Page 2 of The Seaside Supper Club

Actually, Will was slightly late, Cath mused. She hoped all was well. Perhaps he’d just been held up at the cycle repair shop he owned in nearby Kirkton.

As she sipped her champagne, her thoughts lingered on Will. That delicious getting to know each other, over winter’s cosy nights in, taking time to discover each other’s bodies beneath the duvet. Well, you had to keep warm somehow.

After her divorce, Cath had thought her middle-aged body would be wrapped up for good, and left to perish in its comfy old M&S undies. But with Will, she’d felt the fear and done it anyway, discarding those greying panties with a flourish across the bedroom, and then setting off to buy some new and far prettier sets. Still M&S, mind. These past few months of getting to know each other had honestly been beautiful – as well as scary, naturally, after all that hurt – with evenings of pleasure and moments of pure joy, as Cath had gradually begun to open her heart once more.

But had she tempted fate? After all the pain – her ex, Trevor, letting her down in the most clichéd and cruel way with an affair, leading to the failure of her long-term marriage – she was struggling with the angst that she may have jumped in too soon. You couldn’t help it after that kind of emotional battering. One part of her kept cheerleading her on with a fresh start, telling her to go grab the rest of her life by the balls, while the other part, the one that lurked deep in her soul, warning her not to get hurt again, that romance wasn’t all it was made out to be. Those rose-coloured glasses had been cracked years ago, and they could easily be stomped on and crushed again.

Her big concern was what would happen to her fabulous supper club friendship group then? When in time, she and Will didn’t work out, had to go their separate ways, would the whole group feel the ricochets of their failing love story? Would it make it too difficult to carry on with the supper club? This group had been her saving grace, her sanctuary, filled with warmth and laughter, when first arriving in the village.

She switched the naysayer in her soul off, as she took a large sip from her flute of fizz. Enough! What she needed was to enjoy the here and now with her gorgeous friends.

‘Cheers again, everyone. Thanks so much for the bubbles, lads. We do indeed need to celebrate the supper club being back together, and up in the summerhouse.’ She raised her glass.

‘Oh, fantastic. So, we’re going to be in the sassy shed,’ said Nikki with a smile.

‘We are, indeed,’ Cath confirmed.

‘Ooh, I loved it up there,’ added Lily.

Cath had converted the old potting shed of Reggie’s – the cottage’s previous owner – last spring. Now painted a soft sage green, with mix-and-match dining furniture within, and Cath’s pretty and thoughtful touches, it had become their special place last summer and autumn. A place for chat, laughter, a cheeky glass or two of vino, and the most delicious suppers.

‘Glad I’ve brought my fleece, then,’ quipped Nikki.

‘And I’ve donned my warm socks and a vest for the occasion,’ said a sensible-sounding Dan, with a hint of his warm humour.

Evenings in Northumberland could cool substantially, especially in April. The al fresco life took a little more effort here.

‘Cath had already given us the nod,’ Andreas explained. ‘Earlier on in the shop.’

Eleven years ago, the couple had moved up from London, where many of Andreas’s Greek-Cypriot family still resided. The characterful pair had become an integral part of the community here in the Northumbrian village of Tilldale, and had helped form the supper club along with Cath, when she’d arrived freshly divorced and in need of a new start. Their friendship, and a shared love of good home-cooked food, had been the start of something very special at its core.

‘Never fear, the cosy blankets are up there, just in case.’ And this time around, she had Will to snuggle up to, Cath realised. Hmm, it wasn’t like him to be late. She hoped everything was okay.

Shifting her thoughts on to the evening meal and her cooking, she swapped her glass for her oven gloves. As she opened the oven door, the kitchen filled with mouthwatering savoury aromas. She lifted a large casserole dish out and onto the hob, ready to give it a stir.

‘Oh, and what’s on the menu this evening, my lovely?’ asked Dan.

‘Mmm, it smells divine,’ added Andreas.

‘It’s my one pot wonder. Kind of an all-in-one roast chicken dinner,’ Cath explained. It was one of her son Adam’s favourites, especially in the chilly winter and spring months. How she still missed cooking those family meals. The times spent chatting and catching up around the dinner table back in Leeds. With her and Trev now divorced, and Adam having been off to uni, done some travelling, and now starting his new wildlife park job in Yorkshire, family life wasn’t the same at all. Would never be the same again, after the bomb of divorce, she’d realised. But they were finding a new normal between them. And she was still close to her son, which was lovely.

‘Spring chicken, then,’ commented Dan. ‘Sounds wonderful.’

‘Well, that’s none of us anymore, except Lily,’ added Nikki wryly.

‘You’re certainly a bit of an old rooster by now, Daniel,’ chipped in Andreas, mischievously, Dan being older than him by a couple of years.

‘Cut the cheek. You’re no spring chicken yourself.’

Cath smiled at the banter as she stirred the dish; aromas of chicken-herby gravy filling the cosy cottage kitchen.

‘Well, whatever kind of chicken it is, it smells absolutely delicious,’ said Lily.

At that point, the doorbell rang. With her hands full at the hob, Cath shouted out, ‘Come on in.’

A few seconds later in waltzed Will. Dark conker-coloured hair with just a hint of salt and pepper to the sides, and his expressive hazel-brown eyes – sometimes they looked like rich toffee to Cath, and at others a myriad of verdant shades like the greens and browns of the woods. This evening, he was dressed in dark indigo jeans, teamed with a pale-blue T-shirt, under a navy-and-black-checked lumber-style jacket.

She couldn’t help it; her heart still gave a leap every time she saw him. Flipped like a bloody pancake in a pan, in fact. It felt like being a teenager again, just like when they’d first ever met, way back when … A long story, and for another time.