A Letter From Allie

CONTAINS SPOILERS SO ONLY TO BE READ AFTER ‘SUMMER AT THE COSY COTTAGE CAFÉ’

Dear Lovely Reader,

I’m writing this from the café, which at the moment smells of lemon drizzle cake and the last of the summer roses coming through the open door from the garden. Luna is somewhere she shouldn’t be, that much I can tell from the suspicious quiet, and Jordan has just gone out, leaving half a sausage roll on the counter that I am absolutely not going to eat.

I probably will eat it.

I wanted to write to you because I know you’ve spent some time in Heatherlea now…

Hi there lovelies,

I thought we’d have a little fun today…

How well do you really know The Cosy Cottage Café?

No cheating. No flicking back through the book. Just go with your instinct.

Here we go…

“The Works”

A deleted scene from Summer At The Cosy Cottage Café by Rachel Griffiths.

A note from the author.

This scene was cut from Chapter Three, slotting into the gap during Allie’s makeover while the bleach is setting on her hair and Camilla has temporarily left the room. In the story, we skip over this stretch of waiting and perhaps that’s why it ended up on the cutting room floor. But I always liked it, because it tells you something about who Allie is when no one is watching. She is funny, self-deprecating and absolutely convinced she is handling everything calmly. NOTE: She is not handling anything calmly!

I’m not entirely sure why I bought this notebook.

Perhaps because it feels like something I should do at a time like this. People always say writing things down helps, don’t they? Clears the mind. Helps things make sense.

I’m not convinced. And yet here I am.

It still feels strange, sitting here alone. No, that’s not quite right. I’m not alone. Jordan is upstairs, no doubt wearing those headphones that make it impossible to tell whether he’s listening to music or something exploding. Mandy is in London, building a life that feels very far away from here now. But everything feels different.

Quieter.

He’s not here and never will be again.