‘Your mum worries about you, Jess. Says that husband of yours has drained your confidence.’
‘Not sure I ever had any.’
‘Your mum says no one could beat you on the hockey pitch.’
I stopped walking, shaking my head. ‘You’re going back fifteen years. Mum always refers to those halcyon days as some sort of marker of my only achievement. I haven’t played hockey since I was a chippy teenager.’
‘She said you were.’
‘What? Chippy?’
Kamran laughed. ‘Yup.’
‘Yes, well, you fall in love at eighteen with the boy everyone’s after. Get pregnant and that’s it. Stuck in rural bliss for the next fifteen years…’ I trailed off.
‘Well, here’s your chance. Come on, Jess. I tell you what, if the idea of costing it all out is frightening you, why don’t you just put together five puds that we could have on the very first menu when we open? Make them, set them before us and we’ll be totally honest as to what we think.’
‘OK. Will five be enough?’
‘It’s going to be an upmarket place,’ Kamran said earnestly. ‘Less is more and all that. We don’t want to have a menu as long as your arm – smacks of half the stuff being frozen, just ready to defrost if ordered by a customer. I’ll ask Fabian to do the same with starters. He’s bloody good at those. Five starters and five puds and then we’ll sit down with them, taste them and pull them apart.’
‘Not sure I like the idea of that.’ I pulled a face.
‘Get used to it, Jess. There’s always going to be someone being derogatory about The White House. Some punters delight in leaving one-star reviews for the very best restaurants.’
‘I’ll just curl up and die if someone writes something awful about my puddings.’
‘Well, they will.’
‘Oh, thanks very much for that.’
‘You need to get a thicker skin, Jess. Both you and Fabian will have to toughen up a bit. Over the years I’ve had to do the same over what we sell in our Frozen outlets…’
‘That’s not the same, surely? Your frozen chips and lemon meringue pie?’
‘I don’t see why not. My family has made a great success of more than one business, Jess. I’m not prepared for this venture to be anything less…’
Blimey, I thought, had Kamran Sattar been at the same school of business as Sir Alan Sugar?
As if reading my thoughts, Kamran turned and, although he smiled and bent to kiss my cheek before heading for his car, added, ‘…or you’re fired!’
12
‘Jess?’
I was arrested, mid bend, attaching Arthur’s leash to his collar. The very wordarrested, in light of my parking on double yellow lines and what happened next, the previous evening, had me immediately standing to attention, looking over my shoulder to where a woman was exiting the huge oak front door of Hudson House. I shaded my eyes against the weak spring sunshine but still couldn’t work out who it was calling my name and heading down the steps towards me.
‘Jess? It’s me, Serena.’
‘Gosh, Serena? Goodness. How are you? I thought you were in New Zealand? Married? To some sheep farmer.’
‘Oh, keep up, will you?’ The woman laughed. ‘You’d know what I was up to if you’d kept in touch. Been back in Beddingfield a good six months.’ I heard a slight antipodean lilt masking the West Yorkshire accent. ‘You stopped writing to me.’ Her voice was accusatory. ‘After you didn’t reply to at least three of my letters, I gave up on you.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I spoke truthfully. Serena Atkinson – my partner in crime with the frogspawn incident I’d recalled only the other evening. Serena Endacott she was, now that she’d married and settled in Otago, South Island with a sheep farmer. This woman, slight and blonde haired, had been my best friend and ally all through the high school years at Beddingfield Comp. I’d missed her terribly when she’d set off with her pack on her back intending a year’s trip to Thailand, Bali, Australia and New Zealand. I was pregnant with Lola, and about to marry Dean, and it had been easy to say to Serena: ‘Oh, of course I’d have come with you if I hadn’t been in this situation…’ knowing that in actuality, homebird that I was, I’d never have been brave enough to up sticks and leave the village, my mum and my sisters.
‘What areyoudoing here?’ Both of us spoke as one as Serena arrived at my side.
‘I work here,’ I said. ‘Well, I did.’ My heart gave a little involuntary plummet as I spoke the words out loud. ‘I was manager here until this morning.’
