Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams
Page 71

Edison quickly made some changes to his drawing.
‘I’m putting him in,’ said the boy. ‘He is a very mean dentist.’
Rosie looked at him. The idea of Roy Blaine taking over Lilian’s beloved shop and turning it into some hi-tech tooth emporium made her feel absolutely miserable. He’d rip out all the shelves and the counter and the fixtures and … She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to sell it like this.
‘He is,’ she said. ‘He is a very mean dentist.’ She glanced down. If she had to have a six-year-old hanging around now Gerard had gone, it might as well be this one.
The shop filled up quickly. Many people who had come into Lipton from the surrounding villages exclaimed with delight at the restoration of their beloved sweetshop, missing from so many market days past. Tentatively they asked for their favourite, asked after Lilian, exclaimed as to how much Rosie resembled her, and beamed when Rosie deftly twirled and passed the little striped paper bags full of memories out into the crowd.
The morning flew past, the door and the till ringing busily, the shop full of children pointing excitedly, and their parents surreptitiously helping themselves to the fudge tasters Rosie had temptingly placed on top of the glass cabinets. Things were going so well, Rosie almost forgot about her terrible start to the day, persuading Anton that only four sugar mice were more than enough to get him through the next half-hour as he waited for his wife to get back from the fête. Indeed, Chrissie popped in to fetch him, and admired the shop as soon as she arrived.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘And I’m on the organising committee for the tombola. I never thought, we could have touched you for a donation.’
‘Of course you can,’ said Rosie. ‘What about a big box of chocs?’
‘You’re a darling!’ The two women looked at each other. Anton’s wife had her hands full of shopping, and a steadying arm on Anton.
‘Why don’t I bring them down later?’ said Rosie. ‘I’ll probably need a walk.’
‘That would be fantastic,’ said Chrissie.
‘You know,’ said Rosie to the pair of them, ‘you could run this sweetshop.’
There was a ringing of the door right behind her. Rosie didn’t even have to turn round.
‘What are you doing now, Hopkins?’ said Moray, sighing. ‘I wish you’d stop trying to kill all my patients.’
‘I meant,’ said Rosie, ‘when he’s slim enough to get behind the counter. Like a challenge. What do you think, Anton?’
Anton looked thrilled, his wife less so.
‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you up any ladders.’
‘I would like to run a sweetshop,’ said Anton.
‘No!’ said Moray. ‘Out of here.’
Anton looked glumly into his now-empty paper bag. ‘I don’t even remember eating those mice.’
‘Will you just get him that gastric band appointment?’ said Rosie.
‘No!’ said Moray. Anton heaved his vast bulk out of the shop, a tad sadly.
‘I only sold him four,’ said Rosie defiantly. ‘I talked him down from nineteen.’
Moray checked his watch. ‘Well, we’ve been in the same space for almost four minutes and nothing has turned up bleeding to death. A record for us, wouldn’t you say?’
Rosie smiled. ‘What can I get you?’
‘Just some mints. I’m judging the baking and some of those old ladies get a tad overenthusiastic when they win.’
‘I bet they do,’ said Rosie. Moray was looking very dapper today in his green tweed jacket and checked shirt. She was less sure about the mustard-coloured trousers.
‘Are you looking at my trousers?’ asked Moray.
‘Yes, but I’ll stop before I go blind.’
‘They’re country,’ said Moray. ‘Anyway, you are in no position to be making sartorial comments.’ Which was the exact moment when, in a blinding flash, Rosie realised – it wasn’t like her to be slow; after all, she’d been surrounded by male nurses – that Moray hadn’t been asking her out on dates.
‘They are a little bit country and a little bit rock ’n’ roll,’ said Rosie, grinning at him with sudden – what? Relief? Disappointment? ‘Do they like you, those little old ladies?’
‘They mostly like doctors who have been on television,’ said Moray, crunching into a Mint Imperial. ‘But in their absence, yes, sometimes I have to do.’
‘What’s happened?’ asked Rosie, impatiently. ‘How’s Stephen?’
‘I thought you were going to go with the ambulance,’ said Moray.
‘Yup,’ said Rosie. ‘But once that old bag was on the scene …’
‘She’s all right, Hetty,’ said Moray. ‘Her life is just a bit different to ours, that’s all. Remember, she only lost her husband last year.’
Rosie instantly felt a bit guilty. It was true, she’d been thinking of Stephen’s parents, whoever they were, as awful deserters. But she’d only ever seen one side of the story.
‘Anyway?’
‘Anyway,’ said Moray, lowering his voice as Rosie served two teenagers enormous portions of candy bananas. ‘I called the hospital this morning. They got plenty of blood into him. He was very weak, but they put him on a drip. He was malnourished too.’
Rosie suddenly got a flashback to his pale, white chest.
‘Good,’ she said, unconvinced.
‘Then as soon as they’d checked him out – I did a beautiful stitching job by all accounts—’
‘Helped by me,’ said Rosie.
‘By my glamorous assistant, yes. Anyway, as soon as they’d patched him up, he insisted on discharging himself. Doesn’t like hospitals apparently.’
Rosie tried to think of him alone in a military field hospital in Africa. She wasn’t at all surprised.
‘So. Just goes to show he should have done this months ago. Bloody stubborn idiot,’ said Moray.
‘Sounds as if you rather like the bloody stubborn idiot.’
‘Oh, Stephen was always different. Always his own man,’ said Moray. He picked up his bag of sweets. ‘And some Golf Balls,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop them off at Peak House.’
‘Were you guys good friends?’ asked Rosie.