and all the renovations and work she’d had done just last year … She let out a long, slow sigh. All her plans for this season, the prosecco parties, the summer ahead … She couldn’t begin to imagine leaving this place.
‘Right, Emma Carter. These chocolates will not make themselves. Get to work,’ she rallied herself. She began to pour dark chocolate callets into a stainless steel bowl ready for tempering. She’d craft by hand tonight, leave the tempering machine which she used at busy times sleeping, it’d keep her active and take her mind off her troubles.
The next morning, after a troubled sleep, Emma was up early. It was a bright and sunny late-April day. She took a large mug of coffee and a warm chocolate croissant that she’d just made and went to sit outside in the back-yard area behind the shop. Alfie lay down beside her feet, hoping to catch a crumb or two.
It was pretty there, a walled courtyard with cream flagstones as a patio. She had a little table and two chairs set up and there were flower pots of varying sizes, now full of bold pink and yellow tulips and the last of the spring daffodils, and a rambling rose took up the side of one wall. In summer the rose was a mass of ballerina-pink delicate blooms. The sun was just peeping over the wall, lighting her corner of the yard, but the whole area caught the sunshine through the afternoon. It was such a nice place to sit, to relax.
A thought began forming in her mind: maybe her customers would like that too. A sunny space to serve her café customers during the spring and summer. A courtyard café, full of chocolate cake, milkshakes, ice creams and more. But then, after her landlord’s ominous visit, would she still be here? Would Mr Neil have his way and hand in her notice on the lease at any time? But she couldn’t just give in and give up on a maybe. And she’d need every penny she could get if the rent was about to go up again, because she might be competing with some other party interested in taking over her shop. If she was going to go down, she’d go down bloody fighting.
Yes, it should be fairly easy to get some more outdoor furniture. She could look around a few house clearances, car boot sales, ask around. So, she couldn’t afford new, but with a splash of paint, and some TLC … She began to feel the stirrings of hope. She needed to believe there was still a future for her here. The alternative was just too horrid.
She finished her croissant, giving Alfie the last buttery corner and a pat on the head.
‘It might just work, Alfie. What do you think?’
They just had time to take a walk down to the beach before opening. Emma grabbed Alfie’s lead and popped a couple of dog biscuits in her pocket. It was a beautiful morning, a day not to be wasted, and her head had been so full of stuff last night, it might help settle her mood. The future of the shop in the balance, Mr Neil’s visit, that strange tourist who may or may not have looked like Luke – she’d never find out now – and these new thoughts of making a courtyard café area: it was all spinning about in her mind like a kaleidoscope.
They headed out through the back gate, around to the main street of quaint stone cottages, down the hill to the small harbour where a few fishing boats bobbed on a gentle sea and a couple of seagulls swooped in the morning sky. It was still quite early, so apart from a delivery van and its driver who gave her a friendly nod outside the grocer’s, she didn’t see anyone she knew. The harbour was quiet nowadays, the fishing fleet down to just five boats – so different from the tales of ‘back in the day’ from old Mrs Clark when she was a little girl, when there had apparently been up to twenty, most of them going out to catch the herring, the ‘silver darlings’ as the older generation of villagers had called them, that they brought back to smoke and make into kippers in the smokehouses.
Emma would sometimes let her mind wander to the harsh realities of the Warkton-by-the-Sea fisherfolk and theirs lives onshore and at sea decades ago. The men having to leave their wives and children back home to head out on perilous seas. The women mending the nets and trying to keep warm, holding it all together to keep a family fed. Emma enjoyed Mrs Clark’s tales, and was often drawn in by the sepia photos of village life that still lined the walls of The Fisherman’s Arms. The sea was as much a part of this place as the land.
The fishing boats still brought in some herring and there were crabs, scallops and occasionally langoustines and in the summer season the lobster pots would be set out on their lines. Today, a couple of the cobles had been pulled up on the shore with their colourful nets and lobster pots beside them. The hull of an old rowing boat had been made into a lovely flower display down by the harbour too. It was such a pretty spot.
Emma and Alfie carried on towards the dunes. They soon emerged from the sandy track on to the crescent-shaped bay where the colours of sand and sea were a wash of blues, greys and ochre and the sky still held a blush of early-morning pink and peach. The sun was beginning to warm and waves frothed to shore, the surf gentle today in a light late-spring breeze. She picked up a driftwood stick and launched it for Alfie, who dived after it into the breakers. Being a spaniel, he loved the water, and was a good swimmer. He soon returned with the stick in his jaws to shake an arc of salty droplets around him, spraying her lightly, which made her smile. It was calming down there on the beach – a leveller. Whatever worries you had didn’t seem quite so bad somehow, diminished as they were against the vastness of sky and sea, the soothing sounds of the waves rolling in in a hush.
Emma sat on a rock for a while, taking in the sights and sounds of the bay, breathing in the fresh salty air. Whatever concerns she had today about the shop were nothing to what she had been through, what she had learnt to cope with in her past. She was a survivor. She’d be okay.
‘Come on Alfie. We’d better get back. I have a Chocolate Shop to open up.’
And so they made their way back up the dunes, back up the hill to The Chocolate Shop by the Sea that was home.
Emma was working on her own today, which had kept her occupied and her mind off all those other things. It was nearly four o’clock when a familiar face popped around the front door: Holly.
‘Hi, Em. I thought I’d call in and see how you are after yesterday.’ She didn’t say any more, as there were a couple of tourists sitting in the window seat, finishing off their pot of tea.
Emma appreciated her assistant’s discretion; they both knew she was referring to the landlord’s visit.
‘Aw, thanks. I’m okay – just wondering what the nasty devil’s scheming,’ Em added in a whisper. ‘But I’m fine. I just need to concentrate on making The Chocolate Shop the best it can be. That’s all I can do.’
‘Yeah, absolutely. It’s already fab here anyway. Mind you, I do like the sound of the prosecco parties idea. Bev mentioned it to me when I bumped into her; she’s planning a trial run, you know.’
‘Is she now?’ Bev hadn’t mentioned anything to Em about that as yet.
‘Oops, wasn’t I meant to say anything? I thought you’d agreed.’
‘First I’ve heard of it.’ Em gave a wry grin.
‘Ah, well Bev said it was going to take a while for the licensing to go through.’
Yes, there had been a lot more to it, when Emma had looked into it with the local council; she’d need to do a licensing course and then apply to the local authority for a licence after that.
‘So, Bev thought we could give it a practice run. We’d all bring the prosecco and you’d …’
‘Supply the chocolates,’ Em finished for her.
‘Exactly.
