By the time Ian returned three weeks later, Grundy’s was attracting new customers day by day and getting a name for prompt and cheerful service and good food in pleasant surroundings.
There were a few teething problems such as learning to cope with a temperamental coffee machine and estimating how many cakes would be needed each day. Some varieties were more popular than others, although this varied from day to day. One morning it might be the coffee gateau that had all gone; another time the almond tarts. There were at least three large cakes to choose from, however, and a few sorts of small cakes so the choice was quite extensive.
Phil and Janice had known that it would be hard work; they were quite prepared to feel tired at the end of each day and they most certainly did. They had the evening to themselves, though, making sure they closed by five thirty. Then they prepared a meal for the two of them – three when Ian joined them. They enjoyed their times of relaxation in their new home and had no wish to go out of an evening. Maybe in a little while they would do so, they promised themselves. There was little time to visit their friends and families. Sometimes on a Sunday they drove to Ilkley to see Ralph and Patience. And Alec and Norma had said they would call to see them when they were on their tour of the Yorkshire Dales.
Ian had settled down happily with his sister and brother-in-law and was eager to pull his weight with all kinds of work. He made a valiant attempt at whatever he was asked to do. He had hardly ever entered the kitchen when they lived at the hotel except, maybe, to raid the cake or biscuit tin. His mother had not expected him to help with culinary matters, nor had she expected Alec to do so. She had been brought up to regard the kitchen as the woman’s province. Alec had had to learn, though, and Ian was learning now.
He was becoming more skilled at peeling the potatoes that were needed each lunchtime for the meals served with chips. The actual preparation and cooking of the light meals was done by Phil and his competent assistant chef, Toby. There was washing-up to be done – an endless line of pots and pans and dishes as the dishwasher could not cope with everything; however, Ian helped cheerfully with the chores. He also took his turn at cleaning the small room with the toilet and washbasin so it was always in pristine condition for the use of the customers.
Ian’s favourite job, though, was waiting at the tables at any of the three sessions where there was a need. He looked smart in black trousers and a crisp white shirt and was proving very popular with the customers. Janice soon realised that he tried to organise his shifts to coincide with those of Sophie, one of the four students they had engaged.
Janice persuaded him to phone home quite regularly, assuming that he would not want to write letters.
‘You’ll be seeing Dad and Norma quite soon, though,’ she told him. ‘They’re going to pay us a visit when they’re touring in the dales.’
Ian grimaced, though jokingly; at least she hoped it was a joke. ‘Oh, crikey! I thought I’d seen the last of them for a while,’ he commented.
‘Oh, come on now, things aren’t too bad, are they?’ she queried. ‘I thought you were all getting on OK.’
‘Yeah, I suppose we are,’ he admitted. ‘It’s different, though.’
He had told her soon after his arrival about the changes that had been made in the bungalow since Norma moved in.
‘Mum and Dad’s wedding photos have been moved,’ he said. ‘You know the one that was always on the sideboard? Well, it’s gone – I don’t know where it is.’
Janice nodded. ‘Well, I suppose that’s understandable, Ian, and I know that Dad wouldn’t mean any disrespect to Mum. But he’s married to Norma now, isn’t he?’
‘At least he hasn’t put up any of their wedding,’ he replied. ‘But they didn’t have a lot of photos taken, just those that friends took. And there’s still one of the four of us – you, me and Mum and Dad – that someone took years ago, but it’s in a different place.’
‘Well, there you are then,’ said Janice. ‘We’re not forgotten.’
‘And she’s brought some of her own stuff. You know, those china ladies in fancy dresses – they’re all over the place. And some different vases, and a big mirror over the fireplace.’
‘Well, she does live there,’ said Janice. ‘It’s usually the women who make the home feel… well, homely. Men aren’t always bothered about that sort of thing, they leave it to their wives but they appreciate it when it’s done. You’ve got your own room upstairs, though, and you can do what you like there, can’t you? Have it just the way you want it.’
‘Yes, I’m glad I’m up in the attic,’ he agreed.
But when Janice had told him about his dad and his new wife touring around Yorkshire, Ian looked disgruntled again.
‘He never went away on holiday with Mum, did he? They’ve already been away on their honeymoon or whatever, and now they’re off again. And they go out a lot in the evenings, to the club and to the pictures. He never took mum out, did he?’
‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ said Janice. ‘But there was never really the opportunity, was there, when we had the hotel? Mum was working all the time, right till the end of the Illuminations, so they couldn’t go on summer holidays. But we all went to London for a few days, one year close to Christmas, remember? And they made sure we went on school trips and outings, even if they couldn’t go themselves.’
‘Yeah… S’pose so…’
‘And they were happy, Ian, just being together in their home. Mum must have been exhausted sometimes when she’d finished her day’s work and Dad was always there for her. We had a very nice home, you know, away from the hotel side of things. I’m finding it’s like that now, and so is Phil. We’re dead tired when it comes to half past five and it’s so good to have our own home to relax in… There’s nothing to stop you going out though, Ian. You won’t want to stay in with us every night. Not that we mind,’ she added. ‘We love having you here.’
‘Yeah…’ Ian shrugged. ‘But I’ve nobody to go with, have I?’
Janice gave a quiet smile. ‘I’ve noticed you’re getting quite friendly with Sophie,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you ask her if she’d like to go to the pictures or… just for a stroll around, maybe. I know you can’t go in pubs but there are coffee bars in town and it stays light till quite late in the evening.’
Ian blushed a little. ‘Yeah… she’s pretty, isn’t she?’ he said with a shy smile. ‘She’s older than me, though. She’s taken her O-levels.’
‘Well, a year isn’t much and you’ll have a lot to talk about with you both being students.’
‘I’m not used to girls,’ he said. ‘Being at an all boys’ school. There were some girls at the youth club I used to go to but I’ve not been there since we moved to the bungalow.’
‘Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ said his sister. ‘Sophie seems a nice girl. I like her very much. Just you think about it.’
‘Yes, p’raps I will…’
Janice experienced a fleeting moment of concern. What was she doing, encouraging her little brother to take an interest in girls?
‘Don’t be daft!’ Phil reassured her when she told him. ‘I’m pretty sure that Sophie is well aware of Ian. He’s a good-looking lad, a bit shy, mind, but I’m sure they’ll get on well. They’re all very nice girls. You’ve chosen well there but I think Sophie is probably the pick of the bunch.’
Phil and Janice had both been highly satisfied with the staff they had engaged. As well as Sophie there were three more sixteen-year-olds – Sharon, Julie and Dawn. They were all competent and eager to please; they turned up on time each day and worked cheerfully while they were there. They agreed among themselves which shifts they would work on a part-time basis. But, as Janice had noticed, Sophie and Ian often seemed to be on the same shift.
The two full-time waitresses were Brenda and Jessie, women in their late thirties who had children who were able to fend for themselves if their mum was not there. There was no evening work, as yet, so they did not need to worry about leaving their families at night. There were always two people serving at the tables – either Jessie or Brenda and one of the students (which included Ian), or sometimes three if they were extra busy.
Phil’s assistant chef was called Toby. He was a young man – older than Ian but not yet thirty – who had worked in a couple of places previously and had good references.
Janice’s assistant was a woman old enough to be her mother, and Janice had taken to her straight away. She was a widow with grown-up children and was able to work early in the morning then return in the afternoon to make preparations for the following day. Janice had felt unsure about giving orders to Marjorie, as she was called. She was a much older woman who was also more experienced in the art of cake-making than Janice. But her new assistant said how pleased she was to be working in such genial surroundings.
‘You mustn’t be scared of telling me what you want me to do,’ Marjorie told her. ‘I’ve been used to giving orders myself.’ She had worked for a confectionery business at one time and had been in charge of a large group of women. ‘Some of the lasses could be real stroppy and I wasn’t all that good at first at telling ’em what to do. It’s nice now to be the one that’s not in charge, so don’t start feeling all embarrassed about it.’
They had got on well together from the start, and Janice looked to the older woman for advice and help with the more difficult skills.
‘I learnt a lot from my mother,’ Janice told her new assistant. ‘She was largely self-taught, learning it all from her own mother and then she’d done just a few night-school classes.’
‘I’m sure she was as good in her own way, as are many of these top chefs,’ said Marjorie.
‘She certainly was. Visitors used to come back year after year to our boarding house.’ Janice laughed. ‘That was how my gran always referred to it – a boarding house. She would never call it a hotel, but when she died Mum decided it should be called that. Most of our neighbours’ places were. And Mum gave it a name as well, something my gran would have called getting too big for your boots! She called it Florabunda, partly because my gran’s name was Florrie and because she liked the Florabunda roses.’
‘I know you miss your mum,’ said Marjorie. ‘I’m sure she would be proud of you, the way you’re coping with your new work.’
‘Yes, I think she would,’ Janice agreed. ‘She badly wanted me to go to university and I was going to do so to please her and dad. So I hope she’d be happy about the way things have worked out.’
With Marjorie’s help they perfected the trickier skills and were soon producing faultless chocolate eclairs, meringues, choux buns filled with cream and a variety of iced ‘fancies’, of which very few were left at the end of the day.
Ian did not take very long before acting on his sister’s advice to further his budding friendship with Sophie. After all, he was only there for a few weeks so there was no time to be lost. They were working together on the lunchtime shift and he plucked up the courage to speak to her when they were clearing away. He was not sure, though, how to begin.
‘Er… Sophie,’ he said, ‘I was wondering… are you doing anything tonight?’
She smiled at him, not with any surprise. ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Well, I thought, perhaps, we could do something… together. Have a walk into town and have a cup of coffee or… something. If you’d like to…’
She smiled even more. ‘Yes, I’d like to very much, Ian. I wasn’t planning on doing anything like washing my hair. That’s the usual excuse, isn’t it? But I’d really like to – honest, I would.’
‘That’s great then,’ he said, feeling a flood of relief. He had been dreading her saying no but she seemed quite keen to go with him.
She lived only a few minutes’ walk away from the cafe, but as it was further away from the town they agreed to meet outside Grundy’s at seven o’clock.
‘Good for you,’ said Janice and Phil when he told them.
‘I won’t know what to say to her, though, what to talk about…’
‘Oh, you’ll think of something,’ said Phil. ‘I should imagine Sophie will have lots to say.’
And that was the way it turned out. Conversation flowed easily once they got started, and they found they had a good deal in common.
Ian felt a faint fluttering in the region of his chest – was it his heart? – when he saw her walking towards him. It had been a warm day and the sun was still shining. She was wearing a pretty floral dress with a flared skirt in shades of pink and blue, and a pink cardigan. Her dark hair waved gently over her forehead and round her ears. She wore just a touch of pink lipstick and a trace of green eyeshadow over her hazel-brown eyes. Not that Ian noticed all the details at first; he was just pleased that she had come and not changed her mind.
They strolled along the paths bordering the Stray, towards Harrogate, a mile or so away. It was Sophie who started the conversation, seeming to know that Ian was a little unsure how to begin.
‘Tell me about living in Blackpool,’ she said. ‘It’s a fun place, isn’t it? Do you have a lot of fun?’
He laughed. ‘Not all that much really. I don’t think you do when you live there, not like the visitors do. The Pleasure Beach is the fun place. We used to go there when we were younger, Janice and me, when there was time, ’cause Mum was always busy. Yeah, we went on the Big Dipper and the Ghost Train and the bumper cars an’ all that, but I’ve not been for ages. I watch Blackpool play – the football team, I mean. I go every Saturday in the season. They’ll be starting again soon. And I kick around with some lads – we go to Stanley Park, the big park near where we live now. We used to live near the sea when we had the hotel but then… Mum died and we moved to the bungalow.’
‘Yes, I know about your mother,’ said Sophie. She and her friends had heard that Mrs Grundy – who liked to be called Janice – had helped to run a hotel in Blackpool after her mother died. ‘It must have been awful for you and your sister.’
‘Yeah, but Janice moved away to Ilkley, then she married Phil only a few months ago. I like Phil, he’s a great guy, but I miss Janice a lot. We always got on well, though she’s a few years older than me.’
Sophie also knew that his father had remarried. ‘I know how you are feeling,’ she said, ‘about your dad getting married, because the same sort of thing happened to me.’
‘Did it really?’ he said. ‘You… lost your mum?’
‘Oh, no, it wasn’t as bad as that. I’ve still got my mum and my dad, but they’re divorced. Dad got married again three years ago and I live with my mum, with her and Graham, ’cause she got married again as well. I didn’t like him at first, well, I told myself I didn’t, but he’s not so bad. At least I’ve still got my own name. There’s a girl in our form at school whose mother remarried and she changed Anne’s name as well. Anne’s real upset about it but there’s nothing she can do, at least not yet. It’s hard to get used to my mum being Mrs Davis but I’m still Sophie Miller.’
‘And what about your dad? Do you see him?’
‘Oh, yes, most weekends but not so much lately since I’ve been working. Actually, it was all his fault, I suppose. He got friendly with a young woman in the office where he works – in a travel agency. She’s a lot younger than him and… well… you can guess! So he and Mum got divorced and now Dad and Carol have got a little girl called Wendy. She’s four years old and she’s a little love. And Carol’s OK but I have to be careful what I say to Mum – she doesn’t want to know.’
‘Oh, gosh!’ said Ian. ‘It must be difficult for you.’ He was relieved in a way to know that he was not the only one with a similar problem. ‘I was just the same,’ he admitted. ‘I pretended not to like Norma but she’s OK. And Dad’s happy, I suppose.’
‘And it’s nice for you to be staying with your sister. When are you going back?’
‘Oh, I don’t want to think about that yet! We start school the second week in September so I’ll see if I can stay almost till then.’
‘Yes, that’s when we start. I’ll be in the sixth form then if I pass my O-levels! The results are out next week. I’m dreading it!’
‘I’m sure you’ve no reason to be. You’ll do well, won’t you?’
‘I hope so. What I mean is I’m dreading not doing as well as I should. I’ve taken eight subjects and I’d like to get Bs in most of them… or As, of course. What about you? You’ve not taken them yet, have you?’
‘Er… no.’ It was a sore point with him that he was only just fifteen. ‘I’ll be taking them next year. Actually, I’m doing them a year early. I’ve only been at the grammar school for three years but I was already twelve, one of the oldest in the class. So when I’d been there a year I skipped a year and went into the express stream, me and a few more lads, so we’ll take the exams next year.’
‘Oh, you clever clogs!’ said Sophie.
Ian grinned a little sheepishly. ‘Well, I don’t know about that. I was doing OK with the work and we’ve caught up with the others.’
‘So… what subjects are you taking?’
‘Oh, the usual. Maths, science, French, Latin… ugh! History, geography, English language and English lit.’
‘And what do you want to do when you leave? Go to uni?’
‘Dunno. I’ve not really thought so far ahead. I stayed with my uncle a little while ago – he owns a garage – and I got interested in the cars and engines an’ all that. You don’t need to go to uni to be a mechanic and my sister’s done well without going, but I don’t know yet.’
‘Is it an all boys’ school?’
‘Yes… That’s why I’m not all that used to being with girls.’
Sophie held on to his arm for a moment. ‘You’re doing OK,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘Actually, it’s the same with me. Ours is an all girls’ school. They haven’t got round to what they call co-ed yet. P’raps they will before long. I haven’t decided either what I want to do. But I shall go into the sixth form – Mum wants me to – and you can drop the subjects you don’t like so it won’t be too bad. Just imagine, no more Latin or maths! I’m hopeless at maths. Anyway, that’s enough about school, isn’t it?’
They had arrived at the end of the Stray where the town centre began. They soon found a coffee bar that was not too crowded.
‘Do you want coffee or would you like something else?’ asked Ian. ‘I’m paying,’ he added, feeling very grown up to be saying so.
‘OK.’ Sophie grinned at him again. ‘So you should, seeing as you asked me,’ she said pertly. ‘But my treat next time, eh?’
‘Yes, fine,’ he replied. ‘If that’s what you want…’ He was delighted to think that there would be a next time.
They decided on strawberry milkshakes and iced cherry buns.
‘They’re OK,’ said Ian, ‘but not as good as my sister’s.’
‘Yes, she’s an amazing cake-maker, or whatever you call it,’ said Sophie.
He nodded. ‘My dad’s very proud of her… and Mum would be too.’
Sophie changed the subject. ‘Would you like to go to the pictures on Saturday? There’s one of those doctor films with Dirk Bogarde on in Harrogate. I like him and it’s one I’ve not seen.’
Ian agreed that that would be great. He paid the waitress, who smiled at them both understandingly.
Dusk had fallen when they went out and coloured lights were twinkling around the square. Ian felt happier than he had for ages. Very bravely, he took hold of Sophie’s hand as they strolled back along the tree-lined paths. She chatted about her friends who worked with her. Dawn was her special friend and had a boyfriend who was in the sixth form at the boys’ school. And she, Sophie, had been friendly with a boy there but he’d now met someone else.
‘I’m not bothered, though,’ she said. ‘There’s more fish in the sea, as my mum says.’
Ian knew it would be polite to walk Sophie home. He couldn’t let her wander around in the dark. They stopped at a semi-detached house halfway down a leafy avenue.
‘Well, this is me,’ she said. ‘Thanks, Ian. We’ve had a lovely time, haven’t we?’
‘Yes, we have,’ he answered. ‘Er… thanks for coming.’
She laughed. ‘The pleasure is all mine, as they say.’
They looked at one another then she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. ‘You can kiss me if you like,’ she whispered.
He did so, carefully and gently placing his lips on her slightly open ones. It was a new experience for him but one he would like to try again. But not just now; he already had quite enough to think about.
‘Goodnight, Sophie,’ he said quietly. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Yes… see you, Ian. Bye for now.’
He did not linger in the living room where Janice and Phil were watching the television, his arm around her as they sat on the settee.
‘Had a good evening?’ asked Phil.
‘Yeah… great, thanks,’ said Ian. ‘I’ll just go up to my room and read for a while.’ He did not feel like talking, not that he thought Janice and Phil would quiz him, but he wanted to be on his own with his happy thoughts.