counting up the money while Colenso went outside to the pump.
The kettle was boiling, the mugs and plates set ready on the table when Mr Goss finally returned.
‘At last, my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut,’ Garren sighed then he took a closer look at his father and frowned. ‘Whatever is the matter? You haven’t overdone it, have you?’ he asked, his voice rising as his father slumped into a chair. The old man shook his head.
‘I think you’d better sit down, Colenso,’ he said, pulling out her chair. ‘After I delivered the sweets for the children, I felt in need of a breath of air and went for a stroll. There were a group of men from the Wherrytown works gathered on the harbour. It would appear their barge got caught up in a storm and, I’m sorry, dear,’ he said, taking hold of Colenso’s hand. ‘It’s believed it went down, with all lives lost.’
‘What? But that can’t be right,’ she gasped, shaking her head. ‘I haven’t given Kitto his present yet.’
The grey, swirling fog that had engulfed Colenso stayed and wouldn’t lift. It was as if she was on the outside of life looking in as she routinely went about her work. She couldn’t believe Kitto was dead, didn’t feel he was, and yet everyone assured her that he couldn’t have survived the terrible storm that sank the barge. The pentacle stabbed relentlessly at her neck, until finally, with hot tears coursing down her cheeks, she wrenched it off and put it away in her basket.
Christmas had passed in a blur and, unable to sleep, she’d taken to walking down to the harbour early each morning in the hope of hearing something, anything. She’d expected a group of men to be waiting and looking, like the fishermen’s wives did when their men were late back. There was never anyone from the works there though and, exhausted and dejected, she eventually gave up going, gave up going out at all.
‘I can’t believe he’s dead,’ Colenso muttered one morning as she helped Mr Goss make a new batch of barley sugar. As she couldn’t bring herself to smile, Garren had agreed to serve the customers in the shop.
‘I know how exactly you feel, my dear,’ he replied. ‘Even now, I wake up some mornings expecting Meggie to appear, but of course she never does. I’m told it is part of the grieving process. Best get twisting that mixture before it sets too hard,’ he urged gently as she stood staring into space.
‘If only I’d said yes,’ she sighed.
‘If only we’d done a lot of things,’ he agreed, a wistful look on his face. ‘Shall we sneak an extra break, I could murder a cup of tea, oh …’ he paused, looking embarrassed.
‘I know what you mean,’ she assured him. Snatching up the kettle she went out to the pump. Snowflakes were falling from a leaden January sky, coating everything in crisp white powder. The air was as icy as her heart, although thankfully the water hadn’t frozen yet. Oh, why hadn’t she accepted Kitto’s ring? The thought that plagued her day and night, surfaced once again. As she stood there wondering what had possessed her to do such a stupid thing, her attention was caught by a cluster of snowdrops in the corner of the yard. Pearlescent fragility belying their toughness, they stoically stood, taking all the weather winter threw at them, and Colenso knew she would need to summon that same strength if she were to get through the coming months.
As was often the case in this more temperate part of the country, the snow didn’t settle for long, and by the end of February it had thawed, although Colenso’s feelings remained frozen, suspended in her last meeting with Kitto.
‘Come along,’ Garren urged late one afternoon. Business had been slow since the Christmas rush, and he’d closed the shop early ready to try out another of Jago’s grandmother’s recipes. ‘We need something new to entice the customers in.’
‘What are we going to make?’ she asked, trying to show an interest. Although life held no joy for her now, Garren and Mr Goss had been good to her, and she owed it to them to help keep their business going.
‘As you’ve probably noticed, many of our customers have been sneezing and coughing, so I thought we’d try this receipt for aniseed humbugs,’ he said, pointing to an illustration of little black and white cushions. ‘These are larger and stronger than the ones I’ve done previously, so we can sell them as a remedy,’ he grinned.
Once the sugar syrup was poured out onto the cooling tables, Garren cut it into two portions, one twice the size of the other. To the smaller portion he added a tiny amount of black colouring, to the other the aniseed flavouring he’d purchased earlier.
‘Right, we’d better oil our hands or they’ll be black for days,’ he told her. ‘I’ll knead the black portion while you do the other one until it satinizes, then we’ll press them together.’ They pummelled them until the mixture turned from clear to satiny and then rolled them into a sausage and strand, ensuring both were the same size. Garren placed the black strand over the white and rolled the two colours together until twice their original length. The smell was heady by now and she began to feel lightheaded.
‘Remedy working already, is it?’ he grinned, seeing her expression. ‘That’s a good sign.’ As he so often did these days, he took no offence when she didn’t reply, merely answering his own question. ‘Right, now we need to snip them into lozenges,’ he said, passing her a pair of scissors. But she worked too slowly and the mixture cooled so that she was no longer able to cut it.
‘It’s too brittle, the rotten, stupid stuff,’ she shouted, throwing it down on the table, where it shattered into shards. Horrified by her outburst of temper, she covered her eyes with her hands.
‘It’s all right, Colenso,’ Garren said softly, leading her over to the table and easing her gently into the chair. ‘Anger is the next stage of the grieving process,’ he murmured, handing her his kerchief. ‘I bought some angelica on the market and thought we might crystallize it tomorrow. It’ll soon be Mothering Sunday and it would make a good cake decoration. Of course, the whole place will reek like a distillery for a week, for the stems smell like gin when you boil them. He chatted on without expecting her to answer, and before long she felt the rage that had bubbled up from nowhere, subsiding.
With the new remedies proving popular, Colenso found herself working alongside Garren as they spent most evenings and Sundays trialling both the receipts in the journal and developing some of their own. He never asked questions yet was always ready if she wanted to talk. Although she still felt guilty at the way she’d refused Kitto’s ring, as February turned to March, she found the numbness easing slightly, leaving a heavy weight in its wake. She still couldn’t believe he was dead; yet, as there’d been no news from Wherrytown, she slowly began to accept the inevitable.
‘You need feeding up, my girl,’ Mr Goss said, placing a boiled egg in front of her. ‘Mrs Heava’s hens is laying well so there’s plenty more where they came from.’
‘And I’ve even cut a slice of bread into soldiers for you,’ Garren grinned.
‘Really, boys, I’m not a child, you know,’ she replied, a smile hovering tentatively on her lips as she saw them watching like mother hens themselves.
‘No, but you do need to eat a bit more,’ Mr Goss pointed out. Colenso nodded, for it was true her clothes were hanging off her. Even when she’d retrieved her pentacle, it had felt too heavy to wear. ‘Can’t have a scrawny scarecrow serving in my confectioners,’ he added, a twinkle in his eye.
‘You’re
