This Private Plot by Alan Beechey

Author:Alan Beechey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2014-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Friday morning

Despite its sexism, Emily Seldom secretly liked her job title, “Subpostmistress of Synne.” If she blotted out the first two syllables, it conjured appealing fantasies of an alternative life to that of a middle-aged village shopkeeper and the uneasy celibacy that went with it.

Sensing her loneliness, the vicar had dangled the diversions of his writing group before her, but like Lewis Carroll, who said nude boys “always seem to need clothes,” the strictly sapphic Emily thought the naked male body, especially as it approached her age, to be ungainly, unhygienic, and slightly ludicrous (a sentiment also shared by the majority of heterosexual women). She longed for love, but unless the woman of her dreams walked into the post office and asked for a copy of Jazzwise, she had no idea where she’d find it.

The dark-haired woman currently hovering outside the shop, beside a wire carousel of postcards of Synne, was certainly attractive in a curvy, Italianate way, and when she glanced up in Emily’s direction, revealed astonishingly large brown eyes. But she was less than half Emily’s age, and probably straight, even though it taxed the imagination to guess what she saw in her companion, a short, beady-eyed, long-nosed young man who looked like a puffin with low self-esteem. Tourists, Emily thought, blinking in a sudden flash of rainbow-edged sunlight that reflected off the music CD they were inspecting.

Odd to carry CDs rather than use mp3 files, thought Emily, but with some approval for the girl’s preference for lossless music. Odd to use over-the-ear headphones rather than convenient earbuds, but the sound quality is better. Odd to carry a portable CD player when they must have arrived by car. Emily guessed they were motorists, because they were not burdened with parkas and bloated backpacks, which inevitably knocked items off her crowded shelves.

The bell on the front door jangled, and the young man and woman came into the shop, midway through an argument, apparently about the CD.

“‘Land of Hope and Glory,’” insisted the young woman.

“‘Rule Britannia,’” bleated her companion.

The woman shook her head. “You’re totally wrong as always,” she said scathingly, then turned a dazzling smile on Emily that, in tandem with her low-cut sweater, made the incognito Mistress of Synne feel a little better about life. “Hello, do you have any bottled spring water?” she asked, while the young man walked over to the magazine rack opposite the counter.

Emily pointed out the water. “Just visiting?” she asked.

“Something like that,” the girl replied. She turned to study her friend’s back. “The naturist magazines are on the top row,” she called. “I’ll lift you up if you can’t reach. And it’s ‘Land of Hope and Glory,’ you tone-deaf wombat.”

“‘Rule Britannia,’” he mumbled back with subdued defiance, pretending to be fascinated by a kayaking magazine.

The girl switched her attention back to Emily. “Do pardon this unseemly burst of patriotism, but my fellow-citizen and I are having a mild difference of opinion. He thinks he isn’t an ignorant, pig-headed, beaky-nosed prat, and I happen to disagree on all counts.

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