Page 5 of The Little Board Game Café

And the man with the narrowboat? Well, he was never going to take out a mortgage on a three-bedroomed semi in Huddersfield and settle down. The man with the campervan? He’d gone on that Highland tour on his own when she couldn’t get time off. He never came back. The man with the ponytail who collected antique beer bottles and knew everything there was to know about the universe was dating three other women at the same time as her and said he didn’t believe in monogamous relationships.

Peter made it clear from the outset that he was looking for a Serious Relationship. He opened the passenger door of his car for her. He insisted on paying the bill. He always knew exactly which wine to order in a restaurant, was charming to the waiters and made sure to leave a hefty tip. On birthdays and Valentine’s Day, he’d present her with a bouquet of flowers. Never roses. Always something a little more exotic: birds of paradise; anthurium; calla lilies. She always imagined he’d gone to great pains to choose those flowers especially for her, but when she started work at Ridley’s, she heard him on the phone to the florist, ordering some for his mother, saying, ‘Something a bit different. I’ll leave it up to you as usual.’

Emily realised that she wanted what Peter wanted: stability; marriage; a lovely home; perhaps children one day. The narrowboat? The campervan? Pipe-dreams. A bit like running her own café.

Yes, Peter was definitely a grown-up. And she’d found that exciting at first. She liked that he booked restaurants and organised mini-breaks; the way his shirts were all lined up in his wardrobe with the hangers all pointing the same way; the way he always remembered to pick up his dry-cleaning and the respect with which he treated his mother. (Although it did sometimes border on subservience.) Peter made Emily feel secure and she loved that about him.

They’d dated then got engaged and he’d said it didn’t look good for his fiancée to be working in the office at Thorp’s.

‘I want you to work for me,’ he’d said. ‘Be part of the family business.’

Emily was happy at Thorp’s. Richard was a good boss and she liked her colleagues. She’d always promised herself that the only thing that would lure her away from there would be buying her own café. She’d stashed as much of her wages as she could manage in a savings account and, by the time she met Peter, she had quite a tidy sum. A few more months of scrimping and saving and, along with the money from her mum, she might have enough.

Peter sensed her hesitation. ‘I was thinking you could do a part-time business course,’ he said. ‘Learn the basics. Accounts, marketing, that kind of thing.’

She never had done that business degree, opting for Modern Languages instead. Learning about accounts and marketing – well, that would come in handy when she did eventually pluck up courage to buy a café. Richard Thorp, lovely though he was, had never once offered her any training opportunities. Working for Peter was beginning to sound more appealing.

‘A business course?’ she said. ‘That would be really useful when I—’

But she stopped herself. She’d never mentioned her café dream to Peter.

She had known back then that he wouldn’t like the idea, and he certainly wouldn’t like it now.

Chapter Three

Books by Emily’s bedside: Your Brilliant CV; Surviving Unemployment; A Beginner’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business.

‘Would you like me to recommend a wine, sir?’ the sommelier asked.

‘Please,’ said Peter.

As they debated the merits of the Château-What-Not 2009 versus the Cabernet Something-Or-Other 2013, Emily turned her attention to the menu. Hand-dived king scallops with candied lemon on a cauliflower puree. Roasted squab pigeon with celeriac and nasturtium. Rhubarb, hay and lemon verbena. Hay? Really?

She leaned over and peered under the table.

‘What are you doing, Emily?’ said Peter.

‘Have you dropped something, madam?’ said the sommelier.

She looked up to see them both staring. ‘Checking I haven’t got four legs. There’s hay on the menu.’

‘She’s trying to be funny,’ said Peter. Emily could have kicked him. If the sommelier hadn’t been standing there, he’d have laughed.

‘The Châteauneuf, I think,’ said Peter, handing back the wine menu and scowling at her.

Peter had driven all the way to Leeds to bring her to this restaurant, but it wasn’t her kind of place. Far too pretentious. If they had to come to a city, she’d have preferred a bar: the kind where you could order tiny plates of tapas with your glass of wine. She liked country pubs serving steak pie with rich gravy and the shortest shortcrust pastry, old-fashioned tea rooms where the cakes came on three-tiered stands, and cafés where you could buy an all-day breakfast with bacon, sausage and hash browns and toast and marmalade, all for under a tenner. That was the sort of café her mum used to dream of running. A place offering a warm welcome and simple, wholesome food. The kind of food she loved to eat. The food her mum had taught her how to make: hearty stews and hotpots made with real stock from the leftover bones; pan-fried plaice from the fishmongers at the local market; and roasts at the weekend with the lightest Yorkshire puddings.

The scent of dinner would greet Emily every day when she returned from school. Whilst other families had Birds Eye quarter pounders from the freezer, Mum would buy mince from the local butcher’s and make her own. There was no sliced white in their house; Mum made sourdough long before it was trendy. Other children ate Rice Krispies and Frosties for breakfast, but Emily was sent to school on creamy scrambled eggs.

Diane, Emily’s mum, spent years working as a waitress in Tricia’s Treats, frustrated that despite her culinary talents, Mrs Benton insisted that she stayed front of house because the customers loved her. That one summer, when Mrs Benton had gone on her cruise, was the only time Diane had been allowed to do the cooking. ‘I won’t get to work in the kitchen again,’ she said afterwards, ‘unless I buy my own place.’ But the dream hadn’t materialised. She’d always promised she and her daughter would do it together one day but, of course, they never had.

Could Emily do it now? She wasn’t a qualified chef but what she lacked in qualifications, she made up for in passion. She loved food and she loved cooking; her mum had taught her everything she knew.

Initially, she’d had a play kitchen, lovingly hand-crafted and painted by Dad, in the corner of their actual kitchen. She’d chopped Play-Doh carrots with a blunt plastic knife, whilst Mum chopped the real thing. She’d stirred imaginary sauces with a wooden spoon on her pretend stove, as Mum simmered broths and stews. She remembered how proud she’d felt when Mum had said she was old enough, sensible enough, to stand on a chair by the chopping board with a real knife to chop a real carrot; the first time she’d been allowed to stir and season the soup with Mum watching her like a hawk saying, ‘Be careful, Em. It’s really hot’ and, ‘Not too much salt. Taste it first.’

‘Darling?’ said Peter, and Emily realised he was waiting for her to answer.

‘Oh, sorry.’ She glanced down at the menu. ‘I’ll have the king scallops. Seeing as they’re hand-dived.’