Chapter Twenty-Four
The blazing fury that someone was planning the downfall of Erin’s beloved café for their own gain raged during that night, and she used the time she tossed and turned to try to devise a way to make enough money to thwart their plans.
But one thought kept trying to extinguish the flames of hope; it didn’t matter how strong her will to survive was, if she didn’t have the money for the rent, she didn’t have a business.
But she was damned if she was going to give in without exploring every available option.
It was time to be brave. Change was coming whatever happened, and she had to try, at least, to make that work in her favour.
She thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t have an early start, because she didn’t manage to drop off properly until the morning light began to creep into her bedroom.
Hafsa didn’t usually have the time to come into the café during the day, so Erin was surprised to find her sitting in one of the armchairs reading a book when she started her shift that afternoon.
‘Hello,’ she said, taking in Hafsa’s cream flares with matching waistcoat.
‘Good to see you. You’re looking gorgeous, as ever. ’
‘This old thing?’ said Hafsa, grinning and tugging at the bottom of the waistcoat. ‘I was hoping to see you today. Do you have time for a chat?’
‘Course,’ said Erin. The only viable solution she’d come up with during the night was to call the bank to try to arrange a bigger overdraft to give her some time to build the business up again.
The thought of taking on more risk terrified her.
She would do it, but she wasn’t looking forward to that conversation and was happy for the distraction.
She glanced around the room, at the woman with a toddler in a highchair holding a chewed rice cake between her fingers, and the young man with a half-finished toastie on a china plate in front of him, so engrossed in the book he was reading, he seemed to have forgotten to finish his lunch.
The smell of coffee and grilled cheese filled the air, and Erin felt more certain than ever that she shouldn’t let this oasis of calm slip through her fingers. She sat next to Hafsa. ‘What’s up?’
Hafsa put her book down on the low pewter-topped table. ‘I wanted to talk to you about the last pages. I haven’t done mine yet. Have you?’
‘I haven’t even started,’ said Erin, more than a little relieved she wasn’t the only one who was behind on the assignment.
‘It’s not homework, though. We’re not going to pass or fail if we don’t do it.
’ If she and Hafsa both decided not to write anything, no one could make them.
On top of everything else she had to worry about, the pages had been constantly tapping away at the back of her mind, like a teacher knocking their red pen against a desk, and now maybe it could disappear from her endless to-do list, and her lungs seemed to have the capacity for more air.
‘I’m such a swot,’ said Hafsa. ‘I’ve never not completed a piece of work on time in my life.’
‘You do give off head girl energy,’ said Erin.
‘I don’t suppose you get through medical school if you’re a slacker like me.
’ She wasn’t really a slacker, but she imagined Hafsa tried her utmost at everything she put her hand to, so it didn’t feel right to put herself in the same category as her impressive friend.
‘I imagine it’s harder for you to renege on this than me, but if we both give up on it, then at least we’re failing together. ’
‘Failing. Urgh.’ Hafsa shuddered. ‘I don’t like the idea of that.’
‘Okay, not failing. Choosing to spend our precious time on other things.’ Erin should not have used the word failing with someone who probably ironed their duvet covers.
That was one of her metrics for how efficient someone appeared to be.
Ironing your duvet cover was top level – performing to high standards even when other people weren’t looking.
But you could go too far. If she thought someone probably ironed their knickers, then they had too much time on their hands or were utterly bonkers.
Erin aspired to iron her duvet covers but never had the time.
Hafsa watched Riley move around the room, stopping to chat to customers, then scatter dog biscuits in a bowl for a cute French bulldog before disappearing into the kitchen.
‘I feel like I’d be letting Riley and the others down,’ she said, thoughtfully.
‘And it’s not even about failing.’ She pinched her lips.
‘Although that’s not a word I’m familiar with. ’
‘Of course,’ said Erin, with mock seriousness. ‘Perish the thought.’ Her chance of having a partner in crime was fading away.
‘I think I’m struggling with it because I really want to do it, but I’m not sure how.
I haven’t pinpointed what I want my next chapter to look like.
And that’s new for me.’ She picked up the book she’d been reading.
‘I know I want it to involve supporting young people with autism, so I’ve been reading around the subject, like the good little student I am.
This book’s brilliant.’ Erin read the title: Strong Female Character.
‘It’s Fern Brady’s memoir and it’s so funny and so sad at the same time.
She wasn’t diagnosed until she was an adult, and her life was so much harder because of it.
I know Zahra’s lucky because she has parents who’ll advocate for her and support her, but so many kids aren’t.
I feel like I want to be part of making it easier, but … well, how?’
‘What does your heart tell you to do?’ Even as she said it, Erin knew that question had a multitude of answers.
Added to which, what Hafsa wanted to do and what she was able to do with all the different variables in her life could be two vastly different things.
She was struggling with that little conundrum herself. God, decisions were hard.
‘That’s the trouble. I don’t know. Every time I think about it, my brain kind of freezes.
I’ve been on one path my whole life. I did everything expected of me, and I’m not saying I minded.
It made things simpler, if anything. I knew I was expected to do well in my exams, and get to medical school, and I was okay with that.
I met Amir in my third year, and since he was training to be a medic as well, things just slotted into place.
Since we wanted a family, we decided I would be a GP because it was the most regular hours, and then we had the kids and I thought we’d carry on …
but Zahra’s diagnosis, then Riley and Adam asking us to think about our futures, together those two things have set my head spinning in a different direction. ’
‘So, your last chapters are different to what you thought you’d be writing?’ Erin could relate to that.
Hafsa bit her lip, her expression uncertain.
‘I thought I knew my trajectory, and now I’m not so sure, and that’s been destabilising, to say the least. We have a mortgage and three kids.
Amir is supportive. If I do want a career change, he’ll help, but he’s getting frustrated with me vacillating the way I am.
He wants to know what my plans are, but like I said, whenever I try to give it proper thought, my brain refuses to play ball. It’s like my neural pathways shut off.’
‘Because it’s too scary to think about change?
’ Erin found it hard to believe someone as put together and academically brilliant as Hafsa had the same response to the future as she did.
She thought back to the conversation with Adam last night.
He was frightened to make changes too. Maybe her responses to uncertainty were more normal than she thought.
‘Yes. What if I make the wrong choice? It’s not that I’m unhappy in my work, and it can be fulfilling, but I have a hankering to make a real difference, and I think if I could decide on how I’d like to go about doing that, I could be more useful to young people like Zahra.’
‘So, are you thinking about retraining?’ Should Erin retrain?
Even the thought of it made her sag. She was in her mid-fifties, running out of time to turn her hand to something new.
And where would she find the money for any kind of training, or the time for that matter?
No. The Bookmark was where her heart was.
She was good at the job she already had, she just needed to try harder to make it work.
‘Maybe.’ Hafsa curled her lip. ‘See, I’m all over the place. I half wish this had never come up so I could carry on plodding along with my head in the sand.’
‘You and me both,’ said Erin, with feeling.
‘And there’s something else that’s bothering me.
’ Hafsa picked a hair from where it had stuck to her dark red lipstick.
‘If I do leave medicine, I’m scared my parents will be disappointed with me.
’ She took up a napkin from the table and wiped a red stain from her fingers.
‘How pathetic is that? I’m a forty-two-year-old mother of three, and I’m still worried about what my parents think. ’
‘I don’t think we ever stop wanting validation from our parents,’ said Erin.
‘Even though my mum’s not around anymore, I still always wonder what she’d make of my decisions.
’ She turned her gaze to the record player, and wished with all her heart that her mother was there to choose the next track, to decide whether to change the fruit and vegetable supplier, to tell Erin how to earn enough for the rent rise.
Her heart ached for her. She wanted to be a child again, so that all the hard choices were someone else’s to make.