Keeping Mum

‘Not necessarily. My friend runs a really good cafe just across the road. They do some fantastic food and all of it is sickeningly healthy.’

‘Okay, sounds like a plan,’ said Mike. ‘Although I should warn you I don’t do tofu.’

‘Me neither. I’ll need to lock up,’ said Cass, heading back towards the workshop. Buster looked up at her as she picked up her handbag from under the bench and brushed the dust off. ‘I’m expecting you to keep an eye on the place,’ she murmured, bending down and scratching him behind the ears.

A few seconds later Cass followed Mike out into the street and pulled the shop door to behind her.

‘So,’ he said, as they fell into step. ‘How’s the singing going?’

‘Are you sure you want to know?’ She looked him up and down; it was no good. Something about Mike irritated her, which was never a good sign. How was it her mum had ended up with Rocco while she attracted men like Mike?

He smiled. ‘Uh-huh—your mother and Rocco tell me that you’re brilliant.’

Maybe it was because he was acting as if they already knew each other, maybe it was the way he appeared to be fiddling with something in his jacket pocket, maybe it was the sniffing.

‘My feeling is that they’re probably biased,’ said Cass, as they headed across the green towards the cafe on the corner.

‘Great shop. I’d really like to take a good look round sometime.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Feel free.’

‘How long have you lived here?’

‘About twelve years.’

He glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Good spot.’

And he was too cheery.

‘I think so.’

‘Cool,’ said Mike, which didn’t deserve comment.

Cass’s shop was long and narrow, a sitting-room’s width with a big bow window at the front, overlooking High Lane and a triangle of grass across the lane, which was set with mature limes, some remnant from a more rural age that had got trapped between the river and the rest of the town.

‘There are some really interesting little shops around here.’

‘It’s kind of grown over the last few years. It used to be quite rundown when we first moved here, but quaint, and so the property was a reasonable price. Being close to the river is quite a draw—gradually lots of old hippies and craftsmen have moved in. Summer it’s really busy. People come down at the weekends to walk along the river, walk with their kids, paddle. That’s how we first found it—on Sunday the place is full of visitors trying to force-feed a dozen of the fattest ducks you’ve ever seen; they waddle up from the river en masse, and there’s a swan who is way too fat to break a sweat, let alone anyone’s arm.’

Mike laughed.

‘Oh, and then we have this guy who shows up on a tricycle, wearing a boater. He parks up under the trees over there and sells old-fashioned ice cream from a cold box on the front.’

‘Great place for weekend mooching.’

‘Fortunately for me. I get a lot of passing trade.’

‘So how did you end up selling furniture?’

‘Long story. I’ve always had an eye for a bargain and been a bit arty. I used to have a market stall when the boys were little, buying things in, restoring them, painting them up…’

They fell into step. High Lane had quickly become a little community in its own right. On the corner closest to town was Lucy, who designed and made silver jewellery, while in the shop alongside her a guy called Shaun made shoes and could mend anything made of leather known to man, and then further along Nick and Susie ran the wholefood cafe and shop, that by some fluke of geography had a river view and a wide front garden that they had transformed with climbers and geraniums and bright umbrellas into a little oasis of calm. There was a gallery at the far end of the green in the old granary that fronted the river, and next door to that was a clothes shop and a flower shop. Tucked in between them all were little cottages that had been snapped up by people looking for homes that had more to them than housing estate chic. Cass loved it all.

The cafe was half full when they arrived and Cass, having said her hellos, was shown to a table overlooking the garden.

‘What made you move here?’ Mike asked as he glanced down the menu.

‘It’s a lovely place to live and I really wanted a business I could run from home—when the boys were little it was important.’ She paused. ‘Did Rocco tell you about Neil?’

He nodded, then said, ‘They didn’t say much.’

‘Well, after we lost Neil I felt we needed to have a home and job that held us all together and this place seemed like it. The kids were almost nine and ten when we moved in. Lost always strikes me as such an odd euphemism for someone dying. It makes me sound as if I was careless and a bit feckless—anyway, it was a difficult time for everyone. He was only thirty-eight.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Cass smiled. ‘Thank you. It’s a long time ago now but I still miss him and it’s odd because it’s one of those things a lot of people can’t handle. They can manage divorce, single parents, being abandoned, leaving—all sorts of things—but they can’t handle dying…’ Cass laughed and took a handful of roasted seeds from the little pot in the middle of the table, waving the words away.

‘If you could give us another minute or two,’ said Mike as the waitress made her way to their table, notepad in hand.

Cass glanced down at the menu. What she didn’t tell Mike was that even now she loved Neil more than she knew how to say and missed him every day, and that—without meaning to—she compared every man she had met since against him; and there had been no one who even came close. She understood that memory played tricks with your mind and that, by dying, Neil often appeared as she wanted him to be rather than how he was—but she still missed his voice and the smell of him and the way he made her feel better, and his laugh and…

And although Cass hadn’t planned it that way, and despite several boyfriends, it was hard for someone to walk in the shadow of the dead, someone who never grew old, who never got fat, never farted, whose life was sealed in the vaults of memory and as a result could never go on to shag her best friend or leave her stranded in the rain or ring up to argue about child support or who should have the house.

‘See anything you fancy?’ Cass asked. When she looked up to see how Mike was doing with the menu, she caught him staring at her, which made her redden at the unintentional play on words.

‘I’d like the cauliflower, mushroom and aubergine satay with wild rice,’ said Mike to the waitress.

‘And I’ll have the roast autumn vegetables with cashew couscous. And a glass of apple juice,’ Cass said.

The girl scribbled the order down and Mike handed the menus back. ‘And just a glass of tap water,’ he said. ‘So,’ he continued as the waitress retreated. ‘Maybe I should tell you all about me and my life.’ He made it sound like a treat.

Maybe lunch hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

‘Didn’t we do this at Rocco’s?’ asked Cass, lightly.

‘Not without your mum and Rocco filling in the blanks, remember?’

Cass decided not to say anything, but it was all right because Mike was way ahead of her. Where she’d taken two minutes to give him a précis of her life, from his body language he had obviously got lunch booked for a full-scale rundown of life on planet Mike. Although at least it meant she didn’t have to say anything, Cass thought as she shook out her napkin.

‘Okay well, I’m divorced, I’ve got a son and daughter, Robert and Charlotte, they’re eighteen and sixteen and they live with their mother in Carlisle. I moved down here about three years ago to set up in business with Charles, a friend of mine.’

The way Mike emphasised the names as he talked made Cass wonder if there was going to be a test afterwards.

‘I do some private work—Rocco’s roof, for example, and bigger corporate things with Charles.’

‘Your partner,’ Cass chipped in.

‘Yes, although that’s purely in the business sense, you understand,’ Mike said. And then he smiled to make sure he still had her full attention.

Obviously this was a speech Mike had prepared earlier. Cass settled down to listen. While they ate, Mike talked about his divorce and doing up the derelict chapel and plans he had for the garden, where he’d been on holiday and where he’d like to go, how he liked to work out and play golf and play squash and then, while Cass ordered coffee, Mike talked about good food and girlfriends and by that time it was almost two o’clock and Cass had barely said a word and Mike was still in full flow. Another ten minutes and she suspected her ears would start to bleed.

Cass glanced up at the clock. ‘Much as I’m enjoying your company Mike,’ Cass said, wondering if he did irony, ‘I really need to be getting back to work.’

‘Me too.’ Mike nodded. ‘Oh, is that the time, gosh it’s gone so quickly. Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself. Well, it’s been lovely.’ And then he added, ‘I was wondering if maybe I could see you again some time? I mean, we seem to be getting along nicely.’

Cass smiled noncommittally. How did you say to someone politely that you would rather push needles in your eyes?

‘Maybe we could have dinner after the concert?’

Maybe Mike was just nervous—maybe he would be all right once she got to know him. Cass picked up her bag. And maybe Elvis would bring the bill. Who was she trying to kid? Mike was good looking and nicely dressed but he was also boring and totally self-obsessed.

Meanwhile the girl, who bore no resemblance to the King, set the bill down on the table between them.

Mike picked it up and before Cass could speak, cast his eye over it, saying, ‘Not bad. What shall we do, shall we just pay half each? You don’t get neighbourly discount by any chance, do you?’ As he spoke, he took a purse from his jacket pocket and started sorting through it for what she had a horrible suspicion would probably be the exact money. If Cass had been harbouring any doubts at all about Mike, the purse and the half-each shot was enough to make her mind up.

‘No,’ she said before picking up her bag. Cass glanced at the bill and dropped her half plus a generous tip onto the side plate. ‘I really have got to be getting back. Thanks…’

As she made her way to the door, Cass was conscious of Mike following close behind, hurrying to catch up like an anxious terrier.

While they had been in the cafe, the day had started to soften into a misty gold autumn afternoon. Despite being barely two o’clock, the daylight was already beginning to fade and the lamps lit in the shop window, protection against the gold grey gloom, welcomed her home—as comforting as any lighthouse.

High Lane had always been one of those good memory places where she and Neil had brought the kids when they were little, walking down the hill first with buggies and later holding their small sticky hands in summer and winter, in shorts and in duffel coats, down to the river and the cafe and the ducks, and then later to lunch on a friend’s narrow boat or walk along the tow path. It had seemed some sort of omen when the shop had come up for sale in the weeks after Neil died.

It had been one of those places that they’d said if they had the money, the chance, the freedom to buy there, then they might just do it. And then there it was and Cass discovered, thanks to Neil’s insurance money, that she did have the chance.

She’d found it so hard being in their old house without Neil, and although friends and family said the feelings would pass and that she should wait before making any big decisions, she’d known they were wrong. All she could see were the kitchen units Neil had put in, the bathroom with the wonky tiles that they’d re-tiled one Christmas when pissed and the garden they’d built and it didn’t bring her comfort, just a constant aching nagging reminder that she had lost her best friend and the person who loved her most in the world.

And so one sunny autumnal afternoon, not unlike this one, she walked down to the shop, looked in through the windows, hands cupped around her face so she could see inside, and knew without a shadow of a doubt Neil would want her to have it. It felt like his final gift to her.

Mike didn’t stand a cat’s chance in hell against memories that powerful. ‘Thanks,’ Cass said as they got to the shop door, realising that she had barely said a word to him on the way home, lost in her own memories. Thanks for what was less clear.

‘My pleasure,’ Mike said. ‘You know that Nita and Rocco have saved me a ticket for the concert tonight? I just wanted to check that you don’t mind? When you didn’t call back…’

Cass tacked on a polite smile. ‘I’m very busy,’ she said. ‘Now I’ve really got to go.’ She turned the keys over in her closed fingers.

‘Okay, well in that case I’ll see you later then,’ Mike said brightly, and with that he leaned in a little closer and, catching hold of her shoulders, kissed her on the cheek before she had a chance to pull away. ‘I’ll ring and let you know about the dresser…’

‘Right,’ she said between gritted teeth, and then he turned and headed off down the lane towards town. Cass watched his progress for a second or two and then wiped her cheek. She really needed to have a word with Nita and Rocco about their choice of men. A purse, for god’s sake…

Humming along to ‘Another One Bites the Dust’, Cass unlocked the shop door and went inside. Buster padded out of the workshop to check up on her, sniffing to see if lunch had stretched to a doggie bag.

Inside the shop was pleasantly warm after the nip of autumn outside. Cass stood in the doorway, slipped off her coat and took a look around. The soft lighting made the shop look inviting and slightly mysterious, the deep patina on the old wood and heavy lamps adding a glow, a promise of treasures hidden inside.

The whole place smelt of lavender and beeswax polish and she hoped was tempting enough to encourage would be buyers to linger, to savour, to buy. There were lamps and bowls and objets d’art on the side tables, shelves and floor, but not so much that people felt overwhelmed, or so cluttered that special things got lost in the melee.

Beyond the window display there were armchairs and a sofa, two Windsor chairs and a deep-buttoned brown leather chaise. Folded into a big basket on one of the dining tables was a pile of household linen, another basket on a little cabinet had paperweights in it and another held old keys.

There was a linen press of snow-white sheets and pillow cases, a period tailor’s dummy dressed in a black felt coat and cloche, and behind that a cabinet from a milliner’s shop, filled with dress jewellery, watches and tie pins. In a bowl by the door to the workshop were antique buttons, some still on their original cards, along with hair slides and combs, brass doorknobs and more keys, and beside that a letter rack in which were a collection of Victorian cards.

Cass spent a lot of time making sure things were shown off to their best advantage. It was almost as big a labour of love as re-upholstering, restoring or re-finishing the furniture in the first place. She trailed her fingers through the basket of buttons. Once customers had found the shop they tended to come back again and again.

Pleased with the way things looked, Cass picked up her apron and headed into the workshop, letting Buster out into the yard en route.

The shop and cottage spread untidily over three floors, with a little workshop and storeroom at the back of the shop and beyond that a small courtyard garden. On the first floor were the kitchen, sitting room and two bedrooms, with a bathroom tucked between them, French windows opening from the kitchen out onto a tiny roof garden that extended out over the workshop. Up under the eaves on the floor above were two long attic bedrooms with dormer windows and a shared bathroom, overlooking the pan-tiled roofs of the hippies across the way. Cass rented the attic rooms out to foreign-language students during the summer to help make ends meet.

Over the years, Cass had built a reputation for dealing in interesting things at good prices and was happy to customise, re-cover, re-stain or even rebuild to order, so that there were several interior designers who used her regularly. Which meant, between selling furniture, collectables, rugs and curtains, some nice dress jewellery, and re-upholstering for herself and customers, as well as renting rooms to students, and doing odd design jobs for Rocco, life was usually very full and just about paid for itself. Although some days she thought it would be brilliant to have a man in her life to share things with, Cass didn’t feel she needed a relationship to make her whole.

She settled down to work and by half-past five had almost finished the work on the armchair, sold a nice gilt mirror and an occasional table, one of the Windsor chairs, a set of cuff links and silver picture frame. Not great, but not bad at all for a slow day. And, as the afternoon crept past, Cass started to think more and more about the evening’s concert. As the clock crept closer to five, Cass was beginning to get twitchy, feeling as if time was ticking by faster—she needed to shower, iron her frock, walk the dog, feed him and the cat…the jobs started to stack up in her head, all clamouring for attention.

Just as she was locking up, humming through the opening bars of a medley of Gershwin numbers, someone rang the shop doorbell. When Cass ignored that, they banged on the shop window. Hard.

She considered her options; the window display was good but not that good. Who was so desperate for a bent-wood rocker and three table lamps that they couldn’t wait until tomorrow? The workshop and most of the shop, where the back stairs led up into the cottage, were in almost complete darkness now the lights were off. Cass edged forward round a particularly pretty rosewood screen and peered out from the shadows into the lane.

Outside, her mother and Rocco were standing back to back under the streetlight. Her mother was wearing a black full-length fun fur coat and a leopard-print hat. They had their mobiles out and were busy tapping in numbers, like busy bookends. An instant later the shop phone rang, followed a nanosecond later by the house phone; three rings later and her mobile rang. They were obviously desperate. Cass watched as they waited and then peered up at the first-floor window of her sitting room, which looked out over the green.

‘Cass, Cass are you in there?’ shouted Rocco.

‘For goodness’ sake, don’t do that, it’s really common shouting in the street,’ growled her mother. Behind her, Cass could hear Buster shuffling around trying to make up his mind whether it was worth his while breaking out his famous big bad bark.

‘Oh right,’ said Rocco. ‘So have you got a better idea; I mean, where is she? It’s barely knocking-off time. What are we going to do if she’s not in?’

‘Cass!’ yelled Nita. ‘Where are you, darling?’

Under cover of darkness, Cass crept up through the shop and opened the front door, surprising the pair of them. ‘What do you want?’ she said.

They looked a little sheepish. ‘Oh there you are, we were worried about you,’ said her mother. ‘You’re okay?’

‘Cock-a-hoop. What are you doing out here?’

‘Bit snappy today, aren’t we? I thought we’d just drop by.’

‘Did you ring Mike? He was really keen, you know,’ said Nita.

Cass lifted an eyebrow; if their Discovery was parked any closer to the shop doorway it would be a ram-raid.

‘No, I didn’t ring him. I’ve told you before that I can make my own terrible mistakes without any help from you two.’

‘He said he thought you were really interesting,’ said Rocco.

Cass stared him down. ‘So is the mould on whatever it is in the back of my fridge, but I wouldn’t want to wake up next to it. Now—what are you both doing here?’

‘Oh come on, he seems nice,’ said her mother. ‘And very nicely turned out.’

‘Okay, I went out to lunch with him today and before you ask I have no plans to do it again—now what do you want?’

‘Really,’ continued Nita. ‘Why not? We thought you two had hit it off.’

‘He has a purse…’

‘Ah,’ said her mother.

‘He asked me out to lunch and assumed that going halves was okay.’

‘Ah.’

‘Not that I mind going Dutch. Not that I’m against sharing, but he counted out the exact money—to the last penny. You have to admit that is tight.’

Her mother looked suitably shocked. ‘My god, I’d got no idea. Mind you, that explains why he is so good at bringing things in on budget.’ She paused. ‘Aren’t you going to invite us in?’

Cass looked at the pile of boxes in the back of their 4x4. ‘Probably not.’

Rocco’s mind was still elsewhere. ‘Did we ever introduce you to Dirk?’ he said. ‘I mean, there’s got to be someone.’

Nita elbowed him. ‘Not now, sweetie—look, Cass, darling, we thought we’d just bring a few things round now so’s there’s not a last-minute panic. Just sort out where stuff’s going. Get the grand tour before you leave. Get the feel of the place…’ As she spoke Nita’s eyes were moving round the interior of the shop, as if she couldn’t quite make up her mind what to do or say next. ‘You can show us what’s what, explain how the cooker works and the animals—walks and that kind of stuff. And the shop lights.’

‘Mum, we’ve got ages yet.’ Cass stared at them, saw the expression of panic in Rocco’s eyes, and then the penny dropped. ‘No—this is outrageous. The builders are coming in early, aren’t they?’ asked Cass.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, Cass’s mum held her hands up in a gesture of surrender. ‘They said they had a cancellation—they’re starting first thing,’ she said.

‘And you want to move in early?’

Living above the shop had always made commuting easy and getting away tough. People—friends, family, customers—in the know would often linger, hoping to be asked round to supper, or would pop by on a weekend to borrow an emergency bed or a dining table and a few spare chairs. Several times over the years, as she’d struggled out the door on the heavy end of something, Cass wondered whether it would have been more lucrative just to set up a furniture lending library. And of course when it came to getting away from the shop she couldn’t swing the excuse that she was just leaving for her journey home.

At least tonight her mother had the decency to look sheepish.

‘No,’ Cass said. ‘This isn’t on. You’re not due to move in till the end of the week. I’ve got stuff to do—things to bleach. And I’m knackered—this is the last thing I need. I’ve got loads to do and I’ve got the concert tonight.’

Cass had been planning on giving them the attic rooms, which she had intended to do over with her best white cotton bed linen, a brass bed and a set of ruby red full-length velvet curtains she’d given a customer first refusal on once the holiday was over, along with a nice original 1920s throw and matching bolster—keeping the door firmly shut until they arrived, so that no one furry or smelly would be tempted to sleep in their bed before the weekend.

She thought they could use the other room in the attic as a makeshift office and studio, but she needed to take up a table and various bits and bobs to aid the transformation. And before they arrived Cass had got Buster booked in for a bath, planned to groom the cat, de-flea the pair of them and then spray the whole house with industrial-strength air freshener. She’d already been through the storeroom and earmarked a couple of things to bring in to beautify their ad-hoc flatlet. What Cass did not have were contingency plans for them showing up early.

Meanwhile Rocco was back outside the shop, busy shuffling boxes out of the Discovery and onto the pavement.

‘I haven’t got the attic ready yet. It’s still set up for students.’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Nita. ‘We can have the room next to yours—it’ll be easier and there are less stairs.’

‘And what exactly is all this?’ asked Cass, staring in horror at the growing pile.

‘You don’t mind, do you? They’re valuables, sweetie, books and tapes and precious, precious treasures that wouldn’t stand the dust or the rubble or the clearing up afterwards.’