by Pam Rhodes
“I wasn’t sure you wanted to.”
“I was nervous, I suppose. I wanted to suggest something, but wasn’t quite certain how you’d feel; whether it was the right thing…”
“I know. I understand.”
“Would you like us to get together?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Whenever you’re awake and you can.”
“How about tomorrow night? It’s Saturday. We could meet halfway. Do you know the Brewer’s Arms?”
“Of course. That’s such a well-known landmark.”
“Shall we meet there about half past seven? I’ll wait in the bar.”
“I’ll look forward to it. What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to stretch out on the sofa and watch yesterday’s rugby match that I missed. I already know that my team lost, so that should send me to sleep. How about you?”
“Well, I’m just sorting out the teams for our Beetles and Puds event coming up the weekend after next.”
“What? You mean an old-fashioned Beetle Drive? My mum used to take me along to those. They’re great fun.”
“Well, we may have a space on our management team. Perhaps you’d like to come and make up numbers?”
“Don’t be silly. I’m a doctor. I’d get all the body parts in the wrong places.”
Sara was going downhill fast. Ray had seen a change in her condition during the last few days that filled him with dread. There were long periods when she was either deeply asleep or not quite awake. He felt he was becoming part of her fretful dreams as reality seemed to escape her grasp.
The Hospice at Home team had become his lifeline. Their visits throughout the day, and the calls he was able to make to them at night whenever he felt out of his depth, were all that kept him going. He wanted to make sure he was doing everything he could to ease her pain and keep her calm and peaceful. He was worried about showing fear in his face as he watched her struggle with weakness and pain. Just a few days before, she had still been able to have short conversations with him, but speaking was difficult now.Guttural sounds came from her throat, which seemed to be closing up on her. His heart broke. His eyes stung. His body ached. He was losing her. His beloved Sara was slipping away from him.
“I’ll sit with her now.” Jane, the hospice nurse, touched his arm as he slumped uncomfortably in the armchair beside Sara’s bed. “You’re exhausted. See if you can get a bit of sleep in the spare room for a while. I promise I’ll wake you if there’s any change.”
“How long?”
“The doctor’s coming this morning. He’ll tell us more.”
“Is she in pain?”
“Probably not. The medication takes care of that.”
“Does she even know I’m here?”
“Oh, I think she always knows you’re here for her, Ray.”
“I don’t want to leave her side if she’s…”
Jane knelt down so that he could see the kindness and concern in her eyes. “I’m here to look after you as well as Sara. You need some rest. If there’s anything at all to tell you, I will come and get you straight away.”
“My son’s coming down this afternoon.”
“Then you’ll need a rest before you see him.”
“Nothing will happen before he comes?”
“Sleep now, Ray. Come on, let me give you a hand.”
I’ll never sleep, he thought, as he allowed her to guide him through to the bed in the spare room, where he climbed in and pulled the bedclothes up round his ears. But by the time Jane was pulling the door closed, he was already sliding into exhausted slumber.
All week long, the Call-in Café attracted a steady flow of customers who either enjoyed their drinks and snacks down in the foyer, or took them upstairs. The comfy chairs in the balcony lounge meant that people sometimes worked their way through hours of chat, at least a couple of cakes and several drinks before they left again. Saturday mornings, though, were always the busiest time, when the café was regularly run by the deputy catering manager Liz, whose greying hair and slight build belied her quick mind, boundless energy and ability to cope with at least a dozen things at once. On Saturdays, she organized everything with the help of a couple of part-timers while Maggie had her day off.
Out of the corner of her eye, Liz had been dimly aware of a figure hovering in the background watching the proceedings rather than joining the queue, but she was too busy to take much notice as she got on with making fresh coffee, preparing a variety of sandwiches, making up ploughman’s lunches, baked potatoes, quiches and salads, along with a couple of hot dishes. There were the puddings too, of course, for which the café was well known, as well as a delicious array of mouth-watering cakes.
Liz had just turned towards the sink to wash her hands when she heard a voice.
“Hello, Miss.”
She turned to see Kevin, the would-be Jamie Oliver who had started doing work experience at the Grown-ups’ Lunch Club. He looked different out of school uniform, although fashion plainly wasn’t his thing from the look of his battered denim jacket and jeans, and his hair that was spiky not from a razor-sharp cut, but because it simply did stick out in spikes.
“Hello, Kevin. Have you come for lunch?”
“Only if I can help make it,” he replied. “I want to work here.”
“Kevin, you’re still at school. There are rules and procedures in place for work experience.”
“I’ll work for free. I just want to be here at this café.”
Liz wiped her hands, her face curious. “Why?”
“If I told you my favourite television programme is The Great British Bake Off, would you understand?”
She smiled then. “You fancy yourself as a baker, do you?”
“I just want to cook. I love cooking anything, from bacon and eggs to all sorts of meals. I like making something out of nothing – you know, just with things from the cupboard, and trying a few different spices to give it a bit of a twist. But it’s baking that I really love most – bread, yeast-based buns, sponges, fruit cakes, icing, sugar and chocolate work. I’ve seen it all on telly and I just can’t take my eyes off it. There’s no chance of me trying out anything like that at home. My mum thinks worktops and sinks were designed to be somewhere that you pile up all the dirty plates. Cooking doesn’t interest her, and there’s never any money for extras anyway. So I’d like to come and learn here because of the baking you do. I’ll just stand in the corner and watch, if that’s all that’s allowed, although I’d be happy to help out if you’d let me.”
Liz looked at him thoughtfully. “You did a good job spudbashing the other day.”
“Did I?”
“And I saw you taking an interest in everything I was preparing.”
“Yeah?”
“I even saw you adding extra basil to the lasagne mix when you thought I wasn’t looking.”
His face fell. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that without asking.”
“No, you shouldn’t – but actually I’m glad you did. The sauce tasted much nicer for it.”
His face lit up. “Did it, Miss? I love basil in Italian-based sauces. Did you see me put in extra garlic as well?”
“No, because you’d have been out on your ear if I had. A lot of our diners have special dietary requirements. Garlic can cause an unpleasant reaction in some vulnerable people, especially when they’re elderly. You should never add anything to someone else’s dishes without checking first.”
His face turned an interesting shade of puce. “Sorry, Miss.”
“How old are you, Kevin?”
“Sixteen, Miss.”
“And what are your plans for the future – before you take over from Jamie Oliver?”
“Well, I just want to cook.”
“So will that mean going to college?”
“My mum’s on her own. I’m the eldest of four of us. I want to get working as soon as I can.”
“But cooking is a skill you have
to be taught. College is usually the first step.”
“You have to pay to go there. I want to be paid as soon as I can. Mum will need me to bring money in.”
“So you hope to learn the trade—”
“By working in a place like this, or a baker’s shop somewhere. And I can watch a lot online too. I know I won’t be earning for a while, but this is what I want to do, and I’d like you to teach me.”
“Well, Kevin, I’m not the baking expert here, so you need to talk to our catering manager, Maggie, who will be in on Monday. Could you pop in some time to see her?”
“I could come straight after school about four o’clock?”
“Fine. I’ll put that in the diary.”
“What’s the catering manager like, Miss? What do you think she’ll say?”
“I think she’ll be very interested to hear what I have to say about you.”
“You won’t tell her about the garlic, Miss, will you?”
Liz struggled not to smile. “Well, that’s for you to ponder, isn’t it, Kevin?”
Kath changed her mind about what to wear three times before she finally settled on the soft blue jersey. Whenever she wore it, someone seemed to comment that the colour matched her eyes. Perhaps Jack would think so too.
She recognized his car immediately as she turned into the car park. With a quick glance in the mirror to check that she didn’t have dark mascara splashes under her eyes or lipstick on her teeth, she climbed out of the car and made her way through the pub to the bar at the back.
And there he was, so dear and familiar – and there went her heart again, thumping in her chest at the sight of him standing up to greet her. She simply walked into his arms, and they stood there for a while, wound around each other, remembering how wonderful those hugs had always felt.
“You’re early,” she smiled, allowing him to draw her into the seat beside him.
“And you, as always, are bang on time. I’ve never known you be anything but punctual, my dear Kath.”
“Have you been working today?” she asked, noticing the lines of tiredness around his eyes.
“Just for a few hours. We’ve a few children in intensive care at the moment who’ve been through very complicated surgery. I like to keep a close eye on them.”
“And, as always, you will put in whatever hours are needed to care for them.”
He shrugged. “As a doctor, I want to do the best for my patients. As a human being, I also want to do my best for their parents. I’ve seen such despair and anguish, as well as unbelievable courage, in the mums and dads who spend days, sometimes weeks, in hospital with their sick children. Often that devotion comes at tremendous cost to themselves and to other members of their family. They need all the support we can give them.”
Kath smiled as she slipped her hand into his and gave it a squeeze. “You’re the right man for that. Being a doctor was never just a job for you; it’s a vocation.”
He smiled back at her. “And you? How’s your job suiting you?”
“I love it. Hope Hall has a wonderfully warm feel to it. Everybody in the town comes through its doors at some time – babies and children, teenagers, OAPs who are full of life and able-bodied, as well as others who are coping with the effects of getting older – loss of memory, hip replacements, health problems. Then there are people from all corners of the community who come in for special reasons – to find help with debt, or alcohol, learning English or losing weight. They come in to sing, dance, play games, drink coffee, eat cakes! Hope Hall welcomes them all.”
“And you make it happen?”
“With the help of a great team. I mainly do the admin and paperwork.”
“You forget how well I know you. Admin and paperwork will just be the starting point of what you do. Anyway, would you like a drink? And they do lovely meals here. Have you eaten?”
“No. Shall we take a look at the menu?”
An hour and a half later, following a delicious meal, Jack slipped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “I’ve missed this. I didn’t realize how much until I saw you at the reunion.”
“I thought I was over you.”
“And me you.” Jack looked down at their clasped hands. “It’s not gone away, though, has it? We still get on so well. There’s no learning curve between us. We understand each other.”
She nodded, feeling so much, wanting to choose her words carefully. “We are in very different circumstances now, though. We live and work in different worlds.”
“That might be a good thing,” he suggested. “Hospital life up in London was a bit like a pressure cooker – constantly working, studying, so many people around us all the time. It sometimes felt like being under a microscope.”
“And was I part of that pressure? Did you think I was expecting too much of you?”
“Kath, we lived in each other’s pockets. We were together all the time. You had a right to expect commitment from me, some sort of plan for continuing our life together…”
“But you weren’t ready for that.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
She looked up to gaze directly at him. “And I’m not ready now just to pick up where we left off. We’re no spring chickens, Jack. For heaven’s sake, we’re both heading for fifty. We’re independent people, probably stuck in our ways, however much we think we can compromise.”
He smiled. “That’s my Kath. Say it like it is and don’t pull your punches. I’ve always appreciated that about you.”
“But when decisions had to be made about Mum, it felt as if my leaving didn’t matter to you. You were so cold – you cut me out as if I were a cancer in one of your patients. That hurt…”
He pulled her closer as her voice faltered.
“I can’t go through that pain again, Jack. I’d rather turn away from this right now than take that risk.”
“And yet there is something here still,” he said quietly. “Something deep and dear that I don’t want to lose again, not without finding out what this could bring us, both now and in the future.” He tilted her chin so that their faces were a breath apart. “Let’s just take it slowly. No pressure, no promises, no time limit. There’s old love here, but where that love takes us is for us to discover – together.”
He held out his hand to her then. For several long moments, she didn’t move – and then, winding her fingers around his, she leaned forward until their foreheads touched, her reply no more than a whisper.
“Together.”
Tess rang Maggie back on Monday morning, as soon as she had a break between lessons. The two women were old friends – well, to be precise, the oldest friendship was between Maggie and Tess’s mum and dad. They had all been at school together, and remained friends as the couple married and worked endless hours on the family farm that they eventually inherited. Maggie had been at Tess’s christening, and had watched her grow into a fine young woman who always loved the countryside, but decided as a teenager that she didn’t want a lifetime of working on the farm. Her parents seemed slightly bemused when Tess went off to get a degree in Social Sciences followed by her teaching qualifications. After her marriage to a quantity surveyor, who was offered a post in her home area, the couple were delighted when they were able to buy a cottage that Tess had always loved not far from the family farm. Now with young children of their own, she often brought in the vegetables, salads, fruit and eggs that Maggie had ordered from her parents.
“Sorry I missed your call, Maggie. You need to know about Kevin Marley?”
“Yes, he’s coming in to see me after school today. He wants to learn to cook here. Says he’s really keen on baking.”
“Yes, he is. He’s an odd sort of lad because he doesn’t really socialize with any particular group at school. It’s not that he’s unpopular. He just walks his own path. I think he has a lot of responsibility at home. There’s no dad, and his mum has got a bit of a mouth on her.”
“Liz said he was rather cocky last week when you brought hi
m along for work experience, but then he took a real interest in the cooking. He even added a couple of extra ingredients into the pot, and actually they were good ones – but we won’t tell him that. He needs to learn discipline in the kitchen, more than anything else.”
“Well, I think this might be the chance he needs. He’s got to learn to walk before he can run, but I know you and Liz will keep him in check.”
“He’s not going to rob the cash box and knock over little old ladies then?”
“Actually, he often speaks of his gran. She sounds quite formidable, but he adores her. No, I think he’s fine with older people. This could be the making of him.”
“Right, I’ll see how he gets on with work experience during the lunch on Tuesday, and if that still seems okay, I’ll invite him along when we need an extra pair of hands.”
“Thanks, Mags.” Tess hesitated for a moment. “I spotted Dave in town the other day. It was all I could do not to give him a piece of my mind.”
“He probably wouldn’t be interested. He’s in l-o-v-e – so he keeps telling everyone.”
“Well, he was in l-o-v-e with you for how many years?”
“We met when I was sixteen, married when we were both twenty-two. We had our silver wedding anniversary less than six months ago. And you’re right. We were in love. We never talked about it, because we never needed to. We just loved each other, end of story.”
“You’re going through the worst patch now, but it will get better. You’ll come through this, and you will be happy again.”
“Maybe. Thanks, Tess. I’ll see you tomorrow then. Will there be three students again, including Kevin?”
“That’s right. Bye.”
Kevin couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he put on his overalls to join the team in the kitchen the following morning to prepare the Grown-ups’ Lunch. Once their guests started to arrive, it was all hands to the pump to get each course ready and served.
Among the first guests to arrive was a rather gangly smiling gentleman wearing a beige blazer, cream slacks and leather moccasins. His white shirt was open at the neck, and on his head he wore a straw hat at a delightfully saucy angle.
