George not to have missed anything. Harry tried to close her mind to the cold whisper of doubt Matthew had started. It was true that many of her customers were retired couples sailing only as long as time and health permitted. Had she really rebuilt the business just to watch it wither away?
‘Short of running a water-taxi service or rustling up breaded scampi and chips every time they come down to use the boat, there’s nothing I can do. I can’t turn back the clock and make them any younger.’ Harry forced a mouthful of scalding tea over the lump that had mysteriously appeared in her throat.
‘There’s no stopping time, that’s true. Wouldn’t be proper either; it’s the natural order for the old ’uns to make room for the young ’uns.’
‘It might be the natural order,’ she croaked, throwing him a sideways glance and debating whether to ask for one of his Happy Faces – which would be guaranteed to wipe the rather too serene look off his happy face. ‘But where are we going to find young people in Little Spitmarsh who can afford to sail?’
George gave a distinctly false-sounding cough. Harry looked into his red, weather-beaten face and followed his watery gaze past the yard, past the lapping water, past the line of masts to the dilapidated building collapsing on the opposite bank. He turned and cocked a bushy, nicotine-yellow eyebrow at her.
‘So they were having a little tussle, you know, as they do, and then I noticed things had gone a bit quiet and when I went to look you’ll never guess what?’
The Flowerpot Men was the slowest florist in town, but no one protested since it was also the only florist in town.
‘No?’ Harry offered weakly, trying not to let her eyes stray to the clock behind Trevor’s head. For a man who looked like the strong silent type, Trevor could go on talking for hours. Having ended the previous day blowing all chances of having a crack at George’s biscuit tin for the foreseeable future, Harry was mindful that starting the day leaving George to face the bottom of a forty-foot boat by himself would certainly put the foul back into anti-fouling.
The trouble was that Matthew’s predictions for the boat yard had left her with such a horrible empty feeling, it would take more than a biscuit to cheer her up. A bacon butty breakfast, she’d decided, would help set her up for the day and justify a quick stroll into town. Whilst she was there, she’d pop in to ask Frankie and Trevor to look out for all the brand new four-wheel drives and BMW convertibles that, according to George, Matthew Corrigan’s restaurant would attract.
‘Kirstie was giving Phil a piggyback!’ Trevor hissed at her. ‘I thought they were too young for all that.’
In London, The Flowerpot Men would probably have been called Wild Orchids and fitted out in brushed steel and blond wood or such like, but Little Spitmarsh wasn’t the place for such flamboyance. Fortunately, the air of neglect that pervaded the outside of the shop was not reflected inside. Whilst the decor could never be described as trendy, there was a good range of flowers and plants to choose from and the proprietors were always anxious to make sure their customers went away happy – even if they were talked to death in the process.
‘Well, we’ll just have to sit down and have a little chat with them, won’t we?’ said Frankie, winking at Harry as he came in from the back of the shop carrying an armful of hot-pink tulips protruding from cellophane sheaths.
It was a bit early in the day, thought Harry, to deal with sexual miscreants, especially when the couple involved were Jack Russell terriers. Besides, she had matters of her own to attend to, albeit none of them involving illicit humping.
‘Can’t you just get one of them done?’ she suggested, in an impatient attempt to divert the conversation and amuse them with her news.
There was a collective sharp intake of breath. Even Phil and Kirstie looked up from the