Sugar Secrets…& Conflict Read online

  “Good for you!” Ollie grinned enthusiastically. “Wow – wait till Mum and Dad hear about it. They’ll be so jealous! I’m pretty jealous of you myself…”

  A passion for music was the one thing Ollie’s father and Nick had in common. Place the two men side by side and no one would have guessed that overgrown seventies throwback Nick and smart-but-casual pub landlord Stuart were brothers.

  “Tell your dad I’ll bring him back a stick of rock from Graceland. Can’t say fairer than that, can I!” snorted Nick.

  Kerry found herself smiling broadly, not so much at Nick’s feeble attempt at a joke, but at the fact that everything was back to normal after a small, uncomfortable blip. Ollie and Nick got on so well – as nephew and uncle, as staff member and boss, as singer and manager – that the last thing they needed was any friction to spoil that.

  “It’s great that you’re going, Nick,” Anna butted in, “and I hate to bore you with details, but how are we going to work it with shifts, since you’re away for such a long time?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that!” said Ollie, before Nick could respond to the question. “We’ll get through it. It’ll all sort itself out somehow!”

  Kerry was suddenly aware of the more serious expression that had slipped back on to Nick’s face. Ollie’s vague assurances, backed up by precisely nothing, were obviously not what the café owner wanted to hear.

  “No, Ol – Anna’s got a point. It’ll need organisation,” Nick said earnestly. “Which is why, after what’s just happened with that punter, I’ve decided that while I’m away—”

  Both Anna and Ollie hung on his words, waiting to see what plans he was about to come up with.

  ”—I want Anna to be in charge.”

  Kerry glanced across the table at both speechless members of staff. Anna was wide-eyed with surprise. OIlie was ashen-faced, apart from a bright pink patch on his cheek, as if he’d been slapped.

  Which, to OIlie, was exactly what it felt like.

  CHAPTER 3

  NO BIG DEAL…

  “Ollie! It’s for yoo-hoo!” trilled Irene, holding out the phone on the café wall.

  “Great!” beamed Ollie, bounding out from behind the counter and heading over to grab the receiver. This empty Saturday afternoon in the End was dragging like mad and talking to Kerry would be a welcome diversion from the boredom that was seeping into his brain. After all, there were only so many times you could clean the tables and hear about Irene’s grandchildren’s cute little sayings.

  “Kez?”

  “Wrong!”

  “Sonja!”

  “Yep. How’re you doing?”

  “Pretty bored. This place is like a ghost town today.”

  “How come? Where have all your Saturday shoppers gone?”

  “There’s engineering works on the line today and the trains have been cancelled. So no hungry people going to and from the city. With that and all the goody-goody swots like you staying home, I’ve got zilch to do.”

  “Hey, I’m no goody-goody swot!” Sonja Harvey protested, giggling. “I’ll have you know I’m doing a brilliant job of not getting around to looking at my books today. So far I’ve watched a movie on telly that I shouldn’t have, been to see Kerry at the chemist’s, given myself a manicure and spoken to Owen for ages on the phone.”

  “And so what now – you’re wasting more time phoning me?”

  “Something like that. Actually, I was just phoning ‘cause Kerry told me what happened yesterday. Are you OK? Can you talk?”

  Ollie yanked over the nearest empty chair and balanced his bum on the back of it.

  “Yeah, sure. It’s just me and Irene in here at the moment; Nick’s nipped next door to Slick Riffs,” he explained, keeping one eye on the door just in case there was a sudden rush of customers. “At least that’s where he’s supposed to be. He’s probably out buying a nice pair of Speedos and a sunhat for his holidays.”

  “Yes, I heard about him going off. So, aren’t you gutted?”

  “What about?” asked Ollie, wondering what made Sonja think he’d be particularly jealous of his uncle’s holiday.

  “About him leaving Anna in charge over you!” Sonja spelt out. “Kerry said you were pretty put out about it yesterday.”

  “Oh, that! No, no, Kerry’s worrying for nothing. I was just a bit, y’know, stunned for a minute,” Ollie assured her. “Then I realised that Nick didn’t mean it – he was just saying that in the heat of the moment, after the mess with that guy doing a runner and nabbing the radio.”

  “What – did he say that?”

  “Not in so many words,” shrugged Ollie, rocking back and forth on the chair. “But he’s been fine with me today – when he’s been here, that is.”

  “And what about Anna? What did she say about it all?”

  “Aw, nothing. It’s cool, Sonja – me and Anna’ll run the place together like we normally do when he’s not around. It won’t be a problem.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Sonja. ‘“Cause if Nick’s really left Anna in charge, it could get weird between the two of you…”

  “No way!” laughed Ollie. “We are talking about Anna here! She’s not exactly a power-trip kind of a girl!”

  “Well, I don’t know, Ol – you know how that old saying goes: ‘power corrupts’!”

  “Yeah, but whoever came up with that one didn’t have hippy little Anna Michaels in mind when they said it, did they?” Ollie joked. “Oh, listen. Son – I’ve got to go, there’s a couple of customers just coming in and I’m going to race Irene to serve them. I’ll catch you later, OK?”

  Ollie clattered the phone back on to the wall and leapt into action.

  What’s everyone getting in such a state about? he wondered as he turned the full beam of his grin on the couple who’d just wandered in. It’s going to be no big deal, running this place for the next couple of weeks. I mean, what could possibly go wrong…?

  CHAPTER 4

  BEING DISTRACTED

  “Joe, sweetie, can you give me a hand with something?”

  Susie Gladwin stood in the doorway of her son’s bedroom, looking plump, comfy and mumsy, yet simultaneously helpless and little girlish too. The mumsiness was down to her not very fashionable clothes, her verging-on-middle-aged (ie no particular style) hairdo and her general air of smiling friendliness. By contrast, what gave her an occasional look of someone much, much younger were her childlike, soulful round eyes.

  And now those eyes were fixed pleadingly on her son.

  Joe gazed up from his desk and saw neither his mumsy mum nor her girlish incarnation. All he saw was an interruption to his swotting. It was only five o’clock on Saturday afternoon and he was already well behind with his revision plan.

  Taking a deep breath, he resisted the urge to snap at her to wait till later and forced a smile.

  “What’s up?” he asked, hoping the irritation wasn’t obvious in his voice. After all, it wasn’t her fault he was finding studying such hard graft.

  “One of the kitchen cupboard doors is jammed. Can you get it open for me? It’ll just take a minute!”

  Joe put his pen down and gritted his teeth. He knew that nothing, when it came to his mum and her little requests, ever took just a minute.

  Half an hour later, Joe had finally found the Phillips screwdriver he needed in the jumble of DlY bits and pieces in the garden shed and was tightening the dodgy hinge on the kitchen cabinet.

  “Oh, Joe, that’s marvellous – that door’s been getting stiffer and stiffer to open lately,” his mother gushed, clasping her hands together and looking up adoringly at her son. “What would I do without you?”

  Again, her words irritated him – but he knew it was through his own guilt.

  Thing is, it’s not like I’ll be here forever, he thought to himself, the prospect of universities and where his grades might take him looming in his mind.

  Not that he wanted to bring it up with his mother at the moment. She’d had enough to cope with l
ately. She said she’d been fine about Joe’s dad getting remarried; hadn’t minded that Joe was going to be best man at Robert Gladwin’s wedding to the much younger Gillian. She’d even given Joe a card for the happy couple.

  But it couldn’t have been easy for her, Joe realised, sitting at home alone on that one particular day, knowing that her son was away helping celebrate her former husband’s marriage to another woman.

  She’s amazing really, he thought of his even-keeled, seldom complaining mother.

  “Joe – urn, since you’ve got the screwdriver out, you couldn’t tighten up the handle of the big frying pan too, could you? It was very wobbly when I was trying to do your fried egg this morning…”

  Joe, weighed down by the piles of papers and insurmountable amount of work he knew were waiting for him in his room, felt this was a request too far.

  “Mum,” he began, about to tell her that he didn’t have enough time in the day to tinker with the contents of the kitchen, or any other little odd jobs she had in mind, when the doorbell rang.

  “Ooh, I wonder who that could be? Of course, it might be Mrs Andrews from next door,” said Susie Gladwin brightly as she scurried out into the hall. “I said you’d give her a hand if she decided to move that old sofa bed out of her spare room for the rubbish collection. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Joe closed his eyes and wilted. Getting through his mum’s sweet-natured shell was going to be harder than he thought.

  “Ah, hello! Come on in! Joey will be so pleased to see you!”

  Unless it’s Jennifer Aniston or someone from the Education Department who’s come to tell me personally that exams have been abolished, I doubt that I will be pleased… Joe grumbled silently.

  “Hiya!” bellowed Ollie, striding into the kitchen. “What’s up with your face? Did you think it was the lovely Meg come to visit, instead of your oldest, bestest friend?”

  “No,” Joe shook his head at the mention of his new girlfriend’s name. “Meg’s studying for her A levels – the same as I’m meant to be doing…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Ollie blithely. “I won’t stay long.”

  “Would you like a sandwich, Ollie? I could make you up a cheese and pickle,” smiled Joe’s mum hospitably.

  “Mmm! It’ll spoil my tea… But go on then, if it’s not too much trouble!” Ollie said chirpily.

  “But, Mum, I really need to get back to work—”

  “Oh, now, Joey dear, you need to have little breaks when you’re studying; it’s good for you. Isn’t that right, Ollie?” twittered Susie Gladwin, already grabbing a slab of cheddar out of the fridge.

  “Too right, Mrs G!” Ollie agreed.

  “Now, you boys pop upstairs and I’ll bring your sandwiches right up!”

  Joe found himself reluctantly treading his way up the stairs, followed by his best friend, who at any other time he’d have been delighted to see.

  “What a couple of days I’ve had, Joe, mate!” said Ollie, flopping back down on the bed and sending a pile of neatly stacked notes flying.

  “Why – what’s up?” asked Joe, suddenly too genuinely concerned to mind picking up the now jumbled A4 sheets off the floor.

  “Well, yesterday, this guy only nicked the radio out of the End and did a runner without paying when I was on my own in there. And today, incredibly, the place was so dead I thought my head would explode with boredom!”

  “Hold up – never mind the stuff about being bored. What happened with this bloke who stole the radio yesterday?” Joe quizzed his friend.

  It shook him up to hear about things like that happening. Especially since it wasn’t that long ago that Anna had been caught up in an attempted robbery at the launderette across the road from the café.

  “Oh, wow – Nick totally flipped out at me for letting it happen. You should have seen him, Joe – his eyes were bulging out like this!”

  Ollie did a cartoon-style impersonation, then started to laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Joe gave a feeble, confused smile. He didn’t know what to think. One minute, Ollie had him all worried; the next he was mucking around.

  “Hey – and Nick’s only going on holiday to America for a couple of weeks,” Ollie continued, remembering his other snippet of news. “And get this – he said he’s leaving Anna in charge! Can you believe it? What a laugh – as if!”

  Joe gazed over at his friend, still lying – propped up on his elbows – on the bed.

  “But what made him decide something like that?” asked Joe, bemused.

  “Aw, just ‘cause he was well miffed about that guy making off with the radio and everything.”

  “What – Nick’s giving you that hard a time for something that wasn’t even your fault?” Joe reiterated Ollie’s words, full of righteous indignation on his mate’s behalf.

  “Wellll…” muttered Ollie, pushing himself up into a sitting position and looking sheepish. “I s’pose it was kind of my fault. Sort of…”

  “How do you mean?” frowned Joe. His brain was too cluttered with exam facts and figures to struggle to work out what Ollie was saying.

  “Em…” Ollie winced, “…it’s just that I wasn’t quite on my own. Me and Kerry were through in the kitchen and… well, you know how you can get distracted.”

  Joe could only imagine; Meg – whom he’d met at his dad’s wedding – was his first proper girlfriend. Joe and she had kissed, of course, but he hadn’t been going out with her for long enough yet to know about being so caught up a girl’s embrace that the rest of the world was blotted out.

  But Joe certainly knew how it felt to be distracted by a so-called mate who was looking for sympathy for something that was his own fault.

  “Joe?” Ollie stared at him questioningly, waiting for him to say something. “What – you think I’m a bit of a dork for doing that, do you?”

  “Yep – I guess so,” shrugged Joe.

  “Well, no need to act like I murdered someone,” said OIlie, his face falling at the sight of Joe’s stern expression. “C’mon, what’s up with you?”

  “Exams,” said Joe bluntly. “Remember them? Those annoying things you have to study for?”

  “Yeah,” replied OIlie, stunned by his best mate’s snippy manner. “But what’s the big deal? You’re smart enough – you’ll get by!”

  “But that’s what I don’t want to do – I don’t want to ‘get by’! I want to do pretty well and that’s not going to happen if people keep interrupting me all the time!”

  OIlie wasn’t to know that Joe’s head was fit to burst over a whole pile of worries caving in on him. It wasn’t just lack of sleep he was suffering from because of exam pressures, or the depressing realisation that the achy feeling he’d had all day meant he was coming down with something just at the wrong time. No, what was really weighing heavily on Joe’s mind was the news he was keeping from both his mum and from his best friend. The news that only he and Meg knew…

  All OIlie did know was that it was time to go.

  “Sorry to bug you, Joe,” he said flatly, getting to his feet and heading out through the bedroom door.

  Joe wanted to shout after him, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Sometimes it seemed to him like the whole world revolved around OIlie Stanton, while Joe watched from the sidelines.

  He hasn’t a clue what’s going on with me and he hasn’t even bothered to ask, Joe thought bitterly.

  Well, now Joe had to make a stand, even if it was just to earn himself the right to get back to his miserable revision.

  “I’m not just here at your convenience, OIlie Stanton!” Joe muttered under his breath as his friend’s feet pounded down the stairs.

  “Don’t you want your sandwich, OIlie dear?” he heard his mother’s voice drift up from the hall.

  OIlie felt strange – or rather, it felt as if the rest of the world had gone strange on him.

  Is it something in the stars? he wondered as he stomped over to The Swan pub where he lived. I’ll have to ask Anna – she knows about a
ll this horoscope stuff…

  To have that unexpected upset with Nick yesterday was one thing; to fall out with Joe now was just too bizarre.

  “Hi, honey!” Ollie’s mum greeted him as he turned up behind the bar of The Swan to help out. “We weren’t expecting you down here till seven. Have you had your tea yet?”

  “I didn’t want anything – Mrs Gladwin made me a sandwich when I went round to Joe’s earlier.”

  Ollie wasn’t one for lying to his parents, but this seemed harmless and it was only a half lie after all. And whether it was Joe’s mum’s cheese and pickle effort or the thought of the lasagne that needed reheating upstairs in the kitchen, Ollie just wasn’t in the mood to face them.

  “You’re looking a little bit pale – you’re not ill, are you?” asked Sharon Stanton with concern, leaning across the bar top to feel her son’s forehead.

  “No, I’m fine,” he assured her, ducking away from her outstretched hand.

  “Good – with your Uncle Nick going away, the café would be in a real state if you were under the weather! You just missed him – he was in for a quick pint and a chat with your dad.”

  Ollie stood stock still and stared at his mum. Did she and his dad know about how he’d messed up the day before? How angry Nick had been with him?

  “He’s, uh, pretty excited, isn’t he?” Ollie ventured, testing the water. It was funny, he’d felt fine about the situation with Nick – had practically forgotten about it, he realised – till Sonja’s phone call that afternoon had placed a little niggle of anxiety in his head.

  “Excited? He’s like a kid let loose in a sweet shop!”

  From the way his mother was beaming, Ollie could see that Nick had said nothing about what had passed between them.

  That’s something, I suppose… he thought to himself with relief.

  “Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?” he managed to smile, hoping it looked convincing.

  “Hi, Ol – hi, Mrs Stanton!” Matt Ryan’s voice suddenly interrupted them. “Can I steal Ollie for a minute? I’ve got something to show him…”