A Spring Affair (37 page)

‘I wish you’d sit down, you’re doing my head in,’ said Deb, putting the newly washed crockery in the cupboards. ‘You must have walked ten miles in here this morning. You’ll be wearing grooves in the tiles in a bit.’ But she was only gently cross with him. She had been where he was, worrying that Phil would work his magic. But Lou was different now. She’d found her old Casserly spark.

‘She’s later than I thought she’d be,’ said Tom, raking his fingers through his over-long hair. It needed a cut. Did he look scruffy, up against Phil’s neatness?

‘She’s got a lot to discuss with him,’ said Deb calmly.

‘What if he tries to talk her round?’ Tom fretted, sitting at last, although his leg seemed to have developed St Vitus’s Dance.

‘He probably will.’ Deb held up an arresting finger as his mouth opened to speak. ‘Phil isn’t coming in at night to a wonderful home-cooked meal or a basketful of clean socks, so of course he’s going to try and talk her round. But Lou isn’t a fool, Tom.’
Not any more
.

‘He’s a used-car salesman. He’ll have highly honed manipulation skills,’ said Tom, getting up again to re
pace. He could imagine the sort of tricks Phil would try. He would have a whole repertoire of sweet words and seduction techniques. He imagined Phil Winter was a man who had no concept of losing. One who would play hard and strike low to get what he wanted.

‘Lou’s eyes are wide open. She sees him for what he is. She’s not going to leave you for someone like him.’

But ‘someone like him’ was legally bracketed to Lou. It would be so much easier for her to be lulled back home to Phil than ride the rough terrain of a divorce.

Tom caught sight of his reflection in the glass of a picture and felt suddenly outclassed. What was he? A big, rough bloke in an overall who had a job moving other people’s rubbish and lived in a house that had no wallpaper, hardly any curtains and one carpet so far. OK, he had a solid business and property, but Phil outranked him on all fronts with his polished suit, killer smile, fleets of posh cars, pots of ready money, swanky wardrobe, big house and the persuasive powers of a snake-charmer. How could a glorified scrap-man compete with all that?

Lou opened the door and he saw straight away that she had been crying.

‘You OK?’ he said. He’d barely got the second word out before she moved into his arms to savour the wonderful smell and feel of him. He tried not to squeeze her too hard as the relief washed over him like a warm tide.

‘How are things?’ asked Deb, winking at Tom and mouthing,
Told you so
.

‘OK, I think,’ said Lou. ‘The stupid hormones don’t help. I just need to go upstairs for a bit.’

‘To think?’ said Tom, tentatively.

‘To change into something nice and elasticky around my stomach,’ said Lou.

‘Oh,’ said Tom. ‘Can I get you anything, love?’

‘A cup of orange juice and four cardboard boxes would be good,’ said Lou.

‘God, her funny cravings have started already,’ said Deb, turning to switch on the kettle. ‘Would you like them with or without jam?’

‘Whatever Tom would like, seeing as they’re going to be sitting in his house,’ Lou announced. ‘I’m moving in with him today, you see.’

Tom said nothing but stood there with his mouth wide open in shock.

‘You wanton hussy,’ said Deb.

‘I’m glad you approve,’ said Lou.

‘I most certainly do,’ said Deb.

‘Happy Anniversary, partner!’ Deb raised her mug of tea and clinked it against Lou’s.

‘Congratulations to you, Miss Devine. And may it be the first of many,’ smiled Lou.

‘I can’t believe it’s been a year.’

‘Yes, a fair bit has happened, hasn’t it. Biscotti?’ Lou proffered the glass jar full of biscuits.

‘Don’t mind if I do. I’m in the mood for a good dunk.’

‘Aren’t you always?’

‘Dirty cow!’

They laughed together as business colleagues and best friends. Both dressed in their black uniforms with their company logo above the breast. They hadn’t used the name
Casa Nostra
–they’d agreed on a different name, a perfect one:
Mamma’s. Ma’s Café
was so well-known, they had merely Italianized it. It seemed, for many reasons, so very right.

‘You need a bigger uniform,’ Deb said. ‘Your boobs are getting even more massive. We’ll need an extension to the building at this rate.’

‘It’s my milk,’ said Lou. ‘Franco must be nearby.’

Right on cue, Tom Broom with a papoose carrying his black-haired baby son came shivering from the early chill of the morning into the bright, warm café. At his heels was his faithful dog who was as good as glued to the baby.

‘By heck, it was warmer than this on Christmas morning,’ he said. Franco was asleep, though, snuggled against his dad’s thumping heartbeat.

‘Here, have a cuppa,’ said Deb, adding cheekily, ‘No, please, don’t offer me any money, it’s on the house.’

Tom tutted and sat carefully down, as did Clooney. It might not have been environmentally friendly to have dogs in the place, but a few of the truckers travelled with them and the dogs were as welcome as their masters in a special section of the cafe. Whilst Lou had been on her very short maternity leave, they’d employed a relative of May’s to help out. She was obsessively clean and animals or no animals, the place was constantly shining like a new pin. They’d had to keep her on–she was too good to let go.

‘A year,’ mused Lou again.

The same thought passed through both women’s minds. A year ago today they’d been standing in exactly the same place, shaking with excitement and fear too. What if no one turned up? What if the scruffy old caravan on the dual carriageway that doled out greasy bacon butties had absorbed all their clientèle in the weeks
Ma’s Café
was closed, and refused to hand it back? Their fridges had been bursting with breakfast foods, most of it delivered by Karen’s dad; the griddles, pots and pans were ready to start cooking, and the cakes were on display in a beautiful rotating cabinet ready for the
afternoon clientèle. Huge, fresh gâteaux–ranging from the ‘Marco’ (tiramisú flavoured with white icing), so rich that it defeated even Tom on test–to the light lemon and cardamom ‘TortaRenee’; and in jars on the shelves sat twenty different sorts of coffee ranging from ‘Butter Toffee’ to ‘Summer Pudding’.

They’d opened the red, green and white Italian flag blinds at 6 a.m. precisely, to find no one waiting. Lou’s heart had sunk into her boots, and even big hard Debra Devine looked close to tears.

Then, from nowhere, like the zombies in
Dawn of the Dead
, only pinker and infinitely more benign, lumberjack shirts and denim jackets began to head across the car park towards them, and lorries and vans and cars started to turn onto their land.

And the only thing both of them could think of to say was, ‘
Mamma bloody mia!’

And now it was a year on, and Deb was having the flirtatious time of her life behind that counter and her best friend had been on an Italian honeymoon, acquired a husband and given birth to a son–in that order. Lou’s eyes were still full of Venetian sunshine, and a certain gentleman of Italian extraction was managing to keep the brightness burning there quite adequately.

The planned phasing-out of the breakfast side of the business hadn’t happened. It was too popular, and though it shouldn’t under any circumstances have worked that the afternoon tea set sat comfortably amongst big hairy-arsed lorry drivers, both worlds met and colluded in fabulous harmony. Little old ladies, business folk, students and men built like barn doors all tucked into Brando breakfasts in the mornings and then,
in the afternoons, devoured the most wonderful cakes.
Mamma’s
, it was reported in the local–then national–press, was the most bizarre place in the world and had to be seen and experienced. They’d even had the
Morning Coffee
TV team down there. The presenter Drusilla Durham had sat with Lou for nearly two hours after the cameras had stopped rolling. She’d been fascinated by Lou’s clutter-clearing adventure and had left with a full notepad, a roll of binliners and the hope in her heart that she’d find the same fire that blazed in Lou Broom’s eyes.

Tom suddenly clicked his fingers. ‘I meant to tell you. I’ve just seen Phil.’

‘Oh, where was he?’ said Lou.

‘Driving. He looked very intense.’

‘Doesn’t he always?’ said Deb, heading for the loo before the rush of customers started.

Deb would never forgive him, but Lou wasn’t his enemy. He had given her the quickie divorce she’d asked for in the end, and even sent lots of her things around in big boxes. On the top was a letter wishing her well that must have taken a big gulping down of pride to write. And he thanked her for alerting him to the fact that Sharon’s children probably weren’t his. The eye formula wasn’t as simple as Tom remembered it from his biology lessons at school–that two blue-eyed people couldn’t have brown-eyed children–but it was a strong enough basis for Phil to demand a DNA test. This had revealed that he was not the twins’ father, after all.

‘He’ll be happy enough with his lot,’ said Lou. ‘He has his car business and that’s all he really needs. Now me–I feel as if I own the whole world because of what I’ve got.’

‘And let’s look at what you
have
got, Lou: a nocturnal greedy little son, a big ugly skip man and a daft dog named after George Clooney.’

The daft dog in question lifted an ear, then dropped it and settled his head back in his paws with a happy sigh.

‘And what have
you
got, Mr Broom? A plump little midget who bakes buns.’

‘You’re all I could ever want, Mrs Broom.
Angelo mio, ti amo passionatamente.’

‘Take me to bed, Mr Broom.’ The eyes of Shaun Casserly’s daughter glittered Irish-green and mischievously at him.

‘You are so for it when you get home, Mrs Broom.

‘I’m not sure I can wait that long, Mr Broom.’

‘Trust me, it’ll be worth it,’ said Tom Broom–who later hijacked his wife at their front door, lifted her effortlessly, Prince-Charming-style into his arms, and carried her upstairs.