Page 20 of The Little Board Game Café

She quickly knocked up a shortcrust pastry for the tart bases and left it to chill in the fridge. She peeled the apples and put them on the hob to stew. She mixed flour with oats, sugar, butter and a little cinnamon for the crumble topping. She would bake that separately – the Raymond Blanc method – to ensure it was crunchy.

Then she made a start on the brownies, melting chocolate chips with sugar and butter in a bain-marie, and whisking the eggs. She gently folded the chocolate mixture into the eggs, and added a little flour.

When the oven had reached the right temperature, she put everything in, set two timers and waited. A chocolate-y aroma began to fill the kitchen, taking her right back to childhood days. She’d sit on a kitchen stool, cleaning out the mixing bowl with her fingers, savouring every delicious, sugary mouthful and counting down the minutes till the brownies would emerge, hot, gooey and oozing.

The first timer on her phone pinged. Emily took out the pastry cases, spooned in some apple and topped with the hot crumble mix, before putting them back in the oven. The brownies would take another few minutes. By now, the kitchen smelled completely different. Its usual scent was of Cif, she realised. Kitchens shouldn’t smell of Cif. They should smell of roast garlic and cinnamon and freshly baked bread. Or brownies and apple crumble like this one did right now.

The second timer went off. She opened the oven door with all the excitement and trepidation of a finalist on Bake Off.

Her brownies were never quite as good as her mum’s, but they weren’t far off. They were the kind of brownies that made your fingers sticky, your tastebuds crave for more and your stomach say no, delicious though they were, that’s quite enough richness for one day, thank you. The kind of brownies you needed to share.

She looked round Peter’s normally immaculate kitchen. A small pool of melted butter had made the floor sticky. Flour had spread an inordinate distance across the black granite worktop. And a smear of chocolate had found its way onto one of the glossy white cupboard doors. How had that happened?

And how had she managed to use all those utensils? For one loaf, a few tarts and a batch of brownies?

Never mind. She would clear up the mess when she got back. There’d be plenty of time before Peter returned. He’d be hours on the golf course, as usual, then even longer at the nineteenth hole with his buddies.

*

Marjory’s face lit up when she opened the door and Emily immediately felt a pang of guilt for neglecting her former neighbour. She hadn’t been round for weeks. When she’d lived in the upstairs flat, they’d seen each other practically every day.

‘Come in, come in.’ Marjory bustled Emily into her tiny hallway, closing the door behind her as quickly as she could, as if she was afraid that Emily might change her mind and leave again.

Emily held up the tin of brownies.

‘I’ll get the kettle on,’ Marjory said and disappeared into her kitchen.

Emily sank into the sofa. Peter’s sofas were enormous, expensive things, deep and low. They looked inviting enough, but somehow contrived to be rather uncomfortable. Marjory’s sofa was old-fashioned. Upholstered in a chintzy floral print, with curly arms and a high back, it didn’t look stylish but as soon as Emily sat down on it, she felt all the tension of the past few days evaporate.

‘How’ve you been?’ said Marjory, placing a tea cup and saucer on the table in front of her and passing her a plate.

‘I’ve been…’ Emily didn’t know where to start. ‘Sorry I haven’t visited in a while. How are you?’

‘I’m fine, dear. A little lonely perhaps, but that’s par for the course at my age, I think.’

Par for the course. Loneliness shouldn’t be par for the course. At any age. If – and it was still a big ‘if’ – she did buy her own café, it would be a place that would bring people together. She could even have one of those tables with a sign that read, ‘Sit here, if you’d like to chat.’ The grown-up equivalent of the friendship bench in the school playground.

‘Peter made me redundant,’ said Emily suddenly, lifting the lid off the tin of brownies and handing them over.

‘Oh dear. Lover’s tiff?’

‘Not at all. A business decision apparently. We’re still together.’

Did she imagine it or did a frown pass fleetingly over Marjory’s face?

‘That’s good,’ Marjory said in a tone that suggested she didn’t think it was good at all. She took a bite of her brownie.

‘What do you think?’ Emily said.

‘I think it must be very difficult to be engaged to someone who has made you redundant. But I never got the impression you were happy at Ridley’s. So maybe this is a chance to do something new.’

‘I meant, what do you think of the brownie?’

‘Delicious. But then, your baking is always superb, Em. Better than anything you can buy in any café or bakery for miles around. Have you never thought of setting up your own business?’

*

The BMW was already parked on the driveway when Emily arrived home.