Page 11 of The Village Shop for Lonely Hearts

But his mum had found him just as he was bolting the front door locked.

‘We should celebrate,’ she’d said. ‘Go to the pub for dinner.’

‘Celebrate?’ Josh had found himself muttering, wondering what on earth there was to rejoice about.

‘Amber flying over all this way to visit us,’ his mum had replied, rolling her eyes. ‘A change of company for us all. And, I don’t know, why on earth not?’

Because we can’t possibly spare the money, Josh had wanted to tell her. But it was the first time in a long time that she had looked so cheerful and what harm could a few more pounds added on to the credit card do?

He knew though that at some point he was going to have to address their overheads and talk to his mum about reducing their buying of goods and trying to sell off what they could. He had been wondering about selling on the internet but had no idea how to start.

Josh stood on the veranda at the front of the shop, waiting for the family to gather. He looked at the Closed sign on the door. His dad had never wanted to be a shopkeeper. Todd Kennedy had been a man full of life and personality. His lead guitar playing antics were still all over YouTube. He had been a huge magnetic force, instantly drawing people to his side as soon as he entered a room. But the rock and roll lifestyle had taken its toll and once Josh’s grandfather had passed away, his dad had persuaded them all to move to Cranbridge for a quieter life.

Of course, not even a country village could contain Todd’s dazzling personality and he was soon buying all manner of stock from every country fair and market that he could find. The trouble was, it was such a wide range of goods that much of the stock remained unsold and Josh just felt overwhelmed with it all now. Boxes of sellotape jostled for space with long rolls of material. Mounds of front door mats tottered precariously next to tins of baked beans. Garden brooms were alongside wellington boots and children’s toys, knitting needles and car engine oil.

His mum and grandma kept saying that it was the supermarket’s fault that the fortunes of the shop had altered. Times had changed. But the bizarre range of stock and crammed displays certainly didn’t help.

Josh wanted to tidy up the place, get some kind of order somehow. It needed local support. Newer additions, like contactless payment and even online selling. But his mum refused to change anything and so it continued to feel like an impossible task.

In his lowest moments, he dreamt of just taking the whole stock to the council refuse dump and getting rid of it all. But his dad had bought a lot of it, so they at least ought to get some money for it. Besides, it was hardly eco-friendly to add to the global waste.

Indeed, Josh’s biggest dream was to make the shop more environmentally friendly and sustainable. It was a cause close to his heart. Growing up, his dad had taken the family to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. They had paid for a private boat hire and the driver had been passionate about the ecology of the reef and the impact climate change and industry was having on the coral.

It had struck a chord with twelve-year-old Josh and from that moment on, he had become passionate about saving the planet from the population intent on destroying it in his rebellious teenage years, and he had protested on many Greenpeace demonstrations. At university, he had decided to use his brain to back up his arguments and completed his degree in environmental business studies.

He had been lucky in how swiftly his career as a sustainability manager, helping customers bring greener working practices into their companies, had grown. It had been an extremely satisfying job, making the world a greener place one company at a time. He had visited and worked in some of the richest and most exciting cities in Europe.

And then he had received a phone call out of the blue one morning two years previously. His father had suffered a major heart attack and was unlikely to make it through the night. He had driven at speed to the hospital and just made it in time to squeeze his dad’s hand and say his goodbyes.

Nothing had been the same since. After the funeral, when he had been preparing to get back to his day job, his mother had become unwell. The cancer was swiftly diagnosed with, thankfully, a treatment available. But she had been too fragile, too upset about the shop, for him to turn his back on Cranbridge Stores.

And so he had given up his job, honouring the promise made to his father that he would take care of his mother and grandmother. He had thought it would only be a temporary measure. But he was still here, two years on. Stuck in limbo. He couldn’t update the shop without causing his mum to get upset and she had been through enough. They all had. The trouble was that he was used to being his own boss, but he had absolutely no say in the shop’s business.

At some point he knew he was going to have to be brave and tell his mum that he needed to leave for his own sanity. He just hadn’t the heart to tell her yet.

And so nothing changed except his growing resentment at being stuck in the village.

The truth was that, deep down, he no longer cared about the shop. It was his prison, his captor and he just wanted to move on. And the guilt about his true feelings made him even more miserable.

Amber was the first to join him downstairs before dinner. She was looking uncomfortable, tugging at the blue jumper which he recognised as his mum’s. He felt bad for her that she didn’t even have her own clothes to wear at the moment.

What a come down Cranbridge must be after the glamour of New York, he thought. He didn’t blame her for looking a little overwhelmed at the mess inside Cranbridge Stores. It was all in stark contrast to the glitzy department stores on the streets of Manhattan.

Once they had all gathered together, the family walked around the corner of the shop and across Riverside Lane. Josh glanced down the road, but there was nobody there. The boarded-up shops along the lane just confirmed that nobody had a reason to visit what was the heart of the village any more.

Apart from the shop, the only other business that was open was The Black Swan pub on the other side of the narrow bridge across the river and even that had seen better days.

‘It’s a cheerful atmosphere at any rate,’ he heard his mum say to Amber as they headed through the front door of the pub.

Josh thought of describing the pub with many words, but cheerful probably wasn’t at the foremost in his mind. The Black Swan was pretty run-down these days. It hadn’t been updated for the many years since it had been his father’s local pub, but at least the oak beams and fireplaces kept it on the rustic side of dilapidated.

Like everything else in the village, it wasn’t particularly busy. Only a handful of regulars went in a couple of evenings a week, Josh included. It had become his sanctuary, where he could escape the claustrophobic atmosphere in the shop and flat.

When he had moved into the flat after his father’s funeral, he had assumed it would only be for a few short weeks. Two years later and he was still there.

Mick, the mouthy landlord, didn’t seem to mind that Josh could nurse a single pint of beer for a whole evening. It was all he could afford and the last thing he wanted to do was start relying on alcohol too much in times of stress. He had seen what the similar addiction had almost cost his father in terms of his health. Or at least that was what his dad had told him when he had described his drunken life touring around the world in a rock band.

They found a table quite easily in the relatively empty pub, despite the lively darts competition going on. Then Josh headed up to the bar to order the drinks.