The Cherry Tree Cafe Read online

  ‘Are you all right?’ I tentatively asked, not at all sure how to react to Deborah’s thoughtful expression and unusual lack of words.

  She let out a long slow breath.

  ‘Not really,’ she admitted with a shake of her head. ‘It’s been hell, Lizzie, sheer hell, but we’ll talk about all that later. Give me a few minutes to have a look around this beautiful Café and then we’ll talk business.’

  I left Deborah to have a proper look at everything and took the tray back to Jemma in the kitchen.

  ‘How’s it going?’ she whispered. ‘What does she think?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ I explained, ‘Heather’s been unwell and by the looks of it, it’s knocked the wind out of both their sails.’

  ‘Look out!’ Jemma hissed as Deborah appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Well, congratulations, girls!’ she smiled, ‘this is quite a place! I adore all these cupcakes and the cherry tree design on the door is precious. I’m guessing they’re all your work, Lizzie, am I right?’

  ‘Yep,’ I nodded proudly, ‘they do look great, don’t they?’

  Deborah nodded.

  ‘And the crafting area is perfectly situated in the recess. Just far enough away not to interfere with Café business, but close enough to make it part of the place. Spot on!’

  I beamed in response to Deborah’s positive reaction and rejoined her at the crafting table where I had laid out some of the ideas and potential projects I had put together along with my business plan.

  ‘Now about Heather,’ I said gently as we finished looking through everything.

  ‘Could be cancer,’ Deborah blurted out, her eyes never leaving the paperwork in front of her, ‘don’t know yet. Get the results back next Friday.’

  I didn’t know what to say. My relationship with these women, although freshly formed, had been hugely instrumental in getting over my post-Giles heartbreak and the thought of either of them suffering in any way was horrid.

  ‘Might not be, of course,’ Deborah added bravely, ‘either way,’ she said, sitting up and finally meeting my eyes, ‘I’ve decided the time has come to sell the Crafting Café.’

  ‘What?’ I gasped. ‘Why?’

  Deborah chuckled at my reaction.

  ‘Do you know how long Heather and I have been together?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I shook my head, my mind still reeling from the shock of her selling up. ‘No idea.’

  The City Crafting Café was Deborah’s life. She had built it up from nothing on a shoestring. The thought of her being able even to consider parting with it seemed impossible to me.

  ‘Thirty-five years,’ she said with a smile. ‘For the last thirty five years Heather has supported me. She’s never complained or questioned; she’s put up with my moods and my tantrums and with never a moment’s thought for her own happiness or hopes and dreams.’

  ‘Because she loves you,’ I began to say.

  ‘But love shouldn’t be a one-way street, should it?’ Deborah burst out. ‘Loving someone should be about give and take. I know that Heather has given for the last thirty-five years and I’ve done little other than take and that is shocking, Lizzie, shocking.’

  ‘I can’t believe that’s true, Deborah.’

  ‘It is,’ she said, her tone suggesting I shouldn’t dare contradict what she was saying, ‘but not any more. Neither of us is getting any younger and no matter what the results are next week, Heather and I have decided, together for once, that we’re leaving London.’

  ‘But where will you go?’ I asked, struggling to picture either of them living anywhere other than the urban jungle. ‘Heather’s always fancied the coast,’ Deborah smiled. ‘When she was little, her parents always took her to the seaside for their summer holidays. Norfolk or Suffolk we thought.’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘We might even get a little dog,’ she carried on wistfully, clearly caught up in her dreams of what the next stage of her and Heather’s life together could be.

  The thought of Heather not being well enough to see their dreams come true was too much to bear and I knew that if it didn’t happen then Deborah would be haunted by her guilt for the rest of her life.

  ‘I was rather hoping,’ she said, with a heavy sigh, ‘in my typically selfish way, of course, that this place would be a disaster. A struggling little business in a rotten location that looked destined to fold in a few months, but I can see that is not the case at all.’

  In the time we’d been sitting in the crafting area, the tables had filled with shoppers and Jemma and Angela were bustling about taking orders and chatting to customers who were more than happy to make the Café a regular stop when they popped into town.

  ‘I don’t quite know what to say to that,’ I told Deborah honestly.

  She’d always been so enthusiastic and encouraging about my plans.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said with a shake of her head, ‘I’m not explaining myself very well, am I? The truth is,’ she said, clearing her throat and sounding much more like her old self, ‘I wanted to offer you first refusal on the City Crafting Café, Lizzie. I wondered if you would consider buying it from me.’

  Deborah and Heather left after an early lunch and I can only say that I was relieved by their departure. I had asked whether they had considered putting in a manager to run the place but Deborah was having none of it.

  ‘A clean sweep with a new broom, eh, Heather?’ she boomed, almost making the flat windows rattle in their frames. ‘That’s the best way. Time to do all the things that being tied to the old place has stopped us doing.’

  I wanted to ask about the person running it while they were away. Deborah had said they were more than competent so perhaps they would fancy taking it on with her as a silent partner, but one look at Heather’s face silenced me. Mingled with her sadness and pain I could see hope. Hope that she would be a part of the new venture her lifelong companion was so meticulously planning. I couldn’t be the one to put a spanner in the works, so I said nothing.

  ‘Promise you’ll let me know how Friday goes, won’t you?’ I insisted as they got ready to leave.

  ‘Of course,’ said Deborah, ‘as long as you promise to come and see us before you make a final decision. I can see that you’ve got the perfect set-up here but if you were feeling a hankering for the old smoke, then this might be the perfect opportunity to come back.’

  There and then I didn’t have an answer to give her. I hadn’t missed the city at all and my trip back to see Henry had made me realise just how much nicer the sedate calm of my little hometown was. But perhaps, said a little voice at the back of my mind, perhaps you would like it if you were the owner of the City Crafting Café, fulfilling your dreams on a much larger scale.

  ‘I’ll try,’ I promised, ‘if I can get away, I’ll come.’

  ‘So,’ said Jemma, sidling over as I waved the pair of them off, ‘what did Deborah say? Did she give you the seal of approval?’

  Jemma was another one full of hope. I looked at the expectation in her eyes. She and Tom were doing their utmost to make a success of the Cherry Tree and were undoubtedly frustrated by my reluctance to commit to more regular sessions.

  ‘She loved it,’ I told her honestly. ‘She loved the Café and the crafting area.’

  Jemma clapped her hands together and let out an excited little squeal.

  ‘As far as Deborah is concerned there’s absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t get going and set up some regular meetings.’

  ‘So?’ Jemma asked, plucking at my elbow, ‘are you going to get on with it? You did say that now your dad is on the mend and if Deborah said yes, then you would get cracking before everyone lost interest, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did,’ I nodded. What else could I say? ‘I’m going to start preparing my next session right now, as long as you can spare me?’

  ‘Of course she can spare you,’ Angela said as she swooped past with someone’s lunch order. ‘We can manage.’

  ‘
There you are then!’ Jemma laughed as she ushered me across the Café floor. ‘Off you go, get planning!’

  I looked at the array of ideas and materials spread across the tables but my mind was no closer to deciding what we would be making next than it was to saying yes or no to Deborah’s gargantuan suggestion.

  I surreptitiously watched Jemma and Angela at work in the Café. The pair already operated like a well-oiled machine. I could see that Angela had lost her pale, pasty pallor and she had also gained a few pounds, although I had no idea how; she never stood still long enough to let the calories pile up. By contrast Jemma was looking a little peaky, but it wasn’t easy juggling the Café, a home, a marriage and an Ella.

  She was the one person in my life I had always been able to talk to about my professional hopes and dreams without fear of question or ridicule, but not this time. There was no way I could even hint at Deborah’s suggestion to either her or Tom. I knew I was going to have to figure this one out on my own.

  ‘Have you finished already?’ Jemma asked as she watched me tidying up and pulling on a jumper. ‘That was quick!’

  ‘Almost,’ I lied. ‘I’m just popping out to see Mum and Dad.’

  ‘OK,’ she beamed, ‘but don’t be too long. If you hurry we could get the posters copied and up by the end of the day.’

  I found Mum and Dad in the garden, sitting together on the swinging seat I had bought them as a wedding anniversary present a couple of years before.

  ‘Hello, you,’ Dad smiled, levering himself upright and patting the empty space next to him. ‘This is a lovely surprise. We haven’t seen you since, oh now let’s think, yesterday wasn’t it, Pam?’

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ Mum chastised, ‘you should be grateful she cares! I saw Ben’s mum in the butcher’s at the weekend. She says she hasn’t had even so much as a postcard from him since he went to Spain to see his father.’

  I had been doing my utmost not to think about him but the mere mention of his name and the memory of how our Skype session had ended sent the colour flooding back to my face and neck.

  ‘I didn’t know you knew his mother.’ I swallowed.

  ‘I don’t particularly well. We used to sit next to each other at the WI meetings sometimes,’ Mum sniffed by way of explanation.

  Mum had been true to her word and given up all her clubs and meetings to look after Dad and I couldn’t help wondering if she missed it all or regretted making such a speedy and dramatic swathe of cuts through her social life.

  ‘Are you missing it, Mum, all your friends and coffee mornings and things?’

  ‘Nope,’ she said firmly, standing up and straightening her lilac linen shirt, ‘I still see my friends when I want to. To be honest, darling, I’m rather enjoying the freedom and spending all the extra time with Daddy.’

  Daddy! She bent down and gave him the kind of kiss no offspring should be privy to.

  ‘I’ll go and make some green tea,’ she said coquettishly, flashing Dad a little smile over her shoulder when she reached the house.

  This was the first time Dad and I had been alone together since he’d been discharged from the hospital and I sat waiting for him to tell me what a nightmare it was having Mum in his pocket all day, but he said no such thing.

  ‘So,’ I sighed, ‘how’s it all going? How are the pair of you getting on together?’

  ‘Fine,’ he laughed, ‘great actually! It’s like we’ve turned the clock back thirty years. I should have had a stroke years ago.’

  I scowled at him, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the first time he’d said that and it still wasn’t funny.

  ‘Sorry,’ he nudged, ‘what’s up with you? You look a bit down in the dumps. I thought your friends were coming up from London today. Have they gone already?’

  ‘Yes and yes,’ I nodded as Mum returned with the tea and some healthy nibbles in a bowl. ‘No cake?’

  ‘No, Lizzie,’ she frowned, ‘no cake and you should be thinking about your health a bit more, you know. You have your dad’s genes as well as mine.’

  ‘She’s right, love,’ Dad agreed.

  Oh great. This was all I needed, the pair of them ganging up on me. Next they’d be asking how loud my biological clock was ticking and the afternoon would be complete. I grabbed a handful of what looked like sawdust and slumped back on the seat. ‘So,’ said Dad, picking up the thread, ‘what did your friends think of the Cherry Tree? I take it from your expression it wasn’t a successful trip?’

  ‘No, it was fine, more than fine actually,’ I told them, ‘they loved the place. Deborah said there was no reason why I couldn’t turn the sewing and crafting into a very successful little business.’

  ‘But?’ Mum asked, looking at me expectantly over the top of her glasses.

  ‘No, but, well not really; she dropped a couple of bombshells that’s all and they’ve set me thinking.’

  I explained to Mum and Dad about Heather’s illness and Deborah’s suggestion that I could buy the City Crafting Café myself. They sat quietly and listened. Mum didn’t interrupt once.

  ‘So that’s it,’ I shrugged, ‘obviously I haven’t mentioned her idea to Jemma or Tom; they’d be devastated if they knew I was even considering it.’

  ‘Well,’ said Dad, ‘I can see why you’re looking so glum! You’ve had quite a confusing day, old girl. What do you think, Pam?’

  Mum set down her cup and saucer, deep in thought. I was sure she was going to tell me to think big and go for it. The purchase and subsequent ownership of the City Crafting Café in London of all places would have been something she would have taken huge delight in boasting about in the ‘olden days’.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘your friend has already established this business and it’s running successfully in London with a regular client base.’

  Here we go, I smiled, old habits die hard.

  ‘All you have to do is sign the paperwork, pick up the keys and carry on where she leaves off, is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I confirmed. I could see her point. It was a peach of an offer. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But then there’s nothing there for you to do, darling!’ she laughed. ‘I thought you’d joined forces with Jemma and Tom because you wanted to build something from scratch, something creative that you could truly call your own.’

  Oh my god! So she did understand. Talk about a thunderbolt.

  ‘But this place has a reputation already,’ Dad chipped in, ‘and Lizzie could make some changes and turn it into what she would want it to be.’

  ‘But will this regular client base share her vision?’ Mum said with a shake of her head. ‘What if they don’t like the changes and go elsewhere and in the time it takes to re-establish, the finances take a dip. It’s a very big risk.’

  They both turned to me, but I didn’t have an answer. I could see the sense in what they were both saying. The Cherry Tree offered the potential to do things my way, from scratch, but it was going to be a hard slog to make it succeed and raise enough of an income to live off and there was always the risk that one day Ben might walk back through the door and take custody of my heart all over again.

  The City Crafting Café, on the other hand, was good to go. I could just walk in and keep it ticking over, but was that, as Mum suggested, going to be enough? Even though I had some money behind me, buying Deborah out would be a huge financial risk and I didn’t know if I was willing to take on that amount of pressure or commitment.

  Chapter 22

  A few days passed and I was still no closer to making a decision, but I had spoken to Deborah nonetheless and found her uncharacteristically tearful, her voice full of relief.

  ‘Not cancer,’ she breathed a definite wobble in her voice, ‘it’s definitely not cancer. They’ve still got to figure out exactly what is wrong, but it isn’t the worst.’

  ‘Oh, Deborah,’ I exclaimed, ‘that’s wonderful news! Can I talk to Heather? Is she there?’

  ‘No, she’s at the hospital having more test
s.’

  ‘She must be so relieved!’ I smiled.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe the change in her,’ Deborah laughed, ‘she almost looks like my old girl again. It’s such a weight off her shoulders – both our shoulders.’

  ‘And how are things with the business?’ There was no point beating about the bush.

  ‘Ticking over. Have you thought any more about it?’

  ‘To be honest I’ve thought of little else,’ I admitted, ‘but I still haven’t come to any kind of decision. Is that all right?’

  ‘Of course it is. You take your time. I have one other interested party but I promise I won’t do a thing until you give me the nod either way.’

  ‘Thanks, Deborah,’ I said gratefully, ‘I appreciate your understanding.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said sensibly, ‘it’s an enormous decision for you to make, I understand that. But whatever you decide, it won’t alter our friendship, I hope you realise that, Lizzie?’

  I ended the call with mixed feelings. I was overjoyed that Heather’s illness was not as serious as first thought but felt surprisingly alarmed to learn that someone else was poking around the Crafting Café, but who could blame them? The sale was a unique opportunity to buy a thriving bang-on-trend business in a prime location and with an established and highly prized reputation. Anyone with half a brain looking for a retail opportunity would be clamouring to get their hands on the place.

  Now the pressure was really on and I felt my stress levels crank up a notch as I thrashed out the pros and cons of the situation. What I really needed was a chat with my best friend. Perhaps it was time to risk sounding Jemma out, whatever the consequences. As long as I reassured her that I had no intention of withdrawing the money I’d already invested in the Cherry Tree, then surely she’d understand, wouldn’t she?

  ‘Ella, you said that if I let you come to the Café today you would sit and colour and not get in the way!’

  Jemma’s tone suggested now perhaps wasn’t the best time for a heart to heart after all. It was far earlier than she usually arrived and she never had Ella in tow, even during the holidays.