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My stomach rumbles loudly. I realise that I haven’t eaten anything today and I’m starving.
‘That sounds lovely. Yes, please. Have I got time to get changed and stick a load of washing on?’
‘Yes, it’ll be another twenty minutes before it’s ready. I’ll call you.’
Once I get into the safety of my room, I rip off the stinky clothes, slip on my dressing gown, and take them straight to the washing machine. I add as much fabric conditioner as I dare and put on a long cycle. Then I head to the shower and wash myself thoroughly, including my hair, to get rid of the last hints of the smell of Paul’s caravan. I’ve just finished drying it and getting dressed when Nan calls lunch.
‘Oh, wow, this is something else!’ I say, as I take my first taste of the soup.
‘It’s a bit of a step up from Heinz, isn’t it?’ Nan agrees. ‘Not so much butter, Norman, think of your arteries!’ she admonishes Grandad as he spreads a thick layer on his bread. Grandad just looks at me and winks. This is a recurring theme at mealtimes, particularly where butter or cream are involved.
After lunch, I send Katie a text to say that I’m back early and can pick her up at the end of her shift if she likes. A few minutes pass before I get a response.
Don’t worry, I’ll get the train. Bronwyn and I are going to head up into Sevenoaks later. She’s going to show me around and we might do a bit of shopping. Kx
‘Seems like Katie has made a new friend,’ I say to Nan, showing her the text.
‘Who’s Bronwyn?’ she asks.
‘She works at the café. She’s the same age as Katie, or maybe a little older. She’s an artist, very bubbly. I like her, but I wouldn’t have picked her out as a natural friend for Katie. They’re completely different.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, Katie’s pretty reserved, isn’t she, but Bronwyn is totally in your face. Katie is academic, but Bronwyn has made it clear she has no interest in further education. That kind of different.’
‘Sounds like she might be good for Katie, bring her out of herself a bit,’ Nan observes.
‘Yeah, maybe.’
* * *
Despite my determination to give myself some space from it, I end up spending the afternoon working my way through the café menu, calculating the cost of the ingredients for each dish based on the receipt from the cash and carry, and then working out the margin. I have to text Matt a few times to clarify a couple of pack sizes, and to give me an estimate of how many servings he would expect to get from one of the large tins of beans we bought. By the end, I’ve worked out that we do still have a pretty healthy margin in the food, even with the more expensive ingredients we’ve bought. Our issue is volume; we need to be selling an awful lot more of it.
I look at the menu again, but this time I focus on how it looks as a whole, rather than the ingredients and prices. Apart from being littered with spelling mistakes, the layout is pretty sloppy. Whoever did it didn’t really seem to care about making it look appealing. Even the fonts look old-fashioned. As I study it, I realise there’s something missing. I call Matt again.
‘Yes, boss?’
‘Ha ha. Quick question. In the window, it says we do traditional roast dinners. I can’t see anything about them on the menu, though?’
‘We haven’t done them for years. We used to do them on a Sunday at lunchtime, but hardly anyone came towards the end. I think people prefer to go to pubs and restaurants, where they can have a glass of wine or a beer to wash it down with. I love a cup of tea, but even I know it doesn’t really go with a roast.’
‘We probably ought to take it off the window then, oughtn’t we?’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’
I add ‘Find Signwriters’ to my rapidly growing to-do list.
Katie texts shortly after six to say that Bronwyn is going to drop her home. I didn’t realise that Bronwyn could drive. Given her age, she can’t have passed her test that long ago, and I can feel my anxiety levels rising at the thought of Katie being at the mercy of Bronwyn’s inexperience. Also, I just know that Bronwyn is going to own some sort of clapped-out old banger, which she’ll have given a name to, and which will offer even less protection than Matt’s van. By the time Katie leaps out of a perfectly ordinary modern hatchback with Bronwyn behind the wheel, I’ve managed to conjure up a large number of scenarios in my head, each worse than the last.
‘That’s not the sort of car I’d associate with Bronwyn,’ I observe, as Katie skips through the door, carrying a shopping bag.
‘It’s her mum’s. Bronwyn doesn’t own a car. We stopped in at her house for a quick cup of tea before going to the station, and her mum said I shouldn’t be on my own on a train and insisted that Bronwyn drive me. Wasn’t that nice of her?’
‘Very. How was your day?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, Sevenoaks is an interesting place. At first glance, it’s mainly coffee shops and restaurants, but Bronwyn showed me some great clothes shops and we went to the art gallery she works at. Her stuff is really good. I didn’t understand all of it, but Gary, the guy who runs it, thinks she’s a serious up and coming talent.’
‘And how was the café?’
