Someone had brought a docking station for their iPod and music began to echo off walls freshly stripped of red flock wallpaper and nicotine stains. Dusty people chattered around the mood boards that depicted Alexia’s vision of the pub’s transformation to The Angel Community Café.
Alexia’s best friend, Jodie, appeared at her side, her long dark hair overlaid with a cobweb, and pushed a cold can into Alexia’s hand. ‘Here. You deserve a drink.’
Alexia pulled the ring tab with satisfaction. ‘We all do. I love this village. Forty people have given up their Saturday to help us.’
‘They want a community café and they like free beer!’ Jodie raised her voice to match the increasing noise. ‘Shane says he’s stowed the mirrors, tiles and etched glass screens upstairs so there’s nothing to damage if folk let off steam. He’s gone to fetch the burgers and sausages from your fridge. Shall we find someone to help us set the barbecues up? Seb’s around somewhere.’
‘Not Seb,’ Alexia protested. ‘I don’t need my ex breathing down my neck. There must be someone else mug enough to sacrifice drinking time in favour of carting more heavy stuff.’ Alexia’s gaze shifted to the only person in the room she didn’t know, a man with tousled corn-coloured hair. She’d watched him help take up the black and white tiles to be stacked in the back of Shane’s truck and moved off-site to be cleaned. Most people had joked and chatted as they worked but the fair man had offered only the occasional reply if a remark was tossed in his direction. Now, T-shirt and jeans dusty, he was alone, leaning on a wall. ‘Him,’ she suggested.
Jodie followed her gaze. ‘Two minutes single and you’ve got your eye on the brooding stranger?’
Alexia grinned. ‘It’s four weeks. And what’s the point of being single if you can’t show interest? Come on.’ She cleared the dust from her throat with a swig of beer before threading her way towards the man who was idly watching a group of four laughing women trying to dance on the mortar where the floor tiles had been. His gaze focused in on Alexia only once she was standing in front of him.
She introduced herself and gave him the benefit of her best smile. ‘I’m project-managing the refurbishment of The Angel. And this is Jodie, who’ll run The Angel Community Café when it opens.’
‘I’m Ben.’
Alexia disregarded the economy of his reply. It was probably overwhelming to be the only person here who didn’t know every other person here. ‘Thanks for helping. Aren’t you Gabe Piercy’s nephew?’ Gabe had been uncharacteristically reticent about why his nephew had turned up on the edges of Middledip village and then kept almost entirely to himself.
‘That’s me.’ His hair slid over one eye as he nodded.
‘Gabe’s probably told you that he’s bought The Angel because the village can’t sustain a coffee shop unless it has some community value—’
Ben finished for her. ‘So he’s set the rent low to make the café viable and the book club and all the other local groups are going to bring business in.’
Alexia took a step back. There was ‘brooding’ and there was ‘abrupt’ and in her eyes Ben had just crossed from one to the other. ‘Sorry if I’m being boring, but this is such an amazing building, I’m excited to see it brought back to life. And,’ she added tartly, ‘in case you’re worried that your uncle’s being ripped off, the village has raised money towards the refurb. Gabe will end up with a sympathetic restoration, and a share of the profits from the café that’s far in excess of what he’d earn if he kept his money safe in the bank.’
She prepared to turn on her heel and find someone friendlier to haul barbecues around for her but Ben put out a hand, looking rueful. ‘No, I’m sorry. Like Gabe, I’m a bit of an oddball and, worse, I’m an oddball having a bad day. My mind was on something else when you came up.’ He managed a faint smile. ‘Let’s begin again. It’s a great community effort and Gabe tells me you’re not charging for managing the project.’
Before Alexia could protest about Gabe being termed an oddball or explain why she was working gratis, Jodie jumped in to claim a vicarious share of the accolades. ‘And my boyfriend Shane’s doing the building work for “mates’ rates” because I’m in partnership with Gabe for the business side of the café. By the way, thanks for taming the jungle at the front so we can actually see The Angel from the road for the first time in decades.’
At this reminder, Alexia forgave Ben his earlier instance of gracelessness. Twice on site visits she’d enjoyed watching him dangling from a harness, not above wondering what his face was like without his hardhat and visor. ‘In that case you’re practically one of us boring community volunteers so I don’t feel so bad about hitting on you to help drag barbecues about.’
A brief pause as he stared at her. Then, ‘Hit on me? Lead the way.’
‘Great.’ Blushing, sure he knew it had been accidentally-on-purpose that she’d said ‘hit on you’ rather than ‘hit you up’, Alexia led him through groups of chatting villagers to one of the doors to what had once been the kitchen, evidenced by a pair of white pot sinks, both cracked. The borrowed barbecues were lined up in the middle of the floor as if waiting to be invited to the party. ‘That big green one’s on wheels. The other two have to be carried.’
‘You wheel, I’ll carry.’ Ben wrapped his arms around the sphere of a battered steel kettle barbecue and heaved it from the floor while Alexia and Jodie began dragging the green barbecue into the hall and over the steps of the side door. Ben had fetched the second barbecue in the time it took for them to manhandle it across the weeds that heaved up the aged tarmac.
They were selecting the most even ground when Shane drew up with the food Alexia and Jodie had shopped for yesterday.
‘Shane!’ cooed Jodie, throwing open her arms to take up what was these days a familiar position – wound around her boyfriend.
Shane was good-looking, Alexia acknowledged. His short hair and square jaw went with the kind of body that reflected his physical job. He wasn’t the stable influence Alexia would have chosen for her lifelong friend, though.
‘No Tim?’ Alexia enquired.
‘Nah, he’s gone off somewhere. C’m’ere, gorgeous.’ Shane swung Jodie, lifting her off her feet, making her squeal.
Alexia could imagine stolid Tim preferring to go home than come to a party. Shane chattered enough for both of them, anyway.
‘Right. This is Gabe’s nephew, Ben, who—’
Shane pumped Ben’s hand without waiting for the rest of Alexia’s introduction. ‘All right, mate?’ Brimming with bonhomie, he joined Ben in hooking up the gas bottles that fired the barbecues and dragging a battered table out of a skip to bear the food.
Seeing Shane opening another beer for Jodie, though she was protesting and giggling that one was enough, Alexia glanced from the packs of food to Ben, who hadn’t vanished at the first opportunity as she’d thought he might. ‘Fancy manning a grill?’
He shrugged. ‘OK.’
It took twenty minutes for the grills to become hot enough and they could take up their stations flipping burgers. Ben looked after the grill to Alexia’s left while Jodie cooked to her other side, when she wasn’t giggling with Shane. She seemed tipsy already
