Chapter 3
‘We need two more forks and a spoon, Alec,’ said Mum, wafting a hand in front of her face.
‘Have you got any more forks, Rosie?’ Dad asked, his voice muffled.
He had a towel over his face while he rummaged through the cutlery drawer. ‘I can only find five.’
‘Try the bottom of the washing-up bowl,’ I replied, from the doorway of my cottage where I was fanning the room with the door to deactivate the smoke alarm and remove the worst of the smoke.
I’d invited the family to my cottage for Sunday lunch. This was a first for me. Normally at weekends, I’d have some report or other to catch up on or I’d be glued to my iPad answering tweets on behalf of clients, grabbing a quick snack every couple of hours when I felt hungry. But as I no longer had a proper job, I’d decided to make some proper food for once instead.
In all honesty, my invitation to lunch had two ulterior motives: firstly, having spent a few days at the café I was shocked how fumbly and slow I was in the kitchen; and secondly, I was hoping that somehow we’d be able to bring the conversation round to Nonna’s future plans for the café.
I was probably being a bit ambitious.
Dad winced as he pushed up his sleeve and plunged a hand into a bowl of grey sludgy water. ‘Yuck.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, unable to stop myself from laughing.
My dad was a lecturer of philosophy at Derby University. Monday to Friday he wore a uniform of tweed jacket, corduroy trousers and check shirt. At weekends he wore exactly the same. Even now he had his jacket on. He had fine blond hair and fair freckled skin, which had always made him stand out on family holidays as the rest of us only had to look at the sun to get a tan.
‘Got ’em.’ He waved a handful of dripping cutlery triumphantly and squinted at me through the haze as I pointed out the cloth for him to dry them on. ‘How is the pork looking?’
I glanced at the black lump, still smoking in the roasting tray. ‘Well done.’
I’d thought a couple of minutes under a hot grill would crisp up the skin on my joint of pork nicely. Unfortunately, I’d got sidetracked trying to get my potato purée as smooth as Nonna’s and now instead of golden crackling, it resembled a charcoal brick and there was a thick cloud of grey smoke hanging over the dining table.
Lia and my brother-in-law Ed had escaped to the garden with Arlo for some fresh air, Nonna was beating the lumps out of the potato with the back of a wooden spoon and Mum was trying to make room for six adults and a high chair around my tiny table. And Dad … well, Dad was just obeying Mum’s orders as usual.
The downstairs of my cottage was open plan: kitchen in one half, living room in the other with a dining table in the centre and a small log burner set into the thick stone walls. The stairs ran up the far wall to a single bedroom and bathroom. It was tiny but gorgeous and the views from the window above my bed across the village and way out to the hills beyond made me feel anything but hemmed in when I woke in the mornings.
‘Check in the drawers for napkins, will you, Alec?’ said Mum, squeezing the gravy boat in between the apple sauce and the buttered carrots.
‘Sure.’ Dad began rummaging again. He found a handful of battered paper napkins decorated with poinsettias left over from Christmas and began tucking them into the wine glasses.
‘I’ll carve the meat,’ Lia announced, waving her hand in front of her face as she came back inside. ‘I’ve been watching cooking shows. Did you know you can pay over five thousand pounds for a Japanese white steel knife?’
‘Dicky heads,’ Nonna muttered with a tut. ‘More money than brain, some people.’
‘See how you get on with this beauty,’ I said, tongue in cheek, presenting my carving knife to her as if it was a precious sword.
‘Is it Japanese?’ Lia said, wrinkling her nose up at my wobbly, plastic-handled supermarket knife, specially purchased for today.
‘Close,’ I said. ‘Made in China.’
‘It’ll be a squash,’ said Mum, standing back to admire the table she’d laid. ‘But I’ve done it.’
‘I don’t mind squashing up next to you, Luisa,’ said Dad, pressing a kiss to his wife’s cheek.
‘Not now, Alec,’ she said, batting him off. ‘Can you fetch our two spare chairs from the car?’
He clasped her hands to his chest, filled his lungs and began to belt out, ‘Everything I Do,’ from the Bryan Adams song from a Robin Hood film years ago.
I dived to the oven to rescue the roast potatoes to hide my giggle. Dad was an enthusiastic singer, but not terribly good. He had a loud, high-pitched voice which Mum normally only allowed him to exercise when he was right at the bottom of the garden.
Mum pressed a finger to his lips. ‘You’ve got many talents, Alec, but singing isn’t one of them. Now, those chairs?’
Dad slunk off and my heart leapt for him. He was a man of simple pleasures; his loves were Derby County Football Club, pork pies and Dolly Parton. Not necessarily in that order and none of these passions compared to his unwavering devotion to his wife. But Mum always seemed too busy to give him any of her time. She loved him, but it always seemed to me like he was somewhere halfway down her to-do list.
‘Is it safe to come back in?’ Ed asked from the doorway.
‘Lunch is ready, we can almost see through the smog again and Dad’s stopped singing,’ I said, ‘so yes, it’s perfect timing.’
He had Arlo in his hands and was swooping him through the air, much to the little boy’s delight. Mum held her arms out to take her grandson from him and Ed rubbed his hands together with glee.
‘I’ll sort out drinks, then.’ He poured out glasses of wine and handed me a generous measure with a wink. ‘Here you go, favourite sister-in-law.’
I smiled and took a sip. I liked Ed a lot. He was a gentle soul with big muscles, cropped dark hair and dimples in his round cheeks. He worked hard for his father’s haulage company and was a hands-on dad. Lia was lucky, I thought, very lucky.
‘Come on, family,’ I said, pulling out a chair for Nonna. ‘Let’s eat.’
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that lunch was a triumph, but it was edible and there was plenty of it. My zabaglione had been polished off, although Lia had declined any, and now we were having coffee and dark chocolate truffles to finish.
‘How is Rosie getting on at the café, Nonna?’ Lia handed Arlo a softly boiled carrot stick, which he mashed instantly into his face. He pointed longingly at the chocolate to no avail. ‘Are you pleased with her?’
‘She not doing too much yet,’ said Nonna, talking about me as if I weren’t there. ‘I break her gently.’
‘I think you mean break her in gently, Mamma,’ Mum corrected.
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Nonna huffed. ‘She doing okey cokey.’
Lia and I exchanged grins; that was high praise coming from our grandmother.
Actually, Nonna was right first time; the work was breaking me. I was aching all over and my nails were in shreds. Little did she realize that as soon as her back was turned I was hard at work scrubbing everything from the floors to the furniture. On Friday, she’d had a doctor’s appointment and had left me to lock up. Between us, Juliet and I had stripped the big oven down and cleaned every part of it inside and out. It had taken two hours to remove goodness knows how many years of grime. I’d never worked so hard in my life.
‘I think I’ve done quite well,’ I said, ‘considering how different working in the café is to my old job.’
‘You always could turn your hand to anything, love,’ said Dad kindly, helping himself to sugar. ‘Well done, Rosie.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Mum, picking up her coffee cup. ‘Here’s to Rosie for sticking to her principles and handing in her notice. I’m proud of you, darling.’
Nonna drained the last of her wine. ‘You good girl, Rosie. You do well. As long as you don’t start tell me what to do, we stay friends, eh?’
‘Oh, Mamma,’ said Mum with a frown. ‘When are you going to accept that at your age—’
‘Dio mio!’ Nonna thumped the table angrily. ‘When you gonna accept that my business is my business, eh? Keepa nose out.’
Mum and Nonna glared at each other. The only sound in the room was Dad crunching on a piece of leftover crackling. Eventually he swallowed it and took a swig of his wine.
‘That’s one tough pig,’ he said, shaking his head.
Ed made a sound halfway between a cough and a laugh; I didn’t dare look at him.
‘I would love to help at the café,’ said Lia wistfully. ‘I love cooking.’
Ed wrapped his arm round her waist and pressed a kiss into her hair. ‘But you’re enjoying your maternity leave, aren’t you? Precious time, just you and Arlo. You’ll be at the leisure centre again soon enough. There’s no need to go back to work earlier than necessary.’
Lia was a swimming instructor at a busy leisure complex just outside Derby. She’d been there for years, going down to three days a week when she found out she was pregnant. I hadn’t heard her mention going back to work since Arlo was born. She’d never been particularly ambitious and part of me wondered whether she’d bother going back at all.
She sighed. ‘I do love being with him. Obviously. But I’m feeling … I dunno. Look, forget it.’
She pushed her chair back and ran upstairs so fast that I almost missed her trembling bottom lip.
For a split second, the rest of the family was silent.
‘I’ll go after her,’ I said, jumping to my feet.
Lia was sitting on the edge of my bed facing the window, fiddling with the corner of one of the magazines on my bedside cabinet. Tears bulged at her eyes.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Everything. Nothing. This,’ she said, grabbing a handful of her tummy and wobbling it.
‘Don’t be daft.’ I nudged her arm. ‘You’ve just had a baby!’
‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘I hate looking like this, I hate turning on the telly or opening a magazine and seeing some size-eight celeb holding a six-week-old baby saying how hard she worked to fight the flab. I hate seeing pretty clothes in the shops that I can’t fit into. I have to make do with leggings and baggy jumpers. I’d give anything to be as slim as you.’
‘Are you crazy?’ I gasped. ‘You’re beautiful. And you’ve earned the right to those curves. That body looks like it does because it’s amazing. You’re very lucky, actually.’
Lia’s eyes widened. ‘That’s a lovely way of looking at it, thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ I said, meaning it. I might have been the sister with the career, but she had a family, she loved Ed and he loved her back. In my eyes, that was priceless and totally enviable.
‘The thing is …’ she said, not meeting my eye. ‘Don’t laugh.’
I stroked her arm. ‘I won’t.’
She lowered her voice. ‘Being this shape makes me feel such a failure. A fat failure with a repulsive body.’
‘Never say that,’ I said fiercely, poking her in the chest. ‘Because if you do they’ve won. Don’t be bullied by what the media say you should look like or what you should weigh or how you should behave. That’s why I had to leave Digital Horizons; I was in danger of becoming part of the problem. Jesus, it’s the twenty-first century and women are still being manipulated and objectified and pressured into doing things they don’t want to do with their own bodies.’
‘OK.’ Lia stared at me, straining away from me as if I’d struck her. ‘Point taken.’
‘Sorry.’ I took a calming breath. ‘But it makes my blood boil. Anyway, what else?’ I prompted. ‘You said everything’s wrong.’
She stood up, leaned on the window sill and looked out into the distance.
‘I’m ready for something new. I’m ready for a challenge. I don’t want to go back to being a swimming teacher, but I have no idea what I do want. And as much as I love Arlo, I need some adult time. A chance to be me again. Ed doesn’t understand. He goes off to work and as soon as he drives away he’s himself again. I’ve forgotten who I used to be, what I used to do when I wasn’t changing nappies or wiping up drool or puréeing minute portions of baby food. My life is ruled by Arlo’s sleep and how much I can do during his naps.’
‘How about putting him into a nursery or with a childminder for a few hours a week, to give yourself some headspace?’ I suggested.
‘I’d love that,’ she said with a wan smile, ‘but it’s the money. I could justify it if I was back at work, but not otherwise.’
‘Knock knock.’
Lia and I turned to see Mum’s face at the bedroom door. She waggled her fingers in a wave.
‘Can I come in?’
We nodded and she crept in to sit beside us.
‘Lia, I just caught the tail end of that. And … well, I’m saddened that you didn’t come to me for help. After all, Arlo is my only grandchild; I’d be only too happy to have him. Any time, just say the word.’
Lia took a deep breath and glanced sideways at me.
‘That’s lovely to hear, Mum, but if you remember, I have asked you to have Arlo on several occasions. And each time you’ve been too busy organizing a charity lunch or going to a meeting or collecting raffle prizes or something. So I’ve just stopped asking.’
Mum’s commitment to her committees knew no bounds. I could just imagine how many times Lia had asked for help and been refused. I reached for Lia’s hand and squeezed it.
‘Well … I …’ Mum’s face flushed. ‘Gosh. I didn’t realize. But now I know I’ll make myself available, just give me a bit of notice, darling, because as you know I’m very busy …’ Her voice trailed off as she caught Lia’s resigned expression.
‘Exactly. Forget it, Mum.’ Lia pushed herself up off the bed and walked out. Mum groaned and I just about managed to hold my tongue, not wanting to take sides.
By the time we’d got back downstairs, the table had been cleared and Ed had given Arlo his afternoon bottle.
‘Well done, Superdad,’ said Lia, greeting her husband with a kiss.
‘You’re the super one,’ he replied.
He kissed her and my heart squeezed for them both.
See? I mouthed to Lia, catching her eye. Ed obviously didn’t think she was a failure and surely that had to mean more to her than some trashy magazine?
‘So what have we missed?’ Dad asked from the kitchen sink. ‘What’s the big secret?’
Lia shook her head and looked down at her lap; Mum began a thorough search of her handbag. Ed looked from Lia to me.
‘No secrets,’ I said lightly, giving Ed a casual smile. ‘Just girl stuff.’
Nonna flopped down on the sofa. ‘Nothing wrong with keeping secrets anyway. Nobody need to know everything about you.’
‘True,’ I said, reaching for the last chocolate truffle.
I loved my family dearly, but there were some things about me that would never be aired around the family dinner table. ‘As long as we’re there when anyone needs us, that’s what matters.’
Mum cleared her throat.
‘Actually, there is something.’ Her voice was more hesitant than usual and we all stared at her.
‘I’ve decided to give up some of my committees, just for a few months, while Lia needs me.’
She walked across and took Lia’s hand. ‘I’d like to be a more hands-on grandmother, if I may?’
Lia swallowed. ‘That would be brilliant, Mum. If you’re sure?’
‘Absolutely sure. A few hours a day, or a whole day now and then, up to you.’ She smiled at Arlo. ‘We’ll have fun, won’t we, darling? Just you and me. Oh, is he all right?’
Arlo’s eyes had taken on a determined look of concentration and his little face was scarlet.
‘Looks like the fun’s begun already, Luisa,’ said Ed with a laugh.
He sniffed the baby’s bottom and handed him to Mum. ‘Yep. Time to be a hands-on grandmother.’
‘Of course,’ said Mum stoically, holding Arlo rather gingerly. ‘Unless, Alec …?’
‘Mum!’ Lia and I yelled together.
‘OK, OK,’ she said, slinging the changing bag over her shoulder. ‘I’m going.’
A few days later, I was hunched up over a giant block of cheese, grating it for toasties when Dad walked in. I was so startled to see him that I grated my fingertip.
‘Hi, Dad. No work today? Ouch!’ I said, abandoning the cheese and sucking the end of my finger. ‘What can I get you?’
‘A date with your mother would be nice,’ he said, pulling up a stool at the counter. ‘Or failing that a cup of beef tea.’
‘Morning, hen,’ said Juliet to Dad in her gruff Scottish accent. She handed me a blue plaster from the first-aid box whilst simultaneously checking the cheese bowl for blood. ‘Here. The vegetarians will go mental if you drip blood in the cheese.’
Juliet was a wiry Glaswegian in her forties with spiky red hair and a personality to match. She baked the best cakes this side of the Pennines, which went some way to making up for her rather abrasive manner. She gave Dad the once-over as she made him a cup of Bovril, his favourite.
‘Good God, man, you’re looking like someone’s popped your balloon. Cheer up; you’ll put the rest of the customers off.’
I grinned at Juliet’s way with words.
‘You do look a bit down in the dumps,’ I said as I scooped the grated cheese into a container and set it down in the salad counter between the sliced cucumber and shredded lettuce.
‘I’m fine,’ said Dad with a forced laugh. ‘It’s just that I had a couple of hours spare after a meeting so I thought I’d surprise Luisa and take her for lunch. But she said she and Arlo have got Baby Percussion at two o’clock and she doesn’t have time.’
True to her word, Mum had immediately stepped down from some of her voluntary positions and had made arrangements to have Arlo every day, Monday to Friday, for four hours.
‘Honestly, it’s feast or famine with her,’ Lia had confided last night on the phone. ‘I was only looking for a bit of ad hoc babysitting. Mum has organized trips to the river, swimming lessons, play gym … The poor little chap has got a schedule more crammed than the Prime Minister.’
‘Baby Percussion?’ said Juliet, rolling her eyes. ‘When I was a wee girl, I had a saucepan and a wooden spoon.’
Nonna appeared from the kitchen with two bowls of baby food she’d heated for a mum of twins, who was sitting in the toy corner trying to keep both of them occupied while they waited for their lunch.
‘Luisa like to be busy, busy, busy. Always the same. Just like me.’
‘She seems to make time for the things she enjoys doing,’ said Dad. ‘All I ever seem to do is work and wait for her in an empty house.’
‘Then you should do the same, Dad. What do you like doing? Perhaps you need to indulge your secret passion?’ I said, turning to serve a new customer. ‘Yes please?’
‘Hmm,’ Dad stroked his chin thoughtfully, ‘that’s an idea.’
‘If you ask me, all babies need is a bit of your time. Just like dogs, really,’ said Juliet, who was a big animal lover with no children of her own. ‘All these activities … waste of money.’
‘Here, take these,’ said Nonna, passing her the bowls. ‘For the twins over there. See if you can help their mum; give them a bit of your time.’
‘Twins.’ Dad slurped his Bovril and turned to look at them. ‘Now that really would be hard work.’
‘Twins is double blessing from God,’ said Nonna fiercely. ‘Two times the joy. Why you think we have two arms, eh?’
‘All right, keep your hair on,’ Juliet grumbled and stomped off to offer assistance. She came back straight away claiming that no help was required. Although I suspected she’d simply dumped the bowls and run.
‘Eh, Rosanna?’ Nonna nodded to a recently vacated table. ‘Did that man leave without paying his bill?’
‘Um.’ I exchanged guilty looks with Juliet.
A man had been in earlier for a bacon sandwich wearing a T-shirt advertising him to be ‘Peter Pipes the Plumber’. I’d offered him breakfast on the house if he’d mend the leaky tap in the men’s loos. ‘No, he paid, didn’t he, Juliet?’
‘Oh aye.’ Juliet nodded. ‘And left a tap, I mean a tip.’
She high-fived me once Nonna’s back was turned. ‘This place is already looking so much better, hen. Next job when she isn’t looking is to see if we can get rid of the brown goo at the back of the fridge.’
‘Remind me not to order the hummus,’ said Dad drily.
‘So you’re going to stay here for lunch?’ I said. ‘I can recommend the quiche.’
He got to his feet and pecked me on the cheek. ‘Actually, I can’t stop. I’m going to take your advice.’
‘Oh, what was that?’ I smiled back, pleased to see him more cheerful.
‘I’m off to locate someone who can fan the flames of my smouldering passion.’ He tapped his nose. ‘But mum’s the word, OK?’
A prickle of concern ran down my spine but I nodded. Juliet put my thoughts into words as she folded her arms and watched him leave.
‘Oh shite, hen, what have you started there?’