Page 35 of The Village Shop for Lonely Hearts

‘Paint?’ Josh came over to have a look. ‘White emulsion,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘God knows where he got this from. Hardware stuff pile, I think.’

‘So your dad was the main buyer?’ she asked, carrying some stock cubes over to join the rest of the food pile.

‘Yeah,’ said Josh, blowing out a sigh. ‘He loved the randomness of stuff. His brain was always a bit helter-skelter, you know, going here there and everywhere. It certainly made the school holidays fun.’

‘In what way?’

Josh smiled in memory. ‘He would announce we were going away and we’d have ten minutes to pack up the car. There was a big tent that we used to use and pitch up whenever we found somewhere decent to camp.’

‘Who ran the shop whilst you were away?’ asked Amber.

‘Grandma Tilly,’ he said. ‘She never used to mind. Said it kept her busy after she’d been widowed.’

He frowned suddenly.

‘What is it?’ said Amber.

‘Do you think that’s what Mum’s been doing these past two years? With the shop, I mean?’ He looked at her.

Amber nodded. ‘I think so. When times are difficult, it’s sink or swim for most people. Your mum chose to deal with her grief and illness by keeping busy in the shop. It was her safety net.’

‘What’s yours?’

The question startled her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, Mum’s is the shop. I try and get the tractor going,’ he told her, with a grimace. ‘Although I’ve pretty much failed with that as the engine doesn’t seem to run for very long at all. What do you do in stressful times?’

Amber hesitated before speaking. After all, it wasn’t a huge deal. ‘I draw. Ideas for shop windows, that kind of thing.’

‘That’s right,’ said Josh. ‘You were always drawing, even when we were young.’

‘That’s my safety net,’ she told him.

He looked down at the pile of stuff in his hands. ‘I’ve got screwdrivers and screws so that’s for the hardware pile.’

Amber was grateful to concentrate back on tidying the shop. Being the centre of anyone’s attention was never her idea of calm, especially with Josh, she found.

The randomness of the goods that they found staggered even Amber. There were biscuits, some out of date. Balls of wool. Books. Wrapping paper. Light bulbs. Sweets.

‘Why do we need five boxes of plain paper bags?’ said Josh, after a while. He blew out a sigh. ‘Well, at least they can be recycled, I suppose.’ He gave a snort of derision. ‘My God, if my former clients saw this place, they’d never employ me again. This place is the least sustainable place I’ve ever come across and that’s saying something, believe me.’

Amber tipped out some out-of-date biscuits into a compost bag so that they could recycle the box and plastic they were wrapped in. ‘Would you ever go back to it? Your consultancy work, I mean.’

Josh shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, you know, if or when the business fails.’

His eyes dropped and Amber could feel how sad that made him.

‘Perhaps it won’t come to that,’ she finally said.

He gave her a sad smile. ‘Perhaps.’

By late afternoon, they had begun to clear about a quarter of the clutter in the middle of the shop. There was now a large pile of food by the till. Another pile in the corner by the window which was hardware. A third pile was paper goods and stationery. And the last pile was stuff that they had no idea what to call, made up of wool, wellington boots, umbrellas, rolls of material and even sunglasses.

‘At least we can recycle all these empty boxes,’ said Josh, carrying out yet another pile of flattened cardboard onto the veranda. ‘I hate the thought of all of this going to landfill.’

But as they began to clear, it soon became obvious that some of the stock couldn’t be sold. There were packets and tins of food that were almost out of date.

‘I’m sure Grandma Tilly said something about a tombola at church,’ he said. ‘I must remember to ask her so we can donate them.’