‘I’d love that,’ she said with a wan smile, ‘but it’s the money. I could justify it if I was back at work, but not otherwise.’
‘Knock knock.’
Lia and I turned to see Mum’s face at the bedroom door. She waggled her fingers in a wave.
‘Can I come in?’
We nodded and she crept in to sit beside us.
‘Lia, I just caught the tail end of that. And … well, I’m saddened that you didn’t come to me for help. After all, Arlo is my only grandchild; I’d be only too happy to have him. Any time, just say the word.’
Lia took a deep breath and glanced sideways at me.
‘That’s lovely to hear, Mum, but if you remember, I have asked you to have Arlo on several occasions. And each time you’ve been too busy organizing a charity lunch or going to a meeting or collecting raffle prizes or something. So I’ve just stopped asking.’
Mum’s commitment to her committees knew no bounds. I could just imagine how many times Lia had asked for help and been refused. I reached for Lia’s hand and squeezed it.
‘Well … I …’ Mum’s face flushed. ‘Gosh. I didn’t realize. But now I know I’ll make myself available, just give me a bit of notice, darling, because as you know I’m very busy …’ Her voice trailed off as she caught Lia’s resigned expression.
‘Exactly. Forget it, Mum.’ Lia pushed herself up off the bed and walked out. Mum groaned and I just about managed to hold my tongue, not wanting to take sides.
By the time we’d got back downstairs, the table had been cleared and Ed had given Arlo his afternoon bottle.
‘Well done, Superdad,’ said Lia, greeting her husband with a kiss.
‘You’re the super one,’ he replied.
He kissed her and my heart squeezed for them both.
See? I mouthed to Lia, catching her eye. Ed obviously didn’t think she was a failure and surely that had to mean more to her than some trashy magazine?
‘So what have we missed?’ Dad asked from the kitchen sink. ‘What’s the big secret?’
Lia shook her head and looked down at her lap; Mum began a thorough search of her handbag. Ed looked from Lia to me.
‘No secrets,’ I said lightly, giving Ed a casual smile. ‘Just girl stuff.’
Nonna flopped down on the sofa. ‘Nothing wrong with keeping secrets anyway. Nobody need to know everything about you.’
‘True,’ I said, reaching for the last chocolate truffle.
I loved my family dearly, but there were some things about me that would never be aired around the family dinner table. ‘As long as we’re there when anyone needs us, that’s what matters.’
Mum cleared her throat.
‘Actually, there is something.’ Her voice was more hesitant than usual and we all stared at her.
‘I’ve decided to give up some of my committees, just for a few months, while Lia needs me.’
She walked across and took Lia’s hand. ‘I’d like to be a more hands-on grandmother, if I may?’
Lia swallowed. ‘That would be brilliant, Mum. If you’re sure?’
‘Absolutely sure. A few hours a day, or a whole day now and then, up to you.’ She smiled at Arlo. ‘We’ll have fun, won’t we, darling? Just you and me. Oh, is he all right?’
Arlo’s eyes had taken on a determined look of concentration and his little face was scarlet.
‘Looks like the fun’s begun already, Luisa,’ said Ed with a laugh.
He sniffed the baby’s bottom and handed him to Mum. ‘Yep. Time to be a hands-on grandmother.’
‘Of course,’ said Mum stoically, holding Arlo rather gingerly. ‘Unless, Alec …?’
‘Mum!’ Lia and I yelled together.
‘OK, OK,’ she said, slinging the changing bag over her shoulder. ‘I’m going.’
A few days later, I was hunched up over a giant block of cheese, grating it for toasties when Dad walked in. I was so startled to see him that I grated my fingertip.
‘Hi, Dad. No work today? Ouch!’ I said, abandoning the cheese and sucking the end of my finger. ‘What can I get you?’
‘A date with your mother would be nice,’ he said, pulling up a stool at the counter. ‘Or failing that a cup of beef tea.’
‘Morning, hen,’ said Juliet to Dad in her gruff Scottish accent. She handed me a blue plaster from the first-aid box whilst simultaneously checking the cheese bowl for blood. ‘Here. The vegetarians will go mental if you drip blood in the cheese.’
Juliet was a wiry Glaswegian in her forties with spiky red hair and a personality to match. She baked the best cakes this side of the Pennines, which went some way to making up for her rather abrasive manner. She gave Dad the once-over as she made him a cup of Bovril, his favourite.
‘Good God, man, you’re looking like someone’s popped your balloon. Cheer up; you’ll put the rest of the customers off.’
I grinned at Juliet’s way with words.
‘You do look a bit down in the dumps,’ I said as I scooped the grated cheese into a container and set it down in the salad counter between the sliced cucumber and shredded lettuce.
‘I’m fine,’ said Dad with a forced laugh. ‘It’s just that I had a couple of hours spare after a meeting so I thought I’d surprise Luisa and take her for lunch. But she said she and Arlo have got Baby Percussion at two o’clock and she doesn’t have time.’
True to her word, Mum had immediately stepped down from some of her voluntary positions and had made arrangements to have Arlo every day, Monday to Friday, for four hours.
‘Honestly, it’s feast or famine with her,’ Lia had confided last night on the phone. ‘I was only looking for a bit of ad hoc babysitting. Mum has organized trips to the river, swimming lessons, play gym … The poor little chap has got a schedule more crammed than the Prime Minister.’
‘Baby Percussion?’ said Juliet, rolling her eyes. ‘When I was a wee girl, I had a saucepan and a wooden spoon.’
Nonna appeared from the kitchen with two bowls of baby food she’d heated for a mum of twins, who was sitting in the toy corner trying to keep both of them occupied while they waited for their lunch.
‘Luisa like to be busy, busy, busy. Always the same. Just like me.’
‘She seems to make time for the things she enjoys doing,’ said Dad. ‘All I ever seem to do is work and wait for her in an empty house.’
‘Then you should do the same, Dad. What do you like doing? Perhaps you need to indulge your secret passion?’ I said, turning to serve a new customer. ‘Yes please?’
‘Hmm,’ Dad stroked his chin thoughtfully, ‘that’s an idea.’
‘If you ask me, all babies need is a bit of your time. Just like dogs, really,’ said Juliet, who was a big animal lover with no children of her own. ‘All these activities … waste of money.’
‘Here, take these,’ said Nonna, passing her the bowls. ‘For the twins over there. See if you can help their mum; give them a bit of your time.’
‘Twins.’ Dad slurped his Bovril and turned to look at them. ‘Now that really would be hard work.’
‘Twins is double blessing from God,’ said Nonna fiercely. ‘Two times the joy. Why you think we have two arms, eh?’
‘All right, keep your hair on,’ Juliet grumbled and stomped off to offer assistance. She came back straight away claiming that no help was required. Although I suspected she’d simply dumped the bowls and run.
‘Eh, Rosanna?’ Nonna nodded to a recently vacated table. ‘Did that man leave without paying his bill?’
‘Um.’ I exchanged guilty looks with Juliet.
A man had been in earlier for a bacon sandwich wearing a T-shirt advertising him to be ‘Peter Pipes the Plumber’. I’d offered him breakfast on the house if he’d mend the leaky tap in the men’s loos. ‘No, he paid, didn’t he, Juliet?’
‘Oh aye.’ Juliet nodded. ‘And left a tap, I mean a tip.’
She high-fived me once Nonna’s back was turned. ‘This place is already looking so much better, hen. Next j
ob when she isn’t looking is to see if we can get rid of the brown goo at the back of the fridge.’
‘Remind me not to order the hummus,’ said Dad drily.
‘So you’re going to stay here for lunch?’ I said. ‘I can recommend the quiche.’
He got to his feet and pecked me on the cheek. ‘Actually, I can’t stop. I’m going to take your advice.’
‘Oh, what was that?’ I smiled back, pleased to see him more cheerful.
‘I’m off to locate someone who can fan the flames of my smouldering passion.’ He tapped his nose. ‘But mum’s the word, OK?’
A prickle of concern ran down my spine but I nodded. Juliet put my thoughts into words as she folded her arms and watched him leave.
‘Oh shite, hen, what have you started there?’
Chapter 4
A week later and crocuses were beginning to pop up through the grass on the village green; their zingy colours of yellow, purple and white made them look like mini Easter eggs peeping through the grass. Spring was on its way along with milder weather and lighter nights. The buds on my flowering cherry tree were almost ready to pop and despite Mum’s predictions, here in the café, in amongst the clink of spoons and the hiss and gurgle of the coffee machine, the romance between Nonna and Stanley was blossoming too.
He was here now sitting in his usual spot looking extra smart. He’d had a haircut and a beard trim and if the price tag at the back of his neck was anything to go by he was wearing a new jumper too. He’d ordered a pot of tea for two and had invited Nonna to join him. She’d been snoozing in the conservatory five minutes before he arrived, although she’d denied it, giving Juliet and I the chance to whip every item of crockery off the heavy Italian dresser, scrub down the shelves and replace everything again before she woke up. But now they were sharing a custard tart – one plate and two forks. It was all very sweet.
The breakfast trade fizzled out by half past ten and in the hiatus that followed, Juliet and I had the fairly easy job of serving up teas and coffees. Nonna went into the kitchen to load the dishwasher while Stanley lingered over the crossword, looking hopefully at the kitchen every time he heard her voice.
It was quiet enough that when Verity rang me on my mobile I was only too pleased to pour myself a coffee and curl up in a chair in the conservatory for a chat. She’d got a gap between cookery courses, she said, and wanted to check up on me.
The conservatory was the most private part of the café. There wasn’t much in the way of a view; the windows looked out on to the little courtyard at the back, but with the sun warming the terracotta floor tiles and the potted lemon trees softening the hard lines of the walls, it felt like a little Mediterranean paradise.
‘Just making sure you haven’t burned the place down with your dubious culinary talents,’ she said once I’d made myself comfortable.
‘You’d be amazed,’ I said. ‘I’ve taken to café life like a duck to water.’
‘Not amazed,’ she said. ‘I adore working in the food industry. Everyone arrives expecting to have a nice time; a break from the daily grind. Being at your café could be a treat to themselves after a hard day or perhaps a special celebration. Imagine an old person living alone whose first conversation of the day is with you. Just think of the difference you could make to someone’s life. Every day. Which makes it a nice place to spend time in.’
Verity had been a marketing manager in a financial services company before moving to Plumberry in Yorkshire to work at the cookery school and she’d never been happier.
‘I never thought of it like that,’ I agreed. ‘But being in the village has made me realize how much of my family life I used to miss when I worked in an office such long hours.’
‘Sounds like someone might stay on more than a month,’ she said in a singsong voice.
I looked around me at the faded decor, the tired menus, the sagging cushions, and felt my heart race. There was so much potential here, new houses were springing up all the time on the outskirts of Barnaby, city workers like me were moving further and further out into the countryside, all wanting a cute café for avocado on toast or bircher bowls, or warm salads. If this café were mine, I’d—
I shook myself. It was a ridiculous thought.
‘Nooo,’ I said, trying to convince myself as much as Verity. ‘I’m used to high-pressure pitches and interpreting impossible briefs and coming up with a creative solution so amazing that the client is rendered speechless.’
‘You can use all those skills there, can’t you?’
I pulled a waxy green leaf off a lemon tree and folded it between my fingers.
‘There is the small matter of Nonna and what to do about her,’ I conceded. ‘Now that needs a creative solution. She’s kidding herself that she still puts in a full day’s work, but she falls asleep as soon as she sits down and half the time when she serves customers she wanders off part way through and forgets what she’s doing. She doesn’t ever take a day off; she’s a workaholic.’
‘Sounds like someone else I know.’
I had to smile at that; I was guilty of doing the same. In my last job I’d always been getting email reminders to take my paid leave entitlement.
‘She’s seventy-five, Verity; even I might have called it a day by then.’
‘Or fallen madly in love and had loads of gorgeous dark-haired babies?’
‘We both know how unlikely that is.’
‘Rubbish, you just need to find the right man. Like me.’ There was a pause on the line. ‘Sorry, that sounded smug. Carry on. About Nonna.’
I suppressed a sigh. I was delighted that Verity was so happy with Tom, but love wasn’t on my agenda, nor did I appreciate being told that all my troubles would be over if only I met ‘The One’. And she knew that.
‘It’s just not fair on Juliet and Doreen,’ I began again. ‘At the moment we’re cramming as many spring-cleaning jobs in as we can without her noticing. But I’m only here for another couple of weeks, and then I’ll be off.’
Michael had called me with the details of a job in Manchester last night for a company called HitSquad. It was perfect, a bit further to commute, but I’d get used to it. And this job in the café had only ever been temporary. I was keeping everything crossed that I’d make the shortlist for an interview. It would be weird to wear my smart office clothes again and get on a train or a bus with the other office workers; I’d got quite used to a short hop across a dewy village green.
‘Have you got a new job? How exciting.’
‘Not yet, but I might have an interview. I need to start earning again. I used most of my savings buying the cottage last year.’
‘Hmm.’ Verity didn’t sound convinced. ‘Don’t be too quick to dismiss the café, Rosie. Knowing you, you’d have a chain of twenty of them within a year.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, distracted by a babble of conversation at the door. ‘Listen, all the teachers and staff from the local school are arriving for a celebratory lunch. I’ll have to go and serve, they’ve pre-ordered jacket potatoes and Juliet has already got a queue at the till.’
‘It’s not just a jacket potato, remember,’ she laughed, ‘it’s a celebratory jacket potato. Go and make their lunches special.’
‘I will,’ I promised. ‘I’ll even chop up some cress for an extra garnish.’
‘That’s my girl,’ she said, tongue firmly in cheek. ‘What are they celebrating?’
‘Excellence,’ I replied. ‘Our little village school has just had a visit from the inspector and it has passed with flying colours.’
‘Really? A primary school?’
‘Yes, the one I used to go to.’
‘Your village is lucky; I’m worried to death about the school Noah is supposed to be starting after Easter. Complete disaster, apparently. Gabe says it’s had an awful report and has gone into Special Measures.’
I had only met Gabe Green a handful of times but Verity was very close to him in a complicated sort of way. He’d been married to her be
st friend Mimi who died aged thirty leaving him to bring up their baby son, Noah. It had been desperately sad and Verity had been heartbroken at the time. Gabe had nearly drowned in sorrow too. He chucked in his job with a top law firm, moved on to a houseboat somewhere and now worked as a French polisher. Verity was Noah’s godmother and she and Gabe were both directors of the cookery school she ran. She loved that little boy as if he were her own.
‘Well, ours is outstanding, tell him,’ I said, ‘which bodes well for when my nephew enrols.’
‘And your own children, of course.’
I said nothing.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she cringed. ‘I’m going now.’
Juliet and I herded the triumphant school party into the conservatory. There was only one man amongst them: Mr Beecher, who’d been the school caretaker since I’d been there. In my day, all the kids were scared of him. He used to have red hair, a thick monobrow and a permanent scowl. His hair was mostly grey now and his ears were as whiskery as his eyebrows.
‘One potato with tuna?’ I called above the chattering about displays and assemblies and parent questionnaires.
Mr Beecher raised his hand.
‘That’s mine,’ he said and narrowed his eyes in recognition. ‘I remember you.’
‘Ditto,’ I said, setting the plate in front of him. ‘Mayonnaise is on the table. Enjoy.’
It was hardly surprising he remembered me: I don’t suppose there were many seven-year-olds who staged a rooftop protest to allow the ice-cream van into school because it was a hot day. He’d been furious at having to come up to get me. Mum had been furious too – sending me straight to my room after school – but Nonna had sneaked up with a small dish of ice cream, and told me to always stay brave, that if I believed something was right, or wrong, I should always take action and speak my mind. And mostly I’d managed it.
‘Thank you.’ His hooded eyes roamed the café. ‘So you’re back. You didn’t manage to scale to great heights in the end, then? Ha ha.’
‘We make a difference to people’s lives every day in this café, in lots of small ways,’ I said, paraphrasing Verity. ‘Which is quite a tall order, I think.’
The Lemon Tree Café Page 4
