The Second Chance Tea Shop (Little Somerby)

by Fay Keenan

  ‘Oh, Matt, have you really learned nothing about women after all these years?’ Tara held his gaze, unafraid.

  Matthew’s pent-up rage boiled over. Grabbing Tara by the arm, he frogmarched her to the front door. ‘If you so much as breathe in Anna’s direction, Tara, I will make sure that you never see Meredith again. And don’t think I won’t.’ He let go of her arm as she started to struggle like a cat. ‘Do you understand me?’

  Tara, frightened by Matthew’s anger, nodded.

  ‘I’ll see you on the other side of the water,’ he said, by way of parting.

  As he closed the door on his ex-wife, Matthew put his head in his hands. He felt as though he was drowning. A terrible tale pervaded the Carter family business, a kind of ghost story that, through its telling, had got more and more visceral down the generations. It was said that, on the night the newest of the oak cider vats was filled with fermenting apple juice, one of the workers, drunk on too much of the finished version of the product, had fallen head first into a vat. He’d flailed for some time before, exhausted, he’d drowned. Four generations on, gasping for air in the aftermath of his conversation with Tara, Matthew had never identified with the unfortunate soul so strongly. He knew full well he couldn’t trust Tara to keep her mouth shut, and threatening her with Meredith had been lower than low. He was going to drown.

  42

  With Tara so much in evidence at the hospital, Anna was glad of the tea shop. The reassuring repetitiveness of serving customers, combined with the sight of unfamiliar tourist faces, as well as those of the locals, was enough to keep her from brooding too heavily on the sudden distance from Matthew. She realised she was going to miss the tea shop, when Ursula and Brian returned from Italy. Even though her initial contract as manager was only for a year, she couldn’t help but hope it might be extended. It gave her a much needed anchor.

  Meredith, driven to distraction by the bedrest, had been texting Anna regularly, and was clearly getting stronger by the day, which Anna appreciated as, in a move to give Matthew some space, she hadn’t visited her since she took Ellie up to the hospital. The doctors were sufficiently reassured by her vital signs that they had allowed her down onto the children’s ward for the duration. Anna greeted the news that the doctors hoped to discharge Meredith, and even clear her to fly, with a mixture of relief and apprehension. Anna knew, of course, that Meredith hoped to spend time with Tara over the summer, but she still worried for her.

  Through Pat, Anna also knew that Matthew was back at home, though he hadn’t graced her doorstep once. She guessed he must be exhausted by his trips to and from the hospital as well as catching up on the work that had piled up during his absence, but she wished he’d confide in her, lean on her a little. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that he might be blaming her for the accident. After all, she’d been the one to encourage him to allow Meredith to see Flynn in the first place. She knew it was irrational to think that way, but in the absence of clear answers, her mind whirled.

  Putting on her green apron for another shift at the tea shop, Anna was grateful for the distraction. There was always someone to talk to, and many of the customers were bringers of intriguing titbits of information. As she checked the small wooden tables for any stray cups or cutlery, she wondered if she’d switched off her phone.

  Turning back to the counter from the coffee machine, she noticed that Jen, Matthew’s PA, had walked in. She felt the familiar lurch in her stomach that signalled her reaction to anything even vaguely connected to Matthew. Steeling herself, she forced a smile. ‘Hi Jen, what can I get you?’

  Jen smiled back. ‘Just a flat white to take away, thanks.’ She paused for a moment, as if wondering whether or not to continue the conversation. ‘How are you? How’s Ellie?’

  ‘We’re fine, thanks,’ Anna replied automatically. ‘She’s busy at pre-school and things have been pretty hectic here because of the tourists, so…’ she trailed off, unsure of how to proceed. She and Jen had never spoken more than a few words, and most of those had been over the telephone.

  ‘It’s great that Meredith will be allowed home in a few days,’ Jen said. ‘We’ve all been worried about her.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Anna replied. ‘I’m sure Matthew will be pleased to get her back home.’

  Jen gave her a curious look. ‘I’m sure he will. Any messages for him, as I’m going that way?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘I’ll see him sometime.’ She turned away to make Jen’s coffee before the other woman could see her flaming cheeks. Well-intentioned as Jen was, Anna couldn’t handle the possibility of being cross-questioned at the moment. When she turned back again, Jen was holding out a five-pound note.

  ‘Take care, Anna,’ Jen said, as Anna gave her the coffee and her change.

  ‘You too.’ And with that, Jen walked back out of the tea shop. Anna had to fight every instinct she had not to race after her and get her to tell Matthew how much she missed him. She remembered what Charlotte had said; Matthew would come to her in his own time. She was amazed at how hard she was finding the wait.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Lizzie, who’d popped in to pick up her mobile phone that she’d mistakenly left out the back the day before, asked as she came back through.

  ‘Jen’s always seems a bit scary,’ Anna replied. ‘She seems to know more about anything than anyone!’

  ‘Hmm,’ Lizzie replied. ‘Are you sure that’s all?’

  ‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ Anna said. She couldn’t bring herself to discuss things yet; after all, she wasn’t even sure what there was to talk about. Turning back to the cool cabinet, she busied herself with adding last night’s baked goods to the display.

  *

  Another week on and still with no contact from Matthew, Charlotte’s advice was proving impossible to stick to. Leaving the tea shop the moment she’d cashed up, Anna hurried round to Cowslip Barn, unable to wait any longer.

  Matthew, when he opened the door, looked like he hadn’t slept in at least a week. ‘Anna, hi,’ he said guardedly.

  ‘Hi,’ Anna replied. ‘Have you had your phone switched off?’

  Matthew looked quizzical. ‘Um, no, I – er – just…’ He shifted on the spot, like a naughty schoolboy caught scrumping apples.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘It’s not really a good time.’ Matthew refused to meet her gaze.

  ‘Please?’

  Conceding, Matthew opened the door wider and let her in.

  ‘So I’ve sent you a few messages,’ Anna said, when they’d gone through to the old parlour.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry, I should have replied…’ Matthew went to stand by the bay window. The white light pouring in to the room cast his face in shadow.

  ‘Is everything OK? I mean, I know everything’s not OK, it’s just…’ Anna cursed herself inwardly. Matthew kept his gaze firmly on the garden outside. She so desperately wanted to cross the room and hold him, but the tension that emanated from him held her back.

  ‘Have I done something to upset you?’ Anna asked.

  There was a pause; Anna couldn’t read his expression against the light from the window.

  ‘If it is something I’ve done…’ Anna could feel the panic rising within her, and the frustration at the brick wall Matthew had put up around himself.

  Matthew’s hands were clenched by his sides. ‘I can’t do this right now, Anna.’

  Anna took a step nearer to him and raised a hand to his cheek. ‘Do what? If it’s me, please, tell me what I’ve done and we can sort it out.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Matthew deliberately stepped away, turning his face to the window so she couldn’t see his expression. ‘I need a bit of time to get my head around some things.’

  ‘Anything I can help with?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Not really,’ he said evasively. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but can we talk later? I’ll give you a ring.’

  Anna took a step back, stung by the offhand rebuttal. ‘OK. If you’re sure. But y
ou know where I am if you need to talk.’

  Matthew nodded, but showed no sign of moving.

  ‘I’ll see you soon,’ Anna murmured. When Matthew gave no further response, she took it as her cue to leave.

  Blinking back sudden tears, she hurried to the hallway and back out of the front door. As she closed it behind her, she looked automatically at her watch. She was already five minutes late picking Ellie up from nursery. She hoped the rather formidable leader of the group wouldn’t castigate her too strongly; she wasn’t sure she’d keep it together if she did.

  43

  With a heavy heart, Matthew watched Meredith walk through the departure gates at Bristol Airport. She’d agreed that she would still go and stay with Tara for a couple of weeks. She looked frailer than she actually was, and it had taken a good deal of soul-searching for Matthew to finally agree to let her go to America without him. But once Meredith had been cleared to fly, Tara had been adamant. She and Tara had built some bridges and both were keen not to let this new relationship lapse.

  In two weeks’ time, Matthew would fly out to Florida to collect her. He was dreading the trip; he didn’t want to come face to face with Tara again, and the thought of being four thousand miles away from Anna, even though his exile from her was self-imposed, was tearing him apart. Somehow, being in the same village made things easier. Putting an ocean between them should have seemed helpful; instead it made him yearn for her all the more.

  Even back in his darkest days when Tara had left, he’d never felt such a physical sense of loss. He’d met Tara’s desertion with anger; it was as if he’d always known she’d betray him, even when she’d said ‘I do’. He’d been angry at himself for allowing things to get so far; for blindly clinging on to a relationship he knew couldn’t be saved. Much as he hated to admit it, it was his total inability to communicate with Tara that had been the final nail in the coffin of his dead marriage; her affair with Jonathan had been mere earth on top. He couldn’t maintain his rage with them both indefinitely; but he’d been too proud to admit he’d had as equal a part in it as they had. It was easier to continue to be angry; to deny responsibility.

  But losing Anna was like losing a limb. After years of protecting himself, of shielding his heart and using his head, he’d let himself love again. He’d come to life. Anna had shone a light on him that had ripened his shrivelled heart, and for the first time since Tara, he’d felt something so beautiful, so special, he’d questioned the reality of it on many occasions. And just as he was allowing himself to think of the future, he’d destroyed it. The scars, so newly healed, had been ripped open again; and what was worse was that this time he had to accept total responsibility for the pain. Even more difficult to bear was the knowledge he’d not only broken his own heart, but Anna’s as well.

  At a loss as to what to do with himself after he’d returned from the airport, Matthew decided to bury himself in paperwork. Today had brought another bombshell; the FastStream deal had been all but signed off at the end of last week, but now, regardless of the time and money that had been spent, the American company were looking to pull out and set up a new deal with Carter’s arch rival, Simpsons Cider. Based in Norfolk, their ethos was apparently ‘more in line with FastStream’s core values’. To Matthew, it sounded like the biggest pile of bullshit this side of the local mushroom farm, and, despite his best intentions not to let it get to him personally, he couldn’t help mentally reviewing everything he knew about corporate law, which, after twenty odd years, was neither extensive nor current. In despair, he’d called in his legal advisor, and, almost as an afterthought, Jonathan, for crisis talks that afternoon.

  In the end, it was Jonathan who’d suggested he had a quiet word with FastStream’s Head of Distribution, Chris McIvor, who was on business in the UK this week. Despite Matthew’s reservations, he’d agreed to let Jonathan investigate in his own way. Now, all he could do was wait; something he wasn’t particularly good at.

  But even this crisis couldn’t take his mind off Anna. Chucking down the contents of his in tray in frustration, he’d locked his office and headed home via the chip shop. But he couldn’t settle in the house, and Sefton was agitating for his evening walk, so he’d grabbed his coat. Automatically, he’d found himself heading towards Flowerdown Lane but, steeling himself, he turned away back in the direction of the farm.

  For once, Matthew broke his own self-imposed rule and grabbed a bottle of ‘Red Rover,’ the strongest variety of cider Carter’s produced, from the shelf in the shop. It was long past midnight, and he knew Anna would be in bed by now. He pictured her as she might have been earlier that evening, holding a little, forlorn hope he might make a detour on his way back from Sefton’s late walk, then sitting in front of some mindless television. Eventually, she’d resign herself to the fact he wasn’t going to call in, and head off to bed. Then, he castigated himself for the self-indulgence; more likely, she’d be sharing a bottle of wine with Charlotte and cutting her losses.

  He knew it was unfair to her; everything that had happened had been painfully unfair, but he was at a loss as to how to make things better. Instead of levelling with her, he’d buried himself deeper, pulling away from anything that reminded him how to feel. And yet, all the time he had been trying to convince himself of his own emotional numbness, the wounds he had inflicted on himself were festering, until he felt like he was decaying inside. There was a swarm of wasps in his heart, feeding on it until there was nothing left but rotten pulp.

  And now, here he was. Pulling out the penknife from his pocket, he flipped open the bottle opener and popped the cap off the cider. At just over eight per cent it was the kind of cider you only drank a bottle of; three or four would probably have knocked out a carthorse. Matthew grabbed a second one, and a third, to be sure.

  As he had done back in February, under much happier circumstances, he wandered across the courtyard to the barn where the cider vats were. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights. The night was clear and there was the first hint of autumn in the air. The moonlight shone brightly as he opened the heavy barn door. Pausing for a moment, he took a deep pull of the bottle of cider and then stepped inside.

  Silent, sentinel, eternal, the vats stood watch. Only marginally darker than the night outside, the wooden barrels had seen so much in their time at the farm. They didn’t care about pain, betrayal, heartbreak; they helped to create something that contributed to them all.

  The memory of kissing Anna in the presence of these same vats was so strong, Matthew could still taste her on his lips, feel her in his arms. Knocked almost sideways by longing, he sat on one of the steps leading up to the gantry. He took another drink from the bottle, tasting the sweetness of the cider and beginning to get the hit from the alcohol. He wondered what Eli, the nightwatchman, would make of it if he found him passed out next to the vat when he finished his patrol in the small hours. Eli was another old village character who should have been pensioned off years ago, but who Jack couldn’t bear to let go and Matthew retained out of affection. He knew he’d be round on his checks in the next half an hour or so before settling in at the small office front of site until dawn broke.

  How had it come to this? He’d allowed himself to feel for the first time in years, his heart had blossomed like one of those damned trees on which he built his empire. And then, when he thought it was safe to take a risk on the future, he’d blown it all for a few, tawdry moments in the past. He couldn’t entirely blame Tara, either. He’d fallen for it, hook, line and sinker, and now he’d broken Anna’s heart, Meredith’s, and his own into the bargain.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ His voice sounded raw in the darkness. The vats stood impassive. He knew, long after he’d departed this life, they would still be watching over the trials, tribulations and traumas of his family and their descendants. It was about all he could be sure of. With the careful consideration of a man who already knew he’d had too much to drink, he put the cider bottle down beside him and buried his head in his han
ds.

  AUTUMN

  44

  Anna had virtually given up hope of ever hearing from Matthew again by the time September arrived. Although she couldn’t quite bring herself to delete his number from her phone, she was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that their relationship had run its course, although for what reason she still didn’t know. With Meredith away for another week, despite the commencement of a new term, and even Jonathan being elusive, the whole Carter family seemed to have faded from her life.

  It had, in fact, been a very busy week. The start of the new school year had brought the school run parents back in force, and now that Anna knew some of them a lot better, due in part to ‘Fudge Cake and Fiction’, she always enjoyed catching up with the gossip. Only this morning, Sarah and her friend Adele had enlightened her, over a couple of lattes, about the plans for the PTA quiz night. Seen as a way to help introduce parents of the new intake to each other, it involved ten rounds of general knowledge and a bucket of booze. The end result was never short of hilarious, and often raised a few eyebrows the next morning at the school gate. Had she still been seeing Matthew, Anna thought ruefully, she might have asked him if Carter’s could supply some of the drink to oil the wheels. As it was, she suspected the PTA would have to make do with their usual cheap, but surprisingly palatable after the third glass, Côtes du Rhône and Chardonnay.

  That evening, just as Anna was clearing up the detritus of Ellie’s dinner, the cottage doorbell clanked. Her heart lurched, even though she knew it was more likely to be Christian Aid collectors than Matthew.

  ‘Hello darling,’ Jonathan said as he stepped through the door. ‘Sorry I’ve been a bit lax in the visiting department – stuff came up at work that we’re still in the midst of sorting.’ He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. ‘How are you doing?’