The Waitress (41 page)

She curled up tighter into a foetal position. It was at times like these that she wished she could take off her own head as easily as taking off her clothes. She groaned. This
must
be a breakdown. She wanted to hide under her duvet and stay there forever, or at least until dinner.

Dinner. There was no food in the flat. She’d have to go out and get some in – but that would mean getting washed and then deciding what to wear for the entire day, even though she didn’t know what the weather would be like later, then dressing and then being in a supermarket surrounded by people and then making decisions about what to eat . . .

So many decisions. The world was full of them. Small risks as well as big risks.

Of all the days for this to happen, Sunday was the worst. Sundays were crap. It was crap having to work Sunday and crap having the day off on a Sunday. And Sunday evening was the worst of all because, whether you
worked
on a Sunday or not, the evening air was laden with the doom of a working week ahead of you.

Ultimately Sukie was right, she concluded, as a great gaping ache of despair opened inside her. She would only ever be a waitress. She wasn’t ever going to be a proper restaurant manager, or a writer, or an educational psychologist or a film producer or anything else. She was always going to be a waitress. And there was a very good reason she was a waitress. Because she preferred taking other people’s orders to making up her own mind.

She looked across to her bedside table and her eyes alighted on the phone. Aha. Of course. The one solution that would light her way through this blackest of moments. The method to pull herself up from this pit of melancholy. She watched her own arm stretch away from her, as if it was disembodied, towards the phone. She saw herself pick it up and with great concentration dial the number correctly first time. The dialling tone soothed her until the fourth one, when the awful thought that there might be no answer kicked her in the gut. Suddenly, there was a click.

‘Hello?’ came the voice, clear and authoritative, yet soft.

Katie almost cried with relief. She was going to be OK. The rescue plane had seen her flare. She croaked into the phone, wiping her eyes.

‘Hello Mum,’ she whispered. ‘Can I pop home for a day or two?’

Dan clicked his mobile phone off almost in slow motion. So. Katie wouldn’t be in today. On a Sunday, their busiest
day
. She sounded so bad he’d told her to take as long as she needed, until she was completely well again. It was awful to hear her so low; he’d got used to her being constantly bright and perky. Rude, bolshie and unpredictable, yes, but never low. Was it arrogance to wonder if it was anything to do with what had happened between them at the wedding? He pictured her at home, all tiny and vulnerable. Maybe he’d pop round later.

‘Who was that?’ asked Geraldine, wandering into his bedroom, towel-drying her hair.

‘Katie. She’s not coming in today.’

‘Oh dear. Why not?’

He shrugged. ‘Didn’t say, but she sounded awful.’

Geraldine threw the towel on the bed and started putting on her business suit. ‘Hmm,’ she said, unimpressed. ‘Anyone can sound awful. You just make the call with your face upside down. Let’s hope she’s better soon.’

‘I told her she should take as much time as she needed.’

‘You what?’

‘She sounded awful. Maybe it’s a really bad monthly thing.’

‘You are a mug, Daniel Crichton. If I phoned in sick every month, I’d be sacked and with good reason. I mean look at me, I’ve got a wedding to organise and
I’m
going in on a Sunday.’

‘You have a great sense of sisterhood.’

‘Bollocks to that,’ said Geraldine. ‘It’s dog-eat-dog in the workplace.’

‘You know, I just don’t understand women.’

Geraldine smiled. ‘Good. The less you understand us, the more control we have.’

‘You don’t think I should be concerned when my most important staff member phones in sounding ill?’

‘I would have thought your chef was your most important staff member,’ said Geraldine drily. ‘For goodness’ sake, you’re her boss, not her counsellor.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Talking of which, I must dash.’

Dan got into work early and helped Sukie and Patsy because there was a rush, while Nik got things going in the kitchen. Sukie was in a fantastically acerbic mood today. She made Patsy cry with laughter at some of her put-downs, just as soon as she’d worked them out. Dan hadn’t realised how much Katie usually stole the show.

‘I think you’re going to be fine without your friend,’ he told her when they’d finished.

‘I should think so,’ Sukie told him briskly. ‘We’re not attached at the hip, you know.’

He turned to Patsy. ‘Remind me why you’re called the gentler sex again?’ he asked her.

She gave him a pretty smile. ‘Because we’re gentler,’ she said.

‘Than what?’ he muttered.

Patsy laughed, then stopped. ‘Than men of course,’ she said. ‘Dur-brain.’

Hugh flicked the kitchen light on and stopped dead. Shit. The kitchen was a tip. His head was hammering. He needed coffee and a long, hot shower. He could do the kitchen tonight. He opened the fridge door and looked at the loaf of bread. It seemed much smaller than he remembered. He took out the milk and sniffed it. He almost gagged. He put it back in the fridge, slammed the
door
shut and leant against the kitchen counter. Bloody bloody hell. He bloody hated being alone. Maxine hadn’t come to the party last night and no one knew why. Bloody rude of her. He made his instant coffee black and, without a backward glance at the kitchen, went back upstairs to bed.

It only took Katie four hours to get up, washed, dressed and packed. And only another four to ‘pop’ home. A good day’s work, in her opinion. By the time she arrived in the bosom of her family, the bosom was heaving. Bea was there and, of course, so was her recent appendage of five months, Edward. Technically, Eddie should only be four months old and he’d always be small, but oh, he was perfect. Katie took him in her arms and looked at him properly for the first time, seeing him for the miracle he was. Not just because, as yet, he had no signs of inheriting his father’s chin, but because his mother had risked her very life for his. Was motherhood the ultimate example of courage, she wondered, staring at his extraordinary, ordinary babyness.

Eddie’s new Daddy, Maurice, was working away, which was why Bea and Eddie had come to stay for a few days. Katie’s brother Cliffie and father Sydney were milling around at a safe distance, concerned for her, but unable to do much to help other than nod reassuringly to her from across the room.

So the job of support network was left for Deanna and Bea to fill, and fill it they did, amply, whenever Eddie wasn’t doing anything cute like grinning, burping, farting, sleeping, waking or breathing. The women sat in the
kitchen
around the large pine table as if it were a life raft. Just sitting here gave Katie a sense of peace and inner control that she couldn’t seem to find in London. She decided to take another two days off and phoned Dan immediately. He didn’t ask why and she didn’t care what he thought – she suggested making Sukie temporary manager and he said that was a good idea. She thought about asking him to say ‘hi’ to Sukie, but decided against it. She now had time to be with her family, walk in the fields and smell the cow-pats of home. Bliss.

She sighed deeply.

‘Oh! What was that nasty big sigh for?’ Bea asked Eddie, who was blinking pensively at them all from his grandmother’s arms. ‘Wasn’t that a nasty big sigh? Yes it
was
. Yes it
was
. Yes it –’

‘Do you want to come with me to the market tomorrow?’ Deanna asked Katie, kissing Eddie’s head.

‘Yes please.’

‘Good. I’ve got to get a few things, but we can treat ourselves to a cream tea in Ye Olde Tea Shoppe.’

‘Lovely.’

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Bea to Eddie. ‘Isn’t that lovely? Yes it
is
. Yes it
is
. Yes it is.’ She turned to them both. ‘We won’t be able to go I’m afraid. Eddie’s got his first swimming lesson.’

‘Ah, shame,’ said Deanna and Katie.

‘Yes you
have
,’ Bea told her son and heir. ‘Yes you
have
.’

What harm could a text do, thought Hugh, looking at his mobile phone. It would just be friendly interest wouldn’t it? Maxine had said she’d be at the party and she wasn’t
there
. She could be ill, or something could be wrong. Maybe that carpenter was hitting her. He’d just give her a quick text to find out how she was. After he’d tidied the kitchen. Yep. Right. He slipped his mobile into his back pocket and walked carefully down the stairs, turned on the telly and made a start on the mess.

What the hell did people do on a Sunday, thought Hugh later. He’d watched
The Waltons
, cleaned the kitchen, thrown away the bread and been food shopping. And all that with a dull hangover, so he hadn’t exactly been rushing. When he and Maxine had been doing up the house, their weekends had been so busy they hadn’t had a moment to themselves. He remembered commenting about how he thought he’d never have time to read a Sunday paper again. He’d read it front to back today, even the travel section which he hated, and still there were hundreds of hours left till Monday. He sat down in the living room and flicked on the telly. Absolutely nothing on. He might just write and complain. He pulled out his mobile phone. Right, he thought. Just a light-hearted text, nothing serious. He picked up the remote and checked the other channels. Nothing. Oh sod it. He texted Maxine and then finished off a bottle of whisky.

Katie always enjoyed going to the market. Whatever stage of life she was at, it always represented just what she needed. When she was younger it made her feel responsible and important because she was doing errands for her mother. When she was a teenager it made her feel adventurous and reckless because this was where the boys
from
all the neighbouring villages came and loitered on their motorbikes. When she was a student it made her feel connected to home again. And now it made her feel as if the world was a safe and harmless place and all her problems could somehow be sorted out.

They set off bright and early, to give Deanna plenty of time to stop and chat to most of the stall-holders. All of them seemed delighted to see Katie, asked how her job in London was going and told her how all their own family were, especially those of corresponding ages. Yet again, the market did its trick, because to each stall-holder alike, Katie’s choice to up-sticks and move to London, the scariest city in the country, represented the biggest risk anyone could take.

By the time she and her mother found themselves in Ye Olde Tea Shoppe – where nothing had changed, including owner, cutlery and menu since it had opened fifty years ago – Katie was feeling a little better. She was welcomed back there with such familial warmth that she felt guilty she hadn’t given the café a single thought in the years she’d been away. Now, however, she looked at it with different eyes. Would her mother consider Mrs Blatchett, owner of the shop, a woman who had wasted her life? No. She had a strong business that had seen her through her husband’s early death and her son’s emigration to the other side of the world. Now easily in her seventies, she was still agile and the light in her eye still shone as brightly as in the days when Katie was brought here as a reward for getting a good end-of-term report. And of course, Katie now saw, the café was a testament to the courage of Mrs Blatchett, who had taken a risk and
followed
through, come rain or shine. Her café, a respectable business and beloved landmark for an entire village, was her deserved payback.

‘Now what can I get for you, my dears?’ asked Mrs Blatchett, no need for pen or paper.

‘We’ll have two of your best English cream teas please,’ answered Deanna.

‘Lovely.’ Mrs Blatchett turned to Katie. ‘And how is the waitressing going in London, my dear?’

‘Fine thanks.’

‘Hard work?’

‘Yes, but I enjoy it mostly.’

Mrs Blatchett sighed. ‘I can’t find anyone who wants to stay in this job any more. Not after poor Miss Abbingdon upped and left for Cornwall.’

‘You’ve still got waitresses though, haven’t you?’ asked Deanna.

Mrs Blatchett lowered her voice. ‘Flighty things. Work here for a summer and then they’re off. Everyone wants to travel nowadays, like the world might up and vanish if they stay put longer than a week. When I was their age I was happy to go to Blackpool for the day.’ She sighed. ‘Lord knows what’ll happen when I retire. One of those wretched coffee chains will probably snap it up.’

‘Perish the thought.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs Blatchett, ‘coffee’s the thing now, isn’t it? Americans are taking over the world. Came in late to the war so they think they’ve got a right. No, I’ll probably sell up soon. Quit while I’m ahead. Anyway, hark at me. Two cream teas coming up.’ And off she went.

By the time Katie’s home-made scones and crustless
white
cucumber sandwiches were in front of her on a plate with a doily, she was beginning to feel unfamiliar stirrings of pride in her work. And as she watched her mother pour tea out of a china teapot, another unfamiliar feeling came to her. The feeling of wanting to take a risk. She stared at the scene in front of her and could barely breathe, let alone eat, for excitement. Oh, this was a new feeling altogether. It made all the other times shrink into insignificance. This, she realised, staring like one possessed at her plate of neat white carbohydrates on a doily, was it.

She would visit Great-Aunt Edna this afternoon.

She could barely concentrate on anything until she got home. And then when she did, she was in for a big surprise. Sydney had had a busy day rounding up all the eligible young men still left in the country, with the energy and focus of a sheepdog. It was the only way he knew to help his youngest daughter. There would be six for dinner, he informed his wife. Luckily, Deanna had foreseen such a tactical move and had decided that if you can’t beat them, join them. She had invited two friends from her local book club; one the owner of a book publisher’s based in the nearby city centre, the other a buyer for the county’s most élite furrier. Both had promised they would put in a good word for Katie, should she so desire. And she’d bought enough game to provide dinner for at least ten, just in case.