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‘Will you?’
I shrugged.
‘I can’t really. There’s work…’ I trailed off, knowing it was a rubbish excuse.
‘How are things with your mum?’
‘Better. The same. Worse,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. It’s going to be strange living in the same house again.’
‘Could be just what you need,’ Chloé pointed out. ‘It’s been ten years, Ez, since all the stuff with Jamie…’
She gasped and put her hand to her mouth.
‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I haven’t told you!’
‘Told me what?’ I said. ‘What on earth is that?’
A woman was walking past the café wearing a Barbour jacket with a tartan tam o shanter perched on her blonde curls.
Chloé turned to look at what had caught my eye. She grinned in delight.
‘That,’ she laughed, ‘is Millicent Fry.’
‘No!’ I said. ‘Why is she wearing that hat?’
Chloé chuckled. ‘She’s not Scottish,’ she said. ‘But she’d like to be. She wears a lot of tartan.’
Together we watched Millicent walk up the path into the town centre. Then Chloé got up.
‘I must go,’ she said, giving me a kiss. ‘I need to rescue Rob from the children– he’s due at work soon. Come round for dinner?’
I agreed to see her later and said goodbye. As Chloé left the café, Mum came in and my good mood left me almost immediately. I knew she was there to do some enchanting and I knew she wanted me to do it too.
‘Hello, darling,’ she tinkled at me across the empty tables, falsely bright.
I heaved myself up from my comfy seat and slunk across to the counter where Mum and Eva stood.
‘Hello,’ I said sounding exactly as I had when I was a moody teenager.
‘Ready?’
‘Not really.’ I was nervous, actually. What if I made everything go wrong? My magic wasn’t great at the best of times.
‘It’s all nothing to worry about,’ Mum tried her best to reassure me as she and Eva steered me into the kitchen behind the counter, where Eva had started to bake a big bowl of something that smelled yummy.
I forced a smile.
‘Just tell me what to do, I’ll do it and then I’m out of here,’ I said. I didn’t mean to be so grumpy but somehow I couldn’t help it.
Mum handed me a wooden spoon. ‘Stir this.’
I stirred the huge bowl half-heartedly.
‘Put some welly into it,’ Eva said, as she reached up on to a shelf for a big bag of chopped dates and passed it to me.
‘Add these to the mixture,’ she said. ‘Honestly, don’t worry. You’re not doing this alone – we’re a team here.’
I poured the dates into my mixture and smiled at Eva doubtfully. I wasn’t convinced by her breezy good humour.
‘You don’t know my track record,’ I said, thinking of the broken light bulb in my bedroom and the car hire woman’s computer.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said again. ‘Stop fretting.’
I nodded slowly. ‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
Wrinkling my nose, I peered into the bowl I was stirring. It was full of a dark brown, lumpy mixture.
‘What is this?’ I asked. ‘I’m not sure it’s supposed to look like this.’
Mum leaned over and looked into the bowl.
‘Oh yes it is,’ she said. ‘It’s sticky toffee pudding.’
‘And what makes it special sticky toffee pudding?’ I asked.
Mum and Eva grinned at each other.
‘Well, it’s not yet,’ Mum said. ‘But it will be in just a moment. Hold my hand.’
I put down the spoon and took Mum’s hand in my slightly sticky fingers. Eva took my other hand and linked with Mum over the bowl. She closed her eyes, so did Mum, but I kept mine open. I wanted to see what was going to happen.
Eva breathed in deeply and began to mutter a stream of strange words. She spoke so quietly her voice was like a breath, yet I could hear everything as clearly as if she were speaking straight into my ear.
As she spoke, time in the kitchen seemed to stand still. Everything was completely silent – I couldn’t even hear the noise of the coffee machine in the café or the waves crashing on the shore any more. Then, slowly, over the bowl, the air began to sparkle as though someone had shaken a pot of glitter high above the kitchen. I gasped as the sparkles floated downwards into the sticky toffee pudding and disappeared.
Mum dropped my hand.
‘That’s it,’ she said briskly.
‘That’s it?’ I asked, still peering into the bowl. ‘What have you – we – just done exactly?’
‘It’s for keeping secrets,’ Mum said.
I raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
Mum flicked me with a tea towel.
‘Look as sceptical as you like,’ she said. ‘It works.’
‘And who’s it for?’ I asked.
‘Mrs Unwin.’
‘What secrets does she have? Actually, don’t tell me. It’s probably better if I don’t know.’
This was exactly why I had a problem with what Mum and the others got up to in the tearoom. Unlike our ancestors from hundreds of years ago, and even my Gran just a few years ago, they didn’t always wait for people to come to them for help.
‘We can’t go around shouting about what we are, Esme. These are suspicious times,’ Mum always said when I challenged her. ‘But we do have to be proactive. It is the 21
century after all.’
Being proactive, according to Mum, Eva and Suky, meant being the eyes and ears of the village. They watched people meet for coffee, listened to conversations and paid attention to what wasn’t said. Then they interfered.
‘We help,’ said Mum. I wasn’t so sure.
Say, for example, Mum happened to overhear Old Mrs Lewis telling Mrs Parkinson that she’d seen her granddaughter kissing a boy who was definitely not her boyfriend. She’d serve them both up a portion of dark, moistly sweet, sticky toffee pudding – whether they’d asked for it or not – and somehow the girl’s stolen kisses would stay a secret.
Or, if Eva chatted to Chloé about how difficult she was finding being a mum, Chloé would find a piece of millionaire’s shortbread in front of her, warm and chocolatey and oozing with soft toffee. And by the time she’d eaten it, she’d be appreciating her riches.
‘I’ve got the two best kids in the world,’ she’d say and head off, misty-eyed, back to her family.
They’d even come up with a recipe for coffee cake – known among themselves as spill the beans cake – that made whoever ate it open their heart and let out whatever was on their mind.
I thought it was wrong to dispense unwanted advice and interfere in people’s private lives in this way. I’d been on the receiving end of Mum’s meddling myself with disastrous consequences which made my feelings on the matter even stronger and ironically made Mum and Suky even less likely to listen to my objections – because they thought I was too emotional about it all. But whatever my opinion, I couldn’t deny that the café was enormously successful. At least it always had been. It was strangely quiet today. And, even though our customers weren’t always aware of the helping hand they’d been given, they did flock to see Mum, Eva and Suky whenever they felt they needed to share a problem, get an energy boost or even share good news.
Thoughtfully I licked sticky toffee pudding mixture from the spoon.
‘Don’t eat that!’ Mum cried. I laughed.
‘I don’t have any secrets I need to keep,’ I lied, thinking of Dom and how much trouble it would cause if everyone – Mum, Chloé, people at work…Rebecca – found out about our relationship.
Mum took the spoon from me and put it in the dishwasher.
‘I was thinking about the health inspector,’ she said. ‘If he saw you doing that, he’d close us down.’
Chapter 9 (#ulink_aa4218e7-45ba-52f9-970d-ad47cc5ee77a)
Relieved it was all over, and with no ill effects as far as I could see, I decided to leave Mum and Eva to it and go out for some fresh air. I bundled myself up in my thick coat and decided to go for a walk round the loch.
Wrapping my scarf round my neck, I tramped across the stony beach to the water’s edge and looked across to the other side. Claddach was a small loch, a puddle really, compared to some, so I could see the far end clearly. It was said to be as deep as it was long, however, and I believed it. The water was still and peaty black at the centre. At the edge, where I stood, small waves lapped at the shingle and further out, the water was being whipped into small peaks by the wind. The mountains were purple against the bright blue frosty sky as they loomed over the loch. It was bleak but it was beautiful.
I picked up a flat stone and skidded it across the waves. It jumped once…twice…three times then sank into the murky water. Rubbish. I’d lost my touch. I tried again…four…five…better.
Behind me, the shingle crunched and suddenly another stone flew past my arm. I watched as it skipped five, six times.
‘Yes!’ said a voice and I turned to see who had gatecrashed my game.
It was a man. A rather handsome man, actually. He was wearing running gear and because he was higher up the steeply shelving beach than I was, my eyes were level with his toned, tanned thighs. Thighs that told me this wasn’t a local man – this must be Chloé’s hot American.
‘Sorry,’ he smiled and his eyes crinkled up at the corners in a way that made him look like a preppy George Clooney. ‘I can’t resist a bit of competition.’
‘You won,’ I pointed out, still annoyed at his interruption.
‘I always do,’ he said. I didn’t doubt it. He looked like he’d spent his life winning.
The American stuck out his hand for me to shake.
‘Brent Portland,’ he said.
I shook his hand.
‘Esme McLeod.’
‘Going this way?’ he nodded in the direction of Mum’s house. I thought of a reason to go the other way – I was no fan of small talk at the best of times – but came up with nothing.
‘I am,’ I said. We began walking back up the beach to the road. Brent was nice looking, couldn’t deny, though he wasn’t my type. He was an all-American, clean-cut guy with tousled dark hair, good skin and startlingly white even teeth.
He was fairly short for a man – about 5’9 or 10’ – but he still towered over me.
‘So Esme McLeod,’ he said as we walked. ‘I’ve been in town for about two weeks now. How come today is the first time we’ve met?’
‘I just got here myself,’ I said.
‘So you’re a stranger here too?’ He gave me an eager grin. ‘How are you finding it?’
‘I’m not exactly a stranger,’ I said. ‘I grew up here. My mum runs the café – back there.’ I pointed back the way we’d come.
Brent’s eyes widened.
‘I love that place,’ he said. ‘It’s so cute. And the cakes – wow!’ He patted his very flat stomach. ‘I need to stay away from those.’
His over-enthusiastic response to everything was beginning to grate on me so I was pleased to see the path I needed to take.
‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘Enjoy your run.’
Brent was already bouncing on the spot, ready to jog off. He made me feel weary just looking at him.
‘Nice to meet you Esme McLeod,’ he said over his shoulder as he took off at a cracking pace. ‘See you around.’
Chapter 10 (#ulink_08e88be1-ae1f-5347-9c16-1643075e9e56)
‘Bye Mum!’ I yelled as I shut the front door later that evening ‘Don’t wait up!’
Tucking a bottle of wine under my arm, I headed down the hill to Chloé’s house for dinner. Chloé had ended up living close to where she grew up, round the corner from her parents on the new estate, so the walk to her house felt like old times. It was freezing and the wind flapped my jeans against my legs and blew the rain into my face. I walked along hunched against the weather, looking forward to seeing Chloé again, but nervous about seeing her at home with her husband Rob, their little boy, Olly, and their baby, Matilda. Her home life was very different from my solo evenings in my flat with a bottle of wine and a Mad Men box set.
I turned into the new estate where Chloé lived. Her house was on the corner. A small trike lay on its side in the front garden and a muddy Land Rover stood in the drive. It all looked very grown up.
Suddenly nervous, I rang the doorbell. Footsteps thundered down the hallway towards me and I took a step backwards in alarm. Chloé opened the door, a cross, red-faced baby on her hip and a small boy with a wonky fringe and huge, curious brown eyes peeking out at me from behind her knees.
