Page 35 of And Then There Was You

Twenty-Nine Merryn

In the two hours between the end-of-day closing and the start of our first proper evening opening, I just about manage a shower and a bite to eat before I’m back down in the café, making final checks.

It’s been busier today than I was expecting, and now the challenge of evening hours looms ahead like a behemoth.

I know this is what I want for Sweet Reverie, but it’s a much greater undertaking than I’d anticipated.

With everything as ready as it can be, I wander through to the courtyard. I need a moment of stillness. A chance to settle myself before it begins. Seth and Murph are due to arrive in twenty minutes and then we’ll be open, half of the tables booked for tonight already.

Merlin has been covered since we closed for the day, so I gently remove the sheet and fold it, stowing it behind the piano.

The colours glow in the late afternoon sun that streams in through the courtyard’s open sides, the paint strokes catching the light.

Slowly, I sit on the piano stool, taking it all in.

Will I sit here with Zach again tonight?

His invitation to join him at the piano surprised me. It harked back to a time when I would have done anything to be invited to sit there. So I didn’t think twice last night, the impulse as fresh as if it was the first time of asking.

Grant was nervous of letting me sit beside him, at first. Looking back, it must have been daunting, not only finding himself living with a woman he’d barely met, but also becoming an instant father figure to her daughter.

His jokes didn’t always land, his attempts at conversation stilted and over-thought.

But sitting side by side at the piano changed everything.

At the keys we found common ground, the jokes and anecdotes and chats working when the piano was their theme.

The piano lid is cool when my fingers rest on it, its presence soothing after the endless questions of the day.

I promised myself I wouldn’t think about Zach, or what almost happened last night.

But who was I kidding? I could no more keep him from my thoughts than I could keep his hands from Merlin’s keys.

Sitting here brings a perspective I haven’t found yet. Almost as if Merlin is a gentle provocateur, coaxing thoughts from me. Is that what Zach experienced? Is it why he played me the piece that he wrote and opened up so unexpectedly about his life?

I have to admit that being so close to the music and the man playing it was like a long, cool drink after too many years spent in the desert. I knew I’d hear Merlin played if I put the piano here, but I never imagined I would sit beside the player as I did so many years ago.

It was wonderful.

It felt like coming home.

Gently, I lift the piano lid, resting it back against the upright panel of the case. Before me the keys glisten in the streak of low sun that falls across them. Promise. History. A thousand and one longed-for moments in ebony and ivory lines.

Sitting at Grant’s piano made me fall in love with music. And while he lived with us, I dreamed of a future that would always include it. So much was lost when I lost him – not only my stepdad but also the dreams he encouraged me to have.

I think back to Grant’s piano, of the way my small hands gravitated to the keys the second I was invited to play. Of what it felt like to make the piano sing. If I could recapture that confidence, that childlike impulse to make music . . .

My hands hesitate above the keys. They’re so close I can almost feel them beneath my fingers. I think of Grant’s invitation – of Zach’s after it.

Go for it, birdie. Play us a song.

Play something for me.

If Grant had been in the courtyard last night, his voice would have joined with my new friend’s, exhorting me to play. Would I have accepted the challenge as easily as I did as a child?

I can do this .

It won’t mean letting go of Grant Henderson. It will be a tribute to what he meant to me.

I’m about to touch the keys when a sudden, unwelcome memory shoulders its way between Grant and Zach, an uninvited third player intent on crashing the party.

Autumn morning glass. Trails of condensation streaking its surface, like the tears staining my cheeks.

Flaking paint peppered with swathes of black mould edging the window frame where I sit.

And along the white lines of the potholed, car-flanked street beyond, a slow-moving wooden shape, trailed by a figure shouldering a large, battered rucksack.

My reaching hand finding only an ice-cold barrier instead of human warmth, powerless to stop the man and the piano leaving my life.

And below me, loud enough to bring neighbours’ faces to their windows, the furious screams of a woman who wouldn’t, couldn’t be loved.

YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT, GET OUT! I DON’T NEED YOU IN MY LIFE, GRANT HENDERSON! I NEVER DID! GO – AND TAKE YOUR BLOODY MUSIC WITH YOU!

I never asked Grant to leave. Just like I never asked for the succession of useless bastards Mum dragged into our lives when he’d gone. The injustice of it still stabs me, my own powerlessness underlined by another failed attempt to play.

But how could I ever express that to Zach?

I can’t push the memory aside before it’s dragged my hands away from the keys, a too-familiar rush of failure and hurt my reward. Frustrated, I stand, leaving Merlin in his sunshine spotlight as I hurry back into the café.

I busy myself with final checks for tonight’s opening, summoned to the front door twenty minutes later by a bright knock and the glimpse of two dopey grins pressed against the glass.

Seth and Murph fall in when I open the door, giggling like a couple of schoolkids. I get the feeling this evening is going to be fun with these two around, whether any customers arrive or not. Seth seems back to his usual self, too, which is a relief.

‘We good?’ he asks.

I smile. ‘Always.’

And that’s it, a line drawn and a return to the us I know and love, completed in a simple, three-word exchange.

Adrenaline is my friend as we launch into final preparations to open. When it subsides later tonight, I know the exhaustion it’s holding back will crash in on me like a spring high tide, but I’m riding the wave for as long as I can.

Finally, at seven-thirty p.m., I stand by the front door, ready to turn the sign and welcome in our first evening customers.

A rush of joy hits me when I see a gaggle of friendly faces grinning at me from the street, my secret fear that our first evening service would be quiet banished in an instant.

‘Ready?’ I ask.

Seth and Murph whoop and drum their hands on the counter, a drumroll for the next stage in Sweet Reverie’s journey to officially begin. When they reach a crescendo, I flip the sign to OPEN and unlock the door.

The loveliest opening rush bursts into the café, hugs and best wishes exchanged as they pass me to go and find their tables. Lou and his wife Margie, Jack and Seren, Cerrie and her hunky Aussie Tom, plus several of our daytime regulars – the biggest compliment to our first night of evening trading.

‘ See ,’ Seth says, joining me behind the counter as the orders start to arrive. ‘I told you your regulars would love it.’

‘I’m so glad they’re here. I knew they’d come through for me.’

‘Wait!’ He slaps a hand to his heart. ‘Are you sayin’ . . . could you mean . . . I was right ?’

‘ Maybe .’

‘Maybe isn’t really an answer.’ He cups a hand to his ear and leans closer to me. ‘What was that, Mer? Didn’t quite catch it . . .’

I roll my eyes and sing-song what he wants to hear. ‘Yes, Seth, you were right.’

Delighted, he claps his hands. ‘Finally she notices!’

I relax as the night goes on, relieved that our first one isn’t a flop. And while I’m not so naive as to think this crowd will come to every one of our evening openings, it’s a promising start.

It’s always been a thrill watching people enjoying the café I dreamed into life.

But tonight, it’s even more so. From the upheaval and heartbreak of the mess Luke left, I built this welcoming, hopeful place.

What has risen from the ashes of my previous life is more beautiful than I could have dared to hope it would be.

‘This is so cool, Merryn,’ Jack says, arriving at the counter to settle his bill. ‘We’ve loved it.’

‘Thank you. I hope you’ll come again?’

He grins. ‘Try and stop us! Next time we’ll have to bring Nessie. She’ll never forgive us if she finds out we came here without her, even though Grandad Dave will have spoiled her rotten tonight.’

‘We’d love to see her. And she’s welcome to play Merlin again if she likes.’

‘She’ll be over the moon to hear that. Piano lessons are her latest thing. Seren and I hear “Ode to Joy” so many times at the moment I reckon we both sing it in our sleep.’ He laughs and looks back to his partner. ‘Actually, I couldn’t ask for your help with something, could I?’

‘Of course.’

‘Would you consider catering a beach picnic?’

‘Oh.’ I’m not expecting the question and it isn’t a request I’ve had before. But if tonight has taught me anything, it’s to be braver. ‘We haven’t done much outside catering before, but I could put together a quote for you?’

He flushes a little. ‘Great. I’ll pop the details to you in a day or so. And – um – keep it under your hat for me?’ His glance back to Seren tells me everything I need to know.

‘No problem.’

A beach picnic. No idea how we’d work the logistics of that, but it’s an interesting challenge.

What other surprises might tonight hold for me?