Chapter 22
PAUL
Once everyone had left the café and we had done all we could before speaking to the insurance company about fixing the damage, Mum told me to come to the house for Sunday lunch, and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
My childhood home was a short walk from the High Street.
My parents had grown up in Birchbrook too and this was their first house after they got married, and they soon had me.
My grandmother owned the café back then and left it to my dad, who’d always worked there too.
Sometimes, I felt proud of carrying on that legacy; other times, I felt like I should be doing something ‘more’ with my life, whatever that might mean.
Mum put a chicken in to roast while my dad peeled the potatoes and I started to bake a Victoria sponge as that’s what they wanted for dessert.
I had helped my parents bake things for the café ever since I was little and although I wasn’t as good of a cook as my mum, I was probably a better baker now.
It was something that always relaxed me.
I didn’t need to think, I could just focus on the task in hand but today, it was impossible not to think.
‘I forgot to ask with everything – how was your date with Holly last night?’ Mum asked, suddenly breaking the silence in their country-style kitchen.
‘It wasn’t a date,’ I said quickly.
‘Oh, we thought that maybe you’d finally told her how you felt,’ Mum said, exchanging a look with my dad. That explained their casual reaction to me seeing her last night; they thought we’d get a happy ending.
‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ I said, trying not to sound bitter but it was hard not to. Yesterday, I’d felt more than I had for years when I kissed Holly but now everything had gone up shit’s creek.
‘It’s not that,’ Mum said with a weary sigh. ‘We can just see you aren’t happy. You haven’t been for a long time. I was hoping maybe seeing Holly again might change things but…’ She trailed off.
‘Maybe we should talk about the future,’ Dad picked up. ‘Of the café, I mean.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked as I poured the cake mixture into a baking tin.
Mum left the counter and came to sit at the kitchen table where I was. ‘Maybe you need to admit that the café isn’t what you want.’
Dad nodded as he chopped carrots. ‘Running a family business isn’t for everyone. We’ve loved it but when you turned eighteen, maybe we were too happy you decided to stay in Birchbrook, too happy to really ask you whether you wanted to do something else instead.’
‘We’ll probably be closed this week,’ Mum continued while my head spun from everyone telling me things about myself today.
‘It will be a lot of work getting back on track to open for our busy season so maybe it’s a good moment to take stock, make sure this is what we all really want.
’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear Craig talking to you about wanting to buy the café. ’
‘Oh.’ I carried the baking tin over to the oven and slid it inside with the chicken and the roast potatoes.
It gave me a second to let that information sink in.
I went back to the table and sat down. Dad joined us both.
‘I suppose I felt like I didn’t have much choice when I was younger,’ I said slowly.
‘I didn’t get into the university I wanted, only the local one so I stayed at home and I needed money.
Working in the café was sensible, and when you offered me the chance to live in the apartment and make it my own, that seemed like a good idea.
And after university, I didn’t know what else I wanted to do. I was grateful to have the café but…’
‘You also resented it?’ Mum asked me gently.
‘Maybe a bit. I suppose I did have dreams of living in the city but when I thought about what I would do there, how I’d actually make it happen, I came up blank.’
‘You missed Holly too,’ Dad said then. ‘We knew how much she meant to you. I’d understand if her coming back here’s made you want to go back to the city again.’
I frowned as I thought about whether that was true or not.
Seeing Holly again had brought back all my feelings of not being good enough for her, feeling rejected, missing her and wishing I’d told her how I felt but also being too scared to do so.
I suppose I had wondered if my life would have been better if I had left with her ten years ago.
But then there was also so much I wouldn’t have done if I had.
I wouldn’t have learned to cook and bake or do the books for our business and make it more profitable.
I wouldn’t have started the café van and manned it at Birch Tree Farm events, which had doubled our annual profits.
I wouldn’t have met Elliot and Lewis. I might not still have skating as my hobby.
I wouldn’t have spent as much time with my parents.
I wouldn’t have my friends at the pub. And I wouldn’t be part of the Birchbrook community.
That felt strange to think about. My whole life was in this town.
‘I was going to tell you I wanted to leave,’ I confessed then.
‘Then Holly showed up. I thought that was a sign that I should go. But seeing the town through her eyes made me see how much it’s changed since she was here and that maybe we have been a part of that change.
And when Mary called me to say the café was in trouble, I was panicked.
I walked in and instinct took over. To save it. ’
‘Really?’ Mum tried not to smile but she couldn’t help it.
‘Yeah. When Craig talked about buying it from us, it felt wrong. We own the café. It’s ours.’ I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry if I haven’t seen how lucky I am. If I’ve been, well, a dick.’
‘Paul,’ Mum admonished me while my dad chuckled.
‘You can be a bit grumpy, son,’ he said with a wink.
‘So people keep telling me,’ I replied dryly.
‘Maybe I’ve been feeling sorry for myself.
That I didn’t get the life I wanted, but you know what?
This life is pretty great.’ I thought about how I’d pitied myself ever since that letter came rejecting me from the university Holly had got in to.
I had felt like a failure and never got out of that headspace.
That had messed up relationships, and made me feel down and lost, and take that out on the people around me.
But there was a lot in my life to be grateful for.
‘I want to change,’ I told my parents. ‘I need to start enjoying the life I’ve got and not keep wondering if there’s a better one out there.
I like it here. Seeing everyone helping us in the café was a wake-up call.
I wouldn’t get that in the city. Life there isn’t this dream. We all have shit to put up with.’
My mum tutted at me swearing but she also wiped away a tear in her eye.
‘You think we can sort things out at the café in time for the Christmas season?’ my dad asked.
‘When did we ever give up on anything around here?’
‘One day, we’ll want to retire…’ Mum said, trailing off uncertainly.
I nodded. ‘And I’ll take the business over when that day comes,’ I promised.
Their eyes lit up and I knew then I’d been a selfish idiot for a long time.
I hadn’t realised how my moods had affected them.
They thought I was miserable but really, I was just telling myself I should be because my dreams when I was eighteen hadn’t panned out.
But whose did? When I was five, I wanted to be a famous footballer.
Dreams shifted as you grew up and that was okay.
I thought about Holly saying her business was in trouble. I had imagined she’d been living a dream life in the city. I had felt envious of that and like I was stuck in Birchbrook in comparison. But that feeling had changed. Holly wasn’t living a perfect life in the city. There was no such thing.
Birchbrook was a place that a lot of people would love to live in. I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and make the best of what I had. Holly would be leaving soon and I didn’t want to feel miserable when she left. I wanted to be happy, whether she was here or not.
* * *
I went home after my parents and I had made a plan as to how we could reopen the café next Monday.
It would be hard work but we couldn’t afford to lose any more business than that.
I suggested when we reopened, we did so with our festive menu and decorations for Christmas up to make a big thing of it.
They thought that was a great idea. For the first time in a long time, I felt energised work wise.
But I knew I needed to do the same in my personal life.
I had kept previous partners at arm’s-length and that hadn’t been fair on them.
Or myself. Maybe I had always wondered what if when it came to Holly.
Maybe because I hadn’t felt good enough for her, I hadn’t felt good enough for anyone.
But I couldn’t live like that. I didn’t want to be alone forever.
I wanted what my parents had. I needed to change.
I got back to my apartment and went into my bathroom.
I knew I couldn’t change Holly’s mind about our kiss being a mistake.
She just wanted to be friends. That would be hard.
I was attracted to her and felt a connection with her that I hadn’t felt with any other woman but I also knew I’d only get hurt if anything more did happen between us.
Things in the city might be complicated for her but that was her home now.
Mine was Birchbrook. Two different worlds.
We were different people. Not those same teenage best friends.
So, I needed to be friendly to her while she was here but have no expectations or hope.
I needed to stop thinking about her and work on myself instead.
Looking into the mirror, I realised I looked tired and scruffy and older than my twenty-eight years.
Maybe Willow, Sabrina and Daisy had had a point when they teased me about my appearance.
I knew my ex, Rach, had hated my messy beard.
I thought about Dylan with his light stubble or his friend Blake with his perfectly shaped beard.
My hair was also looking too long and out of control and in need of a cut.
Each morning, I rolled out of bed and had a shower then pulled on the same old clothes. I really didn’t do much to myself. No wonder I didn’t feel great most of the time. And I’d been single for two years.
I yanked open the cabinet above the sink and pulled out the electric razor my parents had got me for Christmas a few years ago. I expected it had been a hint back then that I’d ignored. But now I’d promised them a new attitude and I wanted a new appearance to match.