The meet-up had been strange at first. It was nice to see Erica, of course, but conversation had started off stilted and awkward. After all, they barely knew each other. But then in some ways that negative became a positive too, because it meant there was a lot to talk about and share.
They were sitting on chairs that looked as if they’d been hewn from still-living tree roots, the wood smooth and bleached and delicate with tables to match. At first glance they’d looked beautiful but uncomfortable and Cathy had been surprised to find they were anything but. They had to contain some magical property, because when she sat down it was like the seat had been specially carved to hold her and her alone. In fact, the whole of Ingrid’s coffee house felt sort of magical, like a tea shop populated by gnomes and elves from an Enid Blyton story.
Cathy had ordered a latte, which was very good, and Erica had a flat white. They’d ordered and quickly devoured cakes too, though Erica had joked that Cathy buying cake from Ingrid was a little like selling coals to Newcastle. Cathy had to laugh at that too, but the cranberry granola flapjack she’d tried had been squidgy and moreish, and she’d have happily shipped a whole load home if she hadn’t already had a tray of courgette cake made to Myrtle’s recipe cooling on a wire rack in her kitchen.
The first thing Cathy learned was that Erica had worked at a restaurant which had closed around the time her dad had become really ill with his cancer and so she’d taken the time to help her mum look after him. Her husband had been happy to support them both financially and had a job at a car manufacturing plant that paid enough for him to do that. Cathy liked this about Erica straight away; even though the situation was a little different from the one she’d found herself in as sole carer for her mum, it was still something they had in common. Since then, Erica hadn’t found another job, though she told Cathy she was thinking of retraining in something else – though she hadn’t decided what yet – and that was why she hadn’t rushed into another waiting job.
Erica also told Cathy about her two siblings – Michelle and Matthias – about losing their dad to cancer earlier that year and the ways in which they’d all coped (or not) with that. To Cathy, Erica’s situation sounded utterly heartbreaking.
‘Dad had just turned sixty,’ Erica said. ‘You hear about it all the time, don’t you? Men who have always been fit as a flea but then get caught by something totally unexpected that they don’t even know they’ve got until it’s too late. He never showed any symptoms and the only reason his cancer was discovered at all was incidentally during a routine wellness check. They gave him six months. He didn’t even last four. I think it was the shock – he couldn’t deal with being ill, and he couldn’t get his head around the diagnosis. None of us could. Matthias especially struggled, but then he’d had such a bad few years…’
Erica paused. She appeared to be weighing up how much she could say, and Cathy sensed there was something more to what she’d begun to divulge about her brother. But she seemed to think better of it and turned the conversation back to her dad.
‘Anyway… Dad seemed to get ill so quickly after that it was like he disappeared in front of our eyes…’
Instinctively, Cathy reached across the table for Erica’s hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.
Erica gave a watery smile and shook herself. ‘These things happen, don’t they? We all have to go eventually.’
‘Yes, but it’s a shame we can’t all take the nicest way out. Falling asleep at a ripe old age and going with a smile on your face – what’s wrong with that? That’s the way we all ought to go if we’ve got to.’
‘My mum has always said that,’ Erica replied. ‘And I’m lucky – at least I still have her. Though she worries me so much at times. I don’t think she’s ever completely honest about how lonely she is; just tells me she’s an old war horse and that I shouldn’t bother myself about her.’
‘She knows that’s never going to happen, I’m sure,’ Cathy said. ‘She sounds lovely.’
Erica nodded. ‘She is.’
‘So, how long have you been married?’ Cathy asked. ‘Malcolm, isn’t it?’
‘You’ve got a good memory,’ Erica replied, drying her eyes on a napkin. ‘I’m sure I only mentioned him in passing at the coffee morning last week. It is Malcolm. About ten years now – second marriage. My first husband turned out to be a dick.’
Cathy burst out laughing. ‘So you got rid of him?’
‘Oh no,’ Erica said. ‘I wasn’t that smart at the time. I eventually discovered he was having an affair with the neighbour – clichéd or what? It took me five years to figure it out though. How stupid did I feel? And I looked even more stupid when I gave him the “it’s her or me” choice and he chose that brassy cow!’
‘Is he still with her?’ Cathy asked.
Erica shrugged. ‘Don’t know and don’t care. They moved away. If he is, I hope they’re very miserable together.’
‘Do you have children?’
The fleeting look on Erica’s face made Cathy wish she hadn’t asked, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come and she shook her head. ‘No – it’s just me and Malc. How about you?’ she asked Cathy. ‘Got a man tucked away somewhere you haven’t told me about?’
‘No,’ Cathy said. ‘I lead a very boring life. It’s just me and my shadow most of the time.’
‘It’s probably the easiest way to live,’ Erica said. ‘My family life is constant chaos even without kids.’
Cathy nodded silently. She could have told her how lonely she sometimes was but she liked Erica and she wanted her to ask her to coffee again, and she wouldn’t do that if she thought all she did was mope and complain.
‘So there’s never been anyone?’
‘Oh yes,’ Cathy said carefully. ‘I was engaged. It just didn’t work out.’
‘That must have been hard.’
‘It was; I loved him a lot. But like you said, these things happen.’
Erica shot her a sympathetic smile before reaching for her mug. Cathy didn’t want to talk any more about this; she was tired enough from having told Fleur and then thinking about it constantly since, going over and over moments and events in her head, things that had happened years before between her and Jonas that ought to have been well and truly forgotten. They had been, and would have stayed that way if he hadn’t decided to show up and drag them out from the depths of her memory again.
‘There’s another coffee morning at St Cuthbert’s next week,’ she said, keen to change the subject so she could stop thinking about Jonas. ‘Are you going?’
‘Another charity one?’
‘I don’t think so. Just a general meeting-up thing, I think. Are you going?’
Erica shook her head. ‘I don’t know… I spent the last one trying to avoid getting roped into going to church on Sunday. Iris must be God’s top recruiter. And they’re all a bit…’
‘Old?’ Cathy asked, raising her eyebrows with a faint smile.
Erica grinned. ‘I’m glad you said it.’
‘But they are all really nice and I feel a bit bad never turning up again when they were so kind and so keen for us to go back for the next one. Besides, it would give me a good excuse to bake lots of things and force-feed them to people.’
‘I don’t think you’d have to force-feed them to anyone,’ Erica said. ‘You’d have to use force to keep me away from your cakes.’
Cathy couldn’t help but laugh at this. ‘Iris has been trying to persuade me to go to church too. I wouldn’t mind so much once in a while, but I feel that if I go once I wouldn’t be allowed to stop going, and I don’t want to be tied to a promise like that.’
‘I don’t have time for stuff like that on a Sunday even if I wanted to go,’ Erica said. ‘There’s just too much going on.’
‘I wish I could say that,’ Cathy said with a small smile.
‘Oh, it’s nothing exciting. Just family stuff – making sure Mum’s OK and not getting lonely, keeping on top of the housew
ork and such…’
‘I might still go to the coffee morning, though,’ Cathy said. ‘I really enjoyed the last one, even though it was full of old folks. You’ve got to admit they’re quite entertaining.’
‘Iris and Dora certainly are. I thought at one point I was going to have to break up an actual catfight last time we were there.’
Cathy laughed. ‘When was that?’
‘When they both wanted the last Black Forest muffin.’
‘Oh!’ Cathy said. ‘I thought they were joking!’
‘They might have been but they definitely have a strange love–hate relationship. Like me and my sister – we can’t stand the sight of each other most days but if anyone did anything to her they’d have me to answer to. She’d be the same.’
‘Iris and Dora are cousins, though. I’ll admit I never had that relationship with any of my cousins, but I suppose if you’ve been brought up close you might become like sisters.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘So we’ve agreed we’re going to the next coffee morning?’
‘Well if you go then I’ll go,’ Erica said. ‘There’s strength in numbers – together we’ll be able to resist Iris. I’ll bake this time if you let me have one of your recipes to try,’ she added. ‘I’ve been thinking about those coconut things all week – they were soooo good!’
‘I’ve been writing them down actually,’ Cathy said. ‘My mum always kept them mostly in her head and I’ve always done the same, but I thought it was about time I made a note of them because…’
She paused. Because I don’t have anyone to teach them to and no daughter to pass them on to and that might never happen. If I don’t write them down now they might be lost forever…
‘Well,’ she continued brightly – perhaps a little too brightly – ‘because I did wonder whether the people who’d said they’d like them might actually want a copy. I mean, I know people asked for recipes but maybe they were just being polite.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Erica said. ‘They could have just said the cakes were nice and left it at that. Everyone told Myrtle her fairy cakes were nice but nobody wanted the recipe because who would want to replicate those little disasters in their own kitchen – what a waste of food!’
‘Oh but the courgette cake was lovely,’ Cathy said, rushing to Myrtle’s defence, despite the old lady being completely oblivious to anything being said about her. ‘I took the recipe from her for that.’
‘Courgette has no business being in any kind of cake. It has no business in anything if you ask me – it’s just ugly cucumber.’
Cathy laughed. ‘I don’t mind it so much,’ she said.
‘Hmm.’ Erica peered at Cathy over the rim of her cup as she took a sip. Which led Cathy to believe that her views on courgettes were ones that Erica disagreed with most profoundly.
‘So it’s a date!’
‘The church coffee morning – the hottest date I’ve been on in a long time,’ Erica said. ‘How depressing is that?’
Cathy started to laugh again, but even as she did, she realised that it actually was the hottest date she’d been on in years – and that was no joke.
Eight
Cathy had settled on baking a batch of chocolate brownies (half with hazelnuts and half without), some vanilla cupcakes, egg custard tarts and shortbread, and she’d whipped everything up so quickly that she felt almost guilty that she was putting in very little effort. In fact, she nearly brought in a whole load of new ingredients to make a few more complicated things, but when she’d sent a photo of her spread to Erica and asked whether it was enough of a contribution to the coffee morning, Erica told her not to be mental and that she’d already baked enough to feed half the population of Greater Manchester, let alone their tiny gathering, and to remember that others might be bringing food too. So she’d taken Erica’s advice and left it at that.
‘Oh, here she is!’
Iris clapped her hands together with a broad smile as Cathy lugged her plastic tubs in. ‘And if I’m not mistaken she’s got some of her divine goodies with her!’
‘Anyone would think you were more pleased to see the cakes than her,’ Dora said, unfolding from her chair to come over and take some of the containers from Cathy.
‘You’re the one grabbing them before her coat’s come off,’ Iris fired back.
‘I’m just helping the woman!’ Dora snapped. ‘Unlike some, who just stand and watch her struggle.’
Iris threw her cousin a sour look but said nothing. Instead she turned to Cathy again, her face instantly transforming into a bright smile.
‘I’m so glad you came back. So you enjoyed the last one?’
‘Very much,’ Cathy said.
‘How wonderful. So does this mean we might see you in church soon too?’
Cathy hesitated. She was about to offer some awkward, bumbling and non-committal reply when Dora jumped in to save her.
‘Don’t hassle the woman!’ she said. ‘You’re obsessed with people coming to church; you’re not recruiting for the Moonies, you know! Leave her alone – if she wants to come she will, and if she doesn’t she’ll still be welcome at other events.’ She gave Cathy a sideways look. ‘All this is because she fancies the vicar, you know.’
‘I do not!’ Iris cried, a look of utter outrage on her face.
‘Oh you do!’ Dora laughed. ‘There’s no point in denying it – everyone knows!’
Cathy wasn’t sure what sort of reply she was meant to give so she smiled uncertainly and glanced around the room. There were definitely fewer people today than there had been for the last coffee morning. Erica hadn’t arrived yet, though she’d said she was still coming when Cathy had messaged her to double-check the previous evening. It was a little disappointing to see she wasn’t there yet and Cathy hoped she hadn’t changed her mind about it. Colin was in the corner arranging cups around a large steel tea urn. Myrtle was talking to him and one or two other people Cathy recognised but couldn’t put names to.
Just as Cathy was doing a quick mental rundown of the faces she knew and the ones she didn’t, Iris uttered an exclamation of satisfaction, turning to the door with a smile, and Cathy looked to see Erica had arrived, carrying a plastic container of her own. She waved at Cathy as she walked in before handing her tub to Iris.
‘How lovely to see you!’ Iris said. She held the box up to her face, as if trying to see through the opaque plastic. ‘What have you got for us?’
‘I had a go at those madeleine things,’ Erica said, smiling at Cathy as she continued. ‘I’ve no idea what they’ll taste like but if they’re no good it’ll be totally my fault because your recipe was so easy to follow.’
Cathy beamed at her. ‘I’m sure they’ll be lovely. I’m glad you got on alright with it.’
‘I actually enjoyed myself.’ Erica unfastened her coat. ‘I’ve never considered myself a real cook before – neither has Malc, come to think of it – but I can see now why people like to do it. I found it so therapeutic to ignore the news and my phone and everything else and just concentrate on something completely different. And you do get quite a buzz when they come out of the oven looking at least a little bit like they’re supposed to. At least eventually. The first lot were so overdone they looked as if they’d been baked on the surface of the sun. I think my oven temperature’s a bit out of whack so I kept checking the second batch and they came out much better.’
‘It’s the most peaceful time for me,’ Cathy said. ‘I’m never as calm and content as I am when I’m baking and I love feeling like I’m creating something, even if it is only food. I can imagine if baking makes me feel that happy, artists and sculptors who make fantastic works of art must feel delirious when they look at what they’ve done.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Dora piped up. ‘I knew a painter once. The most miserable old bastard I’ve ever met.’
‘Dora!’ Iris squeaked.
‘You knew him too,’ Dora said. ‘Marcel… you must remember h
im. He used to threaten to kill himself every time he finished a painting because he said he’d never be able to create anything that beautiful again and so what was the point in going on? And you know, he wasn’t even that good. I mean, there’s a few hanging up in the church but he’s hardly Turner.’
Iris looked as if she might contradict Dora’s assertion for a moment. But then an expression of illumination lit her face, as did a slightly wicked grin of the kind Cathy had never imagined she’d see on someone who spent so much time in a church.
She clicked her fingers. ‘Marcel! Didn’t he move to Doncaster?’
‘Yes; lucky Doncaster!’
Erica looked almost as bemused as Cathy as she followed the conversation, but then took the opportunity of a brief lull in Iris and Dora’s stream-of-consciousness recollections of the infamous Marcel to gently guide the conversation away from it.
‘Well, I think your cakes are works of art, Cathy,’ she said. ‘Mine, I’m not so sure about but I enjoyed giving it a go and I do sort of see what you mean. They don’t look as pretty as yours did but I’m quite proud of them for a first attempt. Malcolm ate one and he hasn’t had to go to the hospital yet so I’m fairly confident they’re not going to kill anyone either.’
‘What they taste like is all that matters,’ Cathy said, laughing.
‘Well,’ Erica returned with a grin, ‘I can’t say Malcolm has the best taste – he eats so fast he barely tastes anything – so they might not taste all that pretty either.’
‘Why don’t you find a seat?’ Iris said to Cathy and Erica. ‘Colin!’ she shouted over to where he was wrestling the tea urn onto a trolley. ‘How are we doing with those hot drinks?’
‘I’ve been ready for ages. I was just waiting for you lot to stop nattering.’
‘We weren’t nattering,’ Iris said, looking indignant.
‘What do you call it then?’ Dora replied, rolling her eyes. ‘We weren’t doing the hundred metres sprint!’
‘Yes, but Colin is saying it in a way that makes us sound like chatterboxes.’
Cathy's Christmas Kitchen: A heart-warming feel-good romantic comedy Page 6