The Christmas Cafe at Seashell Cove: The perfect laugh-out-loud Christmas romance

by Karen Clarke

  ‘Even that bloke you was talkin’ to the other day?’

  Rufus. ‘Of course he doesn’t dislike me, just the opposite,’ I said. ‘And, apart from anything, he’s a teacher, Gwen. He wouldn’t do something like this.’

  ‘I fort you was breakin’ up wiv ’im.’ Her voice was loaded with suspicion. ‘I swear ’e was almost in tears when you was gettin’ ’im some cake.’

  ‘Of course I wasn’t breaking up with him, I was trying to make a decision about… something,’ I said. ‘And how could you tell he was crying from behind the counter?’

  ‘’Cos I’ve got eyes in me ’ead.’

  About to challenge this, something occurred to me. ‘Actually, I think I recognise the paint,’ I said. ‘It’s Perfect Pansy.’ My stomach plunged. ‘I helped Rufus choose it when he was redecorating his dining room and he bought too much.’

  ‘So ’e thought ’e’d use it up by slingin’ it over our windows, did ’e, the bleedin’ ’alfwit? You’d better ’ave a word wiv ’im, Tilly.’

  ‘I’m not saying it was him.’ But it was a hell of a coincidence. ‘Probably lots of people have used that shade of paint.’

  ‘Not if they’ve got good taste.’ Gwen adjusted her waistband, where she’d adapted a leather tool belt and stocked it with cloths, a spray gun, notepads and a pen. ‘Tell ’im we could get the police involved. Either that, or I’ll pay ’im a visit meself.’

  ‘But I don’t understand why he’d do something like this.’ Could Rufus have misinterpreted our conversation on the beach? I didn’t see how he could have, but he hadn’t been in touch yet, despite saying he’d call. Maybe I’d misunderstood, and he’d been waiting for me to call him, and when I hadn’t… but no, it was unthinkable he’d be so angry he’d come to the café in the dead of night and chuck paint over the windows. Why not come to my house, if he wanted to make a protest? Why not just talk to me? ‘Has anyone else noticed?’ I shivered into my coat. It was probably psychological, but it felt as if the wind was pushing against the windows, trying to get in.

  ‘Just me and Jerry.’ Gwen’s eyes burrowed into me. ‘You’d better get out there and ’ope it washes orf,’ she said.

  Part of me wanted to argue that I shouldn’t be the one cleaning up, but if Rufus had gone rogue with a tin of paint, I couldn’t deny I’d had some part to play – however unintentional and bizarre.

  Supplied with a bucket of soapy water, a sponge, and a pair of rubber gloves, I trudged outside and, before I set to work, I snapped a couple of pictures of the mess with my phone, eyes watering in the wind. It was upsetting to see the manifestation of someone’s frustration – assuming that’s what this was, and not a would-be Banksy expressing their creativity – and I couldn’t get my head around Rufus doing something like this.

  I’d just about got the glass clean again, after emptying and refilling the bucket three more times – at least it was emulsion which was easier to clean and it hadn’t stained the wooden frames – when I saw someone rounding the building, his golden-brown hair lifting off his forehead.

  ‘Danny Fleetwood!’ I lifted a dripping, rubber-gloved hand in greeting, pushing Rufus to the back of my mind – for now. ‘Howdy.’

  ‘Nice look, Tilly.’ His eyes twinkled at me in their customary friendly fashion. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ I squeezed out the sponge, which had turned the water in the bucket a lurid aubergine.

  ‘It should be obvious, but I’ve never seen anyone clean windows with purple paint before. I normally use plain water.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ I obliged. ‘It’s…’ I hesitated, and dropped the sponge in the bucket. ‘I don’t really know what it is, to be honest.’

  He regarded me for a moment, but didn’t push it. ‘If there’s anything I can do, let me know.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘Is Cassie around?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’ I tugged off my rubber gloves. ‘She’s with the mayoress again today, trying to finish her portrait. Didn’t she tell you?’

  ‘She did.’ He gave a dramatic shudder as an icy blast of air blew his woolly scarf across his eyes. ‘I just wanted to double-check she wasn’t going to suddenly turn up here.’

  ‘Did you ask Gwen?’

  He fought his scarf down. ‘Actually, it was you I wanted to see. Gwen said you were out here.’

  ‘Oh?’ I smiled at him, because it was hard not to smile in Danny’s company, even when the weather was arctic and I was standing by a bucket of purple water. When I came back from Canada, Danny had been one of the first people I’d bumped into, after Meg. We’d attended the same high school, and I’d had a tiny crush on him – until it became obvious that he’d had feelings for Cassie. Plus, our outlook on life and work was far too similar, neither of us driven by money and, as Bridget had once opined, I needed a man who would shake me up a bit. Or ‘not put up with your crap’ as she’d put it, though I hadn’t understood what she’d meant at the time, considering myself not so much low-maintenance as no-maintenance in the girlfriend department, which was surely what men preferred. And she’d no room to talk, with her terrible taste in men. ‘So, what can I do for you?’

  Danny threw a look over his shoulder, as if scoping the area for undercover cops, and before he even spoke, I guessed what his next sentence was going to be. ‘I wanted to ask whether the function room’s going to be ready by Christmas Eve.’ I knew it. ‘Cassie mentioned you were having problems with the flooring, and that the electric still needs sorting out for the lighting.’

  ‘Why are you asking?’ I kept my tone neutral in case he didn’t know that I knew about the baby, and that Cassie had already approached me about their big announcement.

  ‘Promise you won’t say anything?’

  ‘Of course.’ I prepared to arrange my expression into surprised delight, wondering why Cassie hadn’t mentioned to him that I knew about the baby.

  Danny looked at the sky and inflated his cheeks, and when he brought his sparkling gaze back to mine, I almost wished I was about to hear the news for the first time.

  ‘I’m going to ask Cassie to marry me,’ he said, with ill-concealed excitement.

  ‘What the fudge?’

  ‘I know!’ He was clearly enjoying my look of (genuine) surprise. ‘I mean, we haven’t been together very long, but it just feels right and what with…’ he paused and looked briefly at the toes of his boots, then murmured ‘… the baby.’

  His voice so was jam-packed with emotion that tears caught at the back of my throat.

  ‘It’s amazing, Danny.’ I touched his sleeve with my freezing fingers. ‘I’m so happy for you both.’

  ‘You haven’t…?’ He flicked a look at the café.

  ‘I haven’t told anyone, no, of course not. I promised Cassie I wouldn’t.’

  ‘And you won’t mention this to anyone?’

  ‘No!’ I almost shouted, suddenly as close to hysteria as I’d ever come. First Gwen, plotting to claim Jerry like a raffle prize, then Cassie announcing her pregnancy, and Meg organising a wedding for her parents… and now this. It was going to be one hell of a party.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Danny suddenly looked alarmed, as if my face had changed shape.

  ‘Are you sure Cassie won’t mind you proposing in front of everyone?’

  ‘I won’t do that, although I’m fairly confident she’ll say yes,’ said Danny. ‘I just think the setting will be perfect, with our loved ones here, but I’ll ask her outside, or away from everyone, just in case she wants to turn me down.’

  ‘She won’t.’ I spoke with absolute confidence. It was obvious that Cassie had found someone who would always put her at the centre of his life, and she knew it. ‘It’ll be perfect, Danny. I’m not even going to pretend to gag, like I normally would at such a display of feelings.’

  ‘Pleased to hear it.’

  We laughed a bit, half-embarrassed, half giddy at how huge this was. Cassie was going to be the first of us to get
married and have a baby.

  ‘It’s enough to bring a tear to a glass eye,’ I said, quoting my dad for some reason. ‘Her parents might not survive the shock. They’ve only just got over the excitement of having one grandchild, and now there’s another on the way, plus a wedding.’

  ‘I nearly went the whole hog and asked Cassie’s dad for her hand in marriage before they went away, but I thought she might not like that.’

  ‘She wouldn’t,’ I agreed. ‘She’s not into the idea of being given to a man, or any of those patriarchal traditions.’

  ‘Outrageous!’ Danny adopted the tone of a 1950s husband. ‘I expect her to agree to obey me, and be fully made up with a ribbon in her hair when I get home from work once we’re wed.’ He puffed on an imaginary pipe. ‘Woe betide her if she hasn’t run a duster around the house, or lit the fire so I can unwind with my crossword and a glass of whisky.’

  I laughed and, picking up the sponge, flicked water at him, clapping my hand to my mouth when I saw that his windcheater was covered in purple flecks. ‘Oh god, I’m sorry, Danny.’

  ‘I quite like it.’ He brushed at the splodges with his hands. ‘Very Jackson Pollock.’

  ‘It’s emulsion, so it’ll come out.’

  ‘That was very thoughtful of your vandal.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘So, the room will be ready?’

  ‘It’s all in hand,’ I said, aware I still hadn’t heard back from my broken-armed electrician.

  ‘Tilly, wot the bleedin’ ’ell are you doin’?’

  I wheeled round to see Gwen, bundled into a black quilted coat that made her look twice as wide, walking round from the terrace. ‘I was just talking to Danny,’ I said. ‘I’ve finished cleaning the windows.’

  She was looking at me as though I’d blown my nose into my hands. ‘You ’avin a larf?’ she said. ‘There ain’t no one there.’

  I turned. Danny had disappeared, and I wondered for a moment whether I’d been daydreaming – until I saw him peering round the side of the building. He mimed a scream before vanishing for real. ‘He was here,’ I said. ‘We were just—’

  ‘I know ’e was, mate,’ Gwen said. ‘I was windin’ you up.’

  ‘Well, that’s kind of you, thanks.’ Maybe it was Danny’s news, combined with the shock of the paint on the windows that might have something to do with Rufus, but I felt tears pricking the backs of my eyes again.

  ‘Go and get yourself an ’ot chocolate before you do anyfink else,’ said Gwen, pulling a stick of chewing gum from her pocket. ‘I reckon you’ve earned it.’

  Her tone was gruff, which meant she was being kind, so I nodded, not trusting myself to speak until I’d picked up the bucket. ‘Are you coming in?’

  She shook her head. ‘’Avin’ me break out ’ere, to give Jerry a chance to miss me,’ she said, flicking a chunk of chewing gum into her mouth. ‘’E needs to know what a catch I am.’ She winked. It didn’t suit her and, in spite of myself, I mustered a smile. Poor Jerry hadn’t a clue what he was letting himself in for.

  ‘Oh, and Tilly,’ she called as I walked away.

  I turned, trying to hold the bucket so that the water didn’t slosh over my feet. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Call that bloke of yours sooner rather than later,’ she said. ‘You need to know what ’is game is.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘I’m at home, if you want to come round now.’ I’d forgotten the college had closed for the Christmas holidays, and hadn’t expected Rufus to answer his phone. I’d planned to leave a message telling him to expect a visit from me later on, and felt myself floundering for something to say. ‘I’m waiting,’ he said. Confusingly, he was using what I’d come to recognise as his ‘sex’ voice.

  ‘I’ve seen the paint, Rufus. Gwen wanted to call the police.’

  ‘Oh, Christ, Tilda—’

  ‘It’s Tilly.’

  ‘Tilly, please don’t call the police—’

  ‘So it was you.’ My stomach sank. Up until then, I hadn’t really believed it.

  ‘Well, obviously.’ That threw me. ‘Unless you’ve been seeing someone I don’t know about.’

  ‘Of course I haven’t.’

  ‘Look, after our little chat, I wanted you know how strongly I feel about you,’ he said. What? ‘It probably wasn’t the best way to go about it, but I knew you’d see it when you got there this morning, and that you might…’ His words faded. ‘I thought you might be calling to tell me you felt the same way.’

  ‘The same way as what?’

  ‘As I do about you.’

  I struggled to make sense of his words. ‘You smeared leftover paint from your dining room on the windows at the café, to tell me how you feel?’ In that case, he must hate me.

  ‘Of course I didn’t smear it.’ He sounded hurt. ‘I know it sounds a bit soppy, and it’s not really you, but I still think we have a strong connection even if you won’t admit it.’

  ‘And that’s why you chucked paint at the windows?’

  ‘What? Why would I do that?’ His tone sharpened. ‘That would be vandalism.’

  ‘Graffiti is an act of vandalism,’ I said.

  ‘Not when it’s a declaration of love.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I painted I love you Matilda Campbell about twenty times, and loads of love hearts.’

  Sounds of the café rushed in as I stared into my almost empty cup, letting his words settle. I’d taken Gwen’s advice to have a hot chocolate, before calling him. ‘I’m going to send you a photo.’

  I texted Rufus the picture I’d taken, and when I brought my phone back to my ear I heard him groaning like a man who’d been given twenty-four hours to live. ‘It wasn’t raining when I went up there, but it must have started again in the early hours,’ he said. ‘Tilly, I’m so sorry, that wasn’t at all what you were meant to see.’

  ‘So, you didn’t mean to make that awful mess?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t. What do you take me for?’

  ‘I didn’t think you would, but when I recognised the paint—’

  ‘You recognised my paint?’ He sounded as pleased as if I’d announced I wanted to have his babies, and when he added, ‘Look, come round and let’s talk properly. I bought some of that tomato and herb sourdough you like from the bakery over there,’ I found myself agreeing.

  ‘I feel terrible that you ended up cleaning the paint off, not realising it was a message,’ Rufus said, fifteen minutes later, when I’d plonked myself on his distressed leather sofa with a plate of toasted sourdough. ‘I really didn’t think it through, did I?’

  He looked so tormented, I assured him it was fine, trying to picture him creeping up to the café in the dark and cold, with his tin of paint and a brush. It seemed so… extreme. No one had ever done anything like it in my name, and I couldn’t work out what I felt.

  ‘Honestly,’ I said, ‘I’m over it.’

  He instantly brightened, and endearingly said, ‘Help yourself to cheese and olives.’ He indicated the spread on the glass-topped coffee table, which he must have either laid on while I was driving over, or earlier, when he was anticipating me calling to express joy at his artistic endeavours. ‘I know you like the strong stuff, so I got some Stinking Bishop.’

  ‘Lovely,’ I said, though I’d only professed a liking for strong cheese because Rufus did, and it had seemed to be a grown-up thing to like. I actually preferred mild cheddar, and The Laughing Cow cheese triangles, which tasted great on crackers. ‘I might have some later.’

  ‘So, you haven’t changed your mind about the wedding on Saturday?’ He seemed to be holding his breath.

  ‘No,’ I said, popping an olive in my mouth. I was starving. ‘I told you, my word is my bond.’

  ‘Great!’ Before I could work out what was happening, Rufus had flumped beside me, holding an open laptop. ‘Here she is!’ On the screen was a man with a hulking frame and a luxuriant ginger beard,
squinting at the image of us that had popped up in the corner. ‘This is my brother, Grant,’ said Rufus, tossing an arm around my shoulder and pulling me close so that I tilted sideways, spilling my bread on the floor. ‘He wants to say hello.’

  ‘Hey!’ The man lifted a hand in a friendly wave. ‘You weren’t lying, bro’, she’s gorgeous.’

  He was Skyping his brother? Swallowing my olive whole, I tried to pull away, but Rufus was strong from his hours in the gym and had an iron grip.

  ‘I told you,’ he said, a note of triumph in his voice, and I didn’t know whether to be flattered or furious that he’d gone to such lengths to show me off to his brother without warning. ‘She’s definitely real!’ He was grinning, but an undercurrent in his voice suggested years of competition with his brother, who was younger and better looking (from what I could see under the beard), with smiling eyes, and a head of red-gold hair that probably drove Rufus mad with jealousy. ‘She’ll be at the wedding on Saturday and you can meet her for yourself.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to that,’ said Grant, his friendly face looming large. ‘It’s good to meet you, Matilda.’

  Rufus shifted slightly and I managed to move away, reconstructing my face into a pleasant smile. ‘Good to meet you too,’ I said politely.

  ‘Have you sorted out your best man’s speech yet?’ Grant’s eyes swivelled back to his brother.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Rufus, and I remembered him saying something about having a few anecdotes up his sleeve to embarrass his brother with on the big day.

  ‘Anything you’d care to share?’ Grant’s tone was lightly teasing.

  ‘That you wet the bed until you were twelve?’ Rufus winked at me. ‘I wouldn’t be that cruel, mate.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that.’ Clearly, Grant hadn’t spotted the wink. ‘Although it’s no secret that I had a weak bladder that had to be fixed in my teens.’ I loved how matter-of-fact he was about it.

  Rufus clearly wasn’t on the same wavelength. ‘Right,’ he said in an exaggerated way that meant he thought Grant was lying. ‘Good job I won’t be mentioning it then.’ He tried to nudge me playfully, but I’d moved too far away.