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They made their way through the hall to Clover and when she spotted them, her wizened face brightened with a warm smile.
‘Hello, darlings! I’m so glad you made it.’
‘Hello Clover.’ Allegra held out a hand and Clover shook it. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’
Clover nodded. ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Allegra.’
‘Can I touch your plottery?’ Allegra asked.
‘It’spottery,’ Brooke said softly, but she couldn’t help smiling.
‘Of course you can but be careful because some of it is heavy.’ Clover came around the stall and waved a hand at Allegra. ‘Come this way.’
While Clover took Allegra’s coat and placed it on a chair behind her stall, Brooke removed her own coat. She patted a hand over her hair that had got tousled by the breeze and tried to look anywhere except at Nolan, but she could feel his gaze on her. When she finally looked up, he was smiling.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hey.’ She felt her cheeks warming up and willed them to cool down. She wasn’t a silly teenager; she was a grown woman with a child.
A widow.
Butstill human, a voice whispered at the back of her mind.Still alive.
And still in love with my husband, she reminded herself.
‘How are you?’ he asked, and she met his eyes, found them filled with concern and kindness. Some of the tension ebbed from her body.
‘I’m OK, thanks.’ She bobbed her head. ‘A bit … anxious … but this is all so new.’
‘Of course it is and anxiety is perfectly normal. You’ve been through a lot.’
She guessed Clover must have told him about her loss and so she inclined her head, but didn’t elaborate.
‘You don’t work weekends?’ she asked.
‘Sometimes I do,’ he replied. His eyes were as blue as the sky on a cloudless spring day, and they made her think of warmer days ahead, days that would not be so heavy with grief and anxiety. Would those days ever come? She hoped so. ‘It depends on if I’m needed or not and if we have any teenagers that need some time out over the weekend. I try to be flexible seeing ashow I’m single whereas most of my colleagues have partners and children.’
‘That’s good of you.’
He’s single.
He gave a small shrug. ‘It’s no trouble for me.’
Clover asked him a question and Brooke took advantage of the opportunity to look at him properly, admiring the breadth of his shoulders in the navy V-neck jumper. His blond hair was cut short around his ears, but on top it was longer and looked damp, suggesting that he had recently showered. Risky leaving the house on a cold day like this with wet hair. He was clean shaven, and she noticed a small mole on his right cheek close to his ear, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, how he held his grandmother’s gaze as he spoke to her. Brooke thought he must be the type of person who really listened when you conversed, and it made her warm to him even more. He was, she thought, also younger than her by a few years at least, in his late twenties she estimated, though she could be mistaken. She wasn’t very good at guessing people’s ages these days.
‘OK then, Grams,’ Nolan said. ‘I’m going to head off for a bit then I’ll come back later to help you.’
‘No problem, Nolan,’ Clover said. ‘See you later.’
‘Bye, Allegra, and bye Brooke.’ Nolan flashed smiles at them, then crossed the hall and disappeared through the double doors.
Brooke turned to Clover and found the older woman watching her. ‘Nolan seems really nice.’
‘He’s a lovely young man,’ Clover said. ‘Nothing’s too much trouble for him. He’s very different from how his father was at that age.’
‘Really?’ Brooke came around the stall so she could put her coat with Allegra’s.
‘Oh yes. His father was a lazy so and so and he gave me a few grey hairs when he was a teenager.’
