Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues. Trisha Ashley

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      Chapter 3: Trashed

       My mother’s family moved to Southport from Wales when she was a child. A lot of people think all the Welsh are small and dark, don’t they? But that’s not so, and Mother was tall, fair and very pretty, with a smile like liquid sunshine, while my Lancashire father was the small, dark one! A big store in Southport employed Mother as a mannequin when she left school. Twice a day she was dressed in the latest fashions and driven along Lord Street in an open carriage as an advertisement, and then she would model clothes and hats in the shop, too. This would be some time in the 1880s, I expect.

      Middlemoss Living Archive

      Recordings: Nancy Bright.

      We had a wonderful Christmas, quiet and peaceful, with the world and its worries firmly shut out. At the back of my mind lurked the fear that this might be my last one with Aunt Nan, and I wanted to enjoy each precious moment just in case …

      I had some lovely presents. Aunt Nan had knitted me a zipped cardigan in rainbow stripes, Lars sent me a richly coloured carpet bag (something I had always longed for) filled with goodies like chocolates, a purple silk scarf covered in butterflies, and a long string of chunky beads made from semiprecious stones.

      I don’t know how he can judge what I will like so exactly, and yet Justin, who is supposed to love me, gets it so wrong. I mean, I never wear matching anything, even a cashmere twinset, and certainly not in taupe, a colour that makes me look like a dead frog.

      Lars rang me from New York, where his daughters and grandson, Charlie, were staying with him, to wish me and Aunt Nan Happy Christmas. Then I rang my mother in California, a token gesture Aunt Nan always insisted on, even though I’m not sure Immy remembers who I am half the time. I suppose I should be grateful my name is on her Christmas card list!

      I left Justin to ring me, rather than the other way round, since I didn’t want to get Mummy Dearest, but it was so late when he did that I’m sure he had almost forgotten me, which was hurtful … and he’d certainly forgotten what it was I’d given him until I asked him if he liked his white silk aviator scarf and the enormous box of Turkish delight, a particular favourite of his.

      Luckily he didn’t ask me if I’d liked the taupe twinset and he didn’t mention the plastic cactus I’d given Mummy Dearest, either …

      ‘Miss you, darling,’ he said in a perfunctory sort of way, before ringing off.

      ‘Me too,’ I said, though really I just missed the warm place in my heart where I felt loved and wanted by the old Justin, rather than this new, critical one – and anyway, by then I was talking to empty air.

      Timmy who, along with his partner, Joe, was staying with his parents in Ormskirk for Christmas, visited on Boxing Day. He’s a firm favourite of Aunt Nan’s. She says he has funny little ways, but he’s a kind, good-hearted lad. He’d hand-quilted her a rose-pink bed jacket, though she said it was too nice to wear to bed and promptly put it on over her skirt and cardi. I wore the hat he’d made me, too – I’m not sure how he managed to knit it into a twisted spiral ending in a tassel, but it looked stunning.

      Bella popped in with Tia, who wanted to show us some of her presents. She was wearing mine, a lilac fairy dress with matching wings, and since she has Bella’s slender build, ash-blond hair and pale blue eyes, she looked as if she’d just escaped from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and might fly away at any moment.

      I gave Bella Justin’s present. ‘It’s a cashmere twin set, and though it says taupe on the label, it’s more of a snotty grey-green really,’ I said, ‘so I don’t know if it will do anything for you, either.’

      ‘I see what you mean,’ she said, pulling a corner out and looking at it doubtfully. ‘Mum might like it, though.’

      ‘If not, it can go to a charity shop,’ I said. ‘It’s a good label, so I expect someone will be glad of it.’

      We all (except Tia, and Joe, who was driving) had a generous glass of Aunt Nan’s Meddyg and got quite merry and Aunt Nan told them all about my plans for turning the shop into a wedding shoe emporium. The idea really seemed to have captured her fancy now she’d had time to think about it. Everyone was enthusiastic and had various suggestions to make though, after a second glass of Meddyg, some of those were not entirely sensible. I mean, there can’t be that many tall, handsome princes looking for shoe-fitting jobs, can there?

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