A Street Café Named Desire

by R J Gould

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

David has two aims in life, to have a relationship with Bridget and to open an arts café.

A short while after David's wife walks out on him, he joins a twenty-five-year school reunion. On meeting Bridget that night, he develops a teenagesque infatuation, and in her calmer way, she rather likes him.

Between them there is a cartload of baggage to deal with - a demanding soon to be ex-wife; a deceased husband under suspicious circumstances; a tyrannical boss; unwelcome encounters with the police; and children resistant to the concept of 'step-parent'.

And then there's the café. How can a well-paid accountant with two children to support chuck it all in to follow his dream?

If you like fiction that is both humorous and bursting with home truths, then you're sure to enjoy A Street Café Named Desire.

'A story about trust, resilience, forgiveness and fresh starts, narrated with humour and insight.'

'The author writes with a wry wit and creates characters with depth who we care about.'

'The story is a familiar one, but it is told with humour, humility and humanity and at the end I was left feeling hopeful and satisfied.'

Release date: March 21, 2014

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 271

Sample

Chapter One

He was forty-three. Autumn shouldn’t be such a surprise any more, but the annual explosion of colour never ceased to amaze him.

Here they were at their twenty-five year school reunion, crowded around the bar area of the upmarket Hotel Marlborough in Henley. Huge sash windows provided a magnificent view of a fast-flowing, grey River Thames. Rowers were flying downstream. Beyond the river was a steep bank with a dramatic display of early autumn trees.

‘David. You’re David!’

Turning, he was clamped in a bear hug by a woman whose strong grip took his breath away. A face with two scarlet lips came hurtling towards him. His desperate attempt to avoid impact failed and their lips collided.

‘Well, well. David. Incredible – just incredible.’

What did this ‘incredible’ mean? That he’d hardly changed? That he’d transformed beyond imagination? She stepped back and her vice-like grip transferred to his shoulders.

‘David, David.’

How long would this continue – wasn’t she going to advance the conversation? He knew he was David. Obviously she did too. Unfortunately he couldn’t assist because his natural response – hello Alice, hello Barbara, Clare, Diane, Elizabeth, Fiona, or whatever – was impossible. He had no idea who she was.

‘You do remember me, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘That field trip!’ She had released her grip, but the physical assault continued with a punch on his upper left arm. It was no more than a prod really, but right on the spot where the flu vaccination had been applied.

David winced. She noticed.

‘You’re much too tough to worry about a little tap like that. Well you certainly were back then,’ she continued, her face contorting into a grotesque smirk. She gave him another slightly harder punch in the same place.

‘Helen, darling!’ The boxer turned to acknowledge the greeting as another unrecognisable ex-schoolmate approached. Now he had her name and with that a distant memory of teenage groping with a lithe blonde girl during the fourth form field trip to the French Alps. He noted the dramatic change in size and shape since her school days.

‘It’s, let me see now, don’t tell me. It’s … it’s Sharon!’ Helen screamed and the two women jumped up and down before regressing into adolescent reminiscences about their poor behaviour in various lessons at school. If he closed his eyes he could be listening to his own teenage children. But he didn’t close his eyes because a shaft of late afternoon sun had burst through the voluminous clouds and now the trees beyond the bank were ablaze in their full glory.

A week or so ago the leaves would have been green. Now they were dazzling reds, yellows, oranges, and browns.

‘Are you listening, David? You agree with me, don’t you?’ Sharon asked.

‘Yes, I do. Absolutely.’ Of course green wasn’t one colour, he reflected. There were shades – light to  dark, and variations like sage and jade.

‘That’s not true. It wasn’t like that, was it, David?’ It was Helen.

‘No it wasn’t. Absolutely not.’

‘But a minute ago you said it was,’ Sharon countered.

‘It’s all to do with perception,’ David mumbled, eager not to disrupt his train of thought. Without doubt there was a wider range of colours when it came to the reds, oranges, yellows, and browns. Bronze, sienna, ochre, and sand for starters. Chocolate. Copper. Mahogany. Rust.

‘Are you with us, David?’ Helen delivered a punch to precisely the same spot. Her accuracy was uncanny.

‘He always was a dreamer, drifting off into his own little world,’ Sharon added, her voice high-pitched and piercing. The two women were giggling, making it hard for him to concentrate on colours.

He was ill at ease because there was a frustrating gap, a missing one on the tip of his tongue. Then it came to him, perhaps the dominant colour out there across the river. ‘Russet,’ he announced.

‘David, what on earth are you going on about?’ He turned away from the autumn beauty; both women were frowning at him.

‘Rush it, you said. Rush what?’

David remained silent as Helen continued. ‘We were remembering how Mr Strickland used to take the piss out of you in Geography.’

‘Highlight of the week, that was.’ Helen laughed coarsely as Sharon took over, speaking with a deep voice in an attempt to impersonate the teacher.

‘And where are we now, David? I hope in the Australian outback with the rest of us.’

‘Toss-er’ Helen added in teenage-speak.

‘I rather liked him,’ David announced to the gap between the two women. ‘Excuse me ladies, must circulate.’ He turned and headed towards the bar.

‘Well, look who we’ve got here.’ The voice of Bill Thatcher hadn’t changed

‘It’s our little David,’ another unchanged voice, this was Ben Carpenter.

An overzealous slap landed on David’s back. ‘You buying the drinks, mate?’ Ben asked.

David realised he was no longer scared of them. How could you be, looking at the two pot-bellied, balding, greying men with sallow puffy faces? They had lost their menacing edge. Also, he was prepared to admit when he’d had time to reflect, he wasn’t scared because he didn’t much care what happened, not after what he had been subjected to over the past few weeks.

He eyed Ben. ‘Why don’t you get me one?’

Ben looked aghast. ‘What?’

‘I’ll have a bottle of Bud, thank you.’

‘Is little David acting tough?’ Bill enquired.

‘I think he is,’ added Ben.

‘It’s not a case of acting tough, it’s about growing up. And I seem to have made a better job of it than you two. I suppose keeping fit helps, the judo.’

‘You do judo?’ sneered Bill.

‘Yes. And not drinking as much beer as you has assisted.’ With that, David gave Bill a generous whack on his pot belly. When he analysed his action afterwards, readily admitting it had been a step too far, he wondered whether the annoying physical maltreatment by Helen might have been part of the reason for his own mild assault. But probably it all came down to his profound unhappiness – he couldn’t care less about the outcome of his actions. Not at that instant at any rate. But he did care a few nanoseconds later when Bill floored him with a right hook to the chin.

Bill looked down at him with contempt. ‘You gonna try your judo on me, little David?’

Of course there never had been any judo, only badminton which had kept him in reasonable shape but clearly hadn’t prepared him for fighting. David gazed up at a gathering of his ex-classmates in a circle around him, some with a look of concern, but most smiling. Helen and Sharon were in the smiling group, but at least Helen did have the decency to tell Bill and Ben to lay off as it was a festive occasion. The crowd dispersed and David stood gingerly. He made his way to a chair by the window. In the short interval between boredom and humiliation dusk had enveloped the trees. Now they stood as forlorn grey silhouettes. Despite there no longer being anything of interest to see, he chose to stare out the window rather than look inside the room at the alcohol-fuelled gathering.

‘One Bud coming up.’

He turned. The woman handed over the bottle and sat next to him, a glass of white wine in her other hand. ‘You OK?’

‘Just my pride hurt a bit. Well my chin, too.’

‘Poor you. Those two were appalling twenty-five years ago and they haven’t improved by the look of things.’

David recognised the voice, the engaging Scottish lilt from all those years ago.

‘I’m Titless,’ the woman added.

He glanced from her face to her upper body and saw shapely curves. When he looked up she was smiling and he reddened.

‘Not anymore, but I was then. I took a while to develop. Too long for Bill and Ben, so that was their nickname for me.’

‘I remember you. Bridget.’

‘Congratulations. You’re the first to know my name tonight, not that I’ve spoken to many.’

‘Well, you’ve changed beyond all recognition.’

Like every parent, David had told his children the story of the ugly duckling that turned into a beautiful white swan, and while he appreciated the moral symbolism, he had never seen such a transformation in real life until now. Bridget had been an unsociable, awkward girl, liable to blush the instant someone addressed her. She had appeared friendless and was known as ‘Spotty Swot’ amongst his circle of friends. He hadn’t been aware of the ‘Titless’ nickname, not surprising as he kept well away from the gang. Her legs, he remembered, had looked too spindly to support her. He’d felt sorry for Bridget, a rather sad-looking loner, but he’d been too shy to do anything about it.

The woman by his side was divine – a goddess. Not in a garishly sexy way – just downright beautiful. Every facial feature of textbook perfection. A narrow face with high cheekbones; a little, upturned nose; pouting lips; soft, powder blue eyes. Eyes that were now smiling at him.

‘I feel like I’m being inspected. Do you approve?’

‘Yes, yes. You look lovely, if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘Thank you, I never say no to a compliment. I was wondering though – what on earth made you come along to this awful reunion?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘It’s a long evening.’

Chapter Two

Two weeks ago. That’s when David had made the decision to attend the reunion. And that was just two weeks after Jane had told him she was leaving. Not only Jane, but Jim was there too. His best friend Jim.

It was a sunny Saturday and David was sitting in the garden with a mug of tea, flicking through the Daily Mail. According to the newspaper there was a lot wrong with the world. He had never been able to understand why this was Jane’s newspaper of choice.

David was addicted to perusing and mocking the content. One article covered a new drama about vampires which was, claimed the journalist, ‘sucking the innocence out of our children with a shocking tale of depravity that has become the norm on television’. His daughter Rachel loved the programme. David couldn’t gauge the extent of her innocence; she was probably the same as most other sixteen-year-olds in keeping her feelings very much to herself, but there was no evidence of anything being sucked out by what she watched.

On the same page a woman’s life of drink and one-night stands had left her feeling hollow. But then she found the answer: ‘I’m going to become a nun.’ Two photographs showed the before and after. The first, a smiling woman with a rather low cut top holding up a glass of red wine. The second a dour woman, her mane of jet black hair now covered or possibly even discarded, replaced by a nun’s customary headgear. David smiled self-righteously, the writer’s implied preference for the nun at odds with the saucy underwear display ‘to capture your man’ on the previous page.

What a contrast between the women featured on these pages and sensible, practical, lovable Jane – he was lucky to have such a wonderful wife.

He read on, reaching the finance articles. The stock market was continuing its downward trend, with the companies he had a few shares in doing particularly badly.

All in all it had been a satisfying afternoon. He’d pruned the roses, taken the dead heads off the geraniums, and swept up the first wave of fallen leaves. The garden waste had been deposited in the green recycling bin ready for the Monday collection. It was his turn to cook tonight. The lamb was out the freezer and a bottle of Pinot Grigio, Jane’s favourite, was chilling in the fridge.

His wife was out shopping, a regular Saturday pursuit. She favoured going to Brent Cross over the local precinct despite the distance and the queue of drivers battling to get into one of the substantial, but still inadequate, car parks. Inside the mall there were two vast walkways to trek around, as big as athletics tracks. At least in a race everybody was going the same way, but here a stream of determined shoppers struggled to pass those travelling in the opposite direction. For years David had kept his dislike of these trips to himself and selflessly accompanied Jane on her expeditions. But a while back she must have sensed that David hated the experience and volunteered to go alone. She seemed happy window shopping, for despite being away for hours she rarely came back with a purchase.

He didn’t hear the front door open and only looked up when she called his name.

There was an urgency to her tone. ‘David,’ she repeated.

Smiling, he turned to face her. ‘Hello, Jane. Have you had a good time? Oh, hello there, Jim. How are things with you?’

Jim stood by her side, his face serious. Then as David glanced down he saw they were holding hands. Instantly his heart was pounding, his skin itching with prickly heat, his mouth dry. He couldn’t speak. His mind raced, searching for an explanation beyond the one that he knew had to be true. As he awaited the awful inevitability of what was to come, the few seconds’ interval stretched on endlessly.

It was Jane who spoke first, getting straight to the point. ‘Jim and I are in love, David. We’ve been in a relationship for a couple of months and we both know we can’t live apart. We’ve tried to fight it, but it isn’t possible. I’ve decided to move in with him.’

There was a pause, perhaps inviting a reaction from David, but he remained speechless. Unexpected tears welled up, blurring his vision, and a single tear trickled down his right cheek. He trapped the salty moisture with his tongue.

Now Jim was speaking in a this-is-the-sensible-way-forward-for-mature-adults manner. David caught phrases like ‘I’m sure we can do this amicably’, ‘we hope a divorce can go through as smoothly as possible’, and worst of all, ‘we must remain friends after a healing period’.

It was Jane’s turn to add some unemotional sound bites. ‘It’s not as if we have shared interests any more’; ‘all the children do is hear us argue’.

He didn’t think they argued much at all. Admittedly they didn’t chat or laugh as they used to, but there was no conflict, not in his opinion anyway. The reference to the children took him out of his numb state. How on earth were they going to cope with this? Was Jane intending to take them with her, to live with the person they knew as Uncle Jim, or were they to remain with him? Did lawyers settle that?

‘What about the kids?’ he blurted out.

Lawyers would not be needed in this case since Jane had already made the decision. ‘I think the children should stay here. After all, this is their family home. I’ve written a letter for you to give them and I’ll be back tomorrow morning to chat once they know what’s what.’

Now there was anger to mix with his self-pity. ‘So it’s my job to tell them? “Rachel, Sam. Come here a minute. Just to let you know mum has left, she’s gone to live with Jim.” All right with that?’

‘There’s no need for sarcasm, David. I can’t face them today, it’s too difficult for me,’ Jane said in an actually-I-feel-tough-enough-to-face-anything voice.

‘Surely you understand how poor Jane feels, David,’ Jim added. ‘Show some compassion, for God’s sake.’

Jane took over. ‘I think we should go now, but as I said, I’ll see them tomorrow.’

She turned to leave. Jim remained facing him. ‘You take care of yourself now, David.’ He extended his arm for a handshake which sent David into such a state of shock that he sat down, his mouth agape.

And with that Jim turned and followed Jane out through the kitchen, towards the front door.

David was still in shock, sitting on the white plastic chair with the mildew-covered orange and brown striped cushion when Sam came home. He couldn’t have missed Jane by more than a couple of minutes. With great excitement Sam began to recount how he’d been testing out his friend Adrian’s new radio controlled car in the local park. While David fretted about what to say, Sam talked about the speed of the Lamborghini model, how it was something he’d love to own so that he could race against his friend.

‘It’s only £69.99 at Argos, Dad.’

This pause for his dad to consider the proposition was the opportunity David needed.

‘Sam, listen, something terrible has happened. It’s your mother.’

‘She’s not had an accident, has she?’ asked Sam with an expression suggesting surprisingly little concern.

‘No, not an accident,’ replied David, for an instant wishing she had.

‘Good, that’s alright then. Dad, what about an advance Christmas present? If I had to wait until then I wouldn’t be able to use it for ages, with the mud and snow and stuff. But it would be brilliant for now. What do you reckon?’

‘Maybe, but listen. Your mother.’

‘Yes?’ Sam enquired impatiently.

‘She’s leaving us. Well, me, to be more precise, although I suppose also you because she doesn’t intend to live here. She’s going to live with Jim.’

‘Uncle Jim?’

‘Yes, Uncle Jim.’ As he spoke there was a sudden gust of wind and a medley of early falling leaves swirled down from the cherry tree.

‘They’re just friends, Dad. Mum’s always going on about how helpless he is since his wife died. She goes round loads to check he’s OK, but they’re only visits.’

‘I’m afraid not, Sam.’

‘Dad, you must have misheard.’

There was a pause as David weighed up the value of convincing Sam that he was indeed right.

‘Who’s going to cook dinner then?’ said the boy, whose calm, practical outlook on life had always been in such sharp contrast to his sister’s frequent emotional outbursts.

‘What?’

‘If Mum leaves, who’s going to cook dinner?’

‘Well tonight’s my turn, it’s Saturday,’ David mumbled, disturbed by the way the conversation was progressing.

‘But what about other days?’

‘Sam, I haven’t given it a lot of thought. Me again, I suppose.’

‘Oh. It’s just that Mum’s a better cook than you. It’s OK to say that, isn’t it, Dad?’

‘Yes, it’s fine to say that,’ said David reassuringly, wondering whether this was Sam’s way of dealing with the traumatic news.

‘What are we eating tonight?’ Sam persevered.

‘We’ve got lamb.’

‘I like the taste, but when you see lambs jumping about outside in the fresh air it does make you think.’

‘We live in the middle of London. When did you last see a frolicking lamb?’

‘Last week. Not live, on TV.’ Sam returned to the big issue. ‘I’m sure everything will turn out OK, about Mum, I mean. She’ll stay with us, just you see.’

David was not so sure, it had seemed pretty final to him.

‘Dad, will you have a good think about the car?’

‘Yes, I will,’ David replied. Although he was pleased the news hadn’t made Sam distraught, there was a degree of despondency that his son was indifferent to his feelings. Perhaps it was too much to expect a thirteen-year-old boy to have overt sympathy for an adult.

‘See you later,’ Sam said as he turned and headed indoors. His once white trainers were caked in mud though the luminous green Nike tick was as prominent as ever. He was wearing faded jeans and a black T-shirt with an appropriate skeleton cartoon over his painfully thin frame. A good boy, David reflected.

‘Take your trainers off before you go upstairs,’ he called after Sam.

David went into the kitchen, opened the wine, and poured himself a generous glass. He rarely drank before dinner but this was no ordinary day. During his conversation with Sam his distress, mixed with anger, had waned. Sitting down at the kitchen table the shock resurfaced, but there was little time to think things through.

‘Hello, I’m back.’ It was Rachel.

‘In the kitchen,’ David called out.

There was the sound of the light brisk walk that he loved.

‘Hello, Dad.’ Rachel kissed him on the cheek and he could smell the stale tobacco on her clothes. He’d confronted her about the danger of smoking several times over the past few months, but to no avail. Jane hadn’t helped. ‘She’s sixteen, David, she needs to experiment. You can’t expect her to listen to an old fart like you,’ she had said. David hadn’t taken the ‘old fart’ description as a fact, but it was probably what she believed.

‘You OK, Dad? Lost in thought?’

‘It’s your mother.’ Rachel stepped back with a look of concern. At least this was a better start than the conversation with Sam. ‘She visited this afternoon.’

She gave him an impatient teenager look implying a questioning of sanity. ‘Dad, what do you mean ‘visited’?’ She has such an expressive face, David reflected as she continued. ‘She lives here.’

‘Jim was with her.’

‘I love Uncle Jim. It’s like we’re friends, he’s so easy to talk to.’

That statement made David contemplate the danger of continuing. Maybe she would be pleased her mother was moving on from an old fart to such a nice man. But there was no option other than to persevere. ‘She, well actually they … look, straight to the point because you’re old enough to understand,’ he blurted out. ‘They’re having a relationship and now Mum is leaving me and going to live with him.’

Rachel was stunned into silence, an unusual event. Her face reddened with anger.

David pressed on. ‘They came round this afternoon together, hand in hand, and told me.’

‘God, I’m an idiot. That explains things.’

‘What do you mean, Rachel?’

‘Lately whenever you call to tell us you’ll be late home from work she’s off as quick as a flash to see him. Says he needs support since his wife died. I bet she gives him support all right.’

‘Obviously things were going on that I had no idea about. Maybe there’ll be an explanation when she’s back tomorrow morning to talk to both of you.’

‘Great. She’s pissing off and didn’t even have the guts to tell us herself. She’s left you to do her dirty work.’

Rachel went to the fridge, took out the orange juice, and drank straight from the carton.

‘I’m sure it’s not easy for her. Anyway, she’s written you a letter,’ David said as he handed her the envelope Jane had left on the table.

‘Not easy! How can you defend her, are you mad? What about us?’ She was right, it was a da. . .