CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was Wednesday, cake run day, and as we drove along to our first stop at Henley Green, Ellie was chatting happily about life in their new house.
They’d moved on Friday and apparently spent the entire weekend unpacking, although the utility room was still piled high with boxes.
‘But you love it, right?’
She nodded. ‘After all the dreaming and the planning and the dust and the upheaval, it’s wonderful to actually be living there at last.’
I glanced across at her. She looked pale today and her eyes were puffy. ‘You must be worn out, though.’
‘A bit.’ She gave a huge yawn. ‘But I’ll catch up on sleep at some point.’
‘You didn’t need to come on today’s cake run, you know. I’m sure I could have managed it myself.’
‘I know. But to be honest, I’m really enjoying coming out with you.’ She grinned. ‘I think even when you’re doing it yourself on a regular basis, I might still join you on the odd Wednesday.’
I nodded, pleased. ‘That would be great.’
‘We’re organising a little housewarming party, by the way. I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve decided on a date. It’ll just be for a few close friends and family, though. Nothing big.’
‘Sounds lovely. I can’t wait to see what the house looks like all renovated and with all your furniture in. What about your mum’s china? I was going to help you with that.’
She nodded. ‘The guys moved practically everything out of the rented house apart from the dresser and all the plates and cups and saucers displayed on it. We’ve got the rental for another two weeks so I can take my time getting it all packed up.’
‘What about tonight after the cake run? I’m not doing anything. I could pack while you direct proceedings.’
‘Really? You wouldn’t mind helping?’
‘Of course not. I said I would. But are you prepared to trust me with that precious china?’
She laughed. ‘I think so. But honestly, Katja, it’s been on my mind that I really need to get it done. It would be brilliant if I could get it out of the way.’
‘Right. Let’s do it tonight, then.’
‘Great!’
We drove along in silence for a while, then I brought her up to speed on what had happened when Mo and Dot joined our charity run training session the day before.
‘It certainly took my mind off Richard and how miserable I’ve been feeling about the break-up. That Mo is fierce !’
Ellie chuckled. ‘Do you think she’ll be waiting for the cake van to arrive?’
‘I doubt it. She’s probably nursing a massive hangover this morning. She didn’t drink any water on the run and then she went straight onto the double vodkas in the pub. She must have had three in the space of an hour. Her friend Dot was driving.’
‘What’s Dot like?’
‘Quiet. The opposite of Mo. I really liked her.’
Sure enough, when we arrived at Henley Green, while there was a queue of about ten people waiting for us – some of them brand new customers (the word was obviously spreading) – Mo was nowhere to be seen.
At Risley Common, though, two faces that were very familiar to us by now were there in the queue: Rosie and her little girl, Amelie.
As we served the waiting people, I was aware that Rosie was deliberately hanging back. Once we’d waved the last customer off with their cakes in a box, she delved into the bag that was hanging over the pushchair handles and produced what looked like two takeaway cartons topped with lids.
Flushing slightly, she smiled and said, ‘You’ve been so kind to us, I wondered if you might like to try my latest recipe – it’s Thai curry. I used chicken thighs, which are cheaper than the breast, and I slow-cooked them with lots of lovely garlic and ginger and spices.’
‘Oh, wow.’ Ellie took the carton Rosie held out to her. ‘That sounds like my kind of food.’
‘Mine, too.’ I smiled. ‘Thank you so much, Rosie. I have a feeling I’m really going to enjoy this.’
‘You’re very welcome. I hope you do... enjoy it.’ She smiled. ‘Thai food was my husband’s favourite. We lost him two years ago to MS but we talk about him all the time, don’t we, Amelie?’
The little girl nodded. ‘My daddy’s up in heaven,’ she said matter-of-factly.
There was a shocked silence. It was all so much to process.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Ellie and I both said it at once.
‘Thank you. But I still feel him all around me.’ Rosie chuckled. ‘When I was making the curry, I had his voice in my ear telling me to be more generous with the spices. Mark loved his spicy food.’
I felt a tear threatening, and I was sure Ellie must have been feeling emotional, too, as she hunkered down in front of the pushchair. ‘What’s your favourite sort of cake, Amelie?’ she asked.
Amelie twisted in the pushchair to look up at her mum and made a funny shy face.
‘Tell Ellie what you like best, lovely girl,’ Rosie urged, gently smoothing her daughter’s curls. ‘You like fairy cakes, don’t you?’
The little girl nodded. ‘I like cake with chocolate on and I like pink sprinkles.’
‘Well, you’re in luck.’ Ellie patted Amelie’s knees, rose and went to the van. ‘We’ve got fairy cakes with pink sprinkles and some slices of chocolate fudge cake.’ Smiling at Rosie, she popped the bakes into her box.
‘And what can I get for Mum?’ I asked, as Rosie pulled out her purse.
‘Actually, I love chocolate cake myself, so a second slice of that will do nicely, please.’
Ellie popped two more slices in the box I was holding, popped on the lid and handed it over, refusing to accept payment from a protesting Rosie. ‘I think it’s called bartering,’ she smiled. ‘Two cartons of Thai food in exchange for cake sounds like the perfect deal to me.’
‘Well, thank you. We’ll enjoy this. Won’t we Amelie?’
Amelie nodded shyly and they trundled off.
‘See you next week!’ I called after them as they turned to wave.
We were silent as we drove along to our next stop, which was the farmers’ market at Lockley Meadow.
‘Life can be so cruel sometimes,’ murmured Ellie as we got out of the van, and I nodded, knowing exactly what she meant.
‘She’s a fabulous mum,’ I said sadly. ‘I bet Amelie wants for nothing.’
‘I’m looking forward to trying Rosie’s food but I have a horrible feeling I might have to compete with Zak for it once he sees it. He’s a bit of a spice fiend himself.’
I grinned. ‘Ah, well, that’s yet another benefit of being single. You don’t have to share your food with anyone.’
The market was already busy when I drove into the village, my ‘clown antennae’ already squeaking as we drew ever nearer to two irritating building site workers. Ivan and Caleb had a horrible habit of showing up at exactly the wrong moment and deliberately embarrassing me. (That’s how it seemed, anyway.)
Well, not today!
I’d decided that the minute either of them appeared, I was going to ‘collect some change’ from the glove box in the van (we often ran out of it, so it was a legitimate excuse) and I’d stay there until they’d both stopped wittering on and left.
I found Caleb especially annoying. I always got the feeling that he was staring right into my soul and finding it lacking somehow. I gave a little shiver now just thinking about his intense blue eyes on me and Ellie looked over and asked if I was all right.
‘Yes, I’m fine. Oh, no, there they are.’ My heart sank as I spotted the long lanky Ivan and his slightly shorter but more ‘beefy’, broad-shouldered boss in the distance.
‘Who?’ Ellie’s eyes darted all over. ‘Where?’
‘The building site clowns?’
‘Oh, Caleb and Ivan? Great!’ She nodded happily. ‘I was hoping Caleb would be free to show me round one of his eco houses today.’
‘Ooh, how exciting,’ I muttered scathingly.
She glanced at me and chuckled. ‘You don’t fancy a nosey yourself?’
‘Er, no. You knock yourself out. But I’ve got rather better things to do than listen to that Caleb person droning on and on about how exceptionally wonderful his eco housing project is.’
She laughed. ‘I find him quite interesting, actually.’
‘Well, we’re all different.’
‘We are indeed.’ She craned her neck to look up ahead as we drove along. ‘He’s coming this way. Can you slow down so I can speak to him?’
‘Now?’ I felt a weird panicky fluttering inside. ‘But we need to get parked.’
‘I’ll just be a second.’
She was already winding her window down and Caleb was strolling towards us, hands in the pockets of his pale jeans, looking the epitome of a self-assured and confident site boss – with, I decided, a smidge of arrogance in his expression.
I felt my mouth twist sourly. At least Ivan was funny.
Caleb was just . . . boring.
I pretended I was studying something important on my phone while Ellie made arrangements with him, and eventually she wound up her window.
‘Sorted?’ I asked, as if I hadn’t heard every word of their conversation.
‘Yup. He’s got something to do but he’s happy to show me around in a little while.’
‘Right. Good.’ I drove on, ignoring Caleb as he waved. (I wasn’t being rude. He was waving at Ellie, not me.)
I parked in our usual spot, and I told Ellie I would open up. I thought she was looking a little pale and tired, and unusually, she didn’t put up a fight when I suggested she should rest in the van for a while.
It seemed like I’d only just opened the van doors when a little queue of customers appeared so I got straight down to work serving them. The angel cakes were proving popular this week, and as I popped the remaining two into the last customer’s box and waved them off, I heard a familiar voice behind me say, ‘I’m not going to ask how your doughnuts are this week because I don’t want to get banned.’
Turning, I gave Caleb a fake smile.
Grinning, he said, ‘Can you tell Ellie five minutes?’
I was about to retort that he could tell her himself – she was feeling tired and having a little rest in the van – when I suddenly heard someone calling my name.
When I looked up, to my surprise I saw Mo hurrying towards me.
‘Kats! Glad I caught up with you. Slept in this morning. Bit of a hangover. Missed your Henley Green stop altogether. So I decided to hop in the car and come to the market to give you some support. Women Rule! ’ she shouted, raising her fist in the air and almost knocked a passing man’s glasses off in the process. ‘We females have to support each other, Kats.’ She flicked a snarly look in Caleb’s direction. ‘Otherwise, what chance do we have against this creeping plague that’s the patriarchy?’
‘Er, well... yes, of course.’ I nodded, not altogether sure what I was agreeing with.
Caleb was just standing there, hands in pockets, observing Mo in all her flamboyant pinkness. (She was sporting a bright pink T-shirt today with a slogan declaring ‘The Sisterhood Rocks!’)
She scowled at Caleb again, as if he was something nasty on her shoe (I supposed he was a man, after all), then she turned her back on him and nudged me gleefully. ‘Guess what? I’ve done the deed. I told you I would. I’ve actually paid to have Gaz’s bollocks chopped off!’ She gave a maniacal laugh, sounding like all three of Macbeth’s witches rolled into one. ‘How bloody brilliant is that?’
‘Right.’ I flicked a look at Caleb. But Mr Cool as a Cucumber’s expression hadn’t flickered one iota. ‘Gosh, so how much did that cost you?’
‘Oh, money’s not important,’ she chided me. ‘To be honest, Kats, I’d pay an awful lot more than I did just to get my own back on that man, the nasty, cheating scumbag. I’ll give you the number of this place. In case you decide to treat your ex to a bit of the old hack-em-off treatment?’ She grinned. ‘You’ll be hacking him off in more ways than one. Boom boom. Love it!’ She chuckled at her own joke. ‘By the way, I really enjoyed yesterday. So when’s the gang getting together again?’
My head was swimming. But to my relief, Ellie appeared at that moment, which spared me having to continue chatting to Mo while Caleb was standing there, taking it all in.
He’d probably already written me off as bolshy and humourless. But now, after Mo’s chummy chat, he’d have me down as a crazy man-hater into the bargain.
‘Right. Shall we go?’ He smiled at Ellie.
She nodded. ‘Great. Okay, Katja?’
‘Of course. Enjoy.’ I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic but I had a feeling I did.
Caleb raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Nice to see you again, Kats . I’ll leave you with your... interesting friend.’ He grinned over at Mo, who had her head stuck in the back of the van, trying to decide which cake to buy.
‘It’s not how it sounds,’ I told him hurriedly. ‘We’re not really a group who go around... um... chopping things off.’
‘Right.’ Smiling, he leaned closer. ‘Nonetheless, I’ll keep things covered when she’s around. Just in case.’
‘A few of us are doing a charity fun run, that’s all.’
I wasn’t sure why I was trying to explain myself. Did it really matter what Caleb thought of me?
He nodded. ‘For charity? Nice. Can I sponsor you?’
‘Oh.’ I looked at him in surprise. ‘Well, yes, if you’d like to. That would be great.’
‘Actually, I think a friend of mine might be doing the same run. Is it happening in Sunnybrook?’
‘Yes, that’s the one.’
‘Right, well, consider it done... the sponsorship, I mean. We can sort it out later if that’s okay.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘After I’ve shown Ellie the house?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, that’s fine, thanks.’
‘Good. Well, nice to see you again.’ He joined Ellie and they walked off together to see the house.
I stared after them, perversely wishing I could go with them in case I missed out in some way. Which was a bit weird, all things considered.
Ivan appeared as I was staring after them.
‘Never mind. How about I give you the eco house tour some time?’
I smiled ruefully at him. ‘Thanks, Ivan. That would be great. As long as you can fit me in between all these dates of yours?’