Page 3 of The Little Board Game Café

But Peter’s mother had other ideas. She’d insisted on ‘proper’ save-the-date cards – someone from her Women In Business breakfasts ran a printing company so they’d got a discount – and she was adamant that her son and his bride should have a traditional wedding cake. Fruit cake. White icing with piped swirls. Made by a professional. She’d probably get her way. She usually did.

Emily thumbed her way through Oxfam’s self-help section. What she really needed was How to Stand Up to Your Mother-in-Law, but if such a title existed, the charity shop was out of stock. Instead she looked for books on job-hunting, selecting one title about re-writing your CV and a second entitled Surviving Unemployment. She was wondering if there might be a section on how to cope if it was your own fiancé who’d made you unemployed, when a bright-red book with bold white writing caught her eye: A Beginner’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business. Perhaps it was a sign.

With all three books tucked under her arm, she rummaged through the coat section. Several black and navy coats. A Barbour that had seen better days. Two red anoraks and a grey quilted thing that reminded her of a duvet. Eventually she settled on a lime-green woollen coat with a small collar, a fitted waist and large buttons. It was a brighter colour than she’d normally go for, but had hardly been worn and was a perfect fit. The employment gods mightn’t be smiling down on her today, but the charity shop gods certainly were.

Behind the counter, a familiar face was waiting to take her cash. Emily knew most of the volunteers in here by sight, although not by name, and this one was her favourite. She always had an encouraging word or two and she didn’t disappoint today.

‘Your own business – that sounds exciting,’ she said as she punched the prices into the till.

Emily smiled, tucking the books into her oversized handbag. ‘It would be if I could pluck up the courage.’

‘Just go for it. Sometimes you have to take a risk. Shall I put the coat in a bag for you?’

‘No, thank you. I’m going to wear it now.’

When she’d paid and the assistant had snipped off the tag for her, Emily went out into the crisp spring sunshine, pulling on the lime-green coat.

In other parks in other towns at this time of year, crocuses and daffodils would be poking their way up through the soil, heralding the arrival of spring. Not in Essendale. The flowerbeds here were planted not with dahlias and pansies, but with herbs and fruit bushes. There was rosemary, mint and thyme for anyone to pick and, in the summer, strawberries and raspberries. It was the same in the churchyard and on the verges, and was another quirk of the little town that Emily loved. She paused to rub a stem of rosemary between her fingers, allowing the heady scent to transport her back to childhood for a moment, and the smell of her mother’s roast lamb.

There were few people about today. One mother with a pushchair, two dog walkers and an elderly couple walking hand in hand. Emily wondered if she and Peter would walk hand in hand through the park one day when they were that age. She couldn’t picture it somehow. He wasn’t keen on public displays of affection.

She sat down on a bench, wishing she’d thought to buy herself a take-away coffee from Sweet Delights. And then it hit her. She couldn’t afford lattes and double chocolate muffins anymore. Not now she was about to be unemployed. The tears began to roll again.

It could have been far, far worse. She knew that. She wouldn’t end up homeless. Or hungry. But she’d be dependent on Peter if she didn’t find something else pretty soon and she didn’t like the thought of that. There was that money from her mum but she tried not to touch it. Her mum had scrimped and saved to build up that little nest egg, and if Emily started dipping into it on a daily basis, it would be gone in no time. No, she wanted to save it, to do something special with it one day.

She watched a squirrel as it ran up a tree, an out-of-control terrier snapping at its heels. The dog owner came panting up behind, waving a lead. In the tiny play area, a giggling toddler was sitting on one end of the seesaw, his mother pumping the other end up and down. Would that ever be her one day with a little Peters? Again, Emily couldn’t picture it, though she had no doubt that her fiancé wanted children. If only so he could change the sign to Peter Ridley and Sons Engineering Ltd.

She checked her watch. Ten past three. An afternoon off should feel like a treat, only it didn’t. The time stretched ahead of her, empty, purposeless.

Sometimes her feet seemed to have a mind of their own. She stood up and walked, without thinking about where she was going. Back past the library, Sweet Delights and Ridley’s. Left down the steps to the tow path by the bridge over the canal.

She stopped and watched as a bright-red narrowboat bumped its w ay into the lock. As one of the boaters closed the lock gates, she walked on, still not sure where she was heading. The rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other and the close proximity of water somehow felt soothing. Losing her job at Ridley’s wasn’t the end of the world. She’d find another job. Ridley’s was the biggest employer in Essendale, but there’d be something, somewhere. Wouldn’t there? Even if she had to look a bit further afield. Or perhaps now was the ideal time to… No, she was being silly. Best not to be overambitious. That was a pipe-dream. Another job. She’d get another job.

Emily began to feel calmer. At least she did, until a speeding cyclist forced her to jump into the bushes to avoid being mowed down. Cursing under her breath, she decided that she’d had enough of the towpath for one day. At the next bridge, she scrambled up a rough path onto the road.

She’d never been down this street before. Well, why would she? It was a road of stone terraces, much like any other. Except for one thing. As she walked towards the junction with the main road, there was a gap between the houses where a smaller, one-storey building stood. An unattractive building – more a shack really – constructed of breeze blocks painted an unappealing shade of mustard yellow with a flat roof. It had a shop window, but, from this distance, Emily couldn’t make out what it was. Another charity shop, perhaps?

As she drew closer, she saw it was a café. Tatty-looking and dismal, it immediately made her think of the losers’ café in The Apprentice, and the failed candidates sitting around a Formica table with their instant coffee in polystyrene cups.

According to the cracked sign above the window that had seen better days, this was Nico’s. But according to the red and white estate agent’s sign beside that, Nico, whoever he was, didn’t want this little place anymore. It was for sale.

Chapter Two

Emily thought about Nico’s as she walked back towards the centre of Essendale. She thought about that tatty sign and imagined herself perched precariously on tall stepladders, paintbrush in hand, lovingly painting ‘Emily’s’ over that window.

Who was she kidding? She didn’t have a steady hand and she didn’t like heights. She’d have to get a sign-writer in.

And now who was she kidding? She wasn’t going to buy Nico’s. She was being ridiculous.

Although… a café…

It had always been the dream.

But that’s all it was. A dream.

Nevertheless, as she passed Sweet Delights and peered in, she indulged herself with a fantasy about a chiller cabinet full of her chocolate eclairs – topped with real chocolate, of course, not that chocolate-flavoured icing that you got on supermarket ones that didn’t taste of chocolate at all. Victoria sponge, made to her mum’s recipe. Gooey brownies. Nutty flapjacks with the right ratio of crunchiness to chewiness. Fluffy scones oozing with fresh cream and home-made jam. Again, who was she kidding? She could bake a decent scone, but she’d never made jam in her life.

And savoury offerings too. An all-day breakfast. You couldn’t beat a good all-day breakfast. Crispy bacon, sunny eggs, juicy tomatoes. Eggs Benedict. If she could get the hang of making hollandaise sauce. A bit more practise and she’d nail it. Fresh soups. Peter said her cauliflower cheese soup was the best and Emily liked to think that wasn’t just because it suited his keto diet plan.