The Waffle House on the Pier - Tilly Tennant Page 0,9

laughter.

‘Steady on, Mum!’ Lucy cried, though she was grinning.

Everyone else laughed too. Everyone but April, who apparently hadn’t noticed a joke had been made, and Henny, who simply turned a wry smile to her son. She loved her parents, everyone knew that, but she also knew as well as anyone around that table just how difficult, obstructive and constantly disapproving they could be.

‘Pass the wine please, Graham,’ Henny said. She looked at Ewan and Kat as her husband handed her the bottle. ‘It’s a lovely vintage. Thank you for bringing it.’

Ewan shrugged. ‘It seemed a bit too posh for us to drink at home by ourselves. It’s funny what satisfied clients bring in for you. I mean, sometimes I think it’s a bit over the top – we’ve only taken them for a splash-about in the sea, really – but I don’t suppose I’m going to sniff at a nice bottle of plonk for doing something I’d love doing anyway.’

‘Well I wish I got perks like that from my job,’ Sadie said.

‘You don’t have a job,’ Ewan said with a grin for his little sister. ‘What you do is just crowd control.’

‘She has a vocation,’ Lucy said, gallantly riding to her little sister’s defence. ‘It’s better than a job.’

‘What she said,’ Sadie agreed, wrinkling her nose at Ewan.

‘So you fancy swapping with her?’ Ewan asked Lucy. ‘You can sit with a load of kids every day and Sadie can do the swanky lunches with celebs and Broadway producers?’

Lucy took a sip of her wine. ‘God no!’ she said, laughing. ‘Give me a room full of teenagers for longer than an hour and I’d be reaching for the Valium. The only teenagers I want to be anywhere near are ones I can get cast in the newest production of Dear Evan Hansen!’

‘Your average teenager gets a bad press,’ Sadie said. ‘They’re challenging – yes – but their views on the world can be fascinating. Teaching is a vocation and it’s better than any old job. I’m helping to steer future generations; I might be helping a future Nobel Prize winner to realise his or her full potential.’

‘I’ll ask whether you still feel that way next time you’re stuck inside revising and I’m having a lovely swim out in the bay and getting paid for the privilege,’ Ewan said.

‘Funny!’ Sadie said with a pretend grimace. ‘At least my job will make a difference… at least, it will when I qualify and finally get one.’

But then she paused, the old misgivings about her career choice resurfacing again, as they had done many times over the previous weeks. She pushed them back down into the depths once more. This was the path she’d chosen and she was going to see it through. What she’d opted to do with her life did matter, didn’t it? She was going to make a difference in the world, wasn’t she?

‘My job makes a difference,’ Ewan said. ‘I make people happy, don’t I? I have a waiting list for new clients.’

‘Of course you do,’ Sadie said with a theatrical sigh. ‘If you were teaching people how to plate up shit you’d have a waiting list because half of Sea Salt Bay is in love with you—’

‘Sadie!’ Henny exclaimed. ‘Firstly – language! And secondly, you can’t say things like that in front of Kat!’

‘Oh, right,’ Sadie said, laughing but still colouring at her mum’s chastisement.

‘Oh, Mum, please,’ Lucy cut in. ‘Like Kat doesn’t already know that. I mean, it’s the only reason most of Ewan’s clients book him.’

‘Oh, I know that.’ Kat gave Ewan a coy smile. ‘But business is business, however we come by it. Besides, I’ve always liked a challenge.’

‘Am I a challenge?’ Ewan asked her.

‘Keeping the marital mystique is definitely a challenge.’

Ewan grinned again. ‘Oh, I think you’re doing more than OK there…’

‘Gravy?’ Henny barked, shoving the gravy boat in between Ewan and Kat, just to head off any dinner-table double entendres that might be in the offing.

‘I’m OK, thanks,’ Ewan said, waving it away.

‘I’m OK too,’ Kat said. She looked at the children, sitting quietly while the adults chatted. Freya was the oldest, a serious ten-year-old who more often than not had her head in a book rather than a dive helmet. While her parents were outdoor, sporty types, Freya couldn’t have been further from that. She’d rather be in a library than on a tennis court. Right now she was reading an old copy of Malory Towers that Henny had given to her. Any other