The Pretty Delicious Cafe

by Danielle Hawkins

  ‘Much better. Are you guys off home?’

  ‘Yeah, Craig’s pretty shattered.’

  Taking his thumb out of his mouth, Craig said indignantly, ‘I am not.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’ his father said. ‘I am.’

  ‘Would you like a lift?’ I asked.

  ‘No, it’s only just around the corner.’ He reached out with his bandaged right hand as if to touch my cheek, thought better of it and resettled Craig on his hip instead. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?’

  The realisation that tonight, of all nights, I’d have to do without him was moderately crushing. ‘Okay,’ I said, smiling.

  It mustn’t have been a very convincing smile, because he took two steps forwards and hugged me warmly with his spare arm. ‘I’ll come back and get you later,’ he said.

  I leant against him gratefully, but said, ‘Mum’ll want me here.’

  ‘She’ll want you to be wherever you’re happiest.’

  ‘I know, but she’ll be hurt if that’s not here. Jed, where’s your sling?’

  ‘Don’t need it.’

  ‘Do you ever do what the doctor tells you?’

  ‘Occasionally,’ he said. ‘If it’s not too inconvenient.’

  ‘You’ve got a big sore,’ Craig remarked around his thumb, seemingly quite unconcerned by sharing his father’s hug with me. ‘There.’ He prodded the back of my upper arm.

  I twisted my head to look at the row of purple, fingerprint-sized bruises below my shoulder.

  ‘She’s got lots of sores,’ said Jed grimly.

  ‘That sounds so attractive,’ I said. ‘As if I was covered with weeping pustules.’

  ‘I’ve got a sore,’ said Craig proudly. ‘There, on my knee. Look!’

  ‘Where?’ I asked, looking.

  ‘There!’

  And indeed there was, on closer inspection, a minuscule scratch on his left kneecap.

  ‘Wow,’ I said.

  The kitchen door at the far end of the hall opened and Mum put her head around it, then tactfully withdrew, closing it again.

  ‘I’d better put in an appearance,’ I said, stepping back.

  Jed made a face, nodded, kissed me swiftly and left.

  ‘Daddy?’ I heard Craig ask as the front door closed behind them.

  ‘Yes, Craig?’

  ‘Why did you kiss Lia?’

  ‘Because she’s amazing,’ Jed said.

  I smiled as I went down the hall to the kitchen.

  Chapter 26

  The crowd in the kitchen had shrunk, in my absence, to family members only. ‘You didn’t send Monty and Carole away, did you?’ I asked, slipping into the chair beside Mike’s.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Mum.

  ‘Of course she did,’ said Rob, stretching his arms above his head and yawning. ‘But so tactfully that they didn’t notice. It was beautiful to watch.’

  ‘Did you open the café today?’ I asked Anna.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But I did some extra baking after you called this morning.’

  ‘You legend. That’ll make tomorrow a bit easier.’

  ‘You are not opening that café tomorrow,’ said Mum, stiffening in her chair. ‘You’re not even to think of it, do you hear me?’

  Anna and I looked at each other.

  ‘A day off sounds great to me,’ I said.

  She sighed tiredly. ‘Me too.’

  ‘It’s a fairly extreme way to get a day off,’ I said. ‘Hardly worth it, really.’ I looked at Mum’s face. ‘Too soon?’

  ‘Yeah, but only by a year or two,’ said Rob. He pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Ready to go?’ he asked Anna.

  She nodded and reached across the table to squeeze my hand. ‘Goodnight, everyone. Will we see you tomorrow, Mike?’

  ‘No, I’d better head back first thing,’ he said. ‘Lambs to shear and all that.’ Standing up, he kissed her cheek and exchanged a brisk handshake with Rob.

  ‘Night, chaps,’ Rob said, hugging Mum as he passed her. His eyes met mine for a second. All good?

  All good. Love you.

  He raised his eyebrows and smiled, and then turned to follow Anna out of the kitchen.

  For a little while nobody said anything, and then Mum got to her feet and began shuffling together a pile of newspapers at one end of the table. ‘Right, dinner,’ she said wearily.

  ‘Eggs on toast,’ I said.

  Abandoning the newspapers, she crossed the kitchen to open the fridge door. ‘No, Monty brought us some fresh trevally, bless him. And I can make a nice salad . . .’ She took a small squashy parcel out of the fridge, and Mike relieved her of it.

  ‘How about you sit down and let me make dinner?’ he said.

  ‘Of course not! But you can get me a few lemons off the tree, if you like.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ I said, pushing back my chair.

  ‘Aurelia, sit down.’

  I sat.

  * * *

  ‘Mike, this is a feast,’ I said forty minutes later, when he put my plate down in front of me. ‘You can have a job at the café any time you like.’

  ‘Always nice to have options,’ he said.

  ‘The only minor hitch is that we can’t actually afford to pay you anything.’

  ‘Just like farming. I’ll feel right at home.’

  ‘How are things going on the farm?’ Mum asked.

  Mike sat down at the table. ‘Dad’s putting it on the market,’ he said, picking up the pepper grinder.

  Mum and I laid down our forks and stared at him.

  ‘Seriously, or just fishing?’ I asked.

  ‘Fishing, I think. Although I suppose someone might make him an offer he can’t refuse.’

  ‘And how does Gina feel about that?’ Mum asked.

  ‘She’s, ah, not happy,’ said Mike. ‘There’s been a bit of a falling-out.’ Which meant, I imagined, that there had been an almighty screaming match.

  ‘How do you feel?’ I asked him.

  He finished his mouthful, shrugged and said, ‘Over it. I’m leaving.’

  I choked on a bit of new potato and fell into a fit of coughing that did nothing for my bruised throat. Holding my neck with both hands I sat back gasping, mentally kicking myself for drawing Mum’s attention back to my injuries.

  I needn’t have worried; she didn’t even glance at me. ‘Leaving?’ she repeated.

  ‘Mm.’ Spurred on to further detail by our blank astonishment, he added, ‘A friend of mine’s offered me a few months’ tractor work, for a start. And then . . .’ He shrugged and smiled.

  ‘Glen Jackson’s looking for drivers to cart maize,’ said Mum suddenly. ‘He asked me just the other day if I knew of anyone.’

  ‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ I cried, forgetting all about my sore throat. ‘Come up here, Mike. It’d be so cool to have you around. You can have the spare room at the café. Or live here. Couldn’t he, Mum?’

  ‘Er – yes,’ said Mum, sounding unexpectedly taken aback. ‘Yes, of course.’

  I looked at her in surprise, but she was pushing back her chair and standing up, and I failed to catch her eye.

  ‘Who’d like a glass of wine?’ she said brightly. ‘Actually, Lia, perhaps you’d better not. It might clash with your painkillers.’

  ‘What painkillers?’ I said.

  She turned and frowned at me. ‘Haven’t you had anything? What about in hospital?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘What?’ Now I had her attention. Damn.

  ‘Well, I’m only bruised,’ I said soothingly.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she cried. ‘You’ve had no pain relief. They didn’t even let you wash. They’ve confiscated your car and your clothes, they’ve released that psychopath on bail after what he did to you, and if we hadn’t come to collect you from hospital they’d probably just have kicked you out to hitchhike home. Naked, no doubt, since heaven forbid anyone might be allowed to take one of those revolting gowns off the premises!’

  Mike and
I started to smile and then simultaneously thought better of it.

  ‘They haven’t even offered you any counselling, after what you’ve been through!’

  ‘They did, actually,’ I admitted. ‘I didn’t want it. Mum, they were pretty nice, honestly. And the detective asked if I had someone to come and get me; I’m sure she’d have sorted something out if I hadn’t. But I guess the police see this kind of thing all the time, and one beaten-up girl doesn’t seem as big a deal to them as it does to us.’

  Thin-lipped, Mum opened the fridge door.

  ‘It’s all going to be pretty awful for Isaac’s family,’ I said, spearing another new potato and looking at it without enthusiasm.

  ‘Yes, well, I’m not feeling the need to burden myself with pity for them just at the moment,’ she snapped, extracting a wine bottle from behind a large cabbage.

  ‘I need to take a little bit of responsibility, at least.’

  She closed the fridge door. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, love. Nothing about this is your fault in any way.’

  ‘Mum, I know that strangling someone and stuffing them into a car boot’s not ever an appropriate response to a situation, but – I wish I’d been kinder. I knew he was miserable, and I didn’t care.’

  ‘Hang on just a minute,’ said Mike. ‘When did you break up with the guy? July?’

  ‘June.’

  ‘And then he rang you up every day for months and cried on your shoulder –’

  ‘Not every day,’ I murmured.

  ‘Well, I’d say you gave being kind a pretty good go.’

  ‘Maybe I gave it too good a go. I shouldn’t have given him false hope.’

  ‘Which way do you want it?’ Mike asked crisply. ‘Were you too mean, or too nice?’

  ‘Both. Neither. Oh, I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t think it would have mattered what you’d done,’ said Mum. ‘He’s obviously very, very disturbed. You can’t reason with someone in that state, love. Their reactions aren’t normal.’

  ‘He said he’s been watching me. Us. Me and Jed. He must have been sneaking around looking in the windows.’ I shivered, and the potato I still hadn’t got around to eating fell off my fork and rolled under the table.

  ‘Did you tell the police that?’ said Mum.

  ‘Yes. I don’t know if they’ll believe it.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Well, I have a feeling that claiming your brother tracked you across the countryside by telepathy isn’t all that good for your credibility.’

  ‘Who cares?’ said Mike suddenly. ‘Who cares if the police think you’re a – a New Age fruit loop? It doesn’t change the fact that the guy’s a nutter and he tried to kill you.’ He reached across the table and took my hand in his big rough one. ‘It’s not a crime to be a bit weird.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, laughing.

  ‘No,’ said Mum shakily, putting the wine bottle down on the bench. ‘It’s a blessing.’

  It was a blessing. It was unpredictable and frustrating, it had embarrassing lunatic-fringe overtones and it would have saved considerable stress all round if this morning’s premonition had arrived a little earlier, but being weird had probably saved my life. ‘Yes, I know,’ I said, and the tears brimmed up and overflowed.

  That started Mum off, and we cried for some time. Mike looked at us doubtfully and then carried on with his fish. When the storm had passed, however, and we were smiling damply and mopping our eyes, he got up and poured three glasses of chardonnay.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ Mum said, sinking back into her chair with a sigh.

  As I picked up my glass I felt a tingle of pleased anticipation. It didn’t seem to match the wine, which smelt just slightly of rancid butter, but all was made clear when the phone rang from the far end of the table.

  ‘It’s Jed,’ I said, as Mum and I reached for it together, and unearthing it from beneath a cardigan she handed it over.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, standing up as I answered it. ‘Hi, Lia speaking.’

  ‘Didn’t you know it was me?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, but I thought you might think I was Mum,’ I said, edging around the table and going out into the hall to lean against the bookcase that housed the gardening books.

  ‘Ah. How are you doing?’

  ‘Pretty good, actually.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘So, um, are you happy where you are, or should I come and get you?’

  I smiled, touched that he’d called to check, and then sighed. ‘I’d love you to. But I’d better stay here. Anyway, you’ll sleep better without me.’

  ‘No, I’ll sleep better if you’re here where I can keep an eye on you.’

  ‘How were you planning to keep an eye on me and sleep at the same time?’

  ‘Always the sarcastic comment,’ he said sadly.

  ‘Sorry. It was a lovely thing to say. It makes me feel all cherished.’

  ‘Patronising wench,’ he remarked.

  ‘Can I come over?’ I asked abruptly. ‘Or is the offer withdrawn?’

  He laughed. ‘You can come over.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll get Mike to drop me off in a bit.’

  ‘The minutes will seem like hours, my sweet.’

  ‘Always the sarcastic comment,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘That,’ said Jed, ‘was the truth.’ And he hung up.

  * * *

  ‘They just got back last week,’ Mike was saying as I went back into the kitchen.

  ‘Did they enjoy the trip?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Yeah, I think so. Apparently the baby’s doing all the things it’s supposed to, and Kathleen’s taken to motherhood like a duck to water.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Mum. ‘She’s a lovely girl.’

  ‘Kathleen Leslie?’ I asked, sitting back down and picking up my wineglass. She was a second cousin – a pleasant girl, in an anaemic sort of way.

  ‘Yes. You remember that she and her husband moved to Singapore?’ Mum said.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Hey, guys . . .’

  ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘Um, would you mind taking me round to Jed’s after tea?’ I meant to say it perfectly offhandedly, but it came out in a sort of embarrassed mutter.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Mum kindly.

  ‘It’s not that it’s not lovely being here with you . . .’

  ‘But neither of us is a hot mechanic who just broke his hand hitting your crazy ex-boyfriend for you,’ finished Mike.

  I smiled. ‘That’s the one.’

  And so, post-dinner but pre-dishes, Mike delivered me to Harris Street. He parked on the worn grass in front of number sixteen and got out to see me to the door.

  ‘Hey, thanks, Mike,’ I said as we crossed the lawn. ‘It’s so good of you to have come.’

  ‘Pleasure,’ he said.

  ‘Please come and live here. Mum was right about Glen Jackson; he’d give you a job in a heartbeat. He told me that last year one of the little toe rags he hired in desperation to drive a truck was so busy Instagramming that he drove into someone’s hay barn.’

  ‘I –’ Mike began.

  ‘And if you decide that constant contact with us is too much of a good thing, you’ll have the perfect excuse to leave when the maize is finished.’

  He said nothing, but rubbed a hand over the top of his head in a worried sort of way.

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ I said. ‘Just do it. You know you want to.’

  ‘Lia?’ he said as we reached the front steps.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  I smiled at him. ‘It’s a wonder no-one’s ever tried to strangle me. Oh no, that’s right, they have.’

  ‘That’s not funny,’ said Mike sharply.

  I reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘Sorry.’

  Just then Jed, freshly showered and actually wearing his sling, opened his front door.

  ‘Evening,’ he said.

  ‘Evening,’ said Mike. He hugged me. ‘Take ca
re. See you soon. Love you.’

  ‘He’s the nicest person I know,’ I said, closing the door as Mike went back across the lawn towards his car. ‘I wish he was happy.’

  ‘Isn’t he?’

  I’d surprised myself with that statement. ‘I don’t . . .’ I said slowly, feeling it out. ‘No. Not very.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Lonely, I think.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s mostly what makes people miserable.’

  ‘Were you? Lonely, I mean.’

  ‘Shit, yes,’ he said lightly as we went down the hall. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes please.’ I followed him to the kitchen and rested my elbows on the counter. ‘Did Craig have a good day?’

  ‘Apparently he had pikelets and macaroni cheese and ice cream and sandwiches cut into shapes. It sounded like a pretty good day to me.’

  ‘That’s an impressive effort, after spending the night throwing up.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Jed. ‘That was only last night.’ He unhooked two lumpy glazed mugs from a dinky little wooden stand and turned to get the milk out of the fridge. ‘You’re not going to open the café tomorrow, are you?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But we’ll have to on Wednesday, so there’ll be a certain amount of prep to be done.’

  He nodded and put the milk down on the bench. ‘I’m not going to move back to Thames,’ he said.

  Startled, I stood up straight. ‘Because of this?’ I touched the side of my neck. ‘Jed . . .’

  ‘Because it occurred to me today that if I stuff things up with you while I’m running around trying to fix someone unfixable, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s time I stopped making Tracey my number-one priority. It doesn’t matter what I do for her; it’ll never be enough.’

  ‘But – if you make me your number-one priority instead I’m just as bad.’

  He looked at me, frowning.

  ‘I mean, it’s not fair for you to have to live here just because that’s what suits me.’

  ‘But it suits me too,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I like it here. Craig likes it here. You’re here. Monty wants me to buy into the garage. I’d quite like to learn to surf.’

  For a moment I felt breathless with delight, followed swiftly by feeling breathless with fear at how badly I wanted it to happen, and therefore how crushed I was going to be if it didn’t.