Finding Home by Kate Field (read book .txt) 📗

‘Principles or pride? There’s no shame in accepting help when you need it.’

As that was exactly what Mim would have said herself if their situations were reversed, she didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply and they were soon on their way to the petrol station, which was in the nearby village of Littlemead. They followed the drive past Vennhallow and various outbuildings until they reached the main road, where the end of the estate was marked by a fine pair of stone pillars and a small lodge. Corin explained that these were all that remained of a much grander mansion that had occupied the estate before being destroyed in a fire and replaced by the current house.

The narrow roads were much easier to navigate in daylight than they had been in the dark. After they’d stopped for petrol at an old-fashioned garage with an attendant who insisted on filling the car himself, the road wove downhill through what Mim guessed must be the centre of the village. Grey stone buildings lined the sides of the street, some with thatched roofs that Mim stared at in delight; she hadn’t realised such things still existed apart from on jigsaw puzzles and biscuit tins. Most of the buildings appeared to be residential, although Mim spotted a café, a butcher’s shop, an art gallery and a B&B. The village looked as if it hadn’t changed in years, and it was particularly pretty at the moment with the Christmas decorations still in place. Oak barrels that might have been washed up from a shipwreck were positioned at regular intervals along the pavement, each containing a Christmas tree strung with bright fairy lights. Coloured lights blazed from some of the windows too, and almost every door was adorned with a wreath of holly, ribbons, and baubles. It was an utterly charming place and Mim couldn’t stop smiling as she absorbed it all. Could she really have the chance to call this place home?

The road came to an abrupt end at a turning area at the bottom of the hill where a weathered wooden sign pointed pedestrians left or right for the South West Coast Path or straight down a cobbled path to the beach. Corin directed Mim to a small car park on the left. There was a surprising number of cars already there, and walkers were setting off in anoraks and boots, many with eager dogs pulling on their leads. Corin took a lead out of his pocket and clipped it to Dickens’s collar.

‘Don’t get excited,’ he told the dog. ‘We’re not going on a walk yet.’ Dickens thumped his tail in reply.

‘You don’t need to come with me,’ Mim said, getting out of the car. ‘If you point me in the right direction, I’ll be fine.’

‘Let’s see how you get on with Janet first.’ Corin smiled and pointed at the end building on the opposite side of the road. It was a solid stone pub called The Boat Inn, three storeys high but fairly narrow, with only two windows on either side of the central entrance. In contrast to the rest of the buildings in the village, the pub looked dark and uninviting, except for the tinsel stars that hung in the ground-floor windows, swinging in the draught. ‘That’s Janet’s pub and the shop is next door.’

The shop was attached to the pub and looked as if it had been converted from several cottages knocked into one. As they crossed the road and got nearer, Mim could see that the large feature-window was filled with an eclectic mix of goods including boxes of fudge and biscuits, plastic toys, teddy bears wearing ‘I heart Devon’ jumpers and a selection of local walking guides. The sign above the window read, ‘The Littlemead Deli’.

‘It’s gone upmarket since I was a boy,’ Corin said, gesturing at the sign and grinning. ‘Believe it or not. It was only a convenience store then. Are you ready?’

He tied Dickens to a bracket on the wall and went into the shop, holding the door for Mim. It was bigger inside than she’d expected, stretching back across almost the whole ground floor of the cottages. The shop was divided into two distinct areas. On the far left, there was a section for tourists, with more guidebooks, postcards, armbands, buckets and spades, flip flops, and souvenirs. The centre and right-hand side housed the food, with tinned goods and cans of beer rubbing shoulders with wicker baskets of fruit and vegetables and shelves of bread and cakes. At the far right-hand end there was a counter doubling as a refrigerated display filled with a selection of cheeses, pies and pasties, and cooked meats.

Apart from Mim and Corin, there were two other people in the shop: a woman behind the counter and a little boy filling a bag at the pick ‘n’ mix sweet display. As Mim watched, the boy took his bag and handed it to the woman, who inspected the contents carefully before announcing it would cost fifty pence. The boy stretched across the counter with his money, but the coin must have slipped out of his hand and there was a clunk as it hit the glass surface of the counter before rolling to the floor.

The boy dropped to his knees and after a few seconds of fruitless searching, Mim hurried forward to help, but there was no sign of his coin; it must have gone beneath the counter.

‘I don’t have any more money,’ the boy said.

‘No money, no sweets.’ The woman turned to put the bag of sweets on a shelf behind her. The boy looked at Mim with tear-filled eyes.

‘Hang on,’ Mim said. She pulled her purse out of her bag, counted out fifty pence in change and carefully placed the coins on top of the counter. ‘There’s your money. Now can we have the sweets?’

The woman handed over the bag and as soon as it was safely in the boy’s hands, he ran out of the shop, throwing