Page 31 of Little Wing
‘So you didn’t get the rice? That day?’
Nell was lost in thought. ‘No,’ she said after a while. ‘Daft thing is, if she’d asked a sales assistant – instead of a little old man – we probably would have.’
‘Well, think of it this way – what your curry lacked that night your mum made up for with the merriment she gave her audience.’
The coffee suddenly bittered and Nell’s face dropped. She shook her head vehemently. The milk tasted sour. ‘No. They weregawkingat her, Debbie. She was a spectacle. It was always the same. Wherever we were, they’d always look at her like that. With a sort of intrigued revulsion. I felt it. I hated it.’ And Nell’s eyes were on her shoes, her cheeks red and her fingers fidgeting. And Debbie thought, this is muscle memory. Debbie thought, this is exactly the way Nell would had stood on that day in Safeway and on numerous other occasions – a small girl desperately trying to juggle embarrassment and love and shame and protection behind her mother’s back.
‘I hated it,’ Nell said quietly. ‘I hated them. And actually, I hated her for all of it. I longed for a normal, boring mum. I prayed for one. I felt very bad about that.’
She looked at Debbie. ‘But I gave up the praying a long time ago. Now she calls me Florence and either ignores me or shouts at me and says she has no daughter.’
When Siobhán led the crocodile of helpers in, Danny instinctively knew Nell needed a cuddle.
‘He’s not worth it,’ he said to her because her eyes were red and she looked so sad and he’d seen women with this look on the telly. On the telly it was always the same. The ladies just needed to hear one thing. ‘He’s not worth it,’ Danny quoted. ‘Silly arse.’
And Sanjay told Nell she looked awful but he said it with such affection that she thanked him.
So Nell was blissfully unaware just then that this would be the day when everything that was known would be obliterated, when she would discover that everything she thought had happened had not, when she was to find out that she wasn’t who she thought she was. But at 9.30 in the morning, with the espresso machine malfunctioning, she hadn’t the time to consider how football stickers six hours later might be the catalyst for irrevocable change. She didn’t compute just then that the seeds had been sown already when she visited Frank yesterday and they’d watched the blackbirds pecking up the walnuts. First there were two. Then there were three. For the time being, however, it was just Tuesday at the Chaffinch. Bread to be taken from the oven. Heads to be scratched over the coffee machine. Switch it off again. Clean it down. Switch it on again. Bingo! Thank you for waiting – your latte is on the house.
It was busy, really busy already and Libby had just dropped an entire bowl of couscous. A toddler was having a meltdown. The main door was jamming but it was still too chilly outside to keep it open. Nell did what she needed to do, what she had done countless times before, and she popped the memory of her mother and the pillow rice into a compartment at the furthest reaches of her mind.
After school, a mother came in with her two young boys. She looked frazzled, as if the day had already been far too long but a significant and irksome portion still stretched ahead. Thomas and Freddie, take your blazers off, boys, and go and sit at that table over there, please. Watching her, Nell wondered for a moment if the woman might just walk right out of the Chaffinch and hop in a cab to start a new life.
‘Do you know what I’d really love,’ she told Nell at the counter, scouring the menu. ‘Toast and Marmite. Would you have Marmite?’
‘We do indeed. And for you?’
‘That is for me!’ She was rooting around in her handbag saying shit shit shit under her breath. ‘Also, cheese-and-tomato sandwiches for the boys – and two of those Rice Krispie cakes. Shit where the shitting heck is it?’
‘Anything to drink?’
‘My bloody purse. Oh, there it is. Oh, just water for the – Freddie! No! Sorry – I’m so sorry.’
They looked over to see that the boys had already helped themselves to water from the jug and much was spilling over the table and onto the floor.
‘Don’t worry about it at all – soon have that cleaned up,’ said Nell. ‘So, water for the boys and a huge gin and tonic for you?’
The mother looked at Nell with such hope that Nell felt terrible. Luckily the woman was happy enough to have a cappuccino with two extra shots.
‘Coming right up,’ said Nell. ‘Danny – can you take kitchen roll to Table 4?’
Though it was their busiest time, she loved this part of the day. After the customary mid-afternoon lull, a surge of infectious energy accompanied the after-school crowd. Nell and her staff girded themselves, primed and ready for the onslaught, the fractiousness and hyperactivity, the tangle of schoolbags, the tears and the giggling, the noise, the high demand for sweetness and carbs.
Nell tackled the obstacle course of bags, books and pencil cases between her and Table 4.
‘I thought I’d bring theYou Know Whatsin a bit,’ she winked conspiratorially at the mother. ‘Ensure that Thomas and Freddie eat their sandwiches first.’
‘Genius,’ she said. ‘And thank you. Yummy – look, boys!’ There was a lot of wriggling on chairs. One of the boys said not boring old cheese. The other one complained about crusts. They both clamoured for football stickers.
‘You promised us!’
‘You did, Mum – when you dropped us at school. You said we’d each get a packet after school.’
Nell stepped in. ‘Chiffchaff rule,’ she said. ‘Stickers after sandwiches.’
The boys stared at her while their mother spooned cappuccino foam into her mouth as if it was ambrosia.
The older boy, who Nell thought was about seven or eight, looked at her as if she was the wicked witch of the café.
