by Helen Rolfe
Now, even if she didn’t feel the same level of desperation, this job was still her solace.
She busied herself serving drinks and snacks as the schoolkids rushed in. When they finally had a lull her boss asked, ‘How’s Audrey doing at school? She settling in?’
‘She seems to be, at least as far as I know. She doesn’t talk to me much.’
Clare, the kind of boss who didn’t shy away from mucking in with other staff, stacked fresh cups on top of the coffee machine. Flame-red hair tied back, she yelled into the kitchen to let Monty know that the wholesaler’s van had pulled up outside. ‘Honey, join the club,’ she said, switching back to her conversations with Sam. ‘I’ve got three young adults living at home and they’ve gone from barely speaking to me in their teens to being out so much it’s as though they’re figments of my imagination rather than people who eat me out of house and home.’
‘I’m pleased Audrey doesn’t hate the new school; I was worried she would. I’ve spoken with her form tutor and apparently she’s making friends, getting her work done on time and her expected GCSE grades are good.’
‘All we can ask is for them to be happy,’ Clare smiled as she excused herself to take over the coffee to table two, calling over her shoulder, ‘although I wouldn’t mind their help around this place to give it a bit of a facelift, get the walls around the counter painted.’
Sam laughed, imagining how that suggestion had gone down with Clare’s kids. She’d tried to get Audrey to help her paint the study once and she’d made every excuse under the sun not to do it until Sam had given up trying.
Sam served another customer, thinking how much she wanted Audrey to be happy. It was why she was making an effort to listen to her daughter more whenever she mentioned make-up artistry. She’d even faked needing advice from Audrey last week when she woke up with a spot on her chin. She was thirty-nine, well past the spotty stage, but it seemed just when you thought you had everything under control, life liked to remind you who was boss. Audrey had talked about the importance of blending, removing the cover-up at the end of the day to let your skin recover. It had been one of those moments where, watching them, you’d never know they had problems. And with a wedding to attend in December, Sam had been able to ask for more advice, about make-up subtle enough for an afternoon event but that would last into the evening.
Sam wiped down a few of the tables, threw away discarded napkins and took a plate and cup to the kitchen. When she came back through to the café, she looked up to see Charlie coming in through the door, still in his paramedic uniform. ‘You just finished or just starting?’ she quizzed. ‘And where’s your coat, it’s chilly today?’
‘I finished a night shift a couple of hours ago – my coat’s in the car,’ he grinned. ‘And I don’t feel the cold. Well, perhaps I do, but I’ve been traumatised. I’ve come from Layla’s school where I was required to take part in emergency services week and talk to sixty kids about the work we do as paramedics.’
‘Layla must’ve been proud.’
‘She was – she loves it when I show up at school in my uniform.’
Layla wasn’t the only one to appreciate the uniform. Dark cargo trousers showed off a taut rear and biceps stretched the T-shirt sleeves as far as they could go. Although Sam sensed Layla’s appreciation would be summed up a little differently to her own.
When Clare called over a greeting to Charlie and winked at Sam, Sam wondered whether she’d let something slip out loud. Clare now seemed to have made it her personal project to ensure nobody but Sam served Charlie whenever he stopped in, which so far was frequent enough for Sam to wonder whether he had a bagel and coffee addiction or perhaps was interested in her as more than a friend.
Sam hadn’t been out with a man since the time she went to the movies with a guy from work who’d kissed her goodbye at her front door. Audrey had seen them and lost her temper, screaming at her that she was an embarrassment and should know better. Sam would never understand why it was okay for Simon to have someone else in his life but not her, and she’d grown tired of trying to figure out the teenage psyche. All she knew was that she had to put Audrey first and since that date she’d avoided having another one. She’d thought it best to do so for as long as it took for Audrey to see that her mother wasn’t the enemy; she was on her side and always would be.
But all those feelings had been before Charlie came on the scene. Since the first time he’d come for dinner at her mum’s, when Sam had expected a polite but likely dull guest, and he’d turned out to be someone she’d known a long time ago and who was now jaw-droppingly handsome with his dark hair and slightly crooked smile, she’d thought about Charlie a lot. Her tummy did a little jolt whenever he came into the café, she listened carefully whenever his name was mentioned at home, she always checked her hair in the mirror before she answered the door at home in case it was him, and every time they crossed paths she found herself wondering when they’d next bump into each other. But Sam still wasn’t sure about dating anyone right now, especially a man who had a little girl of his own. She couldn’t help sometimes getting ahead of herself and wondering what would happen if she and Charlie got serious. Audrey would end up with a little sister, she’d have a stepdaughter, and the thought sent a chill creeping up her spine because she knew she was doing a pretty bad job of being a mother to Audrey, let alone having responsibility for Layla.
‘What was so traumatic about talking to a bunch of kids?’ Sam asked Charlie now, preferring to focus on his predicament than her own.
‘One kid put his hand up in front of everyone and asked me if I’d ever used a vibrator on anyone.’
Sam’s laughter had Clare turning around with an approving look her way. ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘I am. Turned out he meant a defibrillator.’
‘I’m a little relieved, I have to say.’
When Charlie laughed and he got those crinkles beside his eyes, it hinted at how genuine and kind he was. When he smiled, the right side of his lip turned up ever so slightly more than the left, and since they’d talked about how he got the little scar, she found herself focusing on it every time he was near enough. He was incredibly sexy and Sam felt increasingly out of her depth around him. She wasn’t used to flirting or getting attention from a man, and she definitely hadn’t had much practise at hiding her feelings.
‘Earth to Sam,’ Clare’s voice trilled as she tried to get past with a tray piled high of empties. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Sorry, Clare.’ Sam had been lost in thought as Charlie read over the menu blackboard behind the counter. Clare had probably been trying to get past for a while. ‘So what’ll it be?’ she asked Charlie.
He went for a coffee – black, the easiest one to make thankfully – she wouldn’t mess that up. Honestly, it was as though she was Audrey’s age whenever Charlie was around, not a together woman who’d made her own way in the world.
‘I’ll take a smoked salmon bagel too,’ he added.
Using the tongs, she pulled out the bagel of choice and added it to a plate with a napkin. ‘I’ll bring the coffee over to you.’ She needed a moment to pull herself together while she turned the various bits of the complex machine. It might only be a black coffee but given how nervous he made her feel, there was always room for error.
By the time she took Charlie his order she was back to being in-control-Sam, not pathetic, teenage-hormone-Sam. She asked him how his shift had been; he didn’t recall the more horrific details of an accident on the motorway this morning but instead told her about the little old lady he’d helped last week after a fall on the stairs in her block of flats.
‘She brought me a box of chocolates to the hospital,’ he smiled. ‘A big box of Thorntons; I’m surprised she could manage it with her bruised wrist. But the team is always appreciative when people do things like that.’
‘It must be a difficult job. Does it ever get to you?’
He shrugged. ‘Occasionally, but the good outweighs the bad m
ost days. Veronica loves hearing my stories, even the gory ones.’
‘They’re probably nothing she hasn’t heard or seen before.’ Sam thought back to the days when her mum had come home from work smiling and regaling them with tales of her day – never too disturbing, but more box-of-chocolate stories like Charlie had shared. And then those days had gradually faded away. Veronica had begun to withdraw from the people around her, including Sam, and suddenly it had been too late to get through to her. Sam had tried on more than one occasion to imagine Veronica having ever left the house for a job, working with a team of people whose daily routine was chaotic and, at times, out of control, because the image Sam had been left with when she moved out of Mapleberry all those years ago hadn’t involved even a glimpse of positivity. Even now, living under the same roof again, they didn’t talk like other mothers and daughters did, but the close confines of the house meant Sam had begun to know a little more about her mother’s life. She knew without having to ask that Veronica still didn’t go outside most days and if she did, she never got beyond halfway down the front path or as far as the back garden gate. Veronica still hated courgettes but loved roasted carrots and whenever the meal allowed would use a pile of them big enough to feed a family of eight. And Sam knew her mum missed being a nurse because she’d heard those conversations with Charlie. Veronica reacted the same way with him as she did with Layla talking about the kindness calendar. It was as though both of those subjects held a magic key that turned in a lock Sam didn’t know how to access.
‘Audrey seems happier now than when she first arrived,’ said Charlie after a sip of his coffee.
‘She seems to be finding her way at last and school gives her some structure. She’s made a good friend called Vicky, who sounds nice – sensible and a hard worker too, and they’ve hung out outside of school at the cinema or here for hot chocolates. They’ve even done a bit of the community mosaic together.’ Sam was getting used to people being interested in her and her family and was even beginning to appreciate it. She’d avoided all things Mapleberry for years but coming back to the village hadn’t been anywhere near as bad as she’d anticipated. ‘But despite finding her feet,’ she added, ‘she’s no happier with me.’
‘I had noticed.’
Sam had Jilly up in Cheshire to talk to whenever she needed and they’d had some long drawn-out conversations on the phone about her relationship with Audrey. Now she had Clare to talk to as well, but Charlie brought another perspective and she found herself blurting out what it had been like over the years for her, everything since the divorce, the way her daughter idolised her father.
‘Is he in contact much?’ Charlie wanted to know.
‘Not as much as I’d like when it comes to Audrey. I don’t particularly like getting in touch with him but I do on occasion, for her sake. He lives in a bit of a bubble really, the Simon-bubble I call it. He’s almost ethereal, at least for Audrey. He stays in touch via email and phone calls and most of what he shares are details of him living the life I know she wishes she had. He sends photographs of the most beautiful places you’ve ever seen, landscapes that are impressive to a teenage girl who has the monotony of school, dreary weather a lot of the year, as well as strained relationships with her own mum.’
‘Surely Audrey knows it’s not all real life. It’s like social media only showing the good parts.’ His velvety brown eyes were full of understanding. ‘Veronica said your ex has remarried.’
She wasn’t sure whether knowing that her mum talked about her and Simon to Charlie was a good thing or not. ‘He married the woman he left me for.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I’m not. I rushed into getting married when I shouldn’t have, but I won’t ever regret it: I got Audrey.’
‘True.’ And there was that reassuring smile again, the one she could look at a thousand times or more and still not have had enough. ‘He has two more kids now,’ Sam added.
‘How does Audrey feel about her half-siblings?’
‘She doesn’t know them.’ Yet. But she’d be a part of their family if she went through with the idea of moving to the other side of the world. And although Sam hadn’t meant it to happen, her bottom lip trembled, she bit down on it but all it did was allow a tear to snake its way down and when Charlie covered her hand with his, she bolted across the café, Clare staring after her, and she hid in the kitchen.
Monty, short and with a shaved head that made him look more of a brute than he was, didn’t say much apart from ‘Excuse me’ when he needed to get out to the floor and give a plate of scrambled eggs on toast to a customer at table five.
‘Stop hiding,’ he told her when he came back. He hooked an arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze. ‘Clare needs help out there.’
Pulling herself together, she went out to find a next-to-empty café apart from the customer with scrambled eggs and of course, Charlie, waiting patiently. She noticed he had another cup of coffee in front of him.
‘There’s an extra cup over there for you,’ Clare whispered as she floated by.
Sam should’ve known she’d never get away with walking off without explanation so she went over to join Charlie and nodded when he asked whether she was OK. The table they were sitting at was by the window, looking out at crisp brown leaves skittering past, the tree that had shed them destined to be bare in a few short weeks.
‘Kids are hard,’ he began, ‘whatever age they are. I remember shutting myself in the utility room when Layla was two and acting up. I covered my ears and everything. I may have even hummed a tune so I really couldn’t hear her.’
Sam’s smile didn’t last. ‘I don’t know what to do anymore.’
‘I don’t have many pearls of wisdom apart from telling you to hang in there.’
‘I wish I had a magic wand to wave and make everything all right.’
‘May I suggest we don’t talk about Audrey for a moment,’ said Charlie. ‘What about you?’
‘What do you mean what about me?’
‘As parents we are often guilty of focusing on our kids and forgetting everything else, but we need to be happy too.’
‘My happiness seems way, way down on the agenda.’
‘Well, it shouldn’t be. You’ve moved to Mapleberry, you’re working in a café which, judging by what I know, isn’t your first choice of career. Management, am I right?’
‘Sort of,’ Sam smiled. She toyed with the handle of the coffee cup and recapped where her career had taken her over the years. ‘Management was where I ended up, at the top of the ladder I’d tried to climb for a while. I had some control, prospects, more money, security. It’s what I was always told to work for.’
‘By your mum?’
‘Actually no, more my dad. Mum never said much. She’d kind of gone by then…not in a physical sense.’ She shrugged, awkward saying this out loud. ‘But emotionally she was out of reach so it was Dad’s advice I got, his support.’
‘And he approved of the path you took?’
‘My dad died when I was seventeen.’
He ran a hand through hair that was long enough on top that it didn’t settle exactly the same as before, and if it were possible, looked even more handsome in the low autumn light filtering in through the window. ‘I’m sorry, it’s rough, I know. I was older when I lost my parents, but whatever age you are, it sucks.’
‘It does suck.’ They exchanged a grin at their youthful phrasing. ‘Layla seems to cope remarkably well without her mum around. Sorry, tell me to be quiet if you don’t want to talk about it.’
‘No, fair’s fair, you’re telling me all your secrets,’ he grinned. ‘It hasn’t all been plain sailing; sometimes Layla misses her incredibly and I don’t know what to do. It’s why Veronica has been such a blessing, and Audrey turning up too. Layla has had very few female figures in her life and I know she needs them.’
‘Tell me about your wife.’
And so he did. Charlie talked about how they
’d met at the hospital where she was a nurse, how they’d dated for a couple of years before he plucked up the courage to ask her to marry him, about their wedding reception that hadn’t had a band but a pianist.
Layla wanting to learn to play and coming over to practise so often made perfect sense to Sam now.
‘Amanda loved the piano,’ he said wistfully. ‘Other music was never an option.’
‘Did she play?’
He smiled. ‘She did, and she was pretty good. She had a go on the wedding day as well, everyone cheering her on as she sat there in a white gown at the ebony grand piano in the corner of the room.’ Sam didn’t miss the tear in his eye. ‘I have some of her music recorded, Layla listens to it often – it’s a way of keeping her memory alive, I suppose.’
‘You’re an amazing dad.’
‘And you’re a good mum – you’re just having a hard time.’
‘Single parenting is tough.’ When he nodded, she told him, ‘My dad was always the strong one; he seemed to keep us all together.’
‘You must take after him. Tell me about him.’
‘We didn’t always get on,’ she explained. ‘He pushed me to do well at school, to aspire to a career that would offer me a future. I’d told him I wanted to study psychology at university and he hated the idea. He said I had a real flair for maths and sciences and I should be studying those. He died before we ever got to finish that argument. I did do psychology, got my degree and thought I knew which direction I was headed in. But then things got so bad at home, I couldn’t focus on the career I really wanted.’ It didn’t help that as well as losing her father, she’d lost touch with her brother, Eddie, too. But they didn’t talk about him. Not ever. ‘I got a job in a customer services department answering the phones, I made friends there, and I found myself enjoying life at long last. I met Simon, saw my escape route from Mapleberry, moved to Cheshire with him when we married, and we had Audrey. After that I wanted part-time work and my experience was in customer services. I’d fallen into the role initially but I kept working hard at it, Dad’s voice constantly in my head, and a series of promotions finally led me into management.’