Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SEVEN
Eden got up early the following morning, despite her late bedtime, and went out exploring. She’d gone to bed thinking about the entirely off-the-cuff idea she’d mooted to Livia the night before about a community kitchen. At first it had been almost a throwaway remark, but it had quickly taken hold. She’d fallen asleep with her mum on her mind too, and they were bittersweet memories of her baking for charity coffee mornings at the local church, cooking pies and casseroles to take to the local shelter, helping prepare Christmas lunch for the lonely and vulnerable old people in their neighbourhood, those who didn’t have family to spend Christmas Day with. She recalled one winter’s day when she’d been revising for exams while her mother baked, and the memory was so alive, so vivid, it was as if she was back there.
‘There you are! Just in time to taste-test!’
Her mother set a tray she’d just taken from the oven down on the counter. It had been snowing outside, the windows framed by a thick frost, the bare branches in the garden heavy with it, but the air in the kitchen was warm and sweet. Eden had slammed closed a textbook and marched down from her bedroom to find something to drink, certain that she didn’t care one bit about passing a single exam no matter what anyone said.
‘I’m on a diet.’
Eden’s mum wiped flour from her hands and turned to her with a vague frown. She was wearing one of her favourite blouses – baby-blue florals – covered by a pink apron – Eden had always thought she looked so pretty in it. ‘What for?’
‘Because…’ Eden said, going to the fridge. She wanted a cake, of course, but there was a school disco coming up, and she had to look her best.
‘You have a lovely little figure coming; I don’t know what you’re worrying about. Look, I’ve made some chocolate-and-cherry muffins. You always said you loved my chocolate-and-cherry muffins. One won’t hurt you.’
‘One is like five hundred calories or something.’
‘Eden…’ Her mum looked serious. ‘I don’t like this diet talk; it worries me. You really don’t need to be dieting, especially at your age. You’re perfect as you are.’
‘I only want to lose half a stone.’
‘All right…’ her mum replied slowly. ‘If you don’t want to taste-test, then maybe you’d like a break from your books and sit with me here a while? We haven’t chatted for ages, and I could do with the company.’
‘You’re baking.’
‘You could help. You used to love helping me.’
‘Mum, I was about five.’
‘Older than that.’
‘Not much.’
‘Still, I miss those times. You’d be doing me a huge favour too – I’ve got loads to do, and the coffee morning is tomorrow.’
‘I’ve got to revise – you know that.’
‘You’re not revising now. You can take a short break, can’t you?’
Eden could. She wanted to but still…she wasn’t a little girl any more. She was too old to measure out ingredients with painstaking care as she looked up at her mum’s delighted smile, soaking up the adoration and praise. She was too old to lick the mixture from the spoon or ask to go in the car to help deliver the cakes. She was too old to hang out in the kitchen with her mum.
The memories had sent Eden to sleep with tears burning her eyes, but she’d woken with renewed determination to somehow make up for all the times just like that one where she’d disappointed her mum in some way or not been the best version of herself, the daughter her parents had deserved.
Plans were forming in her brain, but they were still small and uncertain and not fleshed out enough to discuss with anyone. She didn’t even know who the best person would be to talk to – though Livia and Ralph were the two most obvious to start with. Putting all that aside, it seemed to her that the logical starting point must be a venue. Perhaps when she had that the rest would start falling into place.
Her wanderings took her to parts of the bay she’d never seen before – mostly because, quite naturally, she’d stuck to the tourist traps on her previous visits as a child. There was no need to go any further than those for anyone who didn’t live there, after all. But off the main row of shops and cafés on the seafront, away from the high street, the town spread like tentacles into roads where the permanent residents lived. Here the houses were still lovely, full of character, but more worn, like old shoes that had once been expensive but hadn’t been resoled in a long time. Here was where the arteries of local life pulsed. The streets were quiet; it was daytime and midweek, so Eden assumed most people were out at work.
The rows of houses – some semi-detached thirties builds, some a little newer, some terraced streets that dated from the early twentieth century, the odd outlier standing alone – were all very interesting but not what Eden was looking for. In fact, she’d just about given up on finding any building that wasn’t a house when she passed a gap between a row of houses on an inconspicuous road and stopped. At first it looked like it was waste ground, but then she noticed that set back, sheltered by two trees that met in the middle like a huge umbrella, was a hut with a corrugated roof. The hut itself was weather-beaten and ramshackle – but the ground it sat on was lush with wild grass, hidden rose bushes and trees of varying sizes. An overgrown asphalt path snaked from the front fence to the entrance door. Eden got out her phone and checked the map. After a moment working out exactly where she was, she concluded that this must be the scout hut.
‘Excuse me!’
Eden seized the chance to question a passer-by who was out walking a grizzle-mawed old dog. She rushed across to where he’d stopped, eyeing her curiously.
‘Sorry to bother you, but is that the scout hut?’ She pointed to the building.
‘Yes. Nobody there at this time of the day, though.’
‘Do you know if it’s in use all the time?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Can anyone use it? I mean, could someone maybe rent it for blocks of time or something? Like to do community stuff?’
‘Couldn’t tell you…’ The man rubbed his chin. ‘But there’s a number you can ring on the gate there. Would that help?’
Eden looked to see a sign she’d missed. It was hardly surprising, considering how dirty and green with moss it was. If this building was in regular use, there didn’t seem to be a huge amount of maintenance going on. The notion filled her with a sudden misgiving. Perhaps this wasn’t it, after all. It might not be suitable, and even if it was, she was assuming she’d be able to use it, and that might have been jumping the gun just a little.
‘Yes, thanks. Sorry – I didn’t even notice it.’
‘That’s all right.’
The man continued on his way, and Eden went back across the road to take a photo of the sign. She could have dialled the number there and then, but she hadn’t really figured out what she was going to ask for if there was an answer. How many days a week did she want to do this? How many people could she cater for? Where was the food going to come from? Who would cook it? Eden was a competent enough cook when it came to throwing some fish fingers in an oven, but that was about it. She’d need help, and who would be able to spare the time? There was still so much to work out, and she didn’t know where to start. Today’s search had seemed like the first step, but standing here now, she realised the journey hadn’t started at all. She’d been carried away on the fantasy, excited by her plans, but they hadn’t been plans to speak of.
Instead of dialling the number on the sign, she decided to see if Livia was free. It was a working day for her, of course, and she’d be at the ice-cream parlour as she always was, but perhaps she’d be able to spare half an hour so Eden could run some things past her. And if she didn’t know the answers, perhaps she’d be able to point Eden in the direction of someone who did.
Livia sat on the low wall that separated the parlour’s seating area from the promenade and licked at her ice cream. Eden had been lucky enough to catch her about to go on her lunch break. She’d laughed when Livia had emerged from the door of the parlour with two ice creams.
‘Is that your lunch?’
‘It’s got protein and carbs. I’d call that a balanced meal.’
Eden laughed as she took one of the cones. ‘I always imagined if I worked selling ice cream all week, I wouldn’t want to see one on my breaks, let alone eat them.’
‘Well, they’re right there, so it’s quick and easy. Mum says I ought to make the most of the years when I can eat like this and not put on weight.’
‘Sounds fair enough.’
‘So what’s all the excitement? You’ve not come to tell me you hate the job at the pub and you’re leaving already? You’d better not, not when I’ve only just trained you up.’
‘No, I loved my first shift. Although it is about something that happened there. You know Ralph’s scheme for his leftovers?’
‘Yes…’ Livia said uncertainly.
‘I’ve been thinking about it all the time since. You said a lot of people needed it.’
‘But they won’t all use it.’
‘I suppose because it sort of feels like begging and nobody wants to feel like that. I know I wouldn’t.’
‘True, but we do what we have to, don’t we?’
‘I don’t know about that, but I was thinking how humiliated I’d feel if I had to?—’
‘I get the feeling,’ Livia interrupted, and for the first time since Eden had known her, she seemed less than patient, ‘that you’re someone who has never struggled to make ends meet. Humiliation doesn’t come into it when you’ve got two kids at home who’ll go hungry if you don’t swallow your pride and go get that food. There are some people who don’t have a choice.’
‘I didn’t mean…You’re right, I’ve never had to do anything like that before, but I don’t think that just because someone is in need, they should have to be shown less respect than anyone else.’
‘That’s not exactly what I said.’
‘In a way, it is. Yes, they do what they need to, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. The lady who came in last night when all the food was gone…you didn’t see the look on her face. She hated being there, and she hated having to ask. She did a runner rather than have me—Never mind, it doesn’t matter, that’s not the point.’
‘OK…’ Livia caught a drip of ice cream as it ran down her cone and fixed Eden with a questioning gaze. ‘I can get on board with that, I suppose. But where is all this leading?’
‘I just think, brilliant as Ralph is, there must be a better way of doing it. A way to reach more people and make it seem like a social thing rather than begging.’
‘It’s not begging, but go on.’
‘No, it’s not…I can’t figure out how to say this in the right way, sorry. I’ll hold my hands up – I’ve had a decent life with a good job and good money. I don’t know how all this works. And I don’t want to come across like some middle-class saviour; I don’t want to patronise anyone – that’s the last thing I want. But I do want to help. I can help. I just don’t know where to start.’
‘Do you even have a clue what it is you want to do? “Help” is a bit vague. I think it has to be more than just wanting to help.’
‘I know. That’s why I wanted to ask you. If you could have everything you needed to make a community thing work – like a soup kitchen or something – what would you do?’
‘I wouldn’t call it a soup kitchen, for a start. Makes it sound like a van ladling out gruel on a street corner in Gotham City.’
Eden was thoughtful for a minute. It might seem at first that Livia was being a bit brutal, but in a way, this was exactly what Eden needed.
‘How about…community café? A place where people can come and get a nice meal. No day-old leftovers from?—’
‘There’s nothing wrong with leftovers – some of us eat them a lot.’
‘Sorry, that didn’t come out the way I meant. I know there’s nothing wrong with leftovers, and I wouldn’t want people to stop going to Ralph for those. After all, you said it yourself: it’s a good way to use them up and save them going to landfill or whatever. But wouldn’t it be nice if people could come and sit down somewhere and have a plate of something fresh, have a chat with their friends and not worry about the bill? Like, not just food, but so much more?’
Livia looked sceptical as she swallowed the top from her ice cream. ‘You want to open a free restaurant?’
‘No, not…’ Eden sighed. ‘See, I was worried this would happen. I don’t really know what it is I want to do, but I know I want to do something. I just thought…Well, you said about the soup kitchen idea being a bit grim, and I just thought a café is a nicer thing. I don’t know how it’s going to work.’
‘Where would you even open it?’
‘Ah, well, I don’t know that either, but I did see a scout hut today on Shingle Street that might do the job. I’d have to phone them to see if it’s available and whether they have facilities to cook and stuff, but it looked big enough from the outside.’
‘I know it. Could work.’ Livia nodded slowly. ‘This isn’t a whim, is it? Because you’ve been here less than a week and you’re already making plans for…Well, something like this, you can’t just set it up and then get bored a week later. Once people start relying on you, that’s it, you’re in it for the long haul. Otherwise it’s just not fair. And I don’t want to be involved if this is just something to stop you getting bored while you’re here.’
‘You’d be involved? I didn’t think?—’
‘I’m not making any promises, but it does seem to me you need someone local to help. And I haven’t forgotten that you’re only here for six months. What happens to this community café of yours after that?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I can find someone to take it on.’
Livia shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t be me. I want to help as much as you do, but I have Nancy and Levi and my mum, not to mention two jobs. I’d love to, but?—’
‘Of course – I get that. They have to come first.’
‘I think the thing to do is get a plan together. Decide what it is you actually want to do, something concrete to work with. Maybe we can go and talk to Ralph about it – get his take.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to ask Ralph first? He might be able to steer me in the direction of a workable plan rather than me go to him with something that’s clearly stupid in the first place.’
‘That does sort of make sense,’ Livia agreed.
‘I don’t want to hassle him, though. I’ve only just started to work for him, and he doesn’t know me, and the next thing I’m asking him for this.’
‘I don’t think he’d see it as hassle. He’s busy, yeah, but?—’
‘Could you ask him? Explain what we’re trying to do? He might be more willing to help if it comes from you.’
‘He’d be willing to help anyway. Ralph’s like that.’
‘Even so, he doesn’t know me from Adam. And you said yourself you thought it might be a flash in the pan when I first mentioned it. Ralph might think the same.’
‘I can ask if he’s willing to talk to you, if you really want me to, but I honestly think you ought to do it. He’ll want to know more than I can tell him, so you might as well.’
Eden wasn’t used to feeling doubtful – at least, not in this sort of situation – but she did now. In her old job, she’d come up with brilliant ideas and have no problem articulating them to her bosses. But this was something entirely different. This wasn’t some money-making proposal, and she wasn’t dealing with hard-headed corporate types. This was emotive, personal. What she did here had the potential to make a difference for many people. It was an unformed and as yet unrecognised hope, but somewhere in the back of her conscious thoughts there was almost a hope to change lives. Too grand, perhaps, arrogant and foolish, but what if it didn’t have to be? What if she could change lives? Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing? Even if that was a step too far, what if she could make someone’s life easier for a short while? Wouldn’t that be a bit wonderful too?
The more she looked at the proposal, the more she agreed with Livia that Ralph’s input would be invaluable. But approaching Ralph was something that made her strangely nervous. The way people viewed her mattered to Eden in a way it had never done before. She was painfully aware of her status as a newcomer, as someone the locals might not even trust. They knew nothing about her – and perhaps if they did, they’d trust her even less. She was trying hard to change that, to be a better person, but none of them would know that.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said finally.
‘So we’re working tonight.’ Livia popped the end of her cone into her mouth. ‘I can ask Ralph in the meantime, but if I were you, I’d get there early and try to grab him before the pub gets busy.’
‘I’d love that, if it’s not too much bother. I know you’ve got work here and?—’
‘It’s no bother at all.’
Eden gave her a grateful smile. ‘That’s great, thanks.’