‘Okay, now I know you’re taking the piss and I need to get to the shop before it closes. Can you imagine Kellow Cottages without tea bags in it?’
‘God, no. I think the whole place might fall down! Like the ravens leaving the Tower.’
‘Exactly.’
The girls continued their march along the path until Merrin stopped in her tracks and looked back towards the cottage, picturing the safety of her mother’s parlour.
‘You can do this, Merry.’
‘Okay.’ She closed her eyes and briefly gripped her friend as tightly as she was able without squishing the sleeping Glynn, before they peeled off in different directions.
‘Can you pick me up some Pringles, salt and vinegar?’ Bella called over her shoulder.
Merrin stuck her tongue out at her friend’s back.
‘I know what you’re doing,’ Bella tutted.
Merrin rounded her shoulders, as if this might offer some small disguise as she waited by the step of Everit’s for the tourist family to come out with their booty. A standard haul, by the looks of things: an ice cream each for the kids, a large bag of toffee popcorn, no doubt for movie night, a bottle of white, a slab of Cornish Blue cheese, a jar of The Cornish Larder chutney and Popti crackers. She knew that no matter how old she got, this place would always take her back to her childhood, when, with warm pennies gripped tightly in her palm, she and Ruby would scan the sweetie counter and agonise over which to choose. Even right now in her early twenties, the temptation to march in and ask Mrs Everit for a quarter of pineapple cubes or a slack handful of fizzy shrimps was strong. She took a deep breath and walked in.
‘Oh Lord! Oh, Merrin!’
She heard the shock in Mrs Everit’s tone and was a little confused, having expected the woman to rush forward with a deep hug, or at the very least to go into verbal overdrive, telling her how she and Mr Everit had fared since her last visit. But this greeting sounded almost panicked. It was hard not to think about the last time she had seen her, running back from her devastating encounter with Digby, her heart broken and with her pretty wedding make-up streaking her tear-soaked face. It was only when Merrin let her eyes settle on the woman with her back to her in front of the counter that the reason for Mrs Everit’s tone registered.
Merrin felt the breath catch in her throat and knew beyond a doubt that if the shopkeeper hadn’t given her away, she would have quietly taken the three steps backwards and left the shop as discreetly as she had entered. The slender legs in jeans, riding boots and a neat, pale-blue shirt, tucked in, belonged to none other than Digby’s mother.
The woman turned sharply, her eyes narrowed, as if it took a second to place her, though that could have been down to the fact that Merrin was far skinnier now than she had been in those days, and also the loss of her long hair. Merrin felt her legs shake and was convinced her tremble would be apparent to anyone looking. She forced her limbs rigid as if this might hide her nerves. The blood ran from her head, leaving her feeling simultaneously faint and icy cold.
‘Hello.’ Loretta’s tone was clipped and her manner that of someone addressing a stranger.
‘Hello.’ Despite the sinking feeling in her stomach, Merrin was not going to look away or blink or cower in front of this woman. Merrin, knowing her husband, old Mr Guthrie Mortimer, had passed away around the same time as Granny Ellen, was wondering how or whether to offer her condolences, when the woman, who looked remarkably together for one who had only a year since been widowed, spoke calmly and steered the conversation.
‘I believe congratulations are in order. Your sister’s getting married, isn’t she?’ Her fingers flexed ever so slightly around her handbag.
‘That’s right.’ Merrin held her ground. Why, Loretta? Why were you so foul? What did I ever do to you? Many was the night she had imagined this meeting and this conversation, picturing how she would stand firm and demand answers from the woman who had so nearly become her motherin-law. But when it came to it, Merrin realised she wasn’t up for the fight, didn’t want to dredge the murky waters of her misery and wanted nothing more than to be as far away from the woman as possible. Loretta Mortimer was toxic and the less she had to do with her, the better chance she had of coming away unscathed. Merrin looked briefly towards the door, her head jerking involuntarily as she calculated whether she might get to it before she was sick.
‘Lovely.’ Her one-word response, but with an expression that suggested she thought it was anything but.
‘Merrin’s got a smashing job; she’s a manager at a fancy castle hotel just outside of Bristol, in’t that right, Merrin? Heather is very proud, and rightly so. We all are.’
Sweet Mrs Everit was all of a dither, her face puce, as she tried to present Merrin’s life as a success to this woman who everyone in Port Charles knew had played a part in her downfall.
‘That’s right, Mrs Everit.’ She smiled at the woman, who was inadvertently giving the other woman information she would rather wasn’t shared. With her hand on the bread rack, she did her best to steady her legs, which now felt rooted to the spot.
‘How charming. Well, shan’t keep you!’ Mrs Mortimer plucked her wicker shopping basket from the countertop and fixed her smile. ‘I do hope the weather holds for your sister. They say there might be a storm coming in.’
‘They say a lotta things,’ Merrin countered, ‘but I don’t pay no attention to none of it.’ It was deliberate, her double negative and her slide into an accent stronger than she was used to. She watched the woman sweep past without so much as a sideways glance, before the little bell tinkled, as if to herald her departure. She turned to face the kindly shopkeeper who was as much a fixture of the place as the brick itself, and let out a long, slow exhale as she blinked, feeling giddy, but also a little proud that she had not buckled, not entirely.