The Christmas Café (7 page)

Bea stared at her granddaughter who was about to dive into life. An image filled her head from her own youth, when she was just a few years older than Flora: a narrow bed in a locked room, a plastic bowl in which to pee and a cold fear that hovered in her chest at what would happen when her time came.
I’d go back to then, I’d find him. I’d be stronger! I’d run as fast as I could around the world and I would cling to him and we would grow old side by side.
Bea sighed, knowing she would have done no such thing. She had had to let him go, and she did.

‘I guess we all do,’ she said quietly. ‘When would you go back to?’

Flora looked up at the photos on the wall and swished her long hair over her shoulder. ‘I wouldn’t go backwards. I’d fast-forward.’

‘To when?’

‘To when I’m older and I have my own money in the bank and I can get my own apartment and do what I want.’ She jutted her chin.

‘Oh! And what is it you’d want to do in your own apartment?’ Bea asked nervously.

Flora considered this. ‘I’d stay up late and go to bed whenever I wanted. I’d never eat any vegetables. I’d have a hot tub in my bedroom and put 5 Seconds of Summer posters over all the walls instead of wallpaper! Oh, and I’d get a dog.’

‘Really? A dog?’ Bea was touched by the innocence of her response. ‘What kind of dog?’

‘A French bulldog – they are so cute! And you can take them for walks or they just sit on your lap and watch TV with you. They’re perfect.’

Bea watched as Flora’s face lit up. ‘They sound it.’

‘And I think if you have a good dog, it’s like having a best friend, isn’t it?’ The smile slipped from Flora’s face.

‘I guess it is.’ Bea wondered if they were getting closer to the heart of the problem.

Flora picked at a thread on her cut-offs. ‘I sometimes feel like I’m the only person in the world that feels like me, like there’s this huge club of people that all know what’s going on and I’m the only one that doesn’t. Like I’m on my own.’ And just like that her tears threatened again.

Bea squeezed her granddaughter’s hand. ‘You are not on your own, Flora. You are loved and if I can help fix things in any way, you know I will.’ It was as close as she could come to prying.

‘Thanks. I don’t think anyone can fix things.’ Flora blinked away her tears.

There was a second or two of awkward silence. ‘Are you any good with computers?’ Bea eventually asked.

‘I guess.’ She shrugged. ‘Not bad.’

Bea stared at her. ‘Do you know how to send an email and things?’

Flora threw her head back against the sofa and giggled loudly, reminding Bea of the thirteen-year-old girl she was. ‘Gr— Bea! Who doesn’t know how to send an email?’

‘Well, me for starters! It’s not that funny! I hardly even saw a computer until I was in my forties and Pappy used to look after everything electronic. I’ve been muddling through trying to teach myself, but I don’t really know how to close anything down. I’m worried that if I press the wrong button, I’ll delete everything.’

‘It’s quite hard to delete
everything
. Where’s your laptop?’ Flora sat forward on the sofa, flicked her hair over her shoulder and cracked her knuckles.

Bea retrieved the laptop from the kitchen and handed it to her granddaughter, who flipped the screen up and let her fingers dance competently over the keyboard before howling again. ‘You’ve got like a million things open!’ Flora shook her head, and looked skyward, reminding Bea very much of Wyatt, who often made the same gesture.

‘I told you I was hopeless with technology.’ Bea watched as Flora tutted and simultaneously clicked on the little flat square that made things happen.

‘Okay – so that’s closed a few screens down. It’s easy, Gran – Bea. You just need to know where to click!’ She nodded. ‘The Christmas Café – you have a lot of their pages open. Not that they tell you much, it’s a pretty basic website.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Bea gave a small cough to mask her embarrassment. ‘The lady that owns it runs this club thing and asked me to join. I just kept clicking on different pictures and things.’

‘Ooh, look at this!’ Flora sounded excited as she pointed at a picture. ‘It’s the street in front of the café and it’s covered in snow! I’d love to run up it and leave my footprints. It looks so pretty!’

Bea peered at the screen. ‘Oh, it does! There’s something about snow that makes everything look so Christmassy.’

‘Oh, Gran! Look at the decorations in the window!’ Flora pointed at the tartan swags that were strung from one side to the other, with tiny pine cones and sprigs of heather clustered in the upward loops.

‘That’s beautiful, isn’t it? I think Miss McKay is far more creative than me. I thought Pappy’s Christmas lights were a grand gesture, but look at that!’

Flora clicked on another page entitled ‘The Perfect Christmas Cupcake’.

‘Oh, wow! I could eat them all!’

The two oohed and aahed at the elegant display of Christmas-themed cupcakes, each one iced with a smooth puddle of white and adorned with either tiny green holly leaves and berries or miniature Santas fashioned out of sugar paste. Along the rim of the vast silver cake stand were little sugar-paste reindeer linked by gossamer strands of sugarwork that connected them to a sleigh bulging with gifts and parcels. The iced detail was breathtaking. It was the work of a Mr Guy Baudin, who was head of design at the café of the week, Plum Patisserie in Mayfair. ‘Ooh, Mayfair, that’s very posh!’ Bea said. ‘We’re in good company.’

‘You could be café of the week!’ Flora enthused. ‘What would you put on your page?’

Bea considered this. ‘Mmm, not sure. Maybe my world-famous chocolate mousse?’

Flora wrinkled her nose and paused. ‘I think we should get Kim to think about it.’

Bea laughed. ‘Well, that told me!’

Flora scrolled through some of the featured cafés.

‘Ooh, look at that one!’ Bea pointed. ‘Kaffeehaus Lohmann in Osnabrück, wherever that is! Look at that strawberry torte! I can smell it from here.’

‘How long have you known about this club?’ Flora asked.

‘I didn’t know anything about it until I received a letter from the lady that runs it. I was clicking on pages trying to find out about the forum she mentioned, but I couldn’t figure out how to go backwards once I’d opened something. I’ve got her letter here somewhere.’

Bea popped on her glasses and reached into her soft leather rucksack. She pulled out the correspondence and passed it to Flora, who balanced the laptop on her knees and drew it from the envelope after scrutinising the postmark and stamp.

‘Ooh, Scotland! That’s a good stamp.’

‘Yes it is; that’s what I thought. Kim said the lady who wrote the letter sounded fat, and with a fondness for cats.’

Flora glanced up. ‘That’s funny. My teacher is a cat person, but I told her I like dogs—’

‘French bulldogs, to be precise,’ Bea interrupted.

‘Exactly!’ Flora beamed, happy that her gran had been paying attention. ‘Maybe that’s why she hates me.’

‘Your teacher? Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t hate you!’

‘Is Edinburgh near London?’ Flora changed the subject.

‘No!’ Bea chuckled. ‘It’s about six hundred and fifty kilometres away.’

‘Not that far then.’

Bea smiled at her granddaughter: Aussie born and bred, with none of the small-island attitudes that she had grown up with. When your country was so big you could fit the UK into it more than thirty-one times, what was a seven-hour car journey up the motorway?

‘Why do you think it’s called the Christmas Café? D’you reckon they change the name when Christmas is over? Maybe it becomes the Easter Café?’ Flora’s eyes lit up; she clearly liked this idea.

‘Ooh, Easter Café would be good. Nothing but chocolate – can you imagine?’ Bea drained the last of her mug. ‘Could you send her an email from me?’

‘Sure, do you have the address?’

‘Yes, I’ve got her letter.’ Bea pointed at the sheet.

‘No!’ Flora giggled. ‘The email address? Don’t worry, I’ll get it from the website.’

Bea gathered the soft grey woollen wrap around her shoulders and watched as Flora tip-tapped her way dexterously across the keyboard. She found it amazing how tech-savvy this young girl was. She thought back to when she was thirteen, when she and her sister, Diane, would invent games that involved hiding objects in the garden for the other one to find, or writing plays they would then perform for their parents. Their favourite pastime had been singing along to the Top Forty every Sunday night and recording it on their radio-cassette player, trying to master the skill of hitting and releasing the pause button when the DJ was speaking between songs. That tape would then be played to death all week long, before the process was repeated the following Sunday. It was another world entirely.

‘Okay, so you tell me what you want to say and I’ll type it. My spelling isn’t very good, but we can spellcheck it.’

‘Ah, spelling, that I
can
do. We are a great team.’ She winked. ‘Right.’ Bea considered what she wanted to say. ‘Dear Alex...’

Flora snorted her laughter. ‘That doesn’t sound very friendly! You need to imagine that you are chatting to her on the phone – Mum told me that.’

‘Oh, that’s a good tip. Right...’ Bea drew breath, ready to start again. ‘Well, Alex, I have put your letter in my handbag...’

Flora laughed again and leant back with her arms folded across her chest.

Bea giggled too, happy that she could amuse her granddaughter so much. ‘What’s wrong with that?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know! It just sounds funny.’

‘I never realised it was going to be this tricky!’ Bea pulled a face.

Flora straightened, pushed her hair behind her ears and levelled the laptop on her knees, looking much older than her thirteen years. ‘I know, imagine Alex is standing over there and you are talking to her and I’ll try and write what you say and then we can change it if we need to.’

Bea thought about what she wanted to say, slowly dictating the words that would link her to a café in Scotland.
Scotland...
She watched as Flora’s fingers whizzed from side to side.

‘Read it back to me, would you, Flora?’

Flora coughed. ‘Hello, Alex. It was so lovely to get your letter. It caused much excitement here, so rare to receive a proper letter written in ink, and the Scottish stamp has been much admired. I had a look at your café forum online and am quite enamoured with the cupcakes from Plum Patisserie. I must admit my mouth watered at the sight of the strawberry torte in Osnabrück – is that Austria? Our café is very different. The Reservoir Street Kitchen, named after the street in which we live, is a neighbourhood café which I set up twenty years ago with my husband. We serve fresh food made with love. It’s the kind of place where everyone feels like they have family and friends even if they don’t. I’d love to know what inspired you to set up the Christmas Café. Yours sincerely, Bea Greenstock.’ Flora made a face at the rather formal sign-off. ‘Shall I mention her cats?’

‘No!’ Bea shouted. The pair of them laughed again. ‘I like you being here, Flora Greenstock.’

‘I like being here too.’ Flora gave a long, slow yawn. The day’s events had taken their toll.

‘Come on then, missy, it’s bedtime for you. You’ve had quite a day.’ Bea patted her leg. ‘There are clean towels in the linen cupboard on the landing.’

‘Thanks, Bea.’ Flora stood up.

‘And don’t forget: no phone or iPad, that’s what Dad said.’

Flora rolled her eyes and sloped off into the hall, placing both items on the counter-top in the kitchen.

Bea watched her disappear, then turned to the photograph of Peter on the wall. ‘Well, this is a turn-up for the books. Lovely to see her, Peter, but what’s this all about, eh?’

She stretched her legs and placed her green silk cushion on her lap, before reaching for the letter, a letter from far, far away. Her fingers drummed on the Edinburgh postmark as her head filled with a lilting Scottish burr. It was the voice that had lulled her to sleep with stories of lochs shimmering in the sun and winding paths up mountainsides abundant with flowers.
‘The white heather is the rarest; they say it grows only on soil where no blood has been shed. It’s lucky...’
She remembered every word he had spoken, as if it was yesterday.

Bea had slept more soundly than she’d expected. There was something quite comforting about having someone else under her roof; it made her feel protected in some way, like she used to when she lay next to Peter night after night. Thinking about him made her tears gather. She sniffed them away, not wanting to give them the satisfaction.

Bea was surprised to find Flora awake and alert at 5.30 a.m. She had tiptoed past the study door and into the sitting room, not wanting to disturb her granddaughter, but she needn’t have worried: there she was in the kitchen, in her short cotton sleepsuit, holding a half-eaten banana.

Bea took up position in the middle of the sitting room and stood with her arms outstretched and her knees bent. ‘Morning, Flora. You’re up nice and early. How did you sleep?’

‘Good, thanks, though I didn’t know where I was when I woke up. I got my phone back – that’s okay, isn’t it?’

Bea couldn’t decide if this was said with sincerity or a hint of sarcasm. ‘Sure.’ She smiled, then closed her eyes and flopped forward.

‘What are you doing?’

‘A few stretching exercises: my own mix. I do them every morning. Keeps me supple.’

Bea could see Flora didn’t know whether to laugh or join in. She realised how little they actually knew about each other, their knowledge restricted to just the outline facts about each other’s lives. Apart from what they had each gleaned second-hand from Wyatt and Sarah, the details were sketchy.

Flora grunted noncommittally. ‘Can I have a shower?’

Bea closed her eyes and nodded. She didn’t want to be disturbed. As she went through her exercise routine, she tried to ignore the sounds of Flora nosing through the bathroom cupboards, the water jets hitting the shower tray and the catchy chorus she sang as she washed.

Twenty minutes later, Flora returned with two glasses of orange juice on a vintage black lacquered tray. ‘I got you one too, Gran— Bea.’