This cafe restaurant and its glorious location had been the realization of my life’s ambition. Now I lay awake, living my cafe restaurant dream, wondering how long it could last and whether I’d been a fool to gamble our savings?
If only success would shine on my cafe restaurant enterprise as easily as the sunlight from the valley streamed though our bedroom window and spread its drowsy golden dawn across my Tessa’s hair.
For nearly three hours I’d sat and watched her. In sleep she looked relaxed and happy, her cheeks delicately flushed. With difficulty, I had resisted the urge to awaken her. Now it was nearly 8 o’clock and, at long last, I allowed my lips to descend deliciously onto hers to bid her welcome to the new day.
“Time to get up”, I said wistfully, kissing her again - this time on the nose.
“Must you? Stay here, it will be well worth your while. That’s a lover’s promise.”
Her blue eyes widened invitingly with laughter crinkling at the corners as she enjoyed her tease.
She’d always been a lady of many moods and mysteries. To stay was tempting but opening up was a necessity. So I quenched my desire in the shower and in less than five minutes was downstairs opening the doors of ‘Moorland Valley Cafe Restaurant’ the other great love of my life.
The air was cool and clean with the delicate scent of fir trees from the hills on either side. I stretched my arms out and felt great.
A few cars had already found the tiny road that wound besides the clear running river through the valley and past my small car park. Sadly for my business, they’ve settled themselves down on the side of the road further up stream.
With practiced hands, I quickly set up the tables and chairs ready for the first customer of the day and started the coffee machine. As usual, the first to arrive was Frank who lived down the road in a luxuriously converted barn and had more time on his hands than he knew what to do with. I’m a sitting duck and he spends much of his ample spare time at my cafe restaurant.
If I were honest, I would admit that I am often grateful for his company to take away the tedium of the many long hours when the customers don’t come.
One of the busiest moorland towns is close by on the other side of the hill but it’s far enough away to deter most visitors from discovering us.
Which is such a pity because this valley is beautiful and my little establishment, a cross between a continental taverna and an olde worlde cafe, is a lovely place to sit, take a snack and gaze out over the rolling trees and hills.
Then, of course, there is my own wonderful personality and the bubbly charm of Tessa, my wife, who pops in occasionally to entertain guests. Her beaming smile lights up even the gloomiest day together with reassuring comments like:
“Rain? What’s wrong with rain? If it didn’t rain, the trees wouldn’t grow and then the valley just wouldn’t be so pretty!”
Nevertheless, it was with the knowledge that I had a business that lacked even the capacity to decline that I responded to a mailer from the local government Enterprise Agency.
I desperately needed alternatives to selling up and lumbering another middle aged business hopeful with a situation that would allow him to unhappily squander his savings - in a relaxed and lovely setting of course.
When he arrived later that morning, the adviser didn’t look like an adviser at all. His cream colored safari jacket and trousers hung onto an athletic figure. A pair of cheerful blue eyes sparkled from underneath a mop of fair hair. He looked as if he would be more at home as the knight errant in the pages of a bodice ripping ladies thriller. I found myself pulling my tummy in and trying to stand taller - not a good start.
He listened sympathetically to my tale of woe and made notes. He asked what I supposed were all the right questions - about stock turnover, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and such like. But the bottom line was that not enough people came into the valley. Indeed those that came didn’t always feel a raging thirst and strong desire to sit on my terrace and pay me for the pleasure. I wasn’t convinced he was going to be any help.
Tessa, on the other hand, when she came down to see what a small business government adviser looked like, took to him straight away. After he had exhausted his repertoire of questions for me, he quickly became engrossed in getting to know her better.
Feeling by now thoroughly depressed but not wanting to spoil Tessa’s fun, I left them to it and wandered down to the river to gaze at the brown trout as they darted like shadows too and fro.
When I returned, they were both gone and it was not until much later in the morning that Tessa reappeared alone. She seemed very content. Her eyes were shining and there was the hint of red roses blooming in her cheeks.
“I’ve just been showing Gerald a bit of the local countryside. He was most impressed.”
I harrumphed the way grumpy middle aged men often do when they don’t want to say what they’re really thinking and retired to clean some shelves.
In the next few weeks, Gerald returned several times to ask me the odd additional question. But his main interest seemed to be with Tessa who looked forward to his visits with great anticipation. He had found out that her hobby was writing and this was the main point of their discussions as they went off together.
“Are you absolutely sure you want to let those two go off on their own, old boy”, said Frank. “Your Tessa’s a good-looking lady and there’s many a man who could be tempted to land in her airfield.” (Frank had been a pilot before he retired.)
“You can’t lock up a good looking lady”, was my reply. “If she really wanted to go off with somebody else I’d have to let her anyway - just as I’d want to give her anything else she wanted. It’s a burden that goes with loving somebody.”
Frank surveyed me. My genetic pool had given me a small build, a tendency to fullness of spread, dark hair (now thinning) and heavy eyebrows.
“You’ve got something to worry about there, my friend”, he said, sagely. “You mark my words!”
I didn’t want to mark his words. I didn’t want to feel the sickness in my heart when I imagined Gerald’s strong frame inflicting itself on my wife on some sunny hilltop above the valley. Of his lips pressing against hers and his hands exploring her secrets.
I did not want to have to resolve the question in my mind of the conflict between wanting the best of what she wanted for herself and wanting her just for me. Yet he was always polite when we met. He never gave any sign of guilt and Tessa just laughed gaily when I eventually made some heavily veiled reference to the time they were spending together.
Time passed and with customers still not flocking to me, I once followed Tessa and the small business advisor, running from tree to tree like a voyeur. They moved quickly and laughed a lot. I found it difficult to keep up and stay concealed. Eventually I lost them in the trees. This left me feeling even worse and after that I found it almost impossible to be civil each time she returned.
In contrast to my gloom, Tessa was on the most marvelous form, positively blooming and spending lots of time writing, taking walks and indulging in her new hobby - photography.
Guiltily, I found myself going through her snapshots in the hope of finding some incriminating evidence but they were all of woodland settings in the surrounding countryside. Could they be places with fond memories of pleasant dalliances, I thought jealously.
To take my mind off what was becoming a stressful obsession, I tried advertising the cafe in the local newspaper but with no success. This too did not improve my frame of mind.
Then there came the fateful day when Tessa announced she had an appointment to keep in London and would be staying overnight at a hotel.
She put on her make up, dressed impeccably in some smart new clothes and it was all I could do to stop my rage boiling over and confronting her.
There was little doubt in my mind that this was to be her first night with her lover. I could hardly bring myself to kiss her goodbye.
My rage intensified when the next day she rang to say she’d have to stay over for another day to attend follow-up meetings. The hours dragged slowly past. All I could think of that day was my wife indulging in illicit affair in a sleazy hotel somewhere.
But when she returned she seemed happy enough and when, for a couple of months Gerald did not appear, I took some comfort in the conclusion that they may have satisfied whatever need they had and perhaps she’d now returned to the fold. Our relationship which had plummeted during my steep dive into jealousy gradually made small steps towards improvement.
I decided that if I couldn’t confront Tessa and there was no point in confronting Gerald who was merely doing what any man would do with a pretty woman. However, I could still write a letter to his employers to say that he was no good at his job based on my first hand experiences.
I spent many hours composing the letter. It was written and rewritten until it was word perfect with its hint of extra curricula activities with my wife without actually making any accusation of course and its acid lines of rebuke at getting paid for walking in woods.
Before sending the letter off, I decided to give him one final chance to explain his strategy for my business. I went to visit him in his local office.
He was all charming smiles and good intentions. Said he was right on top of the matter (that phrase nearly made me boil) and that I would shortly see the results. I didn’t believe a word of it but was proud of the way I kept my cool, resolving privately to send the letter off as soon as I returned to the cafe - but when I got back some customers distracted me so I never got round to it.
In fact the next few days were quite busy for me and I even began to wonder if things really were turning round - no thanks to government playboys, I thought bitterly. The weekend was the best I’d ever had. I was literally run off my feet. I even had to get Frank to help me at one stage.
Tessa of course wasn’t interested in giving a hand - too busy writing and photographing. Well I supposed it gave her a hobby, something to do while her provider got on with the difficult job of making money.
I was much happier now. In fact, I was in my element. My little cafe hummed with life and laughter. People came in dropped down exhausted into the chairs, chatted bought snacks and drinks and said how much they enjoyed the valley. I reveled in it. It was what I’d always wanted.
Success was sweet so much that I decided to have one last meeting with Gerald to sign him off as my adviser. It was a moment that I anticipated with relish.
When I phoned him, he was in his usual good spirits. It was his suggestion that we should meet in town at the premises of another of his clients.
The shop was full of people when I arrived and with surprise I saw Tessa was there too. I resolved not to approach her until I found out what was going on. She seemed to be pretty preoccupied with talking to people anyway. Instead I riffled through the pages of a pile of brightly colored books that were on show by the main entrance.
‘Short walks that make your heart beat faster and you spirits soar for people who never have much time for exercise’ was the title.
Underneath its extravagant promise was a beautiful picture of my valley. I overheard a lady excitedly telling her friend about it:
“Ideal for if you want to have a bit of exercise each day. It really keeps you fit because all the walks are up steep inclines to start with and then you can recover your breath as you curve back to your start place - all within only an hour.
“There’s even a nice cafe that’s recommended where you can get a cup of tea after finishing each walk”
With a strange sense of having missed the point, I turned to the entry at the front of the book.
It was dedicated to:
‘My husband, who loved me enough to suffer my research without complaint and with special thanks to our dear friend Gerald without whom the idea would never have been born’.
I replaced the book hurriedly. Tessa was now advancing towards me beaming and my legs felt weak. I didn’t know whether to feel guilty or proud. At last I realized that her writing, her new hobby of photography and, above all, her time spent with the small business adviser had paid off handsomely for both of us.
The End
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© Rob Hopcott 1999 - 2006, all rights reserved. All characters are fictitious in this story and no reference is intended to any person living or otherwise.
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