As Laurie cuts the cake into generous slices for us all, I find myself making a wish for better things to come for her. Maybe one day a holiday in Hawaii. Maybe one day a family of her own and her forever home, with her two ginger cats. Maybe one day she’ll feel safe enough to wear a dress, if she wants to.
I make a wish for Angus and his family to be happy. For Benjie to keep well and out of hospital. For Angus never to darken the doors of St Mary’s emergency department ever again. Or darken Scottie’s door ever again, for that matter.
I make a wish for Craig to find some accommodation. For Nina to keep Soul Food going, because this café makes the world a better place.
And while I’m at it, I make a wish for myself too, that Jamie is happy and at peace, wherever he may be. And that maybe one day, I will find someone to love, again.
I will find the right person, at the right time.
34
It’s been a month since Laurie’s birthday, and here I am, still working for Harriet, still heading to the shops on a Friday, like I always do, to grab us some lunch. On a Friday Harriet and I allow ourselves a special treat in the office; chocolate, or custard tarts are a favourite. This evening I’m going on another online date, and this time my friends and mother won’t be sending good luck texts as if it’s the event of the year. I’m not about to broadcast to everyone that I’m going out for one drink with a stranger. I feel far less anxious about online dating now. I tell myself that it’s one drink after work with someone I don’t know, and if we don’t click, I’ll survive. I’ll go home to Bruno, who is always happy to see me. My father doesn’t need to fall down the stairs again. Milla doesn’t need to invent a crisis. But while I don’t broadcast my dates to friends, I do find myself making a wish, as I did on Laurie’s birthday, that I might find my somebody to love. Thatthisdate might be different.
Tomorrow I’ll be going to the café, and when I arrive, I’ll enjoy my usual cup of strong coffee and a warm cinnamon bun with Laurie. And then, in the evening, I am heading over to see Milla and Dave. Kate and Emily are used to seeing me now on a Saturday night. The moment I arrive they are waiting up for me, with Bruno, whom they look after every Saturday now, while I’m at Soul Food. Bruno loves them almost as much as me. They argue over whose turn it is to feed him, or who gets to hold the lead. I tell Milla I don’t want them ever to grow up, ‘especially not into teens’. Milla agrees.
I smile, knowing Jamie and I will always feel different about routine. Routine keeps me going. It helps me feel grounded. Safe, even. Yet when I think about the past year, before I worked at Soul Food, I realise that my routine, and I, have changed. I have new friends. My love of cooking has been revived. No longer am I so scared of being alone. No longer do I feel as lonely. This morning, when I woke up with the sun shining through my bedroom window, I felt alive. I felt more myself than I have done in years.
And it’s all thanks to Soul Food. ‘I want to help others,’ I’d said to Nina, when she’d asked me during my interview why I wanted to be a volunteer. I now understand why that response fell flat. I can see her face now, unimpressed by that old chestnut. Of course, volunteering helps others, but the truth is working in the café has filled a deep void in my life. Before I met Lauren and Angus my life was empty. Before I met everyone at the café, my world was small. I’d forgotten who I was. During that interview, I was crying out for help, desperately seeking connection to others, and to myself.
I never expected to make such important friends in the past year. Firstly, there’s Laurie, someone whom I cannot imagine not being in my life now. Then there’s Nina, Monika, Tom; even Scottie and I have become close. During these past few months, really ever since Angus moved out, Monika and I have noticed he has been far less vile in the kitchen. Clearly having his home back to himself, and not having to worry about his brother’s drinking, job and marriage, is a burden lifted off his shoulders. ‘I hope Angus doesn’t separate from his wifeeveragain,’ Monika said to me last weekend, when Scottie thanked us all for our help. Monika and I had nearly fainted at those two words.
Monika is unaware I had feelings for Angus. Nina is the only one who knows he stole a piece of my heart. And possibly Scottie, but he’s kind enough not to mention a word. I still look through the hatch and expect to see Angus talking and playing the fool with Tom. I still expect him to walk into the kitchen and nick a chip from the roasting tin. I miss him coming over to the pudding station and keeping me company. Often, I find myself smiling, recalling a funny story he told us. When I’m out walking along the river, towards Hammersmith Bridge, I picture us dancing that night to Belinda Carlisle’s ‘Live Your Life Be Free’.
Occasionally I ask Nina how he is. When she mentioned he was thinking about moving out of London, to the country, perhaps near the coast, that he and Sophie wanted a new start for their family, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I felt sad. While I don’t see Angus anymore, that piece of news somehow felt like the final goodbye. I know Milla feels protective; he goes back to his family, and what am I left with? But I don’t feel that way, at least not anymore. I will never regret our friendship. Before we met my life was grey. He came into it when I needed him, and he needed me. I realise now, so clearly, that Angus helped me to fall in love with life again. Angus, Laurie, and Soul Food showed me a way back to love, a way back to myself.
‘’Scuse me, you couldn’t buy me some porridge could you, doll?’ says a woman, breaking my thoughts. I look down to see her sitting outside the front entrance of Waitrose in Chiswick. She looks about sixty, with straggly hair and a greyish tinge to her skin. She’s wearing a navy tracksuit finished off by odd shoes, one blue, the other black.
I’m about to walk on by, but something stops me. I recognise her. She’s the woman I saw outside Turnham Green Tube last year. ‘Sure,’ I say, thinking porridge is an odd request in the summer, but if that’s what she wants, then why not? I tell her I’ll be about ten minutes or so, that I’ll bring the porridge out to her, but she staggers to her feet, as if she can’t believe her luck that someone has spoken to her, let alone said ‘yes’. She follows me inside the supermarket, sticking uncomfortably close to my side, her beady eyes fixed on mine. I can hear the sound of her heavy breathing, the rattling wheeze in her chest that suggests she’s a heavy smoker. I think of Laurie, who still hasn’t caved in and had a cigarette. We’re training together this weekend, on Sunday morning. She’s the one that decides the routes now and where to reward ourselves with breakfast afterwards. She’s also working part-time for Nina, helping out with the cooking workshops Nina runs, teaching adults with complex mental health needs, people who don’t want to get out of bed, let alone chop an onion, how to prepare healthy meals. ‘They like her,’ Nina had confided in me. ‘Unlike me, they don’t mind Laurie bossing them about and telling them to get into the kitchen! “IfIcan do it, so canyou,” she says to them,’ Nina recounted.
Self-consciously I pick up a packet of sesame seed bagels, the ones Harriet likes, which I’ll fill with some mozzarella, tomato and basil, aware I’m being watched.
‘Honestly, I’ll bring it out to you,’ I say, hoping she’ll go away, but she’s not going to let me out of her sight now.
I might buy us some custard slices as a treat too. It is Friday after all. She nudges me in the stomach, her elbow sharp and bony. ‘You couldn’t grab me a loaf of bread, could you, pet?’
I reach for the nearest one.
‘Not the white sliced,’ she says, grabbing the packet from me and shoving it back on the shelf. ‘Tastes of nothing! I like the posh bread with seeds too. They get stuck in your teeth, mind, but better for you.’ She nods my way and I can’t help but notice she is severely lacking in the tooth department.
Anyway, I place a loaf of brown seeded bread into my basket, thinking she’s got some cheek, but admiring her for it.
‘No! I like the individual sachets,’ she says when we reach the cereal section. ‘The organic porridge. Better for you,’ she adds as if I should know. Shame on you, Holly.
And three times as expensive! Seriously!
Despite myself I shove the box of organic porridge into the basket, keen to leave now, before it costs me a week’s pay. ‘Right, that’s it,’ I say to her, something my mother used to say to me at the supermarket if I was making too many demands for chocolate and crisps. Unfortunately, we join a rather long Friday afternoon queue, giving my homeless friend plenty of time to eye the various treats sitting seductively on the shelves close to the checkout. I catch her looking at the selection of spirits and cigarettes on offer behind the till.
‘Be a doll.’ She points to a bottle of vodka.
‘No,’ I say, though I can’t stop smiling. ‘Quit while you’re ahead. Besides, I don’t have enough cash on me.’
She eyes my handbag. ‘But you lot,’ she says, as if ‘us lot’ come from another planet, ‘pay with plastic.’
I turn to her. ‘Stop pushing your luck.’
She shrugs, as if to say fair enough. ‘Can’t blame me for trying though. Most people don’t give me the time of day.’ We shuffle forward in the queue.
‘People spit on my shoes,’ she goes on, ‘or tell me to get off my arse and get a job. Like I haven’t tried!’ She tugs at the sleeve of my shirt. ‘But it’s hard when you have no address, no nothing.’
