The Peacock Emporium(64)

“And what did you do, Suzanna, before you opened this shop?” His voice, with its strong accent, was low and comforting. She could imagine how it would be consoling to hear in childbirth. “Who were you in your past life?”

“The same person I am now,” she said, aware that she didn’t believe what she was saying. “I’ve got to nip out and pick up some more milk.”

“No one is the same person forever,” insisted Jessie.

“I was the same . . . but with less strong views on people minding their own business,” she said, and slammed the till drawer.

“I come here for the atmosphere, you know,” Mrs. Creek confided to Alejandro.

“Are you all right, Suzanna?” Jessie leaned over to get a better view of her expression.

“Fine. Just busy, okay? There’s a lot to do today.”

Jessie caught the implicit criticism and winced. “That fish,” she said to Alejandro, as Suzanna shoved the mugs on the shelf around unnecessarily, “the one you used to catch with your dad, the peacock something.”

“Peacock bass?”

“It’s known for being really grumpy, right?”

Mrs. Creek coughed quietly into her coffee.

There was a short pause.

“I think maybe it has to be grumpy, as you call it, to survive in its environment,” said Alejandro, innocently.

Suzanna threw a flashing glance their way, and closed the shop door hard behind her. They watched her striding up the lane, head down, as if walking into a fierce wind.



* * *



—

    Father Lenny walked down Water Lane, turned left, and nodded through the window at the occupants of the Peacock Emporium and, on seeing Jessie’s cheerful face, waved vigorously. He thought back to the conversation he had had earlier that morning.

It was Cath Carter who had initially sought his advice. Cath now had, on several occasions, invited him over supposedly to offer him tea and have a “catch-up,” but really to solicit his opinion on her daughter’s ever-burgeoning collection of bruises and “accidental” knocks. It wasn’t like she hadn’t a temper herself, she said, and she’d be a liar if she said she and Ed had never come to blows in all their years together, but this was different. And whenever she had tried to broach the subject with Jessie, she snapped at her to mind her own business, or words to that effect. There wasn’t much he could offer. Cath believed Jessie would be offended if she thought they were discussing her, so he wasn’t allowed to approach her. It wasn’t serious enough, she said, to call the police. In the old days, when Lenny was growing up, a couple of the older men would go around and rough the boy up a little, just to let him know they were on to him. Most of the time it worked. But there was no Ed Carter around anymore, and there was no way Cath or Jessie would want social services involved. So his hands were tied.

Until he turned up on his doorstep. The boy—for he was still a boy, no matter what maturity he thought paternity had conferred—had come to deliver a storage heater to the presbytery. Because no one had said anything, after all, about the two of them having a discreet word.

“You enjoying your new job, eh?”

“It’s not bad, Father. Regular hours . . . Pay could be better.”

“Ah, now, there’s a universal truth.”

The boy had looked at him, as if struggling to gauge his meaning, then lifted the heater with formidable ease, and carried it, as directed, into the front room, where he ignored the boxes of discount crockery and alarm clocks stacked high against the walls, partially obscuring two Virgin Marys and a St. Sebastian. “You want me to put it together for you? It’ll take me five minutes.”

“That would be grand. I have no gift with a screwdriver. Shall I go and find one?”

“Got me own.” The boy had held it up, and Lenny had been suddenly uncomfortably aware of the strength in those shoulders, the potential force behind these currently contained movements.

The irony was that he was not a bad lad: generally well thought of, polite, brought up on the good part of the estate. And while not churchgoers, his parents were decent people. And the boy had never been in any trouble, had not been one of those he would occasionally scoop up from the market square in the early hours of Sunday, semiconscious from cheap cider and God only knew what else.

But that didn’t mean he was good.

He stood, watching, as the metal legs were forcefully tightened to the body of the thing, the screws and nuts tightened with a spare efficiency. Then, as the boy prepared to right it, Lenny spoke: “So, how’s your woman enjoying her new job?”

The boy did not raise his face from his work. “She says she likes it.”

“It’s a nice shop. Good to see something different in the town.”

The boy grunted.

“And good for her to be earning some money, no doubt. Every little helps, these days.”

“We did all right before she started there.” The boy placed the heater upright on the rug.

“I’m sure you did.”

Outside, two cars had come to an impasse in the road behind the churchyard. “Must be hard work for her.”

The boy looked up, uncomprehending.

“It’s obviously a more physical job than it looks.” Lenny kept the boy’s eyes, trying to look more at ease than he felt. He chose his words carefully, and delivered them slowly. “Must be, anyway, considering the number of injuries I hear she’s been getting.” He let the aftershock kick like a mule.