Free Paint on the Smiles by Grace Thompson

released from prison two days ago and tomorrow he will be coming home at four o’clock. He’s been staying at a boarding house, giving himself a chance to rid himself of the smell of prison, she told me. Buying some new clothes too.’
    They discussed it for a while and decided to take the stolen items and go down to wait for him the next day. Ada didn’t altogether trust his mother so, while Willie stayed in the shop, they went to sit with Mrs Spencer at three o’clock.
    They heard him coming and Ada’s heart was racing as she prepared for her first sight of him. She held the bundle of jewellery in her hands, still unsure how she would approach the revelation of their discovery. Her strongest thoughts were the loving greeting which she would have to share with his mother and Cecily.
    She stepped outside, her arms ready to enfold him, but instead of running to her as she had imagined in her dreams, he ignored her and went first to the workroom and looked up at the light fitting. Disappointment and hurt, then anger, enraged Ada. Why hadn’t she been his first thought after all these months? She ran across to the workroom and threw the jewellery and the notes in front of him. ‘Phil, is this what you’re looking for?’
    His mother followed her out and gave a scream.
    ‘They’re mine,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I paid for them.’
    ‘Paid? Not stolen? Mrs Watkins and Mrs Richards gave them to you, did they?’
    ‘Paid for with the time I served in that place. They’re mine.’
    Mrs Spencer gave another scream, grabbed the jewellery, ran back and threw the items onto the fire. Phil stepped inside and stared at it with no apparent concern. ‘I paid, the insurance paid, so how can you say it isn’t mine?’ He reached with some tongs and the poker and pulled them out, tipping coals onto the hearth while his mother stared at him.
    Ada left the cottage and walked with Cecily to where they had parked the car. Nothing was said during the short journey and when they got back to the shop, Willie reported a few queries and orders for the next day, and went back to the stable to continue with his work.
    ‘It’s as though none of it happened,’ Ada said later, when they were preparing their meal. ‘My marriage to Phil, living with his mother, the happy times, then the arrest and imprisonment, it’s all a horrible dream.’
    ‘I shouldn’t have gone with you, Ada, love. You’ll see him tomorrow and everything will return to how it was, you and Phil happy together.’
    ‘I sometimes think we should sell this shop,’ Ada surprised her by saying. ‘I’m not really superstitious but Dorothy has ill-wished us ever since Dadda left it to us. We’ve had nothing but bad luck.’
    ‘Bad luck, you call it? I call it Dorothy’s vicious interfering. She’s our bad luck, not our small inheritance.’
    ‘I mean it. If we didn’t have the shop we’d be free to have some fun.’
    ‘Running this place is fun. Besides, where would we live? You’d go back to Phil and his mother but what about me and our Van?’
     
    Later that evening, Van was out with Edwin and his parents, and Cecily and Ada went out to put some empty boxes into the stable. They looked around the smoke-stained walls and the charred beams where the upper floor had been burnt away. The loft had only been used for storage but it would be handy if they were going to increase their stock.
    ‘We ought to think about getting this properly restored,’ Ada said. ‘Willie and Danny would do it. Willie has already worked out costs.’
    ‘I don’t want Danny working here,’ Cecily said, then she stopped and listened. She smiled as they heard voices singing hymns, recognizing the strong voice of Horse and the tinny sound of his wife accompanying him. They opened the small door in the large stable door and looked out. The couple were sitting on the ground in the lane, eating what looked like cold soup from tins.
    ‘Evening, miss,’ Wife said, waving her tin