Kate and Clara's Curious Cornish Craft Shop - Ali McNamara Page 0,4
a walk, Anita!’ I call down the stairs of the shop. ‘Could you or Sebastian come up for a while?’
I attach Barney’s red leather lead to his collar, and he looks up at me appreciatively so I rub behind his blond ears just where he likes it and he nuzzles my hand.
‘Don’t get too excited,’ I tell him, ‘We’re only going for a quick wander – I’ve got sewing to do later.’
Anita appears at the top of the stairs closely followed by her younger colleague Sebastian.
‘You don’t both need to come up,’ I tell them. ‘I won’t be gone long.’
‘Tea break!’ Sebastian says, clutching theatrically at his throat. ‘Gasping for a cuppa, aren’t we, Anita?’
Anita nods her grey head in agreement. ‘We’ve unpacked most of the delivery now. There are just a few fiddly bits left – crochet hooks, packets of embroidery needles … that kind of thing, but that won’t take long.’
‘You two got on with that quickly!’ I say, amazed they’ve unpacked so many of the boxes we’d had delivered to the shop earlier in the day. It was a delivery of craft equipment so the majority of it was fiddly little things that took ages to hang on the wooden rails or stack on the glass shelves downstairs.
‘We don’t mess around when we get going, do we, Anita?’ Sebastian says, putting his young arm around Anita’s much older shoulders. ‘We’re a great team!’
‘We are when you stop nattering for a minute or two,’ Anita says good-naturedly, patting the hand on her shoulder affectionately.
Barney tugs a little at his lead. ‘All right, I’m coming,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll be back in a bit. Molly might be in from school before we get back. If she is, tell her she can have no more than fifteen minutes down here in the shop before she gets on with her homework upstairs. I know you’ll be tempting her with some of your homemade cake, Anita.’
Anita smiles. ‘Ah, but she deserves it. She’s a good girl.’
‘I know she is, but I also know she’d much rather spend her time down here with you two than upstairs doing schoolwork.’
‘How did the pair of you get on at the gallery last night?’ Anita asks. ‘I heard it was a good turn-out.’
‘Yes, it was packed – you could hardly move. Amazing what a couple of free drinks and a vol-au-vent can attract. The exhibition was okay, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing. The paintings weren’t really my cup of tea. I should probably have given you the tickets, Sebastian.’
Sebastian is a student at an art college in London most of the year, but in the holidays he returns home to St Felix to live with his parents, and when he does he helps me out in the shop. We’re so much busier in the summer months that I can just about afford to employ two part-time members of staff.
Sebastian shrugs. ‘Nah, you’re all right. I’ve been to the gallery plenty of times. I don’t really know much about Winston James as it goes … was his work any good?’
I wrinkle my nose. ‘Good isn’t a word I’d use to describe it … childlike maybe?’
‘Surely you mean naive, darling!’ Sebastian says with a flourish of his hands. ‘That’s what the critics always say when something looks like it’s been painted by a three-year-old.’
I loved that about Sebastian – even though he was an art student himself he never really behaved like one. He wasn’t ‘airy fairy’ as Anita had suggested he might be when I told her I was hiring him last summer. He called a spade a spade and I admired his honesty. Yes, he was lively and a bit over the top at times, but he had a good heart, was a hard worker and the customers loved him.
‘I’m sure that word would most definitely have been bandied about last night,’ I say, winking at him. ‘Okay, Barney!’ I tell the golden Labrador nosing into my leg, ‘I really am coming this time.’
‘Before you go, Kate,’ Anita says, ‘I forgot to tell you – Noah called in earlier from the antiques shop. He says he might have something of interest to you.’
‘Really?’ I ask, wondering what on earth Noah could have that I might want. ‘Right, thanks. I’ll pop in after Barney’s walk.’
Barney and I leave Anita and Sebastian to their tea and no doubt a good gossip, and we make our way quickly along the street down towards the harbour.