‘You sure?’
She managed a tentative smile. ‘I’m sure. Go ahead.’ She motioned to Jonah that it was all right to come over and reminded Leo that there was a specials board to broaden his choices of what to eat and drink.
Leo smiled at Jonah as he came and sat with him. ‘What would you recommend?’ They looked over to the board next to which was another board filled with postcards from locals’ holidays over the years. It was jam-packed as it was and Leo wondered how they ever fitted anything new on there.
‘I had a chocolate brownie – Jo’s are the best,’ Jonah advised.
‘You know, I think I’ve earned a brownie today …’ Leo recited his order to Maeve and added on a coffee. ‘I had to work doubly hard with no helper.’
Maeve seemed about to lecture him but her lifted shoulders dropped down. ‘I worry about him, he’s eleven, spending time with a strange man definitely wasn’t on my radar. Not that you’re strange.’ She pulled a face, and shaking her head went off to fulfil the order.
‘I’m glad she doesn’t think I’m strange,’ he said conspiratorially to Jonah. ‘Do you think she’ll ever let you come back to the boathouse?’ he asked more quietly when Maeve disappeared into the kitchen section at the back of the café which was compact but well-organised with a counter at the front, a selection of different-sized tables with chairs and a window seat with plenty of scatter cushions.
‘Don’t know, she was pretty mad.’
When Maeve brought over the chocolate brownie she must’ve sensed what they were talking about. ‘He can come down after school,’ she told Leo.
‘Are you sure?’
‘He can go to the boathouse but I’m not ready for him to go in the sea with anyone.’ She gave Jonah a look that suggested she wouldn’t tolerate any protest. ‘He’s having swimming lessons, I’d like him to be a really strong swimmer before he tries out anything else.’
‘Understandable,’ Leo replied.
When she went to fetch his coffee Leo turned to Jonah. ‘So it’s not a case ofnever.’
But Jonah had spotted a friend outside when there was a knock on the café’s window and was already on to his next request. ‘Mum. Can I go and hang out with him? I’ve done all my homework.’
‘Go on then,’ she softened as she brought over Leo’s macchiato. ‘But stay on the pier, don’t go down to the beach,’ she called after her son.
Leo admired the fancy shape drawn in the froth on top of the coffee. ‘It must be hard.’
‘What, the design on the coffee?’ She was toying with the cloth in her hand, one eye outside beyond the window watching her son.
‘Coming back, settling in to a new town for Jonah, parenting. Is his dad around?’ He already knew the answer and he’d obviously hit a nerve, because she muttered that no he wasn’t and that was it, conversation over. And so while Jonah was outside he devoured the brownie which was as good as he remembered they’d always been when Molly had been in charge, and enjoyed the coffee, failing to catch Maeve’s attention again until finally she walked past at the same time as Jo served the next customer and Jo told her to take a ten-minute break. She had no choice but to sit with Leo now or seem rather rude.
‘I should make sure his homework is in his bag.’ She looked over at the table her son had abandoned in his haste to sit with Leo.
‘Or let him do it when he comes in. Not many people in here and plenty of tables.’
Finally she slumped down in the chair, her excuses exhausted. She looked shattered, perhaps from the move, or the day at work or attempting to juggle parenthood with everything else. ‘Again, I’m sorry.’ She covered her eyes with her hands but took them away when Jo, without having asked, delivered a big mug of milky tea and set it down in front of her new member of staff. ‘I’m being really rude to you, I know I am, Leo,’ she went on when Jo left them to it. ‘I really don’t mean to be.’
‘Are you going to blame it on being used to a big cityrather than a small town and bay on the south coast?’ But he was smiling when he said it.
Sighing she said, ‘No, I’m going to blame it on being a miserable cow.’
‘Glad to hear it, the honest truth.’ He got a smack on the arm for that but it broke the ice and they talked about her time away from here, her time in Canada, about Jonah and her desperation for this to be the right move for the both of them.
‘I know I’m not the only one who left Stepping Stone Bay,’ she said when they’d exhausted the topic of schools and problems with kids settling in when they had to change from one to another.
‘You weren’t. Nina left. Adrian too.’ And now they were both back.
‘I think a few of us bottled things up.’ She shook her head. ‘There was plenty left unsaid.’
He didn’t pry into her remark. But she was right. As a group of friends, they’d been happy one minute and then the next? They’d all tried to move on in whatever way they could.
‘You never left,’ she said to him. ‘You’ve stayed all this time.’
He nodded. ‘I’d always wanted the boathouse my parents ran, my grandparents before them. I didn’t see how I could pick it up and take it anywhere else. So I stayed.’
