Page 11 of Autumn at the Oak Leaf Café
‘Come on, give it back!’
Milady wasn’t having any of it. She shook her head, wrestling the bowl out of Madeline’s grasp, then squatted down and crouched over it, holding it like a prized bone.
‘Allow me,’ Dan said, then gave a sharp click of his fingers. Milady let go of the bowl, tongue lolling as Dan picked it up and handed it back to Madeline, who stared at the teeth marks in the plastic with a look of horror.
‘Angela’s going to kill me….’
Pete grinned. ‘Just playing with you, dear. It’s IKEA.’
‘You sod.’
Dan cackled, and patted Pete on the arm. Milady lifted her head and gave a genial bark.
‘Sorry, couldn’t resist. For what it’s worth, though. Angela’s favourite is the one with the ceramic sparrows on the side. She doesn’t use that for anything.’
Madeline glared at him. ‘Thanks, but I don’t forgive you.’
‘Free coffees whenever you come down south?’
‘I’ll think about it.’
Dan patted his knees. ‘Right, better get these old bones home so I can rest up ready to scare Brentwell’s delinquent youth again tonight. Thanks for the coffee, love. It was lovely to meet you, and I’m sure we’ll bump into each other.’ He winked his glass eye, making Madeline shiver. ‘I look scariest in the fog just before dusk.’
‘Thanks for the warning.’
As Dan took up Milady’s lead and the pair headed off back the way they had come, Pete said, ‘You know, the council didn’t announce they’d hired a nightwatchman. They just put the rumour out that the park was haunted. Works a treat.’
‘I still haven’t forgiven you for the bowl thing.’
‘I’ll make your coffee extra sweet,’ Pete said with a grin. ‘Right, I’d better get back to it. Don’t forget, any time you need something, just give me a bell.’
Madeline smiled. ‘Thanks.’
Pete headed off back to his burger van. Madeline cleared up, then went into the café and started pottering around, trying to get her bearings. There were a few cakes left over from yesterday, but Angela had told her that the best time to bake was weekday mornings when the café was quietest, and the rest of the time she would have to learn how to do it around serving customers.
Through the window, Madeline could see that the park seemed empty. She wandered around the café, tidying things, adjusting placemats, straightening menus. On a shelf in a corner were a selection of paperback books and lifestyle magazines. Madeline pulled out a copy of an interior design magazine and began leafing through it.
The sun was beaming through the windows now, filling the café with beautiful autumn light.
I could get used to this.
A murmur of voices came from outside. Madeline looked up from her magazine as the doorbell tinkled. A middle-aged woman holding a flag that read Bolton Bus Tours in red letters came bustling inside, standing back to hold the door as a line of elderly women began to file in.
‘Okay everyone,’ the tour leader said. ‘We’ll just stop here for brunch before we go over to the theatre.’
Madeline stared in horror as the café began to fill up. With shaking hands, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone and Pete’s card, quickly stabbing his number into her keypad.
‘Pete,’ she said, as his cheerful voice answered. ‘The bus tour lot just showed up. Help me….’
7
Crashed to Earth
Madeline stood outside the café,the sun dipping towards the theatre behind her, and lifted a hand to wave as the coach from Bolton Bus Tours pulled away up the street. As soon as it turned out of sight, she staggered over to the nearest chair and slumped down. She gave her aching back a rub and sighed, then gave a defiant smile.
Baptism by fire and a half.
Pete had mercifully come to her aid during the first invasion, keeping the coffee machine ticking over as Madeline prepared twenty-five maple lattes and almost as many slices of cake with ice-cream. The old dears, filling the entire café with chatter, had seemed happy enough, so much so, that three hours later they had all showed up again after their theatre show had finished. By this time, Pete had already gone home, and Madeline, who had just begun to wonder about closing, had found herself back in action. Luckily, she had used the lull in custom over lunchtime to bake a couple of pies, both of which were now gone, into the diabetes-defying mouths of the hungry old dears. A few of them had patted her arm on the way out, one even donating a pot of hand cream, and another giving her a flimsy paperback book that ‘my nephew wrote. We’re all so proud.’
