Chapter 19
After my sister’s phone sent me straight to voicemail on Sunday, I ended the call.
I’d left a message on Saturday evening, and she’d not tried to contact me again, so I assumed it wasn’t urgent.
I did have a brief conversation with Bronte, who was excited about Christmas, even more about moving in with Zendon after Christmas, enraptured with the photos of Ernest I’d sent and relieved to hear I was making some friends.
The only time her mood dropped was when I asked how her mum was.
‘I don’t know. She’s still being weird. She alternates between acting like some trad-wife without the husband, cleaning and cooking and making us come and hug her all the time, then lying in bed in a stupor while Lennon and Harley run wild.
I was worried she might have gone bipolar, but it doesn’t really fit.
Zendon’s mum reckons it’s perimenopause.
Said she went bonkers until she got on HRT. ’
‘Thirty-eight is young for the menopause.’ Not impossible, though. I’d worked with a client who thought she had early-onset dementia until she got her hormones checked, and she was younger than me.
‘Whatever it is, she needs help. I know she’s paranoid about you trying to fix her, but I think she might really need it this time.’
I left another message and sent a quick text. The thought of driving down there to see her in person gave me stomach cramps. It was the last thing I needed right now.
I decided I’d wait a few more days.
I spent Sunday morning planning and the afternoon putting the plans into action at a retail park full of DIY superstores, followed by a trip to a café that had recently closed.
Thanks to my woolly hat, glasses and scruffy coat, I only heard one person call something about ‘losing at life’, and was hopeful no one else took any candid snaps.
Our advent challenge word was INDULGENT, so I also bought myself a little stash of expensive toiletries, and that evening had my first bath in years, complete with candles, a million bubbles, music and a glass of gin and tonic.
I did the whole works – exfoliation, hair removal, hair mask, foot scrub, mud thing on my face.
Aware that this sudden interest in beautification had everything to do with learning to care for myself, and absolutely nothing to do with meeting a gorgeous man who I thrilled at the thought of caring for me, my advent challenge photo was of my freshly painted toenails poking out from the bubbles, candle in the background.
Will sent one of their Christmas tree, now adorned with Christmas cookies the size of small dinner plates.
Each one was covered in a mix of glittery sprinkles, sugar holly leaves, ladybirds, Easter chicks and random edible eyes.
Bonnie, Edith and Jordan were in front of the tree, each pointing to a cookie.
Bonnie had green icing smeared across one cheek.
I compared it to my photo and it was as if gratitude and envy, loneliness and blissful solitude were all swirling together on my own imaginary Christmas cookie.
Having given Samira a couple of days to recover from my shock intrusion into her kitchen sanctuary, before we made any further progress, I had to tackle the situation.
There was no way I could be involved with helping turn the café around if she flipped out every time she saw me.
Merry managed to persuade her to come in on Monday, and Samira allowed me to speak to her in the safety of the kitchen but insisted on keeping her apron over her face.
We spent fifteen minutes of low-key chatting about baking, gently encouraged by Merry and Joel, at which point I deliberately confused choux and filo pastry, and she promptly dropped the apron to correct me.
It was clear that Samira’s passion for baked goods had been the only thing keeping them going. Her mother was Lebanese, and she often added a Middle Eastern or Mediterranean twist to her creations. As well as the pistachio baklava, Merry told me the orange blossom cake was popular.
Providing afternoon teas for organisations including the cricket club and U3A alongside referrals from a local funeral director were the café’s only consistent income. It wasn’t hard to grasp why the bulk of their business was external catering.
‘Why don’t you have afternoon teas on the main menu?’ I asked, yet again baffled at Merry’s lack of business acumen.
‘People never ordered them. Too expensive,’ Merry replied. ‘They’ll pay for a sandwich, a scone or a cake. Not a plate of each.’
I could see why people wanting a lovely afternoon tea weren’t going to come here.
The problem was, no one else was coming here, either.
I was relieved at how Samira kept the kitchen gleaming.
Darya only worked a couple of hours three times a week, and a professional kitchen needed cleaning at least once a day.
I mean, so did the café, as the stains and sticky tables had proven, but today was all about encouraging Samira.
We tried squeezing into Merry’s office, but it was far too cramped, so we asked Darya if we could use her living room.
‘Well, I can hardly say no to my landlord and boss, can I?’ she said, arching her eyebrow.
‘You can join us if you want,’ Merry offered.
‘Thank you, but I’m busy today,’ Darya said, with a proud tilt of her head. ‘I am taking part in the festive swim in Bigley Lake. If I enjoy it, I am thinking this will become an annual tradition.’
‘What if you don’t?’ Joel asked, creasing his forehead. ‘It’s very cold today.’
‘I am also trying out community carol singing and gift wrapping in the Victoria Shopping Centre to raise money for the children’s hospice. Both excellent activities for keeping grinches at bay. I am confident I’ll enjoy at least one of them. Help yourself to coffee.’
Once we’d whipped a base coat of paint on the walls, we spent the rest of the day discussing the menu.
Joel and Merry had been visiting other cafés all weekend and were bursting with ideas, some of them great, others nonsensical.
I insisted Merry considered some basic business ingredients, including profit margins, stock control and whether they had space for a hog roast. After a lot of wrangling, brainstorming and Samira going downstairs to calm down in the kitchen a couple of times, we finally agreed a menu that was interesting, manageable and, crucially, wouldn’t lose money. Today’s advent challenge? EXCITING.
We snapped a photo of the four of us (Samira peeking out from the side of her apron) and added that to the chat. We were excited.
Merry and I were painting the café walls in Lincoln Green when Lola turned up the following lunchtime brandishing a bottle of Christmas cake-flavoured gin and a bulging tote bag.
‘Right then, ladies, put down your paintbrushes,’ she ordered. ‘I’ve got drinks, snacks, a fab festive playlist and a blanket. We’re going to have a picnic and then sit and watch the sunset from the top of Broad Hill.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Lola, but we’re in the middle of something.’ Merry twisted around on her stepladder. ‘We don’t have time to trek up Broad Hill and sit in a freezing-cold, waterlogged field eating sandwiches.’
‘Didn’t you see the advent word?’ Lola asked, her grin undaunted.
Today Darya had chosen SPONTANEOUS. I’d been pondering a few spontaneous acts, but discounted all of them because thinking about it meant they were no longer spontaneous.
‘And what, you’ve spontaneously bunked off work today?’ Merry asked.
Lola pressed one hand against her faux-fur coat as if wounded. ‘What? You know how seriously I take my job. I booked today off to help Fletcher do his Christmas shopping.’
Merry took her time wobbling down the ladder. She rested her roller back in the paint tray, her mouth a flat line. ‘What’s his excuse for ditching you this time? Busy on his Xbox, or was he out with the boys last night?’
Lola tipped her chin up. ‘He’s filling in a job application, actually.
Being a supportive girlfriend, I did the shopping.
It took a lot less time than we’d planned, because we were going to have lunch at that new tapas place and then look at rings.
So now I have time for something spontaneous. ’ She gave the bottle a wave.
‘You were going to what?’ Merry jammed her fists on her hips.
She was wearing a brown boiler suit that belonged to Ray, her husband, with a wide belt around her middle that matched the cream bandana she wore over her bristly hair.
It was as if she was trying to look like a chocolate cake.
‘Lola, this man stood you up for engagement ring shopping and you responded by buying presents for his family, who don’t even like you.
I bet he’s not even offered to pay for them.
How about you spontaneously tell him to jog on? ’
Lola had two bright spots on her cheeks. ‘He wants a job before we get engaged so he can contribute equally to our relationship and I don’t have to keep paying for everything. Fletcher’s finally stepping up and doing something for us – for me – and you still find fault with it.’
‘What’s the job?’ I asked, hoping to ease the tension. ‘I could help with the application, if he wants.’
‘It’s at the tile factory next to the recycling centre.’ Lola gave me a grateful smile.
Merry folded her arms. She let me break the bad news.
‘TC Tiles?’
Lola nodded. ‘Just in the warehouse, but if he does well, he can work up to manager by the end of the year.’
‘Lola, that’s closed. When I took the old café chairs to the recycling centre last week, there were signs everywhere. It’s all boarded up.’
‘What?’ She jerked her head as though I’d slapped her, the flush draining from her face.
This sparked a far better spontaneous idea.