Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams by Jenny Colgan Read Free Book Online

declarations; no ring. But then, Mike and Giuseppe got through a fortune in crockery. And nothing much had changed in eight years. Until now.

    The first thing Rosie noticed about Lipton was that it was possibly the quietest place she had ever been. The main street of the village was completely deserted even though it wasn’t long after eight o’clock. There were only a few street lamps, old-fashioned lanterns that lit up a pub, a large square stone house that looked like it might be the doctor’s surgery, a post office and a couple of small businesses Rosie couldn’t identify. Over the tops of the opposite buildings, blocking out the stars, loomed the great dark shapes of the Pennines, over which she’d just pootled in the bus. A huge fat harvest moon sat low in the sky, silvering the landscape. Somewhere, far away, Rosie could just make out the hoot of an owl.
    After Paddington, with its brash neon and sirens and fast-food joints and late-night trains and street-thronging hordes, Rosie felt as if she’d been picked up and set down again ahundred years in the past. She turned round slowly and picked up her big suitcase, almost scared to make a sound. There seemed to be no lights on in the buildings at all. It was rather unnerving.
    Rosie had printed out a map from Google that showed her aunt’s house, and it quickly became clear from the size of the place that she wouldn’t have far to go.
    The cottage was absolutely tiny, like something out of a fairy tale. It really did have a thatched roof with a dormer window, and smoke coming out of the chimney; it looked like someone ought to be sculpting it on to a plate or lighting it up to use as a tacky Christmas decoration.
    ‘Hello?’ Rosie yelled nervously.
    ‘All right, all right,’ came a cross voice. ‘I’m not deaf.’
    There was a pause, then a shuffling noise, and then, after some wrestling with the doorknob, Lilian opened the door.

    The two women regarded each other. Rosie had been expecting a very old lady; Lilian had been old when she had been a child. Instead, in the murky light, she was greeted by a bowed but still slender figure, with a severely cut bob, wearing what seemed to be a maroon chiffon dress and full make-up.
    Lilian in return had been expecting a young girl, not this curly-haired, rather weighed-down-looking fully grown woman with bags under her pale grey eyes. She remembered little Rosie as a pretty, sparky thing, always putting her dollies to bed and tucking them in and staring at her bag, shyly, too polite and nervous to ask if she had any goodies within.
    ‘Hello,’ said Rosie.
    Lilian eyed up Rosie’s shoes. They were flat and clumpy and covered in mud. She wondered if she could ask her to take them off. But that really would be getting off on the wrong foot.
    ‘You’d better come in then,’ she said.
    Rosie followed her over the threshold, noticing as she did so the pained stiffness in her aunt’s movements. Inside, the room smelled beautiful, of a warm, flowery beeswax. Through another beamed doorway was a little sitting room, toasty warm with a wood-burning stove flickering away merrily in the grate. The mantelpiece was entirely covered in framed photos, many old, but without a fleck of dust. Rosie surmised they were of Lilian herself, and she had clearly been something of a glamour puss in her younger years. Rosie admired a beautiful fifties shot of her, framed in black and white.
    ‘Is this you?’ she asked.
    ‘No,’ said Lilian. ‘I’m creepily obsessed with someone who looks a bit like me.’ Rosie glanced at her to figure out if this was a joke. Lilian’s face gave nothing away.
    ‘So,’ said Rosie, looking around. The living room was tiny. Her enormous, mucky bag seemed to be cluttering the whole place up. Lilian sat herself down carefully in her armchair, as if her bones were made of glass.
    ‘Thanks for having me to stay!’ said Rosie cheerfully, as if she was a house guest and not someone with her heart set