The Peacock Emporium(38)

This is stupid, she told herself, heading into the cellar to fetch up some more bags. It’s a shop. You can’t afford to keep it all to yourself. She sat down heavily on the stairs—now polluted by the ghosts of snogging teenagers—and surveyed the downstairs shelves, which had apparently once held illegal game that you could order with your vegetables. Perhaps it wasn’t that Jessie was better at it, perhaps it was that she didn’t like the feeling of belonging, of obligation and expectation that a close relationship with your customers seemed to engender. It was all veering a bit too close to the idea of family.

I’m not sure I’m cut out for this, she thought. Perhaps I only liked the decorating, creating something beautiful. Perhaps I should do something where I hardly have to deal with people at all.

She flinched as Jessie’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. “You okay down there?”

“Fine.”

“Mum brought us in some nice orange juice. Figured you’d probably had enough of coffee.”

Suzanna forced a smile. “Thanks. I’ll be right up.”

“You want any help?”

“No, thank you.” Suzanna tried to convey in her tone that she would rather have five minutes on her own.

Jessie glanced to her left. “There’s someone else in you’ve got to meet. Liliane from across the road—I used to do cleaning for her. She’s just bought that pair of earrings, the ones in the case.”

They had been the most expensive item in the shop. Briefly forgetting her previous reservations, Suzanna half ran up the stairs.

Liliane MacArthur’s face was as closed as Jessie’s was open. A tall, slim woman with the kind of mutely reddened hair beloved by Dere Hampton’s female population, she eyed Suzanna with the practiced once-over of someone who had learned the hard way that women, especially those a good twenty years younger than herself, were generally not to be trusted.

“Hi,” said Suzanna, immediately awkward. “Glad you spotted the earrings.”

“Yes. I like topaz. Always have.”

“They’re Victorian, but you can probably see that from the box.”

Jessie was wrapping it in an intricate arrangement of raffia and tissue paper. “They for you, Liliane?”

The older woman nodded.

“They’ll go lovely with that blue coat of yours. The one with the high collar.”

Liliane’s expression softened slightly. “Yes, I thought that.”

“How’s your mum, Liliane?” Jessie’s mother leaned over, so that she had an uninterrupted view past the till.

“Oh, much the same . . . She’s had some problems holding her cup lately.”

“Poor thing. I saw on the telly you can get all sorts with special handles and things now to make it easier. Specially for people with arthritis. Ask Father Lenny, he can usually get stuff like that,” Jessie said.

“He’s our priest,” explained Cath, “but he’s like a Mr. Fixit. He’ll get hold of anything for you. If he doesn’t know someone, he’ll track it down on the Internet.”

“I’ll see how we go.”

“It’s a very cruel thing, the arthritis.” Cath shook her head.

“Yes,” said Liliane, her head down. “Yes, it is. Well, I’d better get back to the shop. I’m glad to meet you, Mrs. Peacock.”

“Suzanna, please. You too.” Suzanna, her hands twitching uselessly at her sides, tried to loosen her smile as Liliane closed the door quietly behind her. She felt, even if she didn’t hear, the “poor thing” lingering in the air as the older woman left.

“First husband died,” murmured Jessie. “He was the love of her life.”

“No. Roger was.”

“Roger?” Suzanna said.

“Second husband,” said Cath. “He told her he didn’t want children, and she loved him so much she agreed. Two days before her forty-sixth birthday he ran off with a twenty-five-year-old. She was pregnant. God, there’s no justice. Eighteen years Liliane gave to that man. She’s never been the same.”

“Lives with her mum now.”

“She had no choice, not with things being the way they are . . .”

As Liliane crossed the road, the lumbering figure of Arturro could be seen heading toward her. On seeing her, he picked up speed, his arms swinging as if he was unused to traveling at such a pace. With a nod of recognition and only a faint pause, she disappeared into her shop.

Arturro stopped inelegantly, like a large vehicle needing more space to apply the brakes, his face still set toward the door of the Unique Boutique. Then he glanced toward the Peacock Emporium, his expression almost guilty, and entered.

Jessie, who had seen the whole thing, switched on the coffee machine, calling innocently, “Come for a top-up, Arturro?”

“If you don’ mind,” he said quietly, and sat heavily on the stool.

“I knew you’d be back for a second cup. Italians love their coffee, don’t they?”

Suzanna felt her earlier misgivings melt away. Through the window, she could just make out the older woman, safely back in her own domain, mistress of the buttoned-up and held-in, surrounded by her expensive fabric armory. There was something in Liliane’s brittle exterior, her discomfort with casual conversation, the pain only hinted at in her demeanor that made her fearful, as if she were witnessing the Ghost of Christmas Future.