MELANIE BLAKE MAKE A FRESH START

Spurred on by her own mother’s wise words, another mum gave Sarah the boost to life she truly needed

She’d been walking down the tiny alleyway, almost hidden from view from the quaint little high street, for a few minutes before Sarah finally arrived at her destination. After she pushed open the door to the wine bar she cast her eyes around the seventies style bistro, with kegs for tables and melted candles in wine bottles, looking for other customers, but there was no one in sight. Checking her watch, it was 7.30pm. The quietness that surrounded her was a reminder of how different life in a small village was from the life she once lived in London.

It had been hard saying goodbye to her old life in the big smoke, but after the rise of online shopping resulted in her being made redundant from the department store job she’d worked in since she was sixteen, finally now at fifty, Sarah was ready to test that theory.

One day after packing up the flat she’d lived alone in with her cat, Daisy, she’d opened a map of the UK, closed her eyes and stuck a pin in it, to find out where destiny would take them. Shylock was a small village just outside Edinburgh, and although she’d never heard of it, she’d made a promise to go wherever that pin landed, and it was a promise she wasn’t going to break. A few weeks later she and Daisy were snug in the rented thatched cottage which had a wooden sign above the door revealing its name was Hope.

The first few weeks had been strange, she wasn’t used to strangers saying hello – in London nobody spoke to anyone they didn’t know and barely to the ones they did – but once she got to know Mrs Kendall, who ran the local market shop which sold freshly baked bread and organic produce from the nearby farm, she soon realised this was a much friendlier way of life.

“Are you not married my dear?” asked Mrs Kendall, one rainy afternoon as she packed Sarah’s groceries into her hessian reuseable bag. In her old life in the city, a woman asking another woman a question like this would have been beyond embarrassing and loaded with some sort of “So you’re a sad Bridget Jones” undercurrent, but Sarah could tell by Mrs Kendall’s soft expression that she was genuinely interested.

“No, sadly that’s never happened for me.” She surprised herself by revealing the sad truth that Cupid’s arrow had never been fired in her direction.

Mrs Kendall turned to her as she handed over her change. “Well, as I say to my son who’s just moved back here after getting divorced… he’s… now what do you young people call it? Oh yes – he’s a singleton, like you! I tell him, it’s never too late for a fresh start.” She finished with a wink. Sarah blushed and said her goodbyes and thought of how her mother used to say the same thing.

As she made her way down the lane back to Hope Cottage, she saw Daisy in the window and smiled. Within minutes she was in the warm where Daisy purred as she filled up her food bowl.

Over the next few months she got to know Mrs Kendall well, and with time on her hands, she found herself popping into the shop almost daily, each time with the hope she might bump into the son she spoke so glowingly of, but each time Mrs Kendall told her she’d just missed him.

One day when Sarah was tidying the front garden, she spotted a man unlocking the door to Mrs Kendall’s shop. It hadn’t been open for the last few days and she’d begun to worry if everything was alright. Before she realised it, she’d walked up the road and was at the doorway of the shop as the man had just entered. She tapped her fingers gently on the window then saw the man’s shape coming towards her.

“I’m sorry we’re closed,” he said as Sarah looked into his piercing blue eyes taking in his handsome face which was framed by jet black hair.

“Oh,” she said, stumbling for words even as they fell out of her mouth. “I just wondered if you knew where Mrs Kendall was, only I’ve not seen her for days so I was getting a bit worried.”

Once again she stared into his blue eyes, but this time rather than the colour of them, what she noticed was sadness.

“I’m her son, Jack.” He paused for a moment and before he could get the words out Sarah somehow knew what was coming and placed a comforting

“Mum talked a lot about you, kept saying how we should meet”

hand on his shoulder. “She passed away at the weekend,” he said. “No warning, she just went peacefully in her sleep,” he finished and gave Sarah’s own shoulder a gentle squeeze as if to return the comfort she had tried to show him.

On hearing the news that Mrs Kendall was no longer going to be in the shop, Sarah felt the emotion rising inside herself. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said genuinely. She would have felt so lonely if she hadn’t had her daily visits to Mrs Kendall’s to look forward too. “If you need anything at all, I live just down the lane at Hope Cottage,” she finished, stepping backwards towards the exit.

“Are you Sarah?” Jack said.

She was half out of the door, surprised he would know who she was. She turned back. “Yes, how did you know?”

“Mum talked a lot about you, kept saying how we should meet – you know how she was…” He smiled.

Sarah found herself smiling too at the memory. “Yes, I do, and she talked a lot about you too. She was very proud of you,” Sarah said. Then suddenly aware of a blush coming to her cheeks, which was highly inappropriate considering the circumstances, she stepped out of the door and smiled again. “Do let me know if I can do anything,” she managed before walking back out onto the road outside.

Afew weeks later a knock at Hope Cottage woke Sarah from an afternoon nap. She opened the door to see Jack standing there.

“Hello Sarah,” he said, his Scottish accent gave her goose bumps.

“Hello Jack,” she replied hoping she didn’t have sleep in her eyes and wishing she’d ran a brush through her hair.

“Can I come in? I’ve something to tell you,” he said.

Standing back, she gestured for him to enter. Daisy, who was always shy of visitors, rushed straight over to him and brushed herself against his legs.

“I think we should sit down,” Jack continued, so they sat on opposite seats either side of the fire. Pulling an envelope from his jacket, Jack continued, “Mum thought a lot of you, Sarah,” he said, reaching down to stroke Daisy who was firmly staying by his side.

“I thought a lot of her, too, and I miss her,” Sarah replied, a bit confused as to what Jack was here for. She hadn’t heard from him since Mrs Kendall’s funeral.

“It was the reading of her will yesterday,” he said softly. “And there was a bit of a surprise in it,” he said as he handed her the envelope.

Sarah couldn’t imagine what could possibly be in the will which concerned her, but she reached out and took the paper, looking down to read it. When she took in the words she gasped out loud.

Jack to let out a gentle laugh. “That was my reaction too,” he said with a smile. “Mum was full of surprises and determined to get her way it seems.”

“She certainly was,” Sarah said, trying to catch her breath as the wording of the will sunk in. “How do you feel about it?” she said anxiously. “I mean, I only knew your mum a few months.”

“Yes, but in those few months she took great comfort in your daily visits to the shop. She was often lonely in there, and I think you brightened her day’

“Mine too.”

“So I suppose this is her way of getting us together – one way or another,” he said, again gesturing at the paperwork.

Sarah didn’t know what to say. Jack saw this and took it as his cue to leave.

“Look, I know it’s a shock, but all the instructions are in there, so I’ll let you make up your own mind. But I just want you to know that I’m happy to go along with her wishes, if you are.”

He gave her a smile that looked sincere as stood up.

“I’ll let myself out and you know where I’ll be if you decide to accept what Mum has gifted to you.”

Still stunned, Sarah managed a smile as he made his way out of the cottage and Daisy finally came and sat on her lap.

It had taken her a week to decide, but now she was sitting inside the wine bar that had been part of Mrs Kendall’s properties, but of which, thanks to her will, Sarah was now joint owner.

It hadn’t been open in decades and there was a lot to do. Mrs Kendall’s strict instructions were that she and Jack were to be partners – that if they were to run it, it had to be together. She hadn’t been able to get them together when she’d been here, but as Jack emerged from the cellar door and into the bar to face her, Sarah smiled, Mrs Kendall had got what she wanted in the end.

“So where shall we start?” he said with a smile that made her want to kiss him gently on the lips – just the way he had done to her when she’d gone round to tell him she was going to accept his mum’s kind offer. It had shocked her almost as much as the will had!

Looking around the place again, she walked over to him and said, “Why don’t we pick up where we left off?”

He leaned in to kiss her, and as he held her in a tight embrace she now believed that both their mum’s favourite saying was true: it really was never too late for a fresh start.