Chapter 37 #2
The baby playgroup was finally up and running.
Nathalie had been instrumental at getting these sessions going, building them around what she would have loved to have had on offer when she was a stay-at-home mum with her three.
Helena loved watching the parents and carers chat, listening to them share stories and sympathetic smiles as they found kindred spirits, all going through the same challenges as each other, happy to have a place to come to get themselves out of the house, and people to talk to who understood exactly what they were going through.
It was just as she had hoped: all people needed was a place to go, to forge those connections that were so vital in the fight against loneliness.
Raffy and Sandra had become regular customers, playing board games (Raffy particularly loved the chess set Helena had bought), and attending the daily arts and craft sessions and cookery workshops.
She was glad that Raffy had Sandra, who was very experienced with four grown-up children of her own and had a calm, loving energy.
The café had proved to be a perfect place for Raffy to hang out with children his own age, without breaking Noah’s playdate ban.
She loved watching him run about with his friends, entranced in whatever activity he was doing, or sitting with his nose buried in a book from their library while Sandra sipped a cup of tea and chatted away.
She was fabulously indiscreet, knowing Helena’s history with Noah, and she certainly didn’t hold back on her opinions of him, but only when Raffy was out of earshot.
She told Helena that she worried he drank too much, often finding empties when she cleared up the kitchen, which he apparently left in an absolute state every morning.
Helena thought this was particularly ironic considering the trouble she would have been in if she had ever left a mess in the house.
He hadn’t deigned to so much as touch the washing-up once in all the years they had been together.
Clearly, he thought that should be someone else’s job, not his.
At least none of it was her problem anymore, and she was more than happy to let Sandra vent to her if it helped her get it out of her system.
She knew how frustrating Noah could be better than anyone.
Whenever Helena did see Noah, he was nothing but charming, courteous and respectful, never pushing her into doing anything she didn’t want to, but always extending invitations to stay for a drink, to join him for dinner, or to stay on for lunch whenever she dropped Raffy back home.
She found herself having slightly longer conversations with him each time she saw him, whether they crossed paths in the village or when she delivered Raffy back from one of their playdates.
She didn’t know what he did when she took Raffy off, but suspected he had a beer or two because on occasion he had seemed a little tipsy to her when she dropped Raffy back.
Mindful of the slippery slope of his father’s addiction, she kept an eye on his recycling bin, but it never grew too full and she didn’t worry for Raffy being in his care.
She had to hand it to him, his performance as the ‘changed man’ – if that’s what it was – was Oscar worthy.
At times the act he was putting on made her question herself for a millisecond.
Had she read too much into the letter she had found from Kate?
What if he really had been buried in some dark depression following her death, acting out of character and taking his anger and suffering out on the person closest to him?
Perhaps it had been some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder?
What if the therapy he had been having really had worked, just as she had always hoped that it might?
What if he had made amends with his dad when he had gone back home to New Zealand and that had helped heal some of his childhood trauma?
But every time she found herself making excuses for him, or buying into his bullshit, she reminded herself that it was nothing but an act.
As soon as the question arose in her mind she would stamp it out just as quickly.
She had to admit she found it hard to try and maintain a cool, detached demeanour with him all the time.
There was still so much emotion there, she had loved him so much, and for such a long time.
As he had said that first time they had seen each other, Noah was clearly in it for the long haul, determined to prove that he wasn’t going anywhere, that he was waiting for her, and would wait for as long as it took for her to realise how much he had changed.
It was a very strange situation to be in.
One thing was for sure, she didn’t dare mention any of these fleeting, treacherous thoughts to Nathalie.
Helena knew she definitely would not understand.
And there was no way she would utter a word to Johnny.
What Johnny and Helena shared felt in some ways sacred to her, her safe haven, he was the one person she felt most herself with.
With Johnny she felt like the new Helena, she wouldn’t want him to think that she was in any way conflicted in her feelings towards Noah.
Despite his first-hand experience from his break-up with Naomi, she worried that he wouldn’t understand the complexity of all the layers of emotion that lay between her and Noah.
She suspected no one but them really could.
Johnny popped into the Community Café every day between jobs, soon becoming one of her best customers.
He refused any freebies and entertained Dawn, Jennie and the other regular volunteers with stories from his gardening clients, especially Malcolm, stories about whom were always a crowd pleaser.
His reputation preceding him, Malcolm himself came in from time to time, instantly recognisable from his purple hair, and having made a bit of a name for himself selling his potions at the fete.
Johnny had volunteered to run some gardening sessions as part of the summer holiday workshops, teaching people basic skills like how to prune and what constituted a weed, how to take cuttings and sow seeds, often using the flower beds at the front of the village hall and around the pond.
These gardening classes had proved very popular with both kids and adults alike, and Helena was amazed at how much she had now learned from Johnny over the past months gardening together.
She was finally beginning to get the hang of it all and couldn’t wait to have her own garden one day.
Raffy, especially, seemed to take a real shine to Johnny.
They developed an easy rapport, and could often be found watering the plants together, tending to the insect hotel, or performing some other task in the flower beds, while Sandra nattered away to one of her friends.
Derek also came in almost daily, more often than not coinciding his visits with Margery’s.
They would sit and drink cups of tea, eating pieces of cake, and reminiscing about the old days, telling each other stories about Jeremy and Mary, about Derek’s son and grandchildren, about loved ones who were no longer with them.
It was truly heart-warming to watch their friendship grow, and Helena suspected that they may be becoming more than just friends.
There were also many other faces who started to appear on a regular basis, building the café into their routine, coming to depend on it for all the reasons Helena had hoped it might be used for.
It seemed Helena had been on to something; people were desperate for a place just like it.