Page 17 of Love from Pretty Beach

T o Darby, the Pretty Beach hospice shop smelled of lavender candles, hoovering and memories, some hers, mostly other people’s.

Hoovering? Really? Yes, that sort of smell when you’ve hoovered for hours and it smells clean, but somehow it’s still a bit dusty or something.

Since moving to Pretty Beach, Darby had visited the hospice shop in the old town many, many, many times.

To the point where visiting it, perusing it and nigh-on stalking it had become her one and only hobby.

This regular visitation had resulted in her having a plethora of good finds, both practical, absolutely impractical, brain-related, home-related, vintage and non-vintage under her belt.

Really, it had to be said that she loved the place; it was the sort of old-school charity shop where everything was shoved in via a strange kind of organised chaotic system that no one, least of all her, could really make head nor tail of.

Not a curated, shudder, charity shop whereby someone had written the brand on the tag in scrawly writing, just in case, you know, you hadn’t been able to work that out for yourself.

Or worse, when the writing on the tag informed you quite seriously that the item you were looking at was new.

Nope, it was a regular old charity shop through and through.

Oh, how Darby Lovell adored that to her core.

Like a lot of things in Pretty Beach, the hospice shop was old-fashioned in both its aesthetics and its values, which worked for Darbs. Those same values and suchlike were the very reasons she’d fallen for the little town and had decided to plump all her money into it in the first place.

Also, it was not laced with woke afflictions.

It did not profess loudly by way of posters, iPads balanced on shelves, or any other means, digital or not, that shopping there would save the environment.

Instead, it just did what it said on the tin, yes indeed it did.

Oh-so-delightful vintage crockery sat next to abandoned exercise equipment, baskets of wool were shoved on top of piles of books and stacks of beach paraphernalia sat on an old stripped pine dresser.

Darby absolutely adored the little place and could never ever resist dipping in to see what she might come across.

Which was one of the reasons her house needed a dirty great declutter.

Getting lost in searching for treasure was, for Darby, a very cheap and extremely accessible form of therapy that worked very well for her.

She'd been going to the shop more regularly than was really humanly decent since moving to Pretty Beach and felt almost as if the place had become a friend. There were many reasons she loved it; partly budget, or lack thereof, and the gigantic thrill of the delicious hunt in charity shop browsing. There was a lot to be said for that. If you’ve not felt it before, go forth and dig.

Today's mission was a little bit different to her usual one; video content for her channel. It sounded strange that she had a channel, but it was nothing if not true. It wouldn’t be very long and nothing dramatic, and for sure, she wasn’t actually going to attempt filming herself in the shop or anyone who might be in there.

She had decided that a little bit of filming and mooching would slot quite nicely into a vlog if and when she decided to pop up her next one.

She loved the shop and assumed that the forty to seventy-year-old women who watched her channel would too.

Taking a few steps past a rack of scarves, she smiled on spotting Anna, one of the volunteers.

Over the years Darby had lived in Pretty Beach, she’d got to know the rotating cast of volunteer staff in the hospice shop who took their roles very seriously.

Today's guardian, Anna, was almost as round as she was high, had a mug of tea in her hand and a bubble of jet-black hair on her head.

Anna beamed. 'Morning, Darby. How are you? Goodness, what have you done? You’re looking well. It’s lovely to see you again.’

‘Hi. Nice to see you.’ Darby put her phone back in her pocket. There was no way she’d be filming in front of Anna. ‘What have you been up to?’

Anna raised her eyes and pondered for a second. ‘Not a lot. I’m looking forward to our week in Lanzarote. It’s been so cold here, hasn’t it? I bet your place has been nippy.’

‘It’s been really cold, yep. We had that warm week and now this. I sometimes feel as if my house never warms up, you know?’

Anna clucked her tongue behind her teeth. ‘Those old houses with their thick walls have never been warm if you ask me. They won’t be falling down in one of our coastal storms, though, so you’re safe there.’

‘Good to know. So, you're off to get some sun, are you?’

‘Oh, yes, we go to the same room in the same hotel, in the same resort every single year. We’ve been going there since our honeymoon.’

‘Lucky you! I’m not jealous at all.’ Darby joked. Really, inside, she wasn’t that fussed about going to the Canary Islands, although any holiday to her looked fairly attractive. A week off in a tent was about all she’d be doing, though.

‘Ahh, I’ll put you in my suitcase. Although, have you seen all the anti-tourist stuff going on? Sometimes, I think I’ll keep my money and just stay here. After all the money I’ve given to the place over the years. It makes you wonder…’

‘I know. Anyway, what’s been happening here? Have you had much going on?’ Darby asked.

'It's been quite quiet. We've had some beautiful donations this week, though. Oh, yes, there's a gorgeous coat that came in yesterday, vintage faux fur, probably from the sixties or something.' Anna pointed to a coat hanging on the end of a nearby rack.

Darby shook her head as she took in the fur coat. ‘Oh, right, I don’t think I could ever wear fur, faux or not.’

‘I know. It’s not for me, but it’s very pretty in a way, if you see what I mean.

I’m surprised it hasn’t gone yet. It’s elegant somehow, don’t you reckon?

’ Anna picked up the hanger the coat was on and held it up.

‘The zip is hidden and I don’t know, it’s nice.

I thought it would have walked out the door by now. You never can tell.’

Darby raised her eyebrows. The coat looked as if it belonged in black and white photographs, worn by women who smoked cigarettes in long holders and said witty things at cocktail parties.

The rich brown fur looked soft and luxurious, but made Darby grimace a little bit at the thought of putting it on.

With a dramatic collar, it screamed old-money quiet wealth and all that came with it. ‘It’s very glam.’

Anna took the coat off the hanger. ‘Try it on. It’s gorgeous.

You’re tiny. It will fit you. There’s a matching Cossack hat, too.

I think that’s what it’s called. It has ear flaps and everything.

Actually, come to think of it, you could put that on in your house and it would do a great job of keeping you warm. ’

Darby looked debatable. ‘No, no, I’m good. I won’t try it on, thanks.’

‘You have to try it on, Darbs.’ Anna grabbed the matching Cossack-style hat from a shelf on top of the rack and passed it in Darby’s direction.

Darby chuckled, took the gigantic hat and popped it on her head.

The flaps were enormous and she held her hands up on either side of her head and made a funny face.

Anna laughed, held up the coat and before she knew what she was doing, Darby had pushed her arms into the sleeves.

Shrugging as Anna coaxed the coat over her arms, both of them chuckled.

As Darby looked down in fits of laughter, Anna zipped up the coat with a flourish and they both laughed as Darby stood in front of the mirror with her arms hanging down beside her.

The coat was tiny. It had been designed for someone with narrow shoulders and no chest and looked and felt a bit like a straitjacket.

The sleeves refused to allow her arms to bend at natural angles.

Darby, although unable to easily bend her arms, held her phone up, took a picture, and laughed. ‘Slightly more fitted than I anticipated.'

‘You look hilarious! How funny. I didn’t realise it was this small!’

Suddenly feeling quite ridiculous, a little bit grubby and very hot at the same time, Darby gripped the zipper at the top and attempted to pull it down, which was where her problems began.

The zip stayed exactly where it was at the top of her chest. As she tugged, Anna frowned and despite Darby wiggling it, it jammed more firmly in place.

Wincing, she squeezed her eyes shut for a second.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s stuck!

Oh my goodness, I’m trapped in a sixty-year-old faux fur coat. What the heck?’

Anna took a couple of steps and tried tugging the zip, but to no avail.

Darby twisted and writhed, tried to work her arms free from the sleeves and sucked her stomach in in an attempt to loosen the strain on the zip.

Looking like some sort of yeti, her cheeks were getting hotter and hotter and she gave up and stayed still.

With her arms limply at her side, standing in front of Anna and still with the large hat on her head, Anna slid her glasses from the top of her head to her nose, examined the zip further and tutted.

‘Yup, that’s stuck alright. Vintage construction methods, I think, are what we’ll blame.

It looks like the zipper is slightly out of line or just jammed. '

With Anna having no luck, Darby attempted another escape manoeuvre, which involved a sort of backwards, downwards shimmy, which didn’t work either.

Anna made a face. ‘We’re going to have to cut you out of it. What a shame to have to ruin it. Oh, well…’

Darby, getting hotter and more frustrated by the second, couldn’t have cared less about cutting the coat. She just wanted to get the blooming thing off. ‘It’s a shame, but how else am I going to get this thing off?’