Chapter 30
Hannah looked down from the boathouse veranda at her grandmother and friends shivering on the beach as the sun went back behind another cloud.
She immediately felt glad that she had already asked Dotty to invite them into the boathouse for some warm drinks.
In a way, it would be a trial run for any customers that appeared for the opening of the café the following day. She was torn between wanting it to be busy and successful and just wanting to hide behind the counter all day.
She felt a little nervous when the women came into the café but then noticed that, despite getting dressed, they were still shivering from the cold and decided that it was more important to get their temperatures back up to normal once more, given that none of them were under the age of seventy.
‘Please sit down,’ she told them. ‘I’ll bring you all some hot drinks.’
A new coffee machine had been delivered the previous day but the instructions might as well have been written in Mandarin for all the sense she had been able to make of them.
She had already decided to ask Alex to help decipher them but as he was still chatting with Ben outside, she decided on heating up some milk on the stove for a mug of hot chocolate which would help warm them all up on the inside.
Then she added tiny marshmallows and whipped cream on the top with chocolate flakes, all in an effort to make a good first impression. And this was her first dummy run.
She put all the mugs onto a tray and carefully carried them outside where the ladies had decided to sit to carry on enjoying the fresh air.
Despite their shivers and protestations about not enjoying it, Hannah was pleased to find that they were all laughing and chatting excitedly after their cold swim.
‘It’s been too many years since I did this,’ said Mavis.
‘Me too,’ said another. ‘And I did always so enjoy swimming outside. We’re so lucky to have this on our doorstep.’
‘Why ever did we stop?’ asked the first lady.
‘Fear and old age,’ said Dotty with a grimace. ‘Well, that’s not going to hold us back any longer.’
Hannah placed a large plate piled with flapjacks and pastries onto the table alongside the drinks.
‘How kind of you, dear,’ said Mavis. ‘My purse is back at the hotel but remind me to pay you later.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘Oh, no,’ she replied. ‘It’s on the house. You’re my very first customers so it doesn’t matter.’
‘What a treat,’ said Dotty, reaching out to squeeze her granddaughter’s hand. ‘I tell you, ladies, this place is going to be jumping come the afternoons when tea is served.’
‘When’s your first day?’ asked one of the friends.
‘Tomorrow,’ said Hannah, trying to ignore the feeling of dread in her stomach.
‘It looks lovely in there,’ said another lady. ‘I’ll definitely be coming up here for afternoon tea.’
There was a general nodding of heads in agreement swiftly followed by murmurs of appreciation as they all took a mug of steaming hot drink and held it in their cold fingers.
‘What about the mornings?’ asked Mavis. ‘Are you not going to be open then as well?’
Hannah shook her head. ‘We weren’t sure how many people would be around,’ she told them.
‘To be honest,’ said one of the ladies, ‘I can’t see me surviving if I don’t know that there’s a hot drink at the end of the next swim.’
‘And one of these flapjacks,’ added another.
‘Well, we will be back, won’t we, ladies?’ said Mavis, with a determined nod.
‘Absolutely,’ they all agreed.
‘And I might even bring my great-niece Aimee along, if that’s all right?’ added Mavis.
‘More the merrier! In fact, from now on, swim club will be every Tuesday and Thursday morning,’ announced Dotty to a reluctant chorus of agreement. ‘With coffee and cakes afterwards?’
‘So you’ll be opening up for us in the mornings?’ asked Mavis, in a hopeful tone.
They all looked up at Hannah with red cheeks, glowing from the shock of going from cold to warm in a matter of moments.
‘Yes, she will.’
Hannah spun around to find Alex standing behind her.
Hannah gave him a worried look but he merely laughed. ‘I wouldn’t be turning down any customers if I had a fledgling business,’ he told her.
‘Are you going to be keeping a watchful eye on us as well each time?’ asked one of the women in a hopeful tone.
‘Just try and stop me, ladies,’ said Alex with a smile.
He really could be quite charming, thought Hannah, watching as the women all grinned at the thought of the handsome athlete looking out for them twice a week.
Whilst the ladies chatted on, Hannah walked away with Alex.
‘Are you sure about this?’ she asked. ‘Can I afford to open up in the morning as well?’
‘I think this could be the start of something big,’ he told her.
She grimaced to which he laughed.
‘You want it to be a failure?’ he asked.
‘It’s not that,’ she told him, giving him a playful shove with her hand. ‘But what can one small group of Grandma’s friends do?’
‘I think a group like that could take on the whole world,’ said Alex, in playful alarm.
‘You know what I mean,’ she muttered.
‘And think how you’d be disappointing your grandmother if there wasn’t somewhere to warm up immediately afterwards,’ he told her. ‘Let alone the worry about what the extreme temperature differences could do at their age.’
‘That was below the belt,’ she replied.
‘But it’s worked, eh?’ he said, with a wink.
And so the decision was made to open up the Boathouse Café all day. She just hoped that there would be enough customers to fill it.