Chapter Thirty-five
The thought of leaving Kendric Park rolls around my head most of the night.
Not really as a serious plan, but like that thing when part of your mind keeps offering a solution, but you don’t know if it’s the wise side of your brain talking or just your fear.
So I see myself packing and handing over while my financial losses aren’t too severe.
I’ve spent most of my savings but I’ll still have a roof over my head in London.
And if worst comes to worst, I can always let the flat and move to the country somewhere.
My thoughts are still jumbled in the morning, and I have a vague foreboding as if I’m ignoring a red flag.
Then I walk into a row in Leonie’s café.
Llewellyn is standing near the counter, a mug in his hand with half of the coffee spilt on the floor. “I just want to understand why!”
Raff has a mulish look on his face.
Between them, Ashe is in tears. “What else would you do?”
“Nothing,” Llewellyn says, his voice quietly angry. “What you should do is nothing.”
Leonie, on her side of the counter, tries to intervene. “What he means is that—”
“Don’t, Leonie,” Llewellyn snaps. “I can speak for myself.”
This is so unlike the usually gentle Llewellyn. Leonie gives me a helpless look.
“It would not be an issue,” Ashe says, trying to keep calm. “If she was allowed to accept Gethin’s invitation.”
Raff crosses his arms. “No way. Exploiting a kind old man? Never.”
“I couldn’t stand by and not help.” Ashe’s voice quivers.
I have no idea what this is about, but Ashe works for me and I’m not leaving her between two angry men. “Ashe, darling, do you want to help me with something?” I point to my usual table on the terrace.
She glances at Llewellyn uncertainly, as if hoping for an answer. He’s already turned away, grabbed a wad of tissues and, with jerky impatient movements, starts wiping the spilt coffee on the floor
“Come,” I say as gently as I can, and take Ashe with me.
She comes reluctantly, looking over her shoulder.
I wait until we’re sat down then say, “In my experience, no matter what’s happened, it’s best to wait till tempers have simmered down.”
Ashe bursts into tears. Maybe I too should have kept my mouth shut. I reach over and wrap an arm around her, pulling her into a hug.
A minute later, Leonie comes out with a tray containing a teapot and three cups.
She places it on the table and pulls over a third chair to sit with us.
“I’ve left Meredith in charge.” She glances through the window into the café.
“She can manage for a few minutes.” Leonie pours tea for all of us.
From the smell I can tell this is almond tea.
“Thanks. My favourite.” I give her a grateful smile.
“Mine too,” Ashe says, wiping her tears.
The private smile on Leonie’s lips tells me she knew this. It’s one of her strengths – she remembers what drinks and foods people like. The ideal caterer.
“What are those?” I nod towards a large basket of misshapen biscuits and muffins.
“Deleted scenes,” she says.
“As in… film?” I ask.
“Yes. In every batch I bake there are breaks and failed attempts. Things I can’t sell. I call them deleted scenes.”
I laugh. “In TV we called them outtakes. When footage of mistakes and missed cues ends up in a bin. Or even bloopers.”
Ashe, face clearing, says, “I worked in the garment industry. We used to say offcuts.”
“Offcuts is best. So here”—she offers the basket—“Raisin Bran offcuts, chocolate and mint bloopers plus orange and cinnamon outtakes.”
Thanks to Leonie’s gentle sweetness, Ashe is now smiling. “Sorry about before.” She takes one of the slightly flattened muffins.
“Don’t worry. Men can be a bit black and white about stuff like that. Even Raff, who is usually very good about emotional stuff.”
We carefully stay off the subject of the argument until Ashe leaves, saying she needs a shower before starting work. “You tell Evie everything,” she says as she crosses the terrace and goes back inside.
I catch Leonie’s eye, not sure if it’s my place to know more. Leonie pours us more tea and fills me in.
It seems, last night, there’d been quite a scene when Raff asked Nora to leave his and Leonie’s rooms. Nora had sobbed inconsolably that she had nowhere to sleep and needed someone’s sofa for the night – anyone’s sofa.
Osian had not taken the hint; he only offered to pay for her to stay at the Caradoc Arms.
Gethin was more than happy to welcome her into his own room, but Raff again had stepped in and banned her from the Jack Bevan Retirement rooms. In the end, Ashe had taken her in.
“But Ashe only has that little room up on the top floor?” I ask, surprised.
Leonie shakes her head. “She has a double bed.”
“You mean Nora is actually sharing her bed? Bloody hell. Why didn’t she just move to the Caradoc Arms? That’s not fair.”
“Worse. Llewellyn blew a gasket this morning when he found out.”
The memory of Llewellyn’s white face at dinner last night scrolls through my mind. “I don’t really understand why Nora wants to stay here. I thought…” I don’t complete the sentence, but Leonie gets it.
“That she was making the moves on Raff?” She twirls her cup in its saucer, making the tea swirl a little. “It was not an ideal situation.”
Her words make me laugh. “Not ideal? You mean a pain in the backside.”
Her cup swirling gets faster, making the saucer clatter. “She was going through some difficult stuff.”
I lay my hand over hers, and she stops twirling her cup.
“Oh God, Evie. You have no idea. She was always talking to him, confiding, complaining, God-only-knows-what. I had to go to bed by 9:30 because of my early start at the café and she took every advantage of that.”
“Why did Raff put up with it?”
She meets my eyes at last. “He thought he was helping.” She hesitates.
“I’m not sure if I should be telling you this but I know you won’t pass it on.
Raff used to have a drug problem and went into recovery.
He says that in the program, he met a lot of people like Nora.
Love addicts. She needs to have a man in her life the way an alcoholic needs a drink.
That’s why he banned her from staying with Gethin.
He says the last thing an old man needs is someone exploiting his goodwill and fleecing him. ”
“Would she have done that?”
Leonie shrugs. “I don’t know. Raff is a strange mix.
He was very sorry for her but also very realistic.
He says addicts can steal, lie and cheat to feed their craving.
They create chaos and disaster everywhere.
He’d hoped to point her in the right direction to find help but she isn’t ready to hear it.
He says the addiction is like a tool to solve all your problems. Like having a good Hoover, you use it to clean your carpets, then bare floors, then upholstery and curtains.
Before long, you start to use it to clean your bed, kitchen counters…
even the inside of your fridge. It becomes not only your favourite tool but your only solution.
And you refuse to understand why it won’t cook your lunch or make your coffee.
You refuse to believe it’s the wrong tool so you just keep trying, harder and harder, louder and louder. ”
“What? Hoovering your salad?” I can’t help a little giggle even though this isn’t funny, not really.
“Exactly. So love and sex addicts use romance or whatever sexual fix to help them fix everything in their lives. When that doesn’t work, they blame the people around them. So they try harder to hook a new lover.”
“And the tears?” I ask, because now I’m genuinely intrigued. Nora’s weeping had seemed fake, a convincing fake.
Leonie drinks more of her tea, thinking.
“I don’t know. Raff says the pain is genuine enough but that doesn’t mean it’s not being used to manipulate.
Addicts deserve our compassion but that doesn’t mean they don’t do great harm.
And the worst harm they do is to those nearest to them.
Until she runs out of solutions and hits rock bottom she won’t seek real help.
You’re not really doing her any favours catering to her demands. It’s called enabling.”
I think about this. “So in the meantime, she is exploiting Ashe who is also very vulnerable.”
“Yes, and the added bonus is that Ashe works with Osian, who I think is the real target now.”
This brings me back full circle to my thought of the night. “Tell me something. If you felt your heart was at risk… If you thought Raff might not be faithful to you, would you take yourself out of the mix? Move away?”
Leonie’s eyes widen. “Oh, no. I trust him completely. And I am not leaving. This is my business. The café makes me happy. Why should I give it up?”
I don’t explain that I hadn’t been thinking about her but me. A moment later, she says, “But even if I lost him, it wouldn’t affect my work here. I think when you find your dream job, you don’t give it up for a man.”
Good answer. Very good answer.
I get up. “Time to go down and get nice and dirty.” I point towards my dream garden.
I’m usually the first down there – it’s a good chance to see where we are with everything and assign tasks for the Perllans. But this morning I am surprised to find Schaefer and Isaias already there. They’re scrubbing the borders around the pond.
The pond I hoped would be blue, of course is not.
But last week, we discovered blue tiling all around it, like a narrow walkway.
Now that it’s getting a good cleaning with lots of help and expert advice from Alex, the true colours shine a vivid turquoise, rich peacock blue, aquamarine and emerald green.
“Miss Evie!” Isaias waves to me as I approach. “When can you plant the water things?”