‘Here she is,’ says Harbinder’s mother, Bibi, as if Harbinder is the final act in a variety show. ‘Here’s Harbinder at last.’
The two women at the table look as if they were expecting a more exciting special guest. Harbinder recognises them vaguely from one of her infrequent visits to the gurdwara.
‘How are you, Harbinder?’ says one of them. Amrit? Amarit? ‘Still with the police?’
No, Harbinder wants to say, I’m carrying these handcuffs for a bet. ‘Yes,’ she says, in English. ‘I’m still with the police.’
‘Harbinder’s a detective sergeant,’ says Harbinder’s father, Deepak. ‘She works very hard.’ Deepak is standing in the doorway with Starsky and looks a bit as if he wants his kitchen back.
‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ says the other woman. Honestly, what is it with old people? Why do they feel that they can ask questions like this?
‘I’m waiting for Mr Right,’ says Harbinder, between gritted teeth.
‘How old are you now?’ says Amrit beadily. ‘Thirty-eight? Thirty-nine?’
‘I’m forty-six,’ says Harbinder, adding ten years to her real age. ‘I look good on it, don’t I?’
‘She’s only thirtyish,’ says Bibi hastily. ‘Are you hungry, Harbi? I’ve kept some food for you.’
Harbinder would love to storm upstairs and go straight to bed but she is very hungry and her mother has cooked butter chicken. Harbinder sits down at the table.
‘Shall I drive you home?’ Deepak suggests to his visitors, who are both staring at Harbinder, as if expecting her to do a magic trick.
The women get to their feet, rather reluctantly. Suddenly, Harbinder realises that she can make use of the old crones.
‘Do either of you know Seaview Court?’ she asks.
‘Oh yes,’ says Amrit. ‘The place on the seafront. Baljeet Singh lived there. Until he died.’
‘And there was another lady there who lived to be a hundred,’ says her friend. ‘She got a telegram from the Queen.’
All the old aunties love the Queen. They think she’s very Indian.
‘It’s sheltered accommodation, isn’t it?’ says Harbinder.
‘Yes, but the warden doesn’t live in. They just say that to make you pay more.’
‘So it isn’t very secure?’
‘Oh no,’ says the other woman. ‘There’s a passcode but people are going in and out all the time. Carers, you know. Anyone could get in. I’d never let my mother live somewhere like that.’
Her mother? How old must this woman be?
‘Why do you want to know?’ says Deepak, gathering up his car keys.
‘No reason really,’ says Harbinder. She goes back to her buttered chicken and, thank goodness, the two guests take the hint and leave. Harbinder doesn’t know why her dad is giving them a lift. Surely they could both fly home on their broomsticks.
Chapter 3
Benedict: mindful cappuccino
Benedict Cole smiles as he tries to froth milk mindfully. I’m really very lucky, he tells himself. I have my own café on the seafront, I meet different people every day, my view is uninterrupted sea and sky. And it’s satisfying to make drinks that people enjoy. He makes his own brownies and biscuits too. He’s really very blessed.
‘Are you going to be all day with that cappuccino, mate?’
Benedict keeps smiling but it’s hard to love people sometimes, especially when they’re wearing a striped shirt with the collar turned up and a flat cap, despite being under seventy-five. This man is actually nearer his own age, thirty-two, and, despite the ‘mate’, the voice is jarringly posh.
‘Nearly done,’ says Benedict.
‘I haven’t got all day,’ says Striped Shirt, though it’s hard to see what could be so urgent, in Shoreham on a Wednesday morning. And, actually, striped shirts are rare in Shoreham, it’s much more working class and less pretentious than Brighton. Maybe Stripy Shirt is an estate agent selling seafront apartments to people who haven’t registered this fact yet.
Benedict puts the cappuccino on the ledge. It’s a mindful work of art, creamy but still strong, a delicate leaf etched into the foam.
‘Would you like a brownie with that?’ he asks.
‘No thanks,’ says Striped Shirt. He waves a card. ‘Contactless?’
Benedict proffers the machine but, inside, he thinks that ‘contactless’ sums up his life nowadays; or sums up society, if he wants to keep his gloom on a loftier plane. In the monastery physical contact had not been encouraged (for obvious reasons) but even during silent times there had been more actual communication than Benedict sometimes encounters in a week in the Outside World. And then there was the mass, the bread and wine, the body and the blood. Catholicism is very corporeal, when you come to think of it, which Benedict does, rather too often.
‘Penny for them?’
Benedict brightens immediately because here is one of his favourite customers, someone not contactless, someone with whom you can have a proper conversation. Edwin really is over seventy-five but he’d never dream of wearing a flat cap. He wears a panama in the summer and a trilby in the winter, and sometimes, on really cold days, a deerstalker with furry earflaps.
‘Edwin!’ says Benedict. ‘Great to see you. I missed you yesterday.’
He doesn’t like to make his customers feel guilty if they miss a day but he really does notice if one of his regulars isn’t there. He worries about it in case something is amiss.
‘Actually,’ says Edwin, taking off his hat (a mid-season fedora today). ‘I’ve had some bad news.’
‘Oh no,’ says Benedict. He sees that Edwin really does look upset, his eyes are bloodshot and his hands shaking. Has a family member died? Does Edwin even have any family left?
‘It’s Peggy,’ says Edwin. ‘She’s dead.’
There’s always a lull around now and, with no customers in sight, Benedict and Edwin sit at the picnic table beside the Coffee Shack. The beach is almost empty too, miles of speckled shingle interspersed with clumps of sea kale. It’s September and the children have just gone back to school, which is a shame, because the sea looks perfect for swimming, blue-green topped with tiny waves. It’s had the summer’s heat on it too.
Benedict makes Edwin eat a brownie, ‘good for shock’, and for a moment they sit in silence. Benedict is comfortable with silence – the monastery again – but he’s anxious to know what happened.