Eden’s Comfort Kitchen

Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

The following day, Eden decided to make some calls to see if she could get any donations for the kitchen – either food or money or anything else that could be spared – and then she’d go into town to get some of her own essentials. Perhaps Livia would be free for half an hour at lunch – although Eden was becoming conscious of the fact that she was beginning to rely on Livia’s company a lot and wondered whether she ought to give her new friend some breathing space. The thing was, Livia was such brilliant company, and she had such a way of making Eden feel instantly better, just by being there, that it was an easy thing to say but far less easy to do.

What was strange as she walked the high street was how she was suddenly noticed. A few people had started to recognise her in the past week simply because they’d perhaps got used to seeing her around – after all, this was her third week in Sea Glass Bay and most holidaymakers would have been gone by now, and she’d been hanging around the ice-cream parlour a lot, not to mention her job at the Dolphin, of course. But that had been quite low-key, where today it seemed as if she got stared at wherever she went, and she didn’t quite know what to make of it. One or two people who’d been at the dinner the previous night stopped her to say hello and tell her how much they’d enjoyed it, which was lovely. But many people she’d never seen before seemed to know who she was – at least, they paid her a lot more attention than she’d expect from a stranger.

‘Morning!’

She smiled in acknowledgement as the fourth person she didn’t know spoke to her in the space of half an hour.

At the mini market, which was as close to a proper supermarket as the bay had, Eden was picking up some teabags when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

She turned to see Ralph smiling at her.

‘How did it go yesterday?’

‘Brilliant! All the things you told us to do worked like a dream. I think everyone really enjoyed it too.’

‘I think you might be right about that – I’ve been stopped three times today by people saying how nice it was. Not just because they got fed, but because they got the chance to chew the fat with neighbours they don’t usually have time to talk to. It was quite an event, by all accounts. In fact, I might have to come down to the next one myself.’

‘You’re always welcome,’ Eden said, feeling a bit bemused by the praise. She hadn’t done anything special, though she was glad to hear her event had created such a buzz.

‘So you’re ploughing ahead with more of them?’

‘Yes. I wasn’t sure people would want more, but it seems that they do. I’ve been stopped a few times today too. And…well, it’s probably my imagination, but I feel like’ – she lowered her voice, feeling silly for saying it – ‘I’m getting noticed …’

Ralph laughed. ‘Of course you are! Everyone’s talking about it.’

‘But how do they know…? Well, how do they know who I am?’

‘Just because they never said anything before doesn’t mean they haven’t noticed you. And now they’ve got even more cause to pay attention. I wouldn’t be surprised,’ Ralph continued, ‘if you don’t have more people than you can handle at the next one.’

Eden looked at him in vague panic. ‘Do you think so? What should I do? I didn’t want the booking system because I didn’t want to put people off, but?—’

‘Don’t worry! If you’ve got a few extra, then I’m sure you could squeeze a few more chairs in for them somewhere. And if you’re really packed out, then you’d just have to say first come first served and send them away.’

‘I wouldn’t want to do that – it kind of defeats the point of opening it in the first place if I have to turn people away.’

Ralph shrugged. ‘If I were you, I’d get some idea of numbers in advance. You’ve got a Facebook page?’

Eden nodded.

‘Use that to ask people to let you know if they plan to come. If it’s looking a bit hairy, you might need to rethink some things.’

‘Like what?’

‘How many sittings you do, or your venue, that sort of thing? But I’m sure a smart girl like you will have something up her sleeve, right? You’ll have planned for something like this.’

While she’d been hopeful for a good response, Eden hadn’t really expected one – at least not this quickly. Lovely as it would be to be packed out, she hoped it wouldn’t happen so soon after she’d got her kitchen off the ground. She needed time to refine her plans and systems, having decided early on that she’d play it by ear and develop those as she went along according to how it went. One thing it did do was cement in her mind that this place was needed and that she was doing a good thing, and that she had to find a way to keep it going no matter what obstacles might appear in her path.

‘Um…’

‘Of course you have.’ Ralph gave her a cheerful nod. ‘Well played to you. I have to admit I had my doubts about it all when you first mentioned it, but I’m glad to be proved wrong. And if you need anything, you know where I am. By the way, I have a couple of extra shifts going at the weekend if you’re interested.’

‘Yes – I don’t have any other plans. For the time being, I think I’ll be keeping the dinners to week nights, because I can’t have the scout hut at weekends.’

‘Good, good…so I’ll send your hours over later when I’ve worked out the rota. Cheerio then.’

Ralph reached past her to get a box of teabags of his own and then strode to the checkout. Eden paused for a moment but then began to smile. No matter how worried she might be about her ability to manage the community café project, if what Ralph had told her wasn’t exaggerated – and he wasn’t the sort of man to exaggerate – then she had to love the response. All she’d wanted was for it to do some good, and it sounded as if it already had. The notion was encouraging. She could do this – she had to do this. It mattered. Something she was doing mattered, and that was brilliant.

Ralph had put Livia on the same Saturday evening shift as Eden. He seemed to do that most of the time, which suited Eden just fine because she loved working alongside her. As the last customers left the pub and they started to clean up, Ralph came through and poured himself a brandy at the bar.

‘It’s been a busy one, girls, hasn’t it?’

Livia tipped a full drip tray into the sink. ‘You can say that again!’

‘Not that I’m complaining,’ Ralph added. He nodded at the bottle. ‘You’re both staying for a drink before we turn out the lights?’

Eden was putting some freshly washed glasses away. She glanced at Livia.

‘I don’t see why not,’ Livia said. ‘Are you staying, Eden?’

Eden paused as she considered the walk home. There were moments, now that she was here and living like a local, where the romantic clifftop retreat that had seemed so appealing when she’d booked it felt like a very impractical folly. It was lovely to wake up with those views in the morning but not so much fun to grope her way up the precarious path in the dark, no matter how stunning the moonlight might look on the sea as she went. But she did want to stay, and in the end, the temptation was too much.

‘I suppose one wouldn’t hurt,’ she said. ‘If I break my ankle going home, I’ve got another one, right?’

Ralph chuckled. ‘You know I could get one of the kitchen lads to run you up there. Wouldn’t take them a minute.’

‘It’s fine – don’t ask anyone to do that. People want to get home; they don’t want to be messing around driving up to Four Winds at this time of night. Besides, that path is as much a nightmare for a car as it is to walk. Just ask my delivery drivers.’

‘Well, the offer’s there. I’m sure one of them wouldn’t mind.’

Livia slotted her tray back and lifted a second one out. ‘Have you thought about swapping your accommodation?’ she asked Eden. ‘Maybe get somewhere closer to town?’

‘I’ve already committed to it,’ Eden said. ‘And I do really like it up there. It’s just sometimes it makes life a bit difficult. It’s not forever, though, so I’m happy to manage.’

‘It is a lovely spot,’ Ralph agreed. He handed Livia a pint of lager. He hadn’t asked what she wanted, but she seemed content with his choice. ‘Spent many a happy hour up there with your uncle.’

‘Did you know each other well?’ Eden asked him.

‘Oh, I was a youngster, but I used to go up with my mum to get eggs and honey – like a lot did round here – and he always had time for me. He’d spend hours showing me how he looked after the bees. Let me take the honeycombs out a few times too. And, of course, what young lad doesn’t want to pet the chickens?’

Eden could think of a lot of boys she’d grown up with who wouldn’t be remotely interested in bees or chickens, but then, she supposed growing up in a place like Sea Glass Bay was very different. Plus, Ralph was from a different generation too. Perhaps there wasn’t all that much to do here back then. It might have been that messing around with chickens was about as exciting as it got. Either way, although she couldn’t imagine it, there was something that sounded idyllic about the whole thing, and she wondered whether – had she grown up back then instead of now – she’d have been a better, happier person.

‘You know,’ Ralph continued as he mixed an orange gin and lemonade for Eden, making her smile that he already knew her favourite drink. ‘I’ll be sorry to see you go when it’s time, Eden. I reckon a few round here will feel the same.’

‘I’m going to do my best to hand over the kitchen to someone so they can keep it going,’ Eden said, and Ralph chuckled.

‘That’s not all anyone will miss you for, you daft thing. Speaking for myself, I’m already fond of you.’

‘Me too,’ Livia said, catching Eden and her precarious emotions quite by surprise. ‘You’d better not lose touch when you do go.’

‘I won’t,’ Eden replied, her voice cracking so that she had to turn away and concentrate really hard on rubbing out an invisible smudge on one of her glasses.

‘I bet your folks are missing you back home,’ Ralph said. ‘Are they going to come over and see you soon? Six months is a long time. You’ll have to bring them up here when they do.’

Eden nodded shortly, her gaze still on that invisible smudge.

When she collected herself enough to look up, she saw Ralph leaving the bar with a fresh drink and heading to the kitchens.

Eden turned to Livia. ‘Ralph has been so lovely to me; I’m sure I don’t know what I did to deserve it.’

Livia stopped to take a sip from her glass. ‘He meant what he said – he likes you. I think he will miss you when you go home. He’s like that, gets attached to people. And not just because they’re staff.’

‘Maybe I won’t even go home.’

Eden had said it before the thought had fully formed in her mind. Livia stared at her. But as soon as it was out, Eden wondered whether it might be the truth of her feelings, forcing their way to the surface before she’d had time to process them.

‘I don’t know,’ Eden said. ‘I like it here, and I feel as if I’m settling in. Maybe I’ll stay.’

‘Just like that? What about your family? And you had a great job in London, didn’t you?’

‘It was well paid, but it wasn’t that great. And my family…’ Eden shrugged.

Livia regarded her for a moment. ‘What’s going on with you? I mean, really? You don’t have to tell me, but if you need to get something off your chest…Like this community café thing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s brilliant and everything, but what does it matter to you?’

‘I want to do something good.’

‘But why? What for?’

‘Does there have to be a reason?’

‘Maybe not a reason, but there has to be something that motivated you.’

Eden gave her a small smile. She didn’t doubt Livia’s astuteness, but she hadn’t realised just how keen it actually was. ‘I’m motivated by wanting to be better, that’s all. I don’t think I’ve been a great person so far, and I want to change that.’

‘So stick a tenner in the odd charity box. That’s what everyone else does.’

‘You don’t think I ought to bother with the kitchen?’

‘That’s not what I meant. Of course I think you should bother with it, but going that extra mile isn’t what most people do to make themselves feel better. So why? Why are you really doing it? What made you feel like such a bad person that this is what you did to make amends? And for the record, whatever it was can’t have been that bad. I don’t believe for a minute all this stuff about you being a terrible human.’

For the briefest moment, Eden thought about coming clean. About how her selfish behaviour was responsible for her mum’s death, about how she’d run away saying that it was to make things easier for everyone else when really, deep down, she knew that running away had been just one more selfish act on top of all the others. She was running away from what she’d done because she couldn’t face it.

Another unwanted flashback filled her mind, and try as she might to shake it, there was no letting go…

Caitlin glared at Eden from across the dinner table. Eden pretended not to notice and instead poured herself some water from the jug that sat between them.

‘Here we are then – just another fun family Sunday lunch. Honestly, I don’t know why I come. I suppose I’d miss the insults if I didn’t get my weekly dose.’

‘Nobody wants lunch to be like this. You could choose to behave like a decent human being and then it wouldn’t be.’

‘Jesus, Caitlin, get off your high horse! Nobody died!’

‘You wouldn’t say that to Uncle Terry, though, would you? No – because you know it would be out of order.’

‘I forgot the dog for, like, a couple of hours.’

‘You forgot him for a whole day! Uncle Terry trusted you to go and check on him and take him for a walk because you promised you could do it! The poor thing was dying of thirst when Terry got home.’

‘Don’t exaggerate – he wasn’t dying of thirst. He had a bowl of water when Terry was back and he was OK.’

‘No consequences. There never is for you, is there? It’s like the community centre all over again.’

‘God, not this again! That was months ago!’

‘For you, yes. Mum’s church group are still dealing with the fallout from that grotty little backroom deal.’

‘I didn’t make the deal!’

‘No, but you had a pretty big hand in setting it up so you could get your employee of the month sticker, didn’t you? Get a nice fat bonus you didn’t tell us about? A promise of promotion for passing on the information – information that was for family discussion only and you were asked not to pass on.’

‘The church couldn’t afford to keep it on – everyone knew that.’

‘Your bosses didn’t, until you told them. They swooped in and got the place cut price because they knew the church couldn’t afford to do anything else, and now there’s nowhere for community events around here, and that’s thanks to you.’

‘You have no clue what you’re talking about. They’d have bought it anyway – they’d been looking at that plot for ages; it’s in a great location for those apartments.’

‘Yes, but they might have given enough money to pay for a new place somewhere else. As it was they paid peanuts.’

Eden sighed with impatience as she reached for the salt. ‘I don’t know why you keep going on about it; it doesn’t make any difference to you.’

‘It makes a difference to Mum! Or have you forgotten the charity coffee mornings and bake sales that she’s been doing there all these years?’

‘Caitlin, please…Don’t drag me into this. I never said—’ Eden’s mum started to protest, but Caitlin held up a hand to stop her.

‘Why do you always do this, Mum? Why do you defend her when you know she’s done wrong?’

‘She was only doing her job.’

‘It was more than her job! She could have kept her mouth shut and she’d still have been doing her job! She didn’t have to blab to her bosses about the church’s finances!’

‘Most churches are in the same position,’ Eden’s mum said wearily, rubbing her temples. ‘They’d have worked it out.’

‘Stop it!’ Caitlin demanded. ‘Stop pretending it doesn’t matter! You’re upset – we all know it – say so! Tell your favourite child you’re upset! I’m sick of being the messenger!’

‘Nobody asked you to be anyone’s messenger,’ Eden’s dad cut in. ‘And we don’t have favourites.’

‘You’re just as bad!’ Caitlin replied, her voice rising. ‘Eden did a shitty thing, but neither of you will say so. It’s so obvious she’s your favourite – I wouldn’t have got away with a thing like that. I would never have done a thing like that, but to listen to you now, you still think I’m the one in the wrong for bringing it up? What’s the matter with this family?’

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Eden slammed down her cutlery.

‘You – that’s what!’

‘Girls!’ Eden’s dad stood up, arms outstretched like a referee in a boxing ring. ‘Do we have to do this at the dinner table?’

‘Where would you suggest we do it?’ Caitlin asked him coldly.

‘Perhaps nowhere?’ Eden’s mum cut in. Eden frowned, but then her rising irritation was stopped in its tracks. If she hadn’t been so lost in the heat of the argument, she might have taken the signs more seriously. Her mum suddenly looked pale – grey almost. ‘I’d really rather we didn’t do it at all.’

‘Then tell Caitlin that!’ Eden fired back because she couldn’t leave it. She and Caitlin had always been as bad as each other in that respect – they both had to have the last word. Whenever Eden would reflect on it in the months after this final family dinner, she would see that she and Caitlin were more alike than she’d ever been happy to admit. One would launch an attack, the other would dig their heels in and neither would ever say they were wrong even when they could plainly see it.

‘She takes and takes,’ Caitlin said, rounding on her mum and dad. ‘She never stops, and you never do anything. She borrows some money’ – Caitlin crooked her fingers into speech marks – ‘and doesn’t give it back. She takes your things. She promises to do stuff and then forgets and thinks that’s OK. And maybe I do overreact to some of that stuff, but it’s because it never ends and nobody ever says anything. But I can’t let this one go. The community centre – that was a massive deal for you, Mum. Those coffee mornings and those bake sales and the Christmas dinners for the old people and all that other stuff – that was a huge part of your life, and it’s gone, and all you can say is you’d rather not talk about it? It’s gone because Eden did another selfish thing, and you’re just going to ignore that? The buck has to stop eventually!’

‘There’ll be other charities—’ Mum began, but Caitlin cut her off.

‘They were your friends! They’d been your friends for years!’

‘She can still see them!’ Eden protested. ‘They can just go to the pub or something like everyone does!’

Caitlin whipped round. ‘You don’t get it, do you? Maybe because you don’t have friends, only shallow colleagues and acquaintances who like you because you wear the right clothes and go to the right restaurants, but they don’t know a thing about you. You have no idea what real friends are. You’ll never understand what it is to have passion for a cause, to work with people you like to help others and not yourself. Everyone at that group loved what they did; they’d spent years doing it, looked forward to the meetings – like some had literally nothing else in their lives – and you took that from them!’

‘I didn’t!’ Eden’s eyes filled with tears, but they weren’t hurt or sadness or even rage. They were indignant and they were frustrated because she was losing this moral argument and she didn’t want to admit it. Yes, she’d repeated something they’d discussed at dinner one day about the church being broke and desperate for money and how they might have to sell some of their land, and yes, she’d been asked at the time not to tell anyone, and perhaps she’d done that hoping for some kind of gold star from her bosses. But she hadn’t meant this to happen. Could she have foreseen it? Perhaps, she had to admit, but admitting it only added guilt to the mix. Of course she’d seen it coming because how else was it going to end? The company she worked for were known for swooping in and grabbing land and for making huge profits on it. There was no other way it was going to end.

Her mum got up from the table. Going over the scene again and again after the event, Eden would hate herself for not taking more notice. For not seeing how pale her mum had become, how vague, how laboured her movements were. None of them noticed, but that didn’t make it any better.

‘I’m going to get some air…’

Eden had heard her say it, but nothing had registered. Only Caitlin, for a split second, voiced any concern, but their mum shook her head as she made for the door.

‘I’m OK. I’ll be back in a minute.’

But then came the sickening thud, a sound that would stay with Eden for the rest of her life. Her mum had collapsed, straight down, hitting the floor like a deadweight. And then everyone leaped up and the rest was a blur. Even as they turned her over, Caitlin searching for a pulse while their dad tapped at her face and called for her to wake up, the awful truth was staring them in the face. In the time it had taken for Eden to draw one breath, her mum had taken her last. She pulled out her phone and stumbled over every word as she called for the ambulance, but in her heart, she already knew it was too late.

Eden shook off the memory, tears squeezing her throat. She had to keep it together. If she started to cry now, Livia would want to know why.

And despite what she’d promised Caitlin, she hadn’t yet spoken to her dad. Even as she was trying to be better, she was still being selfish. She’d picked her battles but, in a way, perhaps she’d picked the ones that didn’t really count. But then she looked around at the pub where she already felt settled and happy, and at Livia, who meant so much to her after only a few short weeks, who’d taught her more about being a decent human than anyone else had in her twenty-seven years on the planet, and she knew that if she said those things out loud, it would be the end of all this.

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Livia said, seemingly able to sense Eden’s reluctance.

Eden let out a sigh. ‘I’m just not…I don’t want to talk about it if that’s OK. Sorry.’

‘No need to be sorry. Consider it forgotten. So what’s the plan for the next dinner?’

‘More of the same. I mean, I think it went quite well. What do think?’

‘I think so too. We’ll do our best to be there again.’

‘I know you have a lot going on, so?—’

‘But until you get off the ground properly, Mum and I want to offer our help. I’m sure in a few weeks you’ll have more volunteers and donations than you can cope with?—’

‘And diners,’ Eden cut in, thinking about what Ralph had told her.

‘And diners,’ Livia agreed. ‘But you’ll have plenty of help, and you won’t need us. Until then, we’ll do what we can.’

Eden gave her a grateful smile. ‘I never expected to make such a good friend when I came here. Especially this quickly. Thank you.’

‘Did you expect to spend the six months alone?’

‘Honestly, yes. I was OK with that, but I like this outcome better.’

‘Good. Anyway, let’s get this bar cleaned up so we can go home!’

‘OK,’ Eden said, her mind going back to all the things she’d wanted to tell Livia but couldn’t. Maybe she was overthinking it. Maybe, if she explained it, expressed her remorse, accepted the blame and tried to make Livia understand how she’d learned from the trauma she’d caused, her friend would be able to see past it. Maybe nothing would change, apart from a new comprehension of Eden’s motives.

Then again, what if everything changed? What if Livia didn’t understand? If Caitlin had been right about one thing, it was that Eden’s behaviour in the past had been pretty shitty.

So she went back to the cleaning and decided to say nothing more about it.

Two days later, Eden and her little team were back at the scout hut getting ready for another community dinner sitting. Except that her team had grown by two more members – Bilbo’s ‘lady friend’ Mavis, who went dancing with him on Saturday nights, and who everyone knew was secretly his girlfriend, and her neighbour Val.

While Eden was thrilled with the extra help, she did start to wonder whether she might have to put a cap on the number of volunteers. Firstly because the kitchen simply wouldn’t be big enough for them all to work safely, but also because if she wasn’t careful, she’d have more volunteers than actual dinner guests. As much as she’d love to bankroll the entire project, those little donations from her diners – however small – made a huge difference to her ability to shop for decent food. She’d rather not if she could help it, because she didn’t want to put people off, but when Julia said exactly the same to her, she wondered whether she’d simply have to get tougher about the whole thing. It was funny, because being tough and pragmatic had never been a problem in her previous career in property, but things had changed.

‘Where would you like me, dear?’ Mavis asked Eden.

‘I’m not really sure,’ Eden said. ‘You probably know better than me what needs doing – I’m new to all this cooking business.’

‘You must have cooked before,’ Bilbo said, laughing an old, husky laugh.

‘Well, yes, but not like this. It’s always been oven chips and microwave pasta. My mum was a brilliant cook, but I never took any notice when she tried to show me how to do things. Too busy on my phone or wanting to go out to meet friends.’

‘That’s all youngsters,’ Bilbo said. ‘Things haven’t changed. My dad used to try to teach me woodworking, but all I wanted to do was be out chasing skirt.’

Eden giggled. ‘Chasing skirt? I can’t imagine you being that naughty, Bilbo. You seem like such a gent!’

‘Looks can be deceiving,’ Mavis said drily, making Eden laugh again. ‘He’s a rogue, this one. Terror of the tea dance. Scourge of the scone table. When we were youngsters, all the girls around here were sweet on him – and he knew it.’

‘Including you?’ Bilbo put his arm around her and grinned.

‘I kept my distance. Too big for your boots by far, you were.’

‘And am I too big for my boots now?’

She pushed him off but with a grin of her own. ‘I’m still trying to decide about that.’

‘What if I sing you a song?’

Bilbo launched into something that Eden vaguely recognised, some old swing classic she’d probably heard on an advert. He was surprisingly good. In fact, he was very good. Everyone in the kitchen turned to see who was singing and smiled, and when he finished, there was a spontaneous round of applause.

‘It’s a long time since I heard you sing, but you’ve still got it,’ Julia called over. ‘I remember you doing turns at the Dolphin all the time when I was young. You ought to see Ralph about doing some more.’

‘Oh no,’ Bilbo said, trying to sound modest but clearly loving the attention. ‘Those days are over.’

‘Thank God,’ Eden heard a small voice say and turned to see Bilbo’s great-grandson, Liam, shaking his head with some humour.

Everyone who heard him started to laugh, and the usually shy Liam grinned.

‘Cheeky pup!’ Bilbo replied, though with some humour. ‘You didn’t used to say that. It was all, “Great-Grandpa, sing a song” or do a magic trick or some other thing.’

‘You do magic too?’ Eden asked.

‘I like to call it sleight of hand,’ Bilbo said. He went over to her, lifted a hand to her ear and then appeared to produce a coin from it.

Eden had seen it done on TV over the years a million times, but there was something about it being done right here with her that sent her into a giddy, childish spiral of glee. The reaction caught her by surprise. She’d spent the last few years of her adult life being cynical and grown-up and surrounded by people as jaded as her. She giggled again.

‘That’s so cool! How do you do it? Can you show me?’

‘Absolutely not. I’d be kicked out of the Magic Circle if I started to show every Tom, Dick and Harriet.’ He reached behind her other ear and produced another coin, and she grinned again as he gave it to her.

‘Better take it steady, Bilbo,’ Julia called over. ‘You’ll be bankrupt if you keep giving all that money away.’

Eden smiled as she handed it back to him.

‘Keep it towards the kitty,’ Bilbo said.

‘Thanks.’ Eden went to drop it into the slot of a money box Livia had brought in for donations.

‘So.’ Bilbo rubbed his hands together. ‘Where would you like me to start?’

Eden glanced at Julia. Livia’s mum had already become an unofficial foreman. She knew how to run a kitchen well, and two of the recipes they were going with tonight – honey and mustard chicken with potatoes, and a lentil ragu – were hers, so it seemed sensible to Eden to let her take control over the way they were prepared and cooked. The other dish they were putting out was fish and chips. Ralph had managed to send some prepared catering bags of chips and breaded fish that he’d got cheap from a supplier, so all it needed was to be put in the oven close to service. Eden was perfectly capable of that much, at least. She had to reflect with some humour that it was about all she was capable of, but that was OK. It was early days, and she’d learn on the job, so when the time came for her to cook without Julia’s guidance, she was sure she’d be able to manage, though she doubted it would be as good as Julia’s.

‘I need some chicken boning,’ Julia said. ‘Do you think you and your magician fingers can do that for me?’

‘I’ll do that with him, shall I?’ Mavis said, going to the fridge without further prompting.

‘That would be great, thanks,’ Julia said. She then set about directing everyone else while Eden went out into the main hall with Liam to start setting the tables and dressing the room to make it as welcoming as it had been on their first night. Because the hut was used by other groups and clubs, they had to take everything down once they’d finished with it, but that wasn’t a huge problem, and it meant Eden could keep an eye on all their stuff to make sure none of it went missing.

With the extra hands, everything was ready far earlier than it needed to be. Julia gave instructions for things to be kept warm, apart from the food they wouldn’t need to put in the oven until the last minute, and they all stopped for tea and biscuits. The scout hut was equipped with an enormous teapot and plenty of mugs, and Eden helped Livia to make sure everyone got a drink.

The kitchen was warm and fragrant from the food they’d cooked and full of good-natured chatter. Eden looked around and couldn’t help a swell of pride. All this was down to her. She’d gathered these amazing people together. It was only the second evening, but already she felt certain she’d never want to give this up. It was a million miles away from anything she’d have been a part of in her old life back in London, let alone founded, and yet she was beginning to feel as if this was what she’d been put on the earth to do – it had simply taken a bit of time for her to figure it out. Perhaps recent mistakes and tragedies had played their part too, but she didn’t want to dwell on any of that now, not when she was so happy.

After tea and biscuits, they started to make the final preparations, and not long after that, the first guests arrived. Eden was pleased to see some faces from the previous dinner, happy they’d enjoyed it enough to come again. There were plenty of new ones too, and for a scary moment, Eden was concerned her predictions that she might not find everyone a space would come true. But they shuffled around and found extra chairs, and with a few of the volunteers – including Eden, Livia and Bilbo – eating in the kitchen, they managed. Eden would have liked to have been in the main dining hall, but she didn’t mind being in the kitchen with such good company, especially when Bilbo started to show her some more of his tricks with knots and napkins and playing cards. She needed to eat on the go anyway if she wanted to keep tabs on how everything was running, so she soon realised sitting in the dining room with everyone else would have been pointless.

At the end of the meal, as everyone started to shuffle out, the compliments on the food and expressions of gratitude were even more heartfelt than they’d been on the first evening. Eden could see how people were already starting to accept her and how they felt more able to be open with her. More people than she could remember told her how she’d saved them from some miserable night on their own with nothing but a slice of toast or a bowl of cornflakes. She’d never have looked at somewhere like Sea Glass Bay and thought there might be want, but it went to show that looks could be deceiving. Perhaps there was want everywhere if you looked hard enough, even in a place as picture-postcard perfect as this.

‘I’ve had a lovely evening,’ Mavis said, grabbing both Eden’s hands.

Eden couldn’t help but stare at her. ‘You’ve worked like mad!’

‘Oh but I had fun! It’s been wonderful to spend time here with you all. A change from being at home in front of the telly. I hope you’ll want me again for the next one.’

‘I’ll never say no to help.’ Eden smiled. ‘I’m just shocked you want to come and do it again.’

‘Of course I do!’ Mavis gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘Goodnight, my love. You’ll let Bilbo know if you want me, won’t you?’

‘I can let you know myself that I definitely want you.’

Bilbo appeared at Mavis’s side and took her arm. ‘Come on – let’s get you home. Goodnight, Eden. Thanks for the lovely dinner.’

‘Thank you, Bilbo – you’ve been brilliant. I don’t know what I would have done without you. In fact, I might hire you for entertainment next time!’

Eden’s smile was stuck to her face as she watched them leave together, Liam trailing after them like a sheepish spare wheel, and she was still smiling as she watched the rest of her helpers follow, until it was just her and Livia, Julia and the children.

‘I think this was better than the first one,’ Julia said. ‘I can’t remember when I enjoyed myself so much grafting. And I’ve spent more time with people I know from the town than I have in years – and some of them I’d forgotten what lovely company they are. I think this could become a real social event, you know. It’s almost like a party in there once we get going.’

‘I can’t believe I was so nervous at the start,’ Eden said.

‘Me neither,’ Julia replied. ‘At least you know now you needn’t have been. Have you told your dad about it? I hope so. I expect he’ll want to come and see what you’re up to at some point? I’d love to meet him if he does, so don’t forget.’

Eden’s smile slipped at the mention of her dad, but she was too happy to let it unsettle her for long. ‘I expect I will, but we’ve got a lot to do yet. Maybe in a few weeks.’

‘Let me know. I’ll cook for him.’

‘He can eat here,’ Livia said. ‘At the hut.’

Julia laughed lightly. ‘He’s going to want more than one meal! I’d love to have him over for dinner, Eden,’ she added. ‘I’ve got to meet the man who raised such a wonderful woman, haven’t I?’

Eden wanted to curl up and die. Wonderful woman? It was hardly the description any of her family would use. If only Julia knew the truth.