Page 62 of The Little Board Game Café

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On Monday morning, she was beginning to worry about Mr B. It was twenty-five past eleven and he hadn’t arrived; in all the weeks she’d been running the café, he’d never failed to appear by ten past at the very latest. Even when the café wasn’t open.

The only visitor all morning was a dark-haired man with a large camera who told her he was from the Gazette and that, ‘Someone called Kate suggested I dropped by. Said you’re re-launching this place as a board game café.’

Emily struck various poses behind the counter with a teapot; he had wanted a shot of her standing beside a huge stack of board games boxes but that was out of the question since she didn’t actually have any.

It was almost twelve o’clock by the time he left. Mr B and Marjory arrived a few minutes later, each balancing a stack of boxes.

Emily was relieved to see them. ‘I was about to send out the search party.’

‘I’ve been round all the charity shops in Halifax,’ said Mr B, ‘and found you these.’ He placed his load down on one of the tables: three sets of Scrabble, two Cluedo, two boxes of draughts, a chess set, one Can’t Stop! and a plain cardboard box.

‘Can’t Stop!’ Emily said. ‘That’s the first game I ever played with Ludek’s board games group.’

‘And I went through the back room at Oxfam,’ said Marjory, placing one Monopoly, a Trivial Pursuit and three sets of Buckaroo! beside Mr B’s boxes.

‘Wow, thank you. How much do I owe you?’

‘There’s no need. It’s the least I can do. All those times when you were living upstairs and you popped down with cakes and stayed for a natter, even when you were busy. And I wouldn’t have met this fella if it weren’t for your café.’ She gave Mr B’s hand a squeeze.

Emily was surprised by this gesture, but, judging from Mr B’s contented expression, he wasn’t. Were they…? They couldn’t be, could they?

She couldn’t very well ask, ‘Are you two an item?’ so instead she said simply, ‘That’s fantastic, thank you. The Chorley cakes are on the house.’

‘There’s more,’ said Mr B. He opened the cardboard box and took out six jam jars, full of games pieces with a printed label on each: Cluedo; Chess; Scrabble; and Snakes and Ladders. ‘One for each of our painted tabletops.’

‘Genius,’ Emily said. ‘Thanks, Mr B.’

‘All you need now are the players,’ said Marjory. ‘And I gather from Mr B that there’s one player in particular who you’re rather keen to see coming through that door.’

Emily felt her cheeks reddening. ‘I can’t think who you mean.’

‘He’s going to be impressed,’ said Mr B, ‘when he sees your new board games.’

She wasn’t so sure. Grateful though she was to Marjory and Mr B, this motley collection of second-hand copies of Buckaroo! and jam jars full of Scrabble pieces wasn’t going to impress Ludek or entice serious gamers into the café. Or even ordinary families, for that matter. Who’d go to a board game café and spend their hard-earned cash if the games were the very same ones they had stashed in the back of their own cupboards? And even when her eBay orders arrived, well, three games weren’t going to make much difference were they? She needed a lot more. An awful lot more.

And she needed them fast. The launch event was only a few days away.

She was suddenly aware that Mr B and Marjory were staring at her, waiting for an answer.

‘Yeah, he will be impressed,’ she said, ‘although…’

‘Although?’ said Mr B.

‘Well, I don’t want to seem ungrateful. Because I am grateful. I appreciate all the trouble you’ve both gone to, but I need more games. I mean, this is a board game café.’

‘Save the Children in Halifax had another Buckaroo!,’ said Mr B. ‘But I thought three would be enough.’

‘No, I mean more variety. Ludek and his friends, they play games like…’ She pictured Ludek’s boxes, stacked high on his lounge floor. ‘…Azul, Codenames, Wingspan.’

‘Never heard of them,’ said Marjory. ‘Where could you buy those?’

‘That’s the problem. I can’t buy them. They’re too expensive. I bought three second-hand off eBay, but I’ve already spent almost all of the money my mum left me, and I’ve got to keep some money back because… Well, I’ve got to live off something and I get so few customers in the café that I can barely pay myself anything, let alone a living wage.’

‘I was afraid that was the case,’ said Mr B, patting her arm.

‘It’s catch twenty-two. I need the board game café idea to take off, but I can’t afford the board games to make it work.’