Chapter 7
SEVEN
I stand in front of the small crowd in the café, and run through the menu. On the actual night, I’ll do this before each course, explaining what the guests are about to eat and why I chose it. The dry run is a lot less formal – not least because every single person in front of me is wearing a brightly coloured paper crown and making a racket with plastic whistles and party blowers. Trevor found a job lot of Christmas crackers in storage and brought them with him.
Tonight, the tables aren’t dressed, and they’re scattered with a variety of different types of booze – it’s bring-your-own, and they’re all getting stuck in to cans of beer, bottles of plonk, and in the case of the Betties, a decanter of port. I laugh as I try to talk over the noise, my own paper crown perched on top of my unruly hair.
“Okay, okay,” I say, holding my hands up in defeat, “I can see none of you are taking this seriously – but are you hungry?”
There is an eardrum-splitting round of whistles and party blowers rippling out into the sky, and some stamping of feet to accompany it.
“Right. First course – sorrel and wild garlic soup, served with parmesan and rosemary croutons! My glamorous assistants will be around shortly.”
I turn back to my team behind the serving counter. I don’t need all of them tonight, as the guest list only includes George, Archie and Cally, Jake and Ella, Trevor, the baking Betties, and Jake’s brother Josh. All of their offspring, human and canine, are being looked after for a few hours by Rose’s mum, Lucy, and Miranda – it probably explains why some of them are especially riotous, enjoying a rare night off.
I could probably manage this lot on my own, but it’s good to practise – and more importantly it’s a lot of fun. It’ll give me the chance to make sure all my dishes are working, and to smooth out any wrinkles before the main event. Tomorrow night, there will be fancy white linen tablecloths, paired wines and absolutely no party blowers.
Marcy, Sophie and Rose are wearing their Cove Café T-shirts, along with big grins. Marcy is clapping her hands together, looking like she’s about to float off into the stratosphere with excitement.
Zack hasn’t even turned up yet, which is not the best of starts to his short-term unpaid employment in Starshine Cove. I try not to let it bother me – I don’t really need him. In fact he’s only here as a favour – so what if he’s changed his mind and decided to give it a miss? Like I said, I don’t need him.
As I bustle around with the girls, I know that I’m not quite as unbothered as I am trying to appear. I feel disappointed, sad that he has let me down, even this tiny bit. It’s unreasonable, but I am not a creature of logic at the best of times.
We’ve just finished serving the soup when he finally turns up. He missed the memo about the dress code – probably because I didn’t issue one – and is wearing a smart black suit and crisp white shirt, looking every inch the posh ma?tre d’. He looks good enough to eat, and it’s troublesome that I can still notice that even though I’m annoyed with him.
He dashes over to me, running his hands through his hair, and says: “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry I’m late – I had a call that I needed to take.”
“It’s okay,” I reply, smiling. “I’ll just dock your wages.”
“I’m getting paid?”
“No. So you now owe me ￡12 an hour.”
He grins, and I see the worry melt from his face at my light-hearted tone. He doesn’t know me well enough to spot that I’m faking it – not many people do.
“Right. That seems fair. What can I do to help?”
“We’ll be clearing in about twenty minutes, until then maybe just go and mingle? Make sure everything is okay? I need to start on the mains.”
He nods and takes a deep breath – gathering his game face, I realise. He heads over to introduce himself to George, who he hasn’t yet met, and I see my father-in-law stand up to shake his hand. George is not far from ninety, but still hale and hearty, with a shock of white hair and the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Exactly the same eyes as Simon, to the point where I sometimes find it hard to look at them.
I head back to the kitchen, grateful for the breakneck speed of our work. Work is good. Work keeps you busy, and I like busy. We all know what the devil does with idle hands, and in my experience idle minds are even worse.
The main courses come in three options, although nobody here tonight has ordered the veggie dish so I’ve made it for the girls to try later. Tonight, I have locally sourced lamb with garlic-and-thyme-infused fondant potatoes, purple sprouting broccoli fresh from Archie’s vegetable patch and a rich red-wine gravy.
The fish is fresh Dover sole, with more to be sourced for tomorrow’s guests on the day. That comes with a delicately flavoured lemon-and-mint risotto, salsa verde made with home-grown herbs, and spring greens wilted in butter. If I do say so myself, it’s pretty darn good – real food, cooked well, and served in portions designed to satisfy the stomach as well as the eyes.
I wait to see that everyone is happily enjoying their soup, and head back into the kitchens. The next half hour is the usual mix of chaos and calm – minor burns from boiling water, swearing, heat from the ovens and people bumping into each other. It’s all the usual clamour of a busy kitchen, and I love it. Marcy and Sophie are fantastic additions, and I wonder how I ever did this without two assistants in the past.
Zack starts clearing as soon as people are done, and joins in with serving. To give him his due, he does it with style – he clearly has done this before, even if it was many years ago.
All of the dishes are delivered without incident, and I lean back against the serving counter and look on as my friends tuck in. Even now, after doing this all of my adult life, I still get a thrill from watching it – seeing the happy faces, hearing the sighs of pleasure as the first forkful hits the taste buds. I know I could have served up fish and chips and this lot would have been happy, but it’s a relief to see them all enjoying it.
As they near the end, I clink a fork against a glass to get their attention, and all of their party-hat-wearing heads turn in my direction.
“Okay, people – before we bring out the pud, a reminder that usual rules apply. You are my guinea pigs, and I need feedback. Let me know if anything didn’t work, or you think anything could be done better.”
There are rumbles of chatter at this, and most of them just shout out compliments and tell me it was perfect. George holds up a wooden paddle with the number 10 painted on it – it’s an old ping-pong bat, one we used when we did a Strictly Come Dancing -themed party a few years ago.
I see the Betties taking it more seriously though, their heads bent together as they discuss things. They’re professional bakers, and they get what I’m asking for – fine tuning. The Betties are in their seventies, and one of them – Big Betty – is tiny, and the other – Little Betty – is amazonian. They’ve been a couple as long as I can remember, and got married as soon as they were legally allowed to. When they’re not baking, they’re usually to be found watching action flicks that involve sub-machine guns and heavily muscled men fighting their way through enemies of indeterminate nationality. Like most things in Starshine, they’re not quite what you expect.
They nod over to me, and I know they’ll give me their advice later. It will be valuable, and I will not take it as a criticism.
We clear the tables, and emerge with the desserts. Both options are rhubarb based, because of Archie’s bumper crop – nothing quite beats food that is fresh from the earth. There’s a traditional crumble with vanilla and lemon custard, and a rhubarb and ginger sorbet with dark-chocolate shavings.
I head first to Cally, who is slumped in her seat holding a glass of wine, her party hat all askew.
“Cally, I know you ordered the sorbet because you’re on a diet,” I say, placing dishes in front of her, “but I also know you actually want the crumble. So I’ve brought you both.”
She looks up at me and grins, saying: “You’re an evil genius. Do you want me to do your hair tomorrow?”
I usually just bundle everything up into a wonky bun and hope for the best, but there is something to be said for having your own personal hair stylist on tap. She does some kind of magic thing where she straightens it, and it flows in a smooth curtain instead of looking like a bird’s nest.
“That would be lovely,” I say. “Yes please.”
“Great. I’ll see you whenever suits you, assuming I haven’t gone into a pudding coma…”
I laugh and leave her to it, heading into the kitchen to start on the clear-up. The girls are ahead of the game, putting away produce and sanitising the surfaces, and Zack is standing behind a cloud of steam as he opens the dishwasher.
I notice that he has a red-wine gravy stain on his posh shirt, and fight the urge to go and clean it off for him. I’m sure Zack has many other shirts.
“What happens now?” he asks, as the steam cloud swirls around him. The effect is a bit like a rock music video for middle-aged people.
“Now,” Sophie replies as she carefully hand-dries the mezzaluna, “we all go to the pub!”
“Though to be fair,” Marcy adds, “since I’ve been here, it seems like that’s the answer to ‘what happens now’ on most nights!”
“Not true,” I say, taking the mezzaluna from Sophie. I still feel nervous about any of my offspring handling especially sharp objects. “Sometimes we go to the community centre and watch a film, or meet up at one of our houses, or…”
“Go to the pub?” Zack suggests helpfully as I trail off.
“Well. Yeah, I suppose there is a fair bit of that – it’s a sociable place, what can I say?”
Before long, we hear chanting from the main room, along with the sound of party blowers and slow handclapping.
“Co-nnie, Co-nnie, Co-nnie!” the chant goes, making me grin.
“I think your public wants you,” Zack says, looking amused. “See? You’re still the supermodel of the restaurant world.”
I throw a tea towel at him, and walk through. The dessert plates are still out, but I can deal with those tomorrow. I’ll be up at the crack of dawn anyway, off to the fish market, so a bit of final cleaning is no big deal.
As soon as I’m back, I get a round of applause and a standing ovation. They are easily pleased. Ella gets to her feet and raises an empty glass at me, announcing: “Three cheers for Connie!”
Once the hip-hips are done, everyone starts to make a move towards the inn. It’s still only eight p.m. – we made an early start in deference to the fact that people had children to tend to, or were, as George put it, “too old to be out of my bed until midnight”.
It’s just about dark outside but the air is still warm as we spill onto the patio. Spirits are high, and as we move across the green, Archie grabs hold of me and hoists me up onto his shoulders. Everyone cheers and claps, while I desperately cling on.
“Archie, put me down!” I protest. “We’re not at Glastonbury!”
He ignores me and starts to jog towards the pub, making me scream like one of his little girls. This, I think, is definitely one of those things that is fun when you are five and torture when you’re fifty-five, and I’m hugely relieved when he deposits me safely back on the ground. I punch him in the chest and he pretends I’ve wounded him.
Everyone settles down in the inn, some way more drunk than others. I have a small glass of wine, but limit myself to that because I have a busy day tomorrow. I don’t fancy facing the fish market with a hangover, because who would?
Cally puts some Wham! on the jukebox, and an impromptu dancefloor immediately forms between the tables and chairs. The Starshine Inn is one of the oldest buildings in the village, and its walls and beams slope at strange angles – as does the floor. It makes dancing an amusing challenge, as I’ve discovered many times.
Marcy, Rose and Sophie join in with a spirited routine to Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go , and George and the Betties do an almost as lively sitting-down dance. As ever, I feel a sense of warmth roll over me at everybody’s antics – mad as a box of frogs, the lot of them. But they’re my mad frogs, and I love them for it.
I see Jake and Zack chatting at the bar, and then Zack spots me and comes over to sit by me.
“Were you an Andrew Ridgeley girl or a George Michael girl?” he asks as he puts his pint down.
“Neither. I was Spandau Ballet all the way – I fully expected to marry Martin Kemp, and I was devastated when he got together with Shirlie. I do love a bit of Wham! now though – I mean, you’d have to be weird not to, right?”
“Absolutely. Timeless classics. When I was a teenager, I pretended to be into much cooler things like Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix, and the cool-adjacent 80s bands like The Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen. But at home I secretly listened to a-ha, and used to dance around my bedroom pretending I was Morten Harket.”
“Well, that’s understandable. Morten Harket was very hot. I’d definitely have climbed into that comic book with him. Why don’t you wear your glasses anymore?”
He looks temporarily confused by the change in subject, as am I – I have no idea where that question came from.
“I had laser treatment. Why?”
“Dunno. I just always remember you having them on, and thinking they looked cute…”
He grins and says: “Aha! You thought I was cute?”
“That’s not what I said. I said I thought your glasses were cute.”
He pretends to be crestfallen and replies: “Nothing else? I’m disappointed. Maybe I’m remembering this wrong, but I always thought there was something there, between us? I used to look forward to our meetings so much. You’d always look great, always be so fun, always do or say something outrageous… and you definitely winked at me more than once!”
He is, of course, totally right – but that description of me is not something that fills my heart with joy. The truth is I considered dragging him off into a broom cupboard on more than one occasion, and the idea of it is still appealing.
“Hmmm. No,” I reply. “That doesn’t sound like me at all. Maybe I just had something in my eye? It was just the glasses, Zack. I always liked a man in glasses.”
“Well, I’m sure I can always find a pair with plain lenses if that floats your boat?”
“My boat floats just fine as it is, but thanks for the offer.”
Is he flirting with me? I think he might be, and I’m not used to that. I’m not used to men who look like him paying any attention to me at all. I’m feeling a little hot again, and quickly sip some wine. Do not get drunk, do not get drunk, do not get drunk, I remind myself – the fish market knows no mercy.
“I’m sorry I was late,” he says, politely ignoring the fact that I’m rooting around in my handbag for my handheld fan. “Today I mean.”
“Yes, that’s what I assumed you meant. It’s no big deal.”
“Maybe not, but I don’t like being that guy – the one that says he’ll do something and then doesn’t.”
“Oh. What guy do you like to be? Apart from Morten Harket I mean?”
“I like to be the guy who’s reliable. Especially to you.”
“Why on earth especially to me?”
He shrugs, and genuinely seems to think about it. That red-wine gravy splodge on his shirt is driving me nuts now – I’d really like to ask him to take it off so I can get some stain remover on it, but that could be interpreted the wrong way.
“I think I’m going to go with your very eloquent ‘dunno’ here,” he says. “Maybe because I’ve known you for so long, but still feel like I’m getting to know you? Maybe because I feel comfortable with you in a way I’m not used to? Maybe just because I like you and don’t want you to think I’m a prick.”
I laugh out loud into my wine, and answer: “Look, don’t worry about it – you were only a bit late, and anyway, you’re not that important.”
“Wow. Thank you. That was good for my ego.”
I laugh. “I’m sure your ego will survive. I just meant tonight – tonight was a practice run, and we’d have been fine without you. Tomorrow night though…”
“I’ll be there bright and early, Scout’s honour. Do you need any help in the day?”
“I can offer you a 5.30 a.m. wake-up call and a trip to the fish market?”
“Sounds enticing. Will it take long, though, because I don’t want to leave Bear on his own for hours, and a fish market really isn’t an appropriate place for a greedy Labrador. He’d run amok.”
“George will look after him,” I say, after a moment’s thought. “He’s always up bright and early, and he misses having a dog – his lovely Lottie died last year. But again, I don’t really need any help – it’s nothing I haven’t done a thousand times before on my own.”
“Well, just because we’ve done something a thousand times on our own before doesn’t mean we always have to, does it?”
I nod and choose not to examine that one too closely. Instead I focus on our daughters, who have stopped dancing and are staring across at us, whispering to each other.
“Don’t look now but we’re being watched,” I say, nodding towards them. “Nothing good can come of this…”
I wave at Sophie, and she walks towards us. She and Marcy sit on the stools opposite, both clutching bottles of Becks.
“You two look cosy,” Sophie says, giving me a raised eyebrow. “Talking about how fantastic your offspring are?”
“Yes,” I answer. “We’re talking about how fantastic Dan, James and Amy are, but decided the other two were a bit suspect.”
She makes mock horrified noises, and I notice Zack sneaking a glance at his phone while we chat. It must be driving him mad having hardly any signal here.
“Have you ever thought about dating again, Connie?” Marcy asks, all innocence.
“No, I’m planning on joining a convent once the kids move out for good.”
“No you’re not, Mum! Besides, no convent would have you – you’re too loud! But maybe you should.”
“Should what?” I say, wondering if the alarm I’m feeling inside shows on my face. This is not a conversation I even want to have with myself, never mind my daughter.
“Consider dating again. I know it’s not been a possible thing when your house was clogged up with us lot, but what about now? You could sign up for an app. All the old people are using them these days – Zack, what did you use?”
Zack and I share a look and realise that she doesn’t even know she’s just insulted us. Ah, the joys of youth.
“Umm… well, mainly I met people through work, or got introduced to them at parties and events. I didn’t really use a dating app.”
“Well, I suppose it’s different for you,” Sophie replies, frowning as she thinks about it. “I mean, you probably go to the BAFTAs and dinners at Keira Knightley’s house, don’t you? Mum just mooches around Starshine Cove singing Dolly Parton and feeding the hungry masses. The only new people she meets are tourists, and they’re usually in couples or family groups. Zero dating potential.”
I throw a beer mat at her just to remind her that I am actually here, sitting right in front of her, and she says a quick: “Sorry!”
I’m hoping that’s the end of it, but Zack tilts his head to one side and says: “She might have a point, Connie. You’re an attractive woman. You’re still young. Why don’t you sign up?”
I narrow my eyes at him, and I see him fighting back laughter. It’s nice to be called attractive, but I could do without a united front of people trying to force me back into the dating pool. It sounds stupid to say I’m not ready after more than five years, but, well – I’m not ready. Not to go on dates anyway. I can’t deny that having Zack around has woken up a few nerve endings I’d thought were long dead, but that’s different – he’s not a stranger, and besides, nothing is going to happen between us.
“I could set you up a profile?” Sophie says, whipping out her phone. Her face falls as she sees she has no wifi – I suppose living in London has lulled her into a false sense of security. “Come on, Marcy, let’s go hang out on the fire escape – we’ll get it done there.”
I’m about to issue a very firm ‘no’, but before I can get the word past my lips they’re gone. How is it that teenagers can move at the speed of light when they try, but take three hours to walk from one room to another when you’ve asked them to do the dishes?
I scowl at Zack and say, “If I end up going on a date with an axe murderer, I’ll come back and haunt you.”
“I’d expect nothing less. Look, don’t worry – you don’t have to use it. But why not? I mean, I know how hard it is to take that step – but I meant what I said. You’re too young to write off that part of your life forever. Wouldn’t you be even the tiniest bit interested in meeting someone? It doesn’t have to be serious – it could just be fun.”
There are many flippant answers I could give him, and there is the very honest answer too – that he is the first man I’ve harboured such thoughts about since I lost my husband. That he is the first man I have looked at and imagined waking up with. Neither of them seems appropriate, so I settle for somewhere in between.
“I’ve never really considered it,” I say truthfully. “Life has indeed been very full, and Sophie actually has a point – this isn’t exactly a hotbed of social activity. I know everyone here, and I certainly wouldn’t want to snog any of them.”
“Snog! I love that word – makes me feel young again! But, if that’s the case, then maybe a dating app isn’t a bad idea. There are some really nice ones out there now.”
I scoff at the idea, hoping he’ll drop it. “How would you know? You apparently collect your women straight off the red carpet!”
“That doesn’t mean I haven’t looked. I have a profile on one, I just never engage with it. If you like, I’ll help you check it all out. Also, if you go on a date while I’m here, I could sneakily sit on the next table and make sure he’s not an axe murderer.”
“I’m not sure you can tell by looking. He might be one of those axe murderers where afterwards, everyone says they’re really shocked because he seemed so nice and volunteered at a dog shelter.”
“Well, okay – I can at least rescue you if you look really bored. Look, just give it some thought. You’ve told me about your friends here, and how much you’ve enjoyed seeing them get their happy endings – why don’t you think you deserve one yourself?”
He looks disgustingly sincere, and I hate the fact that I can’t poke any logical holes in what he’s saying.
“Aaaagh, shut up!” I say. “This is all too deep and meaningful, and I need to be thinking about Dover sole, not my love life!”
I slap my thighs and stand up. I leave him behind as I march over to the jukebox and scoot through the various playlists written on the paper cards. I find what I’m looking for and hit play.
I turn around, and watch Zack’s face as the opening drum beat of Take On Me flows through the room.
“Come on then, Morten!” I shout over. “Let’s see what you’ve got!”