Alice's Secret

by Lynne Francis

  Alys was busy opening up the other boxes, finding two more sets with different designs. One set was painted with rows of horizontal stripes encircling each bauble, the other had a flower or snowflake motif embossed deeply into each ornament.

  ‘It doesn’t look as though they’ve seen the light of day for years,’ Alys marvelled.

  ‘Well, I know they’ll be going to a good home with you,’ Claire said.

  ‘Do you think I’ll be able to use them?’ Alys was suddenly doubtful. ‘I’d hate them to get smashed after they’ve survived all these years.’

  ‘I thought you could use clear fishing twine to hang them around the top of the window, too high up for anyone to touch.’ Claire said. ‘You might need to superglue the hangers to the tops of each bauble, though. Those metal loops look like they might be a bit weak.’

  They contemplated them for a moment in silence. ‘If you don’t want them, I won’t have a problem selling them,’ Claire said, starting to re-pack the boxes.

  ‘No, no, I do!’ Alys said hastily. ‘I was just getting carried away, imagining putting them up. I think they will look wonderful. Thank you so much for finding them.’

  Ten minutes later, Alys was on her way back to the café, the boxes of decorations stowed in a carrier along with the coffee cup and saucer, which she hadn’t been able to resist. She had just the spot to display it, in the kitchen of the flat.

  The baubles had been hung on the last evening in November in the Nortonstall café, once Alys had been able to borrow a stepladder tall enough to suit the job. Her assistants Dee and Sandy had volunteered to stay on and help her once the café was closed for the day, and once they had worked out how to hang the first couple, from twine tied onto hooks screwed into the window surround, they’d managed to get a bit of a production line going. Alys had measured and marked the position of the hooks and screwed them in, while Dee and Sandy had glued the bauble tops and then tied twine in differing lengths to each one. They’d teased Alys when she’d been insistent that baubles of the same colour and design shouldn’t be hung against each other but they’d all been really pleased at the finished effect. The ornaments revolved a little as they hung, the facets on their surfaces sparkling as they caught the lights in the room.

  Once each table had been dressed with a miniature Christmas tree in a pot, topped with a gold gauze bow, and vintage-style card cut-outs of Victorian Santas and ice-skaters had been suspended from the counter and shelves, which were already edged with Christmas lights, Alys pronounced herself satisfied.

  ‘It looks so lovely! Thank you, both of you,’ Alys said. ‘I just need to make sure Moira doesn’t see this before I manage to get round to decorating the Northwaite café.’

  Dee and Sandy looked at each other. ‘Why don’t we do it now?’ they asked.

  Alys looked doubtful. ‘It’s getting late. Surely you want to get off home?’

  ‘It’s not even eight yet,’ Dee said. ‘I’ll go and get my car while you pack up this stuff ready to go.’ She indicated the remainder of the decorations. ‘We’ll be done by eleven. It will be better to have both places decorated at the same time. It’s the first of December tomorrow, after all.’

  Alys had been feeling weary but Dee’s enthusiasm re-energised her. ‘OK. You’re right. But I’m going to order in fish and chips and we can eat it before we go.’

  That night, at eleven thirty, the three of them stood back and admired their handiwork at The Celestial Cake Café.

  ‘The baubles work really well with the wings,’ Dee said. ‘And I love these card decorations.’ She turned one over in her hands, admiring the printed and gilded decoration. ‘These Victorian skater girls are just gorgeous. Where did you get them? I’d like to get some for myself.’

  ‘There’s a box left,’ Alys said, draining the last mouthful of prosecco that had proved useful in getting them through their final decorating session. ‘It’s yours – the least I can do for all your help.’

  She turned to Sandy. ‘And for you …’ She stopped, at a loss.

  ‘I’ll have something from your festive baking course,’ Sandy said. ‘A cake, mince pies, anything. I won’t get round to making my own.’

  ‘The baking course …’ Alys said. ‘The first one’s tomorrow. I nearly forgot. Definitely time for bed.’ And they all turned their attention to tidying up.

  ‘Moira is going to be so surprised in the morning,’ Alys said. She imagined her aunt’s reaction and it helped to lift the fog of weariness as she took one last look around before locking up. By twelve-thirty she had fallen into bed back in Nortonstall, alarm set for six, exhaustion ensuring sleep within minutes.

  Chapter Four

  The baking courses had proved to be a huge success. The Nortonstall café had a large, well-equipped kitchen and Alys had limited the class size to six, to make sure that everyone got their full share of attention. She’d advertised them in the café from mid-November, planning to run just one a week, and they had been slow to fill up at first. But the hanging of the Christmas decorations seemed to spur everyone into thinking about Christmas and by closing time on the first of December, the classes were all full and the length of the waiting list persuaded Alys that she needed to run an additional class each week.

  It was too late in the year to make Christmas cakes, but the students learnt how to make mince pies with shortcrust pastry, spiced ginger biscuits and chocolate truffles. The other customers in the café were intrigued by the laughter and the delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen and, encouraged by Dee and Sandy, inevitably ended up peering around the door then popping in to say hello to friends and neighbours who were taking the classes.

  ‘It was like a party in there this morning,’ Alys said, flopping into a chair in the café in a quiet moment after the lunchtime rush had died away. ‘I couldn’t get them to focus at all. It’s only mid-December and everyone’s over-excited already!’

  ‘We did wonder whether you were passing round the Christmas sherry,’ Dee said. ‘They sounded like they had the best time, though. And they all looked pretty happy when they came out with their boxes of goodies to take home.’

  Alys had wondered whether there were enough hours in the day for her to run the classes as well as bake cakes and biscuits for the café, so she had been delighted when Dee had proved to be a more-than-able baker. With a grown-up family, she had not only accumulated plenty of experience over the years but she had time on her hands and was happy to put in the extra hours over the festive period. She shared the baking with Alys who, once she had sampled Dee’s mince pies, also got her to come in to class and run the shortcrust pastry lesson, much to the delight of everyone who knew her.

  Moira couldn’t have been more pleased with the way that both businesses were going in the run-up to Christmas. ‘I can’t believe how well you’ve done,’ she said to Alys when she called in to The Cake Company Café after doing some Christmas shopping one afternoon in late December. ‘Not just to get the place open in time for Christmas but to turn it into such a popular spot already. All the regulars in Northwaite have been here at least once, you know.’

  ‘It’s been lovely to see them,’ Alys said. ‘And a couple have been on the courses, too.’ She sipped her tea and took a forkful of the clementine cake that Moira had brought into the café with her, a new recipe that she was thinking of introducing in the New Year. ‘Mmm. This is delicious. It’s so nice to taste something fresh and citrusy after all the Christmas flavours.’ She lowered her voice for the last few words, wary of her customers overhearing her. They were all still enjoying the cinnamon, nutmeg and spices of the season but Alys’s palate was already jaded.

  ‘Well, I’d better be getting back.’ Moira gathered up her shopping bags. ‘Flo will be wanting to close up and head home. I just wanted to make sure that you are still going to come to Northwaite for Christmas?’

  ‘You bet,’ Alys said. ‘I can’t wait.’ Christmas was a beacon of light for her, something to look forward to
at the end of the following week. ‘Just as long as we don’t have to cook anything. And I can put my feet up and do nothing but eat and watch old movies for a couple of days.’

  ‘Tom’s going to cook,’ Moira said. ‘He says we don’t need to lift a finger.’ Tom, a delightful man of Moira’s age, had turned out to be the reason for her increasingly frequent trips to jazz evenings in Nortonstall. Leaving him to do the cooking sounded good to Alys but Moira referred to Tom in such an easy way, a smile playing on her lips as she did so, that it gave Alys a small pang. She was absolutely delighted for them both but suddenly aware of how wrapped up she had been in the business for over three months now. Every day began at six in the morning and finished at around ten in the evening, when she could no longer keep her eyes open. Baking, serving customers and dealing with paperwork seemed to fill all those hours and she couldn’t remember the last time that she had had a proper conversation with anyone, or at least one that didn’t revolve around cake in some form or another. Even so, she wouldn’t have missed a moment. It was the busiest, and most fulfilling, of times.

  She waved her aunt off, then got to wondering what on earth she could buy Moira and Tom for Christmas. A couple of nice bottles of wine for Tom, maybe some cook’s ingredients, too, and a book for Moira, a nice fat novel perhaps. She should get something for Dee and Sandy, too; a great part of the café’s success was due to them, their energy and their rapport with the customers. She put a memo into her phone, knowing that she would never remember otherwise, with so much still to fit in before the holiday arrived. Her mother and father were heading abroad so a card would have to do for them, and she’d long ago given up on buying presents for her brothers. She’d send something to Hannah, of course, but thankfully there was no need to agonise over what to buy for Tim this year.

  Her thoughts strayed from Tim to Rob. She’d barely seen him since Hannah’s visit in September. She wondered what he was up to and why she hadn’t seen him around. She should have asked Moira if he was still buying his coffee in the café every day. At one point, it had seemed as though there might be something between them but now that didn’t seem likely. It looked as though neither of them had felt the inclination to get in touch with the other. There hadn’t been a moment to reflect on her personal life but, now that she did so, she felt a sense of loss. She was looking forward to Christmas because it would give her the chance to take a break, but would it feel odd, lonely even, she wondered, spending it with a new and happy couple?

  Any further thoughts along these lines were suspended by the arrival of the carol singers who, with thirty minutes to spare before their scheduled performance in front of the town’s Christmas tree, bundled into the café to buy hot chocolate to warm themselves up.

  ‘It’s too cold to stand outside and wait,’ one of them explained. ‘And the café looked so pretty, all lit up, that we had to come in.’

  Alys handed round mince pies and refused to take payment for the hot chocolate, earning her a rousing recital of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ before they all headed back out into the street again. Dee, Sandy and Alys took it in turns to wrap up and step outside to listen to a carol or two around the tree. Carols were always uplifting, Alys reflected, and everyone looked so happy standing around the tree and singing. The little children especially looked enchanting, muffled up against the cold and clinging onto a parent’s hand as they listened, wide-eyed, entranced by the sparkling lights on the tree. Alys had tears in her eyes but she brushed them away as she came back into the café.

  ‘It’s so cold!’ she declared. ‘Do you think we’ll have a white Christmas?’

  ‘No, it’s too cold!’ Sandy and Dee replied at the same time, then burst out laughing.

  ‘I’m going to prepare the kitchen for tomorrow’s class if you want to clear up and get away a bit early,’ Alys said, surveying the empty café. ‘Everyone is listening to the carols, then my guess is, they’ll head home.’

  ‘They’ll be going to the pub for mulled wine,’ Dee said. ‘At any rate, that’s where I’m going. Sandy? Alys? Do you want to join me?’

  Sandy shook her head, saying that she’d promised to babysit for her sister’s children and couldn’t turn up smelling of alcohol. Alys was tempted and almost agreed, then the thought of the preparation she needed to do before the next day’s class stopped her. ‘Sorry.’ She sighed. ‘Not today. But I’ll make sure we have a Christmas drink together before the big day arrives.’

  Chapter Five

  On Christmas Eve afternoon, Alys turned the sign on the café door to read ‘Closed’, picked up her bag and stepped outside to be met by a gust of damp, but not particularly cold, air. It didn’t look as though they could expect a white Christmas this year, after all.

  The streets were quiet as Alys locked up and headed for the bus stop. It was the end of the afternoon and most people were at home with family and friends, or had gone visiting. She’d sent Dee and Sandy off at midday, promising them that they would have a celebration together in the New Year. The last few days at work had proved too hectic to organise the promised Christmas drink in the end, with customers even dropping in that morning to beg them for a dozen mince pies, gingerbread reindeer and chocolate truffles, to use as last-minute gifts. Alys told herself that a really quiet time was exactly what she had been looking forward to, but now it was almost upon her she had to fight down a sudden wave of loneliness. Christmas was such a family time and, despite the fact that Moira was family, they would make rather a small gathering.

  The bus drew up at the stop, the driver extra-cheery in his greeting as he was on the last run of the day. As they headed out of town and the bus started the long haul up the hill, it passed houses with curtains left half-open to display trees festooned with Christmas lights, twinkling and winking as rain started to spatter against the bus window. Then all was darkness outside as the bus laboured up the final stretch into Northwaite. Alys jumped off at the first stop, which was closest to The Celestial Cake Café, so she could check whether Moira was still there. But the café was locked up and in darkness. Hunched against the now-driving rain, Alys shouldered her bag and was preparing to head for the cottage when she spotted a note taped to the door.

  ‘In The Old Bell. Join us!’ it read.

  Alys assumed that this was intended for her, but she wasn’t sure she felt like going. She was tired, and had spent all day looking forward to a relaxing evening. A noisy pub wasn’t quite what she had in mind. She hesitated, then, reflecting that she’d be at a loose end if Moira wasn’t home, and that there would be plenty of time to relax over the next couple of days, she turned her steps up the hill. Within a minute or two, she was pushing open the door of The Old Bell.

  A wave of noise and laughter greeted her and she almost turned tail and fled, but Tom, on his way to the bar, spotted her.

  ‘Alys! You made it. You look half-drowned. Everyone’s over in the other bar. Go through and I’ll bring you a drink. What’ll you have?’

  Alys found Moira chatting to some of the regulars from the Northwaite café. It was standing room only, but she managed to stow her bag and coat under a chair and squeeze through the crowd to join them. The glass of wine that Tom brought over helped to soothe some of her tiredness but, after nearly an hour of trying to make conversation over the hubbub, Alys thought about making a break for it. If she said she was leaving, though, Moira and Tom would insist on joining her and she could see that they were really enjoying themselves. So, instead, Alys offered to get the next round and pushed her way through to the bar, standing patiently to wait her turn to be served. She whiled away the time staring at an old photo of the pub on the wall next to the bar. The photo was dated 1895 – she’d never noticed it before. Surely that was the year that Alice had died? There were some indistinct figures in the street, faces pale against dark clothes as they stared at the camera, no doubt a novelty in those times. What if one of them was Alice? She must have walked past the pub many times, although probably without
going inside. It wasn’t the done thing for women in those days.

  ‘Penny for them.’

  Alys jumped. The voice was right in her ear. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘Well, that’s a nice greeting after all these weeks.’ Rob smiled and Alys felt a sudden rush of complicated emotion. She’d been so tied up with everything involved in getting the new café up and running that she’d barely thought about anything else. Including herself. But Rob was speaking.

  ‘I’ve been asking Moira about how you were getting on and why we never see you in Northwaite anymore. She said you might be in here this evening.’

  It was Alys’s turn to be served, finally. As she waited for her drinks she turned to Rob.

  ‘So why haven’t you come over to Nortonstall, to the new place? To check out the coffee there?’

  Rob laughed. ‘I’m not sure they’d be keen to have my tractor on the High Street. Anyway, I’ve been away myself recently.’

  ‘Away? Anywhere nice?’ she asked, trying hard to sound casual.

  ‘London, can you believe.’ Rob made a face. ‘It was a Rare Breeds Symposium. Why on earth they organised it in London, I’ll never know. I don’t know how you put up with it down there for so long, Alys. It’s so crowded. A bit like being in here tonight!’

  They pushed their way back with the drinks and Rob helped her hand them round.

  ‘Rob!’ Alys was contrite. ‘I didn’t get you one! I was so busy memorising the order, I forgot to ask you. Here – I’ll go back.’

  She turned to go but Rob grasped her arm. ‘No need. I’ve got one. I left it over by the bar. Come with me and we can catch up on each other’s news.’ He didn’t withdraw his grip, instead using it to guide her before him back through the crowd. His drink safely claimed, they wedged themselves into a corner, where the view gave out through the door into the road.

  ‘It’s still raining,’ Alys remarked. ‘I got soaked just walking here from the café.’