‘Yes. It is. Sorry.’ He nodded meekly. ‘It was a joke, you know, because of the roof incident.’
‘I know,’ I said, allowing my lips to twitch into a smile. ‘I was always a bit scared of you after that.’
He chuckled then and his whole face changed and I realized he was just an old man with a lot of hair.
‘I was a bit wary of you too, lass. Got any salad cream? I hate this fancy new mayonnaise.’
‘Of course.’ I smiled.
Mayonnaise was new, was it? Perhaps I was being a bit optimistic with the bircher bowl idea …
Half an hour later, the school group was tucking into a cake that the dinner ladies had made as a surprise and Stanley was still here. I made two coffees, two pots of tea, a custard tart, soup with soft white bread, a slice of apple pie and ice cream and an Eccles cake.
‘Eh, Rosanna?’ Nonna yelled from her chair opposite him. ‘More milk for Stanley, please.’
‘Is Stanley all right?’ I asked Juliet as we cleared away the teachers’ plates and mugs.
‘I was going to ask you the same question, hen,’ Juliet said, tugging her bra strap up under her T-shirt. ‘He seems a bit on edge.’
She stacked a pile of plates on the arm with the thistle tattoo on it and scooped up five mugs with the hand that had ‘Dean’ inked across her knuckles. I piled some empties on a tray and followed her.
‘And he’s been here even longer than usual,’ I said, glancing over on my way to the kitchen. Nonna was still talking at him and there was a pile of shredded napkins on the placemat in front of him.
‘Where’s that milk?’ Nonna tutted, trying to catch my eye. ‘You milking the cow yourself?’
‘Coming,’ I yelled back.
The school lot started making noises about getting back before the dinner bell rang. Chairs scraped across the tiled conservatory floor, bags were retrieved from under chairs and people groaned and laughed about eating too much.
I filled a small jug with milk and took it over.
‘Everything OK?’ I said when Nonna had stopped talking. ‘Can I get you anything else?’
‘I’ll get out of your way in a minute,’ said Stanley, adding a drop of milk to the dregs of his tea. ‘I’ll just, er …’
‘No rush, no rush.’ Nonna flapped a hand. ‘You very welcome in the café.’
Stanley turned beetroot red.
‘Thank you very much, well, in that case …’ He paused and reached into the pocket of his jacket.
But before he could find what he was looking for, Tyson barged through the door, pushing all the teachers aside. He ran in, wild-eyed and panting, and lunged at the counter. The teachers tutted and shook their heads until one of them noticed the time and they all galloped off across the green towards school.
‘I need brandy. Large. For the shock,’ Tyson demanded before bursting into loud rasping sobs.
Nonna and I were at his side in seconds. Tyson was a lovely lad with lovely manners if rather mucky fingernails.
‘What’s wrong, boy, what is it?’ Nonna cried.
Juliet poured him some tea.
‘Large, with plenty of sugar,’ she said, pushing a mug towards him. ‘For the shock.’
He eyed the mug with disappointment and sniffed. I handed him a tissue.
‘It’s Clarence,’ he sobbed, a bubble of snot appearing at one nostril. I handed him another tissue. ‘He’s dead. Lifted a bag of pea gravel into the back of a Land Rover and keeled over.’
‘Signore mio.’ Nonna made the sign of the cross. ‘Poor man. Poor Clementine.’
‘Oh no,’ said Juliet and I together. ‘Sounds like a heart attack.’
‘Just like that.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Fell to the floor with the gravel on top of him.’
Clarence Fearnley was the owner of Fearnley’s Garden Centre half a mile away at the edge of the village. Nonna was good friends with his wife, Clementine.
‘What’s going to happen to the garden centre? What’s going to happen to me?’ Tyson sobbed into his sleeve. ‘Best job I ever had.’
Juliet and I exchanged sympathetic looks; he was only young, it was probably the only job he’d ever had.
‘Try not to worry, Tyson,’ I said, putting my arm around his broad shoulders.
‘He only young. Not even seventy.’ Nonna picked up her coat from the coat stand and thrust her arms into it. ‘I get down there and stay with her. She has no family. No one.’
The doorbell rang and in stumbled Stella Derry, Mum’s deputy at the Women’s Institute. She was breathless and perspiring and the button across the front of her blouse had popped open.
‘I’ve got some terrible news,’ she gasped, looking round to check she had our attention. She braced herself on the counter to catch her breath, bent double, as if she’d just completed her first triathlon. ‘Clarence F—’
‘We know,’ said Juliet.
‘Already?’ Stella pouted, her double chin wobbling with indignation.
‘Here,’ I said, taking the remains of a cheese-and-broccoli flan from the counter. ‘Take this, Nonna. She might not fancy eating but …’
Nonna pressed a hand to my cheek and I laid my own over it, thinking as I did so how lucky I was to still have her so very much alive.
‘You good girl, Rosanna. You sure you two can manage without me?’
If it hadn’t been such a sombre occasion, Juliet and I might have sniggered at that.
‘We’ll cope,’ I said.
She turned to the door and one of our regulars, Barry, jumped to his feet, wiping crumbs from his mouth.
‘Wait,’ he said, snatching up his keys. ‘I’ll run you down there.’
‘You OK?’ I asked Tyson, patting his arm once they’d gone.
He nodded. ‘Although I think I need more sugar. Perhaps a chocolate brownie?’
‘Make that two,’ said Stella. ‘On me. Come and tell me all about it, Tyson. It’ll do you good to talk.’
I left Juliet serving them a large square of brownie each and went back to collect Stanley’s empty plate. He looked distraught.
‘I feel awfully sorry for poor Clarence,’ he said with a sigh, ‘but his timing is dreadful.’
‘Oh?’
Stanley laid two cinema tickets down on the table in front of him.
‘I’ve been working up to asking Maria out all morning.’ His shoulders sagged. ‘And now it’s too late.’
I could have hugged him; no wonder he’d been here so long.
‘Nonna’s very fond of you,’ I said with an encouraging smile. ‘Maybe today just wasn’t to be. But I wouldn’t give up hope.’
His face brightened. ‘Really?’
‘Really. It’s never too late to start something new. To let someone know that you care.’
I didn’t really know if that was right or not, but it was what Stanley needed to hear and it was a nice thought; because it meant that there was hope for me yet …
Chapter 5
March was nearly over and spring had definitely given winter the elbow. Trees were cloaked in blossom and men from the council had been out to give the village green its first haircut of the season. It looked very smart out there now except for the few shaggy clumps left long where the wild cowslips were still in bloom.
Juliet had made delicate lemon cupcakes topped with crystallized flowers on pale yellow frosting, and for our younger-at-heart customers, chocolate Easter cakes filled with mini eggs ready for Easter next weekend.
But today was a celebration of a different kind: a celebration of Clarence Fearnley’s life and the café was a hive of activity.
‘When life hands you lemons, make cake,’ said Juliet, whipping the lid off a container with a flourish to reveal a lemon drizzle traybake big enough to feed the five thousand, or fifty mourners at the very least.
‘Oh yes,’ Doreen straightened up from the counter where she was stacking Eccles cakes, ‘we should have that made into a sign for the café.’
Nonna hung her
nose over the cake and inhaled. ‘My favourite smell in whole world. Remind me of home and the lemon groves near our house and the limoncello we make in big buckets every year. Delizioso.’
Limoncello was still Nonna’s favourite tipple. She claimed a glass of it before bed was her secret to long life. There might be something in it too, I thought, watching my grandmother pick up a heavy watering can and carry it into the conservatory. She had the strength of an ox, was rarely ill and was still pretty switched on for her age.
‘Tell us about Naples, Nonna,’ I said, looking up from slicing cucumbers into translucent slivers, ‘and the lemon groves.’
‘Long time ago. Can’t remember,’ she said, clamping her lips shut.
‘You had lemon groves at the end of your street?’ I prompted.
She glanced sideways to me and then turned to the window.
‘Mamma mia! Clementine is here and the food not ready,’ she said, ignoring the question.
Clementine Fearnley parked her van outside the café, slammed the door and went round to the boot.
‘More work, less talk,’ barked Nonna. ‘You not finish those sandwiches yet.’
‘I almost have.’ I eyed her beadily and began to slice faster, wondering for the umpteenth time why she changed the subject whenever I asked about Italy. She claimed that the smell of lemons reminded her of home and then in the next breath pretended not to be able to remember it at all. It didn’t add up.
Juliet put the lid back on the cake and stacked the box on top of the others.
‘The sausage rolls are cooling, Maria,’ she said. ‘The fruit scones are still baking, but they won’t take a minute.’
Clementine had asked the Lemon Tree Café to do the catering for Clarence’s wake. Nonna had jumped at the chance to do something useful for her friend. But we’d needed an extra pair of hands so Juliet, who had been baking all weekend for it, had come in on her day off to help me prepare a hundred rounds of sandwiches and two hundred sausage rolls while Doreen served the café’s usual customers.
Eighty rounds of egg and cress, cheese and pickle, ham and mustard and coronation chicken were under cling film in the fridge and the tuna-and-cucumber sandwiches were under construction.
Nonna scurried over to open the door for Clementine. She came in with a bag of compost slung over her shoulder as if it weighed nothing. She wore a shabby dark coat that was several sizes too big for her, thick black tights with a small run in the back and a pair of chunky black brogues.
I didn’t know her very well and she never normally came into the café because the garden centre took up her every waking hour. It was closed this week, unsurprisingly, and Tyson had come in earlier this morning for a single egg on toast. He was economizing, he’d explained, in case Clementine closed the garden centre for good.
‘You think a woman can’t run a business, eh?’ Nonna had said, flicking him with her tea towel and stomping off to the kitchen mumbling something rude in Italian under her breath. He left soon after that and didn’t even eat his crusts.
Nonna tried to give her old friend a hug, but it was a bit awkward with the heavy load on her shoulder so she patted her arm instead.
‘Morning, everyone,’ said Clementine to the café in general, taking care not to meet anyone’s eye.
She was a good ten years younger than Nonna, but she looked old and drawn today. They made an odd pair: Nonna short and plump with long hair wound into a bun, Clementine, tall and spare with short hair which I suspected she might cut herself with secateurs.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ I said, giving Clementine a sad smile. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’
‘Yes, please,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Catnip if you’ve got it.’
I shook my head not entirely sure if that was a joke. ‘I don’t think …’
‘Or valerian? Lemon balm? Skullcap?’ Her disappointment deepened as I continued to shake my head. ‘What have you got to soothe and calm nerves?’
‘Um.’ I looked at Doreen who was chewing her lip in a way that made me think she was stifling a smirk. ‘How about camomile?’
‘That’ll have to do, I suppose,’ Clementine replied and turned away to accept condolences from Biddy from the pet shop.
‘Skullcap.’ Juliet tutted, adding with a mutter, ‘She’s one of those herbalists.’
She always had something to say about customers who didn’t want a straightforward cup of Twinings. ‘Brews her own tonics from plants. Some say she studies witch—’
‘But only those who have nothing better to do with their time than gossip.’ Doreen glowered at her before sniffing the air. ‘And your scones are burning.’
Juliet’s face turned as red as her hair and she marched off to the kitchen.
‘For your lemon pots, Maria.’ Clementine rolled the bag of compost off her shoulder and on to the floor. ‘Top them up with a good couple of inches. They’ll need a nitrogen feed soon too. Where do you want it?’
Nonna pointed to the conservatory. Clementine dragged it through with Nonna following behind, wiping up flecks of compost from the floor with a cloth.
‘Thank you.’ Nonna kissed her friend on both cheeks, much to the discomfort of the younger woman, and brushed clumps of soil from her coat. ‘Everything okey cokey?’
‘I can’t take it in.’ Clementine looked down at her hands, dirt ingrained in the creases of her fingers and under her nails after years of working outdoors. ‘I sprang out of bed this morning and on the way to the bathroom I shouted over my shoulder, “Look lively, Clarrie, no lie-in for you today, it’s the funeral.” And then I remembered: it’s his funeral. He’s gone, Maria.’
‘I know, cara,’ Nonna said. ‘I remember the pain of it like it yesterday. Like someone tear your heart out with bare hand. Go sit down for minute.’
‘Can’t. Too much to do.’
Nonna flapped a hand at her friend until Clementine shrugged in defeat and sat at an empty table.
‘Clarence was my first boyfriend, you know. Never known another man, if you catch my drift. He was a lazy arse, crap with money and had a fondness for a flutter on the horses. But he was my lazy arse. And I loved him.’
Nonna looked over at the counter shiftily and then leaned down to speak in Clementine’s ear. I strained to listen as I searched through the boxes of tea for the camomile.
‘I also only love one man but I lose him very young.’
A rush of warmth flooded through me for my lovely grandmother; she might be guarded about her life in Italy, but it was good to know that she’d been happy, even if it was only for a short time.
Clementine sighed. ‘I don’t know how you do it, Maria. Run this business single-handedly. I think you’re amazing.’
‘It is my life.’ Nonna tipped two pieces of hazelnut biscotti on a plate and sat down heavily beside her. ‘I don’t think of it as work. Even though I always rush, rush, rush on my feet.’
Doreen and I raised eyebrows at each other. Clementine slipped her coat off to reveal bony shoulders and a scrawny neck.
‘You’re a marvel,’ she said. ‘And you’ve always got a steady flow of customers. The garden centre can go for hours without seeing a single soul. I’ve never understood how we made a profit, but Clarence always took care of that side of things. Oh hell.’
Two large tears dripped on to the table and she covered her face with her hands. Nonna dabbed them up with her cloth, smearing the table with a thin layer of compost as she did so.
‘What am I going to do? What if—’
Nonna patted her hand. ‘These problems are for another day. And if you need help with business, we all help you, all other shops. Won’t we, Nina?’
This last comment was addressed to Nina from the florist’s next door, who’d come in carrying a thermos cup and was wrapped from head to toe in layers of wool.
‘Course we will, Clem,’ she cried, unravelling a long scarf from around her face.
Clementine, who Nonna said hated having her name sh
ortened, scowled and tried to cover up her tears. ‘Oh good.’
‘I always appreciate that you’ve never gone into cut flowers like a lot of garden centres; it’s hard enough without competition on the doorstep,’ Nina went on brightly. She perched her bottom on the empty chair next to Clementine. ‘So I’m happy to pass on any tips. Although,’ she cupped a hand to her mouth and leaned forward, ‘we’ve never actually made a profit. Anyway. Small businesses unite! Yay!’ She punched a hand encased in a fingerless glove into the air militantly.
‘Thank you,’ said Clementine graciously, leaning away from Nina. ‘That is kind.’
‘What can I get you?’ I called, conscious that Nina was invading Clementine’s personal space.
She bounded over and set the cup on the counter.
‘Soup, please.’ She shivered, peeled off her gloves and pressed her hands round our old-fashioned radiators. ‘Working with flowers is a lovely, lovely thing,’ she said, examining her red raw fingers, ‘but I think it’s very inconsiderate of them to wilt if exposed to warmth of over one degree.’
‘It is,’ said Clementine, with a ghost of a smile now that Nina was further away. ‘Which is exactly why I like to work with plants; a lot more resilient to changes in temperature. Disappearing into a polytunnel to hand-pollinate twenty rows of tomatoes on a cold day is such a treat.’
‘Blimey. What does that involve?’ I said, setting her camomile tea in front of her.
‘It’s a very delicate operation,’ she replied, mashing the tea bag violently against the side of the cup with a spoon to make it stronger. ‘One plant at a time.’
Stanley walked in at this point, dressed sombrely in black. He raised a hand and advanced towards his usual chair with a deferential, ‘Good morning, ladies.’
‘Morning, Stanley,’ we chorused.
‘Mrs Fearnley,’ he said reverently, stopping briefly by her table and removing his hat, ‘you have my deepest sympathies. It has been five years since I lost my dear Winnie yet I still feel the pain of her loss as if it was yesterday. Would anyone care for a Werther’s?’
His sentiment echoed Nonna’s almost word for word and I felt a tug at my heart for them all. He handed round a packet of sweets and both ladies took one.
The Lemon Tree Café Page 5