It’s going to be complete and utter bloody chaos when you get in.
Painfully early the following Saturday, Charley cycled through the streets of Bristol, heading to the shop. It was barely seven thirty so the city hadn’t entirely woken up yet and, since their flight had been delayed and she’d had less than six hours’ sleep, Charley hadn’t entirely woken up either, but she’d forced herself to rise and shine. Or at least rise. Her bleary-eyed face in the mirror made shining a little optimistic.
Waiting impatiently at a red light, she glanced at her reflection in a store window – a woman in her early thirties, wearing jeans and a loose shirt, perched on an old-fashioned pale blue bike. Her dark curly hair was falling out of its topknot and she started to rescue it but a curt beeping from behind warned her the lights had changed. Pushing off, she immediately starting worrying about the takings while she’d been away. She hoped to God they hadn’t plummeted. The turnover wasn’t brilliant at best of times – she still hadn’t figured out how to turn the inevitable troughs into the more elusive peaks, but then she hadn’t even been open a year yet, so she wasn’t going to beat herself up for that. She’d been torn about whether to go to Tuscany with Ricky at all because it had meant leaving her shop in the hands of her colleagues. Not that she didn’t trust them, she just didn’t know if they’d cope without her. But, having worked pretty much 24/7 for the last few months, she’d desperately needed a break. Which was a shame, since it hadn’t exactly been the stress-free getaway she’d hoped for.
Peddling over Prince Street Bridge towards Wapping Wharf, with the city’s colourful docks spread out on either side, she was imagining only too vividly the dire mess that would greet her when she arrived at the shop – jumbled displays with products piled higgledy-piggledy, the litter bin overflowing with packaging, and the till table plastered with Post-it notes listing a litany of disasters she’d have to deal with almost before she’d put her bag down.
Unlocking the shop door, she cast an eye around and was pleasantly surprised to see everything was pretty tidy. Most of the shelves were fairly well stocked. The baskets of bath bombs were almost empty, there were gaps in the display of Prosecco flutes and she couldn’t see any tealights, but over all, it wasn’t too bad. A glance at the floor told her that someone, probably Pam – no, definitely Pam – had even found time to hoover. Both of her co-workers were part-time, and in fact one of them was extremely part-time, infuriatingly so, frankly. Whilst Pam came in every afternoon and all day on Saturdays, Charley’s mate Tara only worked mornings (after she’d dropped her little girl at school), term time (no holidays, not even half term) and absolutely no weekends (because of her daughter’s countless hobbies). Charley could hardly complain since the business wasn’t doing well enough to pay either of them yet.
She dumped her bag behind the counter and made a swift mental note of which displays needed replenishing the most. Charley’s Prosecco Pop-Up was in the trendy Cargo area of Bristol’s docklands where the shops were made from converted lorry containers. The glass-fronted units were small, leaving little room for storage, so her spare stock was either stashed under the display tables or stacked on top of the white-painted wooden dresser that filled one entire wall. Grabbing a chair, she lugged it over to the shelving unit and clambered up. Almost immediately she heard the shop door open behind her. Dammit. She’d meant to re-lock it again until opening at nine.
A cheery voice called out, ‘Welcome home!’
Charley whipped round to see a woman in her early sixties clutching two take-away coffees and a pack of pastries from the deli, deftly closing the door behind her with her heel.
‘Pam!’ She jumped off the chair and went to embrace the woman warmly. Gratefully taking a coffee and helping herself to an almond croissant she added, ‘You are an absolute star!’ Then, eyeing the clock on back wall, which, despite permanently proclaiming it to be ‘Prosecco O’Clock’, more helpfully informed her it was barely ten past eight, she added, ‘You’re also very early.’
‘Yes, well, I was worried we’d left you too much to do when you got in,’ said Pam, looking around anxiously.
‘No! It looks brilliant!’ Charley said, peeling the lid off her coffee. ‘And you can take the money out of the till for these,’ she added, before taking a mouthful of warm croissant.
‘Absolutely not! It’s my welcome home treat!’
‘Mmm, thank you,’ Charley mumbled around her pastry.
‘So how was Tuscany?’ asked Pam, putting her coffee down and switching the till and the card-reader on in one move.
Before she could stop it, a brief grimace contorted Charley’s face. She recovered quickly, but not before Pam had noticed and raised a querying eyebrow.
‘Fine, it was fine,’ Charley said, momentarily putting her pastry back in the bag.
‘Only “Fine?”’ queried Pam mildly.
‘Well, more than fine,’ Charley corrected hastily. ‘It was lovely… wonderful. Really!’ She smiled brightly at Pam in an attempt to reassure her, or possibly to reassure herself.
Then she kicked herself. Why had she said ‘Fine’, for crying out loud? Who says a holiday was ‘Fine’? Anyhow, she reminded herself, some of it had been idyllic. Ricky showing her round his old haunts and taking her to her the parts of Tuscany the tourists never found, the time they’d spent together, just the two of them, had been fabulous.
‘Tuscany is beautiful,’ she enthused. ‘The countryside, the colours, the cute little villages… I loved it. Absolutely loved it. And the wedding… Oh my God, lavish or what? Hundreds of people, gorgeous locations, and the food! Mountains of the stuff, and gallons and gallons of wine. It was a miracle anyone was still upright at the end of it! So it was all lovely…’ She hesitated and Pam looked at her quizzically.
‘But?’ the older woman prompted.
Charley let out a sigh. ‘But being presented to every single member of Ricky’s entire family, and not just at the wedding, but day after day afterwards, was a bit… wearing.’ A bit wearing? It had been a gruelling, week-long Ordeal by Family.
Pam pulled a sympathetic face. ‘Poor you.’
Charley wouldn’t have been that indiscreet with everyone, but her relationship with Pam was exceptional. She was actually Charley’s mother-in-law, or rather her former mother-in-law. Not her ex-mother-in-law, because Charley’s marriage to Josh, Pam’s son, hadn’t ended in divorce, but when Josh had died, unbearably young, leaving his mother and young widow harrowingly bereft and heartbroken. Their joint bereavement had thrown them together, paired survivors of an appalling disaster. Over the last few years, the two women had grown as close as any mother and daughter, and closer than many.
Even so, wary of confiding too much out of loyalty to Ricky, Charley tried to make a joke of it. ‘Honestly Pam, I met his parents, his sister, his brother-in-law…’ she intoned, listing them off on her fingers. ‘Then his aunts and uncles, his cousins – and there are dozens of them, literally dozens. Then I had to meet his grandparents, and his grandparents’ parents…’
‘His grandparents’ parents? Seriously?’ Pam flicked Charley a look.
‘Yes,’ fibbed Charley seamlessly before continuing, ‘and his grandparents’ grandparents…’
‘Charley! They’d have to be about a hundred and fifty years old!’
‘I know, even older than you,’ deadpanned Charley, nodding solemnly.
Pam threw a Prosecco-themed cushion at her. ‘Now I know you’re exaggerating!’
Charley automatically plumped up the cushion before putting it back in its place on the dresser and for a while, both women turned their attention to restocking. After a few moments Pam asked, ‘So what are they like, his family?’
She shrugged lightly. ‘They seem very nice. His parents don’t speak a lot of English, but they were extremely…’ She searched for a tactful word. ‘Welcoming,’ she finished, mentally awarding herself an Olympic gold in understatement. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Pam busying herself stacking chocolate bars.
‘And his mother?’ prompted Pam.
‘What about her?’
‘Oh, you know… Does she work? Is she retired?’
‘I have absolutely no idea!’ Charley admitted with a laugh, vaguely wondering what was going through the older woman’s mind.
‘And is she… tall and glamorous, or short and dumpy? Does she seem serious-minded or full of fun… or what?’ continued Pam casually, and suddenly Charley guessed what was going through her mind.
Stopping what she was doing, she looked squarely at Pam. Taking in her mother-in-law’s short, slim figure, her practical clothes and sensible shoes, Charley said carefully, ‘Ricky’s mother is tall and plump. Stylish but not glamorous, and, judging by the fact she’s definitely got wrinkles rather than laughter lines, I’d say she’s probably more serious-minded than full of fun. But above all, she is absolutely nothing like you. But then nobody ever could be!’
‘One does one’s best!’ replied Pam with mock modesty.
The shop door opened again and Charley was about to give her standard ‘I’m sorry but we’re not quite open yet’ spiel, but it was Ricky, followed as usual by Carlo, his large grey lurcher.
‘I was going to offer to get coffee, but you’ve already got some,’ he said, crossing to Charley, sliding his arm around her and kissing her.
Charley had expected Carlo to come over to her for his regular ear-scratch, but instead the dog went up to Pam and nudged her hand with his whiskery face.
‘Er… excuse me?’ said Charley to the dog, affronted by his blatant disregard.
‘You abandoned him and left him with me for a week! What do you expect?’ demanded Pam, straight-faced.
‘Undying love and loyalty!’ countered Charley.
‘No chance. He’ll adore anyone who feeds him.’ Ricky grinned then, turning to Pam, handed her a hessian tote bag. ‘A thank you for dog-sitting.’
‘You shouldn’t have!’ Pam took the bag nonetheless and peeked inside. ‘Real truffles!’ she gasped. Delving further in, she pulled out cheeses, olives and a bottle of white wine. ‘This is too much!’
Ricky’s eyes flicked to Charley and they shared a smile. She’d told him Pam would think him too generous. ‘No it’s not,’ he said. ‘Kennels would have cost a fortune and he’d have hated it.’
‘Well, I’m very grateful. And touched!’
Pam gave him an affectionate hug, which Ricky returned with his characteristic easy charm then he kissed Charley again before heading for the door, Carlo following him like a shadow, but at the doorway he turned back to her. ‘Supper at mine?’ he asked and without waiting for her reply went on, ‘I thought I could do the spinach and ricotta gnocchi you like – unless you’ve had enough Italian food for a while!’
Personally, Charley doubted anyone could have enough Italian food, but she heard herself say, ‘Actually, would you mind if I give it a miss tonight? Only I’ve got a lot of stuff to catch up on,’ she waved her hand vaguely round the shop, ‘and to be honest, I’m all in. I could really do with an early night.’
‘Of course not. And in fact I’m not surprised. A week with my family’s enough to wear anyone out.’ And, calling Carlo to heel, he left.
Through the shop window Charley watched him striding off towards his bike shop, three units down, with the huge lurcher plodding along faithfully behind him. As he passed the florist’s, Ricky waved cheerfully and called out to Del, the owner, and they both laughed, and Charley couldn’t help smiling. She loved his easy manner and the generous warmth he extended to everyone because she loved him. So why, she wondered, had she wanted to duck out of seeing him tonight?