Page 27 of The Seaside Supper Club

*

Cath was just heading out to the car park, when she heard a dash of footsteps crunching the gravel behind her. ‘Hey, Cath, I’m so glad I spotted you. I wanted to catch you.’ Julie sounded a tad out of breath. ‘The date for the tea event, it’s going to be okay, after all. I’ve managed to switch things around a bit. Some of the residents had got news of your afternoon tea plans, and well, now the word is out, it’s become the talk of the day room. They are adamant they want to come, even to the point of foregoing their fish and chips.

‘And well, if it makes it easier for you to stick with the original date in the first week of August, I’ve just managed to make a call to the chippy we were booked into. They can switch to the weekend before.’

‘Really? Ah, that’d be amazing.’ Cath grinned. ‘Umm, this wouldn’t have anything to do with Reggie and Betty scheming together, would it?’ She remembered their joint exit just a half hour before.

‘They were representing the views of the day room, they assured me.’ Julie gave an affirming nod, accompanied by a wry smile.

Cath snorted with laughter. And she felt such relief. It seemed the tea event really was the talk of the town. ‘That’s fantastic. I’ll let the others know right away. We’ve been struggling to find an alternative date. The last I’d heard, the shop lads were trying to sort out cover at work, and all sorts.’

‘Yes, I wondered that. I really didn’t want to make life difficult for you all, not when you’re putting yourselves out. It’s so very kind of you. And my residents had such fun at Christmastime. It seems this will be the highlight of their summer social calendar.’

‘Ah, that’s so lovely. Right, I’d better go. Thanks for sorting this out, Julie. That’s brilliant.’ And good old Reggie and Betty. Cath retraced her steps, to give the pair of them a big wave and a thumbs up through the day-room window. She couldn’t wait to tell the supper gang the good news.

Naturally, expectations were high, and Cath was going to have to very much kick herself into gear. But first things first, she had to get back home ready for her next slot of pre-exam revision tutorials. She mustn’t keep her students waiting.

Twenty minutes later, and still on a high about sorting the Tilldale Afternoon Tea date, sounding very like Buzz Lightyear as she mounted the stairs to the spare room where her laptop awaited, she roused herself by calling out, ‘To trigonometry and beyond …’

Chapter 9

It was the first weekend in May, and Cath was feeling bright and positive after having spent a couple of days visiting Adam at his Wildlife Park.

Of course, they’d been chatting regularly on the phone, and Adam had popped up to see her for a couple of weekends earlier in the year, but this was the first chance she’d had to visit him in his new digs. She’d booked to stay over for a night in a nearby country pub.

Adam had had to work when she’d arrived at the park on the Saturday afternoon, so with a few spare hours to fill, he’d organised her a free pass to explore his wonderfully unusual place of work. Discovering the animal enclosures, she’d loved seeing the cheeky lemurs having fun among the trees and their rigging runways, and the big cats were entrancing – huge striped tigers with their massive padded feet, the spotty leopards very much in hiding and hard to see, and the spine-chilling wondrous roar of the powerful lions. Whilst it was a little sad to see them caged, the animals had lots of space and were evidently well cared for. She also understood from her chat with Adam, later that evening over a meal at the pub she was staying at, that many of the creatures would have been born into captivity and incapable of surviving in the wild, or were suffering extremely difficult circumstances in their native countries, perhaps having been found injured or having lost their territory. Many, such as the Northeast African cheetahs, were on the endangered list with less than six hundred individuals remaining in the wild.

Her son was proud of his new role and was evidently settling in well. He explained that his job as Research and Education Manager meant he was involved with organising and planning various school trips, higher education and special needs visits, as well as coordinating with several other organisations and research schemes, some worldwide. It was challenging for him for sure, especially coming fresh – and admittedly a little ‘green’ – from university, but his enthusiasm for spreading the word on wildlife conservation was infectious. Cath had loved sitting and chatting with him, enjoying all the details of his role, over a supper of steak pie and mash. It was wonderful to see him settled, happy and enthusiastic about the future again – one she knew would be bright.

And earlier, when they’d been heading out of the main admission area that afternoon, Cath had spotted a pretty brunette-haired girl smile over at Adam as she’d said hello. ‘Ah, hi, Kirsty,’ he’d responded briefly. Eagle-eyed, Cath was sure she’d seen Adam blush a little. Hmm, was there an early romance in the making, she’d wondered? He really did seem to be finding his feet here. New friendships, new challenges. In fact, she reflected, it felt like both mother and son were moving on big style.

Over dinner, Adam had mentioned seeing his dad recently, and talking about Trev didn’t hurt half as much as Cath had thought it might. She was glad to hear that her ex was stepping up to his paternal role. Cath also found the confidence to open up to Adam about Will, telling him how well their relationship was going just now. Her son seemed genuinely happy for her, which was lovely, and with his open-minded attitude, it hadn’t ended up feeling awkward at all filling him in about her new romance. He’d met Will in the village previously, and they’d struck up a conversation about cycling and got along easily, but there was a sense that this budding relationship was entering the next stage for Cath, something more permanent. It was important to her that Adam was aware of this, and also that her son very much felt a part of her ongoing life, too.

His response was heartwarming, and Cath couldn’t help but compare how very different that was from Cath’s ongoing emotional trials with Sophie, Will’s youngest daughter. Despite things improving slowly, when they’d last met, Cath could still sense the young woman’s frostiness, that unwillingness to welcome Cath into her dad’s life. Of course, with losing her mother to cancer and the tough times they’d been through as a family, it was never destined to be an easy journey.

From chatting with friends, Cath had learned that the ‘stepmother’ scenario was often a rollercoaster at the best of times. Though she was a long way off from becoming that officially, she’d wanted to try and understand how fitting into an established family might feel. And after a bereavement, the path was bound to be a particularly thorny one. Cath was empathetic and wise enough to realise that much, but sometimes she wished things might forge forward a little more smoothly. So that she could really enjoy her new relationship, and not feel like she had to be on her guard around Will’s family. She very much hoped that the old adage about ‘time being a good healer’ would work in her favour in the long run. And in the meanwhile, she tried her best not to let it get to her. It was a complex situation, after all.

She enjoyed the rest of her evening catching up with Adam, talking and laughing, with memories of times gone by, of happier days with Trev, and Adam’s animal antics as a boy. Including the night the tank for his worm farm cracked. He’d struck it by accident practising his golf chipping in his bedroom, and hadn’t realised the damage until the wriggling army escaped. He woke to find them all over him, the bed and the carpet. It had been a long job collecting them all.

After Adam organised a taxi back to his shared digs just a few miles away, it was an easy walk up the stairs and to bed for Cath; the pub’s bedroom being small but cosy and clean. Her heart had been warmed, and she began to doze off with a head full of happy memories of the day she and Adam had just spent together.

*

The visit had all gone too fast, but Cath buoyed herself up the next morning with the knowledge that Adam wasn’t too far away – he’d been off travelling the world the year before, after all. Concentrating on the steady flow of traffic on the A1(M), she made her way back to her Northumberland village, settling into her journey that her satnav was advising might take around three hours. She tuned in to BBC Radio Two, and began to relax.

With the motorway section of the journey done, and the Angel of the North and Newcastle-upon-Tyne firmly in her rear-view mirror, the more intense part of the drive was completed. Her thoughts began to turn to home, to getting back to Tilldale, finding something easy in the freezer for supper. Might she invite Will around? Tell him all about Adam and her visit? That’d be nice.

At Morpeth, she made the decision to go the country route up the A697, a slightly slower and more winding road than continuing on the A1, but far more scenic as you skirted the moors and the villages beneath the Cheviot Hills. On an S bend, she felt a strange bump jar the vehicle from beneath one of her wheels. And then frighteningly, as much as she tried to steer normally, it all felt wrong. Her heart was thumping wildly as she tried to control the vehicle. She was out of the bend, but something was coming in the other direction. A huge bloody lorry. Steer, come on, Mini, do it! Shit!

She instinctively began to duck down, but she forced herself to look out over the dash at the road and lorry ahead, as she battled with the steering wheel. She knew she needed to get on to the left-hand verge and relative safety, in an effort to avoid the worst. The off-road area here, unfortunately, was the narrowest bit of rough moorland grass beside a stone wall.

Her vehicle was slowing as she braked cautiously, the weird wheel-thumping still going on beneath her. She spotted a slightly wider section of muddy verge, near a farm gate. She limped the Mini on towards that, and came to a bumpy halt half on the mud, but with the vehicle’s tail-end still in the road, it wasn’t a great place to stop, but woah, at least she hadn’t been in an accident. Her heart was still thumping in alarm.

The oncoming lorry passed by slowly. He gave her a concerned look, but it wasn’t a good place for its driver to stop and offer help. She fumbled fingers over her dash area trying to find the triangle warning sign, and managed to put on her emergency lights. With a massive sigh, she rested at the wheel trying to absorb all that had just happened in a mere matter of seconds. Then she steeled herself with the realisation that she needed to get out of the car. It wasn’t safe to stay in the vehicle, like a sitting duck.

She was shaking as she reached for the door handle. Grabbed her bag. Checked no vehicle was coming from behind her on the road, and got out. Swiftly moving to reach the verge. The damage now apparent. Her front nearside tyre had blown out, with ripped black rubber, leaving a very wonky metal rim to her wheel. OMG, Cath felt so very lucky, and unlucky all at the same time. Relief and shock made her a little weak at the knees, as her eyes misted. Jeez, thinking about that lorry, the bends, things could have ended up so much worse.

She needed to find some help. Ring a garage. Oh, and thinking of how the car was stuck in a possibly dangerous place, tell the police. 101, that was it. This wasn’t quite a 999 emergency. She rifled through her handbag for her mobile. The signal wasn’t great here but a bar appeared on her screen. Standing still, ensuring she was well back from the road, she dialled. Cath began to explain her situation and location as best she could to the operator; considering she was in the middle of bloody nowhere between Longframlington and Kirkton. So much for the scenic route. The operator confirmed they were going to try and send a vehicle out to help alert other drivers, but advised it might take some time.