the slanging match outside the pub the other night.
He left the festive cheer behind and headed home to his cottage, scuffing the ground in the field he crossed part of the way with the toe of his boot, some satisfaction drawn at churning up the mud loosened by the hail that had left it sodden.
Once inside the cottage he kicked off his boots, yanked open the fridge, pulled out a beer and sat on the kitchen chair. He didn’t even bother to turn the lights on – the glow from a lamp outside was enough.
Even after all these years Harvey still had the ability to get right under his skin. Harvey thought he had a monopoly on being wronged by a shitty father and a brother who abandoned him, and he was right to think that. But what Harvey failed to see was that along the way, Daniel had taken his fair share of life’s crap too. And he’d had nobody to pick him up from his failures, his mistakes or his actions, he’d had to do it himself, and it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
*
For the next few days Daniel threw himself into getting ready for opening night at the Little Waffle Shack. He didn’t see Lucy – even when he purposely went on a run past her place he didn’t bump into her – but every time he stopped for a break and let his mind wander he was right back there opposite her at the table in the shack, her easiness to talk to and her openness just two of the qualities he knew had him hook, line and sinker. He wanted to turn up at the workshop and carry on their conversation, he wanted to share more about himself and hope she did the same. But, for now, he had a business to focus on. The kitchen at the shack was completely stocked with two days to go until opening. The cupboards and the corner pantry were filled with dry ingredients, the fridge shelf space brimmed with everything that needed to be chilled, he’d tested and retested all the equipment – waffle makers, cooker, the sink, the dishwasher all worked – and now he was up to the stage where he could display the finalised menus in their little stands at the tables.
Daniel had devised his menu so that it offered a whole range, from sweet waffles with fruit or ice-cream toppings or sauces in all sorts of flavours – blueberry, butterscotch, chocolate – to savoury waffles with ham, cheese and button mushrooms mixed into batter ready for pressing into the waffle maker, or parmesan and bacon, or a plain waffle with herbs, or one with cheddar and rosemary. There were Christmassy shaped and themed waffles for kids and adults alike. He could make gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free if the customer required, with separate equipment for each to avoid contamination.
And now, with menus standing proudly at the centre of tables, others slotted into a wooden wall shelf beside the entrance for arriving customers to pluck and browse from, he locked up the shack and it was time for a well-earned drink at The Copper Plough. Up until the run-in with Harvey the other night he’d been nervous about bumping into his sibling when he was out and about, but not anymore. Harvey could go and take a running jump if he thought he was going to make Daniel feel unwelcome in the village he’d grown up in. He had just as much right to be here as his brother did. And he’d been apologising to even more people he’d wronged along the way and none of them had had a problem with him. He’d given an envelope to Mrs Filligree with a couple of hundred pounds inside to cover the amount she surely must have had to fork out on her garden fence after he’d once fallen into it when larking about and had never admitted to doing. He’d gone to see Kenneth Soames, who still had the same allotment he’d had back when Daniel was sixteen and thought it funny to steal lettuces and carrots from, leading Kenneth to take up a twenty-four-hour watch until the shenanigans stopped. He’d also found Patricia, who turned out to be working in the tea rooms with Etna, and apologised for breaking into her garden shed once. She’d asked him why he’d done it, told him there wasn’t anything missing when she saw him leave, and