Page 15 of The Custard Tart Cafe by the Sea
I really don’t, but there’s no point trying to derail Kelly when she’s got a plan.
“You don’t need to worry about a thing, Willow. It’s all taken care of. I knew you’d say yes so I’ve booked us all into this gorgeously authentic ‘quinta’ twenty minutes inland from the eastern Algarve.” I rub my eyes. Clearly I am dreaming. I can’t just up and leave the café for a week during my first season of trading. This is madness. Admittedly, the free publicity from Caitlyn’s uni friends has been amazing, getting TCTC into the local papers, as well as boosting our Instagram following. We’ve even had our first experience of takeout queues spilling onto the pier. Reggie and Tim squealed when that happened! Emma and her team have also been and gone with the summer roadshow, so that’s one thing less for me to worry about. In the end, although they were granted permission from the pier’s management to broadcast the epic event from the café, it was with a limited audience for health and safety reasons. Bittersweet for us as it felt more like an intimate family birthday party than a large pop concert. But, while we may not have sold so many tarts, it was infinitely easier to manage and enjoy. I got to mingle with the hip and trendy locals who’d won the coveted places, and Emma roped in an impressive selection of West Country authors who read out excerpts from their brand new summer holiday novels on air, kindly adding paperbacks to our book trolleys.
“It’s free cancellation up to a week before the holiday,” Kelly crusades onwards, jolting me from my reverie. I bite my tongue, waiting for the spiel to end so I can finally make my excuses and worm my way out of it.
But Kelly could have been an aspirational travel blogger in a former life– a realisation I will definitely be keeping to myself since my friend loves nothing more than to bang on about the merits of past life regression (and, of course, numerology… but that’s a whole other story). Basically, dang, she is persuasive when she wants something.
“It’s well quiet, near the Spanish border side of the Algarve. For some bizarre reason, most people step off the plane at Faro and head for the commercialised west. But not us savvy ones.” Kelly taps the side of her silver-studded nose. “Not only does the farmhouse have the most stylishly rustic rooms and a luxury turquoise pool flanked by olive, lemon, and fig trees…”
Oh, wow! That does sound good but I press my mouth into a firm line, determined not to take the bait.
“Not only does it have the cutest goats you ever did see meandering on its land…”
Help! I have always had a soft spot for goats.
“But Willow, get this: it’s only got its very ownpastelariaon site. They specialise in almond, carob and corn products, but for sure they’ll make custard tarts. I mean, it’s a given.”
That does it. I’m hopelessly and irretrievably sold.
“No way?”
“Yes way!”
Kelly gets out her phone, tapping and swiping excitedly to reveal idyllic photographs of the unconventional accommodation. It’s situated in a small rural town called São Brás de Alportel. I definitely can’t recall the name from my family holidays to the region as a youngster, but then we did always cling to the touristy resorts on the coast.
“But what about Radhika? It sounds like her idea of hell, being so cut off from the action,” I say.
“She’ll come around once she realises how compact the Algarve is. She can hop in a taxi and be in Faro for a boogie in twenty-five minutes, if our compromise of one night out in Vilamoura’s Strip isn’t enough. Besides, who’s to say she won’t meet a hunky country dude? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again several times on this holiday: she’s got to stop looking in all the obvious places. Romance doesn’t work like that.”
“Erm, Kelly? How much is all of this going to cost?”
Kelly raises her hand to stop my inquiry and shakes her head from side to side.
“All you need to know for now is that it’s way cheaper than an apartment or a hotel in any of the main beach resorts. You’d be amazed, Willow. You can pay me back after the holiday.”
And that is that. I leave Kelly to her expert negotiation skills as far as Radhika is concerned. I make a final check on the dates of the Weston-super-Mare versus Bristol grassroots city club– whose name I have already forgotten– football fixture. It’s all good. The match isn’t on until the week after the return date. Plenty of time for me to limber up my biceps then. Ooh, perhaps I can practice my custard tart catapulting on a beach where the sun actually makes an appearance, unlike our own version, whose skies have remained stubbornly plastered with thick white clouds for the past few days.
It doesn’t take long to confirm the finer details. By the afternoon, Kelly has booked our taxi to Bristol airport from her house, as well as the flights and the rental car at Faro. In ten short days, we are Portugal bound.
CHAPTER TEN
Although it feelslike something of a risk, I know I need a holiday. Setting up a new business in the foodie world is a bit like one of those iceberg diagrams. The blood, sweat, and tears; the crippling self-doubt and the financial worries remain unseen by the outside world, below the waterline. Only the tip (the café or pub or restaurant or cocktail bar) gleams like a beacon that will cause the whole structure to either sink or swim. Hardly helped by uppity males of the Tiago Willis variety.
Lauren has messaged me with recommendations for swanky restaurants and wine bars that none of us have the budget to frequent; her memories of our family package holidays in fuss-free three star hotels with cardboard towels and empty minibars long forgotten. Mercifully, she has only mentioned He Who Shall Not Be Named once in the last couple of weeks. I suspect Jamie has moved Tiago to another floor.
Caitlyn is not only back in Weston-super-Mare for the summer and bursting with her trademark joie de vivre, but she’s taking all the hours I can throw at her– I guess that’s what happens when you are surrounded by all those focused and dedicated athletes on your sports psychology degree. She’s also enlisted the help of some local student contacts who are in need of the extra money, negating the need for me to finally get around to putting out the ad for part-time summer staff that I have been seriously procrastinating about.
Tim’snatasare as close to perfection as can be, and he’s working at an impressively accurate and robotic speed to keep up with the growing demand.
Frank has told me this trip is non-negotiable (with an affirmative tap of his walking stick). I don’t dare argue with that.
And Reggie knows the drill for everything inside and out. “All graft and little gratification maketh for one hell of a boring fart,” he encouraged me in his unique way. “Relax. The café will be fine, even if this is a busy period. Besides, if you don’t take this break, you’ll only be green-eyed when I head off to Puerto Banus later in the season, and Tim takes his annual sojourn to climb a scary mountain in the autumn. Or maybe not, ref. the latter… I believe it’s the Matterhorn’s turn this year.”
I physically tremble at the thought. Puerto Banus’s attractions may be more Radhika’s bling style than mine, but all those daytime DJ pool parties surrounded by influencers and semi-famous faces are a thousand times preferable to scaling a death-defying mountain. And to think my pastry chef willingly participates in this for ‘fun’ once a year…
In any case, the café couldn’t be in safer hands as I jet off with Kelly and Radhika for a week in the sun. I haven’t been back to the Algarve since I was a teen– a case of too many summers spent working– and I definitely plan to schedule in a fewpastelariastops, because this pastry chef never stops climbing the learning curve. It isn’t every day that your holiday accommodation comes with a traditional confectionery outlet in its rustic grounds, after all! My mouth waters at the prospect.
My last jaunt from Bristol airport had been with Callum for a long and difficult weekend in Prague. His impatience with my eagerness to try every quirky activity I could get my hands on flared up into one hell of an argument. Exactly halfway across Charles Bridge. Exactly halfway through having my portrait sketched, too. It was mortifyingly embarrassing. Evidently the artist had never seen anything like it, either, when I was forced to leave him with his half-finished sketch. I’ll never forget the shock on his face. In fact, I tipped the poor man extra for his trouble… which was akin to throwing petrol on the fire of Callum’s annoyance. Fair enough, my boyfriend would have had to find some way to amuse himself for half an hour (getting his own miserable head and shoulders sketched, appreciating the talent of the lone double bass player, and marveling at the mime artist trapped in an invisible box sprang to mind). But no. All Callum wanted to do was sit in pub after pub necking Pilsner after Pilsner. Then he’d hobble back to the hotel miffed at how much– which really was very little!– he had spent, then lord it over the flat screen TV, sprawled out on the bed.
