Linda Phillips - Puppies Are For Life

Turning up the collar of his trenchcoat he began to pick his way across the sodden grass verge in search of somewhere that might sell gifts, but all he could see ahead of him was a knitting wool shop with ugly yellow film stuck over its window and a bakery that had sold its last crumb. Unless … yes, he was sure he remembered correctly: across the green there was a craft shop of sorts. He’d spotted it the day he and Julia had moved into the Old Dairy and she’d sent him out to find milk.

And was that the biggest mistake they’d ever made, he wondered for the hundredth time as he pushed on the plate-glass door of Heyford Handy Crafts: moving out to a village, when all they’d ever known was the town?

‘It’s so, so pretty here,’ Julia had said when she’d first set eyes on the place, dancing up and down the narrow streets in unsuitably high heels, and he couldn’t help but admit that it was. Then. Hard to resist in mid-summer was the chocolate-box setting of Upper Heyford with its big round duck pond, its fourteenth-century church, its thatched public house and matching cottages – all grouped pleasingly round the obligatory patch of green.

But it wasn’t so pretty now. Harvey shivered. No, not in November. Gone were all the flowers that had spilled freely from countless basket arrangements; gone were the tables outside the Golden Fleece. The trees were naked, the grass clogged with leaves. It looked downright dismal under heavy grey skies, and he sighed, longing for spring to come round, as he elbowed his way into the shop.

Reg Watts leaned forward on his heavy arms and leered at Susannah on the other side of the counter.

‘Well, Mrs Harding,’ he said above the jangle of the old-fashioned bell, ‘what have you brought me this time? Dried flowers? Corn dollies? Or something I can actually sell?’

‘You did manage to sell some of my flower arrangements, Reg,’ Susannah replied with icy politeness. She glanced in the newcomer’s direction, annoyed at the untimely intrusion. This was the last thing she wanted: an audience to witness her battle with Reg Watts.

The man, she noticed, had strolled to the far corner of the shop and was pretending to examine china mugs. But somehow she just knew he was listening to every word.

‘Yes, I know I sold a few of your things,’ Reg moaned, taking a mangled handkerchief from his pocket and arranging it in a pad. Judging by his nasal twang he had a very bad cold indeed. ‘But everyone’s doing dried flowers these days,’ he went on, elaborately wiping his nose. ‘They’re all going to classes to find out how it’s done. The only thing they come in here for is to pick up ideas. No, there isn’t much call in these parts … Have you tried hawking them round the shops in Bath?’

The stranger had picked up a glass paperweight and was holding it up to the light. Or was he using it as an excuse, and really studying Susannah?

‘Coals to Newcastle,’ she snapped. ‘Every other shop in Bath seems to be stacked to the eaves with dried flower arrangements. But I didn’t come to talk about those, Reg. Take a look at this.’

Under Reg’s cynical gaze she pulled back layers of tissue from the parcel she had placed on his counter. ‘Now, you don’t have anything like this in your shop, do you?’

‘Hmm.’ Reg reached out reluctantly to grasp the item with both hands. He tipped his head backwards to view it from under his glasses, then ducked his head forward again to peer at it over the top. Susannah wondered why he bothered to wear the things when they so obviously didn’t help.

‘No,’ was the ultimate verdict. ‘No, I don’t stock anything like this. And do you know why?’ Reg beamed at his victim triumphantly. ‘Because there isn’t any call for the likes of this either.’

Susannah gritted her teeth. ‘But how do you know there isn’t going to be a demand for something,’ she persisted, ‘if you never actually display it?’

She glanced round the shop, avoiding the stranger’s eye. It was crammed with useless junk. In all honesty there was no room for more, and her teapot stand would be lost among the chaos. The world was full of hopeful artists, potters, and makers of useless knick-knacks. What chance did she stand? Then she saw the stranger’s hand reach out towards a rag doll.

‘Display it?’ Reg was muttering. ‘Well, I don’t know about that. The thing is –’ He twirled the stand in one hand. ‘Well, what I mean to say is … what exactly is it?’

‘It’s a teapot stand, of course! Or any kind of pot stand for that matter. Anyone can see that.’

Susannah whipped round in amazement; Reg’s only other customer had come up behind her and stolen her very words. She found the man smiling disarmingly above her head – and rewarded him with a hostile stare. Oh, how she already hated him for his suave, easy-going confidence. Clearly nobody had ever made him feel small, insignificant, and utterly, utterly useless. It was going to take more than a frozen expression from her to knock him off his perch.

‘Harvey Webb,’ he told her, nodding at her agreeably and reaching across to pick up the stand for a closer look. He turned it over in his hands while Susannah cringed. She now wanted nothing more than to throw the thing in the bin, forget the whole project, give up the idea of doing Something and being Someone. Criticism from Paul was bad enough; criticism from the rest of the world was unbearable.

‘This is really rather nice,’ Harvey murmured eventually, his thumbs sweeping the mosaic surface in obvious appreciation. In silence he studied the frame. ‘You made the whole thing yourself?’ he asked, slanting Susannah a glance.

‘Yes!’ she hissed back, taking them all by surprise, and she snatched the piece from his hand. There was one thing worse than criticism, she decided, and that was male condescension. Arrogant sod. At least Paul had been honest. ‘Yes,’ she went on, lisping childishly, ‘I made it all by my little self. Now isn’t that just amazing? And Daddy didn’t help me at all.’

The two men gawped at her as she thrust the stand back in a carrier bag.

‘Now,’ she said, her voice normal again as she dusted off her hands, ‘if you’ll both excuse me, gentlemen, I’ll take up no more of your time. I’ll just run along home and amuse myself some more.’

She pulled open the door, stumbled over the threshold, and let the door clang closed behind her. Reg and Harvey were left still gaping, their eyebrows raised in bewilderment at the swinging ‘Closed’ sign.

Outside on the pavement Susannah ducked her head into the wind and headed blindly down the street, feeling hot-cheeked, light-headed and unreal. She wiped her forehead with a shaking hand. What had got into her lately? She had never behaved like that before in her entire life. Well, not often. She could take a lot of ‘aggro’, but sometimes something would snap and she would go hurtling over the edge. She wished she hadn’t made an exhibition of herself just then, though.

‘Hey!’ a voice said behind her, ‘you forgot to pick this up.’

She stopped. Harvey what’s-his-name hadn’t actually followed her, had he? Not after the things she’d said? But he had. And he was holding out her black leather handbag with SWH stamped on the flap in gold. She had forgotten she had put it on the counter.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, taking it sheepishly from his outstretched hand, and expecting him to go straight back to the shop. But he didn’t. Somehow he had managed to position himself ahead of her so that he was standing in her path, and she realised for the first time how stomach-churningly good-looking he was, in a Richard Gere-ish kind of way. He stood looking directly at her, his hands now stuffed into the pockets of his trenchcoat for warmth, an infectious smile twitching at the corners of his lips.