Jenny Oliver - The Grand Reopening Of Dandelion Cafe

‘Ahh.’ Ludo stood with the spatula clasped to his chest. ‘I love it. I love her. River, do you love Shirley yet? Stop. Listen. Listen to that. Ahhhh. You must appreciate that volume. That depth. Your band, they could benefit from listening to Shirley.’

The boy blushed and sniggered from behind his fringe. Ludo whacked him with a tea towel and made him laugh.

Annie rested her chin in her hands and took it all in via the big mirror. The fact the poor kid was called River and then the way Matthew was watching, lips closed, muscles in his cheeks taut like he was clenching his teeth, feet no longer tapping on the base of the stool, hand stilled on the page he was about to turn on his book.

Was he jealous, she wondered. But then he glanced up and caught her eye in the mirror and she dropped her eyes to her phone as quick as she could. She could feel him still watching her. He kept his head turned her way, kept his eyes on her in the mirror, almost like a punishment for her snooping. His moody, dark gaze fixed on her blushing, embarrassed face.

‘One cherry pie.’ It landed in front of her with a slap. ‘We haven’t got any cream.’ River put down a jug of milk instead and walked away.

Annie stared down at the bowl. The same off-white china with brown flower trim round the edge. The familiarity of the sight made her breath catch in her throat. The wobbly lattice across the top, the cherries glistening, dark like velvet, sticky and squished. The thinnest layer of frangipane just coating the base, enough to sweeten with a hint of almond, Enid would say, but not so much that you would know it was there. Everything you’re doing is to bring out the best in the cherries. Let them do the work. And then sit back and watch.

Nabbing her teaspoon from her coffee cup, Annie was just about to take a bite when the bell above the door went again and her mother sat down in the seat opposite.

She was accompanied by Valtar, her lovely Latvian husband, an accountant and occasional Elvis impersonator. He’d come to the island a couple of years ago to perform at the pub and heroically taken on the job of wooing Annie’s mother. She often wondered if he knew what he was getting himself into, but he still gazed at her with adoring eyes and, for Annie, there was nothing more important than that. It was what her dad would have wanted. That her mum would be loved and looked after. He hadn’t let her mother so much as touch a bill or take any part in the business and in doing so had left her floundering when he passed away.

‘Sweetheart, you’re here. Why didn’t you phone me? I had to hear it from the bloody milkman, and you can imagine how delighted he was to pass on news that I didn’t know.’ Winifred Birzgalis (née White) huffed as she glanced at Annie over the shabby laminated menu.

Before she could reply, her brother Jonathan and his wife Suzi, their twin nine year olds, Gertrude and Wilbur, and their dog Flash, a tiny fluffy thing that was some expensive hybrid and terrified of everything appeared as well.

‘Shove over, Sis.’ Jonathan jabbed her between the ribs so she’d move chairs and then sat down with Wilbur on his lap. ‘Wil’s starving, can he have your pie?’

Chapter Three

Annie pushed the bowl of cherry pie over to Wilbur and he started scooping it into his mouth like he’d never eaten before in his life.

‘He’s always hungry,’ sighed Suzi as she pulled up a chair and sat at the end of the table. Immaculate as always, she was dressed in diamanté jeans, a jumper with a zebra sequinned on the front and a jacket with a huge fur collar. ‘Have you said thanks, Wil?’

‘Thanks, Aunty Annie,’ Wilbur said, voice muffled with pie.

Annie nodded, feeling herself shrink back into the corner of her seat. Overwhelmed by so much family. She blamed the pie. If she hadn’t ordered it then she’d have left fifteen minutes ago.

‘Aunty Annie?’ Gertrude said in the kind of up-talking singsong voice that they use in Gossip Girl .

‘Yes, Gerty?’ Annie adored her niece. She was naughty and funny and like a quirky little munchkin.

‘Granny Winifred said the other day that she thought I might be like you and Daddy pulled a face and said that he hoped not.’

Suzi gave an embarrassed giggle but Jonathan glanced up from his menu and barked a laugh as if it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

Valtar put his newspaper down. ‘Is not good to be like Annie? What’s wrong with Annie?’

Her mum did a little eye roll and said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with Annie. Not now anyway.’

Annie didn’t say anything, just looked up to see River standing with a huge tray of cappuccinos and pots of tea, clearly intrigued by the chat.

‘She was a nightmare,’ Jonathan said as the drinks were being divvied out. ‘She was married and divorced by the time she was twenty-one. And the less said about that the better. I’d be driving around in a 1956 Jaguar XK140 if Dad hadn’t had to sell it to pay off that disaster.’

Annie blew out a breath. ‘I can’t believe you’re still going on about that car, Jonathan.’

‘I’d like to be like Aunty Annie,’ Gerty said without looking up from her iPad, and banging her trainers against the legs of her chair. ‘I think she’s cool.’

Annie held in a smile but couldn’t help wishing that the conversation wasn’t taking place with River watching, listening.

Jonathan snorted. ‘Yes it’s just all the stuff it took to get to this stage.’

Annie suddenly felt really warm.

‘She was a bit of a terror, darling,’ Winifred said to Valtar.

‘A bit?’ Jonathan frowned as if that was a huge understatement.

River smirked.

‘Life was never dull,’ Winifred appeased.

‘Gerty, sit up straight.’ Suzi leant over and pushed her daughter’s shoulders back so she wasn’t slouched over the iPad.

Annie couldn’t sit there any longer.

‘I have to go to the loo,’ she said, starting to stand. Jonathan sighed because it meant he had to move as well, along with Wilbur.

The bathroom was outside. Through the kitchen and out into a tiny yard that backed onto the cherry orchard. On the ground, scattered over the many pots of herbs and green shoots, the winged seeds of the sycamore still lay where they’d helicoptered down in autumn. Annie didn’t need to go to the loo at all, she needed a moment just to get herself back.

It was always the same. Whatever she did, they’d still just remember her for the bad exam results, the late nights, the cigarette packets stashed in the shed, the teenage stuff that everyone did apart from her bloody brother. The arguments, the parties, the secrets, the mistakes. The marriage. The money.

She thought about her brother, raised as high as the family pedestal would allow without him bashing his head on the ceiling, with his perfect family and his degree from Oxford and his PhD from Cambridge and his GP practice and his comments about how Dad should never have had to bail her out.

Her one regret was not being able to pay that money back. She’d had these fantasies of buying her dad another Jaguar and leading him over the bridge to see it parked by the river, sparkling like the sun catching the waves.

‘You OK?’

Annie jumped when she heard the drawl.

‘Shit! Sorry, you startled me. I was just erm—’ She pointed to the cherry trees. ‘Just, you know, looking.’

The guy from the bar was standing in the doorway. Matthew. She noticed in the daylight how tanned his face was. The lines of his cheekbones rusty with sunburn and his nose freckled. His hair was pushed back from his face, like it was held back with salt water from the sea, brown with dirty-blond streaks.

He didn’t say anything and the silence made her nervous.