Page 78 of When We Are Old

“The shop is walking distance, is it?” I glanced up and down the road. I didn’t have any bearings at all. Earlier we’d been at a rugby field; then we were in the city, the boys getting their haircuts and all of us burning our mouths on some hot pastries Matthew insisted were the best, where he’d then sparked up a conversation with the owner of the bakery about footfall, sales, and positioning. Hannah and I had zoned out at that point and stared longingly at the cakes under the glass counter. Now, I had no idea where I was.

“Just down the road, around the corner, and then over at the lights.”

What? And she hadn’t even put a coat on?

With a march that made my calves ache, she led me far longer than her suggested route. “This is a workout. Can we get a taxi back?”

“Oh, I’m sure Matthew will come and pick us up.”

I smiled, unable to keep it off my face.

“Aye you two have got it bad.” She eyed me with speculation.

“What was he like last week?” I knew she’d keep it straight with me. I guessed this woman shot straight from the hip on every subject.

“Low.” She sighed; her focus some place other than the road we were walking. “I don’t know why, but since he was little, Matthew has always needed to please everyone.” She laughed. “I mean, Ryan and Liam couldn’t give a shit, ye know? Of course they wanted to do well, but their competitive nature comes from within. They want to beat themselves. Matthew.” She shook her head. “He’s a dreamer. He’s never tried to best himself at anything, he just dreams big. But those dreams get shaped by the people around him.”

“But his dad didn’t get that?”

Lynn glanced at me, sharp enough I felt wounded. “Aye, he got it. He was exactly the same, of course, until his own father beat it out of him too.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I just hope Matthew is stronger than that. He’s only thirty-five. He could do anything and everything still.”

“But he’s doing the shop?”

We stopped and she pulled the keys out of her cardigan pocket. I leaned over to get some air into my lungs. Wow that woman could walk.

Not much had changed on the outside since I’d seen it a few weeks before. It still had the ghost of the chain store name across the sign board above. It no longer said, Supersaver Foods, but the lettering had left behind a ring that shadowed the letters onto the backboard so they could still be seen. The plain glass frontage was still the same. At least, at first I thought it was, until I looked closer and could see that they’d been spray painted with green so you couldn’t see inside the shop. “That’s going to be a bugger to clean.” I nodded at the screening.

“He’s not going to, I think. He’s going to have new glass put in.” Lynn pushed open the door and a reassuring jingle rang above our heads. I lifted my brow but didn’t say anything. “I had it in the loft in a box full of stuff. Matthew put it up when he started the clean out.”

Above us hung an old-fashioned brass bell.

Inside the air blasted with an artic chill and I shivered. All the freezers had gone though, leaving behind a largely empty space. The floor showed the marks of the former shop furniture. One till counter still stood, holding pots of paints and some folded dust sheets.

“What’s he planning to do?” I kind of wished Matthew was showing me all this. “My branding was only really a concept.”

Lynn nodded to where three A-frame stands held large sketch pads. Torn between looking and not being nosey until Matthew showed me himself, I hesitated. Until Lynn grabbed my arm and towed me over, tutting under her breath.

I flicked through the nearest; finding sketches of the inside of a shop that looked unlike anything I’d seen except in the furthest distant point of my memory. Probably not even then. Maybe in films: idealised brass and dark wood.

“Keep turning,” Lynn urged.

“These are amazing.”

Not just the concept: a nineteen thirties shiny and smooth shop with all the glass cabinets and a floor so beautiful Fred Astaire could have waltzed down it, but the detail in the pictures made everything almost real.

“He’s so talented. You know he was the best in our class at uni, without any doubt.”

“Funny, he always said that about you.”

I shook my head, my cheeks warming. “No. I’m conceptual. I can see an idea and how it would work. Matthew is a font, or was a font, of unlimited ideas.”

I turned for the gutted space. “You see. I look at this.” I flicked back to one of the earlier sketches “And I know that the pillar he’s put in here.” I jabbed at the paper. “Would be better about two foot back from the door, because you need to allow space for people to move in and out of the shop, buggies etc.” I sighed. “I see the technicalities; he sees the beauty.”

Lynn nodded. “Look at this.” She turned to the next pad and flicked a few pages. “He doesn’t know I’ve looked at these but see here.” A sketch of an old man in soft pencil on the paper smiled from behind the glossy counter. His apron was striped and despite it being black and white I could see it being green and gold. Across the apron the words were written, “Carling’s Green Savers.” Along with the emblem I’d created for him.