The Beach Cafe (3 page)

Mum and Dad went off to the solicitor’s to discuss the will, but the rest of us – Matthew and I, Ruth and her husband Tim, and Louise and her husband Chris – were there for the duration. Their children had been palmed off on various friends and mothers-in-law for the night, so our conversation was punctuated by several phone calls checking up on them. ‘Could you remind Hugo to practise his violin tonight? He’s got his Grade Two exams next week,’ Ruth said loudly into her mobile, as if hoping to impress the rest of the pub with her infant prodigy.

Louise, meanwhile, had to sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ down the phone to her youngest, Matilda, who didn’t seem very happy about Mummy being away. The first two times she sang it quietly, hunched over her phone as if deeply embarrassed by the request. ‘Louder? That
was
louder,’ she sighed when Matilda wasn’t satisfied. ‘Oh, all right,’ she muttered, rolling her eyes. ‘If I must.’ She drained her glass of wine and belted it out, much louder this time, earning herself several bemused stares from the other punters. ‘Kids!’ she exclaimed comically as she ended the call.

Louise was plastered within an hour, her cheeks pink, her hair dropping out of her ponytail by the minute, and her gesticulations becoming progressively wilder. She had the hump with Mum, she told us. ‘Can you believe it, she’s only gone and entered Josh in the Cats’ and Dogs’ Home “Pet Lookalike” competition – with Monty,’ she sniffed indignantly. ‘I mean, honestly! How rude is that? Her own grandson – and she’s basically saying she thinks he looks like a flaming Yorkshire terrier!’

Despite the circumstances, I burst out laughing. Josh was Louise and Chris’s earnest seven-year-old and yes, now that I came to think of it, he did have the same shaggy brown hair and mischievous eyes as Monty, Mum and Dad’s grumpy pooch.

‘I wouldn’t have minded so much if she’d actually asked us first,’ she spluttered. ‘But she just went and sent off photos of them both without a word. What a cheek!’

‘What’s the prize?’ Matthew wanted to know. ‘Could Josh win himself a year’s supply of Pedigree Chum?’

Louise swatted him with a beer mat. ‘No, he bloody can’t,’ she said. ‘The prize is twenty-five pounds to spend in the Cats’ and Dogs’ Home shop. That’s handy for us, seeing as we have neither a cat nor a dog, don’t you think? I wonder who’d end up spending that!’

Ruth – who, as the sole teetotaller of the group, was the only one not slurring her words at this point – patted Louise’s hand. ‘If it makes you feel any better, Mum thinks she’s paying Josh a compliment, likening him to Monty,’ she said. ‘I’m serious!’ she added, as we all (with the exception of Louise) roared with laughter again. ‘You know how much she dotes on that wretched mutt. Josh must be golden boy for her to have chosen
him
for the competition.’

There was a note of envy in Ruth’s voice, and I tried not to groan out loud. She was fiercely competitive with Louise – always had been. Ruth had all but suffered a nervous breakdown as a teenager trying to match Louise’s grades in school, whereas Louise was one of those naturally brainy types who floated through life, passing everything with ease, with only the most cursory flick-through of revision notes necessary. Worse, she didn’t even seem to notice Ruth snapping frantically at her heels. Even now it rankled with Ruth, clearly.

I was about to change the subject to safer grounds when Mum and Dad came back into the pub. Everyone stopped laughing abruptly, feeling self-conscious and remembering why we were all there. Mum flashed me a look, then sat down, her face pale. She seemed uncharacteristically quiet.

‘Are you okay, Mum?’ I asked, reaching over to take her hand. It had been worst for Mum, of course, losing Jo. She looked as if she’d hardly slept since we’d heard the news. I knew that today must have been a horrendous ordeal for her.

‘Um . . . yes,’ she said after a moment, giving me the same quick glance, as if she was wondering whether or not to tell me something.

‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Well . . .’ she said, twisting her rings on her fingers and not looking at anyone for a second. Then she turned to Dad. ‘You tell them,’ she said. ‘I’m still taking it in.’

Dad cleared his throat. ‘We’ve just been talking to the solicitor about your aunt’s will,’ he began. ‘And it’s a bit peculiar, shall we say.’

He paused, and I felt my heart step up its pace. It wasn’t like jokey, affable Dad to look so grave. Had Jo died horribly in debt? Was there some dark secret in her will, a love-child, maybe?

His gaze fell on me. ‘She’s left you the café, Evie,’ he said bluntly, and handed over an envelope with my name typed on it. ‘Here – this is for you.’

‘She’s
what
?’ I stared at him, and then at Mum, half-expecting them to laugh and tell me they were joking. They didn’t. ‘What do you mean, she’s left me the café?’ I said. ‘Are you serious?’

Mum nodded. ‘That’s what the will said, love.’ She nodded at the letter I was holding. ‘Why don’t you open it?’

‘Bloody hell,’ Ruth said tightly. ‘There must be some mistake. She’s really left the beach café to
Evie
?’

I looked down at the envelope dumbly, then ripped it open, my fingers fumbling on the paper, my mouth dry all of a sudden. I shot a look at Matthew, who appeared as bewildered as I felt. Ruth was right; this had to be a mistake, my brain reasoned. Had to be. Some silly misunderstanding, some cock-up, or . . .

I pulled out the letter and felt a pang at the sight of Jo’s loopy writing there on the page. It was dated four years earlier, and I gave a choking sort of cry. ‘But this was written ages ago. Surely this can’t be . . .’

Then I fell silent as I read.

Dearest Evie,

I’ve just had the loveliest weekend with you here in the bay. You remind me so much of myself at your age – full of life, full of dreams, sparkling with energy and enthusiasm. I love seeing you here – you always seem at your happiest and most relaxed when you’re down by the sea. And yet I sense that you’re not truly fulfilled, that you haven’t yet found your heart’s desire, the peace that comes with pure, deep contentment.

You might not ever read this letter – maybe life will take some unexpected twists and turns for us both, and my words will become meaningless. But I’d like to state, here and now, that in the event of my untimely death, I am leaving you the café in my will.

I stopped reading, unable to take the words in. The sentences were jumbling up before my eyes, and I felt dulled by wine and shock. No way. This couldn’t seriously be happening, could it?

‘What does it say?’ Ruth urged. ‘Evie?’

‘Hang on,’ I mumbled, turning my eyes back to the paper.

Yes, beloved niece, you read that right. You know that you have always been my favourite girl, the daughter I never had. You are the only person to whom I would entrust my precious café, because I know you will look after it with the love and care it deserves. I’ve always felt you have a kinship with this place, and I know you can do it.

Excuse an old girl her fancies. As I said, you might never read this letter. But maybe, just maybe, one day you’ll hold it in your hands and I hope you’ll understand and respect my wishes.

Much love

Jo xxx

I swallowed, my cheeks burning hot suddenly, as blood rushed into my face. Then I folded the letter quickly, not wanting my sisters to read the bit about me being ‘the favourite’. Nor did I want Matthew to see the lines about me not having found my heart’s desire. If Jo had written this four years ago, I’d have been going out with him by then. It was the sort of thing that would get his back up, bring a bitter gleam to his eye.

‘Wow,’ I said, gazing around the table. For a second, a wild fantasy bubbled up in my head: me behind the counter of the café again, serving the most incredible food, being awarded Michelin stars, lauded by all the restaurant reviewers in the broadsheets, queues stretching out of the front door . . .

Louise was grinning broadly. ‘Priceless,’ she said. ‘Oh, she was a devil, wasn’t she? Bonkers!’

‘She wasn’t bonkers,’ I said, stung.

‘That’s not a nice way to speak of the dead,’ Mum snapped. ‘Admittedly, I don’t know what she was thinking, leaving such a responsibility to Evie, but—’

‘Well, Evie can just put it on the market, can’t she? Make a few quid, get a nice place in Oxford,’ Ruth put in dismissively. Her voice had a falsely bright topnote betraying how furious she really was that I’d been singled out for special attention.

‘I
am
sitting here, thank you very much,’ I reminded them. ‘And I’ve got a nice place in Oxford already, remember.’

‘Well—’ Matthew began, and I stiffened as I sensed he was about to correct me.

‘All right,
we’ve
got a nice place,’ I said, before he could get in first. ‘Oh, all right, for heaven’s sake,
Matthew’s
got a nice place that I’m living in, then.’

There was an awkward pause. Sore point.

‘I didn’t mean—’ he started defensively.

‘
Anyway
,’ Ruth said over him. ‘That’s not really relevant, is it? Personally, I don’t think it’s fair that Jo gave you the café. There
are
three of us, after all.’

‘Ruth!’ Dad exploded. ‘Poor Jo’s not been in the grave five minutes. How dare you start bitching about the will? You haven’t been forgotten, don’t worry, there’s something left for you.’ He looked crosser than I’d seen him for years. ‘Honestly!’

Ruth lowered her eyes to the table and Tim put an arm around her. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered to nobody in particular.

Mum looked anxiously at me. ‘Evie, this is obviously a surprise to us all, but there’s no rush to do anything. Dad and I can help you with the legalities of getting the café onto the market, and—’

‘Who said I wanted to sell it?’ I blurted out. Everything seemed to be moving so quickly. People were making assumptions, making decisions for me. I hadn’t yet had time to work through my own thoughts on the bombshell.

Matthew stared at me. ‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘
Don’t
you want to sell it?’

‘I . . .’ I began, then stopped. The words of Jo’s letter were still running through my mind; I could almost hear her saying them out loud to me. My fantasy world popped up inside my head again – ker-ching! – with a vision of Matthew and me in matching aprons behind the counter, smiling happily at one another as I frothed the milk for cappuccinos and he sprinkled on the cocoa powder in a heart shape. We could do it, couldn’t we? We could run away to Cornwall and live here, and . . .

‘Because it’s not exactly practical, is it?’ Matthew went on, as if reading my mind. ‘I mean, we both live and work in Oxford.’

He was right, of course. Completely right. It was ridiculous to daydream about running away. Silly. Childish. My daydream vanished immediately, like smoke in the wind.

‘I just need a bit of time,’ I said. I rubbed my eyes, feeling drained.
You are the only person to whom I would entrust my precious café
, Jo had written.
You can do it.
And here was everyone flogging it, before I’d even had a minute to think. My family, honestly. This was them all over. Couldn’t take the black sheep seriously, even when a fully fledged business had fallen into her lap. ‘I’ve got to get my head around this. I haven’t taken it in yet.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Mum said kindly. ‘It’s been one hell of a day. There’s no rush to make any decisions – certainly not tonight anyway. There’s plenty of time to sort everything out.’ She gave everyone a tired smile. ‘Let me tell you what else the will said . . .’

She and Dad began relating what the others had been bequeathed, but I tuned out, unable to stop my mind whirling and spinning with the news. Jo had given me the café. It was mine. I owned a business, a building right here in Carrawen!

There was only one thing I could think of doing. I necked my glass of wine and got to my feet. ‘My round,’ I said. ‘Who wants another?’

Chapter Three

‘Evie, have you finished that letter yet? I need it as soon as possible.’

‘Evie! Mr Davis wants coffee.’

‘Evie, I’ve left a pile of filing on your desk. And don’t forget that the stationery order needs putting through today.’

It was the following Monday morning, and Carrawen Bay seemed a long, long way away now; a shimmering, unreachable oasis in my mind, a dream I had once had. I was back in Oxford, in a dingy office block near the Clarendon Centre, where I was midway through a two-month temping job for the most bad-mannered, ill-humoured group of people in the world, who all seemed to think I had superhero abilities when it came to my Everest-like intray.

I hadn’t had the most illustrious career, it had to be said. After drama school, I’d wanted to tread the boards (or be flung into Hollywood stardom, let’s be honest), but after five years when I only managed a few minor roles in theatre productions, and a sole appearance in
Casualty
as an extra (Overdose Victim), I grudgingly accepted that I was always going to be more
Hollyoaks
than Hollywood, and reluctantly knocked that dream on the head. Then I tried to make it as a photographer, followed by a stint singing in a band, but those career options didn’t pan out too well, either. That was the point at which I met Matthew; and then, with Matthew’s encouragement, I’d quit my pub job, gone to secretarial college and had been temping ever since. And bored out of my wits. Recently I had finally resigned myself to doing what my parents and sisters had been brainwashing me to do all along – go into teaching.

Personally I wasn’t convinced I would make the most illustrious teacher. I didn’t have a lot of patience at the best of times, became quickly irritated by whingeing children and, worst of all, couldn’t bear the sound of chalk squeaking down a blackboard. My sisters reassured me that it was all whiteboards these days and amazing computer trickery, but I still felt on edge at the thought of being in a classroom again. (And don’t get me started on my lifelong fear of school toilets.) However, I’d grudgingly come to the conclusion that perhaps taking a teacher-training course might actually be a tad more interesting and worthwhile than staying in Temp Hell for the rest of my days. And, frankly, I’d run out of other options. My family had been relieved, to say the least.

‘You’re making the right decision,’ Ruth told me, nodding her head with sage approval. ‘Teaching’s not only rewarding, but you’ve got the security of work for life. And then, of course, you’ve got your pension too – never too early to be thinking about that.’

I completely disagreed. In my opinion, taking a job for pension reasons when you were still in your thirties was so mind-bogglingly old-fartish that it should be punishable by law. Besides, I wasn’t sure I even
wanted
‘work for life’, either – the very phrase filled me with dread. Where did following your dreams and taking chances fit into ‘work for life’? What happened to fun and spontaneity?

The thing was, arguing with Ruth was like arguing with a moving bulldozer; you were always going to be squashed eventually, whether you liked it or not. You could protest all you wanted to about fun and dreams and risk-taking, but get her on the subject of mortgages and family responsibilities and she was unstoppable.

So, duly flattened, I’d done the safe, sensible thing and applied for a place on a course at Oxford Brookes. Much to my surprise, I’d actually been offered one. I’d almost laughed in disbelief when the letter had arrived. They really thought I was a suitable candidate for being a teacher? Clearly my acting skills had been magnificent during the interview. Suckers!

Anyway, the course started in four months’ time, in September, and originally, knowing how intensive and full-on-exhausting a PGCE was meant to be, I’d had vague plans to take some time off before it started and enjoy my last months of freedom. I could decorate the house, dig out my camera and do some photography, sort out the garden, or maybe even take a last-hurrah holiday somewhere hot and exotic – perhaps I could squeeze in an India trip after all . . .

‘It’s probably better for you to get as much work as you can before September,’ Matthew had pointed out, though. ‘If I’m going to put your name on the mortgage, you’ve got to pay your way, really. She who pays, stays, and all that.’

I’d never heard that particular maxim before, but I supposed he was right. It wasn’t fair to expect him to cough up for everything while I took a year off work in order to do the course, and I was a liberated twenty-first-century woman who was happy to pay my share of the bills, and what-have-you. So no, I wasn’t in hot, dusty India, with my hair in braids, sporting a henna tattoo as I haggled in a market for a silver bangle. I wasn’t on a palm beach either, engrossed in a fat blockbuster novel and soaking up the rays. Instead, I was typing and photocopying and filing and coffee-making for the slave-masters and – mistresses in the torture dungeon – I mean offices – of the Crossland Finance Solutions company. And yes, it was every bit as dull and demeaning and
dire
as it sounded.

There was one guy there, Colin Davis – Mr Davis to me – who particularly drove me nuts. He was a fat slug of a man in a tight brown suit, with greasy hair, bulging eyes and bright-pink skin that always seemed to have a sheen of sweat. He must have been nearing fifty, but acted more like a twenty-year-old lout, forever making derogatory remarks about the female members of staff, and churning out endless macho twaddle about who he’d like to ‘do’ (Katie Price, Alesha Dixon and Cheryl Cole usually, although there were many variations) and what, exactly, he’d like to do to them. More recently, he also seemed to have taken a liking to my bottom, grabbing it, patting it and pinching it whenever he got the chance, which wasn’t often, if I could help it. I had perfected the Colin Davis swerve pretty quick, I can tell you.

(I know what you’re thinking: why didn’t someone report the slimeball to management, and get him sacked? That was the problem. He
was
management, and he wasn’t going anywhere – other than to prowl around my desk and perv.)

I kept begging the temp agency to find me another position, but they weren’t sympathetic. ‘We haven’t got anything else suitable,’ they would say each time I phoned in desperation. Of course they’d say that. They were getting a juicy commission, after all, for every hour I suffered working in that hole. Why would they want to pull the emergency cord on this particular gravy train?

‘I
said
, I needed that letter as soon as possible! How long does it take to type a few pages?’ There he was now, buzzing through from his office on the intercom. Horrible toad of a man. How I wished he’d hop off.

‘Sorry, Mr Davis,’ I replied insincerely. ‘It’s coming right up.’ Then I muffled the intercom speaker quickly, not wanting to hear his inevitable ‘gag’ about something else that would be ‘coming right up’, if I was lucky. Ugh.

I bashed out the letter – something very boring about tax rates – while visions of Carrawen Bay swam through my thoughts. Waking up hungover to the back teeth on the morning after the funeral in a too-hot B&B bedroom hadn’t been a lot of fun, but there was no better place to have a hangover than on a beach, in my opinion. I knew that all it would take would be a blast of that bracing, briny air against my skin, the sea breeze ruffling my hair and cleansing my lungs, and my spirits would be well and truly lifted.

It had been drizzling, but after breakfast Matthew and I had pulled on our coats and tramped down to the bay to walk off our stodgy fry-ups. Sure enough, I felt better within minutes as the blustery air slapped me about the cheeks. Ozone-tastic!

It gave me a jolt to see the café again as we reached the sand dunes and headed down the steep, twisting path to the bay itself. The events of the previous day skidded into my head (the will, the letter from Jo, the shocking news that I’d inherited the business) and I found myself staring at the café – my café – as if seeing it for the first time.
My café.
It seemed dream-like, unreal, as if I’d imagined the whole thing.

We’d reached the bottom of the path by now, and stepped onto the beach. It was low tide, and the waves had left curved ripples, like scales, on the wet sand. Clumps of bladderwrack lay black and glistening where the tide had dumped them, and the wind tugged at what was left of my cropped hair, tickling the back of my bare neck. The beach was empty, except for us and a man with a lolloping black Labrador and two little blonde girls in spotty wellies, who were shrieking and running around with the dog.

I couldn’t help veering towards the café, drawn helplessly to it. Mum and Dad had stayed overnight up in Jo’s flat there, as Mum had wanted to make sure all the practicalities had been taken care of: the fridge emptied, the heating turned off, the windows securely locked, that kind of thing. ‘Come on,’ I said to Matthew. ‘Let’s go in, have a cup of tea and talk to the staff.’

He wrinkled his nose suspiciously. ‘Evie, wouldn’t it be better not to get caught up emotionally in this? What are you going to say? I mean—’

I knew what he meant. He wanted me to get shot of the whole caboodle as quickly as it had landed in my lap. Why say anything to anyone? Why get involved? Maybe it would be easy for
him
to do that without becoming sentimental, but me, I wasn’t made like that. ‘Matthew, the café was Jo’s. How can I react any way other than emotionally?’ I snapped. I wished he didn’t have to be so down on the place. I wished—

‘Evie, Mr Davis has asked for coffee
again
. How much longer are you going to be?’

A sharp, nasal voice broke into my thoughts. I looked up from my computer screen to see Jacqueline, Mr Davis’s PA, glaring at me between her thickly mascaraed false eyelashes. It was like being confronted by Bambi with a bad attitude.

‘Two minutes,’ I said evenly, trying not to rise to her goading. It struck me as ridiculous that Mr Davis couldn’t actually drag his fat arse to the kitchen to make his own coffee, if he was dying of thirst; and presumably Jacqueline, who was only a glorified secretary herself, felt it beneath her too. What was so demeaning about – gasp! – flicking a switch on a kettle with your own finger, for God’s sake, or walking to the Starbucks on the High Street, even?

Jo had never treated her staff like scum, never bullied them, never made them feel crap. You could tell from the way they’d all turned up at her funeral with lowered heads and tears in their eyes. According to Mum, the café had been closed for a few days after her death out of respect, and when we dropped in on Saturday, the staff who were working there still looked shell-shocked. My gaze had automatically flicked to the counter, expecting to see Jo at the coffee machine, sharing a joke and a laugh with a customer. Of course she wasn’t, though.

The café wasn’t huge, but it gave the illusion of space, with its high timbered ceiling, and the large windows and glass doors that opened out onto the deck. Inside, there were eight tables, and a couple of booths by the windows. Outside, there were wooden tables and chairs, with colourful beach umbrellas that provided shade when the sun was blazing down. On hot days, the glass doors could be folded back so that the breeze floated inside, although on cooler days the doors were shut tight, and the place felt cosy and warm, especially when you saw the white-headed waves churning tempestuously as they rushed foaming up the beach.

Jo had always made the cakes and pastries herself, and it gave me another pang to see the cake counter empty that day. Clearly nobody had felt up to filling her shoes when it came to providing the most sinfully delicious chocolate brownies in Cornwall, or the yummiest fruity flapjacks. Oh, Jo . . . It seemed impossible that she wasn’t ever going to walk out of the kitchen again with a tray of freshly baked goodies. ‘Get one of these down you,’ she’d always say.

I wondered how the staff were feeling about working in the café now. Cornwall didn’t exactly have high employment rates, and they were surely worrying about their future job prospects. One of the girls behind the counter looked barely sixteen, with her fresh little face and henna-red ponytail. What would she do if the café closed? What would any of them do? It wasn’t just a business I had inherited, it was people’s lives too.

I tried to shake the red-haired girl’s face out of my head and return to the real world, this Oxford office world, as I waited for Mr Davis’s letter to print. It was taking ages, I registered dimly, glancing over at the printer. Then I noticed that a red light was flashing ominously. PRINTER ERROR, the display panel read.

My phone was ringing. Emails were pinging. Jacqueline was looking pointedly at the clock, and Mr Davis was heaving himself out of his chair and lumbering towards me, no doubt with images of my bottom dancing before his eyes. Oh God. I only just managed to bite back the scream of frustration that rose inside my throat.

‘I really, really,
really
hate working in that office,’ I moaned later, to my best friend Amber. We’d met after work for a drink in The Bear, a cosy ye-olde-type pub in town, and it had taken me a large gin and tonic and a packet of peanuts to feel even slightly less harassed. ‘I hate it, hate it, hate it.’

Amber wrinkled her nose. ‘How long’s your contract for?’ she asked.

‘Another month. Four sodding weeks. Twenty bloody days. I can’t do it, Amber, I just can’t. I’ve started hiding the filing in a cupboard, because I’m so behind on it, and have been fantasizing about bottom-armour to protect myself from Evil Colin’s molesting hands.’ I sighed. ‘That’s not good, is it?’

‘That’s not good, babe,’ Amber agreed. ‘Nothing else come up from the agency?’

‘Nope,’ I said gloomily. ‘They don’t care. As long as they’re getting their cut, they’re just leaving me to get on with it.’

‘Well, you know what I’m going to say,’ Amber began, her dangly earrings swinging as she leaned nearer to me. ‘Life is too damn short to waste it in that boring office.

Think of all the other stuff you could be doing. Fun stuff! Stuff you enjoy! Stuff that makes you happy!’