The Cornish Cream Tea Bus

by Cressida McLaughlin

  Lauren’s gaze stayed firmly on the tabletop.

  ‘I didn’t want to do this in front of everyone,’ he said softly. ‘But you wouldn’t come with me.’

  ‘I bleddy knew it!’ Myrtle said. ‘Untrustworthy eyes, that’s the thing.’

  Lauren looked up. All signs of her earlier tears had gone. ‘I was looking out for your interests – for the hotel. I would never do anything to hurt you, Daniel.’

  ‘You weren’t hurting Daniel, though, were you?’ Amanda said. ‘You were hurting Charlie.’

  Lauren drew herself up straight. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. I have always been loyal to you, Daniel.’

  ‘There are a few occasions where you might have overstepped the mark,’ he said sadly. ‘Come on. Let’s go back to the hotel.’

  Lauren nodded. She stood and, keeping her head high and her eyes averted, pushed past everyone and walked off the bus.

  ‘I’m sorry, Charlie,’ Daniel said. ‘If I’d had any idea, then—’

  ‘It’s OK, honestly. Thank you for finding out. And I’m so sorry I accused you; I’m sorry for everything I said that night.’

  ‘The hotel’s name was on the form. What other conclusion could you have come to?’ He squeezed her arm and then, looking decidedly weary, followed Lauren off the bus, leaving a stunned silence in his wake.

  Charlie was going to create biscuits in the shape of Porthgolow’s landmarks. There would be house-shaped biscuits for the B&B, Myrtle’s pop-in and Reenie’s yellow cottage, a pub for The Seven Stars and a lower, longer building decorated to represent Crystal Waters. There would be a biscuit for her bus, and a beachscape with sand, sea and sunset on it. They were her most ambitious designs, but practising in the weeks before the bank holiday would hopefully make them perfect.

  Biscuit dough didn’t need a whole lot of pounding, but it was getting it anyway. Lauren had closed Charlie’s bus down. She’d had a successful inspection and it would be up and running tomorrow, in time for her first Cornish Cream Tea Tour, but that didn’t stop her incredulity at the reason it had been shut in the first place.

  After Daniel and Lauren had left the bus on Friday, the conjecture had continued, and Charlie had remembered the times the hotel’s receptionist had shown initiative: making sure her friend got the marketing contract and organizing a week of yoga on the beach when she knew the food market was happening. Charlie was sure, now, that it had been Daniel who had renegotiated with Belle to move her classes up to the hotel on the Saturday, so that nobody lost out. Had Lauren been manipulating things all along?

  ‘I was a bit suspicious of that claim she had,’ Myrtle had said. ‘Youths lightin’ bonfires on Crumblin’ Cliff. Seemed a bit suss to me.’

  ‘But why would she do that, call a false meeting, if nothing had happened?’ This had been Amanda.

  ‘Because it was my first event,’ Charlie had said, realization hitting her. ‘And if you were all tied up in the meeting then nobody would come; it would look like I didn’t have your backing. I think she was trying to dent my confidence.’

  ‘But why, though?’ Stella had asked. ‘You’ve done nothing but good for Porthgolow.’

  ‘And for Daniel Harper.’ Everyone had turned to Reenie. ‘Isn’t it obvious? The girl’s in love with him, and as soon as Charlie appeared, his attentions were elsewhere. I know he’s never thought of Lauren as anything more than a colleague, but that didn’t stop her trying all she could to make him notice her and put a spanner in the works for Charlie and her bus. Obviously, it all got out of hand.’

  ‘Did you know it was Lauren when I came to see you earlier this week?’ Charlie had asked.

  Reenie had levelled her with a straight stare. ‘I had my suspicions, but I wasn’t going to start accusing anyone without cold, hard facts. Luckily Daniel didn’t let it rest and, as unpleasant as it is, you have your answer. The real question is, what are you going to do about it?’

  Charlie knew Reenie hadn’t been talking about Lauren. She was quite sure that, as of Friday, the receptionist was no longer an employee of The Crystal Waters Spa Hotel. No, Charlie had to work out what to do about Daniel. She owed him an apology – a proper apology, not a garbled sorry, offered up hurriedly as he went off to fire one of his most valued colleagues. That was the first item on her to-do list. But after that, it was less certain. With Bea’s phone call and all its implications running through her mind, she pounded her biscuit dough until her hands ached.

  The sun was beating down as Charlie drove back towards Porthgolow after her first, official, Cornish Cream Tea Tour. Since getting the feedback from the Crystal Waters guests on her trial run, she had been honing it to perfection. She had advertised on social media and, with Gertie’s reputation preceding her, had had no problems filling up her first outing.

  So, two days after she had got her trading consent back, she and Juliette – who had agreed to accompany her on her tours as it was the one thing she couldn’t do alone – had picked up a group of people from Newquay, and a group from Padstow, and driven them up towards Port Isaac and Tintagel, the landscape beginning to show the first signs that summer was ending, patches of russet and yellow among the green.

  A family had taken up two of the tables downstairs: a mum, dad and another adult, along with four children, all under ten. They were loud and boisterous, and while Charlie kept up her tour spiel – prepared facts about each of the places they visited – she couldn’t help but be drawn towards the laughter.

  She had glanced in the mirror, watching in delight as the twin boys – dressed in identical outfits – seemed spellbound by her mini Viennese whirls and cupcakes, the butter icing cream-coloured, with red swirls that matched Gertie’s paintwork. The older daughter’s giggle was infectious, and by the time the tour had come to an end, Charlie’s cheeks ached from smiling.

  She had hopped down at the Newquay departure point. ‘I don’t know if you’re still in the area at the end of August,’ she said, ‘but we’re holding a bank holiday food market in Porthgolow. There’s guaranteed to be something there for everyone, and hopefully a festival atmosphere.’

  ‘We’ll be around,’ said the dad, flashing one of the women a quick look. ‘But Evie has to head home. She’s been staying with us for a couple of weeks, but—’

  ‘I need to get back to real life,’ Evie admitted. ‘Cornwall doesn’t quite feel real, does it? Like some make-believe land full of sea and sunshine and amazing cream teas. I could easily stay here for ever.’

  ‘You can always hang on for another couple of weeks, sis, and we can make a day of it,’ the other woman said.

  Evie smiled. ‘And then another week, and then another. I can’t move in with you permanently. It wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘The markets happen every Saturday,’ Charlie had said. ‘So if you’re not here for the bank holiday you could always come this weekend. Summer’s not quite over yet.’ As she had watched them traipse off the bus, Evie’s hand wrapped around the youngest boy’s, she had wondered who she was trying to convince.

  Now, as Charlie approached Porthgolow from the south, she considered whether she’d been putting real life on hold, too; keeping her feelings about Hal and Stuart at bay by throwing herself into Gertie and her new business. Her mind returned, as it so often did, to the night on the jetty and Daniel’s kiss. It had felt like a scene from a fairy tale, and for all their contact since, it might as well have been. But Daniel had taken the first step. He had found out that Lauren was responsible for the temporary closure of her bus; it was her move, so why was she holding back?

  Porthgolow looked golden and inviting, and she could see Crystal Waters, on the same level as her, its glass winking from the other side of the cove. The thought of driving onto the beach and heading back to Juliette’s empty house was unappealing. She had dropped her off in Padstow on the way home, where she was meeting Lawrence for dinner after he finished a job. Charlie had the evening to herself: just her, her Yorkipoo, and her thoughts.


  Not wanting to relinquish the view, she pulled her bus onto the side of the road. There was a dusty verge, and then a small area of grass, between her and the drop. She could find no dark patches where the grass might have been scorched by a bonfire, and wondered whether Lauren had seen anything at all, or if she really had made it up to engineer the meeting and keep everyone away from the beach.

  It was hard to get her head around, even if it meant that Oliver had nothing to do with it. She pulled Marmite out of his crate and held him in her arms, relishing the warm, comforting feel of him. Her dog was an idiot, entirely reckless sometimes, but he wasn’t complicated. At the moment, it felt like he was the only uncomplicated thing in her life.

  There were ten days to go until the bank holiday weekend, less than three weeks until the start of September. If she went back to the Cotswolds, to her mum and dad, Bea and The Café on the Hill, would life be simpler? There was promise of a future for Gertie there, but she wouldn’t be close to Juliette and Lawrence any more. She wouldn’t be able to spend time with Amanda, Jonah or Stella. She supposed she could Skype Reenie – the old woman was clearly a pro – but she wouldn’t see any of them unless she came back to visit.

  And was she ready to give up on this view? Her gaze drifted from the blue, undulating sea, to the beach where Gertie usually sat, and back up to Crystal Waters. She wondered what Daniel was doing, how he was coping after Lauren’s deceit. Was she really ready to give him up: the way he made her feel and made her think; the passion he had showed her? She felt like she was ready to start something, just as it was coming to an end.

  Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

  The sound startled her and Marmite scrabbled in her arms, trying to see over her shoulder. She looked out of the window and found a battered old Volvo alongside her, but her higher vantage point meant she couldn’t see the driver. It pulled in ahead of her, blocking the road down the hill.

  Charlie’s mouth went dry. There was some money in the till from the customers who hadn’t paid for their tour by card. She wondered if she could lock the back door, hide and then call the police, but before she’d put her plan into action, Frank climbed out of the Volvo, his face like thunder.

  ‘Are you mad?’ he called. ‘What the hell are you doin’ there, Charlie? Get your bus away from the cliff dreckly!’

  ‘What, I—’

  ‘Crumbling Cliff!’ Frank shouted. ‘’Aven’t you been listenin’ to us all these months? That cliff is a death trap waitin’ to ’appen. You can’t stop there in a car, let alone a bloody great two-ton bus!’

  ‘But I thought … I mean, I’m not on the grass. I thought it was just the edge, the grass, that’s unstable!’

  ‘The whole place! The sandy verge, the bend. You can skid, never mind the landslide you might set off. What if another car comes speedin’ round the corner? I only just saw you in time! Get off, this instant! I’ll wait until you’re safely away.’

  He got back in his car and pulled forward, and Charlie lowered Marmite back into his crate. The little dog was whimpering, picking up on her fear.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she told him. ‘We’re fine. We’ll be off here in a moment.’ She glanced outside. Beyond the edge of the cliff, the view was spectacular – endless sea and sky, the promise of a long drop should the ground beneath her give way. But she was in control. She was fine. Marmite looked up at her, his head on one side. Charlie felt a waver of doubt as she put the bus in gear and inchingly, inchingly, turned the wheel, her eyes going from one mirror to the next, to the next. She felt the movement of sand beneath the wheels, felt resistance at the back of the bus as she moved it a fraction and thought, for one horrifying, mouth-drying moment that she was stuck, that she’d made a terrible mistake and put herself and her puppy in danger. She had an image of the ground beneath her crumbling and Gertie plunging straight down, missing Reenie’s house by inches and hurtling into the sea, sending them to a watery grave.

  Clamping her teeth together, she turned the wheel a fraction more, and then another, and then the front tyres found the road and she pulled gently onto it, off the verge. She began the slow descent into Porthgolow, her palms slick with sweat, Frank keeping pace ahead of her.

  ‘God,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Oh my God.’

  At the bottom of the hill, Frank beeped once and then turned right, up towards the neat roads of houses behind the seafront. Charlie wished he’d waited to talk to her, perhaps offer her a lift up to Juliette’s. She drove Gertie onto the sand and into her usual place.

  There were a group of friends lounging on the beach and, as she arrived, one of them stood up, waved at her and started snapping photos. Charlie gave them a weak wave back and looked out at the steely water, the clouds pink in a violet, pre-dusk sky. Marmite barked, and she opened the crate and pulled him onto her lap. ‘Look at that, puppy,’ she said. ‘Look how beautiful it is.’

  Evie’s earlier words played in her mind and she thought of Juliette and Lawrence enjoying a romantic meal out in Padstow. She knew that she was coming to the end of her stay in their house. It wasn’t that she had outstayed her welcome, exactly, but it felt as if everything was drawing to a close. Her friends needed their space, regardless of what they told her, how generous and selfless they were prepared to be.

  Keeping her dog in her arms, she climbed out of the cab on slightly unsteady legs. Her own stupidity, along with the realization that she had potentially been very close to disaster, made her tearful. She closed her eyes and thought of Hal. What would he have done if he’d found himself up there? What would he have said? If you find yourself on a sticky wicket, just stop. Stop, breathe, take a moment to compose yourself, then try again. There is nothing that can’t be overcome if you believe in yourself enough.

  She may not have composed herself, she might be regulating her breathing now instead of before the event, but she was OK. She wished she wasn’t going back to an empty house, wished, for the first time in a while, that she could be wrapped in her mother’s sweetly scented embrace, be soothed and comforted and forgiven her moment of stupidity on top of a dangerous cliff while she mooned about the man who was in the hotel on the opposite one. For the first time since arriving in Porthgolow, Charlie wished that she was somewhere else.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  As Charlie walked through the village over the following week, she noticed small changes taking place. Myrtle had put hanging baskets of pink and purple cyclamen and petunias outside the Porthgolow Pop-In, and the sign for SeaKing Safaris, which had been secured to the jetty ever since she’d been there, had been replaced with one twice the size, its blue writing gleaming against a gold background. One morning, when she was taking Marmite for his walk, she saw a notice covering the car park sign, detailing repair works that were happening the following day.

  ‘They’re takin’ down the streetlamps,’ Myrtle said by way of greeting, when Charlie went in to buy a pint of milk.

  ‘That’s not good.’

  ‘No, they’re takin’ them down and replacing them with better ones, those old-fashioned lantern jobbies, with a new type of bulb that’s much more powerful, apparently. This place will be less of a black hole at night.’

  ‘You said you were going to get the village spruced up before the bank holiday, but I had no idea you’d go this far,’ Charlie said, amused.

  ‘Oh, it’s not down to me,’ Myrtle replied. ‘Some man in a fluorescent vest was measurin’ up one of the lights, so I asked him what was goin’ on.’

  ‘Did he say why he was doing it?’

  Myrtle shrugged. ‘Council orders, prob’ly. Seems our little chunk of Cornwall is finally gettin’ its place on the map, as it were. Down to all the publicity with your events, no doubt.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Charlie chewed her lip.

  ‘I haven’t seen crevices that deep since Jonah showed me his book about the Grand Canyon.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your forehead’s creased like an origami flower. Is there somethin’ on you
r mind?’

  ‘Something’s always on my mind, Myrtle. Oh, and talking of the council, do you know if they’re doing something about Crumbling Cliff?’

  ‘Not heard anythin’, but it would be a good idea. I heard about your near miss the other day.’ Her stare was unwavering and Charlie flushed. ‘Frank was furious. Said you were just idling on the edge, as if waitin’ for the sea to claim you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t realize …’

  ‘There there.’ Myrtle leaned over and patted her arm. ‘No harm done, but I reckon we do need a barrier put up. Not sure there’s time now, before this weekend, but wouldn’t hurt to give it another try.’

  ‘Of course,’ Charlie said, chastened. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Why don’t you speak to Daniel about it?’ she asked. ‘He’s already asked ’em once – though fat lot o’ good it did – but he has been to the council recently. He might have a contact you can talk to.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘How long have you been putting off seein’ him?’ Myrtle asked.

  Charlie fiddled with the packet of Wotsits she was holding. It had been almost two weeks since the meeting on the bus when Lauren had been exposed. Daniel’s BMW had driven past a few times, and they had both been an active part of the village WhatsApp group, but that was all event-related. She thought she had seen him going into The Seven Stars one evening on her way home from work, but she had told herself she was too tired to speak to him, that she was focused on getting Gertie prepared for their bank holiday food market. It was only three days away now.

  ‘I know it’s far from me to say,’ Myrtle started, ‘but I’m goin’ to anyway. If he’s owed an apology, you need to give it to him, however hard it is.’