His grin gets impossibly wider and I’mcertainthat thought was written right across my face, and I follow his lead on changes of subject.
‘We were going to serve modern-day twists on things people remember from childhood. I’ve been trying to perfect a homemade malt loaf. Coffee kisses, bread and butter pudding. The simple pleasure of a chocolate cornflake cake. Cakes made with Angel Delight, which still exists and is available to buy and most people don’t even know that.’
‘I don’t think it’s that most people don’t know, I think it’s more that the availability of Angel Delight becomes irrelevant after the age of ten.’
I can’t help laughing at his earnestness. ‘But it shouldn’t, right? Why do we ever grow out of things? Because the world tells us they’re for children, but why? Why should we stop enjoying things that once made us happy?’
‘Or maybe it’s because we become adults, we earn a salary, and we can afford more exciting desserts than Angel Delight.’
‘But once upon a time, there was nothing better than that packet of flavoured powder sticking out of the cupboard, and there’s value in remembering that, even if wecanafford gold-dusted tiramisu with the finest liqueur. We wanted to create somewhere that reminded people of simpler times. I wanted to serve food that people haven’t had for years but, with one bite, can bring memories rushing back and transport you back in time. Rice pudding. Jam Roly Poly. Spotted dick.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘You can’t serve that without a sense of humour and an ability to keep a straight face.’
I choke on a laugh again. He has an uncanny ability to make a joke about everything. ‘School cake with pink custard, or?—’
‘Lumpy pink custard?’
‘Naturally. It wouldn’t be old-fashioned custard any other way.’ I grin at him. ‘How about homemade Battenberg, something that’s gone out of fashion lately, or the humble iced bun, all washed down with chocolate or strawberry milk, or Ribena or orange squash, and a packet of Iced Gems or Rainbow Drops. Things we feel like we can’t enjoy as adults because they’re too childish.’
‘I’ve gone from doubting you to desperately wanting to visit. You’d tell me if I was drooling, right?’ He jokingly swipes a hand over his mouth, making me laugh again. ‘This soundsgorgeous, and you… Your belief in it is inspiring. The one thing the world needs is more joy in it and you want to do something that brings people joy. Don’t give that up because of a setback.’
It’s slightly more than a setback. A setback is a delivery being late or a dish going wrong, not…this. At the same time, I don’t think he’s trying to trivialise it, but rather put a positive spin on it, and I appreciate the way he effectively lets me borrow his sunny outlook every time I’m with him. It would be nice to fully embrace being that positive all the time, and it does make me think about the future. His reaction has reminded me of how much I loved our plans for The Nostalgia Café and how I’m not ready to give up on that dream yet…
‘What about you?’ I ask. His leg is so near and the material of his neon pyjamas is soft and tempting, and I let the backs of my fingers rub across the partying dinosaurs. ‘What does a man who wears cartoon dino pyjamas miss from childhood?’
‘Ah, I don’t know.’ His eyes are on my fingers on his good leg, but he doesn’t look like he’s complaining. Instead, he lets his head drop back and sinks even further into the seat, and his eyes drift closed as he thinks about it. ‘My mum’s lemon meringue pie. It was just me and my mum growing up, and she used to make it for every special occasion. She was terrible at cakes, so for every birthday, I had lemon meringue pie with candles on it. Every time I got a good school report, every time something nice happened, she’d celebrate it by making the pie. It was her father’s recipe that he’d passed down to her. It wasn’t anything fancy – just an old-fashioned lemon meringue pie with pastry that was always burnt around the edges and meringue that was crispy on top and marshmallowy underneath.’
‘When did you last have it?’
‘Years ago. Decades, probably. My mum’s been gone for over fifteen years, and commercially produced ones aren’t the same. They’re too sweet, or too tart, or the meringue’s too crunchy or wrong in some other way. I gave up on trying to find one that was anything like it long ago.’
I find myself studying his face as he talks. Long-forgotten memories make his blue eyes glint with emotion, the faraway smile softening every feature and making something grow warmer insidemychest. ‘I could make you one.’
‘What?’ His head snaps up and he blinks to clear his vision.
‘Lemon meringue pie. I could make one.’ I look around the small space I’d have to work with. ‘It would take some creative engineering in this tiny kitchen, but I have a hob and an oven and all my baking equipment, and my grandma’s vintage recipe for a lemon meringue pie.’
‘You don’t have?—’
‘I want to.’ And I do, I realise. I want to see his face when he tastes something that reminds him of being young and carefree, because I get the feeling that, despite his cheery front, he’s far from carefree in reality. I pat his leg as a signal to move them so I can squeeze out. I step past the van’s tiny kitchenette and kneel down in front of the box I’d shoved aside earlier. I move the bowl of broken teapot pieces and push binbags out of the way until I can open the box of baking equipment.
‘Did I do that?’ Reece lifts a leg to point a toe towards the broken teapot shards. ‘I have a vague memory of hearing something jangling when I fell over your bags the other night.’
‘Oh, no, my ex did that when he lobbed it from a second-floor window with nothing but a plastic bag to protect it. I was going to throw it in your skip, if you don’t mind.’ I recount the tale of the mascot teapot as I root through the box and find the tin of my grandma’s handwritten recipe cards. It’s starting to rust around the edges now, but it was the most-used item in her kitchen when I was growing up, and I’m flooded with happy memories every time I see it.
I put the tin down on the table next to Reece’s leg and rifle through the stack of cards, some stained with flour or smears of chocolate that couldn’t be removed without rubbing away the recipe itself, until I find the one for lemon meringue pie with my grandma’s scrawled ‘extra sugar!’ in big letters.
‘I approve of any recipe that advises extra sugar.’ He reads the card I hold out to him. ‘You really want to try that inhere?’
Okay, the space is tiny, but I have everything I need, albeit on a smaller scale than I’m used to. I’ll have to nip into the village to get some ingredients, but baking is one thing I’ve always loved, one thing that makes me feel likeme, and I could do with feeling more like myself at the moment. Jared was kind enough to fit the campervan out with everything needed for cooking, so I may as well make the most of it. ‘Yeah, why not? It might make me feel at home.’
He looks up and meets my eyes and every trace of jest is gone from his face. ‘Good.’
‘Good,’ I repeat, but my voice is hoarse and the gravity of one simple word has made my mouth go dry. We hold eye contact for longer than necessary as the smile spreads slowly back across his face, making lines crinkle at the edges of his mouth again.
I’m standing and he’s still sitting, and looking at him from this angle is doing something to me. His light-brown hair has dried wavy after the shower, and my fingers twitch with a desire to run them through it, and I give myself a stern talking-to. My relationship has ended this week. It’s far too soon to be eventhinkingabout running my fingers through someone else’s hair, and whatever I’m feeling now is temporary madness brought on by… fumes of the campervan or something. I don’t know exactly what fumes a campervan can give off, but it must be responsible in some way, right?
‘I suppose I should go, shouldn’t I?’ He puts the recipe tin back on the table, and my mind goes blank as I try to come up with an excuse for him not to leave yet, and he must take my silence as an agreement, because he gets to his feet and then involuntarily gasps in pain when the movement jolts his leg.
