The Shooting in the Shop Read Free Page A

last sentence
was a bit of a cover-up. They were not only the most
important ones, they were the only ones. Carole
didn’t buy presents for anyone other than Stephen,
Gaby and Lily. For many years the only name on the
list had been Stephen. But she didn’t want to admit
that, even to Jude. Once again there loomed the awful
fear of being pitied.
    ‘What have you got for Lily?’
    ‘Oh, she’s easy. There are so many things out
there for little girls. I got her some lovely baby outfits
from Marks and Spencer. Their children’s clothes
are very good, you know. And not too expensive.
I checked the sizes with Gaby, but of course, being
Marks, she can exchange them if she doesn’t like
them.’
    ‘Oh.’ To give something on the assumption that it
might well be changed seemed to Jude to be a negation
of the principle of present-giving. She spent so
much time matching the gift to the personality of its
recipient that no one ever contemplated returning
one of hers.
    ‘That’s what I do with Stephen too,’ Carole went
on briskly. ‘I always give him two Marks and Spencer
shirts. And I put the receipts in the parcel.’
    ‘So that he can change them?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And does he often change them?’
    ‘How would I know?’
    ‘Well, if you see him wearing a shirt you recognize
as one you gave him, then you’ll know he hasn’t
changed it.’
    ‘I’d never thought of that.’ But now she did think
of it, Carole realized she had recognized some of the
shirts her son had worn over the years. Maybe he did
appreciate his mother’s taste, after all. She didn’t
allow herself the thought that he might have worn
them simply because they were her gifts.
    ‘And what about Gaby? What have you bought
her?’
    ‘Oh, toilet water. Lily of the Valley. You can never
go wrong with toilet water.’
    Jude’s plump face screwed up in disbelief. ‘Toilet
water? You’re giving your daughter-in-law toilet
water?’
    ‘Yes,’ Carole replied defensively. ‘Toilet water’s
always a safe present.’
    ‘A safe present for a maiden aunt fifty years ago,
perhaps. But Gaby’s in her early thirties. If she opens
her present on Christmas morning and finds she’s
got toilet water, she’ll be depressed for the rest of the
holiday.’
    ‘We don’t open presents till after lunch on Christmas
Day,’ said Carole primly.
    ‘Well, whenever she opens it, a bottle of toilet
water is going to have the same effect.’
    ‘Are you suggesting I should give Gaby something
else?’
    ‘Of course I’m suggesting you should give her
something else. And you should give Stephen something
else, too.’
    ‘But what’s wrong with his shirts?’
    ‘They are totally impersonal. They could have
come from anyone. Come on.’
    Carole’s pale blue eyes blinked behind her rimless
glasses. She didn’t think receiving a present that
could have come from anyone was necessarily such a
bad thing.
    But she felt her thin hands grasped in Jude’s
plump ones as she was pulled up from her chair. Her
dog Gulliver looked up hopefully from his permanent
position in front of the Aga. People getting up could
sometimes presage being taken out for a walk.
    ‘Where are we going?’ asked Carole plaintively.
    ‘Shopping.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Gallimaufry,’ Jude replied.
    Her neighbour’s entire body registered disapproval
at the choice of destination.
     

Chapter Three
    The architecture of Fethering was a living history of
its development from an assemblage of fishermen’s
huts to something more like a small town than the
‘village’ which description stubbornly remained in
all official documentation. The returning economic
confidence of the late fifties and early sixties was
expressed in the High Street’s shopping parade. This
terrace of buildings had resolutely resisted being
rebranded as a ‘shopping centre’ or, even worse, a
‘shopping mall’. It still remained essentially as it had
been built,