The Little Gift Shop on the Loch: A delightfully uplifting read for 2019!

Lily could only smile her appreciation, well aware she wasn’t exactly looking her sparkly best.

‘Talking of which,’ Iris said, ‘when was the last time you took a holiday?’

Lily pursed her lip.

‘Just as I thought.’ Iris shook her head. ‘Why don’t you just take some time for yourself? Time to just be, time to think – that’s what you need and Carroch is the perfect place.’

Lily nodded blandly. That’s what she’d been avoiding; the thought of empty time terrified her.

‘You could always come for a swim.’ Iris turned to her with bright eyes. ‘Do you remember how you used to love it?’

Lily vividly remembered. Swimming in the loch was one of the few things she’d actually looked forward to in Carroch, her mother having passed on her love of wild swimming. Patty had never taken Lily to girl guides or dance lessons or any of the other activities girls in her school had gone to, but one thing she’d insisted on was teaching Lily to swim from an early age. Although she deplored the chlorinated, characterless heated swimming pools, she had endured them each week to teach Lily to swim.

‘There’s a group meet every morning around eight, down by the jetty. I go most days but you can just turn up.’

‘Perhaps.’ Lily replied noncommittally but she didn’t dismiss the idea totally. She was touched that Iris had included her and felt suddenly lifted by her presence. ‘Thanks for coming today, Iris,’ she said gratefully. ‘Although you didn’t have to rush around today.’

‘I was coming to the shop today anyway.’

‘Oh?’

‘I didn’t tell you on the phone but I would have been here today for the knit club.’

‘Knit club?’ Lily echoed in surprise. Her mother wasn’t exactly the tea and knitting type.

‘Your mum didn’t knit but it was all her idea. One of the ladies in the village your mum was friendly with had recently moved into sheltered housing a few miles away. Patty used to go and visit her and she became friendly with several of the other women living there too. She came up with the idea to use the back room here as a knitting club, somewhere they could come for a change of scenery and bit of company each week. She arranged the transport and everything.’

Lily followed her through a door to what she had assumed was some sort of storage space but was in fact a bright room with a window looking out onto the small back garden. A large trestle table sat in the middle of the floor surrounded by an assortment of chairs and there was a small sideboard piled with tea making things next to a small sink.

‘It had only been running a few weeks and after your mum … well, we carried on. It seemed a shame to stop it when the ladies enjoyed it so much. I hope you didn’t mind?’

‘Of course not.’ Lily hadn’t known about the knitting club but was hardly going to turn up now and start objecting. She looked down suddenly, feeling a brush of something against her leg to see the cat had sauntered in, looking for all the world as if she owned the place. Which now she came to think about it, she kind of did.

‘Hello Misty,’ Iris chirped.

‘I didn’t know Mum had a cat?’ Lily watched Iris bend down to briefly welcome their feline visitor.

Iris wrinkled her forehead. ‘Ah, did I not mention that? She and your mother, well they sort of adopted one another. I would have taken her but I’m terribly allergic and so we decided to let her stay here. Jack lives nearby and very kindly agreed to help out. She’s quite clean though, don’t worry. We took her to the vet’s and had her all checked out.’

‘I met him last night – Jack. Gave me a bit of shock, I can tell you.’

‘Yes, I imagine he would have,’ Iris chuckled. ‘I don’t suppose he’d have been expecting you either.’

Lily hadn’t thought of it like that and it occurred to her now she may have appeared rude last night. But for some reason she couldn’t work out, their brief encounter unnerved her. Maybe it was guilt, knowing she should have been the one helping out, not him. Or maybe it was because there’d been something about his physical presence – almost a vague familiarity – she’d been too aware off.

‘I’m very grateful to Jack, I can tell you. With everything he’s got on he still took time to help with Misty. He’s an absolute gem – you’ll see that once you get to know him.’

Lily bit her lip realising she’d probably overreacted last night. But given that she had no intention of getting to know Jack Armstrong better anyway, she kept her thoughts to herself and changed the subject.

‘What can I do to help?’ she asked, glancing around.

‘Putting the kettle on would be a good place to start.’

Lily let the water run for a few seconds, trying to recollect the shop from her previous visits. ‘Who owned the shop before mum bought it?’

‘For years it was the post office, you’ll probably remember Mrs Mackie running it. She was a bit of a character,’ Iris reminisced fondly. ‘There was more gossip passed over that counter than anything else. But when they closed the post office down she decided to sell up and sold it to a couple from London.’

Iris shook her head. ‘It was all very sad. Alice and Robert were high-flying lawyers in London and this was their retirement dream. They had great plans for the place and they’d had the shop all fitted out with shelving and storage. But then Robert’s health began to deteriorate. He had a long illness and Alice nursed him but of course the shop was closed all that time. After he passed away, she couldn’t bring herself to open the shop.’

‘That’s so sad,’ Lily sympathised. ‘So what happened?’

‘Alice wanted to sell the shop but wasn’t interested in the money. I think for her it was more important who bought the shop. She and your mum had become friendly and so that was when Patty decided to buy the shop from her – it never went on the open market. Your grandparents had passed away so she was in a position to be able to make an offer. I do know she insisted on giving Alice a good price though – said she wouldn’t buy it otherwise.’

Lily knew that to be the case from Mr Bell. More or less everything Patty had received from the sale of her parents’ house had gone into buying the shop. ‘So do you know exactly what Mum was planning to do?’

Iris puffed out her cheeks, thinking. ‘We spoke a bit about it, she had ideas. She saw it as an adventure more than anything. She didn’t have a business plan or anything like that.’

Lily hesitated, then gently asked, ‘Do you think she was really serious about it all?’

Iris sighed with a sad smile. ‘You know your mum. I think she was more interested in the people who would come in and the spirit of the shop. She wanted it to be a happy place.’

Lily nodded. She could certainly imagine her mother doing that. Patty had never cared about any outward signs of success or prosperity or been driven by money. She’d also never been particularly focused on anything not had a job for any length of time before becoming bored and moving on.

Lily had never heard her mother sound as excited as when she told her she’d bought the shop with a small flat above and hoped with all her heart she had finally found what she was looking for. She’d been surprised when her mum had called to ask her a few questions about stock and pricing but had happily answered all her questions, managing to bury the little nag of doubt that it was just another adventure that wouldn’t last.

Lily had fully intended to come up and visit her mother but it had been a crucial time at work. Dunn Equity had just taken over Bremners and Lily had started working closely with James – but her mum hadn’t minded.

‘Wait until I have it all organised then you can come up for the grand opening,’ she’d said excitedly. Now regret raged through Lily that she’d never made it. Forcing her thoughts back to the present she asked Iris about the boxes she’d found this morning.

‘It was all the stock she’d bought,’ Iris stated matter-of-factly.

Lily’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, not realising she’d got as far as actually buying stock.

‘Where did she get it all from?’

‘I know she’d registered with a couple of wholesale suppliers and then there was the trade fair we went to—’

‘You went to a trade fair?’

‘Oh yes, it was all quite good fun. She placed a few orders and everything arrived but she hadn’t got round to unpacking anything yet. I stacked it all the corner and put a sheet over them. I hope that was all right?’

‘Of course,’ Lily rushed to reassure her. ‘You’ve already done too much.’

The redundancy might be the reason she was here now but Lily knew it wasn’t an excuse for her not coming sooner. And she knew if anyone understood why she hadn’t come before now it would be Iris but that wasn’t providing her with much consolation. ‘I’m really am sorry I didn’t come before.’

Iris shook her head. ‘Don’t give yourself such a hard time. You’re here now and that’s all that matters. Take your time and do what you have to and don’t worry about folk talking.’

Lily’s eyes widened. ‘Are they?’