep breath, Becky pushed the door open, bracing herself for surprise and hugs and amazement. What she got instead, when Ditsy looked up from her papers, was a look of utter shock.

‘Hello, Aunt Ditsy,’ she said with a calculatedly nervous smile.

‘I thought…’ Ditsy still hadn’t moved from behind the counter. Becky felt a twinge of concern. Not the best start. ‘When you didn’t come home for your Aunt Hannah’s funeral, I thought we’d never see you in Aberarian again.’

Ah. Right. ‘I felt just terrible about that, Auntie. I just… It was too soon for me, so soon after everything.’ Ditsy nodded, the movement jerky, and Becky decided the best thing was probably just to steam ahead and hope Ditsy would forget, eventually, some of Becky’s failing as a niece. ‘But I’m back now. Things have been going really well for me in Manchester. And now I’ve got the opportunity to share some of my success…’

But before Becky could get into the revelation that had prompted her return, the shop door opened again, its brass bell jingling as Mrs Heather Jenkins entered and bustled straight up to the counter without acknowledging Becky’s presence at all. That wouldn’t last long. She was going to show them she mattered in this town.

‘Now, Ditsy, what’s all this about a letter from Mia’s father?’ Mrs Jenkins hadn’t become any less blunt over the years either, it seemed.

Ditsy gave a frustrated sigh. ‘Heather, since I don’t want to spend all afternoon repeating myself, and now Mia’s out of the way I’m sure you’re not going to be the last to ask, could you just get Jacques to amend his story when he’s telling people? He just needs to tell them I have no idea who the letter was from, what it said, or even if Mia’s got any plans to open the damn thing. She certainly hadn’t when she left here.’

Heather Jenkins gave an almost-snort of polite disbelief. ‘And I’m sure if she had you’d have told me all about it.’

‘Then why did you bother to ask?’ Ditsy said with raised eyebrows. Check and mate. Aunt Ditsy had obviously been practicing that comeback.

But even as Mrs Jenkins left, grumbling under her breath, Becky could see the vicar, Dafydd Davies, striding purposefully towards the shop. Ditsy dashed out from behind the counter with surprising speed and flipped the sign on the door over to Closed, smiling with false apology at Reverend Davies while he fumed outside the window.

‘Never known a man of God to gossip so much,’ Ditsy muttered, watching him turn and leave.

Becky decided to seize the opportunity. ‘Since you’re closed early for the day,’ she said, her mind already playing out the next part of her plan, ‘Why don’t we go and get lunch at StarFish? I’ve got a… business proposition I’d like to discuss with you.’

Ditsy snorted, but reached for her coat. ‘You just want to see Charlie again.’

Becky smiled. The plan was coming together just fine. Tony would be so proud.

* * * *

Mia led Tony along Main Street, towards the Esplanade, and stared at the town she’d lived in all her life with new eyes. It looked shabbier than she remembered, more rundown. And when had so many shops closed? One at a time, she supposed, and it was always sad when they did, but then two weeks later she’d forget about them. She always saw Aberarian as a picture in her head, a magical place that drew you back in, however far you strayed. Until she had to find a way to make the town interesting to an outsider, and realised the whole place looked abandoned.

Maybe she should tell him the tragic life of Mia Page, so he’d run screaming for the hills now, saving her the bother of scaring him off slowly, over time.

Instead, she guided him down Water Street, past the bright blue and gold sign of StarFish, and drew his attention to the beautiful holiday homes on the other side of the street, rather than the charity shop and the bucket and spade stall. She glanced into StarFish’s window, but it didn’t look like Charlie was there anyway, so there was no point stopping.

On the corner of the Esplanade, she directed him to the window of Treasures, Kim Williams’s tourist trap, selling overpriced slate objects and Celtic-designed jewellery made overseas. That was what people wanted from a seaside town these days, wasn’t it?

Although, if she was honest, Tony didn’t seem particularly interested in the town anyway.

‘So, you work in the A to Z shop?’ Tony asked, turning away from Kim’s overly sentimental window display to point at a plaque beside it declaring the smuggler A to Z Jones had once stayed there. ‘Named for the man himself, I assume?’

Mia shrugged. ‘Probably. Story goes he could get you anything from A to Z. A bit like an illegal Harrods. But it’s mainly because everything in the shop is arranged alphabetically.’

‘Really?’ Tony paused in the middle of the pavement. ‘How the hell does that work?’

‘Badly, most of the time,’ Mia admitted.

‘Huh.’ Tony smiled. ‘Well, you did say she was crazy.’

Mia didn’t reply, just took his arm and carried on in the direction of the beach. Maybe the sea views would win Tony over.

But somehow, with Tony beside her, even the beach had lost some of its appeal.

‘Are those… jellyfish?’ He stared, horrified, at the shoreline.

Mia winced. ‘Yeah. They… We tend to get a lot of them, this time of year. They wash up with the tide and wash out again later. Usually.’ Tony still looked horrified. ‘You’re not really seeing it at its best.’

‘What if you step on them?’

‘They sting,’ she replied. Perhaps it was time to take Tony away from the jellyfish.

‘Well, you wanted the coast,’ Mia said, leading him up to the Esplanade. Aberarian wasn’t the most exciting place on the planet, but it was her home and she loved it. And for some reason, it was important to her that Tony should like it too. ‘This is it.’

Tony turned to her and smiled again, and Mia felt some of her worries fade away. ‘It most certainly is.’

Not feeling she was making any progress, Mia started along the Esplanade, saying, ‘Well, there’s more to see, still.’

They passed the Grand Hotel, a hulking old-fashioned building that dominated the Esplanade and still served high tea for its guests every afternoon. Then up King Street, past the bakery and more holiday flats, describing everything they passed. ‘And this is Joe’s, and…’

But Tony was transfixed by Joe’s. ‘What is it?’

Mia glanced up at the sign. Seemed self-explanatory to her. ‘Well, this half’s a butcher’s shop and the other is a fishmonger’s. It’s just Joe runs them both. Saving people time when they’re shopping.’

‘Sort of a primitive supermarket, then?’ Tony asked, grinning.

‘Not exactly.’ She shrugged. ‘Aberarian’s not big enough to support both separate shops. So Joe’s father amalgamated them.’ She didn’t mention that at the rate the local housing was becoming holiday homes, occupied for just a few months a year, soon the town wouldn’t even be able to support Joe’s.

Tony shook his head. ‘Baffling. Only in Wales. What’s next?’

Something in Mia’s middle clenched at his tone, but she couldn’t think why. After all, it wasn’t anything Joe himself hadn’t said from time to time.

She looked around her, wondering what on earth to show him next, and spotted, past the A to Z shop, the old Coliseum cinema. Perfect. Surely Tony would appreciate the site of a proper old movie theatre, not one of those modern superplexes that charged more for popcorn than a ticket.

But Tony, apparently, was more of a modern cinema man than an appreciator of the classics.

‘But that came out months ago!’ He pointed at the poster jammed crookedly into the rusting frame on the front of the building. ‘And what’s a wet weather matinee?’

Mia shrugged. ‘Makes it cheaper if we wait a bit for the films. Helps Walt keep the place going, and it doesn’t make a lot of difference, really. And the wet weather matinees are just for the school holidays. Walt opens up earlier in the day when it’s raining. Gives the kids something to do.’ She smiled at the thought of the last one she’d attended, with Charlie the summer before. ‘It’s fun. He puts on some classic kids’ movies and hands out big bowls of popcorn, included in the ticket price.’

Still staring at the faded and peeling yellow paint on the brickwork, Tony didn’t look convinced. Mia didn’t bother telling him about Walt’s Festive Film Festival, running from October to December, showing all his favourite Christmas movies. ‘Come on,’ she said instead. ‘Come in and meet Walt. He’s brilliant. You’ll see.’ Upsetting Walt might have been her number one regret about breaking things off with Dan, except her almost father-in-law had made it very clear that he still counted her as part of the family, even if she wasn’t going to marry his son.

Inside the Coliseum, the lights were dimmed and the popcorn machine turned off. ‘Walt?’ Mia called out, watching Tony taking a tour of the small lobby, fingering the grubby red and white ropes set up to keep non-existent queues in order.

Walt Hamilton stuck his head out from behind the box office door, and Mia could see Tony taking in his balding head, and butter-stained red and white shirt. ‘Mia? There’s no film this afternoon. Not until…’ His voice trailed off as he eyed up Tony. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Walt, this is Tony.’ Mia took Tony’s hand again and led him to the box office. ‘He’s in town on business, and I’m giving him a bit of a tour.’

‘Right.’ Walt stuck out a hand. ‘Well, hello, then.’

Tony took the proffered hand, and Mia saw Walt wince at the force of his handshake. ‘Interesting place you’ve got here,’ Tony said, running a hand down the dusty frame of a black and white forties starlet’s photo.

Walt shrugged. ‘I like it.’

Obviously Walt wasn’t going to help her sell the Coliseum as a reason to love Aberarian. ‘We all love it,’ she said with more enthusiasm. ‘Always packed out on a Saturday night, and the kids think it’s the best thing in town!’

Tony’s face was full of disbelief, and Walt cringed at the lie, so Mia decided it might be time to call it quits and move onto the pub instead. Surely Tony would have to like the pub.

‘What are you doing here?’ Susan Hamilton’s voice behind her made Mia more determined to make a run for it. Dan’s mother’s reaction to their break up had been far less understanding. In fact, Mia was pretty sure that Susan blamed her completely for her beloved son marrying a holidaying student and moving three hundred miles away to start a family with her. ‘Walt?’

‘Just leaving, Susan,’ Mia assured her and, grabbing hold of Tony’s sleeve, dragged him to the door. ‘Bye, Walt.

Outside, she dropped Tony’s arm and made her way down the cinema steps towards Main Street, and the pub.

‘So, what’s next on this magical mystery tour?’ Tony asked.

‘The Crooked Fox,’ Mia said. ‘You’ll like that at least, I bet.’

Tony took her arm again, and they started in the direction of the lower end of town. ‘Crooked Fox?’

She smiled. ‘You think only the cities have pubs? What do you think we do out here, all winter?’

Tony laughed, a bright, honest, surprised chuckle, and squeezed her arm as she led him to the pub.

‘But enough about the town,’ he said, once they were settled at a rickety corner table by the old fireplace. Tony put down his pint and focused solely on Mia; it was quite disconcerting, she found. ‘Tell me about you. All I know so far is that you like a rundown cinema.’

Mia shrugged. ‘Walt has always been very kind to me. He gave me a job there when I was in sixth form.’ Back when the cinema actually made some money, every now and then, she didn’t add. That was how she’d got close to Dan, who’d always been far too cool to give her the time of day at school, before then. It had been the best job in the world, and Walt had almost cried when he’d had to let her go. ‘I figure catching a movie a couple of times a week is a small way to make it up to him.’

‘Have you always lived here?’ Tony asked.

Mia nodded. ‘Always. Well, except for when I was at uni in Manchester. My father was a teacher at the secondary school for most of my childhood, actually. Then, well, he left when I was sixteen. I got my A Levels and ran off to university two years later. But after I graduated… I wanted to come home.’ Mia remembered how she had missed the sound of the sea at night, the salt in the air, so much it felt like a physical ache. Not that she regretted it; if she’d never left, she would never have known how much Aberarian meant to her.

‘Really? I’d have thought…’ Tony said, a tinge of disbelief in his voice. Apparently realising he might have offended her, he covered by asking, ‘What did you study?’

‘History.’ Mia took another gulp of wine. ‘I’ve always been fascinated by how we got here. I mean, history can explain pretty much everything to ever happen in the world, if you look at it right. That’s important.’ Her own past might not be a fairy tale, but it did at least help her remember how she ended up here.

A slow smile spread across Tony’s face. ‘Personally, I’ve always preferred where we’re going to where we’ve been. After all, there are still so many things to see and do. So many new people to meet.’ His thumb ran over the back of her hand, and Mia swallowed. Hard.

As his hand left hers, she found herself babbling to catch up with the conversation. ‘Charlie always says it’s where we are now that matters most.’

Tony reclined in his chair. ‘Charlie? Your boyfriend?’

Mia laughed and shook her head. ‘Not at all. Just friends.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ He was leaning forward again, suddenly very close. ‘Since it means I can ask you to lunch as a thank you for the tour.’

‘Lunch?’ Mia asked, surprised. Was this an actual date? Had one of Ditsy’s plans actually worked? If so, it had to be a first. ‘That would be…’

‘Great. What about the fish place we passed on the way to the beach? Is it any good?’

* * * *

Charlie slipped back behind the counter at StarFish and checked the bookings log again. It was becoming a slightly worrying obsession. There was nothing new, though. ‘Magda?’

Magda’s head appeared from behind the kitchen door, followed by the rest of her. ‘You bellowed?’

‘Has Mia been in?’ Maybe Magda had got a good look at whoever had been grabbing hold of Mia’s hand. Perhaps she was being abducted. Perhaps she needed Charlie to save her. Perhaps…

‘No.’ Magda slid onto the nearest table, her neat black pencil skirt smooth over the rough and ready wooden surfaces Charlie had chosen. ‘But I did see her walk past with the most delicious man.’

Which was, of course, just what Charlie had been hoping to hear. In no way whatsoever. ‘Any idea who he was?’ Because, really, when would Mia have found time to pick up a date? She hadn’t mentioned it on their walk that morning. And she’d tell him, wouldn’t she, if there was someone new in her life? That was what friends did. And Mia was very clear on the fact that they were friends. Even when Charlie wasn’t so sure that was all they should be.

Magda shrugged. ‘Not a clue. But she’ll be here for the tasting later, won’t she? You can ask her then.’

‘Yeah.’ Charlie returned to obsessing about the bookings log. It was marginally less frustrating than obsessing about his friendship with Mia. But only marginally.

‘Ooh, look.’ Magda dropped from the table and into her best professional stance. ‘There might be some actual customers coming our way.’

It didn’t seem very likely, but Charlie looked up anyway, and promptly forgot all about bookings and restaurants and Magda and Mia’s mystery man. Because right there in his restaurant was a much, much bigger problem.

‘Hi, Charlie,’ Becky said, with just enough grace to look a little sheepish but apparently not enough to just stay the hell away from him after tearing his heart out and stomping on it twice already.

‘Becky.’ He glanced at her companion. ‘And Ditsy.’ Who really should have known better and managed to stop this before it reached his door. Ditsy gave him an apologetic smile.

Ditsy stepped into the ensuing silence, smile widening with what Charlie was pretty sure was fake brightness. ‘We’d like a table for two, for lunch, if that’s possible.’

Charlie shook his head and managed to find his voice. ‘Magda will be taking care of you today – one of the window tables perhaps, Magda?’

With a nod, Magda instantly flowed into her best customer service spiel, guiding Ditsy to a window table and almost managing to get Becky to follow by sheer dint of her politeness.

But at the last moment, Becky gave a little shake of the head, as if she were coming out of a daze, and took the three small steps necessary to bring her in front of Charlie.

‘Hi,’ she said. Then, when he didn’t respond, she answered the question he hadn’t asked. ‘I just wanted to see you. I came… I’ve some business in town. But I couldn’t not come and see you.’

‘You left without seeing me,’ Charlie pointed out, before his brain could censor his mouth. ‘Just a note on the counter was all I got.’

Her face crumpled a fraction under her powder and lipstick. ‘I know. And that was… It was unforgivable. I know that.’

Over at the table, Magda was watching them with concern in her wide hazel eyes. Ditsy’s face, Charlie noticed, showed only fascination. Was she enjoying this train wreck of a reunion?

‘What does it matter now?’ Charlie lowered his gaze from hers and stepped away, heading for the kitchen and solitude. ‘Enjoy your lunch.’

‘Charlie!’ She grabbed hold of his hand before he could escape. ‘Can we talk? After? Please?’

He shook his hand free and carried on beating his retreat, murmuring, ‘Sure’ and ‘Whatever,’ as he went. It was enough, it seemed, because Becky gave him one of those wide, wide smiles he remembered most from her bedroom before she turned and glided over to the window table.

‘Well that was a mistake,’ Magda muttered under her breath as she passed him, fetching drinks for their surprise customers.

‘I know,’ Charlie groaned and stepped into the kitchen, letting the door swing shut behind him.