Then she remembered Christmas cards and bought for her parents, Ben, Carola and Gabe and decided to send a nice donation to charity in lieu of the rest.
With a sigh of relief she texted Ben and told him in which café he could find her while she caught up with her reading on her Kindle app.
He turned up an hour later, laden with carrier bags and wearing exasperation like a pair of shoes that pinched. ‘I’m going to opt out of Christmas altogether.’
Having consumed two teacakes and three cups of tea Alexia had mellowed. ‘Shame. I was going to invite you, Gabe, Carola and her girls to a slap-up feast on Christmas Day.’
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and quirked an eyebrow. ‘Kiss me and I’ll accept.’
Alexia pretended to consider, then capitulated. ‘It is nearly Christmas.’ And puckered her lips.
Chapter Twenty-eight
At dead on ten o’clock Ben wiped away the frost on the glass of The Angel’s new and elegant front door and stuck on a laminated notice.
The Angel Community Café
is OPEN!
WELCOME!
COME ON IN!
Carola added a twist of green and gold tinsel and Alexia cheered. Gabe put on his boomiest voice. ‘I declare this café open!’ Then they all blew on their hands and scurried back into the warmth of the Bar Parlour where anything festoonable had been festooned with so much green and gold tinsel it half hid The Angel’s newly created beauty.
Ben hung back on the large room’s threshold to admire the smooth, gleaming sweep of cream, brown and sea green tiles. Nobody would guess the finished product was the result of parsimony more than design. The eclectic collection of tables and chairs with their sea green coats of satin paint looked as if they’d always been destined to gather together in cosy groups. The old leaded glass lamps in shades of amber – Alexia said they were genuine Tiffany – graced either end of the room.
Alexia had brought the refurb in on time with an air of knowing she always would. Now, tying a black apron about her waist, she glanced his way, arching one eyebrow as if to query his dawdling. He returned what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Although he hadn’t admitted it to anyone but himself, it would have been nice to simply enjoy the excitement of the café opening, which they’d all worked towards for so long, without another unpredictable episode in his relationship with his parents hanging over him today.
It wasn’t as if he’d never seen them in Middledip, but then he, like them, had been a visitor. Now he felt part of the village that had proved a safe place to peel off the clinging tentacles of unhappiness found in Didbury.
And what if they brought Lloyd?
Lloyd, the brother he hadn’t seen for two years, who was at the heart of Ben’s divorce and who Ben had refused to visit in prison.
Behind the contemporary steel and glass counter, Carola darted about, uncharacteristically antsy. ‘What if nobody comes?’
Alexia, who’d begun sliding biscuits onto cooling racks, was being admirably patient. ‘You know your Charlotte and Emily will because you’ve told them you’ll send all their Christmas presents back if they don’t. Melanie from Booze & News is too nosy not to turn up. Tess, Ratty and all their crew are coming.’
Gabe, wearing a suit where both parts matched in honour of the occasion, looked up from his task of making napkin bunny ears. He was a little stronger now, sleeping less, walking further and smiling more, but still thinner than pre-pneumonia Gabe. ‘The Carlysles will be here because they’ll want to be seen to lend their support – now the painful part’s over.’
At that moment the front door rattled and Melanie from the shop proved Alexia right by barrelling in, red face matching red jumper. Despite her anxieties, Carola slipped promptly into her new role. ‘Melanie! You’re The Angel Community Café’s very first customer.’
‘I know.’ Melanie beamed complacently. ‘I’d better have angel cake, hadn’t I?’ She tittered. ‘And my free drink’s a cappuccino.’ She’d barely fitted her capacious buttocks onto a sea green chair when the next customers arrived, claiming to be following the smell of real coffee.
Then followed a constant stream of villagers. Charlotte and Emily and their early-teen mates seemed delighted to have somewhere in the village to hang out, being too young for the pub and Middledip being too quiet for a McDonalds. Alexia’s friends brought their kids. Tubb from the pub came to see what they’d done to the old place. Jodie and Iona came in for peppermint tea, Jodie round-eyed at The Angel’s transformation and round-tummied as her baby grew inside her.
Carola and Alexia had baked dozens of gingerbread angels so Ben was kept busy dispensing giveaways.
At eleven Alexia glanced out of the window and saw such a big group of people chattering up the path that she gasped. ‘Blimey, the Carlysles are here – and they’ve brought their friends. The Public had better go public. Gabe, can you check it’s all OK in there?’
‘Hello, hello!’ called Christopher Carlysle, as if he hadn’t avoided all connected with The Angel for the last three months.
And still more customers poured in, exclaiming over how pretty and shiny everything was and vocal in their reminders of the promised free drinks. Lunchtime brought an absolute influx and Alexia shot home to bake the cookie dough they’d had the foresight to slice and freeze. Hurrying back to her post behind the counter with a full cake box she gave Ben’s behind a quick pat when nobody was looking.
He was just returning the compliment with a grin when Gabe called, ‘Look who’s here!’
Ben looked up to see his parents and his brother. And Imogen.
He felt his smile fade. He’d been prepared for his parents; he’d assumed there was a chance Lloyd would appear. But Imogen?
Gabe was already issuing greetings. ‘Lloyd! Imogen!’ Then, dimly, Ben became aware of Alexia putting down her box and sliding the plate of gingerbread angels from his hands. ‘Why don’t you go and sit with your family?’ She smiled, but her eyes were no longer on him.
On automatic, Ben emerged from behind the counter to kiss his mother’s cheek and shake his father’s hand.
Then he turned to Lloyd.
He looked different. His hair was brushed back from his forehead, the sides cropped short, and he sported a beard. He was thinner, paler.
Lloyd stuck his hand out with no sign of his old ebullience. ‘How are you, little brother?’
Ben had imagined this moment. But not the wary entreaty in his brother’s eyes or the silent apprehension of his parents. Nor had he anticipated that his own heart would instantly weigh all the years Lloyd had been his brother against the most recent couple … and simply thaw.
It felt natural to accept the proffered hand, cold from the winter weather. ‘Glad to see you –’ he started to say ‘out’ then changed it to ‘– here.’
Then, awkwardly and face hot, ultra aware of Alexia’s presence, good manners decreed that Ben should greet Imogen.
She turned up her cheek to be kissed. It was a surreal moment, his lips brushing the cool skin that was no longer familiar and yet not quite alien. The feelings of same and different collided with a jolt in his chest. It was as if a bubble descended on him and separated him from the room. Everyone was looking into his bubble from the outside. His family. Imogen. Even Alexia from behind the espresso machine.
Gabe grabbed a table in the corner, making jokes, taking orders. Everybody talked, asking Ben about his job, about Middledip, about Gabe’s battle with pneumonia. As their drinks arrived Gabe told the story of The Angel’s makeover, adding the recent chapter about Shane having been found and charged, though only in an undertone because if the fundraised money found its way back it was actually going to be a headache now The Angel was done.
The chatter went on around Ben as he sipped an Americano. He glanced at Lloyd and Imogen and, though it wasn’t with the burning need of a couple of months earlier, wondered at them both being there. He turned his gaze to his mum, recalling the forthright opi
nions she’d once held about Imogen. And yet here Imogen was included in a family day out.
As if he’d been waiting for Ben’s reflections to take him to exactly that point, Lloyd nudged him. ‘Walk outside with me for a minute?’
Ben nodded. Lloyd slid into his coat and followed Ben out. They stepped off the newly constructed path onto what would eventually be a hardstanding for cars.
Unwilling to give Lloyd the opportunity to launch into what no doubt would be a carefully constructed and reasoned speech, Ben looked into Lloyd’s eyes, grey like his own. ‘I’d like to know why Imogen’s with you.’
The icy wind blew over them but to make an impression on Lloyd’s gelled-back hair. ‘Then get ready,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m here to tell you.’
Chapter Twenty-nine
Though occupied with serving steaming drinks and yummy cakes, Alexia saw Ben go outside with his brother. She glanced back at the table they’d just forsaken, at the sandy-haired man who’d looked for Ben at The Three Fishes and the tense-looking woman who must be Ben’s mum. And the same beautiful woman she’d seen pictured with Ben on his old blog.
Imogen. Her hair shone, her features were fine-boned and her skin clear. As she wore a batwing top and an artfully swathed scarf, without prior knowledge of the injury Alexia wouldn’t have noticed the way she coped with her damaged arm by propping it on the table.
Having her right here, in the building Alexia had poured so much into, was unsettling. Numbly, Alexia watched her watching the door Ben and Lloyd had disappeared through.
Minutes ticked by. Alexia continued to smile and serve. And watch. After what seemed an age she saw Lloyd return without Ben. He helped Imogen thread herself carefully into her coat before escorting her outside. Ben’s parents exchanged meaningful looks and listened to Gabe with an air of not listening. Alexia smiled mechanically at four teens at the counter and began making them milkshakes.
Over their shoulders and through the window Alexia could see Ben outside, hands jammed in pockets. He must be freezing. His coat hung on the hooks by the door and she wished she’d thought to send it out with his brother.
The four teens took their milkshakes and were replaced by a tall woman in a smart coat. When Carola tried to serve her the tall lady fastened her gaze on Alexia. ‘This is who I’m here to see. I recognise you from your website, Alexia. I’m Verity Hart.’
Alexia dragged her attention away from the tableau outside. ‘Blimey! Hello.’ Forcing herself to function in the new situation, she extended her hand. Then snatched it back and wiped it on her apron, wary of getting sugar on this stylish creature with her beautifully cut clothes and hair.
Verity laughed. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I saw the opening of The Angel mentioned on your website and my curiosity was aroused.’
Carola gave Alexia’s arm a squeeze. ‘I’ll grab Charlotte and Emily to help me. You have a cuppa with your friend.’
Verity shucked off her coat. ‘That sounds marvellous. May I have an espresso?’ She paused to regard the old photos from the loft, which Alexia had hung on the walls. ‘Gosh, are these this place?’
Alexia found herself nursing her mug of tea while she gave Verity a tour of The Angel, comparing the old photographs to the images on her phone of The Angel when she was sad and neglected, and even fetching down the original mood boards as she explained how it was all supposed to have been. She glanced out of the window several times but could glimpse just one side of Ben as he remained in deep conversation with Lloyd and Imogen.
Verity asked the occasional question but mostly listened. Finally, she selected a table in the corner of the Public and sat down. ‘You’ve done an impressive job on a shoestring.’
Alexia was obliged to join her, not knowing whether to be glad or sorry that she couldn’t see Ben’s intense gathering from there. ‘I do mourn the etched glass and the polished bar but I’ve learned to love The Angel’s boho look.’
‘Boho, yet stylish and intelligently designed.’ Verity regarded Alexia keenly. ‘I’d like to offer you a job – to head up your own development team, separate from Elton’s. There’s plenty of London and Kent to go around.’
It was as well Alexia was sitting down. The room seemed to recede, then return on a wave of tingling exhilaration. She laughed and it came out too high and excited. ‘I didn’t realise I was being interviewed.’
‘That was the idea.’ Verity began talking about retainers and profit shares while Alexia listened, feeling as if both eyes and ears were on stalks. It felt less and less real. Her own team? She wouldn’t have to work with Elton, let alone for him?
She’d leave the village …
‘Anyway,’ Verity wound up. ‘Think it over. Let me know.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I need to head home, but I hope to hear good news from you soon and then we can get together to plan exactly how everything will work.’
Knees feeling as if they belonged to someone else, Alexia managed to scramble to her feet. ‘I’m still in shock but thank you. It’s a wonderful opportunity!’ Although elated by that opportunity plopping into the palm of her hand, while walking Verity to the door and saying goodbye, Alexia almost said straight out she was no longer sure about leaving. Through the trials of the last three months she’d fallen in love with Middledip again.
What she wouldn’t have given for this to happen before Shane and Tim’s dirty work, before being drawn closer to Gabe and Carola by adversity and producing from a sad, maltreated shell of a building and a few broken hearts this triumphant, glittering Christmas opening of The Angel Community Café. Before she and Ben got their zings together.
Her mind in a whirl, she turned her attention to clearing tables. And that’s when she let herself look out through the window once more. From this angle she could see all of Ben.
And he was in a clinch with Imogen.
His arms around her body. Her right arm around his neck. Statue-still apart from the wind whipping their hair.
Alexia snatched her gaze away, heart thundering up into her throat until she felt sick.
Spinning round to present her back to the window she grabbed up empty mugs and balled-up paper napkins while the image of Ben holding Imogen so carefully hung before her eyes. Eyes that burned with tears. And now it was too late she knew it wasn’t only Middledip she loved.
Ben. How had she thought she could keep her feelings for him light?
Stacking the dirty crocks on a tray she was forced to witness Lloyd and Imogen coming back in, Lloyd speaking to his parents, who went outside and didn’t return.
Then he approached the counter to pay, Imogen silently beside him, a tiny smile playing around the beautiful bow of her lips.
‘We wouldn’t dream of charging Ben and Gabe’s family,’ Alexia heard Carola cry, waving away Lloyd’s money. ‘Hope to see you again.’
It was another few minutes before Ben reappeared, shivering. He looked stunned. Not surprising, really.
Alexia had managed to carry her tray to the clear-up area without dropping the lovely new mugs onto the tiled floor she’d slaved over.
‘Wow. That was intense,’ he said, joining her behind the counter.
Alexia marvelled that her hands continued to load pots into the dishwasher without even a tremor. ‘I hope things went well.’
‘OK, I suppose. Mum and Dad are staying over at Gabe’s so we can spend Christmas Eve together before they head home for Christmas Day.’ He gave an odd laugh, then dropped his voice. ‘And Imogen’s cleared the way for me to get my life back in Didbury.’
Even having witnessed that poignant embrace, shock jolted sweatily through Alexia. She kept her head in the dishwasher. ‘We’ve both had an interesting time, then. Verity Hart’s been in here and offered me a job!’
‘Really?’ He sounded taken aback. Then he pulled her to her feet for a hug. ‘Well … congratulations.’
She pressed her face against his jumper, cold and smelling of his shower gel. She noticed he didn’t actually ask if sh
e would accept. Just like she didn’t actually ask if he was going back to Didbury.
He was quiet for the rest of the afternoon. Dazed.
Alexia didn’t feel chatty, either.
Chapter Thirty
Christmas Day dawned with a hoary frost that made Middledip look like the December picture on a calendar. Alexia was awake to watch through the window as the early sun made everything glitter.
Ben had phoned last night to say he was ‘caught up with family stuff’ so Alexia had pretended she’d planned an early night after another frantic day helping Carola in the café. But then had scarcely slept. ‘Family’ included Imogen again now. She’d witnessed it with her own eyes.
Boxing Day would be soon enough to face all that. Today, having invited Ben, Gabe, Carola, Charlotte and Emily for Christmas dinner she must slap on a festive face and not spoil things by wondering miserably when Ben was going to break the news that he was leaving Middledip.
She shoved the turkey in the oven and took a shiveringly crisp early walk around the village, exchanging Christmas greetings with those already out to walk their dogs and wondered why she’d once thought it a bad thing to know everyone she met – and their dogs. Christmas tree lights blazed from windows and Alexia imagined happy families ripping colourful wrapping from exciting gifts.
Returning home alone she undertook the solitary task of beginning the feast she’d planned haphazardly in those last few halcyon days of getting The Angel ready to open.
She shouldn’t be down, she told herself, her eyes prickling with tears while she peeled potatoes. She had a fabulously exciting job offer, one with the potential to provide everything she could possibly want.
Except Ben.
But you couldn’t own people. She’d told Seb often enough. Nobody belonged to anybody. They might belong with, but that was a choice that had to be made by both parties. When the veggies were all prepared she went upstairs to change into a shiny red top and black trousers.
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