The Wrong Cake and Other Stories by Sarah Boyd

Author:Sarah Boyd [Boyd Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Minster & Grey
Published: 2019-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

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A month later, Sheila had fully recovered from her illness and was tucking into a toasted teacake in the little café on the high street. She could have gone into one of the chains – three they had in this town, imagine that? – but she preferred the Cosy Café, which was mainly populated by women of a similar age to herself, sometimes accompanied by reluctant offspring taking their mothers out for a couple of hours. All the teenagers seemed to go into Costa and the rest, taking selfies on their mobile phones and shouting and laughing so loudly you couldn’t hear yourself think. Putting their feet up on the chairs – disgusting, she called it.

Proper waitress service here, it was. Now that slip of a girl serving them, Amy she was called, had such a lovely smile, and she always saved an Eccles cake for Sheila. Anyway, she never would have got through a coffee in one of the big-name shops. You asked for a regular cup and when it came it was the size of a swimming pool. Ridiculous. And there was far too much choice, in Sheila’s opinion. She just wanted a coffee with milk, not one of these ridiculous salted caramel frappe-whatsit things that surely rotted your teeth with every mouthful. Salt and sugar in the same drink. Imagine that! Not that Sheila had many teeth left – in her day, they whipped them out so you could get the full set of dentures.

Besides, Isla said she liked the little café, said it made a change. Sheila was enjoying herself. If truth be known, she wished she could talk all day to Isla, rather than having to go home. The talk had turned to her husband.

Isla, on the other hand, was bored and wished she was at home watching the latest baking programme on catch-up.

‘I don’t know what he’d do without me,’ Sheila was saying. ‘You’ve seen him. Never goes out now. Just stares out the window a lot of the time.

‘He’s wrong, you know. About us being childless. I heard him tell you that time you popped round. We did have a son, once. Alfie, we called him. Lovely wee thing, he was.’

Isla, who had been gazing out of the window and wondering what shade of polish to go for next at the nail bar, suddenly straightened up in her seat and hurriedly put on a concerned expression. This sounds interesting, she thought, ever alert to the misfortunes of others.

‘What… what happened, Sheila? Would you like to talk about it? I’ll understand if you’d rather not, of course I will. You just take your time.’

Sheila paused, then put her teacup down.

‘He died. Just like that. No warning. In his cot. I just went in one morning and he was cold. Twelve weeks old. Ernie blamed me, I think, although he never said. He’d been fine when I put him to bed. No temperature, no rash, no sniffle, nothing. And I looked in on him in the night, just before we went to bed, same as usual.

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