Chapter 7
It was to be her first Saturday at The Owl’s Nest. She decided on a new lace vintage blouse, seeing as it was likely to get roasting behind the counter, teamed with baggy jeans and long, dangly earrings.
In the same thrift shop, she’d found a carnelian-red print silk scarf to hold her hair back and added a wipe of her favourite red lipstick the colour of holly berries.
Her Italian grandma would be proud, she thought.
She looked like just the sort of girl you’d expect to see serving in a hip, urban café.
The only downside was that she’d just checked her bank balance and realised to her horror that she had only barely enough left to cover one more month’s mortgage payment, while her meagre pay from the café wasn’t going to go far. She contemplated her options:
Move back home (no, that wasn’t really an option)
Get her old job back (impossible – she’d already tried crawling to the CEO)
Something else??? (Like Tom Hanks in that film where he lived, secretly, for ages in the airport terminal?)
She arrived at The Owl’s Nest at eight thirty on the dot, just as Dave bustled in with beard shadow and bags under his eyes, looking as though he hadn’t slept in days.
‘Right, let’s get this show on the road,’ he said before noticing that the show was already in full swing.
‘How are things?’ Ally enquired. ‘Everything OK?’
Dave hesitated. For a moment she flinched at the thought that she’d tactlessly overstepped the mark. Just then she noticed his body sag. He really needs to unload, she realised, glancing around the floor and checking that everyone was taken care of for the moment. She felt him close to tears.
‘Awful. They’re keeping Fia in – she’s to spend the rest of her pregnancy in hospital, lying on her back. She’s OK, though, and so is the baby, thank God. I’ll be in and out so I’m going to need you guys to cover for me. Ally, consider yourself temporary assistant manager.’
‘Of course, Dave, I’d be happy to help. Anything you need, just let me know.’
Wow, a week in the job and she’d already been promoted. It didn’t sound like the post was likely to involve any extra money, but still, she’d a sense of them being a little team. She wasn’t just a cog in the machine – like it or not, in The Owl’s Nest everyone was essential.
Just then the door swung open again and the retirees Christie and Noel piled in. ‘We’ve got a job doing some tour guiding,’ announced Noel. ‘We start at nine thirty. So, we’re treating ourselves to an Irish breakfast roll in advance, for energy.’
‘And we’ll be all set for the pint at lunchtime!’ added Christie.
‘All voluntary, you know!’
‘Well done, lads. I’m proud of you. Take these on the house,’ said Dave warmly, making up their order. Ally caught Evelyn rolling her eyes behind his back. Dave was a great guy, but God, he was a hopeless businessman.
There was no sign of Pete. With a pang of worry, Ally thought of him and his little dog sleeping in the van.
It seemed so incongruous – the very thought of it made her angry.
But there was no time to brood, as a steady stream of customers trooped in all morning, ordering brunches, eggs Benedict, eggs Florentine or avocado on toast with crispy bacon.
For the apartment dwellers of the neighbourhood, Saturday was the day when somebody else did the cooking.
At twelve thirty, Ally heard a voice from behind her. ‘Excuse me, could I have a full Irish with a pint of curry sauce and a deep-fried Snickers?’
She turned to see a familiar face staring at her.
‘Piss off, Rosemarie,’ she muttered, trying not to laugh. Then she replied in a theatrically severe voice, ‘Sorry, madam, we’re not that type of establishment. You’ll have to take your hangover elsewhere.’
‘Girl, look at you. If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were cool.’ Suddenly, Rosemarie’s face brightened. ‘Who’s that?’
Ally turned to see Pete mooching in from the back, his hair still damp, looking like he’d come straight from the gym shower.
‘Is that—?’
‘Yes,’ Ally hissed. ‘Now stop gawking at him like he’s a chocolate éclair.’
Pete eyed the two of them with a side smile and shook his head. Rosemarie eyed him with forensic attention.
‘Seriously, though, this place is cosy. I can imagine looking for a job here when I’ve peaked at Celtic Concrete and need somewhere a bit more zen.’
‘Just give me your damn order before the boss comes out. Do you want to get me fired?’
‘Don’t tempt me, ha! That’d be two jobs in a fortnight.’
Ally made a throat-sawing gesture at her to shut up, so Rosemarie just roared an order of eggs Benedict and a skinny latte, extra loudly to prove she was serious.
‘So, Pete the Pal?’ she hissed giving a not-very-subtle eyeroll in the direction of Pete’s back.
Ally nodded. ‘Sit down, will you. And stop staring at his back.’
‘Why? He’s not looking.’
‘Even animals know if they’re being stared at. It creeps them out.’
Rosemarie raised an eyebrow and headed for a table, while Ally busied herself with the order, when a familiar voice from behind made her heart flip.
‘Ally?’
Dave was flat-out busy so all she could do was turn around slowly.
He hadn’t changed in the months since she’d seen him.
‘Francis! How are you doing?’
By the look of things, he was doing just fine.
Gone was his usual black bomber jacket, shiny from wear, and instead he was dressed in high-end business casuals: cashmere coat and navy shirt over pleated trousers.
In short, he was shockingly well groomed.
But that wasn’t the half of it . . . Beside him was a girl of, at the very most, twenty-five.
Very demure and expertly made-up, in a tailored dress and long cream coat.
Suddenly, Ally’s boho outfit felt just a little scruffy and as though at her age she might be pushing it.
The girl seemed to be mainly supporting herself by clinging on to Francis’s arm.
Come off it, Ally thought. Mum would’ve described this girl as lamb dressed as mutton.
She looked smart, sure, but she could have worn that same outfit in her fifties.
But crikey, it was definitely a makeover takeover.
The thought of moulding Francis into somebody more presentable had never occurred to her.
But it certainly had to this girl, and he seemed perfectly happy to go along with it, and unless Dad had been holding out on her, which was unlikely, this was all very recent.
With a shock, she could see exactly how it would all pan out.
Francis would marry this girl. It was so obvious.
He was naturally conventional, which wasn’t a bad thing in itself, but there was something just a little na?ve about him and, following his latest promotion, he’d all of a sudden become a catch.
Across the café, she caught sight of Rosemarie gawping at the scene – thank God, at least she had a witness.
‘Ally, what a surprise. Is this your Saturday job? Is this part of a cunning plan to take over the world?’ he boomed and introduced his date as Fleur.
She piped up in a dainty, kittenish voice, ‘It’s nice here. Very quaint, isn’t it, Frannie?’
‘Frannie’ – was she fucking serious? Nobody in his life had ever called him that.
It was ridiculous. Ally felt the girl’s ‘quaint’ remark was directed at her, though it might just have been her paranoia.
She was painfully aware of Pete eyeing her from the storeroom door, where he was measuring up for new cupboards.
She felt trapped and that anything she said was likely to offend someone.
‘So, Francis, you’re not out playing golf with Dad today?’
Hah, at least that might force him to be honest about whatever Hallmark fantasy he seemed to have been kidnapped into.
‘I’ve been granted shore leave,’ he announced in a mock-jocular tone.
‘Forty-eight hours, so we have to make the most of it, don’t we, Frannie?’
Cutesy couples banter. Oh . . . bollocks.
They’d never done that. They’d only ever spoken like .
. . well, normal people. Francis seemed to have acquired an entirely new persona.
Sort of plummy and paternalistic. The girl gazed up at him and murmured, ‘Frannie knows I don’t like being a golf widow, don’t you? ’
If she stayed there, Ally realised, she was actually going to puke. When in doubt, get busy, she decided. She pointed them towards Dave for their takeaway coffees and headed over to Rosemarie with her order.
‘At feckin’ last, I was about to assault that young waiter and wrestle off him whatever he was carrying.
What the hell is going on over there? I thought he was still single.
You’d think they’d just done the pre-marriage course and put down the deposit on a house.
God, she looks so fertile, like she’s permanently ovulating. ’
‘Don’t be vile.’
‘You OK?’
‘No, ’course not.’
‘That’s not natural. That girl is wearing fecking flesh-colour tights.’
‘So?’
‘Nobody wears flesh-colour tights these days except the royal family, and that’s only because it’s kind of the law. There’s something going on.’
Even though she hadn’t seen Francis in months, in her mind he’d been still out there somewhere.
The truth was, they hadn’t fought, there hadn’t been a cross word spoken.
She’d left the apartment on New Year’s Eve because somebody had to do something, but then, he hadn’t tried to stop her either .
. . which hurt more than she’d allowed herself to admit.
They’d never talked things through like the self-help articles said you were supposed to, so in a weird way, it felt like they’d never fully split.
She’d always thought that maybe they’d bump into each other someday and see one another with new eyes.
Hah. How big an eejit could you be? Right now, she felt like Wile E.
Coyote chasing the Road Runner, only to look down and see she was hanging in mid-air.
‘Look,’ hissed Rosemarie. ‘Princess Bride is after going to the bog. Go on up and talk to him.’
Ally had only got halfway across the floor when the loo door swung open and Fleur swanned back out.
Bloody hell, nobody could manage to pee that fast. All she’d done was reapply her lipstick and just a hint of cheek blush, making her look even more fresh and peachy, if that were possible.
Fleur twinkled prettily while planting herself directly in Ally’s path.
‘So, I believe you and Frannie are old friends. Sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name?’ The dimple beside her mouth seemed to whisper ‘I’m the chosen one’, as she daintily accepted her coffee with a teeny-tiny hand that looked like it had never been sullied by washing-up liquid.
Ally hesitated before realising she simply couldn’t be arsed to reply.
‘Yeah. See you again, Fran,’ she called flatly as they made their exit. At the last moment, he turned and waved stealthily.
Rosemarie’s left nostril said it all.
‘What a cunt.’
‘See you in Pyg at five?’
‘You betcha.’
* * *
Ally was elbow-deep at the sink doing some therapeutic pot walloping, when she heard a deep voice behind her. ‘Friend of yours?’ She swung around to find Pete unexpectedly close to her ear. Actually, it felt lovely.
‘Ex, or hadn’t you guessed?’
‘I recognised the signs, all right.’
‘Pete, be honest. Do I look . . . mature?’
‘Like . . . in a good way?’
‘No, obviously not. I mean old. He’s thirty-seven and she’s practically . . . an ovum.’
‘I wouldn’t touch her.’
‘Honestly?’
‘Not at all. Boring.’
She felt like throwing her arms around his neck.
‘I mean, that outfit he was wearing . . . That’s not him at all, he’s dressing like a total knob.
It’s just hideous that he’s moved on so fast, especially as all of his friends are going to go “Phwoar!” like he’s done so much better than me, just because she’s young, even if her voice sounds like a hamster’s fart.
What are you laughing at? It’s not funny. ’
‘You’re far more attractive.’
For a moment Ally was nonplussed – had she heard that right? There was something almost sheepish in his tone, as though he felt uneasy saying it.
‘I’m thirty-five.’
The next moment nothing happened, but her heart lurched as though she could feel his energy reach towards her. But that was ridiculous, because neither of them had moved an inch.
‘All I’m saying is, if you’re spending your life trying to impress people, you’ll have no life of your own.’
‘Then you must be a stronger person than me.’
‘If I am, it’s only through being a bigger eejit than you can imagine, trust me. Anyhow, if you were meant to be together, d’you not think you would be?’
‘Really? You’re starting to sound like the little guy from Kung Fu Panda.’
‘Master Shifu? I’ve been called worse.’ He did a nerdy kung-fu pose. He’s seen those movies, she registered.
‘Anyway, there’s more fish in the sea. What about that lovely chap who knocked you down last week?’
‘Feck off. Haven’t you got some nails to hammer in?’ She flicked the dishcloth at his chest . . . He laughed and caught it . . .
Just then, Dave appeared round the door. ‘Come on, come on, guys, there’s customers waiting. Ally, you’re supposed to be my assistant manager . . .’
‘Sorry, chef,’ she muttered.
So much for being mature, she sighed to herself.