As soon as she was near enough, she grabbed the boy’s wrist and yanked him up sharply.
‘I told you not to go out without shoes,’ she snapped, slapping him on the side of the head before he could duck. ‘You might’ve stepped on broken glass, then you’d be sorry.’
‘Ma! There isn’t any broken glass!’
The boy tried to wriggle out of her grasp but she hung on tight.
‘Get back home before Ireallylose my temper.’
As she started to drag him away, he hollered something about his ball being under the table. It seemed he’d been trying to reach it when he got trapped.
His mother shook her head. ‘You should look after your possessions. Scrabbling round like that under the poor lady’s feet. She probably thought you were trying to steal her bag!’
She was wearing quite a lot of shiny blue eye shadow and Stella decided she must have been in a rush this morning, as one eyebrow was darker than the other.
‘Say sorry,’ the woman barked, glaring at her son, who goggled in dismay.
After repeating herself to no avail, she tried to cuff him again, but this time he managed to twist from her grip and bob out of the way in the nick of time.
His mum lumbered towards him like a great grizzly bear. The boy glanced round, searching for an escape route, but the tables were quite close together, and besides, he had Stella and Louise to contend with.
Realising the game was up, he muttered an apology but it was so quiet, you could scarcely hear.
His mum took another menacing step forwards.
‘I’M SORRY!’ he said, louder this time because he was panicking.
‘You don’t sound it.’
‘I AM!’
Stella was beginning to feel a little sorry for the boy. His mum even scaredher. Bending down to look under the table, she spotted a yellow tennis ball. ‘Is this what you were after?’
The boy’s face lit up in a grin, revealing a funny gap in front where only one of his permanent teeth had come through.
As soon as he’d grabbed the ball, he scurried off into the distance while his mum turned to Stella, mismatched eyebrows raised.
‘He’s a right little devil. Sorry for all the trouble. His name’s Dimitrios, but we call him Meaty ’cause he can’t get enough of the stuff. Lamb, chicken, pork, you name it, he’ll eat it. You wouldn’t think so by the size of him, would you? He’s all skin and bone!’
She had a Yorkshire-sounding accent and spoke so fast, Stella had some difficulty keeping up.
‘I’m April, by the way, April Vasilakis,’ she went on, barely pausing for breath. ‘I run the supermarket over there with my husband, Georgios.’
She pointed to a small store set back from the waterfront where a stout middle-aged man was wheeling out displays of fruit and vegetables on a black shelving unit.
‘That’s him, my hubby.’ She grinned and waved and he waved back.
Now she’d stopped frowning, Stella realised the woman was really rather pretty. She had a round face, a small, squashy nose and sparkly grey eyes. Her bleached blonde hair was in a loose twist, secured on top with a tortoiseshell clip.
Louise, who’d been quite quiet till now, sipping her coffee and taking everything in, piped up, ‘I’m guessing you’re British. Where are you from?’
She looked amused; she was clearly enjoying herself. It wasn’t every day you came across characters like Meaty and his mum.
April said she was born and bred in Leeds.
‘I met Georgios when I was nineteen. I was on holiday here with my mates and, well, we just clicked. It was only supposed to be a summer romance and I’m still here twenty-five years later, with four kids, two dogs, two fat cats and a hamster. How did that happen!’
She had a throaty, infectious laugh, which made her shoulders jiggle up and down. Stella and Louise laughed, too.
