The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café (12 page)

Andrew shrugged as if he didn’t have a clue either and downed the rest of his cappuccino.

‘Well if you see her, ask her,’ he said, then smiled and added, ‘Whatever happened to that husband of yours?’

‘Who knows.’ Annie rolled her eyes.

Andrew laughed. ‘Well, you certainly don’t seem like the crazy young thing you were back then. I’m glad you’re back, Annie. I liked your dad.’ His mouth was barely visible behind his big white beard and moustache, but she could see his eyes twinkle as he spoke.

‘Thanks. I’m probably not back though, just getting the place up and running.’

Andrew made a face, as if that was a shame, and out the corner of her eye Annie saw both Matt and River pause where they were stacking up more paint to carry outside.

‘How long are you going to stay for?’ River asked quietly, as Andrew left.

Annie stood up straight, ‘Oh I’m not sure yet,’ she said, trying to dismiss the look of worry on his face. Matt was looking at the floor. ‘No immediate plans, but, you know, I have my life back at home? My business?’

River shook his hair out of his eyes and said, ‘I thought this was your business.’

‘It is but you guys can run this. I mean look at what you’ve done in two or three days. Look at Ludo’s menu!’ She tried to lighten the tone, holding up the lovely cardboard menus that she’d had printed at one of the studios at the back of the island. Simple. Plain. Black typewriter font on roughened card, a list of brunch, then the selection of tapas and finally cakes and coffees. And at the top, a revamped version of the logo that she’d designed herself: a single dandelion puff, mid-blow, half its seeds floating off and away to the other side of the menu.

‘Yeah but we wouldn’t have done that without you,’ River said.

‘Give her a break, River,’ Matt said, softly. ‘You can’t make someone stay.’

River scoffed. ‘I should know,’ he said, and walked back out to the half-painted window.

Clemmie had woken up and was slouched, hungover, on one of the picnic tables outside. Annie watched her shield her eyes from the sun as River walked over in her direction.

‘Sorry about that,’ Matt said.

‘No problem,’ Annie nodded. He looked at her as if he was about to say something else, his brow furrowing for a second, then he just gave a slight shake of the head and followed River out. In the mirror by the windows she could see the muscles in his arms and neck tense from the paint he was carrying, but it was his expression that surprised her. It was obvious that he didn’t think she could see him because on his face was a look of complete disappointment. So clear that it made Annie bite her lip in excitement.

He was disappointed that she was leaving.

But as she said it again in her head she realised that it wasn’t actually something to get excited about. Because she was leaving. She had to leave.

She had a life away from here.

She had her flat. All paid up.

Her business.

Her business that, yes, she could run from anywhere, but she couldn’t live back here. There were too many memories. Too much remembered of who she was then rather than who she was now.

There was her brother.

Urgh.

But then there was Gerty. If Annie lived here she could work on making sure Gerty stayed unique. Stayed fun and independent and never have her wings clipped.

And there was the cafe. And Ludo, who’d just bashed his way in with a wheelbarrow full of Spanish produce.

‘From a little shop in Ladbroke Grove,’ he said, by way of explanation.

And Martha.

‘Annie,’ she’d said when she came in that morning in a pair of ancient dungarees ready for work. ‘I can make brownies, flapjacks and Victoria sponge. As well as the Cherry Pie. I don’t think the cakes we buy in are very good.’

Annie had tried some of the carrot cake that they had in boxes in the freezer and been reminded of the synthetic sugar high she’d get at birthday parties as a kid. ‘Well maybe you could make those cakes for the cafe, Martha?’ she said.

‘Well it would be extra work. But if you insist, OK then.’

And Holly, who Annie was going to have to have a word with. Put a stop to all these rumours and questions.

And her mother.

‘Now, sweetheart, I’ve brought you these.’ Winifred was lumbering in weighed down with two huge industrial raspberry-pink pendant lights.

‘Erm, you can’t give me them. They’re from your kitchen.’

‘Well, it gives me an excuse to buy some new ones, doesn’t it?’

‘What does Valtar say?’ Annie asked, helping her mum with the beautiful vintage lights.

‘Oh he doesn’t know.’ Winifred waved a hand, then said, ‘Now I think they’d look marvellous in the windows. Especially now it’s all turquoise.’

And then there was River. Who had just come to stand in the doorway with Clemmie, who had Buster clutched in her pale, thin arms.

‘Annie, you’re going to have to have an opening party, aren’t you?’

‘I hadn’t really thought about it, River.’

‘You are.’ Clemmie nodded.

‘The band aren’t playing on Saturday. If you wanted it to be at the weekend,’ River said.

Annie ummed and ahhed. ‘The band might be a bit loud for an opening party.’

‘We can play old stuff,’ said Clemmie, who was wearing one of River’s T-shirts over her leopard-print trousers and no shoes or socks. ‘Stuff you’d like.’

‘I’m not old!’ Annie said, hands on hips.

‘Well.’ Clemmie hesitated, unconvinced. ‘Stuff that the old people would like?’ she offered.

‘We sometimes play country,’ River said with a shrug.

‘You do?’ This seemed incongruous to Annie. ‘Do you play Dolly Parton?’

Ludo came to stand next to her. ‘He does, very well. Are we having a party?’

‘Who’s having a party?’ Martha asked from where she was filling some of the shelves that Matt had put up with old tea pots, a copper kettle that Andrew Neil had donated and a selection of mismatched china. On one of them, as well as the cake stands, she had displayed her own elaborate collection of vintage cake tins and moulds, and on another had begun separating knives and forks in terracotta flower pots.

‘Are you having a party?’ asked Holly, who squeezed past River and Clemmie in the doorway, still dressed in her rowing kit.

‘Looks like it!’ Annie shrugged a shoulder as if she had no choice in the matter and River gave a little whoop then looked around, embarrassed.

And then there was Matt.

Matt who had come to stand in the doorway, and Annie met his eyes over the top of his son’s head. He nodded, like he was pleased she was celebrating, but it was all bittersweet because now they knew it marked an end, as well as a beginning.

Chapter Thirteen

Friday night. Annie stood in her bedroom deciding what she was going to wear to the grand Dandelion Cafe reopening. She was going to stay with Holly for the weekend, who’d joked she could sleep in the vintage ice cream van if she wanted her own space, but they’d both worried about the possibility of mice and creepy crawlies. It wasn’t in the best nick.

In her days away from the island Annie had caught herself working out how long she had to wait till she could go back. Her desk and shiny computer weren’t holding their same appeal and her design work became just a task to get through in order to keep pulling her bank balance into the black. She kept clicking from her layouts and presentations to websites that sold mugs and glasses, flitting from one to another, trying to decide which best suited the cafe.

Now, as she stood with her overnight case open at her feet, she seemed to have lost all ability to know what to pack. Firstly, her brain was addled by this surprising desire to go back to the island. Secondly, she wasn’t used to being in the spotlight. Thirdly, all she could think about was Matt and wanting to impress him. But then he’d seen her waking up at four in the previous night’s clothes as well as in her old jeans, splotched with turquoise paint.

She flicked through some dresses and skirts and discounted them all. Then moved to her drawers to rummage through piles of tops and jumpers that suddenly all seemed horrible and bought by a madwoman.

Annie flung herself down on the bed in a huff, her head hanging back so it was almost touching the floor on the other side. As she felt the blood rushing to her brain, her eye caught on something.

Sticking out from behind her washing basket and a stack of papers she was yet to file, was the corner of a Primark bag.

The result of her payday, haircut day spoils that had been forgotten in all the cafe malarky. Rolling over, she hooked the corner of the bag with her finger and dragged it towards her. What had she bought anyway? The memory was a blur of bargains and frivolous spending.

A pair of socks with lipstick kisses on them. A Reese’s Pieces lip balm. A set of three frilly knickers. She had been in a good mood, Annie realised as she pulled a pair of pyjama bottoms and a black bikini out of the bag. There was a small Topshop bag stuffed in there as well with a pair of silver sequinned leggings that she remembered coveting on the model but only now remembered buying.

She’d take them back.

But as she was pushing them back into the bag she thought of Clemmie and her leopard-print trousers, crazy hair and crop-top standing on the seat of her drum kit so everyone could see her. Clemmie would wear silver sequinned leggings.

Teenage Annie would have worn silver sequinned leggings.

She stood up and walked over to the mirror. Did she really have the thighs for sequins and leggings combined?

Taking off her jeans, she hauled them on.

They looked better than she thought. Kind of sucked her in in all the right places and shimmered like a fish.

Her brother would think them very inappropriate.

Which in itself was reason enough to wear them.

Annie lay back on the bed and finished going through the bag. There was a blue stripy vest that she’d bought because she already had one and loved it, a sweatshirt because she’d had a burst of inspiration to start regularly exercising and then, there at the bottom, was a little white card of plastic that made her pause with delight before she reached in to pull it out.

It was a set of three different earrings, studs, that had cost a pound. Two ice cream cones that she would have to give to Holly as soon as she saw her, two green apples, and then, there in the bottom row, dazzlingly beautiful, a pair of bright-red cherries. With big fake rubies as the fruit, they glittered as they caught the light of the fairy-lights strung up round her curtains.

Annie undid the cherry studs from the card and put them in her ears. Then, pulling on a gauzy white T-shirt, her battered tan-leather jacket and some really simple black heels, went back to stand in front of the mirror.

Her shorn hair was a bit skew whiff, the leggings were a touch over the top for her, but on the whole she kind of liked it. This was no sitting at her laptop in her star-print pyjamas, this was channelling her inner-Clemmie. Her vintage-chic cafe owner persona.

And when she walked over the bridge onto Cherry Pie Island that Saturday, her leggings winking in the morning sunlight, her hand reaching up to touch the cherries in her ears, and she saw Matthew on the path ahead of her, taking Buster for a walk, dressed in faded blue jeans and a canary-yellow T-shirt, his jaw dropping open slightly as he turned and saw her, she thought, for the first time, that maybe it didn’t have to end, maybe some way, somehow, she could have both.

Chapter Fourteen

‘We strung up some pink bunting last night,’ Matt said as they walked together up the path lined with gnarled cherry trees, their buds just about to pop. The sky ahead of them was bright baby-blue peppered with cartoon clouds. Seagulls and pigeons flapped and cawed, while crows pecked the pathway and tiny birds hopped about in the trees.

‘Well I bet that’s a sentence you never thought you’d be saying,’ Annie laughed, and Matt glanced her way. Buster was snuffling along behind them like a little pig looking for truffles, his breathing ruining any magic of the moment.

‘It looks really good. You’ve done a really good job.’

Annie stopped walking. ‘You think so?’ she asked. ‘Do you think it’ll be enough?’

‘Enough for Barney at the pub to think maybe it’s time for a makeover.’

‘Oh no, that’s the last thing I need.’ She rolled her eyes and carried on towards the cafe and the fluttering bunting

‘Annie,’ Matt put his hand on her shoulder to stop her, the feeling of it like lightning through her back and down her arm. ‘Annie, you’ve done it. People will come.’

She quirked her lip. ‘Isn’t that a line from a Kevin Costner film?’

Matt laughed, ‘Perhaps. But it seemed appropriate.’

The dog had chugged on ahead and was sniffing around a collection of pots by the front door of the cafe. Annie’s mum had made Valtar haul them over from their garden; they were crammed full of big, bright daffodils, miniature narcissi with deep-orange centres and hyacinths with heads so heavy they were lolling from their supports.

Martha and Ludo were both already in situ. Martha, who was wearing a dress for the first time Annie had known her, was giving the windows a last polish and Ludo, who seemed to have given up smoking for the occasion, was singing Shirley Bassey in the kitchen while pulping tomatoes for
Pan Con Tomate.
It was the simplest but possibly the most delicious of his dishes ‒ a simple breakfast of his homemade bread, toasted, drizzled with thick, dark olive oil and spread generously with the pulp of the freshest tomatoes he could source. They had all converted from scrambled eggs and bacon sandwiches while Ludo watched on proudly.

‘You look beautiful,’ said Martha, as she unlocked the big front windows and threw them open to let in the morning sun. The rays made it just warm enough to handle the open air. The shade however could still bring goosebumps out on bare skin.

‘Hang on, I didn’t know the windows could open. I thought they were stuck? I thought we didn’t have a key.’ Annie stared as the whole cafe opened up.

Martha chuckled. ‘You’ve got your Matthew to thank for that.’

My Matthew
, Annie thought.