by Sue Margolis
She knew from listening in on their conversations that many SAHMs felt they had let themselves down by abandoning careers that as women they’d often had to fight for. These women had hung on for as long as they could before getting pregnant. Now they were knocking on forty. If they stayed at home until their babies started secondary school, they would be fifty—far too late to pick up their careers.
Amy had no intention of waiting until she was fifty. She was aware of how important it was to break into journalism now, before it was too late. And if she freelanced, she would have the luxury of being able to work from home and set her own hours.
By a quarter to twelve, there was only a handful of customers left in the café. Things would stay quiet for twenty minutes or so. Amy was in the kitchen, wiping down surfaces. Zelma was next to her, loading the dishwasher. She held up the bottle of detergent. It was almost empty. Amy said she would nip out and get some more.
“You sure, darling?”
“Positive. I need to pick up something for supper, anyway.”
Amy pulled on her jacket and took her purse out of her bag. As she walked through the café, she noticed that Brian was sitting at one of the tables with a chap in a fashionably crumpled linen suit. They were having an intense discussion about Crema Crema Crema. There was much sipping and swirling and uttering of superlatives. Amy decided that Brian wouldn’t thank her for interrupting him to ask if she could have some petty cash to pay for the dishwasher detergent. She would pay for it, and he could refund the money later.
The early summer breeze felt warm on her face. Underneath the car fumes, there was a hint of freshly mown grass. She turned her head toward the common and saw a chap in his shirtsleeves driving one of those sit-on motor mowers. She watched him for a few moments phut-phutting over the grass while mothers and dog walkers called out to their charges to keep out of the way. Aware that she was squinting in the bright light, she thought about going back for her sunglasses, but she couldn’t be bothered. Instead, she set off down the road. She paused at the posh organic butcher and looked in the window. She had a hankering for lamb chops. Then she saw the price and moved on. They would be far cheaper at the supermarket. On the other hand, there was a deli a few doors down. Maybe she would get a couple of portions of lasagne. That and beef casserole were Charlie’s favorites. She smiled as she remembered the first time she had offered her son dumplings with his casserole and he had refused them on the grounds that it was cruel to the ducks. Months later, she was still having to reassure him that baby ducks weren’t called dumplings.
She decided she would pick up the dishwasher detergent and call in at the deli on the way back. As she set off again, it occurred to her that she hadn’t spoken to her dad in days. She really ought to give him a call and see how he was doing.
Even though it had been months since her parents’ breakup, Amy still found herself moved to tears when she thought about it. Ashamed as she was to admit it, she was upset mainly for selfish reasons. Despite her being a grown-up, her “child within” felt bereft. As a couple, Phil and Val had always been strong and united. With a few exceptions, which had had more to do with Victoria’s upbringing than with hers, they had been great parents. They had always been her soft place to fall. Of course, as individuals they would always be there for her, but it wasn’t the same somehow.
Val had left Phil on the grounds that he never really spoke to her, took her out, or told her he loved her. According to Val, he was interested only in the business, his newspaper, and watching football. “One of the things that attracted me to your dad,” Val told Amy shortly after the split, “was the way he cared about all the injustice in the world, but in the end he didn’t care about the person closest to him.”
Val had always owned a tiny terraced cottage in Clapham. She used to live there before she married. Until recently she had rented it out, but when her last set of tenants moved out in January, she moved in.
The other day when Amy went to visit Val, she’d heard her on the phone to her best friend, Stella. Apparently, prior to her leaving Phil, they hadn’t had sex in months. “And when we did do it, there was never any foreplay. It was a case of brace yourself, Val, I’m coming in.” Amy had cringed and hotfooted it into the kitchen to make Charlie’s lunch.
There was no doubt in Amy’s mind that her father had treated Val badly. In recent years, she couldn’t remember her parents having a proper conversation. She was aware that Val tried to engage Phil in discussions about things she’d read about or heard on the news, but mostly—probably because he considered her interests trivial—he just grunted from behind his paper. Their conversation rarely went beyond Val asking him what he wanted to eat, which of them was going to phone the bloke about the guttering, or whether those briefs and socks strewn on the bedroom floor were destined for the wash or another wearing. Amy couldn’t help thinking that if she’d been Val, she’d have walked out, too. But Phil was still her dad. She loved him to bits. He’d always taken a massive interest in her life—without interfering—and wanted to know her news. They had proper conversations. Whenever she walked into the living room, he would immediately put down his paper or turn off the TV. His face would light up at seeing her. If she had a problem, he made time to listen. He was exactly the same with Victoria. It always upset Amy to think she had such a good relationship with her dad while he neglected Val, but if her mother was jealous, she never said a word.
Now that he was on his own, Phil was pretty much living on takeaway curries and KFC. The last time Amy visited, they’d sat in the kitchen. The area by the back door was covered in empty beer and wine bottles. Amy asked him if he missed Val. “I’ve been missing her for years,” he said, desperate sadness in his voice. “Ever since she went back to work when you and Victoria were teenagers. From then on, she became so independent, always out with her friends from her book club. She didn’t need me anymore. I know I treated her badly. I admit that and I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t get over this feeling that I was superfluous to her requirements.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Amy said, trying to be gentle. “Of course she needed you. She wanted a companion, somebody to talk to and make a fuss about her, tell her she was still beautiful, show her he loved her.”
“Well, she’s certainly got that now.” He took out a boil-in-the-bag kipper and dropped it into a pan of water.
AMY TOOK her phone out of her jacket pocket and tried Phil’s mobile. When there was no answer, she tried the office. Phil Walker owned a builders’ merchant. As a young man, he’d had no plans to go into the family business. Instead, he went to university, studied sociology because it was trendy, and planned a career working with deprived inner-city children. Then his father had a heart attack and died. It was the mid-1970s and the country was in recession, with most of the population on a three-day working week. Even though the business was struggling, Phil didn’t have the heart to wind it up and sack the staff, who had been loyal for decades. He took it over, sat tight, and prayed.
Back then it was a small business on the outskirts of a pretty Surrey village. In the early eighties the village expanded. It began to draw soap stars, C-list TV presenters, soccer players, and their wannabe model actress wives—all of them in urgent need of bricks, cement, and mock Grecian pillars for their new McMansions. The word on the new gated developments was that Walker’s was the place to go. Phil was earning several times what he would have made as a social worker, and by then he and Val had a huge mortgage. (For some reason, maybe because even then she saw it as a potential bolt-hole, Val refused to sell the Clapham cottage.) It was too late to follow his dream. He was never going to “make a difference.” He relieved his guilt by giving up a Saturday morning once a month to rattle a collecting box in the High Street. It wasn’t much, but by then things were so busy at work, he was putting in twelve-hour days. It was the best he could do.
“Hello-Walker’s-Chantelle-speakin’-how-may-I-help-hew?” Another ditzy, singsong temp on reception.
“O
h, hi, this is Amy, Mr. Walker’s daughter. Is my dad there?”
“Can I ask with what it’s in connection with?”
“Excuse me?”
“Can I ask with what it’s in connection with?”
“I’m his daughter, Amy. That’s the connection.”
“Oh-right-I-see. Bear with me. Trying to connect you.” Cue “Greensleeves.” “Sorree, Mr. Walker isn’t at his desk at present. Can I be of help to yourself?”
Suddenly Phil came on the line. “Hello?”
“Oh, you are there. It’s me, Ames. Nothing important. I was just ringing for a chat and to see how you are.”
“I’m fine. Really good. Listen, sweetheart, it’s sweet of you to phone, but I haven’t got time to talk. I’m on my way out and I’m running late for an important meeting. I’ll speak to you later. Love you.”
The phone went dead. That was odd. Her dad never had meetings. His accountant came twice a year to go over the books, and that was about it. She’d temped at Walker’s often enough during her university vacations to know that his day involved e-mailing or phoning suppliers. When he wasn’t doing that, he was dealing with builders who came in; ordered fifty kilos of cement or bricks; trashed the Prime Minister, the state of the economy, or the latest Russian oligarch to acquire a newspaper or soccer team; paid cash; and left. Where could he possibly be going? Still, he sounded remarkably chipper. That made a change.
Tesco was just off the main drag, opposite the Tube station. A few doors down was the old Odeon cinema, its elegant geometric Art Deco facade faded and flaking. Having been closed for years, the building was being redeveloped. It was covered in scaffolding, which butted out onto the pavement. This meant that pedestrians were forced into a narrow covered walkway in the road. As Amy stopped to let through a woman pushing a twin buggy, she noticed a sign attached to the scaffolding. It was the familiar brown and cream coffee bean logo that caught her eye. BEAN MACHINE COMING SOON, the sign read. What? This was the first she’d heard of it, and she was certain Brian knew nothing about it. He would be up in arms if he did.
Amy wasn’t just shocked. She was mystified. Everybody knew that the old Odeon building was being developed as office space. The town council had sent the plans to all the local businesspeople and invited them to raise objections. As far as she knew, there had been none and the plans had been approved. This had happened months ago. Contracts would have been signed with the office developers. How on earth had Bean Machine been able to claim the space? Amy could only assume that the original developers had pulled out, leaving Bean Machine free to march in and make the council a financial offer it couldn’t refuse.
However it had come about, the imminent arrival of Bean Machine was the worst possible news. Amy was no doom-monger, but there was a recession on. Café Mozart was doing okay because the coffee and food were so good. But it wasn’t cheap. She had no idea how the café would fare, faced with competition from a corporate coffee giant whose prices were so much lower.
By now the woman pushing the buggy had gone by. Amy emerged from the scaffolding tunnel. As she reached the entrance to the old cinema, she slowed down. The building was massive, she thought. Way too big for a coffee shop. It made no sense.
Just then she noticed a man about her own age standing in the doorway, his gray suit accessorized by a yellow hard hat. He was carrying a clipboard and jotting down notes. Amy went up to him. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, happening to notice that he was writing on paper with a Bean Machine letterhead. “But is Bean Machine really opening here—in this building?”
He looked up at her. “Yes. Underneath the new offices.”
So Bean Machine was sharing the space. That made sense. “Bloody hell,” Amy murmured. Talk about the perfect spot. Not only would Bean Machine cater to all the office employees upstairs, its position opposite the station meant it would grab all the commuters. Brian would lose all his early-morning trade. And since the mighty Bean Machine could afford to undercut Brian’s prices by miles, it would probably steal most of his other trade, too.
Amy asked, “Do you happen to know when Bean Machine is due to open?”
“A few weeks. The moment the builders move out, the shop fitters move in.”
“I see. As soon as that.”
She must have looked troubled because the chap asked her if she was all right.
“Yes, I’m fine.” She offered him a meek smile and carried on toward Tesco.
She bought the dishwasher detergent, but in her rush to get back to Café Mozart, she completely forgot about picking up lasagne from the deli.
In the end, she decided to wait until the lunchtime rush was over before telling Brian about Bean Machine.
By half past two the place was empty. Brian was standing behind the counter, talking on his mobile. He was trying to get through to the biscotti people to find out why the weekly order hadn’t arrived. Zelma was sweeping the floor. She never did it when customers were around because she felt that it put them off their coffee and cake.
Amy hovered, waiting for Brian to finish his call. Eventually he flipped down the lid on his phone.
“Bri, have you got a minute? I need to talk to you.”
“Sounds ominous,” he said, shoving the phone into his jeans pocket.
When she’d finished telling him, he seemed confused more than anything.
“But I’ve had no letter from the council. If another coffee shop were opening so close, I might well have the right to raise a formal objection. Are you absolutely sure about this?”
Zelma, who had been eavesdropping, came across and said he should get on to the “authorities” and demand to speak to the “head one.”
“Look,” Amy said, “the guy I spoke to was from Bean Machine. Surely he should know. And there was a bloomin’ great sign up.”
Brian ran his hand through his thicket of hair. “Bean Machine is a huge multinational. They can undercut us by at least twenty or even thirty percent. We’re fucked.”
“Excuse your French,” Zelma said, “but why don’t you just undercut them?”
“I can’t afford to,” Brian came back. “I only buy the best fair-trade organic beans. They don’t come cheap. My profit margin is as low as I can get it.”
“Look, darling, if it would help, I have a few thousand I could lend you. Then you could bring down your prices.”
Brian managed a smile. “Thanks, Zelma. I really appreciate the offer, but it would take more than a few thousand quid to compete with Bean Machine.”
“But an organic, ethically sourced product matters to some people,” Amy piped up, desperate to say something reassuring, even if she didn’t really believe it. “We might lose a few customers, but the rest will stay loyal, I’m sure. And our food is fantastic. Have you ever tasted a Bean Machine cheese food and Marmite panini?”
“Come on, Amy, get real. There’s a recession on. People are only interested in the bottom line.” He rubbed his hand over his chin. “God … and it’s opposite the Tube. We’ll lose all our early-morning trade. That’s it. It’s over. I may as well sell out now. Bloody hell, I’m going under, just like my parents did.”
“Brian, you are not your parents. Believe it or not, going bankrupt is not genetically inherited. Look, I admit things don’t look great, but you have to stop panicking. Something will work out. Why don’t you phone the council and check if you have the right to appeal?”
The next moment he was back on his mobile, dialing information to get the number of the council’s planning department. While he waited to be connected, he disappeared into the kitchen. Five minutes later he was back.
“They said that everybody has been informed that the ground floor of the old cinema is being given over to Bean Machine. I never got the letter. Not that it matters because the council’s position is that even in a small neighborhood like this, there is enough trade to go around.” He paused. “So … short of Bean Machine pulling out of this deal, we are stuffed.”
“Nonsense,” Zelma declared. “You mustn’t even think of giving up. I mean, what would have happened if the hemorrhoid people had stopped at Preparation G?”
“Or … or … Chanel had stopped at No. 4?” Amy added.
Brian wasn’t about to be jollied along. He looked as if he might burst into tears. “God would never let me be successful. He’d kill me first. He’d never let me be happy.”
“That sounds vaguely familiar,” Amy said. “It’s a famous quote, isn’t it? Who said it? I bet it was Nietzsche or one of those other miserablist philosophers.”
“Nope. George Costanza.”
Chapter 3
MICHELANGELO WAS SUFFERING from wet bottom. Amy had spotted his soggy rear last week and taken him to the vet. He had prescribed antibiotics, but they weren’t working. Michelangelo’s condition was getting worse. A few moments ago, when she went into Charlie’s room to check on him, the hamster “in a half shell” was lying curled up in a ball, barely moving. Amy had read up on wet bottom. Left untreated or if antibiotics were ineffective, it was pretty much fatal. There was no hope. In a few days Michelangelo would be a goner.
She decided to transfer the cage to her bedroom. She didn’t want Charlie waking up one morning to find Michelangelo stiff as a board. As she walked down the hall, she wondered how to break the news that his ninja hamster was at death’s door. He’d asked her a few months ago what “dying” meant, and she’d told him what her mother had told her when she was little—that dying happened to very old or sick people and it meant they went to a special place called heaven to be looked after by God. Of course, then he asked her who God was. “Oh … kay … well … God is good and kind and looks after all the people and creatures on the earth.”
“You mean like Mr. Incredible?”
“Yeah … a bit like Mr. Incredible.”
Charlie had finished his supper—in the end they’d had take-out pizza—and was sitting at the kitchen table drawing, his crayons spilled out in front of him. In an effort to assuage her guilt—this was their second takeout in less than a week—Amy brought the fruit bowl over and offered him a nectarine