The Other Half of My Heart (2 page)

She turns her face to him. ‘All set,' she says, and she smiles.

‘Me too,' Rufus says, ‘I'm ready for something to eat.' When she looks at him he knows it's nothing special, to her. He's seen her give her full attention to a loaf of bread just a minute or two ago, after all. But he feels chosen by her look, and something in him responds with a choosing of his own. I choose you, Bettina May, his heart says, and if I can do enough, and be here enough, you will choose me too.

Bettina chose Rufus – insomuch as it was a choice – as part of a bigger decision, to settle down at last, to try to find a semblance of a life, in the hope that the sadness that trailed and sometimes engulfed her might diminish at last. Almost a year ago, she had started her business in the bakery and moved into the flat above it, and very shortly afterwards she had seen movement in the flat above the Italian restaurant next door. There are two windows at the back of the flats, next to the second bedrooms, that overlook each other: Bettina had found seeing an occasional presence, passing the window carrying a box or pulling on a jacket, comforting. She recognized him when she saw him in the shop, and stopped to chat when he introduced himself. An evening or two later found them both eating in the restaurant, at two tables-for-two placed a little too close to each other. Rufus had struck up a conversation, and Bettina had been reticent at first, but when he asked her about her plans for the business she'd found herself saying all the excited thoughts in her head out loud. After that, Rufus had become a regular customer at the bakery and an occasional dinner companion, if they happened to be in the restaurant at the same time. Bettina ate early, and sometimes she would see him walking past the restaurant window on his way in from work; she'd know that within fifteen minutes he'd be taking a seat at the table next to her. She would order before he came, not wanting to be committed to anything like a date; but it was nice to see him, and have someone well mannered, interesting and interested to talk to.

Rufus did ask her, once, if she would like to make a plan to meet rather than leaving it to happy chance, as he put it. She explained that she never knew how tired she would be, and that getting up at four most mornings made her odds-on lousy company in the evening. Rufus had said something gallant in reply but things had stayed as they were, and Bettina felt proud of herself, for making a friend.

But then, after six months, on the first evening that really felt like autumn, it all changed. It was the evening when she decided that she was, definitely, going to extend the café, rather than being frustrated by the current set-up and thinking she really must do something about it. Bettina spent the time after the shop closed that day thinking and pacing and measuring. She'd already done the maths, studying the spreadsheets on one of the grim train journeys she made every month, so she knew she could afford it, if she made her mind up. And if it was possible. Which was something Rufus might know about.

So she knocked on his door and asked if he might have time to pop over to the shop one evening and give her a bit of advice?

‘Why don't I come now?' he asked.

She said, ‘That would be fantastic, but I don't want to interfere with your evening. If you have plans.'

‘I have plans now,' he said with a warm smile. ‘Just let me get my keys,' and soon they were standing in Adventures in Bread. Even with the shelves empty, the place still smelled bittersweetly of sourdough, and there was, too, the trace of hot, fresh bread in the air, or at least the memory of it, which amounted to the same thing. Bettina never got tired of it. She took a deep breath when she unlocked the door, and saw Rufus do the same. She smiled, and thought about how, if she was the sort of person who touched other people easily, she would touch him now, just squeeze his arm or rest her hand on his shoulder for a second, to say, I'm so glad you understand how wonderful such a simple thing as bread can be.

‘The thing is, I'm halfway there,' she said instead, waving an arm at the shop side of Adventures in Bread. There were wooden shelves, wicker baskets, a stone floor, a marble counter and a stack of brown paper bags ready to put her wares into. There was the smell of bread everywhere, the blackboard with the baking schedule for the week, the community noticeboard and an old French bread crock where people could – and did – donate their change for charity. Bettina found Throckton a generous place.

‘But – this.' The café that was also part of the lease had been a feeble effort of the last owners. It was barely a café at all, just a couple of folding metal tables and ornate and uncomfortable metal chairs. Bettina had decided to get the bakery up and running before she turned her attention to the café, but she found herself cringing at the sight of people squashing themselves around the tables, no one looking comfortable. She wanted wooden tables, scrubbed pine or maybe with red gingham tablecloths, not-necessarily-matching wooden chairs, hot tea in brown teapots, milky coffee in bowls, toasters on the tables, proper homemade jam.

‘I've been thinking about this for a while,' Bettina said, ‘and I'd like to know if you think it could work.' She had opened a door marked
Private
, on the left of the double doors which were the entrance to the shop. Rufus had peered into a storeroom that was home to two half-empty metal shelving units and a pile of disconsolate-looking empty cardboard boxes.

‘This must be half the floorspace of the shop again,' he said.

She laughed. ‘It took me the best part of half an hour to work that out,' she said. ‘I suppose this was useful if you bought a lot of things in, but as you can see, I don't really use it. And I'm wondering about pulling down the dividing wall and making this a proper café.' She outlined her plans, trying to sound businesslike and practical, but feeling as though she was serving up her heart on a plate. Suddenly, she was uncomfortable and wished she had kept her ideas to herself, or asked someone she didn't know at all, paying them for their time and their separation from her. ‘What do you think?' she asked, not meeting his eyes.

This was the first time she'd spoken about her plans out loud, and in doing so she'd realized how much she wanted them to work. It was less that she had a burning desire for a tiny teashop in keeping with her bakery; more that she had grasped that what she was doing was submitting to the idea that Throckton was becoming her home. The need that had been growing in her lately was the need for a life more unchanging, more solid, than it had been in fifteen years. And although there was a time when the fact that she felt like staying was enough to make her move on, it seemed to be different now. Standing watching Rufus assess and think, she'd allowed her mind to drift back to her own mother, who was a great believer in the ritual of teatime. It wasn't an elaborate ritual so much as a space in the day where everyone in the house would – must – gather in the kitchen and sit and have a mug of tea, and a slice of cake if there was something in the tin. And they'd talk, about nothing much, and then when Alice stood up and took the teapot to the sink they would disperse. ‘As you were,' she would say, ‘back to your lives,' and she would smile, and if Tina's friend Katrina happened to be there she would say, ‘I love your mum,' although Tina often suspected that it was the chance to sit down with her brother Sam for half an hour that Katrina really loved.

Of course, that had been when her mother still had a grasp of what teatime was, and of who she was, and of who her daughter was. Bettina had leaned against the counter, taking the weight off her aching leg as Rufus assessed her dream with his architect's eye.

She held her breath as she watched Rufus measure up, tap at walls, walk from the shop to the storeroom and back again. He'd waited until she looked at him, full in the face, and he held her gaze and smiled, as though he was telling her that he understood. Or perhaps she was too tired to think straight. It had been one of those weeks. She looked over to the window, as a car drove past.

‘It's certainly possible,' he said, ‘and from what I can see, it should be straightforward. This wall,' he rested the tips of his longest three fingers against the partition, ‘is wood and plasterboard. Someone has put it in to make the storeroom, but it's not part of the original build. You could take it down, and I don't see any reason why you shouldn't bring the stone tiles right through. We can even off the floor first, if we need to.'

‘Good,' Bettina said. ‘How long will it take, do you think? How much will it cost?'

‘What's your budget, if you don't mind me asking?' His voice was businesslike now, and hers matched it.

‘I've got the details here,' she said, tapping the closed lid of her laptop, which sat on the counter. ‘I'd like to see what you think. If you wouldn't mind.'

‘I'd be delighted.'

‘Thank you,' Bettina said. She reached out to pick up the laptop, but Rufus misunderstood and assumed that she was going to take, or shake, his hand. So he took her right hand in his own right hand, his palm against her fingers, and grasped it for a minute; it was an awkward half-friendly gesture, perfectly suitable, it seemed to Bettina, for their awkward half-friendly relationship. ‘Of course,' she added, ‘I'll pay you for your time.'

‘Surely that's not necessary? We're friends, aren't we?'

She looked at him, and said, ‘I don't know. I don't really have friends.' Hearing how peculiar this must sound, she moved away into the storeroom. She looked around it, wishing she could see what Rufus could see, a job already completed, the new reality sketched on top of the old.

‘When I say “you” can make these alterations,' he said, following her, ‘I mean that I can find you a good builder who can do this. It's not a weekend-DIY job.'

‘Of course,' Bettina said. ‘I know my limits.'

‘I like to check,' Rufus said. ‘You'd be amazed how many people think taking down a wall is as simple as swinging a hammer.'

‘I bet,' she said, surveying the storeroom and the existing café.

‘If I could make one suggestion,' Rufus continued, ‘have you considered one large table rather than small ones? You'll get better value from the space that way. Although—'

‘Yes,' Bettina said, ‘yes!' And suddenly her plans leapt into life. She had spent hours trying to work out the logistics of fitting tables in. There needed to be enough for the place to feel a little bit buzzy, but not so many that a double buggy or a badly placed walking frame would bring everything to a standstill. She'd puzzled over how to get a toaster on to every table without having cables taped to the floor or taking floorboards up. She'd come up with something, in the end, that sort-of worked, but Rufus had given her a solution so shimmeringly obvious that she couldn't imagine how she hadn't seen it herself. Because in that moment she had seen it, really seen it, for the first time. She had seen mothers with pushchairs gathered at one end of a long oval scrubbed wooden table, a couple of skiving sixth-formers playing at sophistication with double espressos at the other. In the middle, enough space for someone with half an hour to kill to take their teacake, spread out a newspaper and fill in another couple of clues on the cryptic crossword someone else had started.

She saw that she was making a place for conversations that could be easily and harmlessly overheard, for tea and cake and a few words swapped with near-strangers. There could be a few small tables, too, of course, for quiet conversations, or solitary types. But the café at Adventures in Bread would be something special. It would be, she realized, exactly the sort of place that she would have run a mile from five years ago, which might be why she hadn't been able to visualize it herself. Excitement was popping at the surface of her stomach; her face was tingling. If she was a dancer, she would pirouette. So much of the last few years had felt like a day-by-day plodding: in that second, she'd felt giddy at how far she'd come. It was as though she'd raced a thoroughbred to the top of a hill, but been so focused on the animal's ears and the sound of his hooves that it was only when they stopped that she saw how high she was. She felt reckless, dizzy at her success, although no one looking in would see that knocking down a dividing wall and creating a space for people to share a pot of tea was quite the breakthrough that she knew it to be.

‘Rufus,' she said, ‘you're a bloody genius. I could kiss you.'

‘Don't let me stop you,' Rufus said.

And, giddy still, she had.

Now, six months after the night she had first kissed Rufus and three months since the new café opened, Bettina is getting into the swing of being a little more public. The most challenging part of this is the bread-tastings she holds once a fortnight. The big table is perfect for them. Sometimes she's trying out a new loaf and needs to know whether her customers will like it, and sometimes tastings are more of a PR exercise, with nothing new to trial but the chance to get some customers to taste the breads they haven't tried before.

Today, at 10.30, there will be one of these informal tasting sessions. Before the bakery and café start to get busy, Bettina puts aside a sage and saffron loaf, some rye rolls, a plump, purple Merlot bread and a cheese and bacon plait. On a tray next to them she lays out plates, knives, napkins, unsalted and salted butters, and jam. Then, from the kitchen she brings small bowls of grains, flours and the homemade yeast starter that is the basis of all her baking, and one of her first baking notebooks, pages and pages of notes and sketches and scribbles. Her idea is to help people understand what goes into something that they more or less take for granted, in the hope that they'll see beyond the price to the value. Bettina doesn't think that her bread is expensive, but she knows that her own perspective might be different to that of her customers. And even though Throckton gives every impression of being a well-heeled little town, she hears the chatter in the shop, about redundancies at the print works in Marsham and the gift shop closing. She knows that, however she feels about good bread being a necessity, for many her bread is a luxury and she wants to do all she can to make sure that, if money is tight, hers is the luxury people keep rather than the one they do without.