I’m fully expecting that to be the end of the drama for the day, as nothing could possibly top the impromptu delivery of a baby during an extinction-level storm.
Laura has produced a bottle of Bucks Fizz, and is pouring us all glasses. She’s paired it with freshly baked apple and cinnamon muffins, and it’s a tremendous way to celebrate.
Frank and Laura spend a few minutes informing various people – Matt, Cherie, Laura’s parents – about the arrival of Little Edie, and Willow is sitting with her mum in a window seat. The storm is clearing as quickly as it started now, and streaks of pale yellow sunlight are breaking through the clouds in the baby’s honour, casting glittering stripes over the waves that are rolling into the bay.
I take a muffin and a glass, and sit down with them. Lynnie is breaking small lumps of muffin away, eating with delicate precision. I don’t know how she manages it – they’re so delicious that I have to fight the urge to stuff the whole thing in my mouth at once.
“Of course,” she says, as though she’s continuing a conversation that none of us have been having, “after my children were born, I fried up their placentas, and ate them. Jam-packed with nutrients, you know, and a little like liver when you cook them with onions …”
The muffin suddenly tastes a lot less delicious, and I take a gulp of the Buck Fizz instead. Willow grimaces, and does the same. Lynnie continues to munch away, completely unaware of the fact that she’s made us both feel slightly nauseous.
“Where’s the hero of the day gone?” asks Frank, standing behind us and looking out of the window.
“Well he’s not out there,” I reply. “Unless he can fly as well.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” shouts Laura from the counter. “He definitely seemed to have superpowers. Looked a bit like Thor as well …”
She gazes off into the distance as she says this, her hands pausing mid swipe with the tea towel, and I suspect she’s gone to her happy place.
I look around the cafe, trying to locate our mystery midwife, and now also feeling very curious, as none of the locals seem to know who he is either. I’d been working on the assumption that he was from Budbury, but it appears that I was wrong.
Just as I’m starting to think we all hallucinated him, he emerges from the gents – where, understandably enough, he seems to have gone to clean up. Childbirth. It may be a miracle of nature – but it ain’t pretty. That bean bag will definitely be taking a one-way trip to the rubbish dump, that’s for sure.
As soon as the door to the gents’ shuts behind him, Laura is out from behind the counter, and on him like cling film. She wraps him up in a huge hug, squeezing him so hard he pulls a pained face. He’s quite a lot taller than her, and he rests his chin in the fuzz of her curls until she finally lets him go.
She stands back and looks up at him, blushing. Maybe it’s those Thor thoughts coming back to haunt her.
“Thank you,” she says, eventually. “For everything. I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”
“I reckon you’d have done just fine, love,” he says, grinning. “I was just there to catch. Done it a couple of times before – I live in the back end of nowhere, and the odd medical emergency isn’t uncommon. I’m your man for a dislocated shoulder as well.”
“And where are you from? And what’s your name? And why are you here?” she says, in a rush of questions. Makes her sound like a bit of a nutter, but to be fair we’re all wondering the same.
“Thought you’d have recognised the accent by now …” he replies, strolling over to recover his cowboy hat. “Although I have only lived there since I was 8. Would it help if I called you a Sheila?”
Laura laughs, the starry-eyed look going nowhere fast as she watches him. I can see where she’s coming from. He’s tall, is indeed built like a superhero, and has the wavy blonde hair of a surfer. His eyes are a deep shade of brown, and the scar on his face does little to make him less attractive. He also, I start to realise as soon as he lays on the accent a little thicker, looks vaguely familiar.
Before I can quite put my finger on it, he strides over to our table, nodding to Lynnie and Willow, then fixing his eyes on me. I gulp slightly, and worry that I’m about to choke on my last piece of apple muffin. I might spit it all over him, then knock over my glass of Bucks Fizz – classic me stylings.
“Am I right in thinking you’re Zoe?” he asks, smiling at my confusion. “I’ve only seen photos, and the odd glimpse of you in the background on Skype, but that hair of yours is a pretty distinctive trademark.”
He holds out his hand for me to shake, and I’m now aware that absolutely everyone else in the cafe has stopped eating, drinking, and possibly breathing, while they watch this new scene unfold. I reward them by doing my very best goldfish impression.
“I’m Cal,” he says, taking my hand from the table and shaking it without any participation from me. “Martha’s dad.”