It was this skill that saw her win the assistant manager’s job at the shiny new flagship Fleet Street location of a successful coffee-house chain – Freya & Georgie’s, named after the owner’s two nieces. The man who hired her was Gabe, a smooth-talking entrepreneur whose rise to prominence in the business world was far removed from his humble beginnings in a small town just outside Glasgow. And the man who, if his current persistence paid off, Megan might just accept a date with . . .
While she prided herself on her expert barista skills, what Megan loved most about her job was people-watching. The clientele in Freya & Georgie’s was a different breed from the customers she’d served in her last job – busy city types with no time for small talk, but plenty to while away on the café’s free Wi-Fi in important-looking meetings. An occasional group of well-heeled women in their early twenties came for lunch on Wednesdays, made up, it transpired, of ambitious young PAs who met to share experience and plan their eventual world domination. But, unlike her previous job, she found that the customers largely merged into grey stereotypes, devoid of variety in age, social standing and employment.
Which is why the young couple stood out.
She had first noticed them during Freya & Georgie’s opening week. It had been a busy morning with particularly irascible customers and she was beginning to wish for something to break the monotony of unsmiling faces. Though dressed similarly to the other customers, the couple were remarkable for one thing: their unmistakable chemistry. It was as evident to Megan as the smiles they both wore, and she couldn’t take her eyes off them. And so she was delighted when they returned twice again – and then every Monday morning, not long after the coffee house opened for trading. To Megan, a diehard fan of rom-coms, it was as if a movie plot was unfolding before her very eyes, the two romantic leads moving closer to one another with each meeting.
‘I can see them falling in love and it’s the most beautiful thing,’ she told her sister after work one day. ‘And the thing is, I don’t think either of them realises what’s happening. I feel privileged to see it, like I’m their hidden audience.’
‘Maybe he’ll propose in the coffee shop?’ her sister suggested. ‘And then you could be a witness at their wedding!’
Watching the couple this morning, their faces flushed from laughter, Megan made a decision. She would take her inspiration from them and turn the tables on Gabe. She’d take the initiative and ask him out. Maybe she’d do it tonight . . .
‘The coffee’s good here, but the soundtrack’s completely up the duff,’ Ben smirked one morning. ‘Dire Straits and Toto? Are they trying to kill our ears?’
‘I quite like it,’ Anna smiled. ‘It’s the music my Uncle Jabez used to play in his pub band. “Money for Nothing” was his personal favourite.’ She had come to love the random conversation topics they shared at each coffee meeting.
‘Seriously?’
‘Oh yes. Dire Straits songs went down a treat in our local pubs.’
‘No, I mean you seriously have an Uncle Jabez?’
‘And an Auntie Zelda. My mum’s called Senara and my brother is Ruari. And my grandma’s name was Morwenna.’ Her throat caught slightly at the mention of it. ‘We like our unusual names in Cornwall.’
‘Then how did you escape with Anna?’ Ben laughed, but stopped himself immediately. ‘Not that I mean it’s a bad name or anything.’
‘I’m not offended. I like it.’
It was a good question. Growing up, Anna had often wondered why her mother, who in all other respects was as far from sensible as it was possible to be, had settled on such a common-sense name for her firstborn. Senara had never given a satisfactory answer, either, despite Anna asking many times about what had inspired her name. The closest she came to an explanation was one night after a large jar of local scrumpy loosened Senara’s resolve: ‘It sounded like a good name for a girl, is all.’
Strange that a name regarded by most people as boring and commonplace should be considered remarkable, but in Anna’s childhood home this was so. It set her apart from her schoolmates, her neighbours and her family, just as her sensitivity and sweet nature contrasted so sharply with that of her mother. To Anna, the ordinariness of her name gave the distance she craved from Senara’s too-public behaviour and allowed her to be different. In a village where it was often assumed children would follow their parents in temperament, lifestyle and employment, Anna Browne was granted immunity. It alleviated the biggest fear of her formative years – that she was destined to be tarred with the same brush as her mother – and ultimately fuelled her decision to leave Cornwall and carve out her own life.
‘Do you have a middle name?’
‘I don’t have one. You?’
Ben grimaced. ‘Leonard. It was my granddad’s name. But if you tell anyone, I will hunt you down.’
‘Your secret is safe.’ Anna stifled a giggle. ‘Leonard.’
If Ben had been seeking out Anna’s story at the Charity Fair, he made no further attempts during the following weeks, as he shared coffee with her. Ted must have made a mistake, Anna reasoned, glad that the heavy suggestion of an ulterior motive had been lifted. Without it, she could enjoy their chats over coffee for what they really were: enjoyable time spent with a man she liked very much. And was liking more as time passed . . .
The last thing Anna was expecting that weekend was a house-guest. Especially not in the earliest hours of Saturday morning, summoning her from her bed. But the sight of Tish Gornick, pale-faced with dripping wet hair, clutching an overnight bag to her chest as if it contained all her worldly goods, was enough to make Anna forget her annoyance.
‘Oh, Tish, what happened?’
‘I was taking a shower and the water vanished,’ she sniffed. ‘I told Seamus about the pressure falling three weeks ago, but he never came up to see it. Now look where I am!’ For a woman unaccustomed to requesting help, the next words from her lips were clearly a struggle to form. ‘Please. I have nowhere else to go. All I need is a hairdryer and a couch for the night.’
It would mark a significant step in their friendship and one that, had it happened in daylight hours, Anna might have hesitated to make. But she was already ushering her friend in, all propriety set aside in the wake of the crisis. Within ten minutes Tish had a makeshift bed made for her on Anna’s sofa, a hot, sweet mug of tea to calm her nerves and the promise of a hairdryer to follow.
‘I really can’t thank you enough.’ Tish was attempting to wrap her entire body around the mug. ‘I’ll call Seamus at 8 a.m. and demand he fixes it.’
While Tish dried her hair, Anna made hot buttered toast, remembering Morwenna’s favoured remedy for night terrors. ‘This will help, trust me. My grandma used to say, “There’s not much can’t be solved by a bit of toast and butter.”’
‘Your grandma was a wise woman.’ She sniffed. ‘I’m sorry, Anna.’
‘What for?’
‘Turning up at your door in the middle of the night, demanding your hospitality.’
Anna shook her head. ‘You had a crisis, Tish. I’m glad you came here for help.’
The first sounds of a stirring city filtered into the flat beyond the windows, the distant burr of a road-sweeper van and the shrill reversing siren of a bin-lorry reverberating as the sky began to lighten from ink-black to royal blue. Though weary from the events of the last hour, neither Anna nor Tish seemed ready to sleep yet.
‘So, you get any more parcels lately?’ Tish asked.
Anna sat, cross-legged, in the armchair opposite her friend. ‘No. Not for a month now.’ Her heart sank. Plenty had happened since the last parcel, but she secretly missed the anticipation she’d felt, wondering if another gift might arrive.
Tish nodded. ‘Really? They just stopped?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘That’s sad.’
‘It is, in a way. I liked looking forward to them.’
‘Like I said before, things like that don’t happen often. Not in this city, anyway
.’
Silence settled between them as they considered this. Tish tied her silver-threaded black hair into a knot at the nape of her neck. Anna inspected her nails. Outside the rumble of wheelie bins joined the urban symphony.
‘I was a little jealous of you.’ Tish looked at Anna, her eyes wide in confession.
In the years Anna and Tish had known each other there had never been an admission this personal before. Anna hugged her knees tighter to her body. ‘You were?’
She nodded. ‘For a long time, actually. You’re such a sweet girl, Anna. It irritated me when we first met.’ She held up her hands. ‘It’s true – not that I’m proud of it. But then I got to know you better and, I don’t know, I realised you were the genuine article. Then I got jealous.’
‘I don’t think anyone’s ever been jealous of me.’
Anna was stunned by what she heard. Tish was the self-assured, no-nonsense American who, aside from her complaints, never allowed anyone within her carefully constructed defences. Anna, by comparison, was the person who willingly assumed a supporting role, never imagining that anyone would wish for her life. If anything, people had congratulated themselves for not being her, especially during her Cornwall years. Thank heaven we don’t have to be part of that family, she would hear her neighbours whisper, as the latest Browne saga raged in plain view of the village – usually involving a drunken Senara causing havoc, as her two children hid in the doorway of their cottage: Thank your lucky stars you’re not poor Anna Browne . . .
‘I meant what I said: those parcels have changed you, Anna. You’ve a spring in your step. You smile without realising. It was like you were in love – only not with anyone but yourself.’ Tish laughed. ‘Listen to me! I sound like Oprah. What I mean is that whoever sent those things to you did more than just give you nice surprises. Although I guess you’ll never know who sent them now. Or why. Did you suspect anyone you knew?’
‘No.’ That wasn’t true. Looking at her friend, she smiled. ‘Well, not really. Of course, people at work all had their own ideas.’
‘Oh?’
‘Most of them thought the sender was a psycho-killing stalker drawing me into a deadly game. I think they were disappointed when dead rats and severed limbs didn’t show up.’
‘Was there anyone you were hoping it was?’
The question caught Anna off-guard, the heat of a blush creeping along her cheekbones. ‘No.’
‘Liar! Anyway, who’s to say the deliveries have stopped for good? Maybe they just took a vacation.’
‘For a month?’
‘Some people do. My boss did last year: a whole month jammed onto a cruise ship with rich jerks who wanted to take his money at poker every night. He practically needed rehab when he returned.’
Anna could think of nothing worse than a cruise: trapped in confined spaces with people you would never spend time with in real life, unable to escape. ‘I’m not surprised. In one way, I’m glad there haven’t been any more parcels. They were starting to cause problems at work.’
‘What kind of problems?’
‘A lot of speculation, random accusations – that kind of thing. I didn’t want to be in the middle of all that, no matter how lovely the gifts were.’
‘Surely you miss them?’
Anna had to concede she did. She thought about what Tish had said, later as she lay in bed, the unfamiliar sounds of someone else in her home bringing back ghosts of her former life with Tom, mingling with the thoughts she’d dared not entertain about a certain star journalist who seemed intent on moving closer to her. If Tish, who hardly ever noticed anyone unless they annoyed her, had noticed a change in Anna, might Ben have seen it, too?
And why had the parcels stopped arriving? If the perfume really was the final parcel, why didn’t the sender give a clue to their identity? Or reveal it completely? It made no sense when she thought about it. Why go to all that trouble, if you had no intention of letting the recipient know who you were?
Unless . . . What if the sender had found another way to summon her attention? If that someone had found a way to spend more time with her, for instance, wouldn’t that make any future parcels needless?
Ben McAra had started to meet Anna for coffee the week the parcels disappeared. And there had been no more deliveries since. Could he be waiting for the right moment to tell her . . . ?
And then a new thought struck. Wait – do I want Ben to have sent me those things?
If she did, would that mean their growing friendship was just part of a plan Ben had cooked up to get her attention? What she’d loved about getting to know him was how easily they were getting on. It seemed spontaneous and it felt the most natural thing to do. She liked the serendipity of it. But if Ben had planned this all along, was her confidence in their friendship mistaken? She liked to think it was as much her decision to be Ben’s friend as it was his to befriend her. But a premeditated plan on his part would mean that she was just being played. That thought made her stomach twist.
Sheniece would probably argue that Ben plotting to get close to Anna was romantic. And maybe it was. Certainly Anna felt closer to him each time they met. She was comfortable with the flow of their conversation, enjoying the way they danced verbally around one another, each time edging a little further over the boundaries of friendship. Anna knew she was falling for Ben. He already meant a great deal to her – and she was scared that he now had the potential to break her heart, if he turned out not to be the person she thought.
If Ben was the parcel-sender, it also raised another issue: had he sent her gifts because of who she was, or because of the person he hoped the packages might change her into? There was no doubt that Anna’s confidence had grown since she’d started receiving the gifts. Everyone had noticed; and, more importantly, Anna knew it herself. She had done things lately that she’d scarcely have believed possible before. Having the courage to feel an equal to Ben in their friendship was one of the biggest achievements. But if Ben had planned it all beforehand, was she being manipulated? She was reminded of Professor Henry Higgins working out his scheme on poor, unsuspecting Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion and felt the temperature drop in her body at the suggestion.
I don’t want to be anyone’s project. I want to be myself and discover what else I can do . . .
A crash and a curse from the living room snapped Anna back into the present. Throwing aside her duvet, she hurried through, to find Tish sprawled across the rug by the coffee table, rubbing her ankle.
‘I guess that answers the question of whether I sleepwalk,’ she said as Anna helped her up. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘No, I was getting up anyway. Cup of tea?’
Later that morning, with Tish back in her apartment barking orders at a very apologetic Seamus Flatley, Anna left Walton Tower and walked to her local park. Her head ached from lack of sleep and she needed fresh air and exercise to help her make sense of everything. As city parks go, Loveage Gardens was unremarkable, being not much more than a field edged with oak and beech trees, but it was a popular place for city residents to run, walk, exercise their dogs and escape the relentless concrete grey of their surroundings. Anna liked walking here: once through the large, swirling patterned cast-iron gates it was as if the city noise was muted by birdsong, dog barks and laughter. What it lacked in wildness it more than made up for in welcome.
The sun had retreated behind a white cloud blanket, making the green leaves stand out against the sky. Anna pulled a cardigan from her bag, slipping it around her shoulders to block the chill of the breeze that had sprung up. She felt dizzy from a disturbed night, but the wind in her hair took her back to morning walks she’d taken years before, on rough-hewn pathways snaking around the cliff edges, when she wanted to escape the constant drama of home. Now the escape was gentler, but she carried the drama in her mind.
If Ben was the sender, was this all a romantic gesture to get her attention? Did he even like her? The tingle in her toes suggested she liked the possibility. Perhaps s
he should just ask him, to make sure?
She bought a tea from the tiny wooden refreshment hut in the middle of Loveage Gardens and sat on a nearby bench to think. Blowing the steam from the cardboard cup, she gazed out across the park. High-rise buildings from the city beyond peered over treetops on all four sides of the green space, like nosy neighbours on tiptoe over garden fences. It was busy, even for a Saturday, with people taking advantage of the wide green lawns despite the lack of sun. As children and dogs raced across the green expanse, couples reclined on picnic blankets, lost in either their partner’s eyes or the weight of weekend papers, while groups of friends laughed together beneath oak-tree boughs. There was a relaxed friendliness to the park, as if everyone was off-duty.
What do you want, Anna Browne?
The question was simple enough, but Anna had no answer this morning. There were plenty of things she would like: the opportunity to see where her newfound confidence could take her; the space to explore her friendship with Ben, free from suspicions; and the possibility of doing this away from the spotlight of her friends’ and colleagues’ opinions. But what did she want? And did her dearest wish have the potential to hurt her? Was she willing to take that risk?
For years all she had really wanted was to live out of her mother’s shadow, to be in a place where she was known as Anna Browne, instead of ‘Senara Browne’s daughter’. She had never harboured particularly materialistic ambitions, and even though her new life in the city allowed her to build a home she was proud of, she still valued friendship and freedom over all else. Now that she had a job in which she was happy, a small but close group of friends and a life that felt like hers, not much remained unfulfilled.
Except . . . Anna had to concede that the parcels had been exciting and that their arrival had caused an itch, hidden way beneath the layers of contentment. She had enjoyed extraordinary generosity and had no right to wish for more. But she did wish for more – and felt the loss more keenly than she would tell anyone. For a while she had experienced what it was like to be the centre of attention for the right reasons. And she had liked it immensely.
A Parcel for Anna Browne Page 16
