Free The Better Woman by Ber Carroll Page A

it’s worth all the fuss.’
    Despite being too frail to do anything but serve at the shop counter, Peggy was still an astute businesswoman. It made perfect sense to buy a video player!
    Two weeks later Sarah’s new business venture got the big thumbs-up. Peggy considered the video player the best invention since sliced pan: being able to choose exactly what you wanted to watch and then pause, fast forward or rewind as suited, not to talk about recording off the TV.
    Sarah found a supplier for the video tapes and reorganised the shelving in the shop to accommodate them. She designed a poster and paid a printer to run off fifty glossy copies. Most of the posters went to Kilnock, but she also put a few in other villages further afield.
    Unlike the petrol pumps, the video business was slow to take off. The tapes often got damaged or weren’t returned on time. Sarah soon realised that she had to strictly enforce late fees if she was to make any profit at all.
    Peggy, not too bothered with the meagre profits, became a home-based film critic. She watched each and every tape, putting a green sticker on the ones she liked. It took Sarah a while to cotton on that some of the new blockbusters weren’t getting Peggy’s
Recommended
sticker.
    â€˜What’s wrong with
Dirty Dancing
?’
    â€˜It’s not the right moral message to be giving young people,’ was her grandmother’s reply.
    â€˜Nan, this isn’t a church youth club! It’s a business,’ Sarah said, exasperated. ‘Where are the stickers?’
    â€˜They’re
my
stickers,’ Peggy stated, all high and mighty. ‘It’s
my
recommendation, not yours.’
    â€˜Well, I’ll get my own then,’ Sarah threatened. ‘Red, I think, meaning
Red hot love scenes
. Recommended by
me
.’
    Peggy stuck to her guns. Sarah carried out her threat. It didn’t take the customers long to figure out the difference between the green and red recommendation stickers.
    One cold wet October night, at the start of Sarah’s third year of university, she locked up the shop and sat behind the counter to begin balancing the cash. She didn’t take much notice when it was fifty pounds out and proceeded to go through the numbersagain. Twenty minutes later she finished all the adding and cross checking, the fifty pounds still unaccounted for.
    Did Nan give someone too much change
? she wondered, but found it hard to believe.
    While Peggy openly admitted to becoming muddled with detailed paperwork, she was as sharp as ever when dealing with hard cash.
    Or maybe Brendan made a mistake?
    Mr Fahey, whom she now called Brendan, did make the odd mistake, but Sarah found it hard to imagine a scenario where an amount as significant as fifty pounds could be overlooked.
    Mulling it over, she stretched elastic bands around the wads of cash, bagged the coins and prepared the deposit slip for the following day’s lodgement. She carried the cash and deposit book through to the house, and locked them away in the strong box hidden beneath the kitchen sink.
    â€˜We’re out fifty pounds, Nan,’ she said as she walked into the front room.
    Peggy was snoozing, her chin resting on her chest. The plastic case of
The Secret of my Success
was on her lap. Michael J Fox, cocky and ambitious, grinned from the TV screen.
    â€˜Nan?’ Sarah shook Peggy’s shoulder. ‘You can’t be sleeping on the job –’
    In a heart-stopping moment Sarah realised that her grandmother’s body was frigid to her touch.
    â€˜Nan, Nan,’ she cried and lifted Peggy’s chin to see her face. Her eyes were open.
    She’s okay
.
    Then it sank in that the staring eyes had no life in them.
    *
    â€˜Sorry for your loss.’
    â€˜We’ll all miss her.’
    â€˜She lived a good life, God rest her soul.’
    â€˜A great loss to Carrickmore.’
    â€˜Sorry.’
    Sarah acknowledged each quiet