As I moved on and dallied outside the window of the estate agent’s, I wondered what to do about my housing situation. I’d have to move out of the flat and I couldn’t afford to rent anywhere around town on my own whilst also paying rent on the shop. I imagined moving back in with Mum and Dad and their regular parties and groaned. I was an in-bed-by-eight sort of person, born into a family that saw sunrise as a challenge. I couldn’t see that working.
Maybe I could get into a house share or something. Emma would probably offer to put me up for a while, but she was in a studio and there wasn’t space for another person for longer than a few days. If that. Irritation at Richard bubbled up from the chasm of heartbreak in my chest. Yesterday my life was sorted, practically on rails. Now he’d ruined everything and I wasn’t even sure where I’d be living next week.
I returned to the shop with a little black cloud floating over my head. The look on Emma’s face as I entered didn’t perk me up either. I’d expected her to be happy I was back and bringing her baked goods, but her eyes were round with alarm and darting about, avoiding me.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’ I asked, my hands tightening on the bakery bag and my empty coffee cup as Emma just looked at me in mingled panic and awkwardness. ‘Is it Richard, has he come in? Is it Mum and Dad, has something happened? Oh God, it’s moths, isn’t it?’ I felt horror run down my spine. ‘We’re infested with moths eating their way through all our stock. That’s it, I’m finished. My boyfriend cheated on me and now I’m being eaten out of business…’
‘No, it’s not that,’ Emma finally managed to get out, holding up her hands to urge me to calm down. ‘Sorry I was just… I’m not really sure how to tell you without you freaking out, but you’re already freaking out, so that’s my bad…’
‘Just tell me!’ I begged, thinking that if it wasn’t moths or something wrong with my parents, I could handle it. It couldn’t be that bad. Not ‘walking in on a squeaky-bummed vixen on your leather sofa’ bad anyway.
‘A man came in while you were gone,’ Emma said, wincing.
‘A… was he weird, or creepy – what happened?’ I hurried over to the counter and dumped my stuff on it. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine. He wasn’t weird or anything. He was just… he was wearing the jumper. As inthejumper. And he had um… two black bags with him.’
‘Black… you mean rubbish bags?’ I said, a horrible realisation twisting up my insides. ‘My rubbish bags? The ones I handed over to Margaret this morning?’
‘Yep,’ Emma squeaked. ‘Look, I don’t want you to get upset but…’
‘But that awful woman didn’t even unpack the bags, did she? She probably just slapped a price tag on them and shoved them on the floor with the sticky Duplo and the VHS tapes of fucking…Taggart.’
Emma was tense and looked miserable. She obviously didn’t want to be the one telling me all this. I couldn’t blame her. I’d already had my heart broken once in twenty-four hours and now it was happening all over again. My gorgeous crochet, treated like someone’s old baby clothes, all stained with strained peas and musty from the loft.
‘How much?’ I asked, dropping onto my stool behind the counter. ‘How much did she sell them for?’
‘I’m… not quite sure this is healthy,’ Emma protested. ‘I mean, at least it’s all gone, right? That’s what you wanted?’
My stomach squirmed, threatening to reject the giant coffee I’d just downed. ‘I wanted it gone-gone. Not walking back into my place of business on a stranger. How much, Emma?’
Emma wriggled as if trying to contain the awful secret, but she gave in quickly under the weight of silence. ‘Ten pounds.’
‘Ten pounds!?’ I was going to burn that charity shop down with Margaret inside it.
‘Each!’ she said quickly, as if that would soften the blow.
‘Ten pounds wouldn’t cover the cost of the ends I snipped off that lot!’ I buried my head in my hands. My one solace had been that the crochet Richard had never appreciated would at least make some money for charity. It was worth over a thousand pounds, even second-hand. Margaret had woefully undervalued it but, then again, so had Richard.
‘I know, I’m sorry.’ Emma put her arm around me. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea, or a hug or… go down there and give Margaret a piece of my mind?’
My head shot up. ‘God, no, she’d eat you alive.’
Emma sagged in relief. ‘Good because I am so scared of her, have been ever since she practically forced those Lilliput Lane figurines on me. I only went in to ask her to put up a poster about tarot readings.’
I couldn’t help but giggle and it broke some of the awful tension. Still, I felt as if I’d had the stuffing pulled out of me by a cruel toddler. All that crochet, all that work, gone for a paltry twenty quid. My talent was worthless. I was worthless.
‘He’s probably going to sell it all on eBay,’ Emma said, as if trying to make me feel better. ‘He’ll flip the lot and make hundreds more. That’ll show her.’
I groaned in annoyance and rested my elbows on the counter, defeated. ‘I know I shouldn’t care but it just feels really shitty. I did all the hard work and I was okay with the profits going to charity but not to some scummy reseller. What did he even look like?’
‘Um… I wouldn’t say “scummy”,’ Emma said, evasively. ‘But he was a little… shabby. Around the edges. Sort of like that dog that’s sometimes tied up outside the library – cute little sausage dog, one of the hairy ones? Sort of scruffy, three legs, tartan bandana…’
‘More about the guy, less about the dog,’ I sighed, now face down on the counter.
‘Right, um… maybe late thirties. Going grey already, bit beardy and stubbly and… he had a shopping bag with him, from the everything shop down the way. Scissors, bin liners and candles. Which I thought was odd. Maybe he was getting ready for Halloween?’
‘Scissors?’ I sat bolt upright. Oh my God – was he going to cut the crochet up? Repurpose the yarn, or sell it on as scrap fabric?
