Let's Call the Whole Thing Off (17 page)

‘Oh, thank goodness. It’s Mandy. From the café. Are you busy?’

‘No, I’m just sitting in my hotel room at the moment. Why? What’s the matter?’ The note of panic in her voice had me sitting up straight in bed.

‘You couldn’t come and help me out for a couple of hours, could you? I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve got a café full of customers and Bob has had some sort of funny turn. It was awful, he just collapsed on the floor.’

‘Oh no!’

‘He’s come round a bit now but he’s still a dreadful colour. An ambulance is on the way, but I don’t want to turf out all these customers. I’ve tried ringing a couple of local people but I can’t get hold of anyone. I just wondered if you wouldn’t mind holding the fort until these people have finished their meals.’

‘Of course. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll be there in five minutes.’

‘Oh, bless you, Anna. You’re a sweetheart. I’ll see you later.’

I jumped out of bed and made shooshing motions towards Neil to get out of bed.

‘Whoa! Where’s the fire?’ He rolled over and off the side of the bed, landing deftly on his feet like a cat.

‘No fire, but I do need to get ready.’ I pointed to my just-out-of-bed state. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go. It’s the lady from the café down the road; her hubby’s being taken into hospital and she wants me to look after the place while they’re away.’ I threw my arms around him, planting a kiss on his cheek. ‘But thank you so much for bringing me breakfast. It was really lovely. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?’

‘Yes, sure thing, sweetie.’

Back in waiter mode, Neil quickly loaded up his trolley with all the dirty plates and wheeled his way to the door, before he turned round to face me.

‘That’s really cool, I didn’t realise you were in the catering industry too.’

‘I’m not,’ I said, laughing. ‘But how hard can it be?’

***

The ambulance was outside the café when I arrived and Bob was sitting in a wheelchair, being tended to by a paramedic, looking a lot healthier than Mandy whose face was drained of colour, her features flecked with anxiety. Her face lit up when she saw me.

‘Oh Anna, you came! I can’t tell you what a relief it is to see you. There’s about five tables occupied at the moment, and they’ve all got their food, thankfully, so you’ll only need to top up any teas and coffees. Once everyone’s gone then you’ll be fine just to shut up shop. I can sort out the mess later.’

‘Don’t worry; I’ll sort it all out. How’s Bob doing now?’ We both turned to look at him as he was lifted into the ambulance and he gave an apologetic wave.

‘Oh look. Bless him. He’ll hate all this, the fuss. He’s looking a lot better than he did fifteen minutes ago. I think they just want to take him in and check him over.’ Mandy let out a huge sigh of relief. ‘That’s it, though. I’ve been telling him for weeks that he’s been working too hard. We’ve not been able to afford to take anyone else on and it’s too much for him – looking after the kitchen all by himself. It’s taking a toll. And he’s not getting any younger. It’s time we made that move, Anna, once and for all. I’ll have nothing if I don’t have Bob by my side.’

‘Well, just worry about getting him better first and then you can decide what it is you want to do. Give him my love, won’t you? And I’ll see you later.’

I hurried into the café, gave a cheery little wave to the customers who were all chatting away to each other in that semi-excited way of the general public when something out of the ordinary has happened.

‘It’s okay, everyone,’ I called, holding my hands up as though the cavalry had arrived. ‘Bob’s going to be fine and you’re all in safe hands with me. If anyone wants anything just give me a shout,’ I said, sounding as though I knew exactly what I was doing. I slipped off my jacket and rolled up the sleeves of my jumper, picking up Mandy’s pinny from the back of the door and placing it over my head. I pulled my hair back off my face and tied it up into a haphazard bun.

I’d never worked in a café before but when I was a teenager my Tuesday nights were spent preparing the teas and coffees for the bridge club and that hadn’t been too difficult so I felt certain I’d be able to manage this marvellously. And whilst I wasn’t pleased about what had happened to Bob, I felt quite relieved that I now had the rest of my day planned and I would have no time to think about Ed or Ben or Dave.

First I went round all the tables making polite conversation, picking up the dirty plates and generally wiping a cloth over where required.

Within fifteen minutes all of the tables had emptied so I was able to tackle the kitchen. There seemed to be an industrial-sized dishwasher, but as I wasn’t sure how it worked I decided to do the washing-up the old-fashioned way in the sink.

I found it quite therapeutic just standing there, my arms elbow-deep in suds as I ran a cloth over the dirty dishes. It had been three days now since my life had come to a halt with such a violent emergency stop. In some ways it seemed like three months ago. So much had happened in such a short space of time. I’d met some lovely people, people I would never have met if it hadn’t been for Ed’s deceit, and I felt a small swell of sadness at the thought of going home tomorrow and the possibility that I may never see them again.

Still, it wasn’t as if Hollisea was on the other side of world. I would definitely make an effort to stay in touch with Neil and Mandy and Bob. It would be all too easy to lose touch when I got home and to forget the kindness they’d shown me. Honestly, I’m not sure what I would have done if I hadn’t met them. They’d given me a sense of normality, a feeling that I was liked and valued for being me. They didn’t know the Anna who worked in the accounts department of a luxury goods company, who lived with her best friend Sophie and who had been boring everyone silly for the last six months about her upcoming marriage to her fiancé Ed. No, they only knew the Anna who’d done a runner after finding out her fiancé was a lying, two-faced toerag. Funnily enough, they seemed to quite like her.

I was just mopping the floor when I heard the bell of the door ringing indicating that a new customer had arrived. I’d considered putting up the closed sign on the door, as Mandy had suggested, but when I’d looked at the menu I reckoned there wasn’t anything on there that I couldn’t rustle up without too much difficulty. I wasn’t much of a cook but even I could manage sandwiches, jacket potatoes and salads.

‘Take a seat. I’ll be with you in a jiffy!’ I called, returning the mop to its bucket. I washed my hands, tidied some stray strands of hair away and grabbed my little notepad and pencil.

The young couple asked for two cappuccinos and a slice of carrot cake. That was fine. Well within my capabilities. I rushed off to see to the order, wondering if I hadn’t actually missed my vocation and if I shouldn’t give it all up and start my very own seaside tea shop. Although I wasn’t the best cook in the world, I did love baking and I could knock up a mean rocky road tray bake. Mum usually asked me to cook a batch of chocolate brownies for all the family parties, too, and they always went down a treat.

No sooner was I back with the young couple’s order then two other tables filled up. And then two more. No wonder Mandy and Bob found running the café such hard work. I was twenty years younger than them and still I was struggling to keep up with the flow of orders.

Entering invoices was a doddle in comparison, although not nearly as satisfying.

I rushed back and forth from the kitchen to the restaurant, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks but that only heightened the sense of satisfaction I felt when each order was fulfilled. Maybe it wasn’t just my relationships that needed examining. Maybe I needed to look at my job, too, because that’s all it was to me, a job. If I found something to do that I really loved and enjoyed then that might give me the new focus in life I needed.

I couldn’t believe when I next looked at my watch that three hours had passed since I’d waved Mandy and Bob goodbye.

I’d just delivered two ham and cheese toasties to one table and two cheddar and bacon jacket potatoes to another, when another couple came in and plonked themselves down in the corner.

‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ I said, as I whizzed past, depositing some plates into the kitchen. I totted up table six’s bill, left it on the side of their table and was back to serve the new customers.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting. What can I get you?’ I gave a big weary smile, looking up to face them for the first time. At my gaze settled on the man my heart stopped for a moment before my pulse quickened and the colour drained from my face.

‘Dave?’

‘Persephone? It is you? How … how very surprising.’

Surprising, yes. And acutely awkward, too. I laughed involuntarily, trying to hide my embarrassment, but I knew I was failing miserably. The colour was back in my face with a vengeance as I looked from Dave to his companion, a pretty young girl with long straight black hair and piercing blue eyes. My eyes flitted back over the girl and I reassessed my opinion of her. She wasn’t pretty. She was downright beautiful. In a way that suggested she didn’t even have to try too hard. She probably just rolled out of bed in the morning looking that way.

Why was I surprised? I wouldn’t have expected anything less from Dave. I thought of how I must have looked last night after rolling around on the carpet for a few minutes. Dishevelled as well as nutty.

‘Just helping out a friend,’ I said, waving my pencil in front of my face in the hope that he might not notice that I wasn’t wearing any make-up, that my skin was blotchy and my hair had taken on an unbecoming frizz. I sighed inwardly. Even if I managed to pull off that amazing feat, which was highly unlikely as I could now detect the slightest whiff of bacon fat about my person, there was no way he was going to forget about the beautiful woman at his side.

‘Oh, I see,’ he said, looking doubtful. He clearly thought I was completely delusional –not a successful jewellery designer after all, but a lowly café worker with paranoia tendencies. But how could I possibly explain I was neither of those things? Assuming he’d be interested, that is. It looked unlikely I’d ever get the chance to speak to Dave alone again. ‘Sorry,’ he said, seemingly remembering about Miss Drop-dead-gorgeous at his side, ‘this is Natalie.’

‘Hi!’ We both said it at the same time, before she added, rather unnecessarily, ‘Persephone, how cool! That’s a really unusual name, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Yes, it is,’ I said, smiling sweetly through gritted teeth. Dave smiled back at me. ‘Now what can I get you?’

‘I’ll have beans on toast, please, without any butter and a black coffee, but not too strong please. And if I could have brown bread, please, not white. And do you have any brown sauce, please? Spread onto the toast, if that’s possible.’ I nodded graciously as she rattled off her list of requirements. ‘Oh, and could I have a glass of tap water, too, please?’ I could tell just by looking at her she was the high-maintenance type.

‘I’ll just have a cappuccino, please,’ added Dave.

‘Great. Coming right up,’ I said cheerily, as though this was my natural environment and I was really very happy to be here which I wasn’t, not any more.

I hurried back to the kitchen feeling suddenly, inexplicably sad. What was I doing here such a long way from home? The time I’d spent with Dave had been a magical, special time and it had been easy to imagine that we both existed only in the little seaside bubble we’d created away from everybody and everything that we knew. But seeing Dave with this other woman – who just so happened to be thin and lovely and really very beautiful –only brought home to me that none of it had been for real.

I didn’t know what was real any more. How I felt about Ed and if I still wanted to marry him. And what I felt for lovely Ben who I’d never looked upon as anything other than a friend until the other night when I’d seen him in a completely different light. And now there was Dave who had the audacity to sit in my café and mess with my head.

I suppose for a moment there, on the beach and in the restaurant last night, I thought we’d shared something special, a connection that in different circumstances may have led to something more meaningful and long-lasting. Only who had I been kidding? Dave had had plenty of opportunity to whisk me off my feet, to take me back to his hotel and make mad passionate love to me, but he hadn’t. He’d kissed me that first night and whilst it had been simply amazing for me, it had clearly been quite enough for Dave. He could have ravished me, but he didn’t. And no amount of analysis was going to put a different slant on that fact at all.

From the kitchen I peered out to their table. No wonder he’d had little interest in me when he was hanging out with girls like the one sitting opposite him now who was looking at him all adoringly.

I popped two slices of bread into the toaster and tipped a tin of baked beans into a saucepan with a plop, stirring at them distractedly.

What a fool I’d been. There was no magic answer to be found here in Hollisea. However much I hated the idea, I needed to go home and do what I should have done three days ago. I needed to sit down with Ed and talk to him and work out what we were going to do. We had so many plans and arrangements in place that would need carefully untangling if we weren’t going ahead with the wedding. I needed to speak to Sophie and collect my things and move out of the flat. I needed to speak to my parents. Oh God, I had to speak to Mum, however much I dreaded the prospect. I really couldn’t put it off any longer. They deserved to know what was happening. All jolly things like that. Running away had been a selfish thing to do, I realised that now.

I needed to get home and as quickly as possible.

There were only two tables occupied now so I wandered over to the front door and tipped the closed sign around. Studiously avoiding looking at Dave and his friend I went back into the kitchen, greeted by the aroma of burnt beans.

‘Shit!’ I said beneath my breath, burning my hand on the pan as I pushed it off the gas ring. I ran my hand under the cold tap, thinking I’d do them again, but then realising I’d just used the last can of beans. Great! I only hoped Miss Gorgeous Knickers didn’t have discerning taste when it came to her beans. Hurriedly, I scrapped the orange claggy mess off the bottom of the saucepan, leaving aside the seriously black bits. The bread popped out of the toaster and I put it on the plate, squirted some brown sauce around, before plopping the beans on top. It honestly looked like the least appetising meal in the world. And I was the creator. Mum would be so proud.