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  ‘Can I ask one thing?’ said Rosie. ‘Just so as I know?’

  Gerard shrugged. Rosie took a deep breath.

  ‘Were you ever going to pop the question? Did you ever see us together for ever?’

  He shrugged again. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘I’d never really thought about it.’

  ‘Really?’ said Rosie, wondering if this was bravado. ‘What, all those weddings we went to and you never once thought about it?’

  ‘I liked things as they were,’ said Gerard. ‘I didn’t have a problem with it. I thought you were cool too.’

  ‘So did I,’ said Rosie, shaking her head. It had never even crossed his mind. ‘So did I.’

  They gazed at each other in mutual incomprehension.

  They even managed an awkward, difficult embrace as he left; a little, social kind of kiss that Gerard tried to turn into something else.

  ‘I can’t believe I didn’t even get a farewell shag,’ he said, which Rosie thought was encouraging. That was the thing about Gerard: his irrepressible cheerfulness. She didn’t think he’d be down for too long. But for now, prodding her heart carefully to feel the truth of the matter, it was undeniable, as she heard him gently closing the bedroom door, then the front door, which squeaked, and heard the thrum of his beloved Alfa Romeo start up, however much she might regret it later, even if Gerard was her very, very last chance, she could still feel it.

  Relief.

  ‘That was an awful lot of door-banging,’ observed Lilian at breakfast, pained to see how pale and stressed Rosie looked. She had that slightly drained skin she’d had when she arrived, which a few weeks of outdoor living, early nights and good food had put paid to. She tried to remind herself that this was the evil family stranger who was here to take all her money and dump her in a home, but she couldn’t help being concerned for the girl.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ said Rosie, dourly frying up eggs. The smell made her feel slightly sick, even though they had been waiting on the doorstep and the vicar’s hens had laid them just a few hours before.

  Lilian raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, better get ready for a busy day then,’ she said.

  1944

  You couldn’t ever really dislike a child, Lilian knew. It wasn’t right or fair. But still it did seem incredible that any offspring of two such attractive specimens as Henry Carr and Ida Delia Fontayne could be so badly favoured. Dorothy’d had a difficult birth, Lilian had heard, with Henry advancing with the Allies through Italy, and Ida Delia in labour for three days yelling like a stuck pig. People told her this as if she’d be pleased – everyone knew everything, of course – but Lilian took no pleasure in it. Dorothy had been undersized and bright red, slightly boiled-looking. She always appeared irritated when pushed about in the smart perambulator that had been sent for, uncomfortably trussed up in several layers of bright yellow wool that gave her a jaundiced look, festooned with bows and frills and with two tiny feet desperately trying to kick their way out, and a howl or a scowl on her little features.

  One day, Lilian had been cycling down to the drapers when she’d spied them, Ida Delia having trouble getting the enormous perambulator up off the cobbles. Lilian had searched within herself and made a decision. She’d dropped the bike, which made a hell of a clatter and instantly started the baby screaming, and run over to help.

  Ida Delia, looking older than her nineteen years, her yellow hair unbrushed and tied back with a rag, lurched the perambulator away from her.

  ‘I don’t want your help, thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Ida …’ started Lilian.

  ‘I don’t speak to people who try and steal other people’s lads,’ said Ida. ‘He’s mine now. You stay away. I know you wanted his brat. Well, I got her.’ She made an ugly sniffing noise, halfway between a laugh and a snort. ‘So. You can keep away from our family, thank you.’

  ‘But I … I … Well, I just wanted to say congratulations,’ said Lilian, as humbly as she could.

  ‘Well, any time you want to come round and boil some cloths, just say the word,’ said Ida Delia bitterly. The baby’s cries grew louder.

  ‘Can I …’

  ‘You’ll just encourage her,’ said Ida, and finally managed to get the pram mounted on the pavement. The two women looked at each other. ‘Just stay away,’ said Ida, her tone full of menace. Lilian couldn’t know it, but the sight of the trim, youthful, energetic Lilian cycling freely down the street had filled Ida – whose letters from Henry were so infrequent and so stiff, and he never passed a forty-eight-hour leave without managing, somehow, to bring the conversation round to the Hopkins family – had filled her with absolute terror.

  Lilian hadn’t oversold market day. The entire town was absolutely thronged; there seemed to be as many horses as cars, and cows were lowing as they were driven through in large trucks on their way to the Stirlings’ field where the market would be held. Travellers had set up a large fair, and bunting was strung up all down the high street. Already Rosie could see a lost red helium balloon floating upwards through the trees. She took a deep breath and tied on her apron.

  Outside the door of the shop her first customer was already waiting.

  ‘Does your mother know you’re here, Edison?’ asked Rosie, seeing no one behind him.

  Edison nodded seriously. ‘Yup. She said it was the best place for me. Encourage self-safishsee.’

  ‘Really?’ said Rosie, slightly peeved. She wasn’t a daycare centre. ‘Why’s that then?’

  Edison pushed his glasses up on his nose with a surprisingly adult-like gesture.

  ‘I am most terribly afraid of animals,’ he said.

  ‘What, all animals?’ said Rosie, turning the heavy key and finding she was smiling despite herself.

  ‘Yes,’ said Edison. ‘And some plants. That’s why it’s best if I keep myself out of the way.’ He wandered into the shop. ‘Hester said I should make myself useful.’

  ‘Who’s Hester?’

  ‘My mother.’

  ‘Of course she is,’ said Rosie. She called her mum Angie sometimes, but it didn’t seem quite the same.

  ‘She thinks I would be a good help to you.’

  ‘Does she now. Why doesn’t she take you to see the animals so you could find out they’re not scary?’

  ‘Hester thinks it’s wrong that animals get killed for us,’ mumbled Edison. ‘She doesn’t really prove.’

  At that moment Hester appeared, grey hair glinting.

  ‘Hello,’ she said coolly. ‘Now. Listen. I have to go distribute these vegan leaflets at the market. Can I leave Edison with you for a little while? He’ll be a huge help, I’m sure.’

  Rosie was taken aback. ‘Well,’ she stuttered, ‘well, I suppose so.’

  ‘Fantastic! Wonderful! The animals will thank you!’ said Hester, barely breaking stride.

  Rosie and Edison watched her disappear down the high street. Then Rosie turned towards the skinny little boy.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Rosie, ‘everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. But I’m going down later to see all the animals.’

  Edison looked at her, his eyes blinking anxiously behind his glasses.

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘You could come with me if you like,’ said Rosie. ‘I promise to protect you from them.’

  Edison considered. ‘OK,’ he said.

  ‘OK,’ said Rosie. ‘Now, I need you to fold up these boxes very small and put them in this larger box for cardboard recycling.’

  ‘Can I draw on them first?’

  ‘You can,’ said Rosie, ‘as long as you keep out of my way.’

  Edison looked at her.

  ‘Where’s the nice man who was here yesterday?’

  Rosie bit her lip. ‘He had to go.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Edison. ‘That’s a shame. I liked him. He was nice to kids. Not everyone is nice to kids, did you know that?’

  ‘I did know that,’ said Rosie, suddenly hit with the feeling that she might have made a terribl
e mistake. ‘Gerard was very good at being nice to kids. He’s very like one, in a way.’

  ‘No he isn’t,’ said Edison. ‘He’s grown up.’

  ‘That’s a metaphor,’ said Rosie. ‘Surely Hester has taught you about those?’

  Edison nodded. ‘But it’s not a metaphor. It’s a simile.’

  ‘Let’s open up, shall we?’ said Rosie. She could feel her temporary ebullience at the busy town leaking out of her like air from a balloon.

  The next person she saw was hardly likely to cheer her up any further.

  ‘Mr Blaine,’ she said. Roy Blaine, the dentist, was standing in front of her, holding the newspaper in his hands. His own newspaper, of course.

  ‘I have notice of an advert here,’ he said.

  Rosie squinted. What was he talking about?

  ‘About the forthcoming sale of a going concern …’

  Rosie realised what it must be. ‘But I advertised in the Derby papers,’ she said.

  ‘We share advertising,’ said Mr Blaine. ‘It’s the same company.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Roy marched round the shop, rather rudely sizing it up.

  ‘Hello,’ said Edison from down by the counter. He was drawing a large, very complicated machine on one of the cardboard boxes.

  ‘You need to come for your six-month check-up,’ said Roy, barely drawing breath. ‘I haven’t seen you.’

  ‘You don’t need to see me,’ said Edison, with a bravery Rosie thought rather commendable. ‘Hester says we’ll look after my teeth omopafica-lee.’

  Both Rosie and Roy rolled their eyes.

  ‘And I don’t get sugar at home.’

  ‘No, just when you live in the sweetshop. So,’ said Roy, looking around. ‘It’s not exactly a going concern, is it? Couple of weeks of playing milkmaid.’

  Rosie vowed to change this stupid apron.

  ‘After years of neglect. Not unlike some people’s mouths.’

  ‘Are you interested?’

  ‘I might be,’ said Mr Blaine. ‘This might make a rather good site for my new dental practice. Brand new veneers, perfect smiles, super-fast whitening, expensive fillings.’ He was practically rubbing his hands together. ‘Everyone wants that perfect smile nowadays.’

  Personally Rosie thought that his hyper-straight, neon-white Hollywood teeth were creepy and weird, like a direct view of a skull picked clean by birds. But she didn’t want to say so.

  ‘Yes, it’s all new techniques in dentistry these days. A quaint little place like this might work rather well.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t be selling sweets?’

  ‘No!’ said Roy. ‘I’d be selling top-of-the-range teeth whiteners at four hundred pounds a pop. So what do you think about that, Snaggle Mouth?’

  ‘Did you just call me Snaggle Mouth?’ said Rosie.

  ‘Affectionately of course,’ said Roy. He looked around greedily a little longer, then checked his very expensive watch. ‘Well, I’d better get on. Time is teeth, and teeth are money,’ he said, with a final flash of his luminous grin. He left the shop, making the bell ring abruptly.

  Edison quickly made some changes to his drawing.

  ‘I’m putting him in,’ said the boy. ‘He is a very mean dentist.’

  Rosie looked at him. The idea of Roy Blaine taking over Lilian’s beloved shop and turning it into some hi-tech tooth emporium made her feel absolutely miserable. He’d rip out all the shelves and the counter and the fixtures and … She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to sell it like this.

  ‘He is,’ she said. ‘He is a very mean dentist.’ She glanced down. If she had to have a six-year-old hanging around now Gerard had gone, it might as well be this one.

  The shop filled up quickly. Many people who had come into Lipton from the surrounding villages exclaimed with delight at the restoration of their beloved sweetshop, missing from so many market days past. Tentatively they asked for their favourite, asked after Lilian, exclaimed as to how much Rosie resembled her, and beamed when Rosie deftly twirled and passed the little striped paper bags full of memories out into the crowd.

  The morning flew past, the door and the till ringing busily, the shop full of children pointing excitedly, and their parents surreptitiously helping themselves to the fudge tasters Rosie had temptingly placed on top of the glass cabinets. Things were going so well, Rosie almost forgot about her terrible start to the day, persuading Anton that only four sugar mice were more than enough to get him through the next half-hour as he waited for his wife to get back from the fête. Indeed, Chrissie popped in to fetch him, and admired the shop as soon as she arrived.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘And I’m on the organising committee for the tombola. I never thought, we could have touched you for a donation.’

  ‘Of course you can,’ said Rosie. ‘What about a big box of chocs?’

  ‘You’re a darling!’ The two women looked at each other. Anton’s wife had her hands full of shopping, and a steadying arm on Anton.

  ‘Why don’t I bring them down later?’ said Rosie. ‘I’ll probably need a walk.’

  ‘That would be fantastic,’ said Chrissie.

  ‘You know,’ said Rosie to the pair of them, ‘you could run this sweetshop.’

  There was a ringing of the door right behind her. Rosie didn’t even have to turn round.

  ‘What are you doing now, Hopkins?’ said Moray, sighing. ‘I wish you’d stop trying to kill all my patients.’

  ‘I meant,’ said Rosie, ‘when he’s slim enough to get behind the counter. Like a challenge. What do you think, Anton?’

  Anton looked thrilled, his wife less so.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you up any ladders.’

  ‘I would like to run a sweetshop,’ said Anton.

  ‘No!’ said Moray. ‘Out of here.’

  Anton looked glumly into his now-empty paper bag. ‘I don’t even remember eating those mice.’

  ‘Will you just get him that gastric band appointment?’ said Rosie.

  ‘No!’ said Moray. Anton heaved his vast bulk out of the shop, a tad sadly.

  ‘I only sold him four,’ said Rosie defiantly. ‘I talked him down from nineteen.’

  Moray checked his watch. ‘Well, we’ve been in the same space for almost four minutes and nothing has turned up bleeding to death. A record for us, wouldn’t you say?’

  Rosie smiled. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Just some mints. I’m judging the baking and some of those old ladies get a tad overenthusiastic when they win.’

  ‘I bet they do,’ said Rosie. Moray was looking very dapper today in his green tweed jacket and checked shirt. She was less sure about the mustard-coloured trousers.

  ‘Are you looking at my trousers?’ asked Moray.

  ‘Yes, but I’ll stop before I go blind.’

  ‘They’re country,’ said Moray. ‘Anyway, you are in no position to be making sartorial comments.’ Which was the exact moment when, in a blinding flash, Rosie realised – it wasn’t like her to be slow; after all, she’d been surrounded by male nurses – that Moray hadn’t been asking her out on dates.

  ‘They are a little bit country and a little bit rock ’n’ roll,’ said Rosie, grinning at him with sudden – what? Relief? Disappointment? ‘Do they like you, those little old ladies?’

  ‘They mostly like doctors who have been on television,’ said Moray, crunching into a Mint Imperial. ‘But in their absence, yes, sometimes I have to do.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ asked Rosie, impatiently. ‘How’s Stephen?’

  ‘I thought you were going to go with the ambulance,’ said Moray.

  ‘Yup,’ said Rosie. ‘But once that old bag was on the scene …’

  ‘She’s all right, Hetty,’ said Moray. ‘Her life is just a bit different to ours, that’s all. Remember, she only lost her husband last year.’

  Rosie instantly felt a bit guilty. It was true, she’d been thinking of Stephen’s parents, whoever they were, as awful deserters.
But she’d only ever seen one side of the story.

  ‘Anyway?’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Moray, lowering his voice as Rosie served two teenagers enormous portions of candy bananas. ‘I called the hospital this morning. They got plenty of blood into him. He was very weak, but they put him on a drip. He was malnourished too.’

  Rosie suddenly got a flashback to his pale, white chest.

  ‘Good,’ she said, unconvinced.

  ‘Then as soon as they’d checked him out – I did a beautiful stitching job by all accounts—’

  ‘Helped by me,’ said Rosie.

  ‘By my glamorous assistant, yes. Anyway, as soon as they’d patched him up, he insisted on discharging himself. Doesn’t like hospitals apparently.’

  Rosie tried to think of him alone in a military field hospital in Africa. She wasn’t at all surprised.

  ‘So. Just goes to show he should have done this months ago. Bloody stubborn idiot,’ said Moray.

  ‘Sounds as if you rather like the bloody stubborn idiot.’

  ‘Oh, Stephen was always different. Always his own man,’ said Moray. He picked up his bag of sweets. ‘And some Golf Balls,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop them off at Peak House.’

  ‘Were you guys good friends?’ asked Rosie.

  Moray nodded. ‘We were actually. Till he went off on his do-gooder jobs in Africa. Couldn’t believe I didn’t want to go with him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Moray snorted.

  ‘Would you? Anyway, I believe my sort isn’t exactly welcome over there. No. Seriously, I’d have been rubbish, no help at all. I like my home comforts too much. Just too selfish. Anyway, of course he pulled a classic Stephen, stormed off and I didn’t hear from him … I didn’t even know where he got his injury, I only found that out the other day. I figured he’d been bitten by a stoat or something and was just too embarrassed to tell anyone. Or a tiger.’