Chapter Six

      Callie paused in Allthorpe High Street to look up at the sign, fashioned from bronze in the shape of a ball of wool stabbed through with a pair of knitting needles. Gingerberry Yarns, it announced. She smiled despite her sadness as she recalled the day it had been delivered; first the shock, then the burst of hilarity her mum and Aunt Hannah had shared.

      In a certain light, the signage looked just like a skull and crossbones. Would customers think they were pirates, Hannah had asked. Delia had been summonsed for her valued opinion, but after much deliberation over the big brown teapot, they had all declared they loved it and hung it outside the shop with tongue-in-cheek pride. It would be a talking point if nothing else. They’d christened its erection with a bottle of Prosecco rosé and a Victoria sponge cake filled with oodles of jam and cream from old Tom Wallington’s bakery on the corner.

      Gingerberry Yarns had been closed for a week as a mark of respect after the passing of her aunt. Shading her eyes, she peered through the grime-coated window. The little shop still held a hint of magic for Callie – once inside the door, the visitor would be enveloped in a warm comfort blanket, safe, just for a few moments, from all the traumas life tossed in their path. She inserted the key Seb had given her and opened the door. The brass bell above her head reverberated with a jaunty chime of welcome but it jarred against Callie’s ragged nerves.

      ‘At last dear, it’s perishing out here. What kept you?’ Delia bustled in behind her, a rich aroma of warm baked croissants following in her wake and permeating the shop’s motionless air. ‘I’ll just butter these whilst they’re still warm. Young Tom Wallington really is proving to be a baking maestro. These croissants of his melt in your mouth. You should taste his cherry scones, Callie, but his cheese and rosemary versions are simply delicious, too. If you ask me, his talents are wasted in Allthorpe after all that training he did in Paris and at Betty’s, but, well, his father can’t…’ Delia’s prattling dropped off when she noticed Callie’s expression. ‘I’ll pop the kettle on. See you upstairs when you’re ready for a cuppa.’

      Callie’s eyes followed Delia’s plump backside as she disappeared up the stairs to perform the same task she had done every morning for the last fifteen years, only this time for her best friend’s niece. She stepped further into the high-ceilinged room, memories crashing through her thoughts whilst she listened to the cheerful tinkling of cutlery and cups as Delia busied herself in the upstairs kitchen, one that was as familiar as her own.

      Callie smoothed her palm over the glass-topped counter, its surface reflecting her pixie-like features and the misery swirling in the far corners of her soul. A wave of desolation rippled over her when she realised Gingerberry Yarns would never again be blessed with the smiling presence of its proprietor. The fact that the world could keep on turning despite this devastating knowledge annoyed her.

      She cast her professional eye around the room. Her recent absence afforded her the opportunity to scrutinise its outmoded contents with a fresh perspective. What her eyes met instilled no creative enthusiasm. The place was old-fashioned and shabby at the edges. Why hadn’t she noticed this careworn façade before?

      Puffs of dust and sadness hovered amongst the packed wicker baskets. Garlands of twisted yarn nestled in cubbyholes or behind glass doors with tiny brass knobs more befitting a gentleman’s outfitters from the fifties. The shop was well stocked but everything on the shelves depicted a bygone era when communities were tight and pockets tighter. It was a place you would find your granny holding court, not a young mothers’ chinwag or a teenagers’ coterie of gossip. But then, ‘Gran’s Woollen Emporium’ was exactly what Gingerberry Yarns was – an old people’s social club or a place for the knitting circle from the local WI to persuade their deft fingers to twirl yarn into garments for the needy.

      Polished teak shelves ran round the remaining two sides of the room, stuffed with lurid, multicoloured acrylics Callie had last seen on Barbie. Where were the natural lamb’s wools, the organic silks, the fair-trade cottons? Even the Aran was synthetic.

      Knitting needles had been jammed into spaghetti jars like forests of pasta. Cards of pearl buttons and other assorted fastenings dangled from racks of chipped steel. The sample garments displayed on coat hangers on old mahogany hat stands, clearly knitted by her aunt or Delia, to Callie’s trained eye resembled bed jackets for the terminally ill. There were so many trendy designs coming out of Scandinavia at the moment, inspired by the wave of crime fiction that had been serialised for television, and the art of knitting was now a celebrity-endorsed pastime. She thought of the chunky Danish sweaters Scarlet adored; hers was red and cream, a prized possession that had cost her well over four hundred pounds.

      Her fertile designer’s mind drifted to the Kaffe Fassett designs, works of art every one of them, all sculpted in natural wools, if not organic or locally sourced. She remembered the ‘stitch and bitch’ sessions she had attended when a penniless student in Newcastle, where, for the price of a cup of coffee in the local Costa, she’d spent warm, aroma-filled evenings with a diverse gathering of friends, from eager teenagers to harassed new mums grabbing a couple of hours of sanity away from the baby, and even professional women escaping the testosterone-infused office for a more girly activity that would not be judged against the bottom line.

      The shop sported the most magnificent glass-plate frontage with its title embossed in arched gold lettering. But the window was almost opaque with rain-streaked grime and its display of misshapen sweaters did not invite curious perusal by passing window-shoppers.

      In the farthest corner of the room, behind the counter where Callie slumped, her elbow supporting her chin, Hannah and Delia had squeezed in an enormous antique mahogany table, complete with green leather inlay as wrinkled as an octogenarian’s knees; its tooled edges inlaid with gold leaf and the deep scratches testament to the passage of time. Around this monstrosity huddled a disconsolate selection of equally ancient hard-backed chairs. A couple sported chintzy cushions as a nod to the comfort of their users’ buttocks.

      Clearly this was where the serious business of the day was conducted – just not the money-making kind. It seemed as though ghosts still lingered there, at the table, completing unfinished projects before they could rest in peace.

      The whole store screamed warmth and comfort; a genteel, English lady’s boudoir of the 1950s. Its painted walls blistered and flaky to the touch, its flooring worn and patched. Places like Gingerberry Yarns would not have survived in the metropolises of Leeds and Manchester. They had been replaced by trendy wine bars and the ubiquitous coffee shops, estate agents and nail bars, although even these businesses were struggling now.

      Callie glanced out of the front window to the row of shops across the road that mirrored theirs. Marietta’s Hairdressing Salon, its windows reflecting the golden glow of the mid-morning sun,