Chapter 15
Two weeks have passed, and they’ve been full of plans, forms, and…
excitement. I’ve got a new phone for contact purposes, and it makes me happy that the only number saved in it is Reece’s.
Well, and the local council’s because they’re bound to make an appointment for a food hygiene inspector to come round sooner or later.
I’ve filled in forms to register as a food business with the local council.
I’ve purchased small business insurance, and I’ve baked enough things to get used to Campervan’s little quirks.
‘Are you sure about this?’ I ask from inside the walk-in storage cupboard off the Kingfisher Arms’ kitchen where Reece has told me I’m welcome to help myself to plates and cups and any other crockery that hasn’t been used for many years, and I’m looking for the most vintage and mismatched ones possible, with no idea how many I’m going to need.
‘It’s the best use anything in this pub is ever going to get,’ Reece mutters from the kitchen, where he’s screwing together pieces of wood that will become the campervan’s serving hatch, and I’m once again intrigued by the bitterness in his voice.
‘What good are they to me? I’m converting the place into a house and no house needs that much dinnerware. ’
‘Are you?’ I peer around the door at him because I’ve got an idea of what he’s so secretive about, but he still hasn’t opened up to me.
‘Of course I am.’ He meets my eyes and it’s like he’s going to say something, but then he shakes his head and the thought is drowned out by the burr of his electric screwdriver again.
As the days pass and I start planning things out, my confidence in this idea grows.
Reece directs the lorry that he’s booked to empty the skip, while I balance on a stepladder to string up pastel-coloured bunting between the tree and the van, and wrap solar fairy lights around as many branches as I can reach.
Another day, Reece screws hinges into Campervan’s inner side and gets the fold-down serving hatch into place, while I practise my chalkboard writing to set out what’s on the menu every day on the pub’s old A-board that’s now standing in the car park, alongside one that’s ready to go outside on opening day, where I’ve drawn a chalk-coloured yellow outline of a campervan and written ‘The Marzipan Campervan Café – open’ in swirly white letters. It feels like it’s all coming together.
Walkers have stopped for curious chats, and every time I’ve explained what I’m doing, I’ve been met with responses of ‘What a good idea!’ or ‘Just what this place needs!’ and promises to come back when we’re open, and each time it buoys my confidence.
I had very little confidence in The Nostalgia Café. It hadn’t felt right from the beginning, but I let myself be carried along by Vickie’s enthusiasm. Now, this feels like exactly the right thing for me, and every day of preparation only fills me with energy… and nerves too. Lots of nerves.
Between us, we’ve constructed an awning for rainy days.
We’ve dug the pub tables and chairs out of the Kingfisher Arms and scattered a couple of them around the car park.
And now, on a bright Tuesday morning, four weeks since I walked in on Vickie and Jared, my hands are shaking as I rearrange the chocolate fudge cake in the display case for the seventy-eighth time, because it’s opening day.
‘Are you as ready as you look?’ Reece sets down another pub chair that’s well-worn and scuffed, but oddly fitting for the updated Nostalgia Café experience.
‘I think so.’ I spin the plate to showcase the cake’s best side for the seventy-ninth time, just to be sure.
In my head, my thoughts are racing. What if this really is the worst idea I’ve ever had?
As bad ideas go, what if it even beats driving off in a campervan that isn’t mine?
What if I’ve completely missed the mark here?
What if walkers are fit and healthy types who come for their waterfall hikes prepared with things like fruit and water, and the last thing anyone would want at this stage of a walk is stodgy cake and a hot drink in the boiling summer sun?
‘People will come.’ Reece can tell I’m more nervous than I’m trying to let on.
‘What if they’re people who don’t like retro cakes? What if they’re people who want modern-day recipes with no stodge, and want plant-based, gluten free, sugarless options? What if this space is just too small? What if I forget how to make a cup of tea?’
‘I don’t think anyone wants a sugarless cake. Yeeeeuck!’ He makes a face of disgust that covers how much he’s trying not to laugh at my completely rational panicking. ‘And you won’t forget how to make a cup of tea, because I have something for you.’
He disappears towards the steps and then reappears at the window. ‘Well, not that you’ll actually be able to make tea in it, it won’t be watertight now, strictly for decorative purposes, but I did the best I could.’
He’s holding something behind his back, and he pulls his hands out to reveal…
my teapot. My mouth falls open. My beautiful vintage teapot is transformed since the last time I saw it, when he took the broken shards to save me the trouble of depositing them in the skip.
It’s been put back together like a jigsaw puzzle and held by what looks like cement.
It might not be perfect, but it’s the most perfect thing anyone’s ever done for me.
‘Reece! You mended it? Seriously?’ I take it carefully when he hands it up through the window and run my fingers over the thin white cracks that criss-cross it, and I’m absolutely floored that he went to so much trouble. ‘Why did you do that? It must’ve taken forever.’
‘There’s this lovely Japanese art where they—’
‘Mend things with gold to highlight the breaks,’ I finish for him, because I know immediately what he’s getting at. ‘Kintsugi. They believe that flaws and breakages are part of an object’s history that only make it more beautiful.’
‘Exactly. I didn’t have any gold, so cement will have to do, but it’s still symbolic.
You bought it as a mascot and it got broken and so did the business, but maybe it was never meant for that.
Maybe it was always meant to be here, a little battered and worse for wear, but here none the less, mascoting for the new, improved version of your business. ’
His words give me a sense of purpose and I stand the teapot in a corner of the sink unit so I can see it from where I am at the serving hatch.
‘I want to give you a hug, but I know I’m going to start crying and never stop.
That’s the loveliest thing anyone’s ever…
’ I trail off when my voice breaks and I’m losing the fight to keep my emotions in check, and he holds a hand up.
‘No tears on opening day, and I can have my hug later. Something to look forward to.’
Something to look forward to, indeed. The thought makes me smile and momentarily cuts through the blind panic I’m feeling so far this morning. ‘Reece, thank you. For everything. For doing that, for helping me get started… and for believing in me.’
He pushes himself up until I look him in the eyes.
‘You make all of those things very easy. You’re the easiest person to believe in because you love this so much.
This is what you were meant to do, and I am honoured to have been a small part of helping you find the place you were meant to do it in. ’
Somewhere in there is the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, and claiming to throw the broken teapot away and then bringing it back whole again is by far the nicest thing anyone’s ever done, and I will hug him later and I may never let go, but for now, I’ve got a café to open.
If he can work so hard to show me how much he believes in me then the least I can do is believe in myself too.
I reach out so I can squeeze his hand. ‘I declare this campervan open!’
* * *
For the first hour, nothing happens. A couple of walkers pass without giving the car park a glance.
I rearrange the display case, wash up cups that have already been washed up six times, and polish forks that are already so shiny, they reflect my nervous reflection back at me.
For today, I’ve made the chocolate fudge cake, coffee kisses and a lemon meringue pie in Reece’s honour.
It’s just after eleven o’clock when my first customers appear. A middle-aged couple in all-weather coats who look like seasoned hikers.
‘Oh, how wonderful!’ the woman exclaims, giving her husband a nudge towards the car park. ‘We’ve done this walk a few times and this has never been here before! Talk about perfect timing for a cup of tea!’
‘Can I get you anything?’ My voice sounds a lot more steady than I feel.
‘Two teas, please, and… Oh, look at that lemon meringue pie!’ She glances at her husband questioningly and when he nods, she orders two slices of that too.
I serve them and watch anxiously as they settle at a borrowed pub table and take their first bites.
The woman’s face lights up. ‘This is incredible! It tastes just like my grandmother used to make.’
Warm satisfaction settles inside me. This is it. This is exactly what I wanted to do – to give people that moment of recognition, of comfort, of being transported back in time.
Reece is… around. He claims he’s fixing something in the pub’s garden, but apart from chatting to the nosy sheep with its head over the wall, he doesn’t seem to be doing anything other than keeping an eye out for potential Campervan customers, and I’m touched that he’s trying to be there for me while also letting me do my thing, independently.
Word spreads quickly among walkers, as it turns out.
By mid-afternoon, I’ve served tea and cake to a dozen different people, all delighted to find refreshments in such an unexpected place.
I’m running low on chocolate fudge cake when I spot three familiar figures making their way up the path from the village.