The Secrets We Left Behind by Susan Elliot Wright

Author:Susan Elliot Wright [Wright, Susan Elliot]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471102363
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

As she made her way back to the stall, she reflected on how poor little Andrew had instantly forgiven his mother for slapping him, and then her thoughts returned to her own mum. Had she properly forgiven her? It was easy to forgive the irrational, drink-sodden arguments, the being sick in the bathroom, the embarrassment of her mum’s drunken attempts to banter with her friends. But what hurt the most was the sense of abandonment, the sense that she’d only really had a mother until she was twelve or thirteen, because by that time the booze had definitely become more important. Once, Jo had deliberately stolen a Miners eye shadow and lipstick from the counter in Woolworth’s, half hoping she’d get caught, because she wanted to make her mother do something for her, even if it was only coming to pick her up from the police station.

She slipped back behind the stall and sat down. People were walking past with towering pink mounds of candyfloss, and the sugary smell was making her feel sick. Scott had been gone a long time; she wished he’d hurry up – she was dying for a cold drink. There were still quite a few people stopping to look at the jewellery. An old lady was fanning herself with one of the same fans Jo had bought earlier. She smiled at Jo and pointed to a pair of lapis lazuli earrings. They’d taken Eve quite a long time to make, and they were beautiful – deep blue stones with a gold vein, in good-quality settings. Probably quite expensive compared to the other earrings, which were mainly made using shells or glass stones with cheap metal settings.

‘Those blue ones are so pretty, aren’t they? It’s my daughter-in-law’s twenty-first coming up and they’re definitely her sort of thing.’ The woman held them up and looked more closely. ‘How much are they, dear?’

‘I’ll have a look.’ Jo opened the tobacco tin to check the price. A fat, oily bluebottle landed on her arm and she batted it away. The price list wasn’t there. It must have fallen out. Perhaps she’d knocked it onto the grass. ‘Just a sec,’ she said to the customer as she lifted the tablecloth. She knelt down and looked under the table, certain she’d see the piece of paper covered with Eve’s neat handwriting resting there in the dry grass, but no. Surely it couldn’t have blown away? There was barely any breeze.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the woman. ‘I can’t seem to find the price list—’

‘Shall I pop back a bit later, then?’

She hesitated. If she let the woman go now, she might not come back. ‘I think they’re about . . .’ They weren’t cheap, she knew, because Eve said there was a good profit on them, but they were quite expensive to make and she only ever made a few pairs at a time because she didn’t sell a lot of them, not like the other earrings, which were selling like hot cakes at a pound and £1.

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