Page 52 of Just for the Season

‘Thank God,’ he says when he sees me hurrying across the café to him. ‘Nightmare. Seriously. I took orders but I couldn’t find a pen and I didn’t think of using my phone and now I’ve forgotten all of them.’

I take a second to smile at him and say, ‘I’m sorry but that is cute.’

And then – because a lot of the tourists are very tall and they’re all speaking (Dutch) at once – I stand on a chair and holler, ‘So sorry but please could we have some quiet for a moment.’ And then I get everyone seated and take everyone’s orders (writing them down like any sensible person would) and give Marcus some paper towel to wipe his face, accept his offer to stay and help on condition that he does not use his initiative whatsoever but just does what I say, and then we get busy.

‘This is massively above and beyond,’ I say to Marcus about twenty minutes later when everything is fully under control and we’re ploughing our way through all the orders. (The fridge and freezer stock have been massively depleted so either Simon or I will have to go to the cash and carry this evening, which is both satisfying and annoying.) ‘I so mis-sold this to you.’

‘I will say that time goes a lot more quickly when there are a million people to serve. I’ve enjoyed it. Well, I enjoyed it once you got back. I didn’t love it when I was on my own and completely out of control.’

‘You should surely go now,’ I say. ‘You’ve been here for ages.’

‘Not leaving until we’ve got these orders sorted. Start a job, you want to finish it. For satisfaction.’

‘Are you sure?’ I ask suspiciously. ‘You aren’t just saying that to be nice?’

‘Yes I’m sure.’ And then he fills a tray with three bowls of soup plus bread rolls and coffees and takes it in the direction of the wrong table.

‘Marcus,’ I hiss, indicating with my head. ‘Table seven.’

‘We are a great team,’ he says. ‘I mess up; you sort me out.’

‘I mean, usually it’s the other way round,’ I point out. ‘The big thing, our entire relationship.’

‘That just makes us an even better team. We have macro and micro covered.’

I smile and say, ‘We are great. But if you’re bored with the greatness or have stuff to do please, please don’t feel that you have to stay.’

Eventually, when everything’s quietened down and the Dutch tourists are all happily chomping away and seem fully understanding of the fact that there will be a little queue to pay because there’s only one till, Marcus agrees to go and get on with his own actual life.

I feel slightly weird when he’s gone, like I almost miss him. Well, of course I miss him. It’s a lot more fun doing this with him than without.

16

MARCUS

I stand outside the café for a few moments, feeling like I need to clear my head.

One of the many dozens of tourists who arrived over lunch comes out and, as he exits, warm, cinnamon-scented air wafts towards me through the open door, and I’m transported back inside for a minute. I can’t believe how much fun I had being run off my feet serving lunch to far too many very demanding people in an overheated café. Well, being accurate, I didn’t enjoy it at all until Frankie came back, but once she was there and we were doing it together, it was great.

As we said at the end, we make a great team. Which feels like something I ought to think about, but which I do not, in fact, want to think about. Because we aren’t a real team and never will be.

‘Penny for them,’ a voice says.

I look down and see Mrs Bittern, the elderly woman who lives along the road who Frankie told me went into the café earlier with the sole purpose of asking about our relationship.

‘Good afternoon,’ I say.

‘Thinking about how you might propose?’ she asks.

‘Something like that,’ I reply absentmindedly before registering her words properly. I’m about to correct her when I realise that I can’t; I don’t want to blow any holes in Frankie’s story. ‘Early days,’ I say.

‘That’s what Frankie said.’

I nod and smile, and after a few moments Mrs Bittern also nods, and takes herself off along the road.

I obviously won’t be proposing to Frankie, or anyone else, but I do think – now Mrs Bittern mentions it – that she’d make the right person a great wife.

An image of Frankie standing in front of me smiling at me, while I smiled inanely back at her, comes into my head.