Page 28 of The Little Board Game Café

She couldn’t make such a big decision on her own.

She had been wondering whether to go to the board games group that evening. She’d been looking forward to it – well, to seeing Ludek really, although she wasn’t averse to the odd game of Trivial Pursuit – but there was always next week. Kate wasn’t free, in any case, and Emily didn’t really relish the thought of walking into a new group of people on her own. And if there were other people interested in the café… Well, she needed to stop procrastinating and make that decision. Which meant she needed to talk to her mum.

*

Emily walked back to Kate’s house, shoved a few things in her rucksack, and headed for the bus stop. She’d need to take two buses to reach Thornholme, the town where she’d grown up, and the journey could take anything between forty minutes and an hour and a half, depending on the traffic and how long she had to wait between buses. Today she was lucky: the second bus came within minutes of the first one dropping her off.

Thornholme had been an appropriate choice for her parents to set up home together. Dad was a proud Yorkshireman and Mum was a Lancashire lass. Lancashire and Yorkshire had long been rivals, enemies even, though these days the wars of the roses tended to be settled on the sports field rather than the battle field. Until the late eighties, the border between the two counties ran through Thornholme. Growing up, Emily had sometimes thought that it ran straight through their kitchen.

‘I knew I shouldn’t have married a man from the wrong side of the Pennines,’ Mum would say after every argument.

The arguments were frequent but never serious; petty yet passionate squabbles about which teabags to buy (Mum liked Tetleys, Dad Yorkshire Tea) and which cheese (crumbly Lancashire versus even crumblier Wensleydale). It was best to stay out of the house if Yorkshire was playing Lancashire at Headingley or Old Trafford as one or other parent would sulk if their team lost. Emily had always wondered if that was why she didn’t like sport. But they loved each other as passionately as they argued. Emily often had to leave the room in embarrassment as a teenager as they sat hand in hand on the sofa, sometimes rubbing noses, oblivious to her squirming. It was a wonder she wasn’t as averse to sex as she was to cricket.

There was no one in when she reached home. Perhaps she should have phoned to say she was coming. She let herself in and ran upstairs to her old bedroom. Nothing had changed. The faded wallpaper was torn in places where she’d pulled posters off the wall over the years, swapping ponies for boy bands and, later, for arty French black and white photos. A framed picture of Mum and Dad on their wedding day took pride of place on her dressing table next to Belle, the rag doll with blue woollen plaits that had been her sleeping companion throughout childhood.

Emily wasn’t sure where Dad would be. Not far away. That was for sure. The pub probably, or playing Bridge with his friends. But she knew exactly where she would find her mum.

*

It was lovely sitting outside in the early evening sunshine, just her and Mum. Once Emily started talking, she couldn’t stop.

‘Remember how we used to bake together when I was little? How I was never great at maths, but was ahead of the class when it came to weights and measures? And how our cakes – your cakes – were always the first to go at PTA events and we used to say we’d run a café together one day?’

In the excitement of telling her, Emily knew she was gabbling. ‘There’s a café for sale in Essendale and it’s not exactly pretty, but I could make it nice. Couldn’t I? And serve all the things you’d have served? Sandwiches with proper bread, not ready sliced stuff, and generous fillings. Baked potatoes from a proper oven, not microwaved. Hot chocolate with real chocolate and whipped cream and marshmallows. What do you think, Mum? Shall I go for it?’

She paused, waiting for an answer. A bird was singing in a nearby tree. Emily turned to see it but the sun was dazzling and she could only make out a silhouette. She reached into her bag for her sunglasses.

‘Mum, what d’you think?’

She bit her lip, anxious to hear. If her mother thought she should buy it, she’d buy it. Otherwise…well, she’d be going to the Job Centre in Halifax on Monday morning and she didn’t relish the thought of that.

‘If buying a café will make you happy, you should buy a café.’

Emily could hear the words as clearly as if her mother had actually spoken. She reached over and ran her hand over the smooth, cold marble of the headstone. Then she stood up and looked around the graveyard; for half of her life now, she’d been visiting her mother here.

‘Thanks, Mum. I was hoping you’d say that. That’s all I needed to know.’

Chapter Eleven

It was next morning before she saw her father.

He was standing at the kitchen sink, staring out of the window, when she came down for breakfast.

‘Morning, Dad.’

He turned round suddenly, feigning a heart attack.

‘Jesus, Em. Shouldn’t sneak up on an old fella like that.’ He clutched his chest with the over-exaggerated, hammy acting of a player in the village panto.

‘Stop it, Dad. It’s not funny.’

‘Sorry.’ He straightened up. ‘Did you sleep here last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘You should have told me you were coming.’

His hair was greasy and greying, Emily noticed, when once it had been dark and shiny. His jumper was one for the washing machine, if not the bin, and the skin on his arms and hands was flecked with liver spots.