The Second Chance Café in Carlton Square: A gorgeous summer romance and one of the top holiday reads for women!. Michele Gorman

       Chapter 6

      I’m welling up again. This has been happening all the time lately. It doesn’t even have to be one of those appeals on telly about the plight of orphaned children. An M&S food advert will do it. I made the mistake of watching Four Weddings and a Funeral the other day and it took me hours to recover.

      Get hold of yourself, Emma, it’s only bunting. ‘A bit higher if you can,’ I tell Kelly.

      She stretches from the top step of the ladder. ‘I’m as high as I can go.’ She nails in the tail of the bunting. ‘Which means it’s as high as it can go. It looks good, Em.’ She climbs down. ‘Really good.’

      I glance around my nearly-decorated café. It’s hard to remember what it was like when I first walked in here. That was just before the wedding, nearly two years ago, when I was searching for a loo option on Carlton Square to keep my in-laws from having to squat behind the bushes at the reception. It was nondescript from the outside – clearly an old pub but long unused as one – with a few tables and chairs scattered inside and only a Daily Specials blackboard to hint that it had recently tried to be a café.

      Not that I was thinking of being a business owner then. I’d had quite enough on my plate – an eat-all-you-like buffet piled with second helpings and a big fat bap teetering on top. Besides, I was still naïve enough to think that I could find a job to fit around my soon-to-be-born twins. Like I’d be able to stash them in my office drawer and take them out for a feed when I had my cup of tea for elevenses.

      But how was I supposed to get interviews, let alone go to them, when I didn’t even have time for a bath?

      They say people often invent things to solve a problem they have. If that’s true, then most inventors are probably new mothers.

      There I was, at the mercy of two very demanding people who were at least fifteen years too young to be left on their own. I wanted work using the degree I’d just spent five years studying for. And I was running 24-hour room service for the twins anyway, so I knew something about catering for tough customers.

      The idea came to me as Daniel and I sat at one of those outside cafés on the South Bank where you can people-watch for hours. Just a little further down the path along the river from the spot where he’d asked me to marry him, actually. Not that we were re-enacting an anniversary or anything. I guess we were just there enjoying being happy. The twins were still breastfeeding which, I’d only learn after the fact, were the easy days. Have boobs, will travel, that was my motto then. Now we need at least two bags full of gear for even the shortest of outings.

      I haven’t been to the South Bank since, come to think about it. I barely manage Uncle Colin’s pub now, and that’s just around the corner.

      Anyway, the children were snoozing, giving us precious minutes to enjoy the rare winter sun and even speak in full sentences. Daniel was just starting to wonder if it might be better for him to stay home so that I could put my degree to good use, when it occurred to me that instead of looking for a workplace to accommodate our family, I might be able to create one locally. And wasn’t there that old pub on the very square where we lived?

      It was just a whisper of an idea, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it started to make. Luckily the vicar who drinks at Uncle Colin’s has some influence with our councillor, who also drinks there. Everyone’s better off not knowing the details about how he convinced the councillor to give us the pub’s lease. Let’s just say the vicar can be very persuasive when he wants to be. As an ex-con turned Godly, let’s also say I wouldn’t cross him.

      Now it really does feel like a café in here – cosy and welcoming. We don’t even need the lights on if it’s sunny. The big old-fashioned paned-glass windows all along the front flood the room with light that’s almost rosy. And when it’s dim outside, the opaque glass wall sconces cast a yellowy glow. Even before we’ve served our first slice of cake, it feels like a vintage tearoom. And once we start brewing the hot drinks, it should stop smelling like fresh paint.

      Mum and I went back and forth about the colours for the tables and chairs. She wanted pinks and blues to go with the flowered oilcloth she put on the seats. I’ve always been more partial to lilac and mint, so we compromised and used all the colours. It looks a little like Cath Kidston exploded in here, but the strings of bunting criss-crossing the ceiling and the different pastel patterns on the flags all add to its higgledy-piggledy welcome.

      Mum sewed that bunting herself. It was one of her contributions to the wedding (cue more sniffles). That and my dress, which had been hers, handmade by my gran.

      Kell peers at my face. ‘Are you crying?’

      God, what is wrong with me? ‘Just a little misty. I guess I’m overly emotional. This is starting to seem like a big deal.’

      ‘It’s not a big deal. It’s a huge deal! I’d be cacking myself if I were you.’ She picks up the bags that had the bunting in them. ‘It’d be one thing if I failed to keep the fishmonger’s going, you know, a hundred years of family history and all, but at least that would have had a good run till I killed it.’

      ‘Not helping, Kell.’

      She pulls out her hair tie to redo her ponytail. She’s got really nice hair – shimmery straight and light brown with a fringe that never goes wonky – but she always keeps it tied up. ‘And it’s not just about you, right?’ she goes on, as if I need reminding. ‘What about your trainees? You said yourself, the little bleeders need you. You can’t fail them.’

      ‘Really not helping, Kell.’

      But she’s right. Daniel and I can just about manage on his charity worker’s salary, as long as we don’t do anything too extravagant like go out to dinner. Or get a nanny (as if). His parents might be rich, but we stand on our own two sometimes-in-debt feet. If the café goes under, I can always try to find a job that would leave us a bit in the bank after paying for childcare.