Free Heartstones by Kate Glanville

tourists. After a quick glance round she headed for the door but found that the young men had taken up residence on a bench outside. They were unwrapping pies, cracking open cans of Coke, lighting cigarettes, and evidently preparing themselves for a lunch break. Phoebe went back inside; at least the woman behind the till didn’t look like she would have been in Fibber Flannigan’s, being small and mousy with a pale brown bowl of hair and a knitted waistcoat the colour of a cow-pat. She was sorting through a pile of greetings cards, pricing each one with a hand-written sticky label and only briefly glanced at Phoebe before returning to her task.
    Phoebe moved around the room looking at the shamrock-embroidered handkerchiefs and the tea towels printed with traditional Irish recipes. A flock of toy sheep had been herded into a neat straight line on a shelf. She picked one up and wondered if Amy and Ruben were too old for cuddly toys – probably. Anyway she doubted that Nola would let her children accept any more gifts from their wanton aunt. Phoebe replaced the sheep and fought back threatening tears. She turned around to find herself in front of a display of tweed deerstalkers. If David had been alive she would have bought him one so that they could have both had a funny hat to wear. In the past this would have made her laugh but now a wave of sadness seemed to engulf her, and she moved away from the hats to stare at a shelf of surprisingly beautiful pottery.
    The pottery looked out of place amongst the rest of the stock. She wondered who had made it and felt suddenly compelled to touch the blood-red glaze that dripped down the side of a vase. The woman behind the till let out a little cough and Phoebe’s hand sprang away from the vase like a naughty child caught touching a bowl of sweets.
    Instead she looked at a display of postcards, gently spinning the rotating stand. She was sure she’d bought the one of a little red-haired girl and donkey when she had been a child, and the view of Carraigmore beach on a busy summer day had a distinctly 1970s feel to it. Phoebe kept spinning, wondering if she should send a card to Nola to let her know she was still alive. No, Phoebe decided firmly, if Nola wanted to know how she was she could get in touch herself.
    She gave the display a final spin and was just about to turn away when she noticed the postcard. Unlike the others it was a painting, powerful brush strokes depicting a dark and angry sea, thick streaks of grey and swirling blues, white waves crashing onto a thin strip of umber sand. A single smudge of red suggested a figure walking on the beach, battling against the stormy weather, all alone in the full force of nature’s elements. Something about the image appealed to Phoebe. She picked it up, drawn to the wildness of the ocean and the determination of the lonely figure. She couldn’t decide if the image signified hope or some kind of hopeless despair. She turned it over, W.M. Flynn, Carraigmore, 1994 .
    ‘Can I help you?’ The voice made Phoebe jump.
    She looked up to find the mousy woman hovering beside her.
    ‘Just looking, thank you,’ Phoebe craned forward to glance through a window to see if the builders were still sitting on the bench. They were. She peered intently at the postcard so that she didn’t have to make conversation with the mouse.
    ‘One of Ireland’s greatest landscape painters,’ the mouse said over her shoulder. ‘Do you know his work?’ Phoebe moved to put the postcard back but something changed her mind.
    ‘No,’ she said.
    ‘He manages to imbue each simple brush stroke with such force and energy; I find his paintings quite invigorating.’ The mouse leant forward to touch the card and gave a little shiver.
    ‘I’ll take it,’ Phoebe held out the card towards the woman who beckoned to her to follow her to the till. After she had taken Phoebe’s money and slowly and carefully recorded the sale in an exercise book and written out a