Summer at the Kindness Cafe

by Victoria Walters

  ‘Dinner’s ready so let’s change the subject,’ Louise said, grabbing two plates for them.

  ‘Lou,’ Abbie said sternly. She didn’t want her sister to miss out on a chance with Alex but was at a loss as to how to show her that love didn’t have to be something to be scared of.

  ‘Fine, I’ll think about it,’ Louise muttered.

  ***

  Abbie stopped by Brew on the way to Huntley Manor in the morning. There were two people in bright pink T-shirts at the counter talking to Joy and handing her a bunch of leaflets.

  ‘This is Abbie,’ Joy said when she saw her. ‘Abbie, this is Jenny and Martin. They work for Littlewood Animal Rescue.’

  ‘We’re having our annual fete this weekend,’ Jenny explained, handing Abbie a leaflet. ‘We always need volunteers, in case you’d be interested.’ She turned back to Joy. ‘I don’t know where we’re going to find another vet at such short notice.’

  ‘Their vet is having to go to London to help with a surgery,’ Joy explained to Abbie, who was looking at the leaflet with interest. The fete was to raise funds for the charity and encourage people to adopt their animals.

  ‘What about Alex?’ Abbie said, looking up. ‘Have you asked him?’

  Joy beamed at her. ‘What a great idea, I’m sure he’d be willing to help out.’

  ‘Is that the vet in the high street? We haven’t had much to do with him, but I’ve heard good things,’ Jenny said.

  Abbie’s mind started whirring. ‘I could ask him for you,’ she offered, wondering if she could use the opportunity to put in a good word for Louise. She didn’t want her sister to have completely discouraged him.

  ‘Really?’ Martin said. ‘That would be great.’

  ‘And you need more volunteers, did you say? Leave it to me.’ Abbie got a coffee and left, practically skipping along the pavement towards the vet surgery. She was sure she could persuade Alex to help out at the fete and hoped she could also do some matchmaking while she was at it.

  Abbie felt like a wannabe spy as she checked over her shoulder before opening the door to Littlewood Vet Surgery to make sure Louise was nowhere to be seen.

  Abbie approached the reception desk. ‘Is Alex in, please?’

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘No but . . .’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Alex himself said, appearing behind them. ‘How can I help, um . . .’

  ‘Abbie,’ she said quickly. ‘Louise’s sister. We met briefly in Brew?’

  He nodded. ‘Of course. Come on through,’ he said, looking curious as to why she was there. He led her into the consulting room. ‘Do you have a pet you need help with?’ he asked her after she shut the door.

  ‘No, actually I came to ask you a favour.’ She showed him the Littlewood Animal Rescue Fete leaflet. ‘It’s going to be an important day for the charity, but their vet has had to go to London, and they really need someone there to answer any questions people might have about adopting one of their animals.’

  He took the leaflet and nodded. ‘That sounds sensible.’

  She smiled. ‘And we wondered if you could be that vet?’

  Alex raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, right. Do you work with them, then?’

  Abbie thought quickly. ‘Well, actually, I will be volunteering there too, and Louise told me what a good vet you are, so when they said they needed one, I thought of you,’ she said in a rush, hoping flattery would help and that he’d like the fact Louise thought highly of him.

  Alex did in fact smile at that. ‘Oh, well then, how can I say no?’

  ‘Really? Oh wow, thank you! I’ll get Jenny, the organiser, to call you with all the details then.’

  ‘Great. And I’ll see you there then. What about Louise? Is she volunteering too?’

  ‘She is,’ Abbie replied, firmly. She was certain that she could persuade Louise to help out, then she and Alex could bond over animals in need. It was right up Louise’s street. She wouldn’t be able to say no if she thought the charity needed her; Abbie knew her too well. And if she spent the day with Alex, then surely she would see that there was nothing to be scared of, that she should take a chance on him.

  Alex grinned. ‘Oh, well, that’s great. We’ll all be there, then.’

  ‘Yes, yes we will.’ They stared at one another, smiling. Abbie was thrilled he seemed excited to see Louise there; she knew that if her sister just gave him a bit of encouragement, he would forget about her rejection at the hospital. She clapped her hands together. ‘Excellent. I’ll let you get on then, and thanks again for giving your time. I know they’ll really appreciate it.’

  ‘It’s no problem; it’s for a great cause.’

  ‘Plus, if you get people to adopt animals, you’ll get more customers here.’

  Alex laughed. ‘That’s a good point.’

  Abbie waved and left the vet’s, thrilled Alex had agreed to volunteer. Now all she had to do was persuade Louise to go along as well. Abbie realised as she walked away that she couldn’t be there, as that was when Jack would be arriving. But maybe that was a good thing. She could tell Louise she had volunteered before Jack had told her he was coming and beg Louise to take her spot instead.

  If only it was as easy to sort out her own love life.

  Chapter Five

  ‘I’d say a week at least.’ The builder sent by the insurance company gave his verdict to Eszter and her mother-in-law as the three of them stood in her hall looking up at the collapsed ceiling. ‘You’d better stay elsewhere while we do the work; the bathroom will be out of use, as will down here, and there will be a lot of dust.’

  ‘It’s no problem, you can carry on staying with us. Do you want to pack a bag?’ Eszter asked Mrs Harris, who was looking at the mess in her house with a stricken expression on her face. Eszter touched her arm for a moment, then withdrew it, sure that her mother-in-law wouldn’t appreciate it. ‘I know it looks a real mess, but they will get it looking as good as new, won’t you?’

  The builder nodded. ‘Don’t worry, it will be fine.’

  ‘Do you want me to help you?’ Eszter asked.

  Mrs Harris started climbing the stairs carefully and didn’t object, so Eszter followed her up into the older woman’s bedroom. It was strange for Eszter to think of her late husband Nick climbing these very same stairs. She tried to picture him growing up here, but she had only known him in her own country, their city apartment, walking the streets of Budapest hand in hand, and Littlewood was very far removed from that world. The Harris house was large and clean, but it lacked warmth somehow. Perhaps because the family it had once nurtured was gone; only Anne now remained.

  ‘Do you have a bag?’

  ‘At the top of the wardrobe.’ Mrs Harris began opening drawers and pulling out clothes as Eszter pulled down the large holdall for her.

  Eszter noticed two photographs in frames on the bedside table and bent down to look at them. One was of Anne on her wedding day and the other was of her holding a boy’s hand – he was in his school uniform and they both beamed at the camera.

  ‘Zoe has his exact smile,’ Eszter said, looking at it and thinking of her daughter, who was with Joy and Harry at Brew.

  ‘I noticed that as soon as I saw her,’ Mrs Harris said.

  ‘Nick would be so pleased that you got to meet her,’ Eszter said carefully. She didn’t want to start another argument, but she needed to know about the past if they had any chance of building a future relationship with one another.

  ‘He didn’t even tell me about her.’ She kept her back to Eszter as she packed her bag.

  ‘After you didn’t come to the wedding, he thought that was it as far as any contact between you went. I suppose he didn’t think you’d want to know,’ she replied, gently.

  Mrs Harris’s shoulders sagged. ‘I keep telling you that he didn’t invite us to your wedding. I would have come. I would have.’ She stopped and turned around. ‘Are you really sure he sent us an invitation?’

  ‘I promise you. I saw
him write it and posted it myself.’

  ‘Oh.’ She turned away again.

  Eszter walked over to her. ‘Mrs Harris . . .’

  ‘I suppose you can call me Anne.’

  Eszter nodded. ‘Anne – is it at all possible that your husband saw the invitation but didn’t tell you about it?’ She knew that their estrangement had had a lot to do with Nick’s father, and she could see the truth on Anne’s face – she would have come to the wedding if she had known about it. Maybe her husband had known that and made the decision for them both.

  There was a long silence as Anne kept folding clothes, and Eszter wasn’t sure she was going to answer her, but finally she did. ‘Nick’s father was not always an easy man, and Nick disappointed him. I tried to make peace between them, but Frank, Nick’s father, disowned him when he left us. Perhaps I should have been stronger, but it was different in my day. You respected your husband, you took vows to obey. I had nothing of my own, do you understand? It’s not like I could leave him.’ Sadness welled in her eyes until she looked away. ‘So, yes, if we received the invitation, he could have decided not to show me because he knew I’d want to go. No wonder Nick was so cold when he spoke to me after Frank died. He thought that I hadn’t wanted to see him get married.’

  ‘When I told Joy, at Brew, who I was when I first got here, she told me that Nick had trained to be a doctor. Is that true?’

  Anne nodded. ‘It was all Frank ever wanted for him. He was strict, I won’t deny that, and he wanted Nick to be the best. Nick didn’t really want to be a doctor, but he went to medical school to please us. I was proud of him. I wanted him to be as successful as his father.’ She shook her head. ‘Did I make mistakes? Yes. We both did. But I never thought that Nick would leave and never come back.’

  ‘He was a teacher in Hungary; he really loved it,’ Eszter explained.

  ‘I’m glad of it.’

  ‘So, Nick decided he didn’t want to be a doctor and that’s what the last argument was about? He told me that there was a great divide between you all and he couldn’t see how to cross it.’

  Anne nodded, and carried on folding clothes as if it was too painful to look at Eszter.

  ‘He didn’t plan to stay away, he told me. He wanted to travel, and then he met me, and couldn’t imagine coming back home. But as the years passed, he thought about you both a lot; he wanted to build a relationship again. That’s why he invited you to the wedding.’ Eszter could see how painful talking of the past was for Anne, but she knew they had to do it. ‘Do you have everything you need?’

  She sighed. ‘Yes, I think so.’ She zipped up her bag. ‘Eszter, I know that I was very unwelcoming when you first arrived.’

  ‘I understood.’

  Anne nodded. ‘I am glad Nick had a family. That he was happy. I am glad of that.’

  The two of them left the house and walked slowly to Brew to collect Zoe. As they strolled through Littlewood, Anne was looking around the high street in interest.

  ‘I have lived here all my life, but I haven’t been out and about in the town as much as I used to. When Frank died, it was hard being on my own and then perhaps I got too used to it.’

  ‘I felt really lonely after Nick died, being in the apartment without him, but thankfully I had Zoe. Coming here has been good for us, I think. Seeing where he lived, I feel close to Nick but also not trapped by memories of our old life. Does time really heal, do you think?’

  ‘Some things you never get over, but you learn to live with them.’

  Eszter was sure that Anne was thinking of her own life as they went into Brew. She couldn’t imagine what kind of man her husband had been; it sounded like he had been strict and controlling with his wife and son, pushing Nick away with his demands. She could tell that her mother-in-law bitterly regretted the past and she was full of sadness that she and Nick never got the chance to reconcile. Eszter just hoped she was helping them both in some way by being there in his place.

  ‘Mum!’ Zoe called when they walked into Brew. Eszter smiled to see her at the table with Abbie and Joy, tea and cake served for the three of them.

  ‘Look what’s happening on Saturday. Can we go, please?’ Zoe pointed at a leaflet that Abbie had.

  ‘An animal charity is having a fete on Littlewood Green,’ Abbie explained, showing her the leaflet. ‘Louise is volunteering,’ she added with a smile.

  ‘Let’s all go,’ Eszter agreed readily, pleased to see Zoe so excited to go and happy to get involved in more of Littlewood’s activities.

  ‘You’ll have to tell me all about it,’ Abbie said. ‘A friend from London is coming to stay for the weekend, so I can’t make it.’

  ‘Will there be a lot of animals there?’

  ‘I’m sure there will be,’ Eszter said to her daughter, hoping to avoid the ‘can I have a puppy?’ conversation if at all possible.

  ‘It’s good to see you in here again, Anne,’ Joy said, getting up. ‘I’ll get you both some tea, you look like you could do with it.’

  Eszter wondered if there was anything that happened in Littlewood that couldn’t be helped by having tea at Brew, and very much doubted it.

  Chapter Six

  Abbie slid the Littlewood Animal Rescue Fete leaflet across the kitchen counter to her sister. ‘I have a massive favour to ask you. Now that Jack is coming to stay this weekend – I can’t volunteer for this any more. I don’t want to let them down, though, and since you’re off work that day, I thought you could go instead.’

  ‘Oh, you did, did you?’

  ‘Please, Lou, the animals need you!’

  ‘I thought you said I needed to be kinder to myself? I was planning to veg all day in my pyjamas and watch Netflix.’

  ‘You can do that when you get home. Please, I feel really bad about letting them down. And, if you think about it, it’s really your fault for encouraging me to do these acts of kindness. I just couldn’t say no when they asked me to volunteer, but now Jack will be here.’

  Louise rolled her eyes at her sister’s attempt at a puppy-dog look. She sighed. ‘Fine, but I’m ordering a curry afterwards, and it’s on you.’

  ‘I’ll get you some ice cream too.’ Abbie beamed at her. ‘You’re a star.’

  ‘And how are you feeling about Jack coming, anyway?’ Louise wasn’t at all convinced this visit was a good idea. She was trying to keep her thoughts about Jack to herself, but it seemed strange to her that after breaking up with her sister and letting her go from the company they worked at now suddenly he realised he missed her. She hoped he was genuine and wasn’t messing with Abbie’s head.

  ‘I told Thomas earlier that Jack would be staying at Huntley Manor for two nights.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Not much, just asked me why he was coming, and I said I wasn’t sure. It’s going to be very strange having them both in the same place.’

  ‘Especially now that Thomas has asked you out.’

  ‘It’s just dinner, no need to read too much into it,’ Abbie said, looking a little unconvinced herself.

  ‘Be careful, Abs. I don’t want you to get hurt.’

  ‘I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.’

  Louise watched her get up and walk into the living room. Maybe this fete would be a good thing. It would beat sitting in the cottage on her own all day worrying about Abbie, with inevitable thoughts of the past leaking in as well. She couldn’t help but see the pictures of the animals on the leaflet and think briefly of Alex. She hadn’t seen him since he asked her out, now that Hazel had gone home. She had found herself glancing around Brew when she went today, but they obviously got their coffee at different times. She told herself that it was for the best anyway, because if they saw each other again, it was bound to be awkward.

  If only Abbie was as sensible when it came to men. Louise had turned down a date, while her sister had somehow accepted two, and she didn’t even seem to grasp the fact. Louise hoped it wouldn’t all end in tears, but when was anything
to do with romance ever plain sailing?

  ***

  Eszter watched as Anne prepared dinner for them in the kitchen. She had insisted on making them a cottage pie to say thank you. Now that she was staying with them for a week, she wanted to make herself useful. Eszter was happy to let her take control in the kitchen, and the smell coming from the oven was making her stomach rumble. Zoe was reading a book at the table, and the radio was playing softly in the background. Eszter sipped her glass of wine as she sat opposite her daughter. Anne had refused the wine. She seemed to live on cups of tea.

  ‘Have you read this?’ Zoe asked her mother, showing her the book. In the spare room of the cottage, they had found lots of books on a large bookcase and Zoe was eagerly delving into them. She was an avid reader – something that Nick had instilled in her. The two of them had always been reading together, either aloud or curled up on the sofa with a book each, making Eszter’s heart sing. Zoe held up Anne of Green Gables. Eszter shook her head, but Anne turned around.

  ‘That was my favourite book when I was young,’ she said, looking at it. ‘My mother bought it for me because I had the same name as the main character, and I loved it from the first page.’

  ‘It’s very good,’ Zoe said, nodding.

  ‘Do you have a favourite book?’ Anne asked, leaning down to look at the pie in the oven. Eszter was pleased to see her chatting to her granddaughter and gave Zoe an encouraging smile.

  ‘I like Matilda. I asked Mum if I could change my name to that, but she said no.’ She gave her mother a disparaging look.

  Anne chuckled. ‘Quite right too, Zoe is a lovely name. Now, the cottage pie should be ready. I’ll dish up,’ she said, briskly attending to the food.

  Eszter was surprised to be complimented on her daughter’s name. Anne couldn’t know, but Eszter had chosen it because her own grandmother, who had died when she was just a teenager, had been named Zoe and her daughter was turning out to be just as much a force of nature as her namesake.