by Rosie Green
*****
As I drive back to Sunnybrook later, after dropping Mum home, I keep thinking about my close encounter with Zak earlier in the day.
He stirred up more passion in me, with that one kiss, than Richard did in our entire relationship. I’ve never felt such a primal sense of longing for a man before – ever. But if anything real happened between us, it would be a rebound relationship, and that’s no good at all. It’s only four months since I split up with Richard. Far too soon to be thinking of someone else. All the self-help books tell you that rebound relationships are sure to end in disaster.
And what about the mysterious Beth? If Zak is in love with her, then what chance have I got anyway?
Plus there’s the fact that since the Benjy incident earlier, I’m starting to realise it would be selfish of me to stay for much longer in Sunnybrook. Mum needs me close by. I’ve been kidding myself thinking she’s going to be able to continue living on her own, even with carers going in every day.
It’s becoming clear that in the not too distant future, when she becomes less able to look after herself, she will need me right there. I’ll be no use in an emergency living in Sunnybrook. I’ll need to be able to get to her immediately if she’s in trouble, which means I need to think about finding somewhere to live in Farley’s Edge.
Whenever I think of leaving Sunnybrook, it’s as if a cloud has blocked out the sun.
But what choice do I have?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘You’ll be fine. Honestly. We can stand at the back so no-one will even notice you.’
I’m outside the village hall, doing my best to persuade Fen to venture inside for Jaz’s zumba class.
She’s desperately scared of making a show of herself. And it doesn’t help that a big, in-your-face poster, presumably designed by Jaz to drum up business, has been displayed right outside the door. The racy red lettering reads: Come in and shake that beautiful booty!’
Fen visibly shrank into her shoulders when she read it.
But she follows me up the steps and into the main hall, where a couple of girls are there already, limbering up. Jaz is at the front, sitting on the edge of the stage, swinging her lycra-clad legs and leafing through a magazine. She looks up when we enter and raises a thumb at me.
‘Is this it?’ hisses a horrified Fen. ‘How can I possibly get lost at the back? If there’s only going to be four of us, there is no back row!’
I glance at my watch. ‘Don’t worry. People always arrive at the last minute. I bet you by the time it gets underway, you’ll hardly be able to move for bodies flinging themselves all over the place.’
She gives me a dubious look and shoots a glance at the door, as if she’s considering making a break for it.
‘What’s your new resolution, Fen?’ I remind her.
She glowers at me. ‘Stop caring what people think of me.’
‘Precisely. You can do it.’ I point. ‘Look, two more people arriving!’
We glance over. A woman wearing an eye-wateringly colourful poncho made out of woollen squares looks across and says, ‘Sunnybrook Nutty Knitters?’
‘The room next-door, ladies,’ calls Jaz, and they beetle off.
Fen curls her lip at me. ‘You were saying?’
Jaz jumps off the stage as Camila Cabello’s Havannah starts booming out, which gets everyone shimmying immediately – even Fen after a shaky start. I’m pleased I made her come along. The Latin American music will loosen her up and hopefully help her shed her inhibitions. Grinning, I give her a thumbs-up of approval as she wiggles self-consciously from side to side.
‘Right, ladies, thank you all for coming here today!’ Jaz rubs her hands together and beams around at us. ‘Let’s do some warm-ups first.’
She turns down the music and we do some general loosening up exercises. Then we all grab a mat and lie on our backs, stretching out our legs muscles and scissoring them in the air.
Then Jaz calls, ‘Okay ladies, I want you to stretch those legs slowly out to the side. As far as you can go . . . that’s it.’
I glance across to see how Fen is getting on – and right at that moment, a brief but decisive blast escapes into the air around us.
Fen’s face has gone brick red, marking her out as the clear culprit, but she obviously pretends it wasn’t her, manfully carrying on with the leg stretches while the rest of the class collapses into snorts of laughter, me included.
To her credit, Fen pushes doggedly through the rest of the class, at the end of which we all have red faces, due to the vigorous exercise. Jaz has gone up in my estimation. She certainly knows how to put slackers through their paces, and she makes it fun as well.
I go over to thank her for the class and I introduce her to Fen, who immediately goes even redder at having to speak to a stranger.
‘You work in the bakery, don’t you?’ Jaz says to Fen. ‘Who the hell’s that hatchet-faced woman who orders you about?’
‘That’s Madge,’ Fen says, before glancing in horror at me. ‘Er, I mean Madeline.’
‘Well, I don’t know how you stand it.’
I grimace. ‘Neither do I. She’s horrible to you, Fen.’
‘If I were you, I’d tell her where to go. She sounds like a real bully,’ says Jaz.
I nod. ‘She definitely is.’
‘Well, you need to stand up to her, then, don’t you!’ Jaz glowers at Fen, who shrinks back in alarm. ‘Don’t let her get away with it! Bullies will keep on being frigging bastards unless you stand up to them.’
Fen shrugs apologetically. ‘But I need the job.’
Jaz sneers. ‘Sorry but that’s no excuse. I don’t bloody care if you’re down to your last penny, you shouldn’t let anyone treat you like that. You’ve got to stand up for yourself, for God’s sake, instead of being a pathetic little mouse!’
My hackles rise. She’s only just met Fen. How dare she judge her so rudely! And how ironic she should be criticising Madge when she’s behaving like a bully herself!
I try to lighten the mood, smiling at Fen. ‘We’re working on it, aren’t we? We’re thinking of putting laxatives in her coffee.’
Jaz dismisses this with a snort. ‘Making light of it won’t improve things, either. You won’t get anywhere being all meek and mild, I’m telling you. This Madge person needs to be told!’ She glares at poor Fen - who looks as if she’d like the floor to swallow her up - then she turns away and starts cramming things into her gym bag.
Fen and I exchange a startled look. Then we watch in silence as Jaz tries to do up the bag’s zip and fails because she’s yanking it so hard. Eventually, she gives up, slings the bag over her shoulder, and marches for the door.
‘You okay?’ I peer at Fen. ‘God knows what that was all about.’
Fen grimaces. ‘She is right, I suppose.’
‘Yes, but there are ways of saying it,’ I murmur, feeling quite shaken myself.
My opinion of Jaz was never very high.
Now, it’s just fallen off a cliff . . .
*****
Next morning, I’m up as usual getting ready for work at the bakery – but what isn’t normal is that I can’t hear any sounds from the café downstairs. Perhaps Sylvia’s slept in.
I decide to head over to the bakery early and grab a toasted teacake and a cuppa when I get there. I’ll phone a bit later to make sure Sylvia is okay.
Fen seems quieter than usual this morning, and when pressed, she confesses she’s been thinking about what Jaz said the day before. It’s high time she stopped being a mouse! She’s decided to repeat her request for a small advance on her wages.
‘I’ll be pleasant but firm,’ she says, ‘and I’ll tell her I’ll pay her back out of next week’s wages.’
I nod slowly, feeling uneasy. It’s a reasonable request. The trouble is, Madge Allsop is not a reasonable woman.
The minute Madge walks through the door, I can sense Fen psyching herself up.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Allsop?’
Madge turns.
‘You know I asked you for a small advance on my wages? Well, if you gave me it now, I’d be able to pay you straight back out of my wages on Friday.’ Fen’s hands are clenched in front of her but she keeps her chin up. ‘It’s just I’d like to treat Mum and Dad to something special on their silver wedding anniversary. I would only need twenty pounds.’
‘It’s not happening.’ She folds her arms and glares at poor Fen, whose courage visibly crumbles. ‘And it’s for your own good. If I advance you money this week, you’ll only need more next week. So no!’ She marches through to the back and Fen lets out a wobbly breath.
‘Never mind,’ I say consolingly. ‘The offer is still there if you want to borrow the money from me.’
Fen is staring into the distance, her lips pressed together, a dark look on her face as if she’s plotting how best to dispatch Monster Madge to the bakery in the sky.
The door opens just then and Mick comes in. He’s obviously been running because he’s out of breath.
‘Mick? What’s wrong?’ I ask in alarm.
He puts his hand on his heaving chest. ‘It’s Sylvia. She’s collapsed. I thought I’d better come and tell you.’
‘Oh my God. What happened?’ My heart is thudding against my ribs. ‘Did you find her?’
He nods. ‘She never forgets to put her bin out but it wasn’t there, so I knocked but got no reply. Then I looked through the glass in the door and she was lying on the floor in the hall way.’
‘Did you phone for help?’
He nods. ‘The paramedics worked on her. They’ve taken her off to hospital.’
‘Hang on a sec.’ I dash through the back and grab a chair, explaining to Madge that a customer has had a shock and needs to sit down. True to form, she doesn’t bother asking who it is. But nor does she complain the way she would if it was Fen who asked. She knows she’d get short shrift from me.
I make Mick sit down and gather himself together.
‘She was conscious as they carried her out,’ he says, rubbing his forehead wearily. ‘She opened one eye, looked straight at me and muttered: Fussing as usual?’
Fen and I smile. It’s typical of Sylvia to make a joke even when she’s lying on s stretcher.
But my smile turns into a groan. ‘I need to let Zak know. He’ll be devastated.’
‘I’ll be back soon,’ I tell Mick and Fen, before dashing through the back to tell Madge.
‘Sylvia’s in hospital. I need to find Zak and tell him. I won’t be long.’
Her face is a picture. ‘Er, I don’t think so.’
I’m already heading for the door when I hear her bellow, ‘Just phone him. That’s what mobiles are for, you know. Are you shagging him, by the way? A little bird told me you two are shacked up together!’
I flee from the shop with her words ringing in my ears.
Zak is in his room when I arrive, breathless, to tell him the bad news. He stares at me. ‘Is it her heart?’
‘I don’t know. But Mick did say she was cracking jokes as she left in the ambulance.’
Zak rakes his hands through his hair as his eyes dart around the room. He locates his keys, stuffs his wallet in his pocket and I stand back as he heads for the main door.
‘Thank you, Ellie,’ he calls back, and I hear him thundering down the stairs. ‘I’ll call you later when I know something.’
‘Okay,’ I call. ‘Give her my love.’
The door slams and silence descends.
Stunned by what’s happened, I walk slowly downstairs and into the café, and I stand in the middle of the space, staring around me at the pictures on the walls and the shelves cluttered with Sylvia’s mementoes of her life with her husband.
She loves this place. It’s given her a purpose ever since she lost Snowy. Sometimes she says she’s going to have to sell up because it’s not making any money – but I can’t imagine her ever having the strength to part with it.
Unless she’s no longer physically able to run The Little Duck Pond Café.
Or worse . . .
But I can’t think like that. Sylvia’s not the sort to give up without a fight. She’ll pull through.
Of course she will . . .
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I’m just in the door after finishing my shift at the bakery when the home phone rings.
I dive on it and it’s Zak at the other end.
‘She’s having every test under the sun to find out what happened,’ he says, sounding far away and distracted. ‘But the good news is she’s sitting up and she’s well enough to be worried about the café.’
I laugh softly. ‘She would be.’
‘She was all for drafting in her sister to take over while she’s out of action. But I’ve told her the café will have to stay closed until she’s out of hospital and feeling better.’
‘That’s the best incentive there is for her to follows doctors orders and get well!’
He chuckles. ‘That’s what I thought.’
When he hangs up, I breathe a sigh of relief. She’s conscious and making plans. That has to be a good sign. Now, all we need is for the tests to reveal nothing sinister.
Zak’s family have driven up from Bournemouth to see Sylvia and they’re all staying overnight in a nearby hotel. I asked if he’d be staying, too, but he said he’d have dinner with them at the hotel then drive back here alone. I’d braced myself to hear him say that the mysterious Beth would be among the party, but knowing he was returning here by himself seemed to rule that out.
I feel relieved that he’ll be back tonight, partly because I’ll be anxious for news from the hospital. It hit me this morning just how fond I’ve grown of Sylvia in the short time I’ve lived in Sunnybrook. The idea of her no longer being at the helm of The Little Duck Pond Café would be too heart-breaking for words.
I call Mum, hiding my worry over Sylvia behind a forced smile. Phone conversations with Mum tend to be very one-sided these days because she can’t remember what she’s been doing that day. So I usually end up babbling cheerfully about anything that comes into my head to fill in the pauses.
After my call, I sink exhausted onto the sofa, wondering if I’ve even got the energy to put the kettle on. What with Mum and Zak taking their toll on my emotions, and now Sylvia, my mind seems to be in a constant whirl of uncertainty these days.
The doorbell intrudes into my tired daze.
A second later, I hear a key in the lock, a shout, and then footsteps scrambling up the stairs. I only have time to register that it definitely doesn’t sound like Zak, when the door bursts open and there stands a stranger.
‘Oh.’ I stare at her in astonishment. ‘Hello.’
My unexpected visitor stares back at me with huge brown eyes. She can be no more than four years old. Her long, dark hair is tied up in a ponytail with a pink ribbon the same shade as her dress. She smiles shyly and leans back against the wall, twisting her dress between her knees.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask her gently, thinking she must be one of Zak’s relatives. Maybe a niece? I know he has a sister . . .
‘Maisie. Maisie Moo.’ She gives me a gap-toothed smile. ‘That’s what daddy calls me sometimes when he’s being silly.’
‘Does he?’ I smile back. ‘And where’s your daddy now?’
‘He’s gone to see Auntie Sylvia at the -’ She screws up her face, looking for the word. ‘The hopital.’
I nod. ‘She’s there to get well again.’
‘I like Auntie Sylvia. She lets me play with all her animals.’
‘Ah, yes.’ I think of the wooden forest creatures taking up every inch of space on her windowsill. She must mean those. ‘They’re lovely, aren’t they?’
She nods. ‘There’s a very lot of them,’ she says solemnly.
I grin. Oh, aren’t there just!
‘My daddy’s always busy so he can’t come and see me very often. But I’ve got a big picture of him in my bedroom at my grandma’s house.’ She opens her a
rms wide to indicate just how big.
‘Oh. Well, that’s nice, isn’t it?’
I stand up, just about to ask her who she’s with, when I hear footsteps on the stairs and an anxious female voice calls up, ‘Maisie? Are you all right? I wish you’d waited for me like I asked you to, love.’
I’m expecting Maisie’s mum, but the woman who appears in the doorway looks to be in her sixties. She’s tall and elegant in a navy shift dress and jacket, and her neat white hair is tucked behind her ears, giving her a youthful look.
Maisie runs to her and the woman hoists her up in a hug, a grunt escaping.
‘Oof.’ She looks at me with a comical grimace. ‘Not a baby any longer.’ She tweaks the little girl’s nose, making her laugh. ‘Are you, Maisie, my love?’
She walks forward and we shake hands, while I still have no idea who she is.
‘So sorry we barged in on you like this, Ellie. Zak thought you’d be at your mum’s so he gave me the keys to the flat so we could let ourselves in.’ She frowns. ‘I heard about Sylvia. Zak phoned with the awful news this morning when we were already on our way here, so I called in at the hospital to collect the keys from him.’
‘Right.’ I smile. ‘And you are . . . ?’
She looks surprised. ‘I’m Beth, Maisie’s grandma.’
‘Oh.’
I stare at her, a million thoughts running through my head at once.
This is Beth? The woman who Zak calls most nights?
So what about Maisie? Who does she belong to? Where are her mum and dad?
I don’t feel I can ask outright, so I smile and say, ‘Maisie was telling me she has a big photo of her daddy at your house!’ I hold out my arms the way Maisie did.
Beth laughs and sets Maisie down with a relieved sigh. ‘She does indeed. Zak hates it but Maisie insisted so he has no option!’
My head swims with confusion, and as my legs appear to have lost any ability to support me, I sit down rather suddenly on the sofa.
‘Please have a seat.’ My voice sounds faint and far away. I indicate the chair and Beth plops down with Maisie on her lap.
I swallow hard, struggling to process this latest shock. ‘So . . . Maisie is Zak’s daughter?’