Holding my breath, I watch her through the hatch. Sad as it is, during a quiet moment at work yesterday, I Googled how to be around someone who is shy (what did we do without Google?). Most of the various blogs and websites advised not to try and be their best friend overnight, forget small talk, find a subject that makes them tick. Ask questions that are more open-ended, not questions that merely require a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. One site suggested talking about similar interests so mentally I was thinking we could at least talk about what we were going to cook. ‘You’re over-thinking again,’ Harriet said, glancing at my screen. I knew Jamie would have said the same. ‘People can sniff someone trying too hard a mile off! If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, we all try to bend and contort ourselves to fit in with others, but at the end of the day, it’s a waste of time. I’m so relieved to be sixty-two, Holly. Finally, I’ve learned to be myself, and if no one else likes it, well frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.’
I hear everyone saying hello to Lauren, before asking her if she’s new, just as they did with me. I sense her increasing fear and discomfort and am tempted to rescue her from the questions. She returns with the empty jug, her breathing uneven. ‘If you refill it and take it back, that would be great,’ I say.
‘Yes, Chef.’
I resist the urge to say ‘well done’ when she returns.
‘Lauren, can you give Nigel his chicken?’ Scottie asks. ‘He’s the one sitting at the far end, the one who arrived on his scooter singing.’
Lauren carefully takes the plate from Scottie and walks so slowly out of the kitchen that I’m certain by the time she reaches Nigel the chicken will be cold.
‘At least she’s doing it,’ Scottie whispers to me. ‘I’ll keep an eye on her, give her stuff to do too.’
When she returns, she asks me if she can go to the loo. ‘You don’t need to ask, Lauren,’ I say, before watching her leave, her body language dejected. I catch Scottie’s eye. ‘Believe me,’ he says, ‘I’ve seen this all before. She’ll be OK.’
‘Even Tom was shy when he arrived,’ adds Monika.
As Scottie and Monika continue to dish up, I put a large bowl of cream and chocolate over a pan of gently simmering water, thinking I’m not about to lose weight any time soon, and also unable to imagine Tom being shy, especially when he walks into the kitchen and asks me to marry him. For the third time today.
‘Steady on,’ Angus replies, ‘you haven’t even been on a date yet.’
Tom suggests we could go to Greggs for our first date. ‘I’ll buy you a sausage roll.’
‘Deal,’ I reply, with a high-five.
After the visitors have come and gone, Angus, Lauren and I sit down for lunch with the remaining volunteers. After surviving the usual mayhem of the morning, starting with Scottie throwing a tantrum because the delivery van turned up ten minutes late, and Tom cross that Sander was poorly because this meant no cinnamon buns today, I realise I’m beginning to feel at home here now. Scottie’s unpredictable temper no longer alarms me. As Monika said earlier, we’d find it odd if he was suddenly nice to us. ‘His temper is like a suit he wears to work, Holly. Without it, he’d feel naked, exposed.’
‘Who’s naked?’ Tom had asked hopefully, poking his head through the hatch. ‘Is Holly naked?’
‘That would seriously put you off your food,’ I’d replied back, my heart lifting when Tom laughed, saying nothing would put him off his food, not even Angus naked. I love seeing how much this café means to Tom. He tells me he lives for Saturday, when he can come here and see Nina and his friends. ‘And you, Holly. You’re my friend now.’
‘Friends for life,’ I say.
As for Lauren, she hasn’t said more than two words to me this morning, but both Angus and I have stopped trying as hard to keep the conversation going. If she doesn’t want to talk, that’s OK. To be honest, I did wonder if she might show up after last weekend. ‘She’s probably enjoying it more than we think,’ Nina had said to me earlier this morning. Enjoy might be exaggerating. Yet while Lauren looks so sad, and I’m certain she’s also in a fair amount of pain, as I often see her rubbing her back, maybe Nina has a point. No one is forcing her to be here. I watch her now. She certainly doesn’t volunteer here for the food. She has barely eaten anything. She picks at her fruit salad like a sparrow.
‘Did you ever play the game,’ Angus interrupts my thoughts, ‘where you spin the knife, saying, “When the knife stops, whoever it points to is going to meet…”’ Angus spins the knife, before asking Lauren who she’d love to meet.
‘Harry Potter,’ she murmurs.
‘It’s going to stop at me,’ Tom says, before pointing the knife at himself. He claps. ‘I win. I’m going to meet him.’
‘You’re a rotten awful cheat, Tom,’ Angus says. ‘Isn’t he, Lauren?’ She doesn’t reply.
‘I haven’t read any Harry Potter books,’ I admit.
‘None? Not even the first?’ says Craig.
‘No.’
‘That’s weird, even I’ve read one.’
‘It’s not weird,’ Lauren says with surprising defiance.
‘I’ve seen the films,’ I add.
‘She wrote all them books in a café didn’t she?’ continues Craig. ‘Didn’t she write them on a paper napkin?’ He lifts his. ‘To think, I could write a masterpiece on this scrap of paper and change my life.’ Craig’s skin is ravaged, his ears decimated by piercings, and he’s so skinny, there’s nothing of him. I want to take him home, run him a bath, give him a warm blanket and a baked potato oozing with cheese.
‘I once gave writing a go,’ Angus admits, ‘between jobs. I fancied myself as an author, the next Dan Brown, but I didn’t get beyond chapter one. Attention span of a flea, well that’s what my wife, or soon to be ex-wife, said.’ Scottie flinches. Nina looks disappointed, irritable. Defusing the tension, Angus continues, ‘So who’s your favourite Harry Potter character, Lauren?’
