Page 18 of Fred and Breakfast

‘Yeah, not good. I was expecting a proper strong builder’s tea, you know? This is pretty horrible, and the mug feels a bit greasy.’

Our restaurant review is cut short by the reappearance of the woman, this time holding two plates.

‘Bacon roll?’ she sniffs.

‘That’s me,’ Katie replies, and the woman dumps the plate in front of her.

‘Yours must be the sausage, then,’ she remarks, placing the other plate in front of me. ‘Sauces are on the table. Help yourself.’

Katie reaches for the brown sauce and lifts up the top of the roll to squirt it on the bacon.

‘Oh, bloody hell!’ she exclaims. ‘There’s hardly any bacon here at all!’

I look, and she’s right. Two tiny rashers look completely lost in the large bread roll. I lift up the lid of mine and find that I’ve definitely got the better deal, as it does at least look much better filled. I squirt in some ketchup and take a bite.

‘How is it?’ Katie asks, as she lifts her roll to her mouth.

I wait until I’ve finished chewing before I reply. ‘I’m not sure any vegans would be troubled by the sausages, as I’m pretty sure there’s no meat in them. If there is, I can’t taste it. This ketchup is horrible too; it’s weirdly sweet to begin with, and then you just taste vinegar.’

In the end, neither of us finish our drinks or rolls. Katie picks the bacon out of hers and eats it on its own, and I take a couple more mouthfuls of the sausage bap before I give up.

‘Sod this,’ I tell her. ‘Let’s go and get a decent cup of something and a piece of cake. I think we’re going to need all our strength later, and this is just depressing me.’

‘Good idea,’ she replies, and we beat a hasty retreat, leaving the half-finished food and drink behind us.

We end up back at the coffee shop I went to yesterday, and we both groan with pleasure as we sip our drinks and bite into the cakes. The contrast couldn’t be starker, and I find myself feeling increasingly angry with Nora’s Diner. I’m no longer surprised that the takings are so pitiful, I’m amazed that there are any takings at all.

‘I’m seriously wondering whether we might be better off closing that bloody café right now,’ I say to Katie, after we’ve finished our slices of cake. ‘There’s so much wrong with it, I don’t know where to start. It might actually be easier to sell it on as an empty unit.’

‘It was pretty bad,’ she agrees.

‘And that woman! I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so unbelievably rude. She’s in for a shock, I can tell you.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Well, if we close the café then I guess she’s not my problem. If we decide to keep trading while we look for a buyer, then I’m not sure. I probably can’t fire her, as I expect there are procedures you have to go through with verbal and written warnings and so on. Plus, if she’s the only person besides the chef who works in there, that will leave us with a staff shortage. She can’t carry on the way she is, though, that’s for sure. If the food and drink aren’t bad enough to put you off, she certainly is.’

I’m surprised by the strength of my feelings. I have no interest in owning this café whatsoever but, even though none of its failings are even remotely my fault, I somehow feel responsible. As I consider this unwelcome turn of events, I realise that I’m going to have to try to fix the worst of the issues before I sell it, because it’s going to be almost impossible to find a buyer for it as it is. The quality of the tea and the coffee should be relatively easy to fix, as should the quality of the ingredients they’re using. I can’t believe it would make a significant dent in the non-existent profit margin to have slightly nicer bacon that didn’t shrink to nothing when you cooked it, as well as sausages that actually tasted of something. I have no idea what I’m going to do about the woman behind the counter, though. I’m not sure anything short of a complete personality transplant will work on her.

I sigh and turn my attention back to Katie.

‘Right,’ I tell her. ‘Let’s go and see what they’ve got to say for themselves. Ready?’

‘As I’ll ever be.’

10

When we reach the café, the ‘closed’ sign is back in place, but I can see three people sitting at one of the tables as I knock on the door. There’s the woman from earlier, a guy who must be Matt the chef, and a girl who looks to be about Katie’s age. Matt unlocks the door to let us in and an awkward silence descends as soon as we’re over the threshold. I feel a little bit as if I’m in some spaghetti western, where two opposing sides are sizing each other up before a gunfight. The music fromThe Good, the Bad and the Uglystarts playing in my head. It’s not even a film I like, but Grandad loves westerns, so we’ve had to watch a few over the years.

‘Hello, you must be Matt,’ I say, to break the silence, and my voice sounds artificially bright. ‘I’m Daisy, and this is my younger sister, Katie.’

He reaches out his hand and I shake it. He has a nice, firm grip, without it being overpowering. He’s younger than I expected him to be. In fact, I reckon he’s not much older than me. He has dark hair, kept short in a buzz cut, and his chocolate-brown eyes crinkle at the edges as if he smiles a lot. He’s not conventionally handsome – he obviously broke his nose at some point and there is a scar on his left cheek – but he’s not unattractive either. He’s broad-chested, with strong, muscular arms sticking out of his T-shirt. I’m relieved to see that his expression is quizzical rather than openly hostile. Of course, that will probably change once I’ve said my piece.

‘Welcome to Nora’s Diner,’ he replies. He turns and indicates the woman I met earlier. ‘This is Rita. She’s been here for, what, ten years now?’

‘Nearly eleven,’ Rita replies, with a sniff. She obviously expects me to be either impressed or cowed by her long service. ‘I was brought in when Nora became too frail to keep on top of things herself.’ She fixes Katie and me with a beady stare, and her voice turns hostile. ‘You two were in here earlier. You didn’t even eat what you ordered. I had to throw perfectly good food in the bin. What were you doing, spying on us?’

‘I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation, Rita,’ Matt interjects. ‘They were probably just trying to get a feel of the place, to help them come up with a plan.’

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