‘There’s cream to go with it in the jug,’ Cathy said. ‘And a little pot of jam too.’
He picked up the jam. ‘Home-made as well?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Wow! Must have taken you days to make all this?’
‘Oh, no,’ Cathy said, that funny mixed-up feeling of pride and embarrassment at the compliments rearing up in her again. ‘Besides, I really like doing it, so I enjoyed myself. If anything, it was like my version of a day out.’
‘Funny day out if you ask me,’ Dora said, crumbs spraying from her mouth.
‘Tea, Vicar?’ Iris asked.
The vicar had found a vacant seat and settled there with his scone. ‘That would be lovely, Iris. Your special teabags?’
‘Of course,’ Iris said.
What was in these teabags? Crack? They were good but they were getting people way more excited than teabags ought to. Perhaps Cathy would ask Iris for the name of the brand later on.
‘Is everyone having a good morning?’ he asked the room at large.
‘Oh yes!’ Iris said, before anyone else could draw breath. ‘I’m sure we’ll have raised lots of money today.’
‘The charity organisers at Cancer Care for Britain will be pleased to hear that,’ he said.
He turned to Cathy and Erica. ‘It’s good to see new faces too. Welcome to St Cuthbert’s.’ He shook both their hands. ‘If you don’t mind my asking,’ he continued, ‘did you have a particular motivation to join us today?’
‘I lost my dad to cancer,’ Erica said. ‘So anything I can do for cancer charities I’m happy to.’
The vicar pulled a sympathetic face. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’
‘It’s not much just turning up at things,’ Erica continued. ‘I know people run marathons and all sorts, but I’d like to do something good to redress the balance a bit, even if it’s only small.’
‘Nothing is ever too small or insignificant,’ the vicar said.
He looked at Cathy and waited. She wasn’t sure whether she liked his expectation, but then she thought if she was here and people were sharing, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing for her to share too. It might even help her.
‘I lost my mum,’ she said. ‘I’m sort of the same – I wanted to turn my loss into something that can do some good.’
‘You lost your mum to cancer?’
‘Not to cancer – lung disease. A couple of months ago now.’
‘Then I expect it’s all still very new and hard, isn’t it? I am sorry to hear that,’ he said, and when people said that usually there wasn’t an ounce of sincerity in their voice. But with this man, Cathy could see he meant every word. ‘You’ve got a good network around you? Friends? Other family members?’
‘Oh yes,’ Cathy said, although she wasn’t sure why she was lying about it. She had some family – mostly disinterested, though she saw them from time to time – and her friends had gradually drifted away over the years because she’d never been able to find the time to see them. There had been a boyfriend too, once; a fiancé in fact – Jonas. Cathy had loved him and he’d loved her, but that had ended as well, unable to take the pressure that caring for her mum had put on their relationship. The last Cathy heard, he’d married a veterinary nurse and was living in Scotland with her. She wasn’t mad about it and she wished him well, but sometimes she felt sad for what could have been.
‘More tea for you, Cathy?’
Cathy looked up to see Iris hovering with the teapot.
‘I’ve still got this cup – maybe in a little while?’
‘Well,’ Iris said as she moved to the next chair, ‘just whistle when you’re ready and I’ll be right over.’
Cathy could have got her own tea easily enough, but she realised that Iris wanted to do it and it probably made her feel useful. Cathy got that, and gave Iris a tight smile and thanked her, suddenly feeling very useless indeed.
Four
Cathy had enjoyed the coffee morning more than she’d ever thought she would. Of course, she’d been hoping it would be a good distraction from the hours spent alone at home, but when she finally made it back to her own little bubble, she was content and happy, her head full of the conversations that had taken place. Almost instantly, she seemed to have gained a whole new social circle. Iris and Dora, she soon discovered, were not only lovely old ladies but also a hilarious double act (whether intentional or not). They were cousins and seemed to simultaneously hate each other and yet love each other to pieces. They bickered and threw out sarcastic comments constantly but their affection was always on show, no matter what they were saying. Dora would rush to make sure Iris was OK if she stumbled, and Iris would rub Dora’s arm affectionately as she handed her a plate of cakes.
Cathy had got on well with Erica and had even arranged to meet her outside of the coffee morning sometime. Colin had regaled her with thrilling tales of his time in the navy as a young man, while Myrtle had told Cathy she had eight children and thirty-two grandchildren (number thirty-three was on the way). She insisted that there was nothing special about her until Cathy pointed out that anyone who had raised eight children and regularly babysat another thirty-two was pretty special.
Janet and Karen seemed to be a couple (although nobody said it explicitly, it was fairly obvious) and ran a centre for underprivileged children to participate in various sports, and Lulu – just like her more famous namesake – had a very successful (albeit very local) career belting out sixties classics in pubs and clubs. Cathy had asked if she’d called herself Lulu for the sake of her job and was more than a little surprised to discover that she’d actually being christened Lulu by her parents. Julia was a bit mysterious and volunteered very little information about herself; in fact, she’d barely spoken, even when prompted.
By the time the coffee morning was over they’d raised almost one hundred pounds for charity and Cathy had finally learned which face went with which name. In the heady spontaneity of the moment she might well have agreed to attend a service that Sunday too. She’d have to deal with that at some point because she had no intention of going, but she felt that her new friends might like her enough to forgive her if she reneged on that small promise. She hoped so; as much as she didn’t want to offend anyone, church just wasn’t her thing.
As if all this wasn’t enough, Cathy’s cakes had been an unqualified success and so many people had asked her for recipes that she announced it would take her until the next coffee morning to write them all down. So Iris had said that if she wanted to jot them down, she’d do photocopies for whoever wanted one. It seemed like a good plan and Cathy felt a warm sense of pride that her mother’s recipes were now about to grow wings and fly out into the wider community, to be enjoyed by other families around the town. Who knew? They might even find their way out further and further, passed on again and again, until people Cathy couldn’t even imagine were baking to them in far-flung corners of the country.
Maybe even further than that, she thought with that little frisson of excitement again. After all, it was a shame for Cathy alone to be using them, and it seemed a fitting tribute to her mum’s talents. She liked to think her mum would approve, or at the very least be flattered by the idea.