Chapter 14
A few days have passed, I’ve found my old laptop buried in one of the boxes Jared threw out and Reece has set up a Wi-Fi hotspot that gives me an internet signal in the campervan.
I’m sitting at the table with the windows and door open, enjoying the fresh summer breeze and the quiet babbling of the river behind me, while I search for jobs I can apply for locally, but my heart isn’t in it.
Every job is so… uninspiring. Life has changed infinitely.
I’ve been brave enough to change everything, and it would be a huge step backwards to return to a similar job to the one that sucked the life out of me before, and I keep thinking of what Reece said the other night, about serving pie out of the van window, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get the idea out of my head.
The abandoned tearoom in the village is too big, it’s not something I could do by myself, but the campervan is just the right size, and I know this is a village that misses its tearoom…
I look up at the crashing sound of heavy building materials being thrown into the skip outside.
Through the window, I can see Reece hauling old plasterboard and broken timber down the steps from the pub.
He’s wearing loose jeans with building-related stains all over them and rips big enough to show a sliver of thigh, and a navy-blue T-shirt that looks like there’s more paint on it than on whatever he was painting when he wore it last. His forehead is glistening from the exertion and the sun beating down on the car park, and he still looks like he belongs on a billboard for sexy construction workers.
And I decide to be brave, because if I don’t voice these thoughts to someone, they’re going to stay inside my head forever. Maybe not the part about sexy construction workers though. ‘You look like a man in need of a cuppa and a slice of hot apple pie.’
He turns around with a bright grin. ‘You got me. I didn’t even need to chuck this stuff in the skip, but I could smell baking and I wanted an excuse to come down and see if I could be of assistance in taste testing…’
I’ve been watching walkers for a few days now.
The ones flagging in energy by the time they reach here.
The way people can smell what I’ve been baking and keep looking over with interest, and I’ve been wondering about how many of them might stop for a cup of tea…
if there was somewhere to get one. I keep thinking of the tables and chairs, stacked up unused in the pub, and the walk-in cupboard I watched Reece get plates out of once…
It feels like the answer is staring me in the face, if I pluck up the courage to look back at it.
‘Stay there, I want to try something,’ I say as Reece makes his way over. I’ve got the window open, and instead of inviting him in, I make a cup of tea and cut a slice of the apple pie I’ve just got out of the oven, and duck down to hand it to him through the window.
‘Which is…?’ He takes the plate and mug and looks around for somewhere to put them down, but I haven’t got that far… yet.
‘Just something you said the other night.’
I can see from the look on his face that he knows exactly what I’m talking about, and then the words spill out in a rush.
‘There’s nowhere for miles that walkers can have a cup of tea and a sit-down.
That’s why the pub was always so busy. This is perfect positioning.
It’s a long, steep walk to the waterfall, and we’re right at the beginning of it if you’re coming, or the end of it if you’re going.
When do people need a cup of tea and a slice of cake more than that?
The tearoom in the village has closed down and people miss it, and this would be smaller and much more manageable and…
’ I trail off because I’m running out of oxygen, and Reece laughs at how fast I’m speaking.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard three paragraphs come out as one sentence before.’ He sets the mug down inside the window and leans against the van to break off a forkful of the pie on his plate.
‘I think it’s a brill—’ He shoves the fork into his mouth mid-sentence and stops as a look of bliss overtakes his features. ‘Oh my days. That is the best apple pie I’ve ever eaten.’
He shovels another couple of forkfuls in like he can’t get enough of it, and watching his enthusiasm fills me with so much joy.
Despite his cheerful persona, I don’t think he lets himself be truly uninhibited very often, but my grandma always said that the right food at the right moment can have a magical effect.
‘It’s not just a brilliant idea – it would actually be criminal if the people of Thimblenouth didn’t get to taste the things you can bake in one small van.
’ He reaches over for the mug and lifts it to his mouth for a gulp of tea.
‘So I’m thinking that your Nostalgia Café should live again, right here, in this car park.
And I’m certain you were thinking the same thing. ’
The words make me feel both ecstatic and off-balance with the implausibility of my own thoughts, and the reassurance that I haven’t gone completely round-the-bend in thinking it.
‘But it would be impossible, unfeasible madness. I couldn’t just…
’ I trail off, imagining picnic tables and chairs in the car park.
Baking in the campervan. Doing something that matters to people and to me.
Actually staying here, in this little oasis, doing what I’ve always dreamed of doing, albeit on a smaller scale…
‘Why not? You’ve got the van and you’ve got the baking skills. What’s stopping you?’
‘For starters, I don’t own this van. Or this car park.
And my oven has one shelf. I can make one pie at a time, and I don’t have enough plates, or cups, or cutlery, or tables, or chairs.
I’d probably need to register with the local council which would involve some kind of affirmation that this is my van.
I’ve already completed a food safety course to serve food to the public and have my food hygiene certificate, but I’d undoubtedly need business insurance, and…
’ I trail off. There are so many things to consider that even starting to list them feels overwhelming.
‘Those are practical problems, and practical problems have practical solutions. Let me look it up.’ He gets his phone out of his pocket and I stand in the van and instead of watching his long fingers whizz across the screen, I look around the small space.
One pie or cake at a time. A menu board outside with each day’s options on it.
Tea. Coffee. There’s a fridge to store things in, and I could get a small display case to showcase what’s available.
Whatever I felt like making in the morning could be on sale to tired walkers before lunchtime…
I try to tell myself that this is ridiculous.
You can’t just decide to open a business in a stolen campervan in someone else’s car park, but even as I’m forming the arguments, I can feel something else bubbling up inside me.
The fizzing, irrepressible energy that comes with the thought that something completely impractical might just be possible after all.
What if this is exactly what The Nostalgia Café was meant to be…
Not a fixed location in a tiny backroad in Sevenoaks with an untrustworthy friend, but something mobile and free and perfectly positioned to catch people when they need it most?
Something I could do for myself, just me, without relying on anyone else…
Reece’s phone appears under my nose as he holds it through the window. ‘There’s the registration form. You don’t need to register the van, only yourself as the owner of a food business. You can use the pub as your address.’
I take the phone and scroll through the page he’s showing me.
Name. Address. Location of where the van will operate.
All standard stuff, nothing where I have to register the vehicle itself as my own.
‘But what about… your boss? What about the fact this is private property and I don’t have permission to be here? ’
‘Doll, look at me.’ His chin is resting on his arms again, looking up at me through the open window, and when I meet his eyes, he gives me a tiny smile. ‘You have permission, trust me.’
I tilt my head to the side, suddenly understanding something about what Reece is hiding, but there’s so much chaos in my head that I can’t draw out that singular thread right now with so many other questions screaming for attention.
His phone screen has turned off in my hand and when I turn it back on again, his lockscreen photo appears, a picture of Reece with the blue-eyed young boy from the framed photograph in the pub kitchen, and they’re both smiling happily on a beach.
‘Yes, you’ll have to get business insurance.
’ He sees me looking and reaches over to take his phone back and carries on scrolling quickly.
‘No one ever needs to know the van isn’t yours.
There’s a pub full of tables and chairs and plates and cups and glasses that I don’t know what to do with.
See? Practical solutions to practical problems. And see here… ’
He shoves his phone into his pocket and pushes himself up to lean in the window and taps the sink unit.
‘If I install a wooden board here that folds down when the window is open, then you’ve got your very own little serving hatch.
You can get a cash box, and there are apps these days that allow you to take card payments, and—’
He squeaks when I throw my arms around his neck and half-haul his upper body through the campervan window so I can hug him. It’s the most uncomfortable position ever, but he still laughs and hugs me back with the only arm that’s not squashed against the outside of the van.
I probably shouldn’t have, especially not after the other night, but he looked so excited on my behalf, and I’ve never had that kind of support before and I couldn’t not hug him.
I let him go when he makes a noise of pain though, and he takes a few steps back from the campervan like he’s trying to visualise its future and beckons me to join him.
Instead of retrying the hug, he drops his arm around my shoulders and squeezes me against his side as we stand across the car park and look at the yellow van. ‘The Nostalgia Café on wheels.’
‘No. The Nostalgia Café belongs in the past. This is something else, something new, something that’s mine.
The Marzipan Campervan Café.’ I revel in that fizz of excitement again.
I shouldn’t even be entertaining this idea in Jared’s campervan, but I am.
I have been since I saw Reece’s face light up when he tried that first forkful of lemon meringue pie.
I’ve been devastated since The Nostalgia Café fell through.
Not just because of Vickie and Jared, but also because it felt like the end of my one chance to make a meaningful change in my life, and now this might be a second chance to do what I’ve wanted to do all along.
And it might be a weird way out of this problem. A job, something I love, something that’s mine, built in something that’s not mine, but with enough potential that eventually I could afford to move onto something more permanent and return the campervan to its rightful owner.
The car park is always busy. Thimblenouth Force is one of the most popular waterfalls in the Dales, and I remember walking to it with my gran and grandpa in years gone by, passing many other families on the way, and it’s only increased in popularity since then.
When the pub was open, it was the ideal stop-off point, and in recent weeks, I’ve had multiple enquiries from people who look up at the scaffolding and ask doubtfully if it’s still open.
And things are only likely to get busier as the summer holidays approach next month.
‘You really think it could work?’ I look up at Reece with his paint-covered T-shirt and holey jeans, his smile bursting with optimism that makes me feel optimistic too, and I feel something shift inside me. This is it. This is what I’ve been looking for without knowing I was looking for it.
‘I think that someone who can make a lemon meringue pie good enough to make me cry should be sharing that talent with the world. So yes, I think it will work because I think you have enough courage to do anything you put your mind to.’
I want to hug him again, but think I might’ve broken one of his ribs with that through-the-window hug just now, so I settle for finding his fingers with mine and squeezing his hand. I’m not sure about talent and courage, but I do know that having someone who believes in me makes all the difference.