Page 10 of The Custard Tart Cafe by the Sea
“I’ll fight tooth and nail over this blasted petition. How dare that arrogant so-and-so pull a stunt like this?” Frank cries, as he loops his arm through mine and escorts me back inside to the warmth of the café. He’s arrived later than usual today for his tri-weekly visit, and it’s as if he senses the place will be peaceful enough now for a confessional too.
“I’m not sure there’s much you or anyone can do, Frank,” I finally reply from my harbour behind the counter, weary of going round and round in circles over the subject that has rattled all of us for days. It just seems easier to admit defeat.
Now that I’m back inside the café, if somebody chooses to walk in and pelt me with grenades of verbal abuse, I can simply duck beneath my shelves of tarts and hide myself from view– or fly into the kitchen and lock the door. Reggie can cope with the workload, king of multitasking that he is, and Tim is sufficiently briefed on all things customer service to step in when things get mega busy.
I splay my (clean) fingertips across the countertop and, in a bid to convince Frank that battle is futile, I shrug my shoulders. They droop back into the slovenly position they’ve adopted (along with my downturned mouth) since a certain envelope containing a certain document slid itself under the café door. Quite why I bothered to fix my hair in today’s feisty style, I don’t know. The illusion of all that extra volume is pointless and does nothing to make me feel taller and braver.
“Although I do appreciate the sentiment,” I add belatedly as I reach across the counter to pat Frank on the arm, before placing his customary three-tiered cake stand before him and setting to, adorning it with tasty treats. “The thing is, I’m a new business, an unknown quantity to the pier. Believe me, the last thing the management wants here is controversy, especially at such an important time of the year– and that’s exactly what I’ve landed them with, regardless of who is at fault. I’m so decidedly out of my depth. I wouldn’t even know where to start to challenge anything. I don’t have the energy to think about it, either.”
And I truly am in it up to my neck. My location at the very end of the pier is really rather symbolic in that respect.
“There was just something about that guy.” I say. “He knew exactly what he was doing the day he came in, every move mapped out in advance as if he was playing that Battleships board game that my dad always tried to get us to join in with at Christmas.” Frank nods in agreement, as if he’s played it a few times himself. “I never stood a chance. If I’m honest, the petition to close us down hasn’t even taken me by surprise.”
Frank’s brow creases, making him look unnecessarily ancient, and far too frail to tussle with anyone– in or out of a frigate.
He starts feistily enough, slapping his hand on the counter and saying he’s not having it. “We’ll fight on your behalf. I’ll rally around more support than you’d think possible, lovie, to counter this ridiculous threat. The entire Somerset fire brigade for starters. These custard tarts of yours have the same cosy quality about them as a bowl of crumble and custard. That’s what my beautiful Millie served me when I came home from my nightshift after… aft… af…”
But Frank is unable to continue with his story. His eyes water. My heart can’t take this. I feel tears pricking and threatening to trickle from my own eyes. All I want to do is wrap him up in cotton wool and make everything better.
Maybe I should just get Lauren on board. She’s definitely a bruiser. I’m sure that she’d have ideas to counter this unwarranted attack– some more orthodox than others. But I’m so fed up with her seeing me as accident-prone, someone she has to tower over like a protective pine tree. This was my time to shine. Aside from Muse Masters lending a helping hand with the marketing, I want to stand on my own two feet. I want to ignore the aggrieved words that idiot and Cristiano the pseudo-poodle pushed under the door; to call their bluff and carry on regardless– or to call time on my venture on my own terms. But the last thing I am prepared to do is add fuel to a fire and fight the stern words of the petition.
“I knew it was a sign when I read about this place of yours in the local newspaper.” Frank takes a measured breath. “It called me back, you see. There’s something so comforting and grounding in the no-nonsense custard tart– even if you do jolly yours up a bit.” I grin widely at that. “I couldn’t quite walk all the way down here the first day you opened up– even with my cane for support. I had to hop on the pier train just to make the pilgrimage. But now I’m feeling strong enough to walk the whole wayeverytime I visit you. That’s a marvellous feeling, Willow. The panic doesn’t engulf me like it used to. I’ve left the bad parts of the past in the past. That’s the power of custard.”
Frank chuckles lightly, before completely changing his tone. “And now that bastard thinks he can badmouth you, Reggie and Tim and your lovely pastries off the seafront. Well, he can damn well think again.”
“Frank!”
Call me conformist, but I’m shocked to hear the strong swear word flying out of my friend’s mouth. This is not the sweet-natured man I’ve come to know pretty well over the past month and a bit.
“Apologies for the cuss word. It doesn’t suit the establishment, and I’m sorry. At least nobody else heard me, hey?” He scans the café behind him in case a customer should be hiding. “But he has no right to do this to you, or your customers. He has no idea how special this place is. He’s just trying to be a food snob, like one of those stuck-up critics on television. Well, he’s chosen the wrong place.”
“Shall we?”
I gesture at the table nearest the counter, so I can dive back behind the scenes quickly if need be. Frank and I take a seat. Intuitively as ever, Reggie appears from the kitchen where he’s been chatting with Tim. He fixes us up with a pair of teas and puts the finishing touches to Frank’s assortment of tarts, carrying them over to us.
“You go first.”
Frank nods at the tarts, and although I really shouldn’t be pilfering my customer’s order, I know it’s the only way I will find out more about his backstory, so I plump for a rhubarb and custard, whilst Frank zones in on the rum and custard revelation, my latest joint creation with Tim. To my knowledge, Frank’s not yet sampled this fusion of flavours and I find myself on the edge of my seat, in anticipation of both his story and his verdict.
It turns out that Frank adores the pairing of custard and alcohol, and it also turns out he was a firefighter in the local squad that dealt with the tragic Weston-super-Mare pier fire of 2008. He retired straight after. Although he’d dealt with many fires in his time, and all of the loss those fires entailed, the horror of seeing the building he’d so loved as a child go up in a fireball was devastating.
“You go through so much training as a firefighter. I thought I could get past it without counselling. And the last thing I wanted to do was open up to my family. How can you explain to them what you’ve experienced? Raking it all over again would only make them feel wretched, too. So I bottled it up instead. Of course, now I know better. A problem halved and all that.”
I nod sadly. I can’t imagine how mentally tough one has to be to join the fire service, let alone to tackle such an emotive blaze. It must have been a race against time, not only to save lives and livelihoods, but also precious memories.
“Fifty-two million, they spent on the pier’s reconstruction. As far as I’m concerned, Willow, this café is an integral part of the phoenix rising from the flames.”
Frank’s words give me goosebumps.
“Wow. I did a lot of homework prior to setting up here, but I’d no idea the transformation had cost that much.”
“Oh, yes. It took them the best part of two years to rebuild it.”
This part I did know, but I don’t admit it because I want to help Frank to help himself, to halve his problem by sharing it with me, to give himself a little more closure. I watch as Frank dives in for a plum and bay custard tart. We don’t tend to sell so many of these to the younger crowd, but Frank and his generation are nothing if not adventurous.
“Well, then comes the saddest part of the story. The pier always meant my Millie to me. A weekly visit to the Grand Pier was part of my life growing up, and it’s the very place where I met my sweetheart. Her mother used to be a cleaner here, whilst her father was in charge of the change booth, dishing out tokens, when he wasn’t attending to various carpentry jobs along the boardwalk. I first saw Millie when she was enjoying the attractions with her brothers and sisters.”
I take a cautious sip at my tea, even though I know it’s not hot. Frank is like a fawn that could skitter away in these tender moments, and I don’t want to distract him from getting his story off his chest. I sense that he needs to.
