Appleby Farm
Authors: Cathy Bramley
A charming romantic comedy that’s a breath of fresh air
Freya Moorcroft has wild red hair, mischievous green eyes and a heart of gold. She’s happy working at the café round the corner from Ivy Lane allotments, but a part of her still misses the beautiful rolling hills of her Cumbrian childhood home: Appleby Farm.
Then a phone call out of the blue and a desperate plea for help change everything . . .
The farm is in financial trouble, and it’s taking its toll on the aunt and uncle who raised Freya. As Freya heads home to lend a hand, she is surprised as her own dreams for the future begin to take shape.
Love makes the world go round, according to Freya. Not money. But will saving Appleby Farm and following her heart come at a price?
Contents
Read on for an extract from
Conditional Love
For my nanna, Mary –
three hand squeezes
Chapter 1
The door opened with a ding of the bell, letting in a welcome blast of fresh air as a group of teenage girls left the café.
‘Adios, amigos!’ I called. ‘Ciao, bellas!’
It was the Thursday before the Easter weekend, children were off school and the spring sunshine had brought us a steady stream of customers all day long. Now, at four o’clock, we were having a quiet spell, which was just as well, because the service side of the counter, where I stood, looked like a scene out of
Titanic
.
I had spent the last hour training Amy, our new recruit, in the art of making espressos, cappuccinos and lattes. The work area was awash with her efforts; we were marooned in a sea of brown liquid, puddles of spilt milk and numerous abandoned mugs, spoons and jugs. The pair of us were looking a bit worse for the experience, too: my red hair had turned to frizz after repeated exposure to random gusts of steam and Amy had a streak of coffee across her forehead like a third eyebrow.
On the plus side, despite the steamy atmosphere, there was a heavenly aroma of fresh coffee and I’d felt enormous satisfaction from seeing Amy get the hang of the equipment – eventually. I watched over her shoulder, a bit close, actually, seeing as her short ponytail was tickling my nose, as she poured steamed milk from a stainless-steel jug into a tall glass.
‘Yay! Perfect,’ I cheered. ‘That’s it; nice and slow so you don’t spoil the foamy bit on top.’ Phew! I thought she was never going to get there.
Amy placed the jug on the counter with a shaky hand and exhaled. We both examined her first latte.
‘What do you think?’ She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and wrinkled her smeared brow.
‘I think you’ve cracked it,’ I said, and grinned.
Just in time, because I was hanging up my apron any second, leaving early and then she would be on her own behind the counter. I flung an arm around her shoulders and gave the sixteen-year-old a squeeze. ‘But now you’ve got to pass the boss’s taste test.’
I nodded towards the far corner of the café. Shirley, head down over a pile of invoices, sat at a small table with one foot raised on the chair beside her. Her ankle was completely better now; it was simply a habit she’d fallen into after being told to keep it raised when she broke it last autumn.
That foot was the reason I was here. Shirley’s daughter, Anna, is a friend of mine and when Shirley had her accident, Anna begged me to come and help out in the café for a few months until her mum was back on her feet. At the time I was working in promotions, handing out free samples and money-off coupons in supermarkets around Manchester – a job that had lost its sparkle early on. So I moved to Kingsfield, a small town on the outskirts of Derbyshire, and into Anna’s spare room, and I’d been working at the café ever since.
I watched Amy creep towards Shirley, the tall glass rattling in its saucer as she placed one foot cautiously in front of the other. I held my breath; it was like witnessing a tight-rope walker crossing Niagara Falls.
‘Delicious. Well done, both of you,’ Shirley declared, lifting the latte in approval. ‘Amy, you’re now officially allowed to use the coffee machine and, FYI, I like three sugars in mine.’
‘Go Amy, go Amy,’ I hollered, waving my fist in the air as my student smiled bashfully, dipped her head and twisted one foot behind her other leg, looking far younger than sixteen all of a sudden.
I also dropped into a curtsey, holding out an imaginary skirt with my fingertips. ‘And my work here is done.’
Shirley chuckled, shook her head and went back to her paperwork.
Is it?
As soon as the words were out of my mouth a fluttering sensation worked its way from my head to my heart.
Was
my work here actually done? Was it time to move on? Again? Eek! I stared at the top of Shirley’s bowed head until it dawned on me that Amy was looking at me rather oddly.
I gave myself a shake, pointed Amy in the direction of the floor mop and, leaving her to soak up the spillages, went to clear the table vacated by the teenagers.
Yikes. My face felt scarlet now after that unbidden thought, which, seeing as I almost qualified for official albino status in the pale skin department, was pretty hard to hide.
Freya Moorcroft, you are up to your old tricks. Can’t you stick at a job for more than five minutes? And anyway, what about you-know-who? Aren’t you in L.O.V.E.?
I puffed out my cheeks and began to stack plates loudly to crowd out my snarky inner thoughts.
Shirley’s café was booming. And without being big-headed about it, the boom had something to do with me. When I arrived six months ago the coffee had been instant, the menu consisted almost entirely of jacket potatoes and barely any customers bothered coming to the café after two o’clock.
Now we had a fancy chrome coffee machine hissing like a contemptuous goose on the counter, a panini grill permanently making posh toasties and we did a roaring trade in afternoon tea. The free WiFi, which I’d suggested we install, had also proved a hit, especially with teenagers. The café was heaving with youthful hormones for an hour after school, earning us the reputation of being
the
place to hang out and doubling our sales of hot chocolate and smoothies. A win-win, as far as I was concerned.
It had been a whirlwind few months, which was exactly how I liked my life to be. The whirlier the better, in fact. Shirley had pretty much let me have free rein once I’d convinced her to pimp the place up a bit and I’d had a ball. And, outside of work, my life was good too. I loved living with Anna, I’d made loads of new friends and, most importantly, I’d met Charlie, my boyfriend of four months.
Charlie.
You know those ads for yogurt where the actors go all dreamy when the spoon goes into their mouths? Well, that’s what happens to me just thinking about him. Tall, fit, amazing blue eyes, the cheekiest smile in the universe and, to top it all, he’s a fireman. I mean, hello?
So yep, my life in Kingsfield’s pretty good.
But now … I paused from swiping cake crumbs into my hand and glanced out of the window at the row of shops, the pub on the corner, the parked cars, the total lack of greenery. It was the same view I’d been looking at since October. I could do the job standing on my head. Blindfolded. One hand tied behind my back.
Unlike Amy, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, who was making hard work of clearing up the kitchen.
I took the dirty crockery over to the counter and handed it to her. ‘So how has your first day been?’ I asked. ‘Can you see yourself as a waitress? Or have I scared you off with caffeine-options overload?’
‘It’s OK,’ she replied, nodding earnestly. ‘As a part-time job. Till I go to uni.’
‘Great.’ I suppressed a smile but I must have raised my eyebrows higher than I’d intended because Amy blushed. There’s nothing like being told by a teenager that your career choice is merely their stepping stone to greater things.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered, plunging her arms into the sink. ‘That came out wrong. Not that there’s anything wrong … Oh God.’ She bent low over the sink so I couldn’t see her face.
‘Hey, no worries,’ I laughed. ‘Good on you for knowing what you want to do with your life. I got the grades at A level to go to uni, but I had no idea what to study.’ I shrugged. ‘So I opted for a gap year instead.’
Ten gap years, as it turned out …
Auntie Sue referred to my decision to go travelling after sixth form as studying at the university of life. My mother called it a waste of a private education.
Amy glanced over her shoulder at Shirley and then looked back at me. ‘I can only work here until I leave sixth form. I’m going to study architecture and it takes seven years to qualify, and then I want to move to London, so I really need to save up.’
‘Right. Well, good luck!’ I swallowed, smiled and shuffled off.
Flippin’ heck. Sixteen and she’d got a ten-year plan. I thought I was being organized when I had a ten-
day
plan.
A career butterfly, that was me. I couldn’t seem to help it. I’d start a job full of enthusiasm, throw myself into it, loving the whole ‘new challenge’ thing. Then, as soon as I’d mastered it and put my own spin on the role, for some reason I sprouted wings and an urge to fly off somewhere new.
Uncle Arthur reckoned that one day I’d find my niche and my career would take off. My father, on the other hand, put my transient tendencies down to lack of ambition and commitment. I hoped Uncle Arthur was right because I couldn’t bear it if Dad was.
The edited highlights of my career included: apple picker in New Zealand, stablehand in Dubai, chalet girl in Austria, barmaid in Cornwall (eighteen months – a personal record for me, largely down to a lifeguard called Ivan), a short-lived stint as a tour guide at a pencil museum and now here, waitress in the Shenton Road Café in Kingsfield.
I was sure all the random experience I’d gained was preparing me for something; I just wished I knew what that something was. I dropped down into the empty chair opposite my boss and pondered whether to tell her that it might be time for me to move on. Or should I, for once, keep my ponderings to myself?
‘You’re wasted here; you know that, don’t you?’ Shirley said without looking up. Which was just as well because my face was now as red as my hair.
I shifted in my seat. Shirley Maxwell should never, ever, be underestimated. She had an uncanny knack for reading minds. Not that I’d been thinking that I was wasted, just a bit … unchallenged.
‘Meaning?’ I asked, playing for time. I pulled the sugar bowl towards me and started mashing the crystals against the side of the bowl.
Shirley dropped her pen on the table, looked at me and exhaled in a ‘what are we going to do with you?’ sort of way. She moved the sugar bowl out of my reach and I folded my arms.