Beth’s stomach clenched.
‘Everything OK?’ Angela asked gently.
‘Yes,’ Beth said quickly. ‘All good. Just finishing up.’
Angela smiled. ‘I’ve had three people ask if you’re staying.’
Beth blinked. ‘Staying?’
‘Long term.’ Angela shifted Ruairi, who immediately grabbed a fistful of her hair. ‘I told them we’re hoping so, but I didn’t want to speak for you.’
A thousand answers crowded Beth’s brain.
I don’t know.
I’m scared.
I can’t promise anything.
Please don’t make this mean something yet.
Instead, she said, ‘I like it here.’
Angela’s smile widened. ‘Good. We like having you.’ She turned to go, then paused. ‘And Beth? You don’t have to be brilliant all the time. Just … be here.’
After she’d gone, Beth sank onto the metal stool by the prep table.
Be here.
She stared at her hands. They were steady. Capable. These hands had cooked for hundreds, maybe thousands of people. They knew what they were doing.
It was the rest of her that felt unmoored, like a small boat on a rocky sea.
Later, when the pub had quietened and Rose had gone home, Beth slipped back to her quarters. An hour or so of unpacking and sorting might help clear her mind of negative thoughts.
With a pair of scissors, she slashed at tape and unearthed items she’d already forgotten about. Ceramic dishes for storing jewellery – not that she owned much – candle holders and photo frames. All empty, bar one. A snap of her and Luke, grinning at the camera, eyes sparkling with joy. Taken several years ago, before the joy shrivelled up and died.
Beth stared at the photo. Tried to bolster her current mood with a smidgeon of how she’d felt back then.
‘You’re wallowing again,’ she muttered to herself, shoving the photo back in the box. ‘If Diana were here, she’d give you a bollocking.’
Half an hour later, Beth surveyed the living room with a satisfied eye. She’d found a few plaid throws, a jade-green tufted rug and a print of Edinburgh’s rainbow-coloured Victoria Street that brightened the otherwise dull white wall.
A sense of calm washed over her. It was still early days, but Beth prided herself on not being a quitter. And it was normal to feel jittery starting a new job in an unfamiliar place.
Turning off the table lamps, Beth returned to the warmth of the pub. She inhaled the smell of beer and pie, smiled at the animated customers chatting together and felt the shard of tension in her chest subside.
She spotted the child: a little boy, engrossed in colouring in a picture with chunky crayons. A knot of tears threatened to overwhelm her, but she swallowed them down.
For the first time since arriving in Cranley, Beth allowed herself to think a dangerous thought.Maybe this could work.
She didn’t push it any further than that.
One step at a time, Diana had said. And Beth valued her friend’s wisdom more than anyone else’s on the planet.
You can do this,she said quietly.One step at a time.
Chapter Five
