Summer at the Kindness Cafe

by Victoria Walters

  Louise held up her glass of wine. ‘Well, you’ve stuck to your end of the pact, so I suppose now I have to try and be kind to myself. Does this wine and the box of chocolates I have in the cupboard count?’

  ‘For now, but you need to think a bit bigger. Like putting Peter behind you once and for all.’

  Louise’s smile faltered as she took another sip of her wine. She realised she had still harboured some hope that Peter would show up on her doorstep and beg her to take him back, even after all this time. Didn’t everyone fantasise about that when someone dumped them? Louise hoped so, but she didn’t dare tell Abbie about it.

  It was hard to realise that all the plans she had made with him, he was now making with someone else. Abbie was right, though, she knew that deep down. Peter had clearly moved on. He wasn’t going to show up now or ever. He was marrying someone else.

  It was time for her to plan a very different future, but quite how she was meant to do that, she didn’t know. Perhaps kindness started in small steps anyway. So, for tonight, she would chill with her sister, eating and drinking, and try to ignore that tiny voice that always piped up at her lowest points.

  The one that told her no one would ever love her again.

  Chapter Six

  Eszter walked to Brew for her first shift on Monday morning with Zoe by her side. Her daughter was armed with a bag full of things to entertain herself with and Eszter wished she were armed with something equally useful. She was nervous. She was working in a different country and there was no one to give her support as she went into the café where Harry and Joy were opening up. It was moments like this when she missed her husband Nick the most. They had been best friends and he would have wished her luck this morning and given her a big hug before she stepped out of the door. She wondered when missing him might hurt just a little bit less.

  Harry and Joy welcomed her enthusiastically and they seated Zoe at the table by the window and brought her an orange juice and a brownie and assured her that there would be lots of local kids coming in so she would easily make some friends there. They showed Eszter the ropes – she would be serving not cooking, which was good as she rarely cooked anything more complicated than pasta at home. She had used a similar coffee machine before and the till was easier than the one in her shop back home. She picked things up quickly, thankfully, as then the morning rush began.

  Eszter had been worried that Harry and Joy had given her the job because they pitied her but her fears were soon put to rest as Brew was really busy all day. In the morning, people picked up coffees to go as they walked to the train station and at lunchtime all the families on their summer holiday break came in for treats. Abbie popped in for a sandwich on her way to Huntley Manor and told them how she was giving Thomas some free PR advice. It seemed that Harry and Joy’s kindness idea was really spreading through the town. Eszter just wasn’t sure how to start her own kindness mission.

  In a lull around four o’clock, with Zoe happily colouring, Eszter took the chance as she and Joy cleared and wiped the tables to ask about her mother-in-law.

  ‘All I really know about her is that her name is Mrs Harris, and that her husband died a few years ago. Nick was always very vague about his family. It was a touchy subject, and it wasn’t until he died that I realised how much it must have played on his mind all these years.’ Eszter didn’t even know if Mrs Harris was aware she had a granddaughter. She had already decided to make the first visit to her alone, just in case.

  ‘I imagine that will be Anne Harris. I knew her better when we were younger – like me, she’s lived here all her life. We went to the same school, although we were never close friends. When she married Frank, I saw her less and less. After we opened Brew, they would come in occasionally, but I got the feeling their tastes ran to more elegant establishments. Frank was a private doctor in London and would commute in every day before he retired. His death was sudden. Anne was devastated, and after that, she seemed to retreat from the town. I haven’t seen her in a long time. She still lives in their marital home, as far as I know.’ Joy wrote down the address for Eszter and explained how to walk there from Brew.

  ‘And do you know why Nick left all those years ago?’ Eszter asked her tentatively. She couldn’t imagine not speaking to her parents, even with them living far away.

  ‘It seemed quite sudden when we heard he’d left Littlewood. He never came back and no one really knew what had happened to him. I understand that if anyone ever asked Anne or Frank, they were shut down pretty quickly. He was training to be a doctor, I know that.’

  Eszter was surprised. ‘Really? He was a teacher in Hungary; he never told me he had once wanted to be a doctor. He told me he did an English degree at university in Scotland and then decided to travel around Europe teaching English, which is how we met. When we fell in love, he decided to stay in Budapest. It was only when we got married that I realised how big the rift was with his parents. Neither of them came, and I found it strange at the time, but Nick put a brave face on it.’

  ‘I think sometimes people don’t realise how precious little time we get to make things right.’

  Eszter nodded. ‘When he got sick, it happened so quickly, and we were told he wouldn’t have long. I asked him if I could ring his mother but he kept putting me off. By the time I told her how ill he was, it really was too late, and she said she couldn’t face the trip on her own. The funeral though . . . I was shocked she didn’t come, but I know she’s old and didn’t have anyone to bring her. I think if he had realised how fast he would go, he would have come back here. But instead, he has left the task to me.’

  ‘You’ll do him proud, I know you will.’

  Eszter hoped she could live up to Nick’s faith in her. As Joy said, time was precious, and she only had the summer. She needed to see Mrs Harris before they missed another chance.

  When Louise came in to pick up Zoe at closing time, having offered to look after her as she had the evening off, Eszter was a bag of nerves. She looked at her outfit of black trousers and shirt and smoothed down her blonde hair, hoping she looked respectable, like someone worthy of being Nick’s wife. She told Louise she wouldn’t be long. For all she knew, Mrs Harris wouldn’t even be in, but it sounded like she didn’t go far often. Louise told her she’d take Zoe to the Italian restaurant a short drive away and to text her when she was finished and they’d meet at the cottages. Eszter felt her kindness debt to Louise building up and up.

  Eszter walked to Mrs Harris’s house after Brew had closed. The sunshine of the day was still in full force. She was surprised at how light the evenings stayed here. Her feet ached after standing all day. After Nick had taken a turn for the worse, she had handed in her notice at her shop so it had been a couple of months since she had worked and her feet needed to get used to it again.

  Mrs Harris lived on the edge of town in a large house set back from the road, surrounded by trees. Eszter walked through the open gates, her shoes crunching on the driveway. The three-storey house loomed large in red brick with ivy creeping over the door, which looked as if it needed cutting back.

  Nick had shown her only a few photos from his youth and Eszter now remembered seeing one of him as a baby with his mother outside this very house. She wished he was looking down on her at this moment, and she tried to believe he was sending his strength to help her. Taking a deep breath, she marched to the door and knocked twice. The sound echoed in the stillness around her and she began to regret not having Zoe there to lighten the mood.

  There was a long time until the door opened, as if Mrs Harris was slow in her movements. Which was likely, Eszter thought. She opened the door with a frown. ‘Yes?’ she asked with immediate suspicion. She was a tall, bony lady with a neat, grey bun and narrow dark eyes, which immediately reminded Eszter of Nick.

  ‘Mrs Harris?’ she asked. ‘I’m Eszter Harris. Nick’s wife.’

  The woman stared at her for a long moment. ‘Eszter?’

  ‘I’ve come to Littlewood. To see
you. Nick asked me to.’

  Mrs Harris kept her hand curled around the door. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Could I come in and explain?’

  ‘What is there to explain? You come over now when my boy is gone? Why would I want to see you? It’s Nick who I want to see,’ Mrs Harris cried, her voice trembling with emotion.

  Eszter’s heart tugged. ‘I’m so sorry. It all happened so fast. He wanted to come but it was too late . . .’

  ‘If it’s my money you’re after then you can think again. I know what your sort are like.’

  Eszter’s mouth fell open. ‘My sort?’

  ‘You trapped him over there, and now you think I want you here? Go back to where you came from!’ The door shut abruptly in Eszter’s face, leaving her in stunned silence.

  ‘Well, that went well,’ she said aloud before turning slowly, shaking her head as she stumbled out of the driveway and headed towards home. Thank God she hadn’t come with Zoe. There was no way she would have wanted her daughter to witness her grandmother like that.

  The unfairness stabbed at her; after all, Eszter had been the one who had always encouraged Nick to heal the breach between him and his parents. Now she was here honouring his dying wish, and this was the reception she got. She tutted to herself and found herself pounding out her annoyance on the pavement as she marched towards her cottage. She couldn’t believe she had come all this way to be treated like that. Go back to where you came from. Eszter had known that Nick’s mother would be surprised to see her but she hadn’t quite been prepared for such anger towards her. Maybe Littlewood’s warm welcomes before this had been unusual, and this small town was more narrow-minded than she had thought.

  For the first time in her life, Eszter felt like a complete outsider.

  She called Louise to meet at her cottage with Zoe. Eszter had never been happier to see the friendly face of her beloved daughter and gave her a big squeeze until Zoe complained and she was forced to let her go. She invited Louise in for a coffee.

  ‘So, it didn’t go well?’ Louise asked as Eszter made them both a cup. Zoe begged to watch a film and Eszter settled her on the sofa with some sweets, grateful she wasn’t alone there.

  ‘She basically slammed the door in my face.’ She carried their coffees over to the kitchen table and glanced at her daughter happily watching Disney. ‘God knows what she would have done if she’d seen Zoe. It’s clear she holds me responsible for her not seeing her son. Maybe even him dying.’ Eszter felt a lump form in her throat and hoped she wouldn’t start crying in front of Louise. It felt far too early in their friendship to start crying on her.

  ‘It must have been a huge shock to see you, I suppose. I’m sure she didn’t mean what she said.’

  Eszter tried to see if from her mother-in-law’s point of view for a moment. ‘I guess I should have called her first. I was just in such a rush to do what Nick wanted. I didn’t think she would react like that though.’

  ‘You were doing what your husband asked of you, so don’t blame yourself. But you can’t give up. She’ll come round in time, won’t she?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know.’ Eszter took a sip of the strong coffee. She had no idea quite where to go from here. How to get her mother-in-law to listen to her and believe that she didn’t want anything from her.

  ‘Does she know about Zoe?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nick invited his parents to our wedding but they didn’t come. I don’t think he had any more contact with them after that. He didn’t tell me about it anyway.’

  ‘Maybe seeing Zoe would soften her up a little?’

  Eszter glanced at the blonde head of her daughter giggling at the film. She really didn’t want Zoe anywhere near that cranky old woman, but then she tried to remember why she was doing this. Her pride made her want to stay away – she couldn’t believe Mrs Harris actually thought Eszter was after her money – but then she thought of Nick and how much he wanted her to do this. She couldn’t do anything else for him now. How could she look at herself in the mirror if she didn’t at least try again?

  ‘Maybe you’re right. I can’t leave it like this.’

  ‘You’ll get through to her, I’m sure of it.’

  Eszter wished she had Louise’s confidence. She remembered how stubborn Nick was and now she knew where he got that from. He hadn’t wanted to break the estrangement with his parents and neither had they, so the years had passed and now they were lost to each other for ever. Eszter was determined that Zoe and Mrs Harris wouldn’t suffer the same fate. Eszter was going to break Mrs Harris down. She just needed to work out how to do it.

  Chapter Seven

  Abbie found Thomas Huntley waiting in his office, his head in his hands. He looked up quickly and smiled when she entered but not before she saw a flash of genuine despair on his face. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I’ve just been looking at the bookings for the rest of the summer – we’re not even at half occupancy when it should be one of our busiest times.’

  Abbie had spent the last couple of days getting to know Huntley Manor as much as she could. She had taken another in-depth tour, had a look at all their social media, and researched the house through the ages online. She had even checked out a book on local history from the library. She couldn’t help but be fascinated by the house.

  Built in the 1700s for the then Lord Huntley, a distant relation to royalty, it had been in the Huntley family for generations. As running a large estate became more costly, the family first opened up the house to paying visitors and then Thomas’s grandfather had turned it into a hotel. It had thrived for years and, under Thomas’s parents, had done pretty well, but bookings had dropped as newer hotels had opened up in the surrounding area and the house became in need of repairs. When his parents died, Thomas was left to run the estate alone with no siblings or family of his own; the strain of that was clearly showing on both him and the house, Abbie thought.

  ‘I spent yesterday updating your website and creating new accounts for the estate on social media. I can’t believe you weren’t on Twitter or Instagram. There was no opportunity for guests who enjoyed their stay to talk about the place so new customers would know where to find you. The website was really out of date as well. It talked about horse-riding weekends,’ Abbie said, sitting down opposite him across his large, dark wood desk. ‘But you don’t have any horses.’

  ‘I sold them last year to pay off some debts. We rarely had anyone who wanted to ride.’

  ‘The stables are now just wasted space then. You could do something else with them.’

  ‘It would cost a lot to convert them, though.’

  ‘Well, we could put that on a long-term project list. One thing I was surprised that you don’t offer here is weddings.’

  ‘My parents never saw the need. It’s a lot of work, isn’t it? We’d need an event planner and I can’t afford to take on any more staff. Another long-term project maybe?’ He smiled weakly. ‘Abbie – is creating a Twitter account really going to bring in some more guests before the end of the summer?’

  ‘Every little helps,’ she said, trying to keep her voice bright. It seemed like Thomas was already giving up. She opened up the book she had borrowed on the page that had caught her eye. ‘Look what I found in the library.’ It was an article in the local paper from years ago about a summer garden party the estate had thrown. The picture was taken outside in the grounds. There were people everywhere. The party looked like the kind of event people she knew in London would love to attend. ‘Surely the reason you come and stay somewhere like this over a newer, flashier hotel is that you love history? You want to feel like you could be lady of the house, wearing a long dress, welcoming guests, and falling in love with a lord? You should be doing events like this again.’

  ‘I was never any good at entertaining, I suppose. So, that sort of fell off my to-do list when I took over the hotel.’ He looked sheepish. ‘I don’t even like going to parties.’

  ‘You can’t just avoi
d doing something because you personally don’t like it; events are really important for a hotel,’ Abbie said, a little impatient with his continuing negativity. Didn’t he want to save his family home? Just because he’d never organised an event before wasn’t a good enough reason not to try in her book. ‘You need to try, Thomas.’

  He regarded her coldly. ‘If you think I haven’t been trying, then you should just walk away now.’ He stood up gracefully considering his anger. ‘I didn’t ask you to come here and criticise me. You have no idea how hard it’s been running this place by myself. You wouldn’t know anything about the weight on my shoulders that this house produces. It’s my family that I will be letting down if this fails. My history I’ll be walking away from. My legacy.’ He strode out of the room, leaving Abbie unable to come up with a response before he departed.

  She sighed aloud to the empty room. She knew that Huntley Manor couldn’t be easy to be in charge of alone but that’s why she wanted to help. She thought of her grandparents’ house and how her parents hadn’t thought they were up to the job of restoring the property. She had lost her legacy back then. She understood how Thomas must be feeling. This place was steeped in a far deeper, and grander, history than theirs had been but her heart had been broken when it had gone up for sale. She realised then that she was too invested to walk away. It didn’t matter that Thomas was resisting her help. She could see his defences were up because he was scared. If he could start to see a difference then surely he would get stuck in too?

  Abbie went down to reception where Amy was sat behind the desk doing nothing as usual. Abbie decided to show her the social media accounts she had set up as that would get her involved and give her something to do in between dealing with guests. ‘I think we want to talk about the history of the place, play up the grand elegance of the house and things that have happened in the past. We want to draw in fans of BBC period dramas. We want people to think of romance when they come here. We want to appeal to city types looking for a traditional English country house experience.’