Coffee And Cake

COFFEE AND CAKE

Anna's youngest son, Nick, had almost finished applying the first coat
of paint to the lounge walls of her new, sheltered flat, and gratefully
accepted her offer of coffee and cake, an afternoon ritual still
happily upheld by his mother, despite her continual complaints over her
escalating weight; the previous day, Nick had pointed out to her that
the three large cream eclairs he had discovered in the fridge were
hardly conducive to weight loss, but Anna had defended herself with the
rather bizarre explanation that she was the victim of a
'three-for-the-price-of-two' offer, courtesy of Tesco, so what could
she do?
They sat down in the kitchen and chatted between mouthfuls of chocolate
fudge cake, Nick's favourite.

"How's Tyson?" she asked.
Tyson, far from being the ferocious Rottweiler his name possibly
suggested, was Nick's beautiful long-haired cat. He had inherited
Tyson from friends whose marriage had broken down, so hadn't thought it
fair to deprive him of a name he was obviously used to. However, Nick
had felt so ridiculous when he had gone outside to fetch his new friend
in at nights, that he had called for him in a loud whisper in the
forlorn hope that his neighbours wouldn't hear.
Unfortunately, on the third night, Ethel, his immediate neighbour, an
elderly but sprightly lady of eighty-three, had leapt out of her
back-door brandishing a broom-handle, mistaking Nick for a burglar
calling to an accomplice on the other side of the garden wall.
They both had a good laugh afterwards, once Ethel's brandy had steadied
their shattered nerves; and Nick's embarrassment over his pet's name,
along with the neighbours' hoots of laughter, had gradually
subsided.

Nick was single, and Anna thought that he probably treated his cat
better than he would have done a wife.
Her children adored cats, and had all kept them at one time or
another.
Elisabeth, her eldest daughter, currently owned two, and, in Anna's
opinion, spoilt them to death. One of her cats in particular was a
complete horror, and had ripped Elisabeth's sofa-cover to shreds; but
Elisabeth would lay down her life for her cats and always defended
them.
"They live here too, you know," she would say. "I can replace a
sofa-cover, but I can't replace my cats."
It made Anna so cross, and she would insist that cats could be trained,
and often reminded her daughter that she had done so quite successfully
with one owned by Nick before he had flown the nest.
Anna's 'training' had consisted of throwing cushions at the unfortunate
creature whenever he attempted to jump up on the sofa, and clapping her
hands loudly while shrieking "shoo!" at the top of her voice when any
other heinous crimes were committed, such as leaping onto kitchen
worktops or heading towards the bedrooms. (However crude, these methods
had certainly worked, and, once Nick had moved into his own home, it
had taken him months to persuade his nervous pet that sofas were no
longer off-limits.)
But the cat had rarely entered the house after this rigorous 'training
programme', Anna recalled, and had chosen to spend most of its time
sleeping in the lean-to on the back of the house, so she realised her
methods weren't entirely suitable for Elisabeth's cats, who, to Anna's
complete disgust, even slept in her daughter's bed.

Anna also had fixed views on what cats ought to drink, and was
convinced that water alone couldn't possibly guarantee good
health.
She usually looked after Elisabeth's two when her daughter was on
holiday, and had to admit that, although she felt they were spoilt,
they were very friendly and affectionate, and would make a big fuss of
her. Anna wasn't nearly as tough as liked to appear, and, on one
occasion, feeling sorry for the cats as Elisabeth only allowed them to
have milk as a special treat, she had given them each a saucerful every
day for a week.
"But they love it," she had protested to an angry Elisabeth on her
return from Cornwall.
She had felt guilty, though, as six or seven weeks had passed before
the expectant cats had finally given up perching on the 'fridge,
miaowing their heads off for an hour or more, at every meal-time.

"Guess who I bumped into yesterday," said Nick, helping himself to
another piece of cake.

"The Pope?" Anna guessed, with more than a hint of sarcasm. 'Guess who'
questions drove her crazy. She ran her fingers impatiently through her
faded auburn hair, and, removing her oversized bifocals, thrust her
pale, lined face towards Nick and stared challengingly at him.

Nick gave her a scornful look, but noted the dangerous glint in his
mother steel blue eyes.

"No, I know - Alan Titchmarsh. No? Then it must be that blonde woman -
you know who I mean - Linda Barker."
Anna was a great fan of interior design and gardening programmes, and
had been pleased to discover that UK television was still presenting
them. Although she hadn't been quite so thrilled to discover that TV
schedules were still padded out with 'repeats', and was almost certain
she had seen yesterday's 'Changing Rooms' at least three years ago,
before she had retired to Spain.

"Be serious, Mum," said an exasperated Nick, who had never heard of
Linda Barker anyway.
He rarely watched television, so had been just as blissfully unaware of
Mr T, until a few months ago, when he had joined a long, slow-moving
queue for a book-signing at Ottakars, clutching the latest Terry
Pratchett. It wasn't until half-an-hour and fifteen yards later that he
had noticed copies of Alan Titchmarsh's latest literary offering in the
arms, bags and pockets of his neighbours, and realised he had come on
the wrong night.

"Don't ask me to guess, then," she said crossly. It really was one of
Anna's pet hates. "Anyway, who did you see?" She was curious now.

"Posh Spice," said Nick.

"Really? Where - ?" Then Anna saw Nick's huge grin, and realised he was
getting his own back.
She laughed, and patted his arm apologetically. "Come on, then, who was
it?"

"Bernie Anderson."

Oh no, thought Anna, not that again.
When she last lived in England, Bernie Anderson had occupied the
bungalow next door. He was a widower, and two years older than Anna.
They had shared a love of gardening, and had chatted over the garden
fence to begin with, and then over the occasional coffee.
After a few weeks, he had invited her to Sunday lunch at a local
restaurant. Anna wasn't interested in a physical relationship, and
hadn't wanted to lead him on in any way, so she had turned him
down.
She had made the mistake of mentioning Bernie's invitation to her
children, who were always thrilled when their mother made new friends,
and they had persuaded her to go should he ask again.
Which he had, a fortnight later, and Anna had accepted with the proviso
that they go as friends, nothing more.

She actually enjoyed herself far more than she expected, partly because
they had shared a bottle of wine with their roast beef. She wasn't used
to alcohol, and two glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon had made her rather
squiffy.
After walking home arm in arm, Anna had invited him in for coffee. They
had chatted for a while, and Bernie had asked if she would like to
accompany him to his grand-daughter's wedding the following
month.
"Yes, please," Anna had replied, slurring her words slightly, "that'll
be lovely. Thank you very much, Bernie."
But, later on that day, once the influence of the wine had worn off,
she worried that she might be on display at the wedding as 'the
grandfather's bit of totty', so had gone next door to tell Bernie that
she had changed her mind.
"Don't be silly, Anna," Bernie had said. "We'll be going together as
friends, nothing more. It's just that it's depressing going to these
things on your own, don't you think?"
So Anna had reluctantly agreed.
But the bubbles from too much champagne had gone to Bernie's head, and
he had somehow managed to get down on one knee without falling over,
and had proposed to her on the dance floor in front of dozens of amused
onlookers. Right in the middle of the Tweets' 'Birdie Song', too. It
had been one of Anna's favourite party songs, but Bernie's scene had
spoiled her enjoyment of it for good. She couldn't help thinking of it
as the 'Bernie Song' after that, and would disappear to powder her nose
whenever it was played.
Bernie had been absolutely mortified (as well as horribly hung-over)
the following day, and had apologised profusely, insisting that it had
been the fault of the champagne. (He had apparently never heard the
phrase 'in vino veritas'.)
But Anna might have accepted his protestations if the proposal hadn't
followed his behaviour in church, when, well before the popping of
champagne corks, he had taken hold of her hand and given it an extra
squeeze each time the bride and groom had repeated their vows.
She had kept Bernie at arm's length after that, and they had reverted
to exchanging pleasantries and Christmas cards over the garden fence.
It wasn't that Bernie was physically unattractive, far from it. He was
six or seven inches taller than Anna, with a full head of silver-grey
hair above pale blue eyes and an immaculately groomed beard and
moustache. He dressed well, and had a physique that would have been the
envy of a man twenty years his junior. And he was fit and healthy, an
added bonus as far as Anna was concerned; having to listen to her
friends' lengthy, and sometimes gruesome, descriptions of their latest
ailments could be extremely tiresome.
Anna had been rather disturbed at the strength of her attraction to
Bernie. She hadn't felt that way since she was a young girl and dating
Frank, her first love and marriage partner until their divorce ten
years ago, when he had run off to Switzerland to marry his cousin's
twenty-two year-old daughter, a girl with enormous breasts and an even
larger bank balance. Not surprisingly, this had given Anna's confidence
in men a bit of a knock.
But if Bernie had viewed her as nothing more than a friend, she would
have continued to see him, despite her attraction to him.
Nick and his sisters had secretly hoped their mother would settle down
with Bernie, and were quite upset by her decision.
"He was just a friend," Anna had told them. "I don't want a
relationship, and I don't want to get married again."
But every so often, one of them would bring Bernie's name into the
conversation.
Why is it, she mused, that when children grow up, they feel they have
the right to interfere in their parents' lives?
Anna would spend hours on the telephone discussing this unfathomable
reversal of roles with her sister Freda, whose children were just as
bad, even worse in fact; one morning, poor Freda had been greeted by an
avalanche of mail cascading onto her doormat, only to discover that her
daughter had put an advert in the local paper's 'Lonely Hearts' column
on her behalf. Freda's husband, quite understandably, had been even
less amused. However, Anna and Freda had to admit that this action had
been highly successful; Freda's husband had sent her a dozen red roses
the following day, accompanied by a dinner invitation to the poshest
restaurant in the area. And their sex life had taken a dramatic turn
for the better once he had made the decision to spend less of his
retirement leaning on the bar of the Pig and Whistle; a long-standing
physical problem, which he had despairingly thought could only be cured
with large quantities of viagra, had suddenly improved dramatically,
much to Freda's delight.

"He was really pleased to see me, and asked how you were," Nick said,
carefully avoiding his mother's eyes as he refilled their coffee
cups.

Anna's eyes opened wide in horror. "You didn't tell him I was back from
Spain?"

"Well, yes, but - don't panic - I didn't give him your address or
anything."

Anna sighed with relief, and picked up her coffee cup again.

"He, um, asked me to give you this," and Nick took a scrap of paper
from his overalls pocket.

Anna took it from him with another sigh.
Children, she thought sadly, why did I have them?
She unfolded the note and saw the name 'BERNIE' printed on it in blue
ink, with a telephone number underneath. She placed it on the table,
and sipped her coffee in silence.
Nick opened his mouth to speak again, but, seeing the warning look on
his mother's face, thought better of it.

"So," she said suddenly, changing the subject and smiling brightly.
"Would you like some more cake?"