Page 3 of The Summer That Changed Us

The shop had originally been called Merle Bay Lingerie when Jean Small had set it up in the eighties. She had been the sort of grown-up you called ‘Auntie’, even if you weren’t a blood relative, because she made you feel like you were family. She was warm, welcoming and had turned the mundane act of buying new undies into a celebration. After a year of everyone referring to the shop as simply Auntie Small’s, Jean had given in and renamed it.

Katie missed her aunt terribly; her death had been Katie’s first taste of grief. Discovering that Jean had left her the cottage and the business in her will had been a real shock. She was honoured and grateful but also a little overwhelmed by the responsibility. But it had been Auntie Jean’s wish that her only niece inherited her modest empire and with her parents’ support, Katie was trying her best. She hadn’t managed to make the cottage her own yet, but the shop, she had to admit, was thriving.

‘Well, doesn’t that display look a sight for sore eyes!’ Nula exclaimed, staring at the window while peeling off a handknitted cardigan from her plump arms. If Jean Small had been everyone’s auntie, then Nula was everyone’s nanna. She’d been a dinner lady at the local primary school before working here and Katie just knew she’d have been the type to give children extra portions when no one was looking.

‘Why thank you,’ said Katie, pouring hot water into her assistant’s favourite mug and handing her her first tea of the day.

‘You should have waited; I like doing it.’ Nula stopped at one of the mirrors, patted her grey curls into place and gave Katie a look of rebuke.

‘I know you do, and your displays are far better than mine,’ said Katie, ‘but I need the practice.’

Besides, it was a point of honour with Katie: whenever she found something challenging, she’d grit her teeth and persevere until she got the hang of it.

Nula blew on her tea. ‘And how are Josie and Brian? Full of the joys of spring, I hope?’

‘Very well, thanks,’ said Katie. ‘They’ll be in Malta by now, sunning themselves. Dad will be halfway down his first ice cream.’

Katie loved having her parents to stay. She also heaved a sigh of relief when they left. When they weren’t doing practical jobs, they were on some campaign or other where Katie was concerned; this time it was that she should clear Auntie Jean’s things from the cottage and move into the biggest bedroom, not stay cooped up in the little single that she’d been staying in since she was a child. They’d even offered to help her. She would do it, she promised them, soon. It was comforting somehow, keeping it like it was; erasing Jean’s presence seemed too final.

‘They’ll like Malta,’ said Nula authoritatively. ‘They’ve got a Marks and Spencer.’

The door opened again.

‘Post!’ declared Alice Jennings, the post lady.

While Nula crossed to the counter to check the diary to see if they had any fittings booked in as she did every morning, Katie waited as Alice sorted through her bag for their usual bundle of letters.

‘You’ll be wanting some new lingerie now that you’re famous,’ said Nula.

Alice batted a hand. ‘Oh, give over.’

The post lady had made a delivery to a pregnant woman on the far side of town two weeks ago only to find herself delivering a premature baby single-handedly.

‘I read the article in the North East Gazette, Alice,’ said Katie. ‘Lovely photo of you with the baby.’

‘We got three copies,’ Alice smiled coyly and pulled a newspaper cutting out of her jacket pocket. ‘Graham’s got one to show his buddies and we’ve got one in a frame. It’s the most exciting thing to ever happen to me.’

‘Not just to you,’ said Nula, ‘I don’t think anything that exciting has happened in Merle Bay for years!’

Which was one of the things she loved about it most, thought Katie: its gentle pace of life.

Nula managed to get Alice to put her bulging post bag down and peruse a rail of jersey camisoles. Katie took the pile of letters through to her office, intending to sift through them later, when her eye fell on a hardbacked envelope addressed to Catherine Small with ‘personal’ written in capitals across the front in red pen.

She frowned; usually her private mail was directed to the cottage next door but this one definitely had the shop’s address on it. And no one called her Catherine anymore, that name was part of her old life. She slid her finger under the flap and pulled out the contents.

The shock of what she saw made her heart stop. She stared in horror as a tremor of fear shot through her. A large black and white photograph of a naked young girl with wild chestnut hair, too much make-up around her wide eyes, lips parted in surprise.

A handwritten note had been paperclipped to the picture: REMEMBER THIS?

All at once the room spun and she swayed on the spot, her fingers fumbling to get the photograph back in the envelope.

‘Katie?’ Nula’s face loomed large in front of her and she touched Katie’s arm. ‘Are you OK, love? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I … um,’ Katie forced a smile. ‘Can you hold the fort for an hour? I need some fresh air.’

‘Of course, love,’ said Nula, full of concern, ‘you take your time.’

Fresh air and space to think or maybe scream out loud where no one would hear her. There was only one place that would do: Sea Glass Beach.