‘Liz, it’s me. Yes, I’m fine. Actually, I’m great. Can you come over? I want to talk to you about something.’
*
An hour later, and Liz and Flo were sitting in the café looking at me as if I’d completely flipped out.
‘Are you sure about this, Abby?’ Liz asked.
‘Totally. I’ve never been surer of anything.’
Liz and Flo exchanged worried looks but I ignored them and ploughed on.
‘This business is dying and if I don’t do something soon all I’m going to be left with is a mountain of debt and regrets. This is my chance, our chance—’ I gestured to them ‘—to do something new. To build something that I think could be pretty marvellous. I want to close the café. I want to start a new business, cakes to order, catering for events, weddings, bar mitzvahs, whatever!’ I was a little breathless by the time I’d finished my impassioned speech. Flo shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
‘I thought you loved this place. You always said you did.’
‘I know, but I just think the time has come to make a change. I’ve kept the café open for so long because it was Lucy’s home and because closing it, or changing anything, would have felt like betraying Ted and Rose and what they’d given me. The café was their life and for a long time I’ve felt like I’ve just been a caretaker of everything they’d started. I need to make this my business now. I’m sure they’d understand that.’
‘Well, I never thought I’d see the day,’ Flo said. She pulled a hanky out of her pocket and blew her nose. ‘It’s the end of an era, that’s what it is.’
‘I think that’s rather the point though, Flo,’ said Liz. ‘That time has passed. Things are different for Abby now.’
I was grateful that Liz understood but I knew I had to be completely honest with them about the other reasons behind my decision.
‘Things have changed for me, that’s for sure, but that’s only part of it. Everything here, the way it is, reminds me too much of Jack, of being kids here, holding hands under the table by the window.’ I sat down opposite Liz and Flo. ‘I held onto those memories and I’ve always thought about them with fondness. I enjoyed imagining what might have been between us, but I can’t do that anymore. Every time I picture those two stupid kids now all I can see is pain and secrets and a world that conspired to keep them apart. It hurts too much to be reminded of how things were and of what might have been. I need to move on and forget about the past.’
‘And does that include me?’ asked Flo. ‘Am I just a reminder of the past now too?’
‘Oh my God, Flo, no!’ I leant over and grabbed her hands. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. You’re my right-hand woman. I can’t do any of this without you.’
Flo dabbed her eyes with her hanky.
‘I need both of you if this is going to work,’ I said. Liz and Flo exchanged more wary looks.
‘Liz, we always said that we would go into business together. When we were at college we were going to rule the world. We can do that now. You can organise the events and I’ll do the catering. You know this makes sense – you love to organise.’
She gave me a sly grin. ‘You’re right. I do love to boss people around. You were always the better cook anyway. All right, I’m in. Partners?’ She held out her hand to me and I took it.
‘Partners?’ I said, holding my other hand out to Flo. I could see her weighing up her options and I had to admit that for a split second I thought she was going to say no.
‘All right, partners it is,’ she said, grabbing my hand and shaking it. ‘On one condition.’ She stared pointedly at Liz. ‘I won’t be bossed around by anyone. Agreed?’
Liz held Flo’s gaze and then smiled as she stuck out her other hand for Flo to shake.
‘That’s fine by me. But you have to agree to no more snarky comments about my age, my make-up or how posh I am.’
Flo nodded. ‘I think I can manage that.’
I let out a relieved breath – this wasn’t going to be easy, but it would be worth it.
‘Fucking Nora! This calls for champagne, my darling!’ exclaimed Liz.
‘I don’t have any champagne, I’m afraid.’
‘Urgh! How awful. Well, that’s the first thing we’ll have to do in here then – install a wine fridge.’
We spent the next couple of hours drawing up lists of things to do. Between us we managed to come up with a plan that meant we would keep the café open for the next few months, whilst we had our conversion plans drawn up and submitted for official approval. Then it would be all systems go for our new catering company.
‘I’m giving you one last chance to change your mind about all this. No pressure,’ said Liz, as she put on her coat and made her way to the door, after we’d decided to call it a day for now.
‘We won’t be upset if you decide this isn’t what you want after all,’ Flo piped up. I looked around at the café’s tired paintwork and chipped Formica counter. I’d loved the place just as it was for more years than I cared to remember but not anymore.
‘I’m not going to change my mind. This is all about the future. No matter what happens, it’s time for me to start taking some risks.’
‘Ooh, this is going to be so exciting.’ Flo clapped her hands together. ‘Come on, then, Lizzy, you can give me a lift home.’ Flo kissed me on the cheek and wandered out onto the street.
‘I hate being called Lizzy,’ grumbled Liz, before taking a deep breath and following Flo outside. ‘After you, Florence. Mind you don’t trip on anything and crack your head now, my dear.’
I listened to the two of them bickering as I locked the door behind them. No – it wasn’t going to be easy.
*
After they left, I still felt full of energy and ideas. I went to the kitchen with a plan to experiment with some new cake recipes. It felt good to be so fired up about something for a change. I flicked through my underused collection of recipe books, eventually settling on a delicate chocolate-framboise cake. I’d been meaning to try it for ages but there really wasn’t much call for that kind of thing in the café, so I’d never bothered.
I busied myself in the kitchen, weighing out ingredients, reading and rereading the recipe. I was putting the flour back in the store cupboard, when I thought I heard someone rattling the back-door handle. I stopped and waited, but the sound didn’t come again. Stop spooking yourself, Abby, put some music on or something. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and tried to switch it on, but nothing happened. Out of battery. I smiled at the memory of Lucy, always telling me off for not keeping the battery topped up. I figured I’d just have to go old school and switch the radio on.
I went to the window ledge and turned on the battered, but reliable, Roberts radio that I kept there. Scanning through the different stations, I finally settled on Classic FM. Music began to play, it sounded familiar although I couldn’t place it. I tipped cocoa powder into the bowl of my mixer and watched the whisk go round and round, breathing in the comforting smell of chocolate, as the ingredients mixed together. The music on the radio continued to play, filling the kitchen with its soothing notes that rose and fell like a wave, carrying me along with it. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling of getting lost in its lilting phrases. An image of a white rose floating on muddy water flashed through my mind and I snapped my eyes open; the music on the radio, it was the music Jack had played for me that day on the ferry.
I couldn’t listen to any more. I switched the mixer on even faster, the sound of the beaters drowning out the music quite nicely, and I watched the soft, swirling mass in the mixing bowl; it was quite hypnotic. The sound of rattling came again, this time from the front of the café. I switched off the machine; someone was knocking on the front window. I made my way towards the door, weaving carefully between tables and chairs in the dark. The knocking had stopped but I checked the bolts at the bottom and the top of the door anyway.
I peered out of the window but I could barely see the street outside; the only working street
light was doing a pretty piss-poor job of illuminating its surroundings. It’s probably just kids, mucking about, I thought, turning back to the kitchen. An image of Egan’s smug face popped into my head and made me shiver. He was long gone though – Matt had said so. I was just jumping at shadows.
Maybe it was time to call it a night and go up to the flat, I thought. Bugger the cake. I knew I’d feel safer upstairs. I grabbed my phone, dead battery and all, switched off the radio and the lights, and started up the stairs. I’d barely reached the second step, when I was stopped by the sound of the back-door handle being tried again. Shit – why hadn’t I kept my phone charged? The sound came again, more insistent, and then a voice.
‘Abigail! Are you in there?’
Relief flooded through me at the sound of Jack’s voice. ‘Abigail! I know you’re in there. Please answer the door.’
I pulled my keys out of my pocket and unlocked the door. Jack stood there looking pissed off and annoyingly sexy. He was dressed in jeans and a navy polo shirt, with a healthy smattering of stubble, and he was wearing those damn glasses again; the ones I’d seen him in the night I’d got topless and crawled onto his lap in the back of his car. Despite all this, though, he looked tired. His eyes were red, his face pale. We stood and stared at each other for a moment. I couldn’t quite take in the fact that he was there.
‘Is everything all right? You look awful.’ Not strictly true – even with pasty skin and tired eyes he was still the most delicious-looking man I’d ever seen.
‘Gee, thanks. You certainly know how to make a guy feel good.’ He threw me his slightly crooked smile and my heart thumped in my chest.
‘I’m sorry, that was rude. I’m just surprised to see you. I thought you were in America.’
‘I was. And now I’m here. Can I come in?’
‘What for?’
‘I need to talk to you. It’s important.’
I stepped back and let him in. The kitchen was still in darkness, so I flicked on the overhead light.
‘Well? What’s so important that you had to fly all the way across the Atlantic to talk to me?’ I crossed my arms and stuck out my chin, giving him my best cool stare. I probably looked more like a petulant toddler than a feisty heroine, but what the hell? I had a point to prove; I needed him to see that his leaving hadn’t been the end of me. I was still standing, making plans for my future; I didn’t need him.
By contrast, he looked unsure of himself, which was strange. I’d only ever seen Jack looking confident and in control; the man in front of me now was different. The hairs on my arms began to prickle and a feeling of foreboding made me shudder.
‘What’s wrong, Jack? Are you all right?’
He took hold of my arms, forcing me to look at him.
‘You have to believe me when I tell you I didn’t know anything about all this before. I swear to you, Abigail.’
‘Know anything about what? I don’t understand.’
‘Tell me you believe me. I’ve never lied to you, Abigail. Never.’
‘All right, I believe you.’
He dropped his hands to his sides and slumped down onto a nearby stool.
‘It’s such a fucking mess. I’m so sorry.’ He scrubbed his face with his hands, frustration etching lines across his forehead. ‘The phone call I took, the morning after we were together. Do you remember?’
I almost burst out laughing at that question – being abandoned after a night of passion wasn’t something a girl and her ego easily forgot.
‘Yes, I remember,’ I deadpanned.
‘The call was from one of my people, an investigator. I’d asked him to check out that Egan guy who was hassling you and Matt. He told me plenty I already knew, about your father and the robbery. But there was something else, something I was pretty sure even you didn’t know. I didn’t know how to tell you, or even if I should tell you.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Jack! What are you getting at?’
‘My dad got yours locked up, Abigail! He put him behind bars and left you without a father.’
Now it was my turn to need to sit. I pulled a stool out from under the workbench and sat opposite Jack, our knees almost touching. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. I didn’t know what to say. I had a million questions racing around in my head, but I couldn’t settle on which one to ask first. Eventually Jack reached across and took my hand, gripping it tightly; my cold fingers just sat limply between his.
‘When I came to you that night, at your mum’s house, and told you I was leaving, I thought it was for the best. I thought if I left then the past would stay where it belonged, that it wouldn’t be able to hurt you anymore. That I wouldn’t hurt you anymore. And I needed to make sure it was true.’
I slipped my hand out of his and sat up straight, gathering my scattered thoughts at last.
‘You’re jumping too far ahead, Jack. I need you to go back and explain to me why you think it was your dad’s fault.’
‘Your father and mine were friends. After the robbery, your father confessed everything to mine. He was drunk, full of fear and regret for what he’d done. My father took that information to the police. He got your dad put away.’
‘He testified against my dad at his trial?’
Jack shook his head. ‘No. Apparently when your dad realised who the police were going to put up as their star witness, he confessed everything so that my father wouldn’t have to stand up in court and give evidence. He spared him that.’
‘But how did your investigator find all this out?’
‘He didn’t. He only gave me the basics; the rest came from my mother.’
Jack’s mother, Sally Chance, now married to her second husband and living the life of a trophy wife in Boston.
‘Why would she tell you all this now? After all this time?’
Jack looked down at his hands. ‘She came by to see me at my apartment and found me passed out drunk. I don’t do that sort of thing, Abigail. She was worried.’
I tried to picture Jack drunk, but that image didn’t fit the man I knew. That man was strong and in control; he made me feel safe. I’d felt that strength, enough to want to throw caution to the wind and let him into my life. I couldn’t reconcile that image with one of him passed out drunk.
‘Why were you drunk? What happened?’
Jack flashed me a look of shock. ‘Are you fucking kidding me? Why do you think?’
‘I… I don’t know… I…’
Jack stood up, sending the stool crashing over behind him, and took my face in his hands. ‘Because of you, Abigail. I’d had to say goodbye to you. I couldn’t stop the pain, so I tried to numb it, but it didn’t work.’
He looked at me, his beautiful face etched with agony. ‘I’m in love with you. You are the love of my life and I knew I couldn’t be with you. When I left I was hoping that I’d find out my investigator was wrong, but when I confirmed the story, I knew it meant the end for us. Your dad’s disappearance had hurt you so badly, I knew that, and to realise that my family, my father, was responsible for that pain…’ He shook his head. ‘I didn’t want to put you through any more of that. I did what I thought was the best thing. I left so that none of this shit would get raked up again. I had to protect you, and I thought that was the only way.’
I saw tears in his eyes as he moved his face closer to mine. I thought he was going to kiss me but instead he let his hands drop to his sides and he moved across to lean on the counter opposite.
‘My mum sobered me up and listened while I told her all about you, about meeting you again. I told her about what I’d learned, the robbery, everything. When I was done she sat me down and filled in the blanks for me. Once she started talking it was like she couldn’t stop, like she’d kept it all bottled up for so long.’
‘What else did she tell you?’ Did I even want to know?
‘She told me why we’d moved away so suddenly. Terry Egan wasn’t happy about what my dad had done so he started making threats. Dad was worried for ou
r safety, so he spirited us away in the night. That’s why they told me I couldn’t keep in touch with you or anyone else. It wasn’t safe.’
‘Your parents must have been so scared, to feel like they had to run away and hide, all because your father chose to do the decent thing.’
Jack looked surprised. ‘He put your father in prison, Abigail. You lost your father because of him.’
I took a step towards him. He was so wrong and I needed him to understand that.
‘He did what was right, Jack. My dad sealed his own fate the minute he decided to throw in with Egan. He committed a crime – no one forced him to do the things he did. I can’t blame your family for any of that. I don’t.’ It was true; there was no way I could blame anyone but my father for what he did. If anything, Jack’s family had suffered just as much as we had. Mr Chance’s decision to tell the police what he knew had ended with them fleeing their home in the middle of the night, leaving behind everything and everyone they knew.
‘We were just kids, Jack. We’re not responsible for the choices our parents made, and I, for one, don’t intend to let those choices stop me from moving on with my life. It’s over with, it’s done. We need to move forward. It’s the only way. You need to get on with your life.’
Jack’s face was lit with a bright smile. ‘Abigail, you are amazing.’ He took a step towards me, but I held up my hand.
‘Stop. I meant what I said – you have to get on with your life, as I do mine. But not together. That can’t happen.’ I watched as the smile on Jack’s face fell away, to be replaced with confusion.
‘You left me, Jack. I trusted you. I gave myself to you, because I thought I could rely on you to be there. For the first time in years I took a chance and it backfired. You left me.’
‘Abigail, please, I told you why I did that. I didn’t think I had any choice. I wanted to protect you.’
Secrets and Tea at Rosie Lee's Page 31