‘Anyway,’ said Phoebe as she placed their coffees on the table (showing off the range of her Italian machine, she was having a skinny latte, Jude a cappuccino with sugar), ‘the first thing you must do is have a look at this.’ She gestured to an expensive-looking blue cardboard box on the table in front of Jude.
‘May I open it?’
‘Of course.’
The contents were revealed to be very good-quality headed notepaper. Under a naval-looking design involving an anchor and a cannon was the legend: ‘SPCS Action Committee’. Centred beneath that in the same large font were the words: ‘Chair: Commodore Quintus Braithwaite’. No other names featured.
Jude did rather tentatively recall that there had been an agreement that the committee’s other officers should get a name-check, but Phoebe swiftly swept away that objection, saying, ‘No, it’s a design thing. The little girl from the printers who advised us on layout – charming she is, ex-Roedean – said it’d look bolder with just the one name.’
Bolder maybe, thought Jude, but not what the committee voted for. However, she kept her opinion to herself.
Phoebe smiled at her ferociously. ‘Now, I’m sure you’d like to know the reason why I wanted to have this little chat.’
‘Well, I was mildly intrigued, yes.’ Jude was once again struck by how confident Phoebe Braithwaite was in the absence of her husband. Gone was the twitchy nervousness that she’d demonstrated when lurking in the kitchen during committee meetings. Now she was a woman fully in control of everything – to the point of actually being bossy. Jude wondered whether the twittery Phoebe was an act created during the course of their marriage to build up her husband’s confidence and demonstrate her utter dependence on him. It wouldn’t be the first time she had seen the same kind of ritual in a relationship.
‘Well, it was, needless to say, in connection with Polly’s Cake Shop that I wanted to talk to you, what with you being on the committee and everything …’
Jude thought she should sound an early note of caution. ‘I may not be staying on the committee for very long.’
‘No, but you are on it at the moment, which means that you must be in favour of Quintus’s plans for the development of Polly’s Cake Shop as a Community Project.’
The logic of what Phoebe had just said would not have stood up to close scrutiny, but Jude let it pass as her hostess went on, ‘Now would you believe that muggins here has got delegated to sort out the Volunteer Rota for when the Community Project starts.’
And I wonder who did the delegating, thought Jude, and had no difficulty finding an answer. It struck her that Quintus Braithwaite had no right to take that kind of decision off his own bat. The organizer of the Volunteer Rota was an appointment that should be made by the whole SPCS Action Committee. Though Jude herself didn’t care about the niceties of ‘meeting protocol’, she knew a lot of her colleagues on the committee would deeply resent the Commodore’s unilateral action. But she got the feeling the Braithwaites were very practised in running things their own way.
She was also amused by Phoebe’s reference to ‘muggins here’, implying that she had unwillingly taken on the burden of the Volunteer Rota rather than being chuffed to bits at being given the responsibility.
‘Now, a little bird told me, Jude, that in the course of your varied career, you did at one stage work in a restaurant …’ It was true, but how did she know that? Jude didn’t let the question trouble her for long. She had lived in Fethering long enough never to be surprised by the efficiency of its bush telegraph. Any piece of information dropped casually into conversation with anyone very quickly became public property. Fethering had had its own highly efficient non-electronic social media long before the creation of Facebook or Twitter.
‘So I was wondering,’ Phoebe went on, ‘whether when we set up Polly’s as a Community Project, we could count on your expertise …?’
‘In what way?’ came the cautious reply.
‘Well, you know, pick your brains about things.’
‘My brains are open for picking at any time. You’re welcome to anything you can find in them.’
‘Thank you, that’s very generous.’ Phoebe Braithwaite smiled graciously. ‘The fact is, I also wondered whether you might be ready to help in a more active capacity …?’
The ‘Oh?’ with which Jude responded was also cautious.
‘I think we’re so fortunate in Fethering to have such a wonderful supply of hidden talents. You meet people for the first time and you know nothing of their history, and then slowly you discover that there are all these things they can do. I mean, for instance, until Quintus mentioned it on Monday, a lot of people didn’t know about my running coffee mornings when we were posted to Dar es Salaam. And I mean, I’m not blowing my own trumpet about it or saying that I did anything particularly wonderful out there, but the fact remains that the whole thing was my initiative and, though I say it myself, it was damn well run.’
‘I’m not quite sure how this relates to my experience in restaurants.’
‘No, well, it was just an example about hidden talents. And I was thinking that, with you having worked in a restaurant … I mean, what exactly did you do?’
‘It was a long time ago, but I suppose I … well, I helped out with the cooking when required, but basically I ran the place.’
‘You were, kind of, the manager?’
‘Yes.’
Jude wondered whether Phoebe had picked up on what she’d said on Monday about Polly’s Cake Shop possibly needing a paid manager, and was planning the excuses that she would make if offered the job, when Phoebe said, ‘Well, I was wondering whether I could include you in my rota of volunteer waitresses?’
Jude was too shocked to speak. The way the offer was put forward, it was as though she were being offered a rich gift, of which she was not really worthy.
‘I mean, obviously,’ Phoebe Braithwaite went on, ‘I do have to have a quality control of the people who act as waitresses for Polly’s. We have standards to maintain. And some of my friends were a little dubious as to whether I should ask you.’
I see, thought Jude, with a seething fury that rarely visited her. My name has been bandied round with all the Joannas or Samanthas to see if I qualify to be one of their number.
But Phoebe hadn’t finished. ‘Some of them thought you dressed a bit scruffily, you know, and ought to spruce up appearance-wise.’ She smiled magnanimously. ‘But I came to your rescue and pointed out to them that, as a waitress, you would be wearing the black and white livery of Polly’s Cake Shop – or whatever livery we end up using – so nobody would see what you normally wore. And then some of them said: What about your hair? But I assured them that it was not beyond the wit of man to come up with a less flamboyant style which would fit neatly under a Polly’s mobcap. So I was very much your defender, Jude, and I said you should definitely be considered as one of our volunteer waitresses,’ she concluded, Lady Bountiful graciously vouchsafing charity to her inferior.
‘Well, thank you very much,’ said Jude with an uncharacteristic iciness. ‘I am obviously very grateful for your offer. But what you seem to be forgetting is that I already have a full-time job.’
‘Do you?’ Phoebe Braithwaite looked confused for a moment, but then reminded herself, ‘Of course, you do that healing business, don’t you? But surely that’s only a side-line?’
‘It is my profession,’ said Jude with some dignity, ‘and it is one whose demands, I’m afraid, preclude the possibility of my taking on any other work, voluntary or otherwise.’
‘Oh well, that’s that then,’ said Phoebe, not sounding too upset by the reaction. ‘Just as well, probably. There were still one or two of the others who were a bit dubious about including you.’