Page 15 of And Then There Was You

Ten Zach

Early mornings when you’re determined to catch the first waves of the day are easy.

Early mornings when you start work at five a.m., lugging enormous crates of bread and pastries in and out of a van across south-west Cornwall, hurt .

My knee hates me.

The rest of my body isn’t keen on me, either.

The van is new and drives like a dream, but it’s wider than I’m used to. And pre-dawn, narrow, twisty Cornish country roads are pretty scary to navigate in an expensive vehicle belonging to your brand-new employer.

My route follows the coast from St Ives to Carbis Bay and Hayle, then inland to Camborne, and down to Mousehole, Newlyn, Penzance and Marazion in Mount’s Bay.

A mix of cafés, corner shops, hotels and pubs form my drop-offs.

The people are friendly enough – as friendly as anyone is before the sun rises.

And the more times I visit, the greater my repertoire of small talk becomes.

I like it. It isn’t what I imagined doing with my life, but then none of where I currently find myself is.

A week into my rounds, I start to settle into some kind of routine. I even score a couple of extra shifts – one afternoon serving in the bakery shop and an after-closing run with Matt to deliver unsold bread to a local homeless shelter in Penzance. He seems happy with me and I like what I’m doing.

Kieran’s happy, too. Well, as happy as Kieran ever gets where I’m concerned.

He comes into the studio to work after I’ve left for my shift and I stay out until three or four in the afternoon, meaning the most time we spend in the same space is a couple of hours.

Aggie checks in regularly, which helps. I’m glad I have her on my side.

She was fearsome enough before, but pregnancy has added a whole new level of scariness.

Kieran’s terrified to cross her and I don’t blame him.

It works for now. But when their babies come along and the summer season ends, who knows?

I need to think about what happens next, about what I want this new chapter of my life to look like. I’ll save as much as I can this summer and keep thinking as I work. With any luck, I might find the answer before the season is over.

Staying out of the studio on the days I’m not at the bakery means filling as many hours as possible with whatever I can find.

I catch a couple of films at the tiny Royal St Ives Cinema in Royal Square, wander the streets of the town as long as my knee allows, or just take a flask and a book and sit on one of St Ives’ lovely beaches.

On rainy days I make a coffee last as long as possible in Aggie’s place on Porthgwidden Beach, then wander slowly back through the town, ducking into shops as I go.

It’s Friday today, so no early start at the bakery. And for once this week, the sun is shining. Bored with my usual route around the streets, I choose an alleyway that seems vaguely familiar – and stop dead when I realise why.

The surf shop. And the little café next door.

I shouldn’t be here. If the young guy sees me, or worse, that waitress from the café . . . I turn to leave the way I came, but something stops me.

A woman, walking out of the café.

Instantly, I recognise her. She’s the one I had the awkward pavement-dance with, the day I made my ill-fated visit to the surf shop and the café next door.

Her café.

The café she works in, at any rate.

She carries a blackboard, painted with those chalk pens that allow elaborate designs to remain on the surface, no matter what the weather throws at it.

Does she just work here, like the other waitress, or could she own it?

As she nears me, I notice the pocket in the front of her apron contains a hammer and two screwdrivers – not the kind of tools I would expect a waitress to have. So, the owner, then?

She walks along to the side passage where I made my escape before, stopping beside the gate. Then she holds the painted blackboard up, moving it from side to side to gauge the right location for it.

As the blackboard lifts into place, I can see a message surrounded by yellow flowers and trailing ivy painted in chalks across it:

GRAND EVENING OPENING.

CELEbrATE WITH US!

SAMPLE OUR NEW MENU AND

MEET MERLIN, OUR

NEW-OLD COURTYARD PIANO!

SATURDAY FROM 7 P.M.

The piano. The one I found myself hiding next to.

I’ve kept thinking about it as I’ve driven around my bakery route, the quietness of the roads and the slowly emerging dawn presenting the perfect opportunity to mull things over.

I don’t know why it’s still in my thoughts. I wasn’t next to it for very long – twenty minutes at most before I fled. But it’s caused an inexplicable ache within me that I can’t shake off.

There was a time, in my teens, when the piano gave me a way of expressing the huge emotional swings I experienced.

When I couldn’t get to the sea to surf, I played our old family piano instead.

It was ancient and so chronically out of tune that it would have sounded more at home in a Wild West saloon, but even its honky-tonk tone could connect with feelings I couldn’t express.

It was why I jumped at the chance to have Auntie Sue’s piano, when I got my own place and she left for Australia.

It didn’t matter that for months I couldn’t play it while I was travelling around to competitions.

As soon as I returned, I’d head straight for the keys.

When I lost Mum, the piano was where I expressed my grief, spending hours playing when words failed me. I remember her delight as she listened to me play, perched on the end of the piano stool she found for me in an antique shop in Truro. When she passed away, it was where I felt closest to her.

Parting with it, when I had to leave my flat, was like losing a part of myself and losing Mum all over again.

I watch the woman fixing the sign to the wall.

She’s smiling as she works. It’s as striking as it was when I first encountered her – I feel compelled to see it.

Is she thinking about the event advertised on the blackboard, imagining the celebration to come?

Or is she thinking of their new-old piano having its debut?

Merlin .

Who calls a piano Merlin?

Is it a magic piano? The thought is endearing – and seems to suit the woman hanging the blackboard sign.

Was Merlin her idea? It fits her, crazy as that sounds.

It’s hopeful and whimsical, born out of a sense of fun, with a cheeky reference to the Arthurian legend’s wizard so synonymous with Cornwall.

She has a spark to her. I see it in the way she gazes at the blackboard sign as she secures it to the wall.

In the rise and fall of her chest, as if she’s feeling a rush of nerves and hope.

This has to be her idea.

To be fair, it’s a great one.

I hope people are drawn into the café by the piano. If I hadn’t burned my bridges there by abandoning my order the other day, I’d be tempted to go, too.

What would the café look like at night? When I was there before, I noticed strings of lightbulbs across the canopy that partially covered the courtyard.

If they were illuminated over that cosy space, I imagine it would look magical.

And add the woman’s smile and the soothing tones of the piano to the picture . . .

My heart contracts.

It sounds like the kind of place I’d head to one evening, if I hadn’t stuffed everything up by dashing out of there without paying.

I’m about to leave, when she turns. A tiny wrinkle appears between her eyebrows and then she smiles. It’s as lovely as before. She raises her hand and I do the same. One shy wave is exchanged and then she heads back into her café, gone before I can scramble a greeting together.

I should have said hello. Or asked for her name. I should follow her into the café now . . . except the other waitress might be there, and she’ll definitely remember me.

My face flushes as I drag my gaze back to the new sign by the side passage gate.

CELEbrATE WITH US!

Could I?

I’d wondered what the piano would sound like when I was huddled next to it.

And now I’m wondering what it would be like to talk to the beautiful woman in the café.

This could be my opportunity to find out.

Could have been , if I hadn’t embarrassed myself enough already.

And I don’t know why, but the knowledge of that bites at my heels as I duck between the milling tourists and hurry on my way.