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

set up to the leisure centre she had used in Burnley. But … Gordon had given her the membership in Burnley for her birthday last year. She’d have to pay for this one herself. Corin had a very different idea of ‘not that expensive’ than she did.

‘Thanks, but I can’t afford it,’ she said, folding the pages back up and sliding them towards Corin. ‘The monthly membership would buy me food for at least a week.’

‘Okay.’ Corin made no move to pick up the sheets again. ‘I’ll pay for your membership.’

‘Why would you do that?’

He sighed.

‘Don’t sound so suspicious. Can’t we say it’s because I’m a kind and generous soul and want you to stay alive?’

Mim pushed her chair back and took her bowl over to the sink. She filled it up with water to soak.

‘You mean because you’re rich,’ she said, turning at last. ‘It’s easy to be kind and generous when you won’t even notice the money leaving your account.’

‘You don’t mince words, do you?’

‘What’s the point?’ Mim said. ‘You can hardly deny how rich you are. You live in an enormous house. You holiday in places like the Maldives. You drive cars that cost as much as a house where I’m from. I don’t know why you pretend to be something you’re not by wearing a scruffy coat and shoes.’

‘I don’t pretend to be anything. You’re talking about my family, not me.’ Corin looked down at himself. ‘And I happen to like this coat. It’s covered my back through some tough times.’

Tough times? Mim wondered how tough his life had ever been; had he once had to drink fizzy wine instead of Champagne?

‘Look, I get that you mean well,’ she said, ‘but I’ve already told you I don’t want to be treated as a charity case. I have a job – if I ever manage to get to it. I can pay my own way for anything I need. Membership of a swimming pool is a luxury I don’t need, especially when the sea is free. But thanks for looking into it,’ she added, thinking that she may have sounded too ungrateful. They came from such different worlds. He’d probably been brought up to believe that money was the answer to everything. She knew that hard work and a lot of luck were the real answers.

‘Fine,’ Corin said. ‘If you won’t accept my charity, what about my company? I’ll go swimming with you.’

‘You?’

He smiled.

‘Was that an enthusiastic yes? Just checking in case I misunderstood your accent.’

Mim grinned. He was persistent, she had to give him credit for that.

‘You don’t need to bother,’ she said. ‘I met two women on the beach and we’ve arranged to swim together. You can use the free time to go clothes shopping.’ He laughed. ‘Now I’ve really got to go. If Janet sacks me for being late, I’ll be heading straight to your door with my begging bowl.’

‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ Janet said, as she unlocked the door for Mim.

‘I’m ten minutes early,’ Mim pointed out. She’d waited in the car for five minutes, worried she might annoy Janet if she turned up too early so it was galling to face criticism.

‘You start your shift at eight. I need to train you before you can do the job properly and start earning money.’ Janet stood back to let Mim enter the shop. ‘I’ll have to dock your wages for the first hour. I’m not paying while you’re learning. It’s not a good start, is it?’

It wasn’t, and Mim gritted her teeth and made a mental note to arrive at the pub half an hour early that evening in case training was needed there too. She had a horrible suspicion that Janet had deliberately not told her about the required training to put her on the back foot. Besides, what training could there possibly be? How to spot the difference between a tin of peas and a tin of carrots?

Forty minutes later, Mim had discovered that the training consisted of a brief introduction to the till and the slicing machine, and the delivery of a lengthy list of rules. These were varied and extensive: no giving away samples of cheese; no letting customers off the correct money, even for a penny; no more than three unaccompanied children in the shop at one time; names and addresses to be taken from any child who ate a sweet while filling a bag at the pick ‘n’ mix; more than three visits to the toilet each day would be viewed with suspicion. Janet had thought of everything.

‘Will we both be working in the shop at the same time?’ Mim asked, when Janet had finally exhausted the regulations. She hoped not. She liked plain talking but Janet might test that to the limit.

‘I’ll be observing for a few days to see how you get on.’ Janet heaved herself onto the stool behind the counter. ‘You won’t be on your own until I’m satisfied you’re a hard worker. Don’t forget you’re on trial.’

It was a long morning. There was a steady flow of customers in the shop and Mim would have enjoyed it if Janet hadn’t been there, scratching away with her pencil and paper as she made a note of something Mim had done wrong.

‘You chatted too long to Mrs Windsor,’ was Janet’s first complaint. ‘She’ll not stop once you give her an opening. You can’t risk a queue forming.’

‘The man who bought that map was probably a tourist,’ was the next comment. ‘You should have upsold some fudge or biscuits.’

‘You need to be more careful when cutting a piece of cheese.’

Mim had bitten her tongue at a lot of the feedback, but she couldn’t let this last one go.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘The customer wanted 250g and I cut 246g. I thought that was pretty good for my first go.’

‘It was under. You never cut under. You’ll find you can go over by up to ten per cent and the customer