The Little Teashop of Lost and Found

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘It’s very kind of her and I’ll come tomorrow, but I want to work on my book tonight, when it’s quiet.’

  Mind you, if Nile wasn’t back it might be too quiet in Doorknocker’s Row … and feel a bit lonely. I liked it better when I could look across and see the comforting square of light that showed he was home.

  ‘Is Nile going to be there this weekend?’ I asked, despite myself.

  ‘Oh, Nile seldom says what he’s doing, he just turns up. Isn’t he here?’

  ‘No, he went off somewhere very early.’

  ‘He told Mum he was taking you to Mr Rochester’s Restaurant last night,’ she said, looking at me sideways. ‘Are you seeing each other?’

  ‘It would be hard to avoid seeing each other, since we both live in Doorknocker’s Row,’ I said evasively. ‘But we did go to the restaurant, because Nile had something to deliver to Henry Godet, the owner. He wanted to see what the food was like, too, so he asked me if I’d like to go with him.’

  She looked disappointed – I’m not quite sure what she was expecting. ‘Oh … right. And what was it like?’

  ‘Delicious!’

  She looked at me expectantly. ‘And …?’

  ‘A violinist came and played at the table, which was embarrassing – but not as embarrassing as one of Nile’s many ex-girlfriends making a drunken scene over him as we left.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘I think I heard her being called Chloe.’

  ‘I remember Chloe. She left Nile for someone else, so I don’t know why she would make a scene. And actually, he hasn’t had many girlfriends since he moved up here,’ she added.

  ‘It makes no difference to me how many women he’s gone out with,’ I said. ‘We’re just friends.’

  ‘Mmm …’ Bel said, but seeing she wasn’t going to tease any more out of me (which would have been difficult, given the muddled state both of my recollections of the evening and my emotions), she changed tack. ‘Teddy and Geeta have volunteered to help Mum paint the new bedroom in the morning while Jan, their part-time nanny, looks after Casper, so I don’t think we’ll be needed till later. If you come for lunch then we could go to the garden centre afterwards?’

  ‘That would be fun. I do love garden centres.’

  ‘Me too, and there’s a wonderful one the other side of Upvale. Oh, by the way,’ she said as we went back indoors, ‘Teddy’s coming on Monday in the pickup to collect the leftover tables and chairs, if that’s all right?’

  ‘Yes, fine – they stack up, as you see.’

  ‘I could take some of the chairs back with me in the car now,’ she suggested.

  ‘Good idea, and I’ll bring a couple more tomorrow and then he might get what’s left into one load.’

  The distant strains of a tenor voice singing something swoopingly operatic wafted up from the basement, along with the sound of an electric drill.

  ‘Jack’s back,’ I said.

  At lunch next day, Sheila told us that Nile had rung her from London, because he’d spotted a nice but pricey piece of Troika and wondered if she wanted him to buy it.

  ‘And it’s a huge lamp base, which is something I haven’t already got, so I told him to try and haggle the price down and then go for it.’

  So … Nile had gone off straight to London yesterday morning, presumably to see Zelda. And there was absolutely no reason why he should have told me he was going to do that, let alone say goodbye before he went …

  It was ages since I’d been to a garden centre and I was surprised at the array of other things they seemed to stock now, and not just plant-related, either.

  They also had a coffee shop, where we repaired after I’d chosen two very large teal-blue glazed pots for either side of the café door. They were already planted up with ball-shaped variegated holly trees surrounded by a circle of winter pansies.

  That decided, I thought I’d get something for Nile, to liven up the dark green and gold frontage of Small and Perfect, so I picked a light green wooden tub, planted with a red rose tree on a long stem, that reminded me of the illustrations in my old copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

  It was a bit pricey, but it would make me feel better about accepting that valuable jug and the expensive meal on Thursday night.

  The garden centre promised to deliver the planters next afternoon, so I drew them a map of how to get to the back of the teashop. I was thinking of having it printed on cards to hand out: it would save a lot of time.

  Bel and I painted the skirting boards in the new letting bedroom next morning, since Teddy and Geeta had already done their bit the previous day. I felt I ought to earn my lunch in more than just advice on catering rules and regulations.

  Sheila was surprised when Nile didn’t make it back for Sunday lunch, so it must have been a rare event. I didn’t linger long afterwards either, for I needed to be back at the flat before the planters were delivered.

  And it was just as well Nile’s car wasn’t parked there, because the plants arrived on the back of a small open-topped truck, which was manoeuvred into the alleyway parking space next to my car without any problem.

  The pots and tub were wheeled through the passage to the courtyard and put into place and they looked perfect – the finishing touches to the outside. I thought Nile’s rose tree, in its light green planter, looked especially elegant and hoped he would like it.

  One of the men who delivered them lingered to look at the overgrown roses in my garden – if a square of paving with beds around it could be called that.

  ‘Neglected,’ he said, shaking his head sadly. ‘But cut them back hard, feed them in spring and see what happens, before you dig any of them out,’ he advised, and I thanked him. I’d do that, and now I’d been to the garden centre, I could imagine how my little courtyard garden could look with a bit of TLC, some more pots and planters and perhaps a fountain in the middle – one of those ones that burble gently through big pebbles.

  Soothing …

  I reminded myself of all the money I’d already spent this weekend and then went back upstairs to work on my book: cause and effect.

  The dryads, having regrouped, were going to come back for vengeance and things could only get gory – just as the two couples were about to get sorted out into their right pairings, too … or not, as the case might be.

  Beauty had grabbed Kev and planted a smacker right on his lips at the same moment as Prince S’Hallow did the same to Shaz, causing the Here-and-now to tremble in the air like a bubble about to pop.

  But then suddenly they were all jerked apart by loud and bloodcurdling screams and turned to see the dryads running towards them, pointed teeth bared and long talons reaching out to tear limb from limb …

  Kev leaped in front of Beauty and swung his scimitar. ‘Don’t you harpies come near my girl,’ he yelled.

  Beauty thought that was very sweet, but he’d really no idea what he was up against and might need a little help. She leaned around and took aim with the magic weapon.

  ‘You can keep away from my prince too!’ Shaz yelled, her own long pink talons curling into claws.

  ‘Let me deal with this, my dear,’ said Prince S’Hallow, unsheathing a gold-handled sword and swishing it about in the air, though not in a way that led her to think he knew what to do with it.

  It all went to show that stupidity was the better part of valour.

  I was still away with the wicked fairies when Nile’s voice jerked me back to reality.

  ‘Alice? Are you there?’ he called from the bottom of the stairs.

  I rose stiffly to my feet. ‘Come up,’ I invited, and he appeared a moment later. He looked tired – but then, I suppose he would after driving all the way up from London.

  ‘I did knock on the café door first. You need a bell that rings up here, or one of those intercom things, for when the café is shut. I don’t like just walking in.’

  ‘It hasn’t stopped you so far,’ I pointed out. ‘And you could have sent me a message saying
you were on your way.’

  ‘I did, several of them. Your car was at the back, so when you didn’t answer, I got worried.’

  ‘I was just working,’ I explained, still so far away I was having trouble reconnecting to the here-and-now. ‘Did you want me for anything?’

  ‘Well, I assume you had something to do with the rose in a tub outside my shop, since there are also two pots either side of your door?’

  ‘Oh, yes – I’d forgotten,’ I said. ‘Bel and I went to the garden centre yesterday. Do you like it? It’s a present, for all you’ve done for me, not to mention the lovely jug.’

  ‘Yes … and thank you. I think.’

  ‘Think?’ I repeated. ‘You’re not a plant lover?’

  ‘Oh, I love them all right, only I’m away so much it’ll probably die of thirst, or get pot-bound, or whatever.’

  ‘I’ll look after it, along with mine,’ I offered. ‘The garden centre man who delivered them has given me some advice about the old roses in the backyard, too.’

  ‘I’ve brought you something else I picked up while I was away, but please don’t pay me back in more plants,’ he said ungratefully. ‘I’ve left the boxes downstairs – come and see.’

  And there, on the old table in the utility room, were a load of cardboard cartons, absolutely full of dusty willow-pattern china.

  ‘Bel said you needed more, so I put the word out,’ he explained.

  And it seemed every dealer he knew was inundated with cheap modern willow-pattern china that they were dying to get rid of, because on the way down and back he’d collected all of this.

  ‘I’d have made it back hours ago, in time for lunch, if I hadn’t had to detour so often,’ he complained. ‘There’s more to come, too, if you want it.’

  ‘I don’t think I can have too much, because of breakages, and I’ve got lots of room in the cupboards here to store it. Thank you so much, Nile,’ I said gratefully. ‘You’re so thoughtful, and I’m always such a cow to you!’ I added with sudden compunction: he did bring out the defensive hedgehog spikes.

  He gave me one of those undermining smiles. ‘Not quite always … and anyway, I like your acerbic edge – it keeps me on my toes.’ He bent down and hauled a bigger box out from under the table. ‘I brought this in first, because it’s a bit delicate. I spotted it in a friend’s shop and thought it would be perfect for the café.’

  I unfolded the lid to reveal an old chandelier in a wide, shallow and rather art deco style, with matching wall lights.

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely!’ I said, as he held it up. ‘But it must have cost a fortune!’

  ‘No, I did a deal with some stuff of mine he wanted. Anyway, it’s another way of burdening you with gratitude and getting you in my evil power.’ He stroked an imaginary handlebar moustache and leered.

  ‘Huh!’ I said, unimpressed, then added, ‘Do you want to come upstairs?’

  ‘That’s not an offer I get every day,’ he said, raising one eyebrow.

  ‘For a cup of coffee,’ I said pointedly, though going slightly pink, because I’d suddenly remembered our smoochy moment outside the restaurant. It only showed how far I’d vanished into the book, that I’d totally forgotten it until that moment. ‘Maybe something to eat, too, because I haven’t had anything for hours and I’m ravenous.’

  I cooked pasta, added a jar of pesto sauce and a sprinkling of grated Parmesan (hardly up to Henry Godet’s standards, but good and filling) and while we were eating it, Nile told me where he’d been.

  ‘I had to go to Norfolk first and then across to a place near Guildford, so I thought I might as well call in on Zelda this morning before I came home, to clear the air with her.’

  ‘And … did you manage to do that?’ I asked.

  He frowned. ‘It’s odd: you’ve known someone for years and years and think you understand what makes them tick, and then they throw you a curve ball that makes you see you really didn’t at all.’

  ‘A new curve ball, or the old one?’

  ‘A new dimension: the reason she thought I’d be up for marrying her and starting a family is that she was under the illusion that I’d kept a torch burning for her ever since we briefly went out with each other at university.’

  ‘And have you?’ I asked bluntly, the words just marching right out there.

  ‘No, of course I haven’t!’ he snapped. ‘I’ve already told you that I only see her as a friend and that’s how I thought she saw me, too. Yet all the time she really thought … I mean, she’s very pretty but she doesn’t ring my bells.’ He looked across at me, his light grey eyes inscrutable. ‘I seem to go for an entirely different kind of girl these days.’

  ‘Presumably she usually prefers a different kind of man – so you’re a desperation measure.’

  ‘Yes – thanks for that,’ he said tartly. ‘But what it all boils down to is that she’s obsessed with the idea of having a baby before it’s too late and would rather do it with a partner than on her own. And she genuinely thought that I’d never found someone else because I was in love with her. I wondered why she was so affectionate all of a sudden, and kept ringing me about stuff she’d usually sort without my going down to London.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I said disbelievingly. ‘I’m sure I’ve read that novel.’ I was starting to think Zelda could have a second career as a writer. ‘So, did you put her straight?’

  ‘Yes, and she says she’s going to have to go it alone, with AI.’

  ‘Lots of women do, these days,’ I said.

  ‘I warned her to weigh it all up carefully first, but she said she hadn’t got time, the clock was ticking.’

  ‘It does sound as if she can’t think of anything else, now.’

  ‘No, she can’t, because then I suggested that since she’d been left a bit of money lately, she should buy me out of the antiques stall and throw herself into expanding the business. She said she’d consider it, but she might need the money to buy a flat, because living on a house boat wouldn’t be ideal with a child.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true,’ I said. ‘You’ll just have to wait and see how things pan out.’

  ‘That’s the conclusion I came to, as well,’ he said, getting up. ‘And now I’d better go and unpack the rest of the car and leave you to do some more work.’

  ‘I’d just about got to the staring-into-space phase of trying to figure out how it will all end,’ I said. ‘I can’t do any more tonight, so perhaps, before you go, you wouldn’t mind helping me with something in the tearoom? I need you to hand me the crockery I want to display on the shelves, so I don’t have to keep going up and down the ladder. It’ll only take a few minutes.’

  ‘Opportunist!’ he said, though after watching me sway about on the top of the ladder for a few moments, he told me I was unnerving him and took over.

  Bossy as always.

  Still, despite my colleagues evidently considering me to be completely devoid of human emotions, I wasn’t entirely immune to curiosity. I therefore asked to see the files of patients who had recently registered, a perfectly reasonable request and one I’d made before. I discovered Alice Rose lived not far from the surgery and thought I might walk in that direction one day.

  31

  Distant Echoes

  Robbie, having heard about Dan’s death from mutual friends, actually rang me, all the way from Australia! This wasn’t something he was prone to do. In fact, I didn’t think I’d heard his voice since he emigrated, but he sounded just the same.

  ‘Where did you get this landline number from?’ I asked, astonished, once he’d trotted out his ‘Sorry for your loss, mate’ condolences, like a pale imitation Crocodile Dundee. I’m pretty sure the ‘mate’ was unintentional, it just slipped out.

  ‘Edie gave it to me and told me where you were. She always had a soft spot for me,’ he said smugly.

  ‘She did until you vanished to Australia. After that, whenever your name came up, she said you were a great daftie.’

  ‘It’s probably a S
cottish term of endearment and I think she’s forgiven me. Anyway, I’ll be coming over soon and I wanted to see you.’

  ‘Why? You didn’t bother last time, or the one before.’

  ‘No, but that was because you were at the other end of the country, shacked up with Dan Carmichael.’

  ‘I wasn’t shacked up with him, we were engaged,’ I said coldly, though actually, since Dan was still married at the time, I wasn’t sure that was technically possible.

  ‘My mother was asking after you the other day,’ he said, changing the subject.

  ‘Your mother?’ I repeated incredulously, because the only time he’d taken me to visit his parents, she hadn’t exactly made me welcome. ‘Why? I mean, she didn’t like me and thought I wasn’t good enough for you.’

  ‘You’re quite wrong,’ he said earnestly. ‘She said you were a nice girl who kept me grounded.’

  Even a sheet anchor wouldn’t keep Robbie grounded when he felt the urge to jump off a cliff, holding a bit of canvas canopy, or catch the next monster wave.

  ‘Remember that time you took me to visit them, Robbie? The moment you and your dad sloped off to the pub before lunch, she said they’d always hoped you’d marry someone with a profession, not a waitress. When I told her I wasn’t a waitress and she needn’t get her knickers in a twist, because we weren’t engaged or even living together, she was delirious with happiness.’

  ‘I think you must have misunderstood her, because she’s never said a word against you,’ he assured me. ‘In fact, that time a couple of years ago when she and Dad came over to visit me just as things were getting serious with Lucy, they asked me why I couldn’t come back home and settle down with a nice girl like you.’

  ‘Was Lucy the one who got arrested for mooning at people on the beach?’ I asked, interested.

  ‘Yes, but she was drunk. It’s the sort of thing anyone might do.’

  ‘I’ve managed to resist the urge so far,’ I said, but he wasn’t listening: he never had. It had been one of his many drawbacks as a boyfriend.