Breakfast Under A Cornish Sun: The perfect romantic comedy for summer. Samantha Tonge
I’d like to invite you to my wedding next month,’ she blurted out. ‘Could you give me your address? I can’t wait to meet Ross, your plus-one.’
What? I closed my eyes. Fair dos, universe, this is a swift punishment for my lie. Perhaps she’d guessed I wasn’t telling the truth. I mean, why else would she want me there?
‘That’s … very kind of you,’ I said, ‘but … Saffron … I’m really busy during the coming months and … I’m sure there are closer friends you’d like to invite instead of me.’
Didn’t the non-confrontational British just love an understatement?
Silence. Awkward. I awaited the shallow, meaningless retort.
‘It would mean a lot to me. Really. And several friends from school are going to be there,’ she said with a super-soft tone.
I squirmed. Then it truly would be the wedding from hell. But once again, curiosity piqued me and, despite some deep-set feelings of inadequacy that occasionally made a reappearance, for the most I wasn’t that insecure teenager any more. Plus, I was trying to build myself as a singer, and weddings were the best opportunity to subtly leave out business cards.
‘You’d be doing me a favour, Katie. I couldn’t invite everyone I wanted but two family members have just dropped out, due to illness. That’s why my invite is quite late notice. Please. Do consider it.’
Maybe things hadn’t changed so much after all—I clearly wasn’t her first choice of guest.
‘OK,’ I found myself saying. ‘Ross and I would love to attend. I’ll message you my address. Right. I’d better go—customers await.’
I pressed ‘end call’, put my mobile on the table and sank into my chair. How I would have preferred to say ‘Yes, I have a boyfriend called Johnny.’ My fingers flexed as if wanting to message him on Facebook, even though, deep down, I knew it was fruitless trying to exchange words with someone who was … dead. My eyes tingled and I gave myself a shake. I wasn’t one of life’s wallowers. Ever lost my job? I’d be the first in the queue at the employment office. Argue with a sibling or Mum? It was usually me to phone first and smooth things over. But losing someone isn’t the same, is it? Deep-felt feelings can’t be shaken away like salt out of a salt cellar. And messaging him was still possible, you see, because after … the accident, his family memorialised his Facebook profile. That meant friends could still visit his page to flick through photo albums. It meant, in my darkest hours, I could pretend that he was alive but simply ignoring my heartfelt words.
I gave a sigh and gradually my mind cleared of images of Johnny and uncomfortable school memories, until before me I saw … Ah. Izzy, mouth open, with one eyebrow disappearing into her hairline, clearly having heard me talk of a supposed new boyfriend called Ross …
With a sigh, I opened the lounge window, before collapsing onto my squat plum-coloured sofa. Well, the throw was plum. It hid threadbare blue cushions. I loved my flat, even though the kitchen was tiny and my clothes hung on a rail in this living room, due to the bedroom being so small that it could only house a bed or a wardrobe, not both. After years of sharing my personal space with siblings, however cramped, life here felt luxurious. I blinked rapidly and still couldn’t believe my landlord’s announcement, last week, that he wanted me out in two months. He’d decided to refurbish and sell because he needed the money to move back to Australia. Apparently ten years of grey English winters had taken their toll.
I bit the inside of my cheeks. No point moping but I’d miss old Mrs Bird from next door. She’d call on me whenever she needed a light bulb changing, as these days she was wobbly on her feet. Often I’d stay for a cup of tea and a biscuit and she’d play her old vinyl records, her favourites by Doris Day.
I inhaled and breathed out slowly. I’d already started searching the rental ads in the local paper. Little point worrying over things that couldn’t be changed, as Johnny always used to say.
I gazed up at the ceiling, in the corner of the lounge, at the shiny, red, heart-shaped wind spinner he had given me soon after we met. With every turn, the angled metal gave the impression that it pulsated. I hadn’t dared hang it in the garden, in case the damp weather turned it rusty and brown.
‘Whenever you look at it, remember,’ he’d said, ‘it pulsates with my love. I love you Kate Golightly and this is a constant reminder to follow your heart.’
‘Oh, Johnny,’ I murmured and flinched at that vice-like feeling across my chest. I sniffed, picked up my mobile and clicked on the Facebook icon. Very quickly, I found his profile and messaged: Johnny … How are you? I’m missing you still, every time the wind spinner catches my eye. Oh what I’d give just to hear one more of your laughs—just to kiss those lips that had a hotline to my heart. I swallowed, the typed words for a moment looking blurry. What should I do? Soon I’ll be homeless. Mum has relocated to Scotland with her new job. Shall I follow her there?
I know. Pathetic, wasn’t it—the irrational part of me still wanting a response? But I’d never been able to talk to anyone like I could to him, apart from Guvnah. As for moving to Scotland, my instincts already knew the answer. I’d been brought up by a woman determined not to sponge off relatives or claim benefits. Mum had held down three jobs at one point, to manage on her own. ‘Independence is the key to happiness and self-respect,’ she always said. True words. Nothing beat the feeling of paying your own bills or finally buying something you’d saved up for. But not even Guvnah lived nearby any more. After five years of widowhood, she’d met a lovely bloke and moved to Cornwall to marry him last year.
I couldn’t help grinning at the memory of my sixty-seven-year-old grandma on her Big Day. Cupid had unexpectedly shot his arrow at her, during a bowling match, when her friend Bill had brought his friend, Geoff, visiting from the South-west. All of a sudden stubborn techno-phobe Guvnah learnt to text and Skype. She even bought a selfie stick. It gave me faith that it would never be too late to find my soul mate.
I gave the wind spinner one last glance, before prising open my laptop. If only Guvnah lived nearer or I had more paid days off work to go visit. Scrub that. I couldn’t even afford the petrol to get there. Money was tight. That’s why I’d offered to work a double shift today, because Suze, the afternoon waitress, had fallen ill. Mind you, Izzy’s requests were hard to resist when she shook a plate of fresh Oreo-inspired doughnuts under your nose.
Clothes feeling sticky and feet swollen, I yawned. Nothing beat waking up to summer blue skies but a warm café-bar wasn’t the best place to work when temperatures tipped into the mid-twenties Celsius. Not that industrious wasps seemed to agree, having spent the afternoon mounting a well-thought-out campaign against customers and their sweet guilty pleasures. I kicked off my shoes and stared at the screen. Spiteful Saffron. Wedding. Plus-one. This was an emergency situation. I had four weeks to find a partner who looked exactly like a brooding mine owner. So that meant emergency chocolate, right? With an evening ahead of me, registering with as many dating sites as possible, cooking wouldn’t feature on the agenda. Not that it often did, what with me living above the Egg and Whistle, a cheap and cheerful café. Izzy despaired and occasionally forced me to eat an apple during my tea break. I know. How paradoxical—her running a fast-food diner yet obsessing with fresh foods and vitamin C.
Having said that, she prided herself on baking with the freshest, best quality ingredients. And stewed fruit often bubbled away in the kitchen, to make fillings, plus her savoury doughnuts often required chopped veg. I slipped a hand under one of the faded blue cushions and pulled out a huge bar of fruit and nut chocolate. I stashed it there, kidding myself it was hidden and not offering temptation.
Mouth watering, I slipped my fingers along the wrapper. The rectangle looked misshapen, due to melting in the summer heat—not a problem us English chocolate-lovers often suffered from. I went to tug it open when the doorbell rang. At half past eight? Who could that be? Perhaps some local incarnation of Poldark, complete with eighteenth-century tricorn hat, frock