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‘Oh, I know their plan,’ she continues, disdainfully. ‘They’re going to sell the café out from underneath us. Why else would they get it valued, eh? I said to my Derek, “They’re only interested in getting their hands on the money. We’ll all be turfed out and it’ll be bought by some awful chain, like everywhere else.”’
She really is a piece of work. Every time I think she can’t get any ruder, she manages to surprise me. I’m determined to be polite and friendly, but she’s making it hard.
‘This,’ Matt says firmly, indicating the girl and obviously trying to cut Rita off, ‘is Bronwyn. She comes in on Saturdays, and also covers for Rita during the week if she can’t come in for any reason.’
‘My Derek suffers terribly with his gout,’ Rita starts again. ‘Sometimes he can’t even get himself out of bed, and I can’t leave him when he’s like that.’
This time, I forcibly ignore her and walk over to shake Bronwyn’s hand. She is extraordinarily beautiful, with big blue eyes and a scattering of light freckles across her gently turned-up nose. Her mouth is wide, revealing even teeth when she smiles. Her multicoloured hair is cut short, in a pixie style that really suits her delicate features. She exudes boho, hippie chic, with multiple ear piercings, white T-shirt, dungaree shorts and flowery Dr Martens. A pair of large aviator-style sunglasses is perched on her head.
‘Nice to meet you, Bronwyn,’ I say. ‘How long have you been working here?’
‘A couple of years. I started just after my sixteenth birthday. I also work at an art gallery in the centre of town. I’m an artist, and they sometimes sell some of my pictures for me.’
That makes sense. She looks like an artist, I think to myself.
‘Would you like to look around?’ Matt asks. He’s obviously on his best behaviour while he tries to work us out.
‘Let’s have a chat first, shall we?’ I pull out the chair next to Bronwyn and Katie sits next to me. Matt settles himself next to Rita, who stares at the table, pointedly refusing to meet my eyes. Another tense silence descends.
‘Okay,’ I start. ‘I’m going to be perfectly up front with you and tell you that I have no idea about running a café, and I’m still probably as shocked as you are that we’re in the position we’re in. I scarcely knew my great-uncle, so this inheritance has come as a huge surprise.’
‘Doing all right out of it, though, aren’t you?’ Rita mumbles, just loud enough to ensure that I hear her.
I ignore her and plough on. ‘What I do understand are the books. I’m an accountant, so they’re bread and butter to me. The stark reality is that this place is barely breaking even. In fact, since Great-Uncle Fred died, it’s been making a huge loss, because the firm that the solicitors handling probate appointed to do the books charges a fortune. That’s obviously not sustainable.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Rita mumbles again. ‘Here comes the flim-flam, to make you feel better about flogging the place out from underneath us so you and your sister can dance off into the sunset with Fred’s money and not have to feel guilty about depriving us of our livelihoods.’
I really am on the verge of losing my temper with her, but I know that’s what she’s trying to goad me into doing, so I bite my tongue and continue.
‘You’re right, Rita. Selling is one option and, at the moment, it’s the most attractive one. I’ve already told you that I don’t know anything about running a café, but I know enough to see that there are some serious flaws with this one.’
I see that I’ve finally managed to get her attention and rile her, as her head snaps up and her watery blue eyes meet mine. Good.
‘What do you mean, flaws?’ she asks, and her voice is crackling with hostility.
‘I don’t want to malign Great-Uncle Fred’s memory,’ I say, ‘but this place is very run down. It needs a lot of money to be spent on it to bring it up to scratch, and that’s before we get to the food and drink. I’m sorry to say this, but the tea and coffee we had earlier were revolting, the bacon had cooked away to nothing, and the sausages tasted like cardboard.’
I know my words are harsh, but there’s no point in glossing over the problems. I look over at Matt, and I’m surprised to see that he doesn’t appear to be offended yet. Rita, on the other hand, looks fit to explode.
‘Nobody has ever complained before!’ she retorts furiously. ‘We can’t all afford poncy organic heritage food, or whatever it is that you’re used to eating. Some of us have to live in the real world, you know.’
How dare she? She knows absolutely nothing about my life, or what I’ve been through. I feel hot, angry tears starting to prick behind my eyes, and I swallow hard to keep them at bay. If she thinks she can break me, she is seriously mistaken. I take a moment to regain my composure before I continue.
‘I expect they haven’t complained because they’ve voted with their feet and gone somewhere else. This place is literally dying.’ I fix her with a stare. I’m so pissed off with her that I don’t care how much I upset her any more. ‘So here are the options as I see them. We could close the place down now, cut our losses, and run. I could try to fix the worst of the issues in the hope of attracting a buyer who would take it on as it is, or we could plough a hill of Fred’s money into it, and probably end up losing it all and having to sell anyway. What would you do, Rita, if you were in our shoes?’
There’s a long pause while we stare into each other’s eyes. The music fromThe Good, the Bad and the Uglyis playing in my head again. Eventually, she speaks.
‘I’d do what Fred would have wanted. I’d save the café, regardless of the cost.’
I realise with horror that she’s outplayed me. I have no way to tell if what she’s just said is true or not. If it’s true, and I don’t try to save the café, then I’m probably no better than she thinks I am. I’m wracking my brains to try to come up with a suitable comeback when I realise that Matt is speaking.
‘That’s not true, though, Rita, is it?’ he says, surprisingly firmly. ‘Fred didn’t give a shit about the café. It was always Nora’s dream and, beyond keeping the accounts and periodically telling me to cut costs, he hasn’t shown a flicker of interest in it since she died.’
Rita’s mouth is opening and closing like a goldfish, but no sound is coming out, and I realise that Matt may be riding to my rescue.
‘Tell me more,’ I encourage him, partly because I’d like to hear some evidence to disprove Rita’s theory, and partly to buy me some time before I have to duel with Rita again.
‘Nora loved this place,’ Matt explains. ‘She poured all her energy into it. When I first started, we had a full menu, including a regular rotation of lunchtime specials, as well as home-made cakes and pastries. She was a stickler for quality, and we had a reputation for the best cooked breakfast you could get in Sevenoaks. It wasn’t unusual for there to be a queue outside, waiting for a table to become free. When she died, everything changed. Fred didn’t care about quality like she did, he was only interested in the profit margins. He substituted all the ingredients for cheaper alternatives and, of course, people started to drift away. As the revenue fell, he kept cutting the costs, going for cheaper and cheaper stuff. I tried to explain to him that we were driving customers away, but he wouldn’t listen. In the end, he just saw it as a burden. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d put it up for sale himself, if he’d lived much longer.’
