‘Earth to Sam,’ Clare’s voice trilled as she tried to get past with a tray piled high of empties. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Sorry, Clare.’ Sam had been lost in thought as Charlie read over the menu blackboard behind the counter. Clare had probably been trying to get past for a while. ‘So what’ll it be?’ she asked Charlie.
He went for a coffee – black, the easiest one to make thankfully – she wouldn’t mess that up. Honestly, it was as though she was Audrey’s age whenever Charlie was around, not a together woman who’d made her own way in the world.
‘I’ll take a smoked salmon bagel too,’ he added.
Using the tongs, she pulled out the bagel of choice and added it to a plate with a napkin. ‘I’ll bring the coffee over to you.’ She needed a moment to pull herself together while she turned the various bits of the complex machine. It might only be a black coffee but given how nervous he made her feel, there was always room for error.
By the time she took Charlie his order she was back to being in-control-Sam, not pathetic, teenage-hormone-Sam. She asked him how his shift had been; he didn’t recall the more horrific details of an accident on the motorway this morning but instead told her about the little old lady he’d helped last week after a fall on the stairs in her block of flats.
‘She brought me a box of chocolates to the hospital,’ he smiled. ‘A big box of Thorntons; I’m surprised she could manage it with her bruised wrist. But the team is always appreciative when people do things like that.’
‘It must be a difficult job. Does it ever get to you?’
He shrugged. ‘Occasionally, but the good outweighs the bad most days. Veronica loves hearing my stories, even the gory ones.’
‘They’re probably nothing she hasn’t heard or seen before.’ Sam thought back to the days when her mum had come home from work smiling and regaling them with tales of her day – never too disturbing, but more box-of-chocolate stories like Charlie had shared. And then those days had gradually faded away. Veronica had begun to withdraw from the people around her, including Sam, and suddenly it had been too late to get through to her. Sam had tried on more than one occasion to imagine Veronica having ever left the house for a job, working with a team of people whose daily routine was chaotic and, at times, out of control, because the image Sam had been left with when she moved out of Mapleberry all those years ago hadn’t involved even a glimpse of positivity. Even now, living under the same roof again, they didn’t talk like other mothers and daughters did, but the close confines of the house meant Sam had begun to know a little more about her mother’s life. She knew without having to ask that Veronica still didn’t go outside most days and if she did, she never got beyond halfway down the front path or as far as the back garden gate. Veronica still hated courgettes but loved roasted carrots and whenever the meal allowed would use a pile of them big enough to feed a family of eight. And Sam knew her mum missed being a nurse because she’d heard those conversations with Charlie. Veronica reacted the same way with him as she did with Layla talking about the kindness calendar. It was as though both of those subjects held a magic key that turned in a lock Sam didn’t know how to access.
‘Audrey seems happier now than when she first arrived,’ said Charlie after a sip of his coffee.
‘She seems to be finding her way at last and school gives her some structure. She’s made a good friend called Vicky, who sounds nice – sensible and a hard worker too, and they’ve hung out outside of school at the cinema or here for hot chocolates. They’ve even done a bit of the community mosaic together.’ Sam was getting used to people being interested in her and her family and was even beginning to appreciate it. She’d avoided all things Mapleberry for years but coming back to the village hadn’t been anywhere near as bad as she’d anticipated. ‘But despite finding her feet,’ she added, ‘she’s no happier with me.’
‘I had noticed.’
Sam had Jilly up in Cheshire to talk to whenever she needed and they’d had some long drawn-out conversations on the phone about her relationship with Audrey. Now she had Clare to talk to as well, but Charlie brought another perspective and she found herself blurting out what it had been like over the years for her, everything since the divorce, the way her daughter idolised her father.
‘Is he in contact much?’ Charlie wanted to know.
‘Not as much as I’d like when it comes to Audrey. I don’t particularly like getting in touch with him but I do on occasion, for her sake. He lives in a bit of a bubble really, the Simon-bubble I call it. He’s almost ethereal, at least for Audrey. He stays in touch via email and phone calls and most of what he shares are details of him living the life I know she wishes she had. He sends photographs of the most beautiful places you’ve ever seen, landscapes that are impressive to a teenage girl who has the monotony of school, dreary weather a lot of the year, as well as strained relationships with her own
