Have I Told You Lately

Chapter 1

1

Sometimes, the tiniest thing can kickstart a chain of events that changes everything. For me, that dull Sunday morning in June, it was the simple act of sleeping through my alarm. Or rather, sticking one arm into the chilly air outside my duvet, whacking the button so hard the clock bounced off my bedside table, and promptly falling straight back to sleep.

I was dreaming. Of golden fields and summer skies. Turquoise butterflies dancing amongst the wildflowers as I strolled past. The hazy heat and sense of all the time in the world felt like oxygen to a soul I hadn’t even realised was gasping for breath.

When I finally jolted awake, it took a few seconds to process that the jarring noise was my phone ringing. Head still too foggy to feel more than a vague twinge of trepidation, I fumbled to answer it.

‘Hello?’

‘Emmie? Emmaline? Are you okay?’

‘Yes. Who is this?’ I croaked, squinting in confusion.

‘It’s Barb.’

I scrabbled up my pillow to a semi-sitting position. Why on earth was Barb from the Travel Shop calling me at this time? At any time, for that matter. The only calls I’d got in the past month – make that six months – had been a reminder to book a dentist appointment and some scammer pretending my laptop had been hacked.

‘Yeah, so I got your number from Jonny in the office. Like I said, we’re wondering if you’re okay. Only there’s a queue starting to form, and you know what Mandy’s like without her coffee.’

A queue? What was she talking about?

‘We thought we’d better check if it was a problem with the traffic. Or maybe you were ill, or your van had broken down or something?’

‘Um, no. I’m not ill.’

‘There’s not an emergency?’

‘No.’ Leaning over the side of the bed, I found my clock, only then registering the hint of daylight peeping around the edge of the blackout blinds.

I stared at the display as Barb carried on chattering about how it was unheard of for me to be late, and she hoped I didn’t mind her calling, but they were starting to worry.

Six-fifteen.

What? How had this happened?

And why was I still slumped here, Barb’s words buzzing in my ear like a mosquito, instead of fixing it?

Eventually, she paused for breath, and I managed to form the kind of answer I hoped would make her stop.

‘I’m okay. Something came up, but it’s sorted now. I’ll be there by eight.’

‘Eight?’ Barb exclaimed, prompting a sudden increase in background babble. ‘Maybe try for a bit earlier, eh? Security will never forgive you for causing a caffeine-withdrawal riot.’

‘The food court sells coffee.’

‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.’

I hung up, made a feeble attempt to flip back the duvet and found that, despite my being hideously late, my limbs refused to get up. I lay there, immobile, for what felt like eternity.

I tried to remember if this had ever happened before, vaguely recollecting one time as a teenager when my mother said I’d best stay at home, after a night throwing up, more to avoid passing on my germs to customers than any concern for my well-being. Even on my days off, I woke before six.

I didn’t know whether to be more worried about oversleeping, or how it had left me paralysed, as if someone had slipped lead weights into my duvet cover during the night.

The most I could summon up was a prickle of fear about why I seemed to feel barely anything at all.

Eventually, after what turned out to be only about ten minutes, the guilt of what Mum would have said if she’d found me like this was enough to propel me out of bed, and into action.

Parsley’s Pasties had been a fixture of the tiny Sherwood Airport for over three decades. My mother, Nell Brown, had run it for nearly all of that time with rigorous efficiency and seemingly unfailing stamina. That was, until she’d suddenly stopped twenty months ago, crumpling to the floor the second she’d shut shop for the day, as if her own death had to fit around the business. After two weeks to mourn, which was probably thirteen days longer than Mum would have approved of, I had donned my green apron and got on with being solely responsible for providing incredible coffee and mouth-watering pasties. These drew staff from every inch of the airport, along with the regular travellers who knew that queuing up at our unassuming kiosk was worth risking a late boarding call.

Since then, I’d continued opening up for business six days a week, fifty-one weeks a year, only taking time off because certain things couldn’t be ignored any longer, like getting my catering ovens serviced and replacing my worn-out shoes.

From Wednesday to Monday (Tuesday being the quietest day for flights) I rose at four-thirty, took a precious five minutes to drink a latte and then hurried to the garage attached to the house that Mum had converted into a professional kitchen. After deftly filling dozens of pastry circles and crimping the edges closed, I showered and donned the Parsley’s uniform of black trousers and white T-shirt while the first batch baked. I’d then transfer them into Mum’s ancient van, kitted out to keep the raw pasties cold and the baked ones warm, and head to the airport, opening the kiosk hatch at six on the dot.

This morning, figuring that I’d have missed the early business travellers, and still feeling somewhat disconcerted that I wasn’t especially bothered about the rest, I settled for half the usual number of pasties. I clambered into the van with a mug of black coffee and tried to care that I’d opted for an extra squirt of deodorant and ten minutes of staring into space instead of a shower.

By the time I’d driven the six miles to the airport, then tackled the rigmarole of staff security, it was seven-fifty. As I hurriedly wheeled hot and cold catering trolleys over to the far corner near the second gate (there were only two) people started following me, as if I were the Pied Piper of Pasties. Reaching the kiosk, they automatically formed a not-so-orderly queue in front of the closed serving hatch.

‘Give me five minutes,’ I pleaded, ducking through the side door as people I’d served for years started jostling and yelling their regular orders while waving their bank cards or iPhones about.

Ignoring the sweat now gathering in unwashed armpits and behind my bent knees, I unloaded the baked pasties onto the hot plates and the rest into the fridge, flicked on the oven and coffee machine and spent another couple of minutes going through the process of preparing to open up.

Gregory, a manager in the main office, poked his head in the side door.

‘The usual please, Emmie, with a flat white and two apple and custards for Karen. You missed her break time.’

‘Two?’ Parsley’s pasties weren’t small. Karen usually ate half in her early morning break and saved the rest for lunch.

‘Yeah, said she needs to stress eat after the panic about you not being here.’

‘It’s just a pasty! She could have gone to the food court and got a cooked breakfast. You all could!’ I raised my voice in exasperation, causing Gregory to widen his dark eyes in surprise. Me getting snarky happened about as often as I slept in.

‘Sure you’re feeling all right, Emmie?’ He furrowed his brow. ‘You look a bit… not quite yourself.’

No. I was not at all sure.

I paused for a moment, wiping a strand of blondish-reddish hair that had escaped my ponytail out of my eyes, the effort of lifting my hand to my head almost as hard as getting out of bed had been.

‘I guess now isn’t a good time to mention that you still need to sign the lease.’

There hadn’t seemed to ever be a good time for that, since Gregory’s email two months ago informing me that the rental agreement for the kiosk ran out at the end of June, i.e., two weeks from today. He’d assured me it was the same contract that Mum had agreed to three years earlier, but I wasn’t going to sign anything without reading it properly. I just needed to find the time to do that. For some reason, that never seemed to happen.

‘Blummin’ heck, Emmie. You look like crap. What did you get up to last night?’ Barb asked, joining Gregory in the doorway. ‘Oh, and the usual, when you’re ready.’

‘Yep. I’m about there.’

Only, instead of opening up, the second they both disappeared, I found myself sliding to the tiny oblong floor, one hand still clutching a chocolate-sprinkles shaker, staring at my distorted reflection in the fridge door.

All I could think about was that dream. Those fields. The wide-open sky and fresh, summer air that were a world away from the artificial lights and windowless space where I spent most of my life.

A pounding on the hatch snapped me back to reality.

A reality where a gathering crowd of customers were rapidly replacing their relief at my appearance with impatience that they still didn’t have what they wanted.

In the end, what got me up was the horrible thought that if I didn’t, I’d end up being fussed over. Someone would probably manhandle me to a comfy sofa and insist upon me explaining what was wrong, how I was feeling. They might even fetch Graham, the airport medic. Before the end of the day, everyone would know that Emmaline was not okay, and they would all want to know why.

Even if I could answer their questions, I recoiled against anyone else being privy to what I was starting to fear might be a mental breakdown, or a stroke. Maybe the onset of dementia? When one of the air-stewards had started acting out of character, it had turned out to be a brain tumour.

With that thought chasing the remnant of the dream away, I got up, smoothed out my apron, stuck on my mother’s polite- yet-professional smile and, as I’d been doing since I was thirteen years old, I got on with it.