The Pretty Delicious Cafe Read online

  I swam straight out past the breakers, turned over onto my back and floated there with my eyes closed, thinking of nothing in particular. At length I paddled lazily back towards the beach and stood up in waist-deep water beside a half-submerged boulder, which stirred, flexed its wings and swam away.

  I like stingrays, in theory, but in practice I like them much better from a distance, and I reached dry land in about a second and a half. Drawing a long, shaky breath, I wrung out my wet hair and dried myself with my skirt to get most of the salt off, then stood up straight and saw someone sitting just along the beach at the base of a sand dune. I recognised Jed beneath a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses, and my black cotton bra and knickers seemed suddenly a whole lot less tog-like and a whole lot more like undies. Why, I thought crossly, did the man have to appear out of the undergrowth every time I took my clothes off? (Although, if we were going to be all pedantic about it, it could be argued that if I refrained from taking my clothes off in public the problem wouldn’t arise.)

  Waving with what was meant to look like cheerful unconcern, I started to get dressed. It didn’t go well. I was damp and sandy, my skirt clung lovingly to my thighs and my top rolled itself up at the back. Wrestling it grimly back down I turned and called, ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi,’ said Jed, breaking inch-long sections off a dried grass straw.

  ‘How long have you been there?’

  ‘Longer than you.’ He finished his straw and plucked another with a vicious little jerk, and I realised belatedly that something was wrong.

  ‘Didn’t you go to Thames after all?’ I asked.

  ‘Yep.’

  I could see perfectly clearly that he wished I’d bugger off so he could be unhappy in peace, but it was Christmas Day, epicentre of the season of peace and goodwill, and it seemed better to be seen as a rampant busybody than not to at least try to help. ‘Jed, are you okay?’

  ‘No.’

  I went towards him across the hot sand. ‘What’s up?’

  He dealt with his second straw in silence, and then said tightly, not looking up, ‘I was supposed to spend the day with my son.’

  I felt quite breathless with shock. He was a parent. A grown-up. I’d always had a vague but deep-seated conviction that people with children are wiser and more adult than those without – although, considering that the only prerequisite for having children is unprotected sex, this theory was not entirely watertight. ‘Why didn’t you?’ I asked at last.

  ‘No-one home. The house was locked, my ex won’t answer her cell phone, I can’t get hold of her parents . . .’

  ‘Did – did she know you were coming?’

  ‘Yep.’

  I sat down, because standing over someone while you ask them questions is too much like an inquisition. ‘How old’s your son?’

  ‘Nearly four.’

  There was a short silence.

  ‘Can she do that?’ I asked. ‘I mean, I know she can, but does she have the right to vanish when she knows you’re coming? Has she got sole custody?’

  ‘No. For the first couple of months after we separated I had Craig half the time, but then she decided she needed some time to get her head around things without having to see me. So I came up here.’ He began to dismember another hapless grass stem.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘God knows,’ he said tiredly. ‘Go home and get a lawyer, I suppose. I don’t want to put Craig through this crap, but I’m not going to just disappear out of his life because she feels she needs to punish me.’

  It must, I thought, be truly hideous when love and kids and a shared life descend to that. I know it’s hardly unusual – it happened to my own parents, for a start – but I’m sure that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

  ‘Surely she’s not really going to try to keep you away from your son,’ I said. ‘She probably had a – a minor brain explosion this morning and ran away because it was all too hard. She’s probably feeling really bad about it.’

  ‘They went on Thursday,’ he said. ‘The next-door neighbour told me.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He sighed. ‘For all you know she might be completely justified in running away from me.’

  ‘Nah,’ I said, wrapping my arms around my bent knees. ‘You’re nice.’

  ‘How do you know?’ he asked, turning his head to look at me.

  ‘Well, Monty thinks you’re wonderful, for a start.’

  ‘Monty thinks everyone is wonderful.’

  ‘And,’ I continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘it seems to me that only a nice person would leave town to make things easier for his ex.’

  He reached out for another grass straw, and my cell phone buzzed in my skirt pocket. I pulled it out and looked at it; it was a text message from Isaac, and it read, U hav ruined my life hope it makes u hapy.

  ‘Here,’ I said, passing the phone across. Sometimes someone else’s troubles make you feel just a little bit better about your own. ‘That’s from my ex.’

  Jed looked at the screen. ‘Does it make you happy?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ I said, putting the phone back in my pocket.

  We sat there for a while without talking, and then I said, ‘Will you come and have tea at Mum’s tonight? It’ll be very low-key, just leftovers.’

  ‘That’s very kind . . .’ he started.

  ‘I know it’s the last thing on earth you feel like doing, but at least it’d take your mind off things. It’ll just be me and Mum and my big brother Mike – it’s the yellow house with the funny roofline across the road from you.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ he said. ‘Your mum brought me a cake when I moved in.’

  ‘If you say yes, I’ll go away and stop harassing you.’

  He smiled, then. ‘Yes.’

  ‘About six,’ I said, getting up and brushing off sand.

  I was five metres away when he said, ‘Hey, Lia? Thanks.’

  Chapter 10

  I only half expected him to come, but just after six he appeared around the corner of the house, wearing jeans, a dark green polo shirt with Coromandel Auto Spares across the front and a slightly wary expression.

  I was feeling a little wary myself, having spent most of the time since our earlier meeting wondering just why it had seemed like such a good idea to force dinner onto someone who only wanted to be left alone. However, here he was, so I smiled at him through the open kitchen window and said, ‘Hi. Come on in.’

  ‘Jed,’ said Mum warmly as he paused in the kitchen doorway. She put a big cut-glass bowl half full of trifle down on the table and advanced to meet him. ‘Lovely to see you. This is Mike, Robin and Lia’s half-brother.’

  The two men nodded to one another, and Mike, opening the fridge door, asked, ‘Beer?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Jed.

  ‘Juice?’ Mike took a bottle out of the fridge and held it up to the light. ‘What’s this, Maggie? Apple juice?’

  ‘Onion juice,’ said Mum. ‘Carole gave it to me. Bit of an acquired taste, but it’s very good for you.’

  Mike opened the bottle, sniffed cautiously and made a face. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘It really is,’ Mum said. ‘Apparently it aids digestion, lowers blood sugar, it’s good for all sorts of allergies . . . I’ve got a fact sheet somewhere. And you can rub it into your scalp to reverse hair loss.’

  Mike, whose hair was indeed wearing a little thin on top, gave her a pained look as he replaced the bottle.

  ‘It’s usually best to stick to water in this house,’ I told Jed. ‘Or bought drinks, as long as the seal’s unbroken.’

  ‘Don’t listen to her, Jed,’ said Mum. ‘Mike, if you’ll just get the potato salad out of the fridge I think we’re ready to eat.’

  Dinner went off much better than I had feared. This was almost entirely thanks to Mum, who can maintain a pleasant, lighthearted conversation with anyone from hostile teenagers to religious fanatics.

  ‘Please have some more trifle, Jed,’ sh
e said, spoon poised over the bowl.

  He held out his plate. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Good man,’ she said. ‘Come on, everyone, tuck in. I don’t want to have to put all this food back in the fridge. Mike?’

  ‘Couldn’t possibly.’

  ‘You’re a great disappointment.’

  ‘So I’m told,’ he said serenely, and she smiled at him across the table.

  ‘Are you opening the café tomorrow, darling?’ she asked me.

  ‘No. We’re going to bake like demons and fill the freezers. And then we’re open every day till the end of February.’ I rested my elbows on the table and my chin on my hands.

  ‘It seems a bit ironic,’ said Mike. ‘You live at the beach, and you miss most of summer.’

  ‘Well, you spend most of summer dagging lambs,’ I pointed out.

  He made a face and turned to Jed. ‘I suppose this is your busy time at the garage, too?’

  Jed nodded. ‘The last couple of weeks have been crazy,’ he said.

  ‘There may be something to be said for Monty’s approach to the busy season,’ I said, taking a sip of Mike’s beer. ‘He just closes up and goes fishing if he feels like it, and the customers can get stuffed.’

  ‘I’m surprised he has any customers,’ said Mike.

  ‘He has more now that Jed’s working for him,’ Mum said. ‘But Lia tells us you’re moving, Jed, to be closer to your little boy.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jed. ‘Working for Monty’s only a short-term arrangement. He just wanted a hand for a few months – he’s a good friend of my boss in Thames.’

  And that, I thought, would explain why the man was happy to live in a sleep-out the approximate size of a toilet cubicle. You can put up with anything when it’s only temporary.

  ‘You’ll be missed,’ said Mum. ‘It’s been a novel experience to take the car in for a warrant and get it back the same day.’

  The conversation drifted on, touching lightly on the chances of getting Nana to Rob’s wedding (nil) and more heavily on Mum’s proposed grey-water veggie garden sprinkler system (tricky, but doable), until eventually it reached the subject of wedding marquee placement.

  ‘There’s more space on the top lawn,’ said Mum. ‘It’s just that the nicest vista in the garden is the start of the path between the perennial borders, and nobody will be able to see it with a great big tent in the way.’

  ‘Would a marquee fit on the bottom lawn?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Well, it might. Although the ground does slope away quite sharply at the edge, there.’

  ‘Should we go and measure it, or just sit here and speculate?’

  ‘It’s so much easier sitting here and speculating.’ But she got up and opened the drawer under the microwave. ‘I thought there was a measuring tape in here somewhere . . . Have you seen it, Lia?’

  After some time, the tape was run to ground in the fruit bowl, and they headed purposefully for the bottom lawn.

  ‘Any plans for tomorrow?’ I asked Jed, getting up to start clearing the dishes. ‘Don’t worry, that was just idle conversation; I’m not going to invite you to a family picnic or anything.’

  He smiled and pushed back his chair. ‘Fine. Don’t, then. See if I care. I thought I’d go in to the workshop and start clearing the backlog.’

  ‘On Boxing Day? Monty will be horrified.’

  ‘Monty might not mind having days’ worth of work backed up and people getting pissed off, but I do,’ he said, beginning to collect glasses.

  ‘You do realise it’ll be back to that as soon as you leave?’ I said.

  ‘I know, but at least I won’t be there to see it. Is that you and your brother?’

  He was looking at the framed school photo of Rob and me, aged seven, which stood on the dresser. Rob was smiling cherubically at the camera, but I looked mildly apprehensive. Both of us were missing our two front teeth.

  ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘That was my all-time favourite T-shirt.’ Bright pink, with a My Little Pony (Wind Dancer, if memory serves) outlined in glitter on the front. It had clashed badly with ginger hair and freckles.

  ‘Craig has a pair of Transformers pyjamas that you’ve got to remove by force to wash,’ Jed said.

  ‘And then does he stand by the washing machine and sob?’

  ‘He did the first time.’ He looked at the next photo along. ‘You and Mike?’

  ‘Rob and Mike.’ It was a lovely picture – Mike, aged about eighteen, on a farm bike with a fat curly-haired toddler straddling the petrol tank in front of him. They were both laughing. ‘Mike was such a cool big brother. We used to go down on the bus in the school holidays to stay with him and Dad. Dad’s got a sheep farm down Taumarunui way.’ Paternal visits would have been pretty bloody grim, actually, if not for Mike. Dad didn’t bother much about us, but Mike blew turkey eggs for Rob’s and my collections and took us swimming in the river and taught us to drive the motorbike.

  ‘How old were you when your parents split up?’ Jed asked.

  ‘Eighteen months. That picture must have been taken just beforehand.’ I put down a pile of crockery on the sink bench and began to scrape the plates into the compost bucket. ‘Goodness knows why my parents ever got married. They must have been a terrible couple. You could scour the earth and not find another two people with less in common. What about your family?’

  ‘My parents live on a small block just north of Taupo,’ said Jed, putting a handful of dirty glasses down at my elbow. ‘And I’ve got one sister – she’s been in London for the last two or three years.’

  ‘You guys don’t do the family Christmas thing?’

  ‘Mostly we do,’ he said. ‘But this year Mum and Dad are in the Marlborough Sounds on a friend’s boat.’

  ‘Nice.’ If perhaps a little offhand, when their son’s life had just turned to custard.

  ‘Mm. Do you want this stuff covered before it goes back in the fridge?’

  ‘Yes, thanks. Just with a plate – they’re in that cupboard over there. Mum thinks using cling wrap is blatant eco-terrorism.’

  There was a small silence while I filled the sink with hot water and Jed covered the ham and leftover trifle. He wedged both dishes into the fridge and picked up a tea towel.

  ‘So, what did you do before you bought a café?’ he asked, coming to stand beside me at the sink.

  ‘All sorts of random things,’ I said. ‘I studied ecology at university, then went trapping stoats and possums in Fiordland.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It was very cool. It’s the most amazing bit of country. But I tore all the ligaments in my knee and couldn’t walk up hills, so that was the end of that. Then I tried teaching and hated it, then went overseas for a bit, then worked in a nursery, then did a bit of rousying for a shearing gang – and then Anna and I started a café.’

  ‘What gave you the idea?’ he asked.

  ‘Um,’ I said. ‘We both like food and cooking, and we both had a feeling that it was about time we did something productive with our lives. We were just playing with the idea, really, and then the place came up for sale, and we borrowed every cent we could get our hands on and bought it. I can’t quite believe we had the guts to do it.’ I slid a stack of plates into the sink. ‘I’m still not sure we’ll pull it off, to be honest.’

  ‘You have pulled it off. It’s a great café.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But we’ve got a really big mortgage.’

  He smiled. ‘Me too. That’s why I live in a cupboard.’

  ‘It’s a bummer being grown-up and responsible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sure is,’ he said.

  ‘So what did you do, before coming here?’

  ‘Left school, did an apprenticeship as an auto mechanic, got a job, bought a house, got married, had a baby . . . All very predictable.’ He picked up a plate I’d just washed, looked at it and slid it back into the sink.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ I asked. Married? Crikey, he really was a grown-up.

  ‘You�
�re supposed to get the food off.’

  ‘That’s what the tea towel’s for.’

  ‘And you work in the food industry,’ he said. ‘Frightening.’

  I like this guy, I thought, applying myself to the next plate. And he’s married, and he’s in the middle of a custody battle, and he’s leaving the district. Oh, well done, Aurelia.

  Chapter 11

  ‘Who’s this for, darling?’ Mum asked, holding up a pizza. She had dropped into the café before eight on New Year’s Eve morning bearing a bunch of dog daisies, been pressed into service and was still, bless her heart, there waitressing at quarter to one.

  ‘The girl in green sitting outside under the shade sail,’ I said, feverishly slicing sourdough bread for garlic toast. ‘And then could you grab any empty water jugs and refill them?’

  ‘Lia, two pieces of ice-cream cake,’ Anna called from behind the coffee machine.

  ‘Okay!’ I spread my slices of bread with garlic butter, put them on a tray and slung them under the grill. Took the ice-cream cake out of the freezer, cut two slices and topped each one with a handful of raspberries and a chocolate curl. Carried them to the counter, smiled at a waiting customer, returned to take another pizza out of the oven. Turned the garlic bread, burning my knuckle on an oven rack, and dressed a green salad to go with the pizza. Dusted a plum tart with icing sugar, sliced it and put it in the display cabinet to fill a gap where the last piece of ginger crunch had just been taken. Refilled the coffee beans, fetched another bottle of trim milk, rescued the garlic bread from under the grill before it burst into flame, made a chocolate milkshake, plated up another wedge of ice-cream cake, arranged the garlic bread in a basket – ‘That’s for Chelsea Stewart,’ I told Mum, shoving it towards her as she reappeared around the end of the counter.

  ‘Someone was just sick in the loo,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve cleaned it up.’

  ‘You’re wonderful.’