The Little Teashop of Lost and Found

by Trisha Ashley

  Our sunny, happy afternoon might never have happened … and it was just as well I didn’t want to work in the library that night!

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Sheila. ‘I could have told her that the more you try to pressurize Nile into doing something, the harder he resists. But then, perhaps it’s just as well I didn’t, Alice, isn’t it?’

  She gave me one of her most sunny, innocent smiles.

  Nile still seemed to be seething in a gently volcanic kind of way at breakfast, but he insisted on coming to Oxenhope with Bel and me, so we transferred all the willow-pattern plates to his boot and let him drive.

  I didn’t need him to do any haggling, because Thom Carey, the upcycling man, was offering me very reasonable terms for my bulk order – though of course I was providing the plates, he was just turning them into stands.

  I think he saw making them as his bread and butter for years to come, customers tending to be clumsy with the crockery. Though on the other hand, even the most light-fingered of them would have trouble getting a tiered cake stand into a handbag.

  When we’d finalized the deal he made us tea and then invited us to see his work in progress in the shed at the bottom of the garden. It turned out that the upcycling of small items like the cake stands was just to keep the wolf from the door and his real interest was in building one-off unique pieces of furniture from reclaimed wood. There was a half-completed tree-shaped wall shelf unit I coveted, the branches supporting bookshelves, but I took a firm grip on myself, because luxuries would have to wait until later.

  He was a pleasant, unassuming man with a thick head of dark brown hair and eyes to match and I was starting to suspect that Bel was interested in more than his plates …

  ‘What a nice man Thom is,’ I said as we drove back. I was sitting next to Nile in front and he slid me one of his more unfathomable sideways looks.

  ‘Yes, isn’t he?’ said Bel innocently, ‘and a very talented woodworker too. It’s a pity he can’t make his living from the bigger pieces.’

  ‘Not a pity for me, or I wouldn’t get my cake stands,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I don’t mind going there to fetch the first lot for you, when he’s made them,’ she offered. ‘I’d like to see that tree bookshelf when it’s finished – it was so realistic, as if it was growing up the wall.’

  I glanced across at Nile and we exchanged smiles: I didn’t think Bel’s avowed intention not to get involved with another man was going to hold up for very much longer.

  Quite suddenly Father’s mobility seems to be dwindling at a faster rate, so that I have had to arrange for extra carers and have ordered special equipment to help them move him more easily and see to his personal care. He was never an even-tempered man, or one who suffered fools gladly, and they have learned to do what they are employed for without undue familiarity.

  Father likes to hear the details of my patients and offer irrelevant and out-of-date advice – he was never in general practice and though he might still be sharp as a tack on the subject of ophthalmic surgery he has not kept up with other medical advances.

  Other than this, he has the TV and his computer for entertainment, and Hugo also spends a lot of time with him. For a man who once had no use for pets, he dotes on the creature just as much as he did on his predecessor, Drogo, which I find rather strange, though I presume it is simply a sign of the slow eroding of his faculties.

  36

  Well Fruited

  When I got back to my flat after lunch, I dashed straight out again into the village and bought a Brontë jigsaw for Edie (her secret passion – she always had a large and complicated one on the go), and a box of clotted cream fudge. Then I carried them across to Small and Perfect, which was, for once, open.

  A customer was examining a selection of antique paper knives of the kind you imagine sticking out of a victim’s back in old murder mysteries.

  Nile looked up and raised a dark eyebrow at me.

  ‘This box is for Edie – I’ll just pop it in the back room for you,’ I said quickly, and when I had, I left, because I didn’t want to hang around and possibly scotch his sale … and that wasn’t intended to be a pun, though I repeated it to Edie when I rang her later to say that Nile would be dropping in some time soon.

  ‘Very droll – and I’ll look forward to meeting your friend,’ she added, with strange emphasis, before ringing off to attend to some hotel- keeping crisis that was going on in the background.

  Friend? Was that what Nile was? I really didn’t know any more.

  I thought Nile might come over later, but he didn’t – and I know he went to bed early, as he’d said he would, because as usual I had my living-room curtains open while I was working and I saw his light go out.

  Despite working late, I was still up and at it again early next morning – and just in time to see Nile locking the door of Small and Perfect and then heading for his car, though he didn’t look up.

  Since he wasn’t carrying anything, I assumed he’d already loaded his luggage in, and I hoped he’d remembered the box for Edie.

  I had no idea when he was coming back, either, but goodness knows, I had enough to keep me occupied. I now had a week and a half to finish the new book, so this was the Big Push. Then as soon as I’d got that off, there would be the mad dash to get the final preparations completed in time for the grand opening of The Fat Rascal.

  I wasn’t at all sure Jack had grasped that writing is also work, not something I was doing for fun, preferably without interruptions. Still, he wasn’t here very much by then, just popping in between jobs for other customers in order to do all the minor things, like putting up a curtain track in the bow window of the café and fitting the inside of the kitchen cupboards with sliding and swinging racks to make getting at the contents easier. There were a million and one tiny touches like this and I had given him a fairly comprehensive list already, to which I continued adding afterthoughts.

  And I kept doing sums and watching the expenses eat up the dwindling pool of insurance money, wondering if it would last until we opened.

  I made an appointment with Nile’s accountant, which, though it took me away from the writing for a couple of hours, was helpful. I’d been unemployed since Dan’s death and I hadn’t earned enough from the writing alone to pay income tax, but now I needed to register as self-employed. The accountant would also help with all the staff employment and payroll issues, so he was going to make my life easier.

  I’d already registered the teashop and now I heard that the premises would be inspected on a date less than three weeks away!

  Apart from a slight panic when I got the notification in the post, the rest of the day was quiet – no Jack, no interruptions other than signing for a Special Delivery parcel for Nile. It was small, and probably perfect. I wondered when he was coming home and I missed him dragging me away from my book to go to the pub that evening. But I had a nice long telephone chat with Lola instead.

  She and the girls had now settled into the annexe, and were luxuriating in the space.

  ‘It’s bliss!’ she sighed. ‘I’ve got my furniture and everything out of storage and it all looks lovely. And there’s a galley kitchen and our own living room, too, so Mum and Dad can have their house back.’

  ‘I should think they love having you and the children around, so they won’t think of it that way,’ I told her.

  ‘I know, but I’m sure they’ll enjoy a bit of peace occasionally, and then they can close the doors upstairs and down.’

  ‘I bet the girls have fun on the smallholding, just like we did. I always loved feeding the hens and goats and helping to water the herbs in the big polytunnels for your dad.’

  ‘Yes, the twins seem most interested in the animals, but Rosie’s keener on gardening with Dad. How is that lovely Nile?’ she added.

  ‘I can’t imagine what I’ve said to make you think he’s lovely, but he’s away on a trip to Scotland, though I’ve barely noticed his absence,’ I lied, ‘because I’m working so har
d on the book.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ she said disbelievingly.

  That’s the trouble with best friends: they can read between all the lines, even invisible ones.

  Early on Wednesday morning I baked three different types of fruitcake in the interests of teashop research and then left them cooling on a rack.

  Jack, having appeared with the intention of planing down the bottom of the back door, which tended to stick when the weather was damp, said the smell of them was driving him mad, so I told him to help himself to the Dundee cake with the glazed top. I had plans for the other two.

  At lunchtime, when Jack and half the cake had vanished, but the door had ceased to stick, I took a break from writing and drove across the moors to keep my promise to George Godet.

  His was the traditional-style cake I’d made, stuffed full of fruit, nuts and cherries. I’d put it in a plastic container, which was just as well because there was nobody home – not even the dogs, though actually, that was a relief. I left it where he’d told me to: popped in the old milk churn in the wall alcove. I put a note through the door, in case he didn’t check for random cakes on a regular basis.

  I stopped at Oldstone Farm briefly on the way back, but there was no one in the house. I could see a light on in the Pondlife offices and hear the rhythmic thumping of clay from Sheila’s workshop but I didn’t want to disturb anyone and just left the final fruitcake in the kitchen with a note inviting the whole family to come and see the almost-finished teashop on Saturday morning.

  Yes, I am the Blackdog Moor cake fairy.

  Bel’s absence from home was explained when she called in later – having asked if it was OK to disturb me first – because she’d been to see Thom Carey again.

  ‘Geeta loved Mum’s cake stand so much, I thought I’d get her one too,’ she said a little self-consciously.

  ‘Any pretext to see Thom again?’ I teased.

  ‘No!’ she protested, going faintly and becomingly pink. ‘I mean, he’s nice … but my divorce has barely come through and I’m really not looking for anyone new: once bitten, twice shy.’

  ‘I feel the same. I seem to have a knack of choosing men who won’t commit and I really don’t want to do it all over again.’

  ‘I know Nile’s track record isn’t great—’ she began.

  ‘Who mentioned Nile?’ I demanded indignantly.

  ‘Come off it, you can’t fool me. The way you two look at each other is the elephant in the room that we don’t talk about. He really likes you, Alice. This time, it could be different.’

  ‘Or it could be even worse – and anyway, I’m sure you’re wrong and he’s not seriously interested in me.’

  ‘Mum says his past has made him afraid of being hurt and yours has made it hard for you to trust another man, so you’re both holding back, thinking the other one doesn’t want to commit.’

  ‘Well, it’s a theory, but it’s not the right one,’ I told her and she laughed and said I was hopeless.

  ‘Your young man stayed with me last night and he’s a bonny laddie,’ said Edie approvingly down the phone, seemingly under the same misapprehension as Sheila and Bel. ‘I canna remember when I’ve seen a more handsome one.’

  ‘He’s not my young man! In fact, he’s not even that young, because he’s a couple of years older than me – and handsome is as handsome does,’ I added primly.

  ‘He’s of an age to stop gallivanting around and settle down, and he spoke fondly of you, so don’t go cutting off your nose to spite your face, Alice,’ she advised me.

  ‘I’m not cutting anything off!’ I protested. ‘He’s never settled with one girl for long so he’s not going to break the habit of a lifetime for me, is he? He’s like a hummingbird going from flower to flower.’

  She laughed and said one flower had to be sweeter than all the others, and then rang off.

  I woke from a strange dream in the early hours of the morning, thinking I could hear the unmistakable roar of a tractor. Then I remembered I was living in the middle of a village, so it was highly unlikely to have been real, and fell asleep again.

  However, Jack discovered a box of eggs on the doorstep later – large and obviously very free-range ones with bits of straw and muck stuck to them.

  An obscure message had been pencilled on the box: ‘Thank you for your kind remembrance,’ it said. I’d take a guess at that being from George, but he couldn’t possibly have come all the way over the moors on his tractor to deliver them, could he?

  I had a big, fluffy cheese omelette for lunch and it was delicious. I’d have invited Nile, had there been any sign of him …

  On Friday morning, although I was vaguely conscious that Jack had returned yet again and was drilling away at something, I didn’t go down because I was far away in the book and heading for the end of the first draft.

  But when I finally opened the flat door, there was one of those tartan cardboard sporrans full of Edinburgh rock leaning against it. The traveller had evidently returned.

  I could hear Tilda talking to Jack and found them in the kitchen drinking tea and eating biscuits, while admiring the electric fly zapper on the wall that he’d just fixed up.

  ‘That’ll get any of the little buggers who make it through the fly screening,’ Tilda said approvingly.

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘By the way, Jack, if a delivery of flatware and pans arrives while you’re here, just get them to stack them in the back room.’

  ‘Will do,’ he said, ‘though I’m off to another job in a bit.’ Then he got up and went off to fix the now bright and shiny old bell back on to the door spring, so that it jangled louder than ever when the door was opened.

  I’d missed it, in a strange kind of way.

  Tilda offered me the last cup of treacle and the box that contained a minute sliver of the Dundee cake and a collection of crumbs, but I declined both.

  ‘Well, back to work,’ she said. ‘Shall I give the flat a quick do? I didn’t want to disturb you, because Jack said you were at that writing again.’

  The way she said it made it sound like a really bad habit, similar to opium eating.

  ‘That would be great: I’m just going to have a break and then I’ll carry on this afternoon. The book needs to be finished by the end of next week. Just as well, because I’ll need to concentrate on the teashop after that, if we’re to open on 4 November.’

  ‘I can’t see any problem. It’s as near as dammit finished now, isn’t it? Though when I put that last lot of willow pattern what Nile brought through the dishwasher, it was making a funny noise.’

  ‘It is very old and I suspect it’s on its last legs,’ I agreed. ‘I only hope it lasts out until we’ve got the tearoom going and then I’ll have to bite the bullet and buy a big new commercial one as soon as I can afford it.’

  ‘There’ll be a lot of stuff for washing by hand that won’t go into the dishwasher,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Yes, especially cooking utensils, though I do tend to wash up as I go.’

  ‘Our Daisy would be glad of a little evening job after college, washing up, filling and emptying the dishwasher and helping me with the cleaning,’ she suggested. ‘Nell will be ready to head home and get the tea on after we finish up serving of an afternoon, but me and Daisy could have the place readied up for next day in no time. Of course, I’d come once a week on a day we were closed, to give the place a good bottoming as well.’

  ‘That would be perfect – but only if you want to take on the extra work? Otherwise I could get cleaners in …?’

  ‘No need to go paying other people when I can do it better myself and be glad of the extra money,’ Tilda said firmly. ‘Shall I ask our Daisy?’

  ‘Great idea, if you think she’d like a job.’

  ‘They all want a bit of money, don’t they? And she’ll finish early enough so she can still go out gallivanting. I’ll get her to pop in and talk to you. She’s not chatty, mind – wears a lot of black and says she’s an emu.’

  ‘Emo
?’ I asked after a minute. ‘Like a Goth, but gloomier?’

  ‘Sounds about right,’ she agreed.

  I went to thank Nile for the Edinburgh rock, but he was out again so instead I texted him and he rang me back from his mobile to ask if I’d like to go to the pub later.

  ‘It’s Friday,’ I pointed out.

  ‘That’s OK, they open on Fridays.’

  ‘I thought you were a creature of habit, so we only went on Tuesdays.’

  ‘I’m infinitely adaptable – I can learn new ones. What about it?’

  ‘I really can’t,’ I said, torn between wanting to go and a compulsion to keep working. ‘I’ve only got one last chapter of the first draft to write, though I think it’s going to take me till late.’ And even then, it would only be roughly blocked out, like all of the last few chapters, because the words never seemed to take wing towards the end until I was rewriting the whole novel.

  ‘You’ve still got to eat.’

  ‘I’m going to make a plate of sandwiches to keep me going. This could be a marathon session.’

  ‘I was going to show you my sporran,’ he said enticingly.

  ‘Which sporran?’ I asked.

  ‘A lovely old one that was at the bottom of a box of oddments I bid on in an auction. I know someone who’d buy it like a shot, but it’s quite handy to put my loose change in.’

  ‘I hope you’re joking,’ I said severely. ‘And now, though I’m terribly tempted by the idea of escaping for a bit, my Fear of Agent means I’ll have to resist.’

  ‘OK, see you in the morning then, with the rest of the clan,’ he said.

  ‘You’re coming over in the morning?’

  ‘Of course! Sheila told me you’d invited the whole family to see the finished tea emporium and I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘But you know it’s not totally finished. This is simply a kind of trial run and then I’ll have just over two weeks to iron out any kinks before we open on 4 November – and anyway, you see it all the time!’

  ‘Then I’ll see it again with fresh eyes – and perhaps you should open on Bonfire Night, instead, so it all goes with a bang?’