‘Not so great for the business but a massive bonus for me,’ Mam said, smiling. ‘It’s going to be wonderful baking in here.’
The plan was to follow in Anna’s footsteps with everything we served being homemade on site. Mam would do the lion’s share of the food preparation but I’d help as I enjoyed baking too. Although we’d start with Mam managing the café and me managing the animal attraction, we’d work towards a fair split in due course. We’d anticipated needing part-time help in the café to at least cover the busy periods but that was when we thought the café had customers and that there would be busy periods. Now we’d need to play that by ear. We still had a lot of thinking to do about the cow cuddling as we’d need extra bodies to make that work.
I left the kitchen and examined the serving area more closely. Anna had definitely shown pride in her workplace.
‘Look at this crockery!’ I called to Mam. ‘It’s gorgeous.’
‘It looks expensive,’ she said, joining me and picking up one of the mugs. ‘I think this is all hand-crafted.’
I hadn’t paid much attention to the plates and bowls in the kitchen cupboards but, taking a closer look now, I was inclined to agree with Mam about them being hand-crafted. The side plates, teapots, milk jugs, mugs, cups and saucers were all muted shades of blue, teal, green, pink, lilac, grey, coral and lemon.
‘She might have been a fibber, but Anna had good taste,’ I said, running my fingers over the glaze. ‘I love these.’
Mam opened a drawer containing gleaming cutlery and another full of tea cosies.
‘How cute are these?’ she said, holding a pink and blue knitted cosy with sheep on it in one hand and, in the other, a yellow one with a horse’s head on it.
I wandered into the seating area. The walls were scuffed here and there but, other than a fresh lick of paint, nothing needed doing. The café really was lovely. Anna had nailed the country farmhouse aesthetic and created a warm and inviting space.
‘I’m guessing from Maddie’s comments earlier that she hasn’t changed her mind about working here?’ Mam asked.
I shook my head. I’d suggested a summer job on several occasions but she’d either ignored me or rolled her eyes and walked away.
‘That’s disappointing,’ Mam said. ‘What’s she going to do?’
‘I’ve no idea. Lock herself in her room and sulk?’
Mam sat down at one of the tables and nodded to the chair opposite. ‘And what happens after the summer? Any chance she’ll change her mind and go to university after all?’
I sighed as I sank into the chair. ‘I don’t think so.’
That had been an announcement I really hadn’t seen coming. Laurie and I had both been the first members of our respective families to go down the university route and we’d never have pushed Maddie to follow in our footsteps but it was what she’d always proclaimed she wanted. Naturally bright and unfazed by exams, she’d excelled at school and, despite the bad influence Carmen and Alfie were on her, her commitment to her studies had thankfully continued into the sixth form. But just after she started her exams in May, she’d casually announced that she’d changed her mind and wasn’t going to university after all.
‘You’d like to travel?’ I’d asked, struggling to hide my shock.
‘On my own? Yeah, that would be so much fun.’
‘Then what are you going to do?’
‘I dunno. Get a job.’
‘Doing what? If you want to be an animal-assisted therapist, you need a degree.’
‘I don’t want to be a therapist. I don’t want to be anything like you.’
I’d told Mam about Maddie’s shock decision at the time, but I hadn’t shared her final cutting declaration until now.
‘Oh, Grace, I’m so sorry. What a despicable thing to say. That must have hurt.’
‘It did. I cried for two hours. I kept thinkingwhat’s wrong with me? Am I really a horrible person? Am I unlovable?’
‘No! You’re the exact opposite of that.’
‘Then why do the people I love seem to hate me? Why did Laurie want to put thousands of miles between us? Why does my only child refuse to speak to me? None of it makes sense. I never changed who I was and they both used to love that person so what happened to turn them against me?’
Mam shifted to my side of the table and gathered me in her arms.
‘It’s not you, it’s them. I know that’s a cliché but it’s so true. I know you, sunshine, and you’re exceptionally self-aware – have been since you were knee high to a grasshopper. If you’d said or done anything to either of them to change their feelings towards you, you’d be aware of it and you’d have rectified it long ago. This is all them. I know that doesn’t give you any answers, but I hope it gives you reassurance. I’m sure Jude’s said the same thing.’
