Page 32 of The Cosy Seaside Chocolate Shop

‘Deal.’

They shook hands on it, both parties happy.

Sitting in the Jeep with a boot full of chairs and a wooden table that would soon spruce up again – on close inspection all the wood was in good condition – Emma and Max did a high five.

‘Well done you.’ Max was smiling. ‘I loved the bartering technique. Think I might need you to do my negotiating when I’m buying materials in for the next job.’ He gave her a wink.

‘Any time,’ she said, laughing.

They wound their way back along summer country lanes, with purple-pink foxgloves jutting tall from the stone walls, and cattle and sheep languidly grazing the green fields each side of them. As they reached the top of the village, they could see the fishing boats rocking gently in the harbour, the sea glinting silver in the sunshine, and the vista of the bay was just beautiful. It made the heart soar.

Emma looked across at Max in the driving seat, and they shared a warm smile. It was lovely that they seemed to be back on track, and that her dreams for the courtyard café were starting to become a reality.

16

At mid-morning on Tuesday, Emma was on her way to the grocer’s, needing some fresh cream for the ganache she was planning to make. Bev was in and covering the shop.

She was halfway down the hill when a movement from the churchyard, which was set just up on the rise, caught her eye. It looked as though someone was unsteady on their feet and perhaps about to fall over. They appeared to be elderly. Emma couldn’t walk on without checking that whoever it was, was all right.

The quaint stone church of St Peter’s stood proudly on the hill behind the cottages of the main village street, looking out to sea. Emma diverted up a narrow path that was a shortcut to the church’s wooden gate. As she entered the churchyard, Emma could see that an elderly lady was leaning heavily against one of the gravestones. On approaching, it was apparent that it was one of her regulars, old Mrs Clark, bent almost double.

‘Are you okay?’ Emma called. ‘Mrs Clark?’ She didn’t want to just appear beside her and frighten her.

The old lady looked up then. ‘Oh … just catching my breath, Emma pet. It’s my knees. They’re such cranky old buggers. Give me a bit of gyp now and then.’

She was still well enough to curse, thank heavens. ‘Can I help at all?’

‘Oh, I’ll be all right in a minute. My, they get that stiff these days. I’ve been kneeling, sorting out the flowers for my Jim. But how else am I meant to do it? I come here every week, have a chat, fill him in on the news, you know.’

Emma smiled. She did know, but she didn’t go to a graveyard for that; she just often chatted to Luke’s photograph that was still on her bedside table. Luke had been cremated and his ashes scattered at a beauty spot near his parents’ home and Emma always felt that it didn’t really matter where the flesh and bones went, as long as you didn’t forget, that you still held your loved one in your heart. In fact, she didn’t really want to think too much about the flesh and bones. Everyone has to find their own way to grieve, and to carry on.

‘Yes, I do.’

Mrs C was able to stand a bit taller now, with just one hand resting on the gravestone. ‘He passed away twenty years ago. It was quite sudden – a heart attack. But there’s never a week when I don’t visit.’ The old lady smiled fondly.

Emma noted the fresh bunch of bright-yellow carnations that were set in a cut-glass vase at the base of the headstone that was engraved with ‘James Arthur Clark, much loved husband of Marjorie Clark’.

‘How long were you together?’ Em asked.

‘Well, it was over forty years since I first met him. We were just a year off our Ruby Wedding Anniversary when he was taken bad.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs C.’

‘Well, pet, we had our time, would have liked more, but we had our time. It was a good forty years together.’ She looked at Emma kindly. ‘I know you mentioned about your fiancé. That must have been so hard, losing him so young.’

‘It was …’ Emma felt a lump forming in her throat. ‘Thank you.’

Was it any easier losing someone after forty years, when you’d had more time together, Emma wondered, or was that just more to be taken away?

‘Well then, shall we head over to your lovely Chocolate Shop? That’s where I was going next. ’Cos if I stand here much longer, the old knees’ll seize right up again and I’ll be back to square one. And I could really do with a nice cup of your tea.’ Mrs C was a regular at The Chocolate Shop every Tuesday and Thursday, ten-thirty on the dot, and she popped in many other days too.

‘Yes, of course.’ She’d walk back with her and check the old lady was all right. She could nip out again later to fetch the cream. ‘Mrs C … did you have any family?’ Emma hoped she wasn’t prying too much, but she was curious – she had never heard mention of any grown-up children visiting, or grandchildren.

‘No, pet. Not that we didn’t want them. But it wasn’t meant to be for us.’

‘Oh, that’s a shame.’

‘Ah well, we had a good marriage though, some happy times. And there were always lots of children about in the village to keep us entertained. Anyways, less of the bygones; how’s your new young man?’