The Cornish Cream Tea Bus

by Cressida McLaughlin

  She was suddenly tongue-tied. Everyone had gone upstairs to get a better view of the dolphins, and they were the only two people on the lower deck.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked, after what seemed like hours of silence. He was wearing a purple shirt, grey trousers and black shoes, polished to a high shine.

  ‘It’s busy and chaotic,’ she replied. ‘Everything I’d hoped for.’

  He nodded. ‘It’s looking good. I had no idea a bus could … I wasn’t sure how it would work.’

  ‘Do you want me to give you a tour? We don’t have a spa or an à la carte menu, but it’s still pretty special.’

  There were loud ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from upstairs, and Charlie guessed they must be able to see the dolphins clearly.

  Daniel shook his head. ‘Lauren needs me back at the hotel. Another time, maybe. Just thought I’d … check in.’

  ‘Check I wasn’t ruining the atmosphere of Porthgolow, you mean?’

  ‘I told you I’d reserve judgement until today.’ He gave her a long, lazy smile, then reached up and pulled the cord. The bell dinged. ‘Bloody hell. I didn’t know buses still had these.’

  ‘Most don’t,’ she said. ‘I wanted to bring some of the original features back. Here.’ She picked up the ticket machine, pressing the button so a piece of paper spewed out of the bottom. It was a replica, and modified so that she could amend what was printed or add a short message alongside the date. ‘Have a memento.’ She tore off the ticket that said: Cornish Cream Tea Bus. Grand opening, 4 May, Porthgolow. She held it out to him and, after a pause, he took it. ‘That’ll be a piece of history one day,’ she said. ‘When Gertie is famous for travelling throughout Cornwall and perking up the village.’

  ‘You’re staying then?’ he asked. He was still looking at the ticket, though surely he could have read what was printed on it at least ten times over by now.

  ‘What, in Cornwall?’

  ‘Here, in Porthgolow.’ He met her gaze.

  Charlie felt like a fried egg stuck under a heat lamp. ‘I don’t know yet,’ she admitted. ‘The great thing about Gertie is that she’s mobile. But then, I love being with Juliette and Lawrence; it’s so much more relaxed than my parents’ place – even though they’re brilliant, too – and Marmite, that’s my Yorkipoo that you met in the pub, loves the beach. There are no beaches in Herefordshire. And Porthgolow is … it’s beautiful. So …’

  ‘So? That was a lot of words without any kind of conclusion. But it sounds as if you like it here.’

  Charlie folded her arms, embarrassed at all the detail she’d spilled out. ‘I do. I don’t know how long I’ll be staying, but I like it here.’

  His expression was unreadable.

  ‘So it looks like you’re going to be stuck with my shabby bus for a while longer,’ she added, to fill the silence.

  ‘Looks like it.’

  She waited for him to correct her, to tell her it wasn’t shabby any more, but he didn’t.

  ‘Ooh, we need a photo,’ she said, hoping this, at least, would break the tension.

  ‘A photo?’

  ‘I’m taking them with all of my customers, to show that there were actually some people here on launch day. I’ll put it online and tag you, and then—’

  ‘It’ll look like I’m endorsing your bus.’

  Charlie suppressed a smile and, turning her phone to selfie mode, stood next to him. She could smell his aftershave, something woody and fresh with citrus. She held the phone up and Daniel leaned his head towards hers, resting his hand lightly on her shoulder.

  Charlie inhaled, and took the photo, then she moved quickly away from him, back into the kitchen.

  ‘Thanks, Daniel. Thanks for coming.’

  ‘I thought I’d better check out my competition,’ he said.

  ‘And?’ Her mouth was suddenly dry.

  ‘It suits you. The red.’

  ‘Gertie’s paint job, or—?’ she put a hand up to her hair, remembering how he’d mentioned it in the gardens of his hotel.

  He didn’t reply, but simply turned and walked towards the door, giving Charlie a perfect view of his wide shoulders in the purple shirt, the snug fit of his grey trousers. He reached up and pulled the bell cord again, and then jogged down onto the sand and disappeared out of sight, the ding echoing in his wake.

  Charlie swept crumbs into the bin and cleaned the counter with a ferociousness it didn’t need. He was utterly maddening. Had he really come to see if the bus was suited to the village? It wasn’t as if she had loud music playing or had invited Lawrence to set up marquees along the entire beach. It wasn’t a bloody carnival. It was one bus, with a very lovely café on it.

  While everyone upstairs focused on the dolphins, Charlie sat at one of the downstairs tables and added the photo of her and Daniel to Instagram. She bigged him up in the caption: Daniel Harper, Esteemed owner of Porthgolow’s luxury spa hotel, Crystal Waters. She made it sound very much as if he had endorsed her bus. She tagged the hotel account, added the hashtags she hoped would widen the reach of the post, and linked it to Facebook and Twitter. She looked at the photo of the two of them, her smile a bit too wide, his cool and composed, even though she’d caught him off-guard.

  She pushed her phone away and stared out of the window. The sun was trying to make an effort, and the surface of the water glistened invitingly. She tried to picture Daniel’s face if she did bring a festival to Porthgolow beach, with food trucks and music, the sheltered cove full of people and laughter, dogs running on the sand and children paddling. An ice-cream van with an old-fashioned jingle – the Popeye theme or ‘Greensleeves’ – maybe even a mobile bar. This wide, hard-packed strip of sand was the perfect location for a fair.

  Charlie smiled. The idea was so clear that she knew she had to try it. The council had approved her pitch on the beach, so they might well consent to allowing more, as long as they weren’t all permanent. The weather was warming up, she had her bus and her fledgling social media pages, she was living with a brilliant digital marketer and an expert marquee-wrangler. It would be a crime if she didn’t use all that to her advantage.

  She had hoped Gertie would liven up her adopted village, and today it certainly felt buzzier, but what about tomorrow? The Kerrs, Anton and Stella and Hugh had all turned up. They might make it a regular thing, treat her like any other local café, but they wouldn’t come every day. And if the bus had failed to inspire some of the villagers, would a festival, with a wider choice of refreshments, do the trick? Hal had used themes to brighten up his tours, and she could put on special events, create new flavours and products to tie in with celebration days, but she needed to make an even bigger splash if she wanted Porthgolow to have the attention it deserved.

  She realized she had an answer to Daniel’s question. Yes, she was going to stay in Porthgolow. As long as Juliette and Lawrence would have her, she could see about turning this festival idea into reality.

  Jonah ran down the stairs, his eyes alive with the excitement of seeing the dolphins, and beckoned her to come with him. Charlie put the drinks on a tray and followed. She found Juliette and several customers peering out of the windows at the front of the bus.

  ‘They’ve been in the bay for half an hour,’ Jonah said.

  ‘Come and look,’ Juliette added.

  Charlie knelt on the bench alongside her friend, and within seconds she could see them, their bodies arching out of the water, their fins cutting through the spume.

  ‘Aren’t they magnificent?’ Juliette murmured.

  ‘They are,’ Charlie replied emphatically, thanking her lucky stars that she had given in to her friend’s requests to come and stay with her.

  Here, Charlie knew, she had found purpose. Porthgolow was one of the most beautiful places she’d ever visited: it had a charm that was recognizable as a British seaside village, but also its own, individual character. She loved that she could stand on the end of the jetty and gaze back at the seafront, the houses that looked as if th
ey were almost carved out of the cliff. She was intrigued by the mystery of Reenie and her yellow house, and she couldn’t deny that she wanted to go back to Crystal Waters, to take Daniel up on his offer of a tour of his hotel and, most of all, convince him how wonderful Gertie was.

  If she stayed, she could run The Cornish Cream Tea Bus, walk Marmite along the beach, spend time with her friends and, hopefully, make a real difference. Daniel’s amused, handsome face flashed into her mind, distracting her from Juliette and the dolphins. When the bell sounded, she raced downstairs to greet her next customer.

  It didn’t matter who might be against her, what challenges she would encounter. She was prepared – willing, even – to face them all down.

  ‘Bring it on,’ Charlie whispered to herself as she ground coffee beans for the young couple’s espressos, ‘I’m ready.’

  Part 2

  The Éclair Affair

  Chapter Nine

  Charlie squinted into the sun that was coming in through the windscreen of the vintage double-decker Routemaster like a searchlight, and ran her palms down her skirt. It was early on a Saturday morning, but already the light was filling the bay of Porthgolow, making the water glitter encouragingly. And right now, in the midst of a meeting that she had called, but which was beginning to feel like a very bad idea, Charlie needed encouragement.

  ‘Do you want this place to survive, or don’t you?’ said Hugh, more impassioned than Charlie had ever seen him.

  ‘It’s not falling into the bleddy sea, is it?’ Myrtle Gordon shot back. Myrtle had taken against Charlie and her bus the moment she arrived in the village, so she wasn’t surprised to learn that her new suggestion wasn’t getting a seal of approval either.

  ‘No, of course not,’ Juliette said in a calm, even tone. ‘But what Charlie – we’re – suggesting, is simply a way to bring a few more businesses to Porthgolow. A small festival to brighten up the beach. The bus has been well-received, mostly, and this seems like an obvious next step.’

  ‘Obvious for you, mebbe. You young things, coming here and taking over. Emmets, the lot o’you.’ Myrtle picked up a mini toffee tart and popped it in her mouth, then turned purposefully towards the window.

  Charlie had heard the term several times over the last couple of months. It meant interlopers – non-Cornish people who’d moved to the county. She couldn’t deny that she was one, even if Porthgolow was only her temporary home, and the term wasn’t exactly friendly. She was wondering how to follow Myrtle’s outburst when Daniel Harper caught her eye and her entire vocabulary deserted her.

  After the successful launch of The Cornish Cream Tea Bus the week before, Charlie’s active mind had conjured up the next step of her plan to revitalize the quaint Cornish village that seemed forlorn and unloved, despite all its potential. A festival. Every Saturday. Down on the sand.

  Her bus had been embraced by a lot of the locals, and with a few more food trucks, a wider selection of culinary delights and some intense online marketing, she knew she could bring people flocking to the village. But she couldn’t do that without agreement from the residents. She had already discovered that they weren’t all easy to please, and although she had gone ahead with The Cornish Cream Tea Bus regardless of what anyone else thought, for something that would potentially have a huge impact on the village, she wanted to tread carefully.

  Juliette had added her to the village businesses’ WhatsApp group, and she had invited them all to join her this morning, providing hot drinks and some of her bakes as a sweetener. The mood didn’t feel very sweet at the moment.

  The Instagram photo she had posted, of the bus’s interior with her treats laid out and the caption: Planning something exciting on the #CornishCreamTeaBus this morning now seemed wildly over-optimistic. It was doubtful whether they’d manage to agree on anything at all.

  The group was split in the same way they had been about her bus. Hugh, the Kerr family (today represented by Paul and his son Jonah, because Amanda had taken an early tour out), and Stella and Anton from the bed and breakfast – they were all enthusiastic about her beach festival idea. Myrtle was not. She had bought her friend Rose for support, and the woman, with honey-blonde hair rolled under her chin in an immovable bob, had barely greeted Charlie and was sitting like a thundercloud, her jaw set. Myrtle had probably told her to behave like that.

  Daniel Harper had turned up with his colleague Lauren. They were sitting at the back, and had contributed little, but Daniel kept sending glances Charlie’s way, exuding his usual amused demeanour that, so far, hadn’t failed to put her hackles up.

  She had spent hours making mini toffee and lemon tarts, muffins with gooey chocolate-ganache centres, blueberry jam or orange cream, as well as ginger biscuits thick with crystallized ginger pieces. They were all going down a lot better than her festival proposal.

  ‘Myrtle,’ she said, clasping her hands together. ‘I do understand why you’re not keen on the idea, and why you don’t think Porthgolow needs an influx—’

  ‘Invasion,’ Myrtle shot back.

  ‘Needs a … a—’

  ‘I think what Charlie is trying to say,’ Daniel cut in, ‘is that from her point of view, seeing this village as a newcomer, she has spotted some areas where it could do with livening up. And from a business perspective, that’s entirely sound.’

  Charlie resisted the urge to hug him. Even without his supportive words, he was a rather huggable prospect, in jeans and a black T-shirt, the sleeves tightening over his biceps when he folded his arms. His hair was wavy on the top, a few strands falling over his left eyebrow.

  ‘Sound how?’ Myrtle asked. ‘She wants to take over, is all.’

  ‘Daniel’s right,’ Hugh said. ‘The more people who come to Porthgolow, the more they’ll use the pub and your pop-in. They’ll see Stella and Anton’s B&B, maybe book a stay there. Crystal Waters will undoubtedly get more custom.’

  ‘Gis-on! From royals and celebrities, mebbe. But they’re not goin’ to come to a scruffy little festival, are they?’ Myrtle was unrepentant. She picked up one of Charlie’s cream-filled muffins and started to devour it methodically. Irritation flashed across Daniel’s face.

  ‘It will attract all sorts of people,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ve made some contacts since setting up social media for the bus, and I’m off to the St Agnes Head Festival in a couple of weeks, so I’ll talk to other vendors there. Couldn’t we try it once and see what happens? If it doesn’t work, or if it all goes wrong or nobody turns up, or if the village is damaged in any way, then I won’t do it again. But where’s the harm in putting on one festival, just to see how it goes? I promise I’ll be careful about noise and rubbish and parking; I’ll draw up a set of guidelines all the vendors have to follow.’

  ‘I think it’s going to be ace,’ Jonah said. ‘Are you going to get a Mexican food stand? Burritos are my favourite.’

  ‘I’ll see, Jonah. I’ve got lots of people I can ask.’

  ‘It’s a mistake,’ Myrtle said, ‘mark my words.’

  ‘Mine too,’ Rose added, raising her head and then quickly dropping it again.

  ‘It is going to make this place very noisy, very crowded.’ Daniel snapped a ginger biscuit in two, examined it and then put one half in his mouth. ‘Porthgolow won’t feel tranquil, like it does now.’ He gestured outside, and everyone turned to look. The water was flat, blue and glistening. The sand was empty apart from a couple walking an enthusiastic spaniel. There were murmurs of agreement.

  Charlie rubbed her head. ‘You just said it was a good idea.’

  ‘It is, from a business perspective. I’m examining all the arguments.’

  ‘Out loud?’ She couldn’t believe it.

  ‘What’s the point of having a meeting to discuss this idea, if we don’t look at it from every angle?’ He raised an eyebrow and Charlie wanted to push it back down his smug face.

  ‘Our guests won’t be happy if it starts too early,’ Stella mused.

  ‘I get a few delivery d
rop-offs on a Saturday morning,’ Hugh added, rubbing his chin. ‘If the place is gridlocked, that’ll make the drivers angry.’

  ‘We run a mindfulness session at Crystal Waters on a Saturday morning,’ Lauren said, scribbling in a notebook she’d brought with her. ‘Do you think it will impact on that?’ She touched Daniel’s hand and pursed her lips.

  ‘I really don’t know, Lauren.’ He sighed dramatically. ‘It is a risk, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Juliette muttered. She began refilling mugs, the milk frother whistling noisily.

  ‘I’m not going to start it at 7 a.m.,’ Charlie said. ‘I was thinking about ten o’clock, so it’ll miss early morning wake-ups and deliveries and mindfulness sessions. It’s a few food trucks, a bit of fun and laughter on the beach. I honestly think you’ll thank me once it’s here. Give me one chance, one Saturday in June. A trial run.’ Her heart pounded as she waited for their verdict. ‘If it gets in the way of anything or causes problems, I won’t do it again.’

  She had been prepared for opposition, having lots of questions to answer about her idea, but she hadn’t anticipated having to plead quite so hard. She was pretty sure the only reason she had ended up on the verge of begging was stirring his coffee slowly, nodding abstractedly at something Lauren was saying and keeping his eyes trained on Charlie. He was definitely smirking.

  The answer, when it came, was less than enthusiastic. She could try her festival, once, and they would see if they approved. She had hoped to end the meeting feeling slightly more positive, with at least some of the locals embracing her flash of inspiration and excited about the future of their village. That, clearly, had been a pipe dream.

  As everyone filtered off the bus, Daniel lingered. ‘If you need any help organizing it, let me know.’

  Charlie folded her arms. ‘And will that help be actual help, or will it be meddling?’

  ‘I do think it’s a good idea,’ he said, leaning on the doorframe. ‘But you have to consider how it’s going to change the village. Not everyone is a fan of change.’