I shake my head. Sometimes she’s impossible but I can’t imagine life without her anymore. Other people often make me feel small, as though I’m not enough. Funny people make me feel humourless, serious people make me feel like I’m trying too hard and even though I’ve a tendency towards being quiet myself, quiet people make me babble on unnecessarily – just as I’ve found myself doing with Ben. But when I’m with Sascha I feel calm and balanced. She’s loud and over the top and enthusiastic about life to the point of being utterly irritating – even when life throws her nothing but rotten lemons – and the opposite of me in so many ways but she grounds me, settles me, stops me feeling like a strong wind could blow me away. I always feel like I’m enough when I’m with her.
‘Do you want some tea?’ I ask.
She screws up her face.
‘I don’t know what to have now I don’t need to drink nettles anymore.’
‘How about camomile?’ I suggest. ‘It might calm you down a bit.’
She sticks her tongue out at me.
‘I’ll bring it over,’ I say.
Once Abi arrives I take a break and go and sit with Sascha who is clearly not going anywhere until she has all the non-existent gossip. The café is heaving and I love it when it’s like this, on a cold, wet morning and everyone is inside enjoying tea and pastries and cake. It’s cosy in here and the windows have steamed up.
‘Before you ask,’ I say holding up my hand. ‘Nothing happened with Ben last night. He came in and put the tables out for me. Then we had a cup of tea and he went back to the hotel, as I’m sure you know.’
‘Yes, I was quite disappointed when he turned up for breakfast this morning,’ she replies and I roll my eyes. ‘He’s sitting in the lounge at the moment drinking coffee and doing the Guardian cryptic crossword.’
I raise my eyebrows. ‘Hmmph, coffee,’ I say.
‘You can’t force everyone to drink tea, Ellie,’ she replies. ‘But listen to me, he times himself!’
‘What?’
‘He times how long it takes for him to do the crossword. Like Inspector Morse.’
‘What a dork.’ I laugh but inside my stomach is fizzing again. I’ve always had a bit of a crush on John Thaw’s Inspector Morse character and Sascha knows it.
‘He’s all dark and brooding and introverted, isn’t he?’ Sascha asks and I can feel myself blush as I remember the stupid thing I’d said to him on Tuesday morning. ‘What is it?’ she asks loudly.
‘Shhh…’
‘You’re blushing!’
‘I said something stupid to him on Tuesday,’ I begin.
‘Oooh do tell,’ she says salaciously.
‘I told him he was dark and brooding.’
‘You told him?’
I nod. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ I say. ‘He wanted to know why I thought he was Russian caravan tea and now I suspect he thinks I’m completely mad especially as…’ I trail off.
‘Especially as what?’
‘Well last night I ended up telling him about Mum and about Dad remarrying and about Marie.’
‘But you never talk about those things.’
‘I know and I definitely didn’t mean to but I was tired and the tea was nice and…’
‘And Ben is dark and brooding and the most handsome man who’s passed through Sanderson Bay in a long time.’
‘You’re meant to be married,’ I say with a smile.
‘I still have eyes in my head,’ she retorts. ‘Anyway, while you were telling him your life story, did he get a chance to tell you anything about himself?’
‘Not much,’ I reply. ‘He went to university in York five years before me, his mum still lives there and he works in London, maybe in marketing. That’s it.’
‘He didn’t mention his dad?’
‘No, and did you notice last night how he clammed up whenever his father came up in conversation.’
She nods.
‘I didn’t want to ask though,’ I go on. ‘I mean I know what it’s like to have a bad relationship with your father so I’m not going to pry into his life.’
‘I’m happy to…’
‘No,’ I interrupt. ‘We barely know him – leave him alone.’
She looks at me over her teacup. ‘You fancy him don’t you?’ she asks.
‘We’re not eleven years old,’ I reply.
‘But there’s something there right?’
‘Maybe,’ I reluctantly admit. ‘But I’m ignoring it. It’s still too soon.’
‘El, it’s been a year,’ Sascha replies quietly and gently. ‘It’s time to move on.’
‘The café keeps me busy,’ I say. ‘And Ben will only be here for a few days.’
‘I worry about you, El,’ Sascha says. ‘I worry about you here on your own. Don’t you want to do something more with your life?’
I feel that stab then that I sometimes feel when I wake up, when I’m opening the café, when I’m uploading Instagram photographs. It’s the memory of my mum and all the things she hoped for me and all the ways in which I feel as though I’ve failed. I wonder what she’d think about me running a café in a little seaside town. She always said that Miranda had “no ambition”. Is that what she’d think of me too now?
Sascha must notice me hesitate because she apologises. ‘I didn’t mean it to sound like that,’ she says.
‘I know,’ I reply. ‘But this is what I want. It might not be what I want forever but I was so unhappy in York, even before Marcus left. I needed something new, something safe.’
I feel her hand on mine, but I know what my mother thought of people who took a safe option. I used to think the same, but now I think we have to put our own happiness first, our own stress levels. After years of worrying what people thought, after years of trying to live up to other people’s expectations of me, I’m trying to do my own thing. I’m trying to make myself happy and healthy. Some days it even feels like it might be working.
What won’t work is throwing a love interest into the mix, however much Sascha might disagree.
‘Anyway how are you feeling?’ I ask, changing the subject. ‘We’ve barely had a chance to talk.’
‘I’m OK,’ she says. ‘Excited, tired, terrified, nauseous—’
‘Ginger!’ I interrupt. ‘That’s what you need, ginger tea for nausea. I wonder if I can mix it with something else to help the terrors?’
She smiles. ‘Do you ever stop thinking about tea?’ she asks.
‘Not really,’ I reply. ‘I’m sorry, tell me how you’re feeling, tell me everything.’
She looks around the busy café. ‘Not here,’ she says. ‘I know it’s silly but I really don’t want anyone else to know until I get this scan. Come over later on when you quieten down and we’ll have a proper catch-up.’
The café door opens then, blowing in a waft of cold damp air.
And Ben.
Ben looking breathtakingly handsome in a dark blue roll-neck sweater and jeans with a newspaper tucked under his arm. His hair is damp and windswept and he runs a hand through it to push it out of his face.