‘I think that’s perfectly doable, more than doable. I think it’s super-duper doable.’
Rachel sighed and closed the computer. ‘I don’t know. Mother will have to come back. Clara said she had some ideas to help me but I haven’t seen her lately.’
‘I saw her a week ago when she took me and the little one to Salisbury. It was very nice indeed. But Clara will be back – she has some things she needs attending to right now.’
Tassie raised her eyebrows a few times and Rachel laughed. ‘What does that mean?’
Tassie drained her tea and put down the cup and looked inside it.
‘An important announcement is coming,’ she said. ‘My death notice might be in the paper, so I should check.’
The sound of the bell rang and Clara stood in the doorway.
‘Hello, Ladies of Merryknowe,’ she cried, waving an envelope in her hand. ‘I have news.’
‘There’s the announcement,’ said Tassie to Rachel.
Clara came to the table and sat down.
‘You seem well,’ said Tassie with a look that Rachel didn’t understand.
‘More on that later,’ said Clara very firmly to Tassie, and Rachel noticed a blush climbing up her neck.
‘So, last week I went to Salisbury and I looked into your dad’s will, which wasn’t with the other papers.’
Rachel nodded. ‘Mother might have misplaced it.’
‘She isn’t your mother, Rachel,’ said Clara.
‘Old habits die hard, darling,’ Tassie said to Clara in a gentle tone and Clara put her hand on Rachel’s knee.
‘I’m sorry, I just dislike her so much.’
Rachel nodded. ‘I don’t like her either but I don’t have any power here. She is truly the wicked stepmother and I am the baking version of Cinderella.’
Clara laughed and threw her head forward so her dark hair fell over her face. When she looked up at them her eyes were sparkling and her smile wide.
‘That’s the thing. Your father worked in insurance, didn’t he?’
Rachel nodded.
Clara slammed her hand on the table. ‘Your dad knew what he was doing. He set everything up so your stepmother had an allowance but most of the money would be left to you. Instead she forged signatures and God knows what else and she took the money to buy the bakery because she saw you were cheap labour. What she didn’t know was you were good at it, and she hated that. I think she kept you back from being creative in the kitchen because she didn’t want you to draw attention to the shop. She got enough to keep it going but, Rachel, you own this. You own the shop and the tearooms. The whole thing.’
Rachel was silent as she looked around the shop and then she started to cry.
It felt like the sobs were coming from the earth and up through her feet and out her mouth as she wailed into the echo of the shop.
Clara was holding her hands now, and Tassie was rubbing her back as she cried until she thought she was going to be sick and then it slowed until she could breathe again and when she looked up, the sun was out, shining on Clara’s black hair, making her look like exactly like Rachel had always thought of her – as her own guardian angel.
‘You mean I can do the renovations?’ Rachel asked. ‘I can have a fireplace and a bookshelf and games and cards?’
‘You can have it all, Rachel Brown, everything you’ve ever wanted for your life,’ Clara said. Rachel looked Tassie and then to Clara and wiped her eyes with a napkin.
‘You two are the best friends anyone could ask for. My whole life I was lonely and I used to ask my dad to bring me friends. Ones who could make me feel good about my life, who would help me get away from Moth… Moira, and here you are. I don’t think I could be any luckier than I am right now and I want you both to know, I love you very much.’
Rachel saw Tassie wipe her eye and Clara was nodding and had tears in her eyes.
‘We are a lucky three, aren’t we?’ Clara said and they held hands around the table, just as a huge crack of lightning went off overhead, making Clara and Rachel laugh and Tassie look smug.
37
Clara – aged 15
The chickens were chatting among themselves when Clara arrived home from school. She dropped her bag in the back garden and went straight to them, opening the gate to the chicken coop and greeting the girls before she asked their permission to check for eggs.
She always felt guilty she was taking their hard-earned work for her breakfast but they seemed quite proud of their work and so Clara always praised them and thanked them.
Mum thought she was silly for talking to chickens but Gran understood the mutual respect.
Perhaps Mum had lost her understanding of respect after Dad abused her so many times?
Clara didn’t have any answers but she also didn’t have as many questions now they lived at Gran’s house.
Once she’d told the teachers what was happening at home, they had contacted the police, the social workers and some lawyers who helped Mum leave Dad and they went to court and Dad wasn’t allowed to come near them anymore.
Mum had said that Dad didn’t even know where they lived anymore, so Clara stopped listening for him before dinner. Slowly she began to relax at home and at school. She made friends and joined the football club and she liked a boy named Jamie.
But Gran was the best part of it all. She was like the grandmothers in books with warm cocoa and teaching her how to make cakes and painting faces on boiled eggs for her breakfast.
And Mum had a job at a nursing home working with old people. She would tell Clara and Gran stories over dinner while the heater was on and sometimes, when it was raining and they were cosy inside the kitchen, Clara thought this was almost as good as the
