The Beach Cafe (14 page)

She was tall and built like a swimmer, with broad shoulders and a body that tapered at the waist. She had long brown hair, bright-blue eyes and a voice that was pure Aussie, with every sentence ending in a question. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for a job, actually? I don’t suppose this place is taking on any waitresses?’

My mouth opened in a dazed smile and I couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘Yes,’ Amber said on my behalf. ‘Yes, we are. Or rather, she is, cos I’m buggering off today.’

I managed to close my mouth and end my village-idiot impression. ‘Have you got waitress experience?’ I asked, trying to sound efficient and managerial. I thought back to all those times in my life I’d traipsed around cafés and restaurants asking for work, and hardly ever getting any. I’d had so many brush-offs, so many rejections, and it had been, on the whole, utterly demoralizing. From the way this woman’s eyes lit up, I got the impression she’d been there, done that herself.

‘Sure,’ she said at once. ‘I’ve had plenty, back home in Melbourne? And I’ve been working in a restaurant in the West End for the last six months?’ She fumbled in a voluminous blue leather bag that was slung over one shoulder and pulled out some stapled pieces of paper. ‘Here, I’ve got a résumé, references, the lot,’ she said.

‘Thanks,’ I said, taking the papers from her. Amber craned nosily over my shoulder to see too. I’d got as far as reading her name – Rachel – when a couple of families came through the door and walked up to the counter. ‘Listen, Rachel, I’ll look through this later and give you a bell. All right?’

‘Cool,’ she said. ‘That would be awesome. I’ll do anything – any hours, washing up, cleaning . . . ?’ She grinned, a wide toothy grin, with dimples like brackets on either side. ‘I’m a hard worker, and reliable too. Speak to you later?’

‘Great, cheers,’ I said, smiling. I liked her. I knew you had to go on more than just a gut feeling about a person when you were hiring them, but there was something very warm and likeable about her. I couldn’t imagine her snarling at the customers or pilfering the stock like Saffron had. ‘Speak to you later.’

She raised a hand in farewell and left the café, and I turned to my next customer. ‘Hi, what can I get you?’

Ruth didn’t show her face in the café again, but she did send me a text later in the afternoon.

Hope all ok. Are you surviving?! Will pop in this eve for a chat. R x

Are you surviving, indeed. I felt myself bristling at the implied insult. We’d been absolutely fine after that busy spell she’d seen, thank you very much. ‘And no, you bleeding won’t pop in,’ I muttered savagely under my breath, ‘because I’m not going to be here.’

I texted back,
Sorry, out this eve. Tomorrow? E x

It wasn’t a lie, I had to take Amber to Exeter to get her train home. She’d protested that she’d be fine catching the train from Bodmin and there was no need to go out of my way, but the connections were going to be a nightmare, and I couldn’t force a seven-hour journey on her, especially when she’d been such a brilliant friend in my hour of need lately. It was the least I could do.

Meanwhile, Ed had made the first batch of pasties – Mediterranean vegetarian, as well as chicken and vegetable – and they smelled utterly heavenly. ‘Go, Ed; go, Ed; go, Ed . . .’ Amber and I cheered, when the first tray came out of the oven. I clapped my hands, feeling slightly hysterical, wanting to laugh with joy and cry with relief at the same time.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘What are you two like? You haven’t even tried one yet. For all you know, I might have played arsenic roulette with this lot.’

‘I’ll take my chances,’ Amber decided.

‘Sod it, me too,’ I said. ‘They look good enough to risk my life over.’

He laughed and cut two of the pasties into three, dividing them onto three plates so that we all had a taster of each. ‘Cheers, ladies,’ he said, bringing the plates out to us, and standing with us behind the main counter.

‘Cheers, Ed,’ I said. ‘These look bloody amazing.’ I picked up one-third of the chicken-and-vegetable pasty and blew on it to cool it down. It was crammed with pieces of chicken, cubes of potato, carrots, onion and peas, all held together by a covering of hot, golden pastry.

I nibbled the edge of it. The pastry was yummy – not so thick that it clogged up your mouth, but light and flaky; the perfect texture. I took a larger bite and tasted the rich gravy he’d made, some soft, juicy chicken and a piece of carrot. ‘Mmm,’ I said, leaning against the worktop as I savoured the flavours. It really was good. ‘Oh, Ed. This is
lush.
’

‘Totally lush,’ Amber agreed, licking a splodge of tomato from the corner of her mouth. She was eating the veggie pasty. ‘YUM.’

A customer approached the counter just then, a thirty-something bloke who looked bemused to see the three of us there, gorging ourselves on pasties and looking ever more blissed-out with each mouthful. ‘I’ll have whatever you’re having,’ he laughed. ‘They smell great.’

It turned out that he was with some mates on a stag do, and he promptly ordered four of each flavour between them. ‘Let us know what you think,’ I said, bagging up the pasties. ‘And if you’re around for a few days, come back. We’re rolling out lots of new flavours this week.’

‘Will do,’ he said.

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, with the pasties all but selling out. The Victoria sponge and the brownies did really well too, and we had lots of great feedback from the customers. I was almost sorry to close up at five o’clock, especially as it meant my time with Amber was practically over.

‘I wish I could stay longer,’ she said, as we pulled away in my car half an hour later, with her luggage in the boot. She swung round in her seat for a last look at the café. ‘It’s been ace.’

‘I wish you could stay longer too,’ I said, suddenly misty-eyed as we drove through the village. ‘I’m so glad you came, though. I couldn’t have done it without you.’

‘Ah, don’t give me that,’ she scoffed. ‘You’d have done brilliantly whether I’d been here or not. And you probably wouldn’t have insulted Saffron’s parents quite so vociferously if I hadn’t plied you with alcohol and forced you into speaking to the Ageing Surfer.’

I laughed. ‘True, but I wouldn’t have had Ed coming on board, either, if it wasn’t for you interrogating him that night. And he’s well worth a public showdown or two.’

‘He is,’ Amber agreed. ‘Hey, and don’t forget to ring that Aussie bird back, will you? She seemed all right. Are you going to give her a trial run?’

‘Too right I am,’ I replied. ‘Her CV would have to be diabolical for me not to.’ I gave a little sigh as we left the village behind. ‘Besides, I need a mate around here, with you going, don’t I?’ I glanced across at her. ‘Saying goodbye to you is going to feel like breaking my last link with Oxford.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ she argued. ‘It’s not like you’re never going to see me again. And besides . . .’ She grinned cheekily. ‘You’ve got your lovely sister in town, haven’t you? That’s one Oxford link still going strong.’

‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it,’ I said darkly.

‘Oh, don’t let her get to you,’ Amber said. ‘You’re every bit as good as she is, and don’t you forget it. Has she ever run her own business? No. Has she ever had the balls to do anything spontaneous and reckless? No. Has she got anywhere near as cool a best mate as you have? No. I rest my case.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll remind her of that when I see her.’

‘You do that,’ she replied. ‘Ways to make a grown woman cry, numbers one, two and three.’

The bank-holiday traffic was predictably appalling and it took well over two hours to get to Exeter. I walked to the platform with her and had a big, squeezy goodbye.

‘You’re a café superstar,’ she told me. ‘And you’re going to have a brilliant summer, I just know it.’

‘You too,’ I said. ‘You’re going to get the most amazing part in a West End show, and then a starring role in a Hollywood movie.’

‘And you’re going to win Café of the Year Award, and Rick Stein is going to beg you for advice,’ she bantered. ‘On his knees, I should think. And we’re both going to live happily ever after.’

Chapter Fifteen

After Amber’s train had pulled away and she was well and truly gone, I sat in the car and had a little moment of ‘Aarrrgh!’ to myself.

Aarrrgh – I had split up with Matthew.

Aarrrgh – I missed Saul so much.

Aarrrgh – I had given up my sensible Oxford life and leapt into the great Cornish unknown.

Aarrrgh – I didn’t have any friends within three hundred miles.

Aarrrgh – I had to face Ruth tomorrow, and it was going to be awful.

Then I took a deep breath, counted to ten and puffed it all out again. And then I phoned Rachel the Aussie and gave her a job.

‘Cool,’ she said. ‘When do you want me to start?’

‘Tomorrow morning? Nine-thirty?’

‘I’ll be there.’

I clicked off the call. Well, that was something at least. Then my phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Will take you out for supper tomorrow. Pick you up at seven? R x

I wasn’t sure why Ruth had taken to calling the evening meal ‘supper’ all of a sudden. Probably thought it made her sound more middle-class than she actually was. It had always been ‘tea’ in our house throughout our childhood, but there you go. I wasn’t going to quibble about being taken out for ‘supper’, even if it was by my patronizing older sister.

I drove back to the café feeling quiet and contemplative. The sun was going down, and the sky was smeared with deep purple and crimson. ‘Just me, now,’ I said out loud. ‘Just me.’

The words didn’t sound quite so scary as I’d anticipated. In fact, I was surprised to feel a spark of excitement. Amber had been right earlier that morning when she said she didn’t think I’d been happy in Oxford. In hindsight, I didn’t think I had been, either. Yes, I’d been doing all the so-called right things, trying to please Matthew and my parents with my career choices, but in actual fact the thought of teacher training had bored me rigid, made me feel stifled.

Well, nobody was stifling me now. Nobody was telling me to do anything. It was all totally up to me – the trials and triumphs, the customers, costs and cakes. Feeling cheered, if slightly apprehensive at this, I put on some music and sang loudly all the way back to Carrawen Bay. Or rather, as I was starting to think of it, back home.

When I finally parked the car it was nearly ten o’clock and pretty much dark. I loved how much deeper and more velvety the darkness was here by the sea. There was none of the light pollution that you got in Oxford, the hazy amber glow, which meant the sky never quite hit its ultimate jet-black. Down here in the bay, the darkness all but swallowed you up: the sea was a deep, liquid black and you could smell its salty scent and hear its rhythmic rushing better than you could see it. Tonight there was a gleaming slice of moon up in the charcoal sky, and a sprinkling of bright silver stars.

I locked the car quickly, glancing around and feeling jittery, as my eyes strained uselessly to see into the shadowy corners of the parking area. It was daft, as this was surely way safer a place than our old street in Oxford, but all the same my senses felt on full alert as I walked around to the steps leading up to the deck and main entrance of the café.

I stopped abruptly as I reached the middle step and heard a movement from the deck above. A rustling sound. My heart lurched and I gripped the hand-rail, adrenaline spiking through my bloodstream. Was it rats? The wind blowing something about? Or a person? Had Saffron and her family come back seeking vengeance?

I climbed the next two steps, my legs feeling like jelly, and saw, to my horror, that through the shadowy near-darkness there was indeed a person on the deck.

‘Oh, shit,’ said the person in a scared, young voice, peering up at me.

It was the girl I’d seen before, the homeless girl who’d slept rough on the deck a few times. Now she was half in, half out of a sleeping bag, as if she were poised to take flight again. But I was blocking her way.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, struggling to her feet and clutching up her bedding. ‘I’m really sorry. I’ll go, don’t worry.’

‘No, it’s okay,’ I said, not moving. I was so relieved that she wasn’t some nutter about to attack me, or the café, that I felt my legs swaying beneath me. ‘You don’t have to go. Look – are you hungry? Have you had anything to eat?’

She stared at me suspiciously. Her face was largely in shadow, but her whole stance was wary and defensive: her arms were close to her body and I could feel how on edge she was, how much she wanted to run.

‘Come in,’ I said, when she didn’t reply. I fumbled for the door keys in my bag. ‘Come and have something to eat at least. We’ve got lots of leftover pasties, and cake as well.’

Still she hesitated. I walked onto the deck and felt her shrink away from me. I was tense too. I really didn’t want her to bolt away again; I couldn’t help feeling in part responsible for her, knowing that she had slept here before.

‘Come on,’ I said, slotting in the key and pushing the door open. ‘We’ve got a new chef and he’s amazing. Try one of the pasties he’s made, at least.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, gripping her sleeping bag as if it were a shield.

‘Totally sure.’ I flicked the lights on and held the door open. I saw her glance through the window to the welcoming brightness of the lit café, and was sure she wouldn’t be able to resist.

I was right.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, head down, as she slipped in through the door after me. I could see her better now, and she was a tiny thing: skin and bone, with long tangled blonde hair, framing a thin face. How old was she? I wondered. It was hard to say for sure. Sixteen? Eighteen? Fourteen? There was a world-weariness about her that was heartbreaking, and I felt an uncomfortable pang inside when I thought back to my own teenage years – the comfortable, warm home my parents had provided, the soft bed, the meals on the table, the clothing allowance. What had gone wrong for this girl, that she was sleeping outside my café at night, that she had left her own home behind?

‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘Let me get you a drink. Do you want something hot, or a cold drink? Or both?’

Her gaze went up to the chalked menu and she was silent for a moment. Then she turned her thin little face back to mine, a look of longing in her eyes. ‘Could I . . . could I have a hot chocolate? Please?’

Bless her. She was just a kid, after all. ‘Of course you can,’ I said, taking a mug, and scooping some chocolate powder into it. She was well spoken, I had noticed, and polite, with that ‘please’ on the end. Her accent was southern, but there was no West Country burr to it. ‘I’m Evie by the way,’ I said, stirring in the hot milk. ‘Do you want squirty cream and marshmallows on this?’

‘Yes, please,’ she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear with a certain amount of self-consciousness. ‘I’m Phoebe,’ she said after a moment.

Who could tell if that was her real name, or if she was fobbing me off with a fake one, but whichever it was, I felt as if we’d made progress. I was Evie, she was Phoebe. Okay. That was a start, at least.

‘Here you go,’ I said, bringing her drink over. ‘As for food, there are two different sorts of pasties, or cake, or I could make you some toast. What do you fancy?’

She took a tiny scoop of the cream with a teaspoon and licked it. A fleeting expression of pleasure passed over her face, but then the shutters came down and she was back to being wary. She mumbled something and her gaze fell to her dirty fingers, which she played with in her lap.

‘What was that?’ I asked. I was still standing, not sure she would feel comfortable if I sat down next to her. It was like trying to coax out a cautious animal from a hiding place, wanting it to know that you weren’t going to hurt it.

‘How much?’ she muttered, still not making eye contact.

How much? Oh God, she thought I was going to charge her. ‘Nothing,’ I told her firmly. ‘I didn’t ask you in to make a sale. I asked you in because . . .’ I shrugged helplessly. ‘Because ever since I first saw you sleeping outside I’ve been worried about you.’

Her chin went up. ‘You don’t need to worry about me,’ she said, with all the glacial, misdirected condescension that only a teenager could come out with. ‘I’m fine.’

She so clearly
wasn’t
fine, but I didn’t think me pointing this out would help. ‘Okay,’ I said slowly. I went back behind the counter. ‘I’m going to have some of this Victoria sponge,’ I said, lifting off the glass lid. ‘And I can tell you, it is absolutely delicious. Would you like me to cut you a slice as well?’

Again, there was the hesitation as if she was weighing up the balance. What was going through her head? I wondered. She was obviously tempted by the food, but was she worried that she would somehow owe me for it?

‘It’s a couple of days old,’ I lied, ‘so I’ll probably have to throw it out tomorrow. You’d be doing me a favour, really, if you have some. I’d much rather it was eaten than wasted.’

‘Yes, please,’ she said quietly, sipping her drink.

‘Right,’ I said, cutting two slices and trying not to look too pleased. I wasn’t going to say so yet, but now that I’d seen for myself just how young and vulnerable she was, there was no way I was going to let her sleep rough tonight. No way. I would get some food down her, see if she wanted a bath, then say she could stay in the spare room.

Matthew’s horrified face appeared in my head.
Let her stay? You don’t even know the girl. She’s probably a drug addict. She’ll rip you off, take your money and do a bunk. Don’t be so ridiculous!

Well, he had a point. I didn’t know the girl, and yes, she might well be an addict, but she was also young and sleeping outside my café. Whoever she was, and whatever her situation, I couldn’t just send her back into the night.

I slid the plates onto the table and sat down. ‘There,’ I said. ‘You’re lucky I’m not making the cakes myself any more; a lovely lady called Annie bakes them now. If this was one of my home-made efforts, it wouldn’t taste half as nice, believe me.’

She wasn’t listening, she was cramming one end of the slice into her mouth and chewing quickly. A flicker of bliss crossed her face and she suddenly looked much younger, like a kid eating birthday cake at a party tea. My heart ached, wondering why the hell she was out on the streets, and where her parents were. And what should I do, as the adult in this situation?

I toyed with my cake – I wasn’t really hungry, and had only said I was having some in the hope that it would encourage her to accept a piece – while I thought. I didn’t want to scare her off by getting heavy about contacting her parents or even the police, but all the same I felt morally responsible to do
something
.

‘Look,’ I said, after a while. ‘Phoebe, I do have a spare room here, you know. You’re welcome to stay if—’

Damn. It was too much, too soon. She was already getting to her feet, clutching that manky old sleeping bag. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I told you, I’m fine.’

I got to my feet too, feeling the situation slipping away from me. ‘I don’t want you to have to sleep outside, though,’ I said. She was hurrying towards the door, and I followed her. ‘Look, why don’t you stay tonight, I can wash your sleeping bag for you . . .’

‘No,’ she said stiffly. ‘Thanks for the cake, but I’ve got to go now.’

‘But where?’ I cried, as she disappeared through the door. ‘Phoebe . . .’ But she was already running down the steps and away. I’d scared her off. ‘Come back any time,’ I called out into the darkness. ‘I mean it, any time!’

I heard her pattering over the sand, and then there was silence, save for the ssshhh-ssshhh-ssshhh of the sea. She’d gone.

I stayed on the deck for a few moments in case she changed her mind and came back, but she didn’t. A cool breeze was blowing in off the sea, with a mist of spitty rain just starting, and I felt wretched and foolish at having driven her away into who knew what. Where was she going to sleep now? I hoped the rain wouldn’t get any heavier. I hoped she knew somewhere else to go where she’d be sheltered.

The next morning I peered out of the window in case Phoebe had crept back in the night to sleep on the deck again, but there was no sign of her. It was cool and overcast, but according to the weather forecast, this was due to be the last dry day for a while, as it was meant to be turning showery. By my calculations, I reckoned that would mean another busy day on the beach, even if the sun didn’t actually show itself. In classic British holiday-maker style, everyone would doggedly drag themselves to the sand, suffering goosebumps and wind burn, with freezing extremities for anyone crazy enough to get in the sea, all in the name of a seaside holiday. They would be queuing round the block for my teas, coffees and hot snacks, I could predict it already.

Ed came in at eight-thirty and began making pastry for a new batch of pasties. ‘What are we having today, chef ?’ I asked, passing him a coffee.

‘I’m doing lamb-and-mint, a classic Cornish and a veggie one,’ he replied, rubbing butter into the flour.

‘Brilliant,’ I said. ‘We’ve still got some of yesterday’s too, so there’ll be lots to choose from.’

He winked. ‘That’s the plan.’

‘And we’ve got a new member of staff starting as well,’ I said, loath to leave the kitchen just yet. I liked watching him work, I realized. Plus, I knew that in an hour or so the mid-morning rush would start and I wouldn’t get a chance to chat to him until the lunchtime customers had all been served. ‘Rachel, she’s called. She’s an Aussie, but has been waitressing in London. Some restaurant called Duke’s in the West End, I think.’

‘Oh yeah?’ He didn’t raise his head from his pastry-making, but I sensed him tense up for some reason.

‘Yeah, have you heard of it?’

He shook his head, still not looking at me. ‘Nope.’

My eyes narrowed as I watched him. I was sure he was lying. ‘Oh my God, it’s not the one you used to work at, is it?’ I said, the words bursting out in a torrent. ‘That would be a bit weird, wouldn’t—’

‘No, it’s not the place I worked at,’ he said shortly.

‘What
was
the name of the restaurant where you were cheffing?’ I asked curiously. It had struck me when I’d read through Rachel’s CV that I actually knew next to nothing about Ed. No references, no career history, nothing. All I had was his say-so, and I’d let him take over the kitchen. Don’t get me wrong, I was very grateful that he
had
taken over the kitchen and so far he had been fantastic there, but it had crossed my mind that this was not your typical business arrangement. Other café managers probably wouldn’t have been so laid-back about letting a complete stranger become their chef, without finding out a few basic things first. Mind you, other café managers weren’t screaming desperate, like I had been.