The Pretty Delicious Cafe

by Danielle Hawkins

  ‘My boyfriend,’ I said, as Jed got out and opened the side door of the van to unbuckle Craig from his booster seat. ‘And his son.’

  I was more than half expecting some disparaging comment about either the van, the child or both, but Dad surpassed all my expectations by saying, ‘What, the bloke who roughed you up?’

  ‘No! Bloody hell, Dad!’ I said, stamping across the kitchen and wrenching the door open.

  Jed looked at me enquiringly as he and Craig came up the back steps, and I took a deep breath. ‘Hi, guys. Dad, this is Jed, and Craig. Jed, this is my father, Grayson.’

  ‘Good evening,’ said Dad, nodding stiffly.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ Jed said. He turned to Mike. ‘Hi. How’s it going?’

  ‘Good, thanks,’ said Mike, standing up. ‘How’s the hand?’

  Jed flexed his fingers, which, probably because he removed his splint every time it restricted his range of motion, were still giving him a certain amount of trouble. ‘Getting there,’ he said.

  ‘He broked it,’ said Craig.

  ‘I know,’ Mike told him.

  ‘He hit a bad guy. Like this. Smash.’

  ‘Zip it, small fry,’ said Jed, scooping him up mid-demonstration.

  ‘Like Batman,’ Craig continued, slightly muffled. ‘My dad’s really tough.’

  ‘Drink, anyone?’ I asked hastily. ‘Would you like a beer, Dad?’

  He ignored me, so as to put me in my place. ‘So you’re a mechanic, I hear?’

  Having handed out drinks, I sat back down on the window seat, and Craig came and stood hopefully in front of me. I smiled and passed him my beer. ‘Just a sip. No glugging.’

  ‘Lia, I’m hungry,’ he whispered hoarsely, passing the bottle back. ‘What should we do about that?’

  ‘Sandwich?’ I offered.

  ‘Cheesy pizza?’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s too hot for melted cheese.’

  ‘I’m not too hot.’

  ‘I am,’ I said, getting up. ‘Sorry, sausage. What would you like on your sandwich?’

  Craig sighed. ‘Peanut butter,’ he said sadly.

  While I made it, Dad told Jed how to recondition a diesel engine and Craig told Mike how to wash his hands after going to the toilet. Both took it well, I thought.

  ‘Here you go,’ I said, handing Craig his sandwich. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘Please,’ he said offhandedly. ‘Hey, Lia, I’m going to stay at my nana’s house in one more sleep.’

  ‘Awesome.’

  He turned to Mike. ‘My mummy’s going to be there, too. She’s got a sore head.’

  ‘That’s no good,’ Mike said.

  ‘I’ve got a sore arm.’ He peered at one forearm, and then the other.

  ‘There?’ I asked, pointing at a faint pink spot.

  ‘No – yes! See?’

  Mike looked obediently. ‘Ye-es. What happened?’

  ‘Mrs Smith’s cat scratchered me.’

  ‘Cats do that sometimes,’ said Mike.

  ‘I kicked it,’ Craig said.

  ‘Before or after it scratched you?’ I asked.

  ‘Before. Then it scratchered me.’

  ‘Well, no wonder. I’d have scratchered you, too. Do you want to get out the toy box in the dining room?’

  For the next twenty minutes Craig made block towers and knocked them down, and the rest of us listened to Dad’s thoughts on the Resource Management Act. They were not particularly inspiring.

  ‘Staying for tea?’ I asked Jed when at length there was a pause.

  He shook his head, the traitor. ‘Thanks, but I think Craig could do with an early night. Craig! Toys away now, please.’

  ‘We’ll see you on Saturday, I suppose, if not before,’ said Dad.

  ‘Yes,’ Jed said, retrieving a lone block from beneath the front counter. He pushed the toy box back into its corner, came back and pecked my cheek. ‘Good luck for tomorrow. Give us a yell if you need a hand with anything.’

  ‘Will do,’ I said, trying hard not to look bereft. ‘Goodnight, Craig!’

  Craig had reached the bottom of the porch steps, but he stopped and turned around. ‘Are you not coming to our house, Lia?’

  ‘Not tonight,’ I said.

  He frowned. ‘But we need to look after you.’

  ‘These guys will look after me.’

  ‘Forever?’ he demanded.

  ‘No, just for tonight.’

  ‘And then will you come back to our house?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘And say me the poem about Brian the Lion?’

  ‘Yes. Definitely.’

  ‘Come on, horror,’ Jed said, going down the steps and picking him up. ‘Goodnight, everyone.’

  Craig twisted around to look over his father’s shoulder. ‘Will you come tomorrow night?’

  ‘You’re going to your nana’s tomorrow night, remember?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  I went down the steps and kissed his small hot cheek. ‘I’ll come as soon as you get back. Okay?’

  He considered that for a moment and then threw his arms around me. ‘Okay,’ he said into the side of my neck.

  ‘Night, sausage.’

  ‘Come with us,’ Jed whispered. ‘We’ll make a run for it.’

  ‘I wish,’ I said, detaching Craig and going reluctantly back up the steps.

  Chapter 29

  We ate outside on the porch, looking over the lawn to the little kauri trees running up the ridge, each one rimmed with gold by the sun that was low enough now to sneak in beneath the clouds. Dinner was a prawn, vegetable and cashew nut stir-fry, delicately flavoured with ginger and sweet chilli and served with sticky coconut rice. It was, though I say it myself, delicious.

  Dad speared a prawn, examined it suspiciously, put it in his mouth, chewed bravely and said, ‘I don’t actually mind this sort of stuff, every now and then.’

  Mike’s and my eyes met, and we both laughed.

  ‘You want to watch these fulsome compliments, Dad,’ I said.

  There was a small, frozen pause before he asked, ‘How’s this landscaping thing of your brother’s going?’

  ‘Very well. He was really pleased to get that big subdivision contract up in Whangarei. He’s working pretty hard, though.’

  ‘Good on him. Won’t do him any harm at all.’

  Surely, I thought, not everything my father said should offend me. I needed to stop taking things so relentlessly the wrong way. ‘Isn’t this light beautiful?’ I said.

  ‘Very nice. I suppose you’ve heard that Michael’s had enough of farming and he’s throwing in the towel?’

  No, I decided, it wasn’t just me. Everything he said was offensive. Cheered by this conclusion, I raised my eyebrows and said, ‘What on earth was he supposed to do when you put the farm on the market?’

  This comment did nothing to improve the meal’s tone. When we’d finished it and Dad had retired briefly down the hall, I said repentantly, ‘Sorry, Mike.’

  He shook his head at me and smiled.

  ‘Every time,’ I said. ‘I promise myself I won’t bite; I’ll just let it all pass me by. And then every time, I fail.’

  ‘Just tell yourself it’s character-building,’ he said, standing up and starting to clear the table.

  ‘Hmm. Coffee?’

  ‘No, I thought I might go down and see Maggie. Unless she’s got a houseful?’

  ‘No, not until tomorrow. But you can’t leave me here with him, you rat!’

  Mike laughed. ‘It’s good for you,’ he said.

  Doubtful, but it would at least give me a nice opportunity for feeling selfless and noble. I sighed. ‘Fine. Desert me, then. Could you get Mum to give you the ribbon to go around the cake? I want to ice it first thing tomorrow.’

  He did desert me, but he helped with the dishes before he went. As the car disappeared down the driveway, I opened the big chest freezer and took out the three tiers of wedding cake so they could thaw overnight. �
�Would you like an ice-cream sandwich, Dad?’ I asked.

  ‘Hmm?’ he said, looking up from the paper he’d been sitting with at the butcher’s block. ‘Go on, then.’

  Anna and I had, after a bit of trial and error, settled on storing and serving the ice-cream sandwiches in little baking paper envelopes. I brought him one, and as he unwrapped it he actually said, ‘That looks smart.’

  ‘Thanks!’ I said, touched. ‘They’re quite popular – we’ve been selling them in boxes of five or six for people to take home, too. I’d like to do a bit more of that sort of thing; it’s so much less labour intensive than seating people here.’

  ‘Probably quite a good idea to have a few strings to your bow,’ he said. ‘What’s that you’re making?’

  ‘Ganache – icing – for the wedding cake. If I make it now it can cool overnight.’

  He nodded, took a bite of ice-cream sandwich and remarked, ‘Place is looking pretty good.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘d’you think Robin would be interested in going farming?’

  I stopped chopping chocolate and looked at him in surprise. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think he’s ever really thought about it. Why?’

  ‘No need to spread this around, but I was wondering if he’d like to take over the farm one day.’

  ‘But – what about Mike?’

  ‘Well, he’s leaving, isn’t he?’

  ‘Because you’re selling,’ I said, at the risk of labouring the point.

  ‘You don’t have to sell just because you put something on the market, Lia.’

  ‘No, you don’t, but the whole process does sort of undermine people’s sense of security about the future. And weren’t you talking recently about letting Gina take over?’

  ‘I’ve been considering a few different options,’ he said cagily.

  I took a deep breath and put down my knife. It would, after all, cast a pall over the wedding if I stabbed my father in a fit of rage. ‘Dad, if you’re thinking of handing over the reins, don’t you think Mike’s kind of earned right of first refusal?’

  Dad looked entirely blank – so blank that it was obvious he’d never even considered such a thing. It was his farm, and therefore his to do whatever he liked with. I think it was then that, for the first time, hurt anger at my father’s relentlessly negative, self-absorbed outlook took second place to pity. If you never consider anyone else’s point of view – if it doesn’t even occur to you that anyone else might have a different point of view to yours – everyone in your life will let you down, and you’ll never understand why. That’s actually quite sad.

  ‘I don’t think Rob and Anna would be keen, anyway,’ I said more gently.

  ‘Well, farming’s not a forty-hour-a-week job, that’s for sure. Weekends, late nights, early starts – if there’s work to be done, you just get on with it. You kids all talk a lot of guff about work–life balance these days – you seem to expect the rewards before you put the work in. I had to work my way up from the bottom.’

  Dad’s father bought him that farm. And if ever Rob or Anna or I had talked about work–life balance, it would have been with the wistful hope that we might just possibly get a little bit one day, in some dim and distant future. My newborn pity and understanding slunk away with its head down, and incredulous wrath settled itself firmly back into the driving seat.

  * * *

  I spent the night on the dining room sofa, having won an argument with Mike over which of us would have my bed on the grounds that he was too tall to stretch out full length on the sofa, and we needed him uncrippled for heavy lifting in the morning. It was comfortable enough, but the dining room had too many doors and windows, and the coffee machine, so stylish and gleaming by day, looked alarmingly sinister, like a malevolent thing crouching on the end of the counter.

  Idiot, I told myself crossly. You don’t have to lie here turning yourself into a gibbering wreck. You could just go to sleep like a normal person. Rolling over I closed my eyes.

  Man, Dad was a prick. I’d have bet the thought behind this sudden interest in his younger son was that of a retirement spent being waited on by a beautiful daughter-in-law, while a cluster of adoring grandchildren gathered around his knee, eagerly gathering up the pearls of wisdom that fell from Granddad’s lips. Family, in theory, was important to my father – suitably attractive, successful, neighbour-impressing family, anyway.

  Sighing, I turned over again. I missed Jed, and going to sleep without him felt wrong.

  Although it was certainly roomier. Whenever I shifted in the night he would instantly advance, so that every morning I woke balanced precariously on the edge of the mattress while he lay like a starfish in the middle. It was like sleeping with a cat. He’s worth it, I thought, smiling sleepily. And he comes with a bonus Craig . . .

  * * *

  ‘Hey,’ someone said. ‘Wake up, little blister, you’re alright.’

  I sat up gasping, collided at high speed with Mike’s face and fell back against the pillow.

  ‘Ow,’ he said mildly.

  ‘S-sorry.’

  ‘My fault.’ He sat down beside me on the edge of the sofa and gingerly felt his nose. He hadn’t turned a light on, and I could see him only as a dark shape against the paler grey oblong of a window. ‘Nightmare?’

  I breathed out on a long shudder. ‘Being chased. It’s always just being chased, not caught, or . . . Is your nose alright?’

  ‘Fine. You okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘Liar.’

  I smiled. ‘Mostly okay. Just a bit fragile around the edges. It’ll come right.’

  He stroked the hair gently back off my face, and my eyes filled, as they did these days at the slightest provocation. ‘You’re a bit of a legend, you know,’ he said.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I said, sitting up and hugging him. ‘But what a nice thing to say.’

  * * *

  I was icing the wedding cake when Mike came into the kitchen at six thirty the next morning. It was a simple enough design – three tiers of decreasing size, each to be covered evenly with chocolate ganache and circled with a wide lemon-coloured satin ribbon, and then topped at the last minute with yellow and cream roses – but I was feeling somewhat stressed about the whole thing, knowing that Anna’s idea of a smooth and professional finish would almost certainly be smoother and more professional than mine.

  ‘Morning,’ he said.

  I looked up and smiled at him. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No, I’ll make a cup of tea.’ He yawned and ruffled up his sandy hair. ‘What did that cake ever do to you?’

  I pulled the dowelling rod I had just sunk through the glossy chocolate coating of the biggest tier back out and cut it carefully to length with a pair of secateurs. ‘It’s for extra support. Otherwise the top tiers might crush the bottom one.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, crossing the kitchen to switch on the kettle. ‘It’s going to be a beautiful day.’

  I looked out the window and discovered that, indeed, it was. The sun wasn’t up yet, and the sky was a cool, pearly blue, with one little pink-flushed cloud above the ridge. ‘Thank goodness. Imagine trying to put up a marquee in the rain.’

  My cell phone beeped from my handbag, sitting on the window seat.

  ‘D’you want that?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I said, pushing the cut dowelling rod back into the cake, level with the top. ‘I think it’s Rob.’

  Mike rummaged in my handbag, pulled something out, raised his eyebrows and put it back again. Looking up, I realised he’d found the Play Ultra, which I’d stuffed into my bag a good six weeks ago and forgotten all about.

  ‘I bought that by mistake,’ I said hastily.

  He smiled. ‘Of course you did.’

  ‘I did, actually. From Mum’s friend Carole, just to make it even worse. It was all hideously embarrassing.’

  ‘What was?’ Dad asked, wandering in.

  ‘Oh, nothing. Morn
ing, Dad. Did you sleep alright?’

  ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Does your hair always look like that first thing in the morning?’

  And so it begins, I thought sourly, settling the cake’s middle tier on top of the bottom one.

  Rob’s text message, bless him, read: Want me to take the old boy to Whangarei this morning?

  Oh hell yes, I wrote back, so he came past at about eight and took Dad away with him to pick up the marquee.

  That certainly helped, but it was still a reasonably horrendous morning. Tensions were running high, with a general readiness to take umbrage anywhere it could be found – and indeed, if no umbrage was to hand, to make it from scratch. Anna was exhausted, and so was Mum. Deidre, who had never become reconciled to the idea of the wedding being held on Mum’s turf instead of hers, niggled and questioned and changed everything she possibly could. Dad was inclined to resent his offspring’s focus on wedding-related issues rather than on his entertainment and amusement, thought the marquee site was poorly chosen and muttered audibly, ‘What in God’s name has your mother done to her hair?’ as she hurried past with a box full of tea-light holders.

  We had the marquee up by lunchtime. Nobody had had the time or energy to make anything to eat, so Mike and I dashed to the Four Square for a jumbo-sized bag of slightly stale bread rolls, two wheels of camembert and a packet of processed ham. After spending ten minutes watching Anna pick bits out of the middle of a roll and crumble them between her fingers, Rob took her away, murmuring something about checking the order of service with the celebrant.

  ‘Take hours,’ I mouthed at him, and he raised his eyebrows in agreement.

  There were chairs and tables to set out, and then move in accordance with Deidre’s instructions. The lights and sound system had to be connected up, the lawns mowed and about a mile of fairy lights strung along the paths. We cleaned a large green stain off one wall of the marquee, ran nylon lines spider-web fashion across the roof as a framework for tea-light chandeliers, picked up the alcohol and three hundred glasses and set the tables.

  ‘Where are we up to?’ said Mum distractedly, turning on the spot. She’d piled up her hair and skewered the knot with a ballpoint pen, her reading glasses had slipped down her nose and she looked like a mildly demented librarian. ‘Oh, what is the woman doing?’