Summer at 23 the Strand

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘Oh yes, why not?’ the woman said. She handed Ana one of her business cards. ‘Write it on the back of that.’

  Ana wrote.

  Two customers came in then, so Ana slid the card with her name and email address on it across the counter and left. She didn’t hold out much hope, but she’d been what Shelley had said was proactive, hadn’t she?

  It felt the right thing to be doing, walking around the small town she hoped to live, and work, in permanently very soon. She was getting a feel for the place. It felt good. There was a happy atmosphere and no one seemed in a rush as they stopped to look in shop windows or greet someone they knew and stood chatting for a few moments. Ana found a newsagent’s and bought a local paper. There would be jobs advertised in there. Every avenue had to be explored when looking for a job, she knew that, because she’d done it when she first came to England.

  Outside the newsagent’s there was a noticeboard advertising all sorts of things for sale – furniture and bicycles, garden tools and cats. And houses and flats for rent. Oh dear, everything seemed far more expensive here than in Bristol, but nowhere near as expensive as London. Ana wrote down the numbers to call about two flats for rent. She had enough money for two months’ rent and money left over for food.

  And then she went back in and bought a map of the area so she’d know where to go to look at flats.

  This was what Shelley had meant by ‘getting off your backside’, wasn’t it?

  Ana found a park and sat down to look through the job advertisements in the newspaper. There weren’t many – just a few jobs cleaning pubs and offices, and a couple of situations vacant in an estate agent’s office. She didn’t think she’d bother with any of that because cleaning wouldn’t pay much and she’d need to know more about the area than she did now before taking on a job in an estate agent’s.

  But it was beautiful and peaceful in the park, and it seemed strange that it was so close to the seafront, with all the bars and lots of people, and yet so different. Ana closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun. She dozed off for a few moments and jolted awake, realising she was hungry. That dragon rumble in her stomach, as Fred had called it. Ana smiled, thinking about Fred. She hoped he might have found a friend who could offer her a job. She’d go and ask him soon. But first she must find food.

  Devon was famous for pasties, Ana knew that. In a shop called Oggy Oggy – just saying that name made Ana smile, even though she had no idea what it might mean – she bought a steak and Stilton pasty and sat outside on a bench to eat it. It was delicious. Ana wiped the pastry crumbs from her face and went into a shop opposite that sold clothes of all sorts, and bathing costumes in every style and size and colour imaginable, as Shelley had said there would be. Not expensive either. £4.99. Ana bought one the colour of rosehips, just because the colour reminded her of how she’d picked rosehips with her mother back in Romania to make syrup to keep them healthy through the winter. It had high-cut legs and a strap that did up behind the neck. Perhaps she would do two things – look for work and behave like someone on holiday too.

  Ana was ready in her bathing costume, a towel wrapped around her shoulders, waiting for Shelley to come out of Number 19.

  ‘Shelley!’ she called, and waved, slipping the towel from her shoulders.

  ‘Well, look at you!’ Shelley shouted back.

  Ana ran down the steps to meet her neighbour and together they stepped gingerly over the stones and shells deposited by the tide until they found the smoother, reddish sand. Shelley marched straight in, then bent her knees until her shoulders were under the water. As Shelley was so much older than her, Ana thought she had best follow suit.

  ‘It’s so coooold!’ Ana said. A shiver ran across her shoulders and she shuddered.

  ‘But bracing,’ Shelley said. ‘You’ll get used to it, like a body can get used to most things.’

  ‘I hope so!’ Ana said, and she didn’t just mean the bracing sea but also the loss of her baby, and Vasile’s desertion.

  And so began an early-morning routine for Ana and Shelley. Ana still searched for jobs online, but she was determined to let herself grieve for her baby and enjoy her little holiday as much as she could.

  On her way back up the beach Ana picked up small shells – purple, mauve and pink; tiny, hinged shells with a sheen on them like butterflies when you opened them out. Shelley gave Ana a little jar that had held olives to keep them in. And after their swim every day, either Ana or Shelley made coffee and they drank it together companionably.

  ‘I’m a widow now,’ Shelley told her. ‘Do you know what widow means?’

  ‘Yes. Your husband has died. I am sorry.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be sorry, lovey. Got more freedom now than ever I had when I was married!’

  ‘Do you have son or daughter?’

  ‘Two daughters. And both of ’em thinks they know what’s best for me. Both of ’em keep saying they’ll be fine about it if I want to marry again. The subtext of that is I’ll have someone to look after me in my old age instead of them! I’m not daft. They bring me brochures of singles holidays they think I should go on and I say, “That’s lovely, darling. I like the look of that one. I’ll book that.” And that’s where they think I am now, on one of the holidays they’ve suggested. They think I’m in Austria or Italy or Jersey or somewhere on a coach trip, but I’m here. I always tell them I won’t be sending postcards so they don’t expect any. But I ask you, Ana… as if I want another man to have to cook and clean for, and wash socks for, and probably “the other” as well!’

  ‘The other what?’ Ana asked.

  But Shelley was unable to answer for a few minutes because she was laughing so much.

  ‘Sex, lovey. Men never seem to tire of it. Even a thin old pensioner like me with saggy boobs and bum will do!’

  Hmm. Sex. Ana had always rather liked sex. But she would be careful from now on to whom she gave her body, just for a little pleasure. Ana didn’t quite know what to say, so she took another sip of coffee. She was getting to know Shelley now, and knew she didn’t like a gap in the conversation, and it was almost like her duty to fill it.

  ‘What about you, lovey?’ Shelley went on, as Ana had known she would. ‘When do you think you might look for someone special? Someone who’s kinder to you than that old Vaseline bloke?’

  ‘Vaseline?’ Ana began to laugh. She knew Vaseline was an ointment you put on sore places. Shelley had misheard her, hadn’t she? Ana laughed and laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks. And it felt so good she began to cry all over again, but they were healing tears. ‘His name is Vasile,’ she managed to blurt out at last. ‘V A S I L E.’

  Shelley patted her hand.

  ‘Didn’t mean to upset you, lovey, but it seems you’re over him now, eh?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. I think I am. Thank you. But not the baby. I’ll never forget the baby.’

  ‘No, we never forget those,’ Shelley said, and Ana got the feeling Shelley had lost more than one baby of her own.

  It was the first day of the second week of Ana’s holiday already. She was beginning to relax, to be happy again, helped by Shelley’s good humour, the daily swims, the walks she took along the coast, and the fact that she was eating healthier food these days. But it was time to go and see Fred again, to see if he might have found someone who could give her a job and somewhere to live.

  ‘Well, well, well, look what the cat’s brought in,’ Fred said, looking up as she entered The Port Light. He waggled his fingers at her in a welcome wave and grinned. That wave and that grin were telling Ana he was pleased to see her and she was right to be here. She wasn’t entirely sure what ‘look what the cat’s brought in’ meant but she thought it was a good thing, because the cat she’d had back in Romania as a child had often brought ‘gifts’ of mice or birds, and once a squirrel, and left them on the doorstep. Was Fred saying it was like a gift to him that she had come to his café?

  Ana waggled her fingers back at Fred and smiled.


  ‘Be with you in a minute, sweetheart,’ Fred said.

  There were two people ahead of Ana in the queue and over half of the tables were occupied today. And there was the smell of bacon in the air. On a board behind where Fred stood were advertised BACON BAPS AND EGG BAPS. Each was two pounds.

  A young man came out into the café, a plate in each hand. He took them over to an elderly couple sitting in the window seat Ana had sat in when she first came here.

  So, Fred had someone who worked for him. Ana felt her happy heart dim a little – had Fred given this young man a job since she’d seen him last? She could do that – make bacon baps and egg baps. She ought to have called in before now.

  He seemed a nice young man though, who was helping Fred.

  ‘So, sweetheart, what’s it going to be today?’ Fred asked when it was her turn to be served.

  ‘Black tea, please. No sugar. And a slice of… of…’ Ana looked to see if there was a sign on the cake Fred had given her a slice of over a week ago now. Ah yes. ‘A slice of Bakewell tart too, please?’

  ‘Go and sit yourself down,’ Fred said. ‘I’ll bring it over.’

  ‘How much?’ Ana asked. Quickly she added the cost of tea, which she could see on the menu board, to the cake, which was £1.75. ‘Three pounds, yes?’

  ‘If you insist. But two pounds from you will do me.’

  Ana took three pound coins from her purse and put them on the counter. She looked up at Fred and grinned.

  Fred slid a pound back at her.

  ‘Worth it for your company, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘Now go and sit down or I’ll get Marcus here to throw you out.’

  Marcus – the young man who was bringing more plates of bacon baps back out – just grinned at Fred, then looked at Ana and raised his eyebrows; he was obviously used to Fred’s jokey ways.

  Ana accepted the pound and went and sat down at a table for two in the corner. She couldn’t quite see the sea from where she sat, but it didn’t matter. She knew it was there and once she found a job and a place to live she could go and look at it every day if she wanted to.

  ‘Here we are then, sweetheart,’ Fred said, sliding a mug of tea and the plate with the cake on it onto the table in front of Ana. ‘Enjoying your holiday?’

  ‘I am, thank you,’ Ana said.

  ‘Good,’ Fred said, sitting down opposite her. ‘Marcus can hold the fort for a moment, now the bacon and egg bap rush is over. Only serve them up until half past eleven.’

  ‘Marcus?’ Ana said.

  ‘Don’t look like that, sweetheart,’ Fred said. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’ve hired Marcus to work here when I could have had you out the back frying up bacon and flipping eggs.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ana said. ‘I could do that.’

  ‘I’m sure you could. Marcus – for my sins – is my grandson. My eldest’s eldest, all the way down from sunny Kent, which is where my eldest lives. He’s doing a bit of work experience. And getting under my feet at home ’cos he’s stopping with me, and getting under my feet here as well. He’ll be gone in a couple of days and I don’t think it’s going to break his heart.’

  ‘He doesn’t like the work?’

  ‘No. I’ve tried telling him I usually manage it all – the cakes and drinks, and the breakfast baps – but he’s totally unimpressed. I have had a bit of help in the past but she’s gone now. Well, I let her go, if you get my drift.’

  Ana nodded. Yes, she knew what that meant. Either there was no money to pay her, or she wasn’t a good worker. Ana wasn’t going to ask which.

  ‘The truth of it is, Ana, I’m not making enough to pay two wages or I’d break my neck to have you work here. But seeing as I can’t, what I’ve done, sweetheart, is I’ve worn my fingers to the bone tapping in phone numbers of friends and business acquaintances, asking if any of them could offer you work, and I’m sad to say no one’s come back to me to say they can.’

  ‘And somewhere to live,’ Ana said.

  ‘That too,’ Fred said. ‘I’m sorrier than you might think I am. And now I’d better go and check up on that little blighter, make sure he’s wiping down the mess he makes in my kitchen.’

  ‘Thank you, Fred,’ Ana said, ‘for asking for me.’

  ‘That’s all right. I’ll keep asking, you keep looking. Deal?’

  Fred stood up.

  ‘Deal,’ Ana said.

  ‘Come back in a few days. Say three. I might have better news then.’ Fred patted Ana on her upper arm, the way Ana had patted friends who needed someone to be there, to touch them. The touch felt good – fatherly. But it would take a miracle for Fred to be able to give her work. The café was emptying now and no one else had come in. Ana could see business would have to pick up quite considerably, but she wouldn’t let go of the hope in her heart that she might be able to work here.

  ‘I will,’ Ana said as Fred went back to deal with Marcus.

  ‘And your address?’ the lady behind the desk in the library – where Ana had gone to use the computer to look for jobs because her laptop was out of charge and she didn’t like to use the electricity in the chalet to top it up in case she had to pay extra – asked.

  ‘I’m staying at Number 23 The Strand at the moment,’ Ana told her.

  ‘And how long have you lived there?’

  ‘I’m only staying there,’ Ana said. ‘For two weeks. Although I only have four days left now.’

  ‘Ah, well, that could be a problem. Employers like to know a person is settled.’

  ‘I know.’ This wasn’t the first time Ana had come up against this particular stumbling block. And then she had what Shelley had called a ‘light-bulb moment’. She would go and ask if Fred would let her use his address, or his café’s address, when she applied for jobs. Ana was certain he would do that for her. ‘But I have a solution. Thank you. I’ll be back.’

  She was being proactive again. How glad she was she’d met Shelley. And Fred. She was getting closer to her dream of living here now, wasn’t she?

  ‘Oh.’ The Port Light was closed today even though it was a sunny day and there were plenty of people about. There were no lights on and no one inside. Ana looked through the glass door and saw a little pile of envelopes on the mat, as though no one had been there for a few days. She ought to have called before. Then Ana saw the notice Sellotaped to the door. Closed due to illness.

  Fred was ill? There was a telephone number to call if there were any enquiries. Ana had an enquiry. Fred had been very kind to her and she didn’t like to think he was ill. Another worry for his daughter who had problems. Ana got her mobile from her bag and was just tapping in the number when someone came to stand beside her. A young woman about her own age.

  ‘Oh dear,’ the woman said. ‘Are you trying to ring about my father?’

  ‘Fred?’ Ana said.

  ‘That’s the chap.’

  Ana told the woman how she was staying at 23 The Strand for two weeks while she looked for work and somewhere to live in the area. And how Fred had said he would see if he could help.

  ‘So,’ Ana finished, ‘when I got here it was a shock to know he was ill. When you arrived I was about to call him to say I’m sorry and if, perhaps, he has found work for me. He said he would ask his friends.’

  ‘That’s Dad all over,’ the young woman said. ‘Always there in a crisis. Got one of his own now, though, because he tripped over the cat, would you believe, and broke his hip. Had a replacement but it’s going to be a while before he’s back here. Silly old duffer did it just after my nephew went back home or he’d have had help.’

  ‘Marcus?’ Ana said. ‘I met him.’

  ‘Did you now? Now, I don’t know what Dad said, or did, to him, but my older sister sent him down here for Dad to try and sort him out. Going down the slippery road was Marcus but it seems he’s turned over a new leaf. Going to go on to Sixth Form College now, so he says, instead of leaving school and just dossing about. Going to do the sciences, so he says – ph
ysics, maths and chemistry. Now there’s a turn-up for the books!’

  Turn over a new leaf? Turn-up for the books? Ana didn’t know these phrases but she could tell they were good things.

  ‘I am glad for Marcus,’ Ana said. ‘But sorry that Fred has broken his hip. I’m Ana.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Ana. I’m Saffron. Dad’s youngest. Likes a fancy name does Dad. My sisters are Scarlett and Sherry.’

  Fred’s youngest daughter – the one with problems?

  ‘Hello, Saffron,’ Ana said. ‘Fred spoke of you to me.’

  ‘Did he, then? Let’s get inside, shall we? I’ll ring Dad and let him know you’re here.’

  Saffron found the key, and stepped inside. Ana followed, picking up the post from the mat as she went. Within seconds Saffron had taken out her phone and was talking, far too fast for Ana to understand.

  ‘God only knows what I’m going to do now,’ Saffron said, switching off her phone. ‘I’ve got three kids who all go to different schools, and all of them doing summer-club stuff while I work my butt off to feed them all, and all wanting me there at five o’clock. You have no idea the hoops I have to jump through to organise so they’re looked after until I can fetch them. This place needs a bit of cleaning up and those cakes, which must have gone stale now, need throwing out. My sisters are like chocolate teapots, the pair of them. I love them to bits but they claim their lives are busier than mine. Well, I suppose with them living miles away and me being the one just up the road, it’s down to me, eh?’

  Chocolate teapot? What use was a teapot made of chocolate… oh, Ana understood now. And then an idea came to her.

  ‘Perhaps I can help you,’ Ana said. ‘Perhaps I could fetch your children for you?’

  ‘Ah, bless you,’ Saffron said. ‘You haven’t met the little villains yet. You might change your mind.’

  Ana knew what ‘villains’ meant but she also knew Saffron loved her children and would lie down and die for them – it was the way her eyes lit up when she mentioned them.