Free The Beach Cafe by Lucy Diamond Page A

get this sorted out, you know. Whatever happens – whatever decision I make – I do actually have to go there at least once more. And now seems a good time.’
    ‘What with you having flounced out of your job, you mean,’ he put in, rather too caustically for my liking.
    I glared at him, fed up with his sulks. ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I said. ‘What with me flouncing out of my job. I don’t know what came over me. It was such a great place to work, as well. I must have been mad.’
    He stood up, even though he hadn’t finished eating. ‘Suit yourself,’ he grumbled, leaving the room.
    I ground my teeth as I heard him stomping upstairs. He was a fine one to talk about flouncing anywhere. And – I broke off from my train of thought as I realized I’d been in completely the wrong lane for the A30, and was now heading merrily into the centre of Exeter instead. Bollocks! I thumped the steering wheel in frustration, blaming Matthew entirely for my slip-up.
    It took almost five hours to get down to Carrawen Bay, including an impromptu lunch break in Exeter, and then twenty minutes swearing furiously as I tried to find my way back to the Cornwall road, with the rain lashing down in buckets all the while, so hard I worried that my wipers were about to fly off in their vain attempts to clear the screen. Then, just as I’d passed Launceston and was thinking I was onto the home straight, I got stuck behind a muck-spreader, which crawled along at fifteen miles an hour. I didn’t have space to overtake for ages and could feel impatience bubbling inside me as it trundled along, leaving clods of mud on the road in its wake.
    But at long last, the muck-spreader turned off at Pendoggett, and then my spirits lifted as I had my first glimpse of the Atlantic, dark and grey though it was. Now the trees were becoming more hunched over, forced into growing in strange, bent shapes by the battering wind that swept across from the sea. The black-and-white Cornish flag fluttered from the tops of pubs and B&Bs and, just ten minutes later, I was heading into Carrawen, and the storm seemed to be blowing itself out.
    It was only as I passed the grocery shop – Betty’s Pantry – that I realized I’d brought absolutely no groceries with me, not even a carton of milk. I pulled over to the side of the road and hesitated. There would probably be stuff at the café I could use, but it didn’t seem right just to start helping myself. So I turned off the engine, grabbed my purse and dashed into the shop to pick up a few things.
    Betty – if that was the stout, pinny-wearing, blue-rinse lady behind the counter – raised her eyes from the copy of OK! magazine she was flicking through as I hurried in and stared at me for a moment, as if trying to place me. Then she gave a loud snort of derision and turned back to her page.
    I felt slightly discomfited – was the snort aimed at me? – but assured myself quickly that no, of course it wasn’t. Betty didn’t know who I was, so why would she be snorting at me? It was probably some shenanigans in her magazine that had caused the noise of contempt. Misbehaving celebrities, no doubt, or drunken members of the aristocracy. Fair enough. They often warranted a snort from me, too.
    I began loading my basket. Cereal, bread, butter, cheese, milk, teabags, a huge slab of chocolate – well, why not? It was kind of a holiday, wasn’t it? . . . Then I heard the mutter. ‘That’s her over there, Jo’s niece.’
    ‘What, the one who—’
    ‘Yep. Her.’
    I spun round in surprise. Betty was leaning on the counter talking to a younger woman with a short peroxide-blonde bob, wearing a pink velour tracksuit. Both were staring quite openly at me, with scornful looks on their faces.
    I stared back for a moment, my heart thumping. ‘Are . . . are you talking about me?’ I asked eventually.
    ‘Yep,’ Betty replied, folding her doughy arms in front of her. Her dark, piggy eyes glittered with dislike. Bloody