‘You should set up as a commercial estate agent or something,’ I’d told her when we’d called her from the car after our viewing. ‘Matching clients to their perfect premises.’
‘Does that mean you’re taking it?’ she’d asked.
I’d looked over at Ben and he’d grinned at me. ‘Yup,’ I’d said. ‘Looks that way.’
Ben had been particularly excited at the prospect of my opening up another branch of The Two Teas, as it was him who had been driving back and forth between York and Sanderson Bay since New Year, him who was living with his mother whilst I’d been working on the café refit and swanning off to Paris, him who’d had the patience of a saint through it all whilst using every moment of his spare time to start setting up his own marketing company.
So you see me moving to York definitely worked in his favour.
Not that I’d minded. By the spring, by the time The Two Teas in Sanderson Bay reopened and we’d found the premises in York, I knew I wanted more than the snatched moments we’d been trying to find since New Year.
‘It’s big enough for two,’ Ben had whispered in my ear when the estate agent had showed us the flat above the potential new café.
‘You’d give up your mum’s home cooking to live above my café?’ I’d asked.
‘I want to be wherever you are, El,’ he’d replied and then he’d smiled at me. ‘Besides we can always go back to Mum’s for a feed whenever we want.’
When Abi and Marcus came back from Thailand I bulldozed them with my proposition before they’d even slept off their jet lag.
‘We would love to manage the café for you,’ Abi had squealed. ‘Wouldn’t we, Marcus?’
Marcus had nodded, his eyes glazed with exhaustion, but the two of them have been running the original Two Teas for six months now and are making a very steady profit so he must have been more enthusiastic than he’d seemed.
I opened the York café in June, two days after Sascha gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She hadn’t been there to see me off as she’d been in hospital, but it was still one of the hardest moves I’ve ever made, harder than when I’d moved from York to the Bay eighteen months earlier. I’ve come a long way since that day and I’ve learned that you have to follow your dreams, no matter how scary they might seem, because the other side of that fear is a magical place.
We’re back in Sanderson Bay tonight for Abi and Marcus’s New Year’s champagne tea and I’ve never been so excited to see everyone, or so nervous to see my café again.
Ben pushes the café door open, holding it for me as I step inside to be greeted by a huge cheer. Everybody is here, raising their champagne glasses towards me – including all of the Knitting Club who carry on without me these days, with the addition of baby Davey who Sascha brings with her and who is dressed from head to toe in knitted items, no matter the weather.
I watch her now as she barges people out of the way to throw herself at me.
‘I’ve missed you so much,’ she says and I hug her back, too overwhelmed to speak. I love our life in York and I never thought it would be possible for me to be so blissfully happy in that city after what happened, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss Sanderson Bay.
‘Bonjour, Eloise,’ says a small voice and I look down to see Marie standing next to me. I glance across the café to see my father smiling over at me and I wave. This is a surprise – I hadn’t known they’d be coming.
Ben picks Marie up and twirls her around.
‘How’s my favourite girl?’ he says to her in his rubbish French and she giggles, telling him that she knows English now. I think my half-sister has a little crush on Ben. I don’t blame her.
The café is full of people and voices and questions as Abi and Marcus try to organise everyone enough to get them to sit at their tables.
‘You sit next to me, Ben,’ Marie demands and as I watch them together I think about the positive pregnancy test I took this morning, the test I haven’t had a chance to talk to Ben about yet. I’d been terrified when I first saw those blue lines – we were too busy for a baby; we lived in a tiny flat with a narrow staircase. How on earth were we going to manage? But I know that I don’t need to be scared about this, that together Ben and I will manage. My hand automatically goes to my stomach as I watch Marie wrap my boyfriend around her little finger. He’s going to be an amazing dad.
I see Sascha watching me then, her eyes flicking down to the hand on my stomach. She raises her eyebrows at me knowingly and I press my index finger to my lips in an attempt to stop her from announcing something that doesn’t need announcing yet.
She smiles and nods.
How does she always know everything?
Vegan Gluten-free Black Bean Brownies
These brownies have been mentioned in three of my books now, so I thought it was about time that I gave you the recipe. They were first baked by Rob Jones, brother of the hero in my debut novel The Many Colours of Us who passed the recipe on to Julia’s best friend Pen. Pen and her husband Graeme moved to York and opened a café where the brownies were served in The Pieces of You and Me and it was from Pen that Sascha got the recipe she used to bake the Christmas brownies for Ellie’s New Year’s Eve champagne tea party. I believe that’s called meta.
Ingredients
1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained
2 flax eggs (make these by mixing two tablespoons of ground flaxseed with 90ml of water – if you aren’t vegan you can use two hens’ eggs)
3 tablespoons of coconut oil (melted) or alternatively use olive oil for a nuttier flavour
100g of cocoa powder (I use Green & Blacks)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
75g of caster sugar
1.5 teaspoons of baking powder
Method
Preheat over to 180°C and lightly grease a standard muffin tin.
Put all the ingredients into a food processor and mix together. You can also put them in a bowl and mix with an electric whisk. You need to get it to the consistency of frosting – but definitely not runny.
Spoon the mix equally into the compartments of the muffin tin.
Sprinkle on an optional topping such as crushed nuts or chocolate chips.
Bake for 20–25 minutes until the tops are slightly crispy and the edges are pulling away from the sides of the tin.
Allow to cool and take out of the muffin tin.
Add optional candy Christmas trees.
The brownies will keep for 3 to 5 days in a cake tin or you can freeze them for up to a month.
Ben and Ellie’s Playlist
These are the songs I was listening to when I was inside Ben and Ellie’s heads. You can find Ben’s ‘Christmas Peaceful Piano’ playlist on Spotify.
Dear Prudence – The Beatles
Pennyroyal Tea – Nirvana
Boom! There She Was – Scritti Politti
You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart – Eurythmics
All My Loving – The Beatles
Tender – Blur
Be More Kind – Frank Turner
Dignity – Deacon Blue
The Power of Love – Frankie Goes to Hollywood