The Wedding Shop on Wexley Street. Rachel Dove

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       Chapter 5

      Opening the door to Happy Ever After, Maria heaved a sigh of frustration. Her old Ford car was freezing, the heating having not worked even when it belonged to her mother years ago, but the shop was supposed to be warm, and it was so cold. She always silently thanked Lynn in her head for doing one of the many tiny but wonderful things she did around the business, like setting the heating in autumn and winter. The radiators were cold to the touch this morning, though, no hum of the heating. Wexley Street was a small row of shops linked to pretty cottages at either side, just in the heart of town, near Baker Street and jutting off Foxley Street. Westfield had been home for ever to Maria and her mother and father, and she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Normally, at this time of year, with the wedding season slowing and the first autumn leaves dropping, Maria would be in her element. Designing fancy-dress costumes for kids that she sold online, catering for the local dances and parties that the festive season brought with it. It was magical.

      This time, however, it felt so flat. She was alone. Nothing had changed, it seemed. Nothing at all. The shop was the same, with its slightly wonky walls, peeling paint and old-fashioned features. In its previous life it had been a bookshop, and her father had brought her as a girl to wander among the shelves, delving for literary treasures about pirates and princesses, while he studied one thing or another. It reminded her of the wand shop from Harry Potter, complete with dusty shelves and strange owner. Mr Hoffman had died not long after her mum and, with no family to speak of, the business closed. Maria had been dealing with the grief of becoming an orphan, living in an empty house full of memories, and a desire for something new, linked with the familiar. She had sunk all her money from the house into the shop, saving what furniture she could fit in and selling the rest. She had lived upstairs among the stock till Darcy had asked her to move in with him. Now she was back to being here, her safe haven, and she wouldn’t let anything or anyone take it from her.

      Flicking the trusty kettle on, she shook off her fleecy coat and bobble hat, placing them on the old coat rack. Father’s hat still hung there, just as it had at home, perched on top, and she smiled at it fondly. It was on the far wall, near the double-windowed doors of the back room, next to the photo of her mother.

      ‘Morning, Mum,’ she said absently. ‘You don’t have to say a word,’ she muttered, opening the back doors to let light into the rooms. It seemed so much darker today. She looked into the back room at her inbox of projects and alterations. Not much there, she mused. Lynn had struck again. She knew her assistant had taken care of everything for her, not wanting her to be stressed with work, but in truth, with the huge blanks in the diary, Maria could have used the distraction. She shook her head to chase away the blues and headed to the counter. Filling her favourite mug with some sweetener, she reached for the kettle and flicked it on again. She mustn’t have done it properly the last time, as it was cold. Nothing happened.

      Flicking the button impatiently, she waited for the red light to flick on. Nothing. Moving to the light switch, she flicked it on. Still nothing. She sighed and, going into the back room, flicked light switches on and off, tried the sewing machine, the over locker. Nothing, and the phone was off too. Damn it. Heading through to the back, she opened the door to the back pantry and pulled down the cover to the fuse box. Something had tripped, obviously. The electrics had been pretty much untouched since she bought the shop, and probably for years before that. She was amazed they’d passed the survey, looking at them now. She switched one of the switches, which was flipped down, back up, but it tripped again.

      She growled and flicked the switch again. The same thing happened. ‘What?’

      She tried again but got nothing. ‘Damn it, I don’t need this today. What the hell is going on?’

      The shop was due to open soon. She couldn’t very well open up with no power! She went to her handbag to get her phone but remembered she had left it at home switched off. Perfect, and the desktop wouldn’t work without power. She looked under the wooden countertop, hunting around among catalogues and sample books till her fingers touched what she was looking for.

      She used to laugh at her mother and her old-school ways, hoarding things that didn’t have a place in the modern world. Now she did it too, and thank God she had. Thumbing through the Westfield phone book, she felt close to her, and her heart squeezed in pain at the fresh wave of loss she felt. Thank goodness for Cassie and Lynn. The thought of being alone was never far from her thoughts these days. She thought of Darcy, what he would think of her if he knew she had spent the night with a stranger. Would he even care? She had studied the pictures from the press so many times now, she felt as if she could draw them from memory.

      She was glad her mother wasn’t here, in a way. The thought of her sitting in the church watching СКАЧАТЬ