‘I know it doesn’t look much from the outside, but trust me,’ said Selina Molloy, pulling up in her car outside the small café with the yellow-and-white striped awning. A sign above the door, which badly needed a touch-up of paint, announced that this was The Sunflower Café. ‘My cleaner told me about this place. Apparently the afternoon teas are to die for.’
‘I hope not,’ smiled her friend Angie Silverton. ‘I’m too busy to die at the moment.’ She rocked back and forth to give her the momentum get out of the car.
‘Shall I push you from the back, fatty?’
‘Thank you, but I’m quite capable. You can ask me again in two months when I’m hiding from men with harpoons.’ When Angie stood up, she leaned back to stretch her spine. ‘Oh, that’s better. I hope they’ve got a loo here as well. I can’t go five minutes these days without a wee.’
‘Of course they do,’ said Selina, opening the café door and setting off a small bell tinkling above their heads. They walked into a sunny room with lemon-yellow walls and a long window across the back wall. Pretty blue curtains with sunflowers on them hung at the sides.
‘My, what a surprise,’ nodded Angie. ‘I didn’t expect this.’
She looked around and her eyes fell on a large smiling picture of a sunflower on the wall with a poem written underneath, which she leaned over to read.
Be like the sunflower:
Brave, bright
bold, cheery.
Be golden and shine,
Keep your roots strong,
Your head held high,
Your face to the sun,
And the shadows will fall behind you.
Selina followed Angie’s eyes and knew she was reading the poem. She always felt warmed by those words. She considered herself a sunflower now, although she hadn’t for many years. Then she’d been watered and fed with friendship by the rotund woman at her side – and she’d bloomed.
‘That’s sweet,’ said Angie, then she sighed. ‘I’m too short to be a sunflower.’
Selina wagged her finger. ‘No woman is ever too short to be a sunflower. Anyway, they do have dwarf varieties.’
‘Cheeky …’
Their conversation was cut off as the café owner came out from behind the counter. She was a large, friendly woman with a shock of auburn-red hair.
‘Hello, ladies. Table for two is it?’
‘Please, Patricia,’ replied Angie. ‘You’re busy today.’
‘The café closes to the general public in five minutes. My sister holds a staff meeting here once a month—’ She held up her hand as Selina opened her mouth to groan. ‘But you’ll be all right sitting at that table there in the window. You’ll be quite private, although no doubt you’ll hear them prattling on in the background – some of them have voices like foghorns.’ She paused and looked at Angie. ‘Is this the friend that you told me about?’
Selina smiled with relief. ‘Thank you. Yep, this is her. I’ve told her all about this place, Patricia. This is part of her birthday treat. We’re having a spa day tomorrow.’
‘Oh, that’ll be lovely for you in your condition,’ said Patricia, clapping her hands together with child-like enthusiasm as her eyes trained on Angie’s round tummy. ‘I’d never heard of spas until a couple of years ago. I’d have killed for a back rub during my seven pregnancies. My Jack’s rubbish at them. He moans that his thumbs hurt after five minutes. They wouldn’t hurt if it was Marilyn bloody Monroe asking him for a massage, I bet.’
Angie leaned back again to uncrunch her spine, which prompted Patricia to stop talking and start serving.
‘You go and sit yourselves down. Afternoon tea, is it?’
‘Yes, please,’ replied Angie, heading off towards the table for two set in the opposite corner to the tables of women. She sighed with pleasure as her bottom landed on the chair.
Patricia waddled back into her kitchen. Then the doorbell tinkled and in walked another two women who joined the group at the back of the café. They were both blonde: one petite with a smiley face, the other at least six foot three with huge hands and feet and angelic waves of hair cascading down her back. The smaller one glanced over at Selina, did a double-take and waved over.
‘Hello Cheryl,’ said Selina, turning to Angie. ‘It’s my cleaner, Cheryl. Lovely girl. Not sure I could live without her now that I’ve found her.’
But Angie’s attention was on the view out of the window: a thin stream known locally as Pogley Stripe. There had been a lot of rain the past week and the water level was swollen enough to attract some ducks who were lazily drifting along with the slow flow. As Angie watched them she wished pregnancy was as simple as popping out an egg and then going for a swim. She was exhausted.
Patricia appeared with a huge china teapot sprinkled with a sunflower design and two matching cups and saucers.
‘Afternoon tea won’t be long,’ she said. ‘I can’t keep up to this bleeding lot. They’re like locusts,’ she said, thumbing towards the gathering of cleaners.
‘That’s Patricia’s sister in the corner. The slim lady with the red hair,’ Selina whispered to Angie. ‘I think she’s the matriarch.’
‘I’d love to have a tea room, wouldn’t you? Your house would be a great place to create one. I’m so green with envy, Sel; I make Shrek look pale in comparison.’
Selina laughed. ‘So, do you like what I’ve done with it?’
Angie’s mouth dropped open. ‘Are you kidding me? It is absolutely gorgeous. When you first showed it to me, I was worried, I don’t mind admitting. There seemed so much to do.’
‘Tell me about it, Ange. It’s cost a fortune. But finally it’s all finished. I never thought I’d see the day.’
‘I can’t get my head around the fact that you sleep in the same room that Miss Dickson did. I wonder if she haunts the place,’ and Angie, fluttering her fingers in the air and giving a ghostly ‘whooo’.
‘Please, please stop,’ replied Selina shaking her head but laughing.
‘She died recently, you know. There was a story in the Chronicle. She was one hundred and two.’
Selina raised her eyebrows. ‘Jesus, I thought she was one hundred and two when she taught us. She used to terrify me, swanning around in that black cape like Batman. I don’t think she could scare me any more as a ghost than she did as a human being.’ Selina shuddered at the thought of their old headmistress.
‘Don’t make me laugh, I’ll trump,’ giggled Angie. ‘I can’t keep anything in these days.’
‘Dirty girl. Oy, don’t even think about reaching for the teapot, I’ll pour. I don’t want you having your labour triggered off early.’
‘I doubt pouring two cups of tea out will set off my contractions,’ huffed Angie. ‘But if you want to pamper me, then go right ahead.’
‘Here you go, ladies,’ said Patricia, arriving with a three-tiered cake stand crammed with crustless finger sandwiches on the bottom layer, sweet and savoury filled pastry cases on the second, interspersed with some very delicious-looking round chocolate truffles and scones the size of a carthorse’s hooves on the top. ‘If you don’t finish it all, I’ve got a box to tek it home in.’
‘If?’ gasped Angie. ‘If I finish that lot off, you’ll have to lift me into the car on a forklift truck.’
In the corner, Patricia’s sister knocked a salt pot on the table to call order. Their meeting was about to start.
‘Afternoon, ladies. Can I have your attention, please? Ava sends her apologies but she’s had to go to the doctor today about her bunion. It bust her shoe open yesterday and she’s in ever so much pain. More about that at the end …’
‘You’ve got a cleaner now, haven’t you?’ said Selina to Angie, pouring out two beautifully strong cups of tea. ‘Tell me, do you always give the place a bit of a once-over before she comes?’
Angie nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, I do. Gil thinks I’m nuts. To be honest, I was going to ask for the number of the firm you use because the one I’ve got isn’t much cop. She doesn’t do skirting boards. Bending hurts her back, she says. At least she can bend. I’ve forgotten what my feet look like.’
‘I’ll text you the details of Diamond Shine, the company I use,’ replied Selina. ‘Cheryl’s great. She does all those little things you never get around to doing like vacuuming underneath the sofa and cleaning inside the kitchen cupboards and, joy of joy, she changes my bedding.’
‘I’m so glad you’re coming back to live in Barnsley,’ smiled Angie.
‘So am I,’ Selina grinned back.
Selina owned and ran a small private school in Harrogate where she and her staff taught adults to read and also provided some languages and typing skills. It was doing well enough for her to leave it in capable hands and open up a second establishment back in her home town. She had bought the old schoolhouse villa in Barnsley which had fallen into disrepair after being empty for years, and planned to both live and run the new school from it.
Angie’s eyes started glittering with tears. ‘It’ll be great having you to keep me sane when the baby comes. Sorry, it’s my hormones. I’m all over the place.’
Selina leaned over the table and gave her friend a comforting rub on the arm. ‘You soft thing.’
Angie sniffed and Selina whipped a serviette out of a holder on the table. She handed it over and said, ‘Doesn’t seem like a year and a half since that cruise, does it?’
Angie shook her head. That cruise had changed both their lives. If it hadn’t been for that cruise, Angie probably would have left it far too late to get pregnant, not realised what a fabulous husband she had in Gil because she was too busy staring into a rose-tinted past and as for Selina … well, she wouldn’t be half as bright and strong and smiley as she was today. They were both much happier women for their paths crossing again after so many years apart. Two decades to be exact.
‘Have you any more of those prawn sandwiches in that Marie Celeste sauce?’ a portly cleaner shouted over to Patricia.
‘It’s not Marie Celeste, Meg. She were that queen that got her head cut off,’ someone else shouted back.
‘That’s Marie Antoinette, Sandra.’ A silky, younger voice with refined rounded vowels. ‘The Marie Celeste was a ship found deserted.’
‘Was it the Flying Dutchman?’
‘Sandra, you daft cow, how can the Marie Celeste be the Flying Dutchman?’
‘Ze standard of education in England is crap.’ This from the very tall woman with the long hair. ‘I sank Gott my formative years vere spent in Germany.’
The fit of giggles Angie fell into drove away any lingering tears.
Selina picked up a pastry filled with cheese and red onion. It was warm and crumbled against her teeth.
‘I was telling Cheryl about us last week,’ she said. ‘She’d had a row with her partner and was upset, so I sat her down and forced her to have a cup of tea with me. I felt very sorry for her. I recognised her “if we split up I won’t be able to cope by myself” look.’
‘Poor lass,’ sighed Angie. In saying that, she wouldn’t know how she would cope if she and her husband Gil split up. He was rock solid, kind, loving – she’d been so much luckier than Selina in her choice of man.
‘Oh, she’s okay now. I saw her on Monday and she told me they made up.’
‘That’s good. Anyway, what did you tell her about us?’ asked Angie.
‘That we were best pals at school but lost touch and then met up on a cruise the year before last. And how my life is very different today because of our adventure.’
‘Our adventure is putting it mildly,’ laughed Angie. ‘And are you really crediting me with your divorce?’
‘I am.’
‘Please.’ Angie puffed out her cheeks. ‘Zander being an arsehole made up your mind for you.’
Selina popped a truffle in her mouth and purred. ‘That was one voyage of discovery and a half. Do you ever think that divine forces were at work? I mean, what were the chances of two old school-enemies both cruising together and both failing to get back on the ship in Malaga?’
‘It’s crossed my mind a few times that we were chess pieces of the gods that day.’ Angie lifted her cup to her lips and sipped at the tea. It was very good quality; the owner didn’t use those cheap tea-bags that exuded a lot of colour but no flavour.
‘I’m so glad that Zander didn’t come ashore to welcome me back. I’m not sure what I’d have done if he had.’ A picture flashed up in Selina’s mind of Gil bouncing over to throw his arms around Angie when they caught up with the ship on the island of Korcula. She’d felt a few emotions when she realised her own husband wasn’t there: humiliation, hurt, disappointment. But they churned and mixed in her stomach and an unforeseen chemical reaction took place. By the time the tender boat had reached the ship, her gut was filled with anger, resolve and a determination to never again let Zander Goldman crush her spirit.
‘I’m presuming you didn’t tell Cheryl the whole story,’ said Angie, biting deep into a mini rum truffle tart.
‘Are you kidding? We’d have been there all day. I gave her the heavily condensed version: the Chinese knicker woman, the nutter taxi driver in Dubrovnik …’
Angie grinned. ‘I’d forgotten about him. What on earth did he use to honk his horn?’
‘I’d rather not think about that when I’m eating,’ replied Selina and shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘That was both the best and the worst holiday I ever had in my life. Who knew so much could happen in seventeen days?’
‘Did you tell Cheryl that you ran off with my boyfriend when we were at college and married him and that’s why we fell out?’
‘Yup. But I also told her that having neither passports nor clean pants was a unifying experience.’
‘On that note,’ said Angie, wriggling in her seat. ‘I may have to pay a visit to the loo. Sel, how can you eat a cheese sandwich straight after a chocolate truffle?’ She wrinkled up her nose in disgust and Selina chuckled.
‘It all goes in the same pot,’ she said, rubbing her flat stomach.
‘And I used to think you were posh,’ tutted Angie, hoisting herself up to her feet.
‘That Fillit Bong makes my nose bleed,’ came a voice from the throng of cleaners. ‘The flavour is bleedin’ awful.’
‘Flavour, Wenda? You’re not supposed to drink the stuff.’
‘Smell, I mean. It’s supposed to be Sea Spray. Sea Spray my arse. More like Cat Spray.’
Selina’s eyes floated upwards as she remembered riding on the tender boat with Angie, heading back to the cruise ship the Mermaidia, knowing that the nearer she travelled to Zander, the more apart she grew from him.
Back on board, Selina had shooed Angie off to get a well-needed shower and then prepared to tick off the first job on the mental checklist that she had written for herself. Her head might have been held high, but inside embarrassment was pulsing through her as she approached the desk to inquire if there were any vacant cabins which she might move into. The receptionist, Sumeer, asked her if there was a problem with her present cabin. She didn’t answer that she was sharing it with a heartless twat but replied instead that the room was fine, it was just that she would like to move, if possible, into another one alone. She tried not to think what must be going through Sumeer’s head. He seemed to take it all in his stride though, either because he was being gentlemanly and professional or had seen it all before.
If there was no vacancy, she would have to leave the ship at the next port – Venice – the following day and go home; there was no way she could share airspace with Zander again. She closed her eyes and willed that there be a cabin free because she didn’t want to go; she needed a holiday more than ever now.
Sumeer returned a few minutes later with the delicious news that yes, they had a spare cabin they could let her have at a reduced price. Selina didn’t care if she had to pay double because money was no object to her; at least she had that on her side. The room would need to be prepared, Sumeer explained. Selina replied that she would pack and return to Reception with her suitcase and any documentation they might need.
The walk back up to her cabin felt so long and momentous and she found she was shaking as she slid her cruise card into the lock and the door flashed the green open light. Zander was sitting on the balcony reading his book – a Jeffrey Archer; she had never forgotten the title: False Impression. His head had swivelled towards her; there was no expression on his face. He was so handsome, always so handsome, and yet the sight of him with his perfect hair and perfect body had no effect on her at all. It was as if she was looking at a stranger.
There was no preamble to her announcement, which she delivered in a level and calm voice: ‘When we get to England, I’m filing for divorce.’
She saw his shoulders lift slightly as he huffed to himself. They’d been at this point many times before and yet she had never carried the threat through and he thought she never would, so there was no point in even acknowledging her words anymore.
She badly needed a shower and a change of clothes, but that could wait. Item two on her checklist was packing. Selina reached under the bed and pulled out her suitcases into which she threw her clothes by the armful; there were enough laundries on board, she’d iron everything later. Zander paid her scant attention, suspecting it was all childish dramatics for his benefit to which he refused to rise. It was only when he realised she was sifting through the dirty-washing bag to remove her things that he asked her what the bloody hell she thought she was doing.
‘I’m moving out,’ she explained, as if it was obvious.
A hollow dry mirthless laugh came from his lips. ‘Yes, of course you are.’ He returned his attention to Jeffrey safe in the knowledge that after she flounced out she’d have to come crawling back later with her tail between her legs because she had nowhere to go.
She was packed and ready to leave in just over five minutes. He let her get on with her ‘tantrum’ ignoring her, a curl to his lips which could have been annoyance or amusement, she couldn’t tell.
‘You really are a ridiculous cow,’ he called after her as she struggled through the door with her two cases.
A couple were just passing in the corridor and from the look they exchanged it was obvious they had heard the comment. Selina felt ashamed, as she had done on too many previous occasions to count. But this time she wasn’t going to cry or feel her spirits plummet; she wasn’t going to let his words sink into her like poison until she believed them. She parked the cases outside the cabin knowing they’d be all right for a minute or so, then – with surprising aplomb – she stepped back into the cabin and closed the door.
‘And you, Alexander Goldman are the vilest man on earth.’ Her voice was calm and measured, which was a miracle because there were twenty years of repressed rage inside her, poised to burst out of her like a jack-in-a-box with a broken spring. ‘I can assure you that the end of this sham of a marriage is finally here. I’d like to wish you well but I can’t, because I don’t. What I do wish you is double the sort of misery you’ve given me.’
Still, he didn’t look in the slightest bit convinced that this wasn’t anything other than a show. He gave a ‘huh’ of derision and his eyes drifted back to Mr Archer.
‘It’s going to be a rough ride I think, divorcing, but ultimately worth it. The trouble is: I don’t know whether to cite adultery or unreasonable behaviour. Do you have a preference? I think adultery. Naming and shaming will be very cathartic.’
She had his attention now, she was pleased to note.
‘Hannah Whitestock – did Andrew ever find out I caught you both in flagrante delicto? And I can’t imagine Sir Martin Brierley will be all that pleased to hear his daughter exposed as the little tart she is. I found some of the letters she sent you, you know. You really should have checked they’d all burned in the garden incinerator, but unfortunately for you they didn’t. I kept them as a little insurance policy for the day when I might need them.’
Selina almost wanted to laugh at the manifestation of fury on Zander’s face which not even the Botox could hold off. In twenty years, she had never seen him rattled before but it was a sight worth waiting for.
‘You wouldn’t dare.’ His words carried a clear warning.
‘Now there’s a red rag to a bull.’ Wouldn’t dare? Ha! The old feisty Selina was dormant not dead. Dragging a few names through some stinky, putrid mud was exactly what she would do and enjoy every second of it. And from the way Zander’s eyeballs were bulging, it was evident he knew she had just picked up the gauntlet he had thrown down and was about to run with it.
‘You bitch,’ he growled.
‘Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet,’ replied Selina, taking with her that vision of his furious expression and wishing she could print it out and keep it. ‘See you in court, bastard.’
The couple from earlier on were just coming back down the corridor the other way when Selina walked out. She smiled at them.
‘Morning. Isn’t it a lovely day?’ she said as she slammed the cabin door hard behind her. They answered nervously and politely that it was indeed, as if she was the Terminator and they were afraid of upsetting her.
As Selina started to wheel her suitcases towards the lift, she started to quiver and a rush of euphoria swept through her. She’d done it – my GOD she had actually done it – taken that first big step. She had seduced her best friend’s boyfriend and life had given her a twenty-year sentence for it, but now she was free. It was as if a great chain across her chest had snapped and she could breathe to full capacity again. Even in the windowless lift, everything looked so bright her eyes hurt. She was euphoric and knew it must be the effects of shock but didn’t care, it was better than any drug. She could have blessed her own stupidity for making her miss the ship in Malaga and shifting the track of her life. She only just managed to stop herself jumping out of the lift and screeching with joy. Knowing her luck, the couple from the corridor would be there and Selina thought she’d given them quite enough to gossip about for one day.
She left her case at the reception desk, went into the nearest bar and ordered a brandy. She felt heady, light as if she were a balloon filled with helium. The sensation made her brain fuzzy more than the brandy did. Then she rang Angie’s cabin to tell her what she had done and Angie and Gil both rushed down to keep her company until the cabin was ready.
Her new cabin was much smaller than the one she had shared with Zander, and it only had a window and not a balcony, not that it mattered, because it was heaven at any size. As Angie helped Sel hang up her scrunched-up clothes, Gil took it on himself to find the restaurant manager to sort out a change in her dining arrangements. Two people had recently left their table and so there was room for Selina to join them every evening and enjoy the company of the merry people who sat with them.
Angie left Sel to have a long-overdue soak in the bath and Selina had lain in the foamy water and cried her eyes out. The enormity of what she had set in motion dropped on her like a ten-tonne brick. Logistically, the split would be horrendous and bitter. There would be so much to divide up and sort out. And could she really avoid seeing Zander for the remaining week and a half of the cruise? On the bright side, the ship was certainly big enough for that to be a possibility.
Gil had bought them a bottle of pink champagne at dinner to christen Selina’s new life. They had taken in a show and had far too many cocktails but that night she had slept like a baby in the cool crisp sheets of her double bed. She was alone but less lonely than she had been for years. The next day she had not taken up the offer to accompany her friends around Venice, but enjoyed pottering around the city by herself, knowing that Zander would not be there to bump into. He hated crowds of tourists and preferred to spend the day in the private spa pool on board away from the hoi polloi.
She kept away from the sorts of places he frequented and so managed to successfully evade him. People often moved in their own personal orbits on ships. Selina knew that he would be in the casino and the more sedate ‘gentleman’s club’ lounge. She knew he would avoid the shop area, the coffee bar and the nightclub. He would never eat in the buffet, or join the jolly sail-away parties – nor would he come looking for her because this was a battle of wills which he was prepared to wait out and win.
Angie and Gil insisted she accompany them into Dubrovnik and they had a wonderful al fresco lunch and too much grappa. They all lazed on the beach together in Corfu and went dolphin-spotting in Gibraltar on a small, bumpy boat. Selina’s face muscles were worn out with smiling and it felt marvellous. She was half tempted to paint her face half-white, half-blue and run along the ship decks shouting FREEDOM!
Angie told her later that she had spotted Zander coming out of the celebrated chef Raul Cruz’s restaurant on the last formal night and admitted that her heart gave a thump as old feelings galloped around her in a confusion of what to do. At such close range, she couldn’t resist studying him; he was still as tall and dark and handsome … sort of. He hadn’t ripened as she had imagined he would, she said. She’d always thought he’d mature like those film stars, whose flaws become assets: crinkles at the eyes like Clooney, sprinkles of white hair like Brosnan, but vanity, it seems, had steered Zander from the path of natural maturity. His hair was a block of black, as if it had been painted, and there were no merry rays of lines spreading from the corners of his eyes; in fact the skin there was iron-flat. His face looked as perfect and lifeless as a Ken doll’s. It was ironic that his narcissism would prevent him from looking the best he could.
Angie had said that he had seen her too, that was evident from the way his eyes rested on her for a few beats longer than a natural glance at a stranger, but he didn’t acknowledge her presence. He strolled past out of her sight and out of her fantasies forever. ‘How could I ever have thought that Gil was second best to him, Sel?’ she’d said. ‘I haven’t a clue, Ange,’ she’d replied. Lovely Gil Silverton with his ginger hair, big nose and laughing eyes. Sel hoped that one day she’d find someone who made her feel loved and needed and cherished as he made her friend.
On the very final night of the holiday Selina was browsing in the stalls outside the on-board jewellers shop when she felt a hand close around the top of her arm and, too surprised to initially resist, she found herself being forcibly, but discreetly, pushed out and into a private corner by a staff access door.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ said Zander, his eyes hard and narrowed.
Selina peeled his fingers off her arm. He had left long white marks on her tanned skin.
‘I told you: I’ve left you, Zander. It’s over. There will be no turning back this time.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’ His voice dropped in volume as someone passed. ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid.’
‘This is the first time in twenty years that I haven’t been fucking stupid,’ Selina spat back. ‘It’s done. I’ve had enough—’
‘Had enough what?’ he interrupted her with a brittle laugh. ‘Had enough cruises? Had enough luxury? Had enough big houses?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I think we’re living proof that money doesn’t make you happy.’ His finger came out and lifted up her chin, none too gently until she smacked it away.
‘You’ll find out then, won’t you? If you think I’m going to play fair in a divorce, think again, my love.’
Just for a moment, Selina would have let him have everything in exchange for a clean break. But having him stand over her, attempting to intimidate her, she found that she was stronger than she had imagined. Like hell he would take everything that she had worked so hard for from her. She was prepared to fight for her fair share. She had money of her own these days, not enough to buy business-class tickets everywhere they travelled or suites on cruise liners, but she was sure she would cope. To Zander, luxury meant opulence and the best champagnes on the menu; to Selina luxury was waking up to a day completely free of a vain, lying, cold, miserable, spirit-destroying knob.
‘Zander,’ she said, her eyes boring even harder into his than his were boring into hers: ‘Bring it on.’
Then she turned from him and walked away to a round of inner applause.
She didn’t see him again for the remaining three days which were spent at sea. She took up Gil and Angie’s offer to drive her up from Southampton to Barnsley where she intended to catch a train to her flat in Harrogate above the school, but Gil had insisted taking her right to her door. First thing the next morning she contacted her solicitor and started divorce proceedings.
Zander, as expected, had fought her every step of the way and employed a cobra of a divorce lawyer. Selina’s solicitor, however, was a tenacious mongoose who took a particular delight in plunging her teeth into the jugular of the obdurate defendant. The divorce cost Selina a fortune in fees but it was worth every penny. Her decree absolute was framed and hung in her study along with all the certificates of her other finest achievements.
A loud voice from the café brought her back into the here and now. ‘When you said I should put some chicken fillets in my bra, I thought you meant real chicken fillets. They stunk bloody awful when I got home. I were nearly sick. And so was our Dave when he copped a feel of ’em.’
Selina laughed to herself. She’d been without friends – real friends that is – for too long. She would miss a ship every year and bear the cost and indignity if it meant she could keep Angie in her life to share stories, gossip, moans and cake with. Especially in this sweet tea room filled with sunflowers.
‘Ooh, that’s better,’ said Angie, returning to her seat and flopping heavily down as if she’d just run a marathon. ‘You can hear all the conversation in the loo. It’s so funny. Have you been listening?’
‘No, I’ve been sitting here thinking actually,’ replied Selina.
‘It’s a good place for doing that, isn’t it?’ smiled Angie. ‘I could stay here for hours. It’s as if it’s a place that likes people. As if it doesn’t care what you look like or what your job is or how big your bum is, it just wants you to sit down and forget the world outside for a bit. Does that sound daft?’
‘Yes, it does,’ replied Selina. ‘Now do you and my budding godson want that last chicken and celery sandwich or can I have it?’
‘Be my guest.’
In the meeting next door Hilda was calling order.
‘Now, I thought we’d have a whip-round for Ava and buy her a bouquet to lift her spirits a bit. She’s gutted over her shoe. Is that all right with everyone?’ There followed a rustle of bags, snaps of purse clips, clank of coins.
‘Isn’t friendship bloody marvellous, Ange,’ grinned Selina.