Georgia Hill - Spring Beginnings

The stranger looked at the dog’s wicker basket. ‘You allow dogs in the café?’

Millie stiffened. No one criticised her café and certainly not her dog. ‘He’s allowed in the seating area, but nowhere near any food preparation.’ She jerked her head towards the kitchen. ‘And, as you can see, there’s a door separating the two parts of the café. We’re very dog-friendly in Berecombe. Always have been. Lots of visitors bring their pets with them on holiday and want to eat out with them. In the better weather we have tables outside on the sun terrace and, of course, there are no restrictions on dogs out there.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I’ve obviously touched a nerve. I apologise.’ That devastatingly charming smile again.

Millie felt the tension leave her shoulders. He hadn’t meant to criticise after all. ‘No, it should be me apologising. It’s a defence I have to produce every now and again.’

‘And you find it’s better for trade to have dogs in?’

Who was he to be asking all these questions? Suspicion prickled. ‘I do. There’s always the occasional customer who prefers to eat without having a dog around, but most people, even if they don’t have one of their own, actually like it.’

‘Good. Interesting.’

This was getting weird. ‘Now, what can I get you?’ Millie asked bracingly, to avoid further interrogation.

‘I suppose I’m too late for lunch?’

‘Not at all. I’ve some curried butternut squash soup and homemade bread. Or a sandwich on granary?’

‘The soup sounds wonderful. I’ll have that. And a piece of the Victoria sponge for pudding. Oh – and tea.’

‘I have Earl Grey or English Breakfast. The Breakfast tea is from a local Devon supplier and is particularly good. Or I have a variety of fruit and herbal teas.’

‘English Breakfast it is, then. Thank you.’

‘Thank you . Won’t be a minute.’

As Millie prepared his meal, she couldn’t resist sneaking peeks through the porthole window in the kitchen door. Who was he? Health and Safety? One of those secret review customers? Someone from the tourist board? He’d slipped off his overcoat and she’d been right about the suit. Very well cut and fitted to his long legs. No, he couldn’t be any of those. No tourist-board official had ever looked that beautiful. Did people really have cheekbones like that? Trevor, she saw, to her intense annoyance, was now nosing around and making friends. She’d expected the stranger to bat him off but he was tickling Trevor’s golden ears, to the dog’s great delight. And dogs were supposed to be loyal! Looked like Trevor couldn’t resist a handsome man either.

Feeling more than a little flustered, Millie put the soup on to heat and took over a tray with teapot, milk jug, cup and saucer.

‘What pretty china,’ the stranger exclaimed. ‘I like the way it’s all mismatched but goes together so well.’

Millie’s suspicions grew.

He looked around him with open admiration. ‘And I love the turquoise starfish and pink shell mural. You’ve obviously thought a great deal about the image for this place.’

Millie hadn’t. She’d got her best friend’s husband to paint it colours she liked and the china choice was forced on her by economy. She’d picked up a load at a car-boot sale. Was he being sarcastic? ‘Thank you.’ She forced a smile through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll just go and get your soup.’

Again, Millie watched avidly as the stranger examined his cup, turned the handles of the teapot and hot-water jug this way and that and lifted the saucer to examine the maker’s mark. The delicate flowery pattern should have looked ridiculous in his long-fingered grip, but it didn’t. Who was he?

There was one way to find out. She carried his soup and bread over, determined to ask questions, only to be thwarted as Biddy came in with Elvis. Shaking sea spray off her woollen beret, the elderly woman said, ‘Afternoon,’ in her over-loud voice. Millie served the stranger his meal and noticed with amusement that Biddy was glaring at him. He was in her favourite seat.

Biddy settled noisily at a table nearer the kitchen and made a great fuss over taking off her coat and settling her poodle.

Realising the interrogation would have to wait, Millie went over to her. ‘Your usual, Biddy?’ Millie didn’t need an order pad for this customer. Biddy always had the same thing.

‘My usual,’ the woman barked. ‘What else? A coffee and scone. And a shortbread for Elvis.’

‘Coming right up.’ Millie made sure she was facing her as she spoke. Biddy was really quite deaf but could lip-read. When she chose. Millie tried to be charitable and sympathise with how frustrating it must be but suspected Biddy’s permanently bad mood was nothing to do with her hearing loss. ‘How’s Elvis today?’ Normally Millie would fuss over Biddy’s hearing-assistance dog but she was too aware of the stranger. He seemed to be watching everything that was going on.

‘Upset, that’s what he is. That bitch has been after him again.’

Millie sensed rather than saw the stranger’s shoulders tense. ‘What, Arthur Roulestone’s retriever? She’s as quiet as a mouse.’

‘Not when she catches sight of Elvis, she isn’t. I swear he makes her randy.’

‘Oh dear,’ Millie murmured. ‘Just as well he doesn’t have the same effect on Trevor.’ They looked to where the dogs, having had a sniff to say hello, were now studiously ignoring one another.

‘Yes well,’ Biddy sniffed. ‘Folks ought to control their dogs, especially when they’re around others that work.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Millie saw the stranger’s shoulders quiver. Was he laughing – or about to complain? He’d been friendly towards Trevor, but maybe two dogs in a café was too much?

As far as she knew, Arthur’s Daisy never had the energy to raise her head, let alone pester a poodle a quarter of her size, but she supposed Biddy knew what she was talking about. ‘I’ll just get your coffee.’

Unfair though it seemed, maybe today wasn’t the day to let Biddy sit in a corner with Elvis nursing a solitary cup for an hour or two. The sooner she served her, the sooner she might leave. Taking Elvis with her. Millie immediately felt guilty. Why shouldn’t Biddy take as long as she wanted? The café was hardly busy. It was just this stranger. He made Millie uneasy. In lots of ways.

She busied herself in the kitchen, served Biddy, gave Elvis a homemade dog biscuit and took away the stranger’s empty soup bowl.

‘That was absolutely delicious.’ He gave her the megawatt smile again. ‘Is it really homemade?’

‘It is.’

‘By you?’

‘By me. As is the sponge cake.’

‘Then I can’t wait!’

He was being friendly. Saying the right things. Even Trevor, tart that he was, liked him – and she trusted Trevor’s opinion implicitly. But still, there was something not right about this whole encounter. She couldn’t quite place what it was. Maybe she was just unused to dealing with men who made her hormones fizz?

‘I’ll go and get it.’ The sooner he ate and left the better. Then things might get back to normal. She might get back to normal.

‘Could I trouble you for some more boiling water?’

‘Of course,’ she breathed. Bugger. He was going to linger.

As she served him, Zoe and her collection of friends clattered in, bringing the fresh January cold with them. They deposited their school bags and coats in a pile and slumped onto their usual corner table, phones in hand.

‘Hiya, Mil,’ Zoe called.

‘Hi, girls. Hot chocolate?’

‘Hot chocolate,’ they chorused back.

‘We’ve had PE,’ Zoe explained further. ‘Had to run around the field for hours. Supposed to be cross-country training,’ she added gloomily.