‘Long story,’ I say. ‘I’ll tell you later.’
She raises an eyebrow and tells me to have fun and I’m thankful that she always running late for her long commute into Hull. God knows what she’s thinking when only last night I was singing the virtues of Ben.
I turn around and look at Marcus. He’s exactly how I remember him, tall and laconic with that slow easy smile that belies his more anxious interior. His hair is longer, and his skin is more tanned but he’s still the same person I lived with for nearly four years, the same person who I thought I knew almost as well as I knew myself.
The same person who broke my heart.
But he’s not exactly the same. There’s something else there now, as though he either found what he was looking for and didn’t like it or realised that what he wanted couldn’t be found.
‘Tea or coffee?’ I ask him.
‘Tea of course,’ he says.
Marcus is a Yunnan tea, a smoky (but not as smoky as Russian caravan), caramelly black tea from China. Until he met me, the only tea he’d ever drunk was the iced variety, so my tea obsession confused him. He soon discovered his own tea and, although I knew he drank the cheap machine coffee at work, Yunnan became the tea he started every morning with. It’s Yunnan I brew for him now as I send him to sit down.
I have a slow trickle of customers first thing that dies off quite quickly and I know I’ll have an hour or two before things pick up again. It’s time to ask the question.
I sit down opposite him.
‘I’m going to ask the question for the third time,’ I say.
‘What am I doing here?’ he replies.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Honestly?’ He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know where else to go. I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently, Ellie, thinking about us.’
I feel a sense of panic rising up from my stomach. I know that if I sit here and listen to that accent, lose myself in those blue eyes, I could fall for him all over again.
‘There is no us,’ I say as convincingly as I can. ‘There can’t be any us.’
He looks at me with a strange expression on his face as though I’d thrown him, as though I’d said something he didn’t think I’d say. Was he just expecting me to fall back into his arms as though the last twelve months hadn’t happened?
‘You’ve met someone else,’ he says. ‘I’m guessing that’s who Ben is.’
‘Sort of, not really. But that’s irrelevant. It’s not about whether or not I’ve met anyone.’
He reaches over the table and takes my hand. ‘We were so good together,’ he says quietly.
He’s as hard to resist as he ever was but I pull my hand away. ‘Until you broke my heart,’ I reply remembering Sascha’s warning from the night before. When I first turned up in Sanderson Bay I was such a mess, thanks to Marcus, that Sascha was able to remember it on one of the most frightening nights of her life. She told me to be careful – I can’t let his soft accent or his lazy smile or his blue eyes suck me back in.
Sascha.
‘I have to call Sascha,’ I say pushing my chair away from the table.
‘I’m not going anywhere, El,’ he says. I can’t work out if it’s a threat or a promise.
I take my phone out of my pocket. I’ve got two messages. The one from Sascha simply says: I’m fine, don’t worry. I’ll see you later. She knows me too well.
The one from Ben makes me smile: I found somewhere that sold Russian caravan tea, it says. But it’s not as good as yours. I’ll have to come back just to buy some tea if nothing else xx.
I stare at those two kisses for longer than I should, trying to analyse what they mean and thinking about the two kisses we almost had. I must have a dopey smile on my face as I look at it because Marcus interrupts my thoughts.
‘What’s so funny?’ he says. ‘I take it Sascha is better?’
I look up at him. ‘Nothing, Sascha’s fine,’ I snap.
‘So,’ he goes on. ‘You and me—’
The café door opens interrupting him and we both turn to see Eric come in. Today I am grateful for Eric’s interruption.
‘Morning,’ he says looking first at me and then at Marcus.
‘How are you, Eric?’ I say as I stand up. Marcus says nothing.
‘Middling,’ Eric replies. ‘Usual please.’ He takes a five-pound note out of his pocket and gives it to me, along with a sidelong look at Marcus.
‘Himself is back then is he?’ Eric says in what I presume he thinks is a whisper but I can tell Marcus has heard.
‘He just turned up on my doorstep last night,’ I whisper back. ‘I’ve no idea what he’s doing here.’
‘Be careful there, love,’ Eric says as he takes his change. Marcus used to come to Sanderson Bay with me sometimes when we were together. He didn’t like it much; he always claimed it was parochial and small-minded and he could never understand why I loved it so much. Most of the locals knew who he was and I’m pretty sure they had the same rather low opinion of him as my aunt and uncle, who are bound to find out he’s here now Eric knows. I sigh inwardly – it is typical of Marcus to show up just when I’m feeling as though I’m moving on.
‘Have you heard from young Ben Lawson?’ Eric asks in a louder voice, intending Marcus to hear this time. I see Marcus look towards us.
I can feel myself smile. I can’t seem to think about Ben without breaking into a stupid grin like an idiot. ‘He’s texted a few times,’ I say.
‘He’ll be back next week,’ Eric replies authoritatively, as he takes the tea tray I’ve made up for him over to a table on the opposite side of the café from Marcus.
Eric is the first of a sudden rush of customers, both local and visitors, and I leave Marcus almost forgotten with his Yunnan tea and his insistence on talking about “us”. A few of my regulars who recognise Marcus raise their eyebrows at me, but I repeat what I told Lisa, that it’s a “long story”, which I know will only whet their appetites and they’ll all be wanting more as soon as they see I’m not busy.
‘Wow it’s busy for a Tuesday morning in the middle of winter,’ Abi says when she arrives, unwinding her scarf from around her neck.
‘Sheltering from the rain,’ I say, looking at the water running down the outsides of the windows. ‘They’ll decamp to the pub as soon as it’s lunchtime.’
‘It’s sleet actually,’ she says taking off her coat and putting on her apron. ‘Maybe it’ll snow and we’ll get a white Christmas.’ Her eyes light up with excitement but Marcus getting snowed into Sanderson Bay for the duration is the last thing I need.
Abi spots Marcus then and I see her eyes light up even more.
‘Who’s that?’ she whispers, her voice much quieter than Eric’s had been.
‘That’s Marcus,’ I reply.
‘The Marcus?’ Abi has never met Marcus as she didn’t live in the Bay when we were together, but over the last year she has heard all about him and his sudden calling to South East Asia. ‘What’s he doing back?’