Jenny Oliver - The Grand Reopening Of Dandelion Cafe

Chucking his rucksack in the corner he pulled an apron off the hook, swiped the unwashed mugs from the countertop and started to fill the sink with water. It was a second before he noticed Annie and the sight of her made him glance nervously at the guy in the kitchen. When he didn’t seem to pay any attention to either of them, the boy took his lead and blanked her completely.

Annie kept on doing her crossword.

Five past nine she sat back in her seat and said, ‘Any chance I could have a cup of coffee?’

The boy looked terrified. The guy in the back shrugged.

‘Black. One sugar.’

‘There’s sugar on the table,’ the boy said.

‘OK, just a black coffee then,’ Annie replied.

He scuffed about banging the coffee machine and grinding some beans.

It was maybe quarter past when he set the chipped mug down in front of her and said, again, ‘Sugar’s on the table.’

The door opened and slammed. A woman in her late sixties strode in. Apron already tied under her bosom. Hair like an electric shock. Face like a Bassett Hound; droopy and eyes sliding away. ‘Well, well, well. I wondered when you’d show up.’

‘Hi, Martha,’ Annie folded the paper up and stood up from her chair, awkward because it didn’t push back so her knees had to stay slightly bent. She decided to step out from the table completely.

‘We’re doing just fine,’ Martha said, walking straight past her. ‘Just fine. We don’t need anything. Ludo. Aren’t we doing just fine?’

The guy in the back, who was sizzling bacon in a pan, a cigarette smoking in an ashtray on the windowsill, gave a thumbs-up.

Annie licked her lips. She walked over to the counter and folded her arms so she could lean against it. The boy looked nervously between her and Martha. ‘Who’s running the place?’ Annie asked.

‘Me. Ludo. Who do you think? The same people who have been running it for the last ten years. Mum couldn’t do it. She sat where you’re sitting. And we’ve been fine. Just fine,’ Martha hung her bag up on one of the hooks and took a pad from the stack by the till. ‘Just fine. I told your mother to just leave us to it,’ she said as she walked away to serve two men who’d trudged in, leant their fishing gear up against the window and were sitting at the booth furthest from the counter, mud dripping off their wellie boots onto the lino, a black labrador flat-out in the aisle.

‘OK,’ Annie said, and pushing off the counter turned and went back to her seat and her surprisingly good cup of coffee. Sitting down she glanced around the place, the sun streaming in through the dusty windows, surreptitiously taking in the cracks in the ceiling, the spiders’ webs, the wonky pictures and dreadful paintings, the dirty path on the lino where years of feet had trudged up to the counter, the fake flowers on every table. She picked hers up and turned it upside down, the flowers stayed where they were, glued into their vase.

She was just examining the plastic menu, the laminated corner coming unstuck and peeled apart by fiddling fingers, when the bell above the door chimed and someone else walked in.

Annie glanced up, expecting another of the motley crew of waiting staff, but paused when she caught sight of the man elbowing the door closed. Tall, serious-looking, he pulled off aviator sunglasses and slid them into the neck of his dark-green T-shirt. It was the colour of seaweed, the sleeves bleached by the sun. He was wearing grey marl tracksuit bottoms, rolled up to reveal tanned, sinewy calves and flip-flopped feet that were still damp. He’d clearly just come off the water, probably been rowing or maybe paddle boarding.

She didn’t realise she’d been holding her breath until he’d strolled past her and then she had to exhale really slowly so that no one realised she’d stopped breathing.

‘Morning,’ he said to the boy when he got to the counter.

When no one replied, Annie glanced over her shoulder, intrigued. She just caught the boy hanging his head and sloping out the back to the kitchen. Martha moved into his place and nodded to the man.

‘Usual, Matthew?’

Matthew… Annie realised she knew exactly who he was. Two years older than her brother at school, he’d been head boy, won loads of sport trophies. She remembered school assembly, when all the first-formers, her included, would sit cross-legged staring up at him in awe as he sauntered on stage to collect his prizes, all cool and terrifyingly grown-up. She couldn’t remember his surname. Watson, maybe. Windsor? She could remember the scandal though, he’d got Pamela Chambers pregnant and she’d gone into labour in the middle of her physics A-level.

Annie watched as he took a seat on one of the faux-leather covered barstools, nodded to Martha and said, ‘Yeah and I’ll have a bacon sandwich. Heard anything from the new boss yet?’

Annie flipped her head back round as quick as she could as she saw Martha raise her eyebrows in her direction.

There was silence behind her. She was just wondering whether to stand up and say something when she realised there was a mirror on the furthest wall from her and she could see Matthew reflected in it.

As Martha bustled back into the kitchen, tearing off the bacon sandwich order for Ludo, she watched as he upended the sugar pourer into his espresso, granules cascading down till it seemed they might overflow. When he stirred it she was reminded of her dad, the teaspoon having trouble through the thickness of the liquid. As he took a sip she watched him watch the boy, his feet tapping against the bars on the stool, his eyes hooded, and narrowed.

When the boy came over to take her cup away she realised the two of them looked almost the same. Same eyebrows, same look like there was a whole world going on behind the slit of eyes that they allowed you to see.

Was this the physics A-level baby? ‘Are you two related?’ she asked as casually as she could while he wiped down the Formica.

The boy looked back at the guy at the counter, shrugged and then walked off back to the kitchen.

‘Wow,’ Annie blew out a breath. She’d forgotten how closed the island could be. The gossip was there, bubbling away beneath the surface, but fiercely guarded, like whispers between leaves. It was her fault for prying. She hated it when people brought up her past, so why had she tried to burrow into his? She sat back, ashamed of herself, and watched as a couple of tourists arrived with a guide book. Sitting down they asked tentatively whether the cafe still served the famous cherry pie.

Cherry pie.

Annie watched as the boy brought out two bowls of it on a tray. Custard in a jug and cups of tea with saucers. She watched as he rested the tray on the side of the table and handed the couple their pie. Watched the steam rise and twine with the sunlight. Watched as they closed their Lonely Planet and each took a bite, from a spoon, she noted.

The woman shut her eyes and put her hand on her chest and gave a little moan of delight, and the boy’s lips allowed a hint of a smile. As if even the most bored of waiters couldn’t disguise his pride in this sticky, sour cherry pie.

‘Hey, ’scuse me?’ Annie caught him as he loped past her.

‘Yeah?’ he said, the tray hanging empty by his side, his eyes narrowed at her.

‘Can I have a slice of pie?’

He shrugged. ‘Yeah.’

Annie smiled. ‘OK then, thanks.’ He began to walk away. ‘Oh, hang on, no custard. Do you have cream?’

‘Dunno, I’ll check.’

As he disappeared into the back she heard Ludo call from the kitchen. ‘Turn it up. Turn it up. This is my favourite.’

The yelling startled her and she twisted round to see Matthew leaning over the counter and twisting the knob on the radio so that Shirley Bassey’s ‘Goldfinger’ belted out into the room.