Peacock Emporium Page 15

  ‘Are you scared of him?’ she asked, some time later, when Mrs Creek had gone. She had been trying to imagine Neil filled with enough violence to hit her. It had proven impossible.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your . . . Jason.’

  ‘Frightened of him? Nah.’ Jessie had shaken her head, her expression one of fond indulgence. She glanced at Suzanna and evidently decided the concern in her expression made some sort of explanation necessary. ‘Look, his problem is I’m better with words than he is. So I know how to really wind him up. And if he starts getting at me I just twist his words back, tie him in knots, which makes him feel stupid. I know I shouldn’t, but . . . you know how they get on your nerves sometimes?’

  Suzanna nodded.

  ‘And sometimes I just get a bit carried away. And I don’t leave him . . .’ her smile faded ‘. . . I guess I don’t really leave him anywhere to go.’

  There was a brief silence.

  Outside, two schoolboys were kicking someone’s kit-bag back and forth across the road.

  ‘I love this shop. Your shop,’ said Jessie. ‘I don’t know what it is about it, because it wasn’t like this when it was the Red Horse, but it’s like it’s got a really good mood to it. Do you know what I mean?’

  Suzanna’s head was still filled with moods of a different kind.

  ‘Yes. I thought when I came in first that it was just the smell of the coffee, and stuff. Or perhaps all the pretty things. It’s a bit of an Aladdin’s cave, isn’t it? But I think there’s something about the shop itself. It always makes me . . .’ she paused ‘. . . feel better.’

  The two boys had stopped, were examining something that one had pulled from his pocket, muttering in low voices.

  The women watched them from the window.

  ‘It’s not what you’re thinking,’ said Jessie, eventually.

  ‘No,’ said Suzanna, who felt suddenly middle class and naïve. ‘Of course not.’

  Jessie reached for her coat, took a step back from Suzanna and stared at the shelves behind her. ‘I think I’ll give those a good wash later. Dusting never really gets the dirt up, does it?’

  Jessie had left at a quarter past two to pick up her daughter from school early and, with the head teacher’s permission, take her for a birthday treat. If Emma fancied it, she said, they might buy ice lollies, and sit at the table outside the shop to eat them. ‘They go on a school trip to France next year,’ she said as she left. ‘I told her that was how the French eat and now all she wants to do is drag our chairs outside.’

  Suzanna was half-way down the cellar steps when she heard the door open. She shouted that she would be there in a second. She tripped up the last step, and swore softly as she nearly dropped her armful of suede-bound notebooks. Things invariably seemed easier when Jessie was there.

  Her father stood in the middle of the shop, his arms crossed awkwardly as if he were unwilling to be seen standing too close to anything. He was staring down behind the counter. When Suzanna came in, he jumped.

  ‘Dad,’ she said, blushing.

  ‘Suzanna.’ He nodded.

  There was a silence. She wondered, fantastically, whether he was going to apologise for his previous comments to her. But she was old enough to understand that his arrival in her shop was as conciliatory a gesture as he was likely to make. ‘You nearly missed me,’ she babbled, raising a smile. ‘I was out till about half an hour ago. You would have got Jessie . . . my assistant.’

  He had removed his hat and held it in his hands, a curiously courteous gesture. ‘I was just passing. Had to come in to meet my accountant, so I thought I’d . . . take a look at your shop.’

  Suzanna stood, clutching her notebooks. ‘Well, here it is.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  She made as if to peer behind him. ‘No Mum?’

  ‘She’s at home.’

  She put the notebooks on a table, and glanced at the objects around them, trying to gauge them through her father’s eyes. ‘Fripperies and nonsense,’ she could imagine him saying. Who was going to want to spend good money on a mosaic candle-holder, or a pile of second-hand embroidered napkins?

  ‘Did Neil tell you? We’re doing really well.’ It felt easier to pretend that this was Neil’s venture too. She knew her father thought him a more sensible fellow.

  ‘He didn’t, but that’s good.’

  ‘Turnover’s up by – erm – around thirty per cent on the first quarter. And I – I’ve just done my first stock-take.’ The words sounded solid, reassuring, not the kind of words uttered by a feckless, irresponsible, flibbertigibbet.

  He nodded.

  ‘I might have to take some tips from you soon about VAT. It looks impenetrable to me. I don’t see how you manage it.’

  ‘It’s just practice.’ He had been staring at the portrait of her mother. Suzanna glanced behind the counter, and saw it, face outwards, clearly visible through the counter’s slim wooden legs. Her mother’s enigmatic smile, which had never appeared maternal, now seemed inappropriately intimate in the public space. Jessie had loved it, saying she was the most glamorous woman she’d ever seen, and urged her to put it on the wall. Now it made Suzanna feel guilty, although she couldn’t be sure why.

  ‘What’s that doing here?’ He cleared his throat as he spoke.

  ‘I’m not selling it, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  ‘I was—’

  ‘We’re not that badly off for money.’

  Her father paused, as if he were weighing up his possible responses. He let out a little breath. ‘I was just curious, Suzanna, about what it was doing in a shop.’

  ‘Not “a shop”, Dad. You make it sound like I was trying to offload it. My shop . . . I was going to put it on the wall.’ Defensiveness had made her snappy.

  ‘What would you want to put it in here for?’

  ‘I just thought it would be a good place for it to go. It doesn’t – it doesn’t really fit at home. The house is too small for it.’ She couldn’t help herself.

  Her father eyed it sideways, through narrowed eyes, as if he found it difficult to look directly at the image. ‘I don’t think it should be left down there.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know where else to put it.’

  ‘We can take it back to the bank if you want. They’ll store it for you.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘It’s probably worth a bit of money, and I doubt you’ve got it insured.’

  He never expressed any emotion when he talked of her. Sometimes, Suzanna thought, it was as if when Athene had died he had decided she would be of no more lasting emotional importance to him than some distant relative, than the generations-old ancestors who lined the upstairs corridors. The limited family history that had been made public to her and her siblings showed he had moved pretty swiftly on to Vivi after all. At other times she wondered if he had battened down his emotions because he found the memory of Athene just too painful, and felt the familiar flush of her own implicit guilt. There were no boxes of clothes, no well-thumbed photographs. Only Vivi had saved any remnants of her at all: a yellowed newspaper cutting about the wedding of ‘the last debutante’, and a couple of photographs of her on a horse. Even those were only brought out when Douglas was elsewhere.

  His presence in her shop, so apparently devoid of any emotional reaction, had the reverse effect on her. Is it so impossible for you to show any emotion at all? Suzanna suddenly wanted to shout. Even if it is supposedly for my sake, do you have to pretend she never existed? Do I have to pretend she never existed?

  ‘You could hang it in the picture gallery.’ The words hung, too loud, in the air, Suzanna’s voice holding a faint tremor of challenge. ‘Vivi wouldn’t mind.’

  Her father had turned away from her, was bending to examine a piece of Chinese silk.

  ‘I said Vivi wouldn’t mind. In fact, she suggested it. Getting the frame mended, and putting it up. Quite recently.’

  He picked up one of the miniature silk purses, examined the price, then placed it g
ently back on its pile. The timing of those actions, and the faint criticism she felt they implied, caused something to swell inside her, unbidden, unstoppable. ‘Did you hear what I said, Dad?’

  ‘Quite well, thank you.’ He still wouldn’t look at her. There was an excruciating delay. ‘I just . . . I just don’t think it’s appropriate.’

  ‘No. But, then, I suppose even if they’re just on canvas you don’t really want women cluttering up the ancestral line, do you?’

  She wasn’t sure where it had come from. Her father turned very slowly, and straightened up before her, his expression unreadable. She had the sudden sensation of being a small child found guilty of some misdemeanour and waiting, in silent terror, to discover her punishment.

  But he simply replaced his hat on his head, a measured gesture, and turned to the door. ‘I think my parking meter’s probably running out. I just wanted to tell you that your shop looks very nice.’ He lifted a hand, his head inclined towards her.

  Her eyes had filled with tears. ‘Is that it? Is that all you’re going to say?’ She heard the shrill tones of a teenager in her voice, and knew, with fury, that he had heard them too.

  ‘It’s your painting, Suzanna,’ he said, as he left. ‘You do with it what you want.’

  There was almost no sign of blotchiness left on her face when Jessie returned, entering the shop apparently in mid-conversational flow, although she was plainly by herself.

  ‘You can’t believe the lollies they sell now. When I was her age you were lucky to get a Strawberry Mivvi, or a Rocket. Do you remember those? With the different-coloured stripes? Now it’s all Mars bar lollies, Bounty this and Cornetto that. Unbelievable. And more than a quid each. Still, they’re so enormous you wouldn’t need lunch as well.’

  She moved to the till, almost unconsciously sweeping crumbs from the tabletop as she moved to collect stray receipts. ‘We got you a Crunchie one. Did you know they did Crunchie ones? That’s what me and Emma decided you’d like best.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Suzanna, her face buried in her folder of invoices. ‘Can you stick it in the fridge?’ She had been staring at them for almost twenty minutes now, unsure why she had got them out in the first place. Her father’s visit had unbalanced her, sucked out her drive and enthusiasm.

  ‘Don’t leave it for long. It’ll melt in there.’ Jessie moved towards the tables scanning them for empty cups. ‘Anyone been in?’

  ‘No one special.’

  That was the maddening thing about crying. You could do it for a few minutes, and your skin, your nose would still display the tell-tale signs up to half an hour later.

  Jessie’s glance might have settled on her a fraction of a second longer than it would otherwise have done. ‘I had an idea while I was out. About Arturro,’ she said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m going to get him together with Liliane.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve had this idea, see. Tell me what you think . . .’

  Suzanna could hear the sound of a cloth being run under a tap, as Jessie chattered on.

  She spoke into her folder. ‘You know what, Jess? What I think is that people should just be left alone.’

  ‘Yes, but I think Arturro and Liliane have spent too long by themselves. It’s become such a habit with them that they’re both too frightened to break it.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re happier like that.’

  ‘You don’t really think so.’

  Oh, go away, thought Suzanna, exhaustedly. Stop trying to convince me I’m someone I’m not. Stop trying to turn everyone into shinier, happier versions of themselves. Not everyone sees things like you do. She said nothing.

  ‘Suzanna, they’re perfect for each other. I think they’d see that, if someone just gave them a jump-start.’

  There was a short silence, then the sound of Jessie moving across to the shelves. ‘It’s all right, you know. You don’t have to join in. I just wanted to tell you what I’m doing so you don’t give the game away.’ There was no rancour in her voice.

  ‘I won’t.’

  Jessie stared at her for a minute. ‘Why don’t you take a break? Go and have a walk. It’s such a beautiful day outside.’

  ‘Look, I’m fine, Jessie. Just give me a break, will you?’ It came out more sharply than she’d intended. She caught the hurt in Jessie’s expression, which was immediately disguised under an understanding smile.

  ‘Oh, okay, you’re right. I’ll go,’ Suzanna said, grabbing her wallet, feeling perversely resentful that she was being made to feel guilty yet again. ‘Look, I’m sorry – take no notice of me. It’s just hormones or something.’ And then hated herself for using that as an excuse.

  She walked round the square for almost twenty-five minutes: it was market day, and she found she could meander in the shade between the tightly packed stalls, savouring the brief period of invisibility, eyeing the cheap imported confectionery, the wholefood stall, the timeless arrangements of the greengrocers, while simultaneously fighting the inner voice reminding her that London markets had been so much more interesting, so much more vibrant, so much more excitingly stocked.

  It’s never going to work, she admitted to herself, as she wandered past the reconstituted bones, kilos of collated seeds and doggie chews that made up the pet stall. It doesn’t matter what I do here. However successful the shop is, I’m always going to wish that we lived somewhere else. I’m always going to resent being stuck in the shadow of the Fairley-Hulmes. And even though I never wanted to come back here in the first place, Neil and Dad, the entire family, will simply see it as evidence that here is something else I can’t stick at.

  Suzanna wondered, as she occasionally did, whether she would have felt the same way if her mother had lived. Sometimes she wondered if she felt this way precisely because her mother hadn’t. ‘Do you want something, love?’

  ‘Oh. No. Thank you.’

  She shoved her hands into her pockets and moved on, the internal lightness she had felt at the start of the day having turned into something dull, leaden. Perhaps Neil was right. Perhaps she should just give in and have a baby. At least she would be doing the one thing everyone expected of her. She would probably love it when it came. Most people did, didn’t they? It wasn’t as if anything else had made her happy.

  If it’s my destiny, my biology, she asked herself, walking slowly back towards her shop, why, whenever I think about it, does every bone in my body scream against it?

  ‘You know what you should do?’

  Suzanna closed her eyes, and opened them slowly. She had told herself firmly that, with only two hours before closing time, she wasn’t going to take out any more of her bad mood on Jessie. Even a Jessie sporting a pair of child’s angel wings and balancing a pair of frankly ridiculous pink sunglasses on her head. ‘What?’ she said evenly.

  ‘I was thinking about something Emma said. About drawings.’

  ‘You think I should get people to do drawings?’ Suzanna, refilling sugar bowls, struggled to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

  ‘No. But I was thinking about what we said earlier, about getting people involved with the shop, building up regulars. Because that’s what you’re going to need around here. You could have a sort of Regular of the Week.’

  ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘No, I’m not. Look at what you’ve put on the walls – the old sheet music and the wills you pasted up. Every time someone’s come in this afternoon they’ve stopped to read the wills, right?’

  It had been one of her better ideas. The bundle of yellowed, calligraphied wills had been on a skip in London; she had kept them in a folder for years waiting for a chance to use them as wallpaper.

  ‘And once they’ve spent that long in the shop, they’ve ended up buying something, right?’

  ‘And?’

  ‘So you do something similar in the window. But you do it about someone who comes in the shop. People are nosy around here, they like to talk, they like to know about each other’s lives.
So you do a little display on, say, Arturro. I don’t know, a little written thing about his life in Italy, how he came to have the deli. Or perhaps just take one thing from his life – the best or worst day he can remember – and do a display round it. People would stop to read it and if they’re vain, like most of them are, they might even want one of their own.’

  Suzanna fought the urge to tell Jessie that, the way she felt right now, the shop might not be around for long. ‘I don’t think people will want to put their life in a window.’

  ‘You might not. But you’re not like most people.’

  Suzanna looked up sharply. Jessie’s face was guileless.

  ‘It’ll bring more people in. It’ll get them interested in the shop. I bet I could get people to do it – just let me try it.’

  ‘I don’t see how it could work. I mean, what would you do with Arturro? He doesn’t say more than two words at a time, and I don’t want the shop window filled with salami.’

  ‘Just let me try it.’

  ‘And everyone in this town seems to know all there is to know about each other anyway.’

  ‘I’ll do it myself. And if you don’t think it’s working, I’ll stop. It’s not going to cost you anything.’

  Suzanna grimaced. Why does everyone’s life have to be on show here? she thought crossly. Why does everyone have to interfere? Life in this town would be so much more bearable if people were allowed just to get on with things in private.

  Jessie moved in front of her, her smile broad and sympathetic. Her wire wings bounced jauntily behind her. ‘I’ll show you how it can work. Look, the next person who walks in here, I’ll persuade them to let me do it to them. I promise. You’ll find out all sorts you didn’t know.’

  ‘You reckon.’

  ‘Go on, it’ll be fun.’

  ‘Oh, God, if it’s Mrs Creek, we’ll have no room left in the window.’

  As Suzanna reached for the empty milk carton, the door swung open. The two women looked almost guiltily at each other. Jessie hesitated, then smiled, a broad, complicit smile.

  The man glanced at them, as if unsure whether to enter.