‘She was the best. Unlike me. I haven’t got a clue. The only things I can make in the kitchen are a cup of tea and a piece of toast. I wish I’d asked her to teach me a few things, while I still had the chance.’
‘Well, that’s one of the things I was thinking of offering at the café. Cookery classes in the kitchen. Simple things, to start with. Do you think that would be useful?’
‘Could you teach me how to make a boiled egg?’
‘Absolutely!’ Helena smiled, genuinely moved at how excited Derek appeared at the prospect.
‘I used to love having boiled eggs for breakfast. I haven’t had one in years!’
Helena could have stayed talking to Derek forever. Sadly, she had to tear herself away eventually, needing to get back to work on her proposals. She wrote down instructions for Derek entitled ‘How to boil an egg’ on a piece of paper on his kitchen worktop before she left. Like Margery, he really was excellent company. In fact, the more time Helena spent with older people the more she realised what incredible companions they were. They had lived such long and interesting lives, they had so much to share and so much to offer, they just needed a chance to get out of their homes and connect with people around them, to make new friends to replace those who were no longer around.
32
HELENA CLICKED SUBMITon the final application for funding at twenty minutes past two on the last day of March. She sent up a prayer that at least one of her bids would be successful. The deadline for the Lottery fund was noon the following day and she had been up all night finalising the application. She would now have to wait for all her submissions to be considered. If they failed then it would be back to the drawing board.
To take her mind off it, Helena volunteered to help Johnny at the weekends with his garden. There was a lot of work to do, and she was a keen student. They had to clear beds, dig, weed, water, plant and mow. Gradually, the wild, overgrown stretch of land behind the house began to resemble a garden. Helena loved every second of it. She particularly loved watching Johnny at work. She reassured herself there was nothing wrong with appreciating the warm company and good looks of your friend. She had managed to suppress any more inappropriate feelings towards him, telling herself that it was pointless, if he was interested in her he would have made it obvious by now. She remembered the way Nathalie had thrown a cushion at him at Christmas when he’d talked about her secret admirers, and how she’d confided in Helena that she never told anyone who she was dating, in case it got back to her kids. Helena focused instead on the smells of damp soil and freshly cut grass, which she found comforting and nostalgic, remembering gardening with her dad as a young child. She loved pushing bulbs into the earth, pruning and nurturing, tying back and tilling the soil, the promise of all that was to come from the fruits of their labour.
Helena would often stay for dinner, sometimes joined byMargery, enjoying more of Johnny’s delicious cooking. They talked for hours while they worked side by side, and then hours more over dinner, sharing bottles of wine. A deep friendship grew, Helena’s first real friendship with a man, and one she had come to treasure as much, if not more than, her relationships with Margery and Nathalie. Their friendship was a mirror in which she could see herself as he perceived her, and she realised how much she liked herself through his eyes. They talked about everything: their childhoods, their families, previous relationships, hobbies, likes and dislikes. No stone was left uncovered. She felt like she knew him better than she had any other man in her life. Weirdly, even after all the years she had spent with him, she felt like she knew Johnny better than Noah, certainly better than she had ever known Dan. He was so much more articulate and emotionally intelligent than Noah ever had been. And he asked her questions. She realised with Noah it had been more of a one-way conversation: all about him and how he was feeling, never about her. She felt able to talk to him about anything, from current affairs to more philosophical questions about life, they never seemed to run out of conversation.
Helena had never felt so at ease in a man’s company. He really was the opposite of Noah. His company was so relaxing, there was no hidden agenda. She didn’t have to watch what she said, or what she ate, for fear of being judged or told off. In fact, since he had let slip that he loved curvy women, she had found herself embracing her new-found curves even more. She found herself wanting to be around him whenever possible, and the feeling was clearly mutual. If they weren’t working in the garden, barely a day passed in which they didn’t speak or message each other. And Nathalie was just the same – a constant string of messages, calls, coffees and dinner dates peppered her days. Between Johnny, Margery and Nathalie, she realised she had created a replacement family for herself. It felt wonderful to be so deeply connected to others around her. There was still a shard of loneliness when she thought of Raffy, or the future children she wouldn’t have, but when she thought back to the loneliness she had felt after Noah had left, or, if she was beingreally honest with herself, the loneliness she had felt while she was with him, she could hardly believe how far she had come. She would never forget it, that feeling of being so low you wanted to crawl into a hole in the ground, and she grew more determined than ever to do something that would lift others out of a similar state.
Depressingly, by the end of April she had been turned down for every grant she had applied for, apart from a pitiful £1,000 from the local council. There was only the Lottery fund left. She had already decided if that wasn’t successful she would have no choice but to start all over again, perhaps looking for private investors instead. She had no intention of giving up on her plans for the café.
By the start of May, the Old Rectory’s garden was beginning to bloom. Johnny arrived at Hazel Cottage one Saturday morning with a bunch of freshly picked tulips and narcissi.
‘For you,’ he said, presenting the mini bouquet to Helena with a flourish. ‘To say thank you for all your hard work.’
‘How lovely!’ Helena beamed, telling herself not to read anything more into the gesture, burying her nose in the flowers and inhaling their heady scent. ‘Have you got time to stay for a coffee? Margery’s just nipped out to post a letter. She’ll be back in a minute. And I’ve just made a batch of cinnamon rolls. Ahmed is encouraging me to become a supplier for Coffee Stop, and I’m testing the recipe.’
‘I thought something smelt good. Didn’t I time that well?’ he laughed, following her into the kitchen and peering at the buns on the cooling rack, each one glazed to perfection and dripping with icing. She put the kettle on and scooped coffee into the cafetière.
‘How did your meeting go?’ Helena asked. Johnny had been to see a new client that morning.
‘Well thanks. It was a French woman called Giselle.’
‘Does she look like her namesake?’ Helena laughed.
‘Who?’ Johnny asked, looking perplexed.
‘The supermodel!’
‘I have no idea who you’re talking about,’ Johnny shrugged. It was one of the things Helena loved most about him – howcompletely disconnected he was from popular culture. ‘Well, she’s attractive, I’d say.’
Helena felt a flush of something close to jealousy. She wondered if anyone would casually refer to her as attractive like that. In particular, whether Johnny would.
‘What does she do for a living?’ Helena asked.
‘She’s a yoga teacher apparently.’
‘Wow! That’s cool.’
‘Her garden’s totally overgrown, it needs to be razed to the ground and started from scratch.’
‘I wonder if I could persuade her to teach some classes at the café?’
‘She has asked me if I’d like to try a session,’ Johnny said, laughing at the thought. ‘Can you imagine! I’m the least flexible person in the world.’
‘I’ve always wanted to give yoga a go,’ Helena said. ‘Perhaps I should! Does she run classes at home?’
