Page 14 of Autumn at the Willow River Guesthouse
‘We did have a few decent weeks of sun,’ Sarah agreed. ‘Right, I’ll see you later. This butt won’t tighten itself.’
‘Good luck,’ Pete said, grinning as Lily cringed.
‘So, you really want me to help you?’
‘I’ll pay you. I don’t expect you to work for free.’
Lily smiled. ‘How much?’
‘Friends and family rate. Fiver an hour.’
Running a portable burger van was a lot harder than Lily had expected. The day started long before they actually had to sell anything, with checking the van itself for fuel and supplies, making sure they had enough power for the generator, checking the sell-by dates on the food, making sure everything was clean and well-organised.
‘Last thing you want is some council idiot having a go over a grease stain,’ Pete said, as they climbed up into the cab and headed out.
Lily remembered Sycamore Park from her secondary school days. Having caught a school bus from Willow River, she hadn’t spent much time there except when visiting friends who lived locally, but, particularly in the early years there had been regular picnics, as well as various events and festivals through the year. At Christmas there was always a small market for a couple of weeks, and on summer evenings lights were sometimes hung from the trees. In autumn though, it really looked its best, when all the leaves started to turn, and every gust of wind brought showers of red and gold leaves.
Pete’s van stood by the south entrance, and within minutes of setting up, a small queue had begun to form.
‘Poor buggers them who’ve got to work on a Saturday,’ Pete said, giving Lily a wink while greeting another middle-aged man with a business suit hidden under a jacket, who was rubbing his hands to ward off the morning chill. ‘Coffee and a sausage bap, is it, mate?’
Most people seemed to know Pete, and Lily couldn’t help but feel a pang of longing at the way her father warmly greeted people from all walks of life, from a man in a Gucci suit whose haircut had probably cost as much as the van, to a girl in her late teens whose jeans had frays that weren’t designer, and whose dirty trainers had laces of different colours. Lily watched proudly as Pete slipped an extra sausage into the girl’s roll and overpaid her change.
Try as she might, though, Lily was struggling to handle the simplicity of cooking a burger that wasn’t black on the outside, or pink on the inside, or remembering which Tupperware pot was sugar and which was salt.
‘Dad, you should replace the labels,’ she said in frustration, as, halfway up the path leading to a duck pond, a customer they had just served took a sip of his coffee and then spat it out, before throwing a sour look over his shoulder and dumping the rest of the cup’s contents into the nearest hedge. ‘All I can see is two faded S’s.’
‘That bit’s a corner of an A,’ Pete said, pointing to a smear on a faded label. ‘Don’t worry, he wasn’t a regular. If you’re not sure, just dip your finger in.’
‘Isn’t that against health and safety?’
‘Only if they’re watching.’ Pete grinned. ‘A few germs never hurt anyone. Ask literally any kid who grew up between the fifties and the nineties.’
‘I burned that last burger too,’ Lily said.
‘That’s why I put extra ketchup in. Don’t worry, he didn’t notice. Most people are in too much of a hurry to care.’
‘I’m useless at this.’
‘You’ll get better. Just give it time.’
Lily enjoyed chatting to some of the customers, but she wasn’t sad when Pete decided to close just after the lunchtime rush was over. When Lily asked if their own lunch would be burgers and sausage baps, Pete shook his head.
‘Not a chance. We’ll go and get some proper food.’
Beside the park’s northern entrance stood a delightful restaurant called the Oak Leaf Café, where its charming owner, an older lady called Angela, greeted Pete like an old friend. Lily had expected some kind of rivalry, but they chatted about the day’s customers and then Angela served them a delicious pie with roasted seasonal vegetables.
‘You should sell stuff like this,’ Lily told Pete as they ate.
‘Ah, different catchment group,’ Pete said. ‘Plus, I don’t want to step on Angela’s toes.’
Before they left, Angela brought over a cardboard box.
‘I found these in a charity shop,’ she said. ‘I immediately thought of you.’
Pete opened the top of the box and smiled. ‘Fantastic. Thanks a lot.’
The box was full of multi-coloured pieces of glass and plastic, as though someone had smashed a set of traffic lights and collected the pieces. Lily had often wondered where her dad got the pieces for the mosaics he liked to make in the old shed behind their house, but Pete was beaming as they headed back across the park to the van.
