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Authors: Madeleine Reiss
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transform the rich dark stuff into elaborate confections. Carrie and Jen would, of course, be in charge of mixing and tasting and if there was anything left, wrapping the end product in the finest tissue paper and placing it in heart-shaped boxes lined with purple velvet.
When Jen resurrected the idea of the shop, Carrie saw it as a chance for a new focus in her life. Since Charlie had gone, she had simply existed from day to day, with nothing to concentrate on except her pain. Carrie re-mortgaged her house and Jen sold the flat in Clapham that her father had bought her all those years ago and which was now worth a lot of money, despite the long line of students that had rented and trashed the place. She was between jobs and dumped boyfriends and had been spending so much time with Carrie anyway that the move into her brotherâs vacant house was the obvious thing to do.
It took them only two weeks to find and secure the little shop. The rent on the place was headache inducing, but they knew that with a bit of luck and a lot of graft, they could make it work. For a town the size of Cambridge, there werenât very many shops in which people could find things they hadnât seen elsewhere. In its previous life, the shop had been an opticians and had been painted a depressing shade of grey as if the owner had made the decision that vibrant colour would have been wasted on the visually challenged. They gutted the place, clearing out the shelves and mirrored glass and replacing them with pale wallpaper decorated with lavender-coloured birds perched on branches. They found a huge old mirror in a charity shop and painted the battered frame silver and a glass-topped counter that used to live in an underwear shop came from the same source. They discovered sturdy wooden floorboards under the carpet and painted them white.
On the day
Trove
opened Carrie received her divorce papers and a card from Damian wishing her luck with the new shop. âIt will be a new beginning for you,â he had written. âA chance to move forward. I wish you happiness and no more pain.â
Carrie wished it was as easy as he made it sound to begin again. Beginning again implied there had been an ending â but for Carrie there would never be an ending until she knew for certain what had happened to her child.
Chapter Ten
At lunchtime, Molly got a message from the school secretary that the head teacher from Maxâs school had rung up requesting to speak to her.
âItâs not an emergency,â the secretary told Molly, âbut she says could you try and phone her back before the end of the day if you get the chance.â
Molly hastily laid out the tables for the afternoon art session with pots of paint and glitter. She remembered the year before and the scramble to help decorate thirty cardboard picture frames with silver-painted pasta in the half an hour before term ended, and vowed that this time she would have the going-home presents ready well in advance. She stood outside the staff room and phoned Maxâs school on her mobile. She was put through to Mrs Plumstead, a woman who believed in getting straight to the point and who probably had never left anything to the last minute in her entire career. Max called her the Dalek because of the way she talked in little bursts of instruction. âWash your hands,â he would say in a Dalek voice. âGet your lunch. Stop running. Stand behind your desk. Sing louder. Talk more quietly. We wiiiiill exterminate! Exterminate!â
âIâm rather worried about Max,â Mrs Plumstead said now. âI am afraid he had another little episode this morning.â Mollyâs heart sank. She knew the use of âepisodeâ meant that Max had wet himself again.
âItâs just that itâs happening more and more frequently. I really think perhaps he should see a doctor. He seems a little stressed. Iâm also rather concerned about his inability to
When Jen resurrected the idea of the shop, Carrie saw it as a chance for a new focus in her life. Since Charlie had gone, she had simply existed from day to day, with nothing to concentrate on except her pain. Carrie re-mortgaged her house and Jen sold the flat in Clapham that her father had bought her all those years ago and which was now worth a lot of money, despite the long line of students that had rented and trashed the place. She was between jobs and dumped boyfriends and had been spending so much time with Carrie anyway that the move into her brotherâs vacant house was the obvious thing to do.
It took them only two weeks to find and secure the little shop. The rent on the place was headache inducing, but they knew that with a bit of luck and a lot of graft, they could make it work. For a town the size of Cambridge, there werenât very many shops in which people could find things they hadnât seen elsewhere. In its previous life, the shop had been an opticians and had been painted a depressing shade of grey as if the owner had made the decision that vibrant colour would have been wasted on the visually challenged. They gutted the place, clearing out the shelves and mirrored glass and replacing them with pale wallpaper decorated with lavender-coloured birds perched on branches. They found a huge old mirror in a charity shop and painted the battered frame silver and a glass-topped counter that used to live in an underwear shop came from the same source. They discovered sturdy wooden floorboards under the carpet and painted them white.
On the day
Trove
opened Carrie received her divorce papers and a card from Damian wishing her luck with the new shop. âIt will be a new beginning for you,â he had written. âA chance to move forward. I wish you happiness and no more pain.â
Carrie wished it was as easy as he made it sound to begin again. Beginning again implied there had been an ending â but for Carrie there would never be an ending until she knew for certain what had happened to her child.
Chapter Ten
At lunchtime, Molly got a message from the school secretary that the head teacher from Maxâs school had rung up requesting to speak to her.
âItâs not an emergency,â the secretary told Molly, âbut she says could you try and phone her back before the end of the day if you get the chance.â
Molly hastily laid out the tables for the afternoon art session with pots of paint and glitter. She remembered the year before and the scramble to help decorate thirty cardboard picture frames with silver-painted pasta in the half an hour before term ended, and vowed that this time she would have the going-home presents ready well in advance. She stood outside the staff room and phoned Maxâs school on her mobile. She was put through to Mrs Plumstead, a woman who believed in getting straight to the point and who probably had never left anything to the last minute in her entire career. Max called her the Dalek because of the way she talked in little bursts of instruction. âWash your hands,â he would say in a Dalek voice. âGet your lunch. Stop running. Stand behind your desk. Sing louder. Talk more quietly. We wiiiiill exterminate! Exterminate!â
âIâm rather worried about Max,â Mrs Plumstead said now. âI am afraid he had another little episode this morning.â Mollyâs heart sank. She knew the use of âepisodeâ meant that Max had wet himself again.
âItâs just that itâs happening more and more frequently. I really think perhaps he should see a doctor. He seems a little stressed. Iâm also rather concerned about his inability to
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