Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café

by Milly Johnson

  ‘An hour and a half?’ Jimmy didn’t sound very pleased.

  ‘An hour is not enough. Sometimes it takes me ages to find parking space and I must buy the present today.’

  Della watched the interchange between them with fascination. There was absolutely no clue at all that they were in a relationship. Jimmy turned to Della then and winked. ‘I suppose so in that case. If Della is okay with it.’

  ‘Try not to be any later though, Ivanka,’ said Della, in her best accommodating voice.

  Then Val Turner, the oldest cleaner on their books, turned up to replenish her bag of supplies and life in the office carried on as normal, at least on the surface.

  *

  It was the morning from hell for Della as it seemed that the phone didn’t stop ringing and Ivanka was taking even longer than usual to do the simplest tasks as if her head was anywhere but on the job. It took her half an hour to fetch a packet of biscuits from the shop around the corner for which she blamed a long queue at the till. Under normal circumstances Della would have taken her to task about her dawdling, but she bit her lip because the more Ivanka thought she was getting away with things, the more cocky and careless she would become. But still, Della earned her wage that morning fielding calls for Jimmy (mostly golf buddies) and dealing with pernickety clients, reps trying to sell her cheap cloths and wonder-aids, and cleaners moaning about their wages being wrong. Della had trusted Ivanka to calculate the girls’ hours last week and she had managed to totally balls it up. Della had been planning to teach the girl all she knew about running the office, but that would have to stop now seeing as it was the equivalent of digging her own grave.

  Della had just started on her lunchtime sandwich when Wenda Sykes rang up with the crème of the crème call of the morning. She was refusing to clean Mr Savant’s house again because she said it was haunted.

  ‘Don’t be bloody silly, Wenda,’ said Della, none too patiently.

  ‘I tell you, I’m not going there again. No, sorry, Della you’ll have to find someone else and there’s no point asking any of the others either because I’ve told them all about it.’

  ‘Oh well, that’s just marvellous.’

  Wenda was not budging on the decision either.

  Della could do with this like a hole in the head today.

  ‘The dead can’t hurt you, Wenda,’ she snapped.

  ‘Well, they already did. I heard a noise and fell backwards over a nest of tables. I’ve got a bruise the size of Africa on my arse.’

  ‘Look, Wenda, I’ve carved up Ruth’s clients fair and square and you got Mr Savant. Cheryl got Mr Morgan and Gemma, Sandra and Astrid got the rest.’

  But Wenda was adamant. ‘I’m telling you, Della, those noises I heard were as real as the nose on my face. Banging, banging. As if someone had been bricked up in a wall.’

  ‘It’s an old building. It’ll be the pipes making a noise.’

  ‘Pipes don’t say, “Hello, is there anybody there,” though, do they?’

  ‘You’ve been watching too much Britain’s Most Haunted, Wenda.’

  ‘He was playing this horrible loud opera music and then the record finished and it went all quiet. That’s when I heard it: “Hello, is there anybody there” it said in a woman’s voice.’

  ‘Maybe, just maybe, Wenda, the music didn’t go off. Maybe that voice was part of the opera. Maybe you heard Madame Butterfly herself, or Carmen or Barbara of Seville.’

  ‘You can laugh all you like, Della, but I’ll pull my own bowel out with a crochet needle before I’ll go back there again.’

  There was an image Della didn’t want to think about when she was half-way through a potted meat sandwich.

  ‘Ruth never said anything about any strange noises.’

  ‘Ruth’s earholes are as lazy as the rest of her.’

  Della was about to battle some more and employ her usual ‘you can’t pick and choose’ speech, then her brain caught up with her mouth. If there was no one who would clean his house at Diamond Shine, then Lady Muck could soak up his business.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Della. ‘I’ll ring him.’

  ‘You will?’ Wenda’s gasp was audible. She was almost winded by Della’s conceding defeat. She had been expecting Della to use the line she was famous for: ‘If you think you can pick and choose your own clients, you can go and pick and choose another firm to work for.’

  ‘Yes, I said I will.’

  Della heard Wenda say ‘Blimey’ as she put down the phone and fought off the smile that threatened to push up the corners of her mouth.

  ‘What is wrong?’ asked Ivanka, as Della put down the phone.

  ‘Wenda won’t clean Mr Savant’s house again,’ replied Della.

  ‘Why? What is up with the house?’

  ‘It used to be an undertaker’s business and because of that, it’s got the reputation of being haunted. Wenda’s heard banging. She thinks Mr Savant has bricked someone up in the wall.’ Della swept her eyes upwards in exasperation.

  ‘You should make her,’ said Ivanka. ‘You should say, I will sack you if you don’t clean the house.’

  Della tried not to resort to a sarcastic thank you to Ivanka for telling her how to do her job. She shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘I can’t physically drag her in to clean it though, can I? I’ll have to make up some excuse to tell him because she’s scared everyone else off from going there as well.’

  ‘So it looks as if we are going to lose his business then?’ Ivanka shook her head slowly from side to side with disgust.

  ‘Yep,’ nodded Della.

  ‘Maybe you should do the job for a while until we find cleaner who will go in, Della?’

  Ivanka chuckled, but Della knew she was testing how far she could push her. Something had happened in Spain to make Ivanka believe her status had changed and the bets were on it being to do with that engagement ring.

  ‘Do you know, Ivanka, that same thought has crossed my mind too,’ said Della. ‘I might have to leave the office in your capable hands and take up a mop myself.’ She had to let Ivanka think she was getting the upper hand but it went against every bit of grain her soul possessed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ivanka’s jaw momentarily drop open. The silly girl actually thought Della meant it. Della had to turn away and bite her lip when she saw the delighted smirk on Ivanka’s face.

  ‘Would you like a drink, dear?’ asked Della, playing the office junior card to full effect.

  Chapter 22

  Cheryl knocked on the door to Mr Morgan’s large detached house and was glad that he didn’t take long to answer it because it was freezing.

  ‘Hello, Mr Morgan. I’m Cheryl from Diamond Shine, your new Ruth,’ Cheryl introduced herself with a nervous laugh.

  ‘Wonderful, come in, new Ruth,’ said Mr Morgan, standing aside to let her in. The rush of hot air in the house nearly knocked Cheryl off her feet. Talk about moving from one extreme to another.

  ‘Please, let me take your coat,’ he said, nearly dragging Cheryl backwards with the action. She hoped that his hands had brushed against the sides of her breasts by accident, because she’d had a couple of touchy-feely customers before. She’d had to report them both to Della in the end, who rang them up, gave them a mouthful and said that they wouldn’t be sending any more of their ladies to work for them. Della might be a grumpy old stick, but she was on the girls’ side when it counted.

  ‘So,’ Mr Morgan clapped his hands together. ‘You’re going to do everything Ruth did for me.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Obviously, I’ll be more in the swing of things next week.’

  ‘Oh that’s good, that’s very good to hear,’ Mr Morgan said, looking strangely relieved. ‘I pulled my back and can’t bend properly, you see.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Cheryl sympathised, wondering what that had to do with anything. But then she had learned that the older end of her clients often had a loose grip on relevance in conversations. Their minds flitted from one subject to anot
her like butterflies who’d had too much espresso.

  ‘I’m going to my chiropractor this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, you just sit and rest and I’ll clean.’ Looking around, the place looked as if it hadn’t had a good going-over for weeks – but that was no surprise with slack Ruth Fallis as his domestic.

  She started upstairs. There were months-old cobwebs hanging from the curtains and Cheryl was at a loss to understand why Mr Morgan hadn’t reported Ruth. Rather disconcertingly he followed her from room to room, sitting on a chair in order to watch her work.

  ‘You don’t mind me being here, do you?’ he asked.

  ‘No, not at all,’ she fibbed. She’d rather he weren’t, but presumed he must be lonely.

  ‘You clean very well, very thoroughly.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Morgan.’

  ‘I bet you’ll do a wonderful job on my organ.’

  ‘I shall do my best. I know how important it is to you that your er . . . instrument is treated with care. ’

  ‘Well, obviously you can do my downstairs next week, all being well.’

  ‘That’s right. I think it’s going to take me all my time today to clean up here, Mr Morgan.’

  ‘Precisely.’ Mr Morgan shrugged his shoulders. ‘I must say that I heartily approve of you, Cheryl. I didn’t think I’d find another Ruth.’

  Well, that was hardly a compliment, thought Cheryl. But clients often grew attached to cleaners and if Mr Morgan was a lonely soul, then it was perfectly credible that he had formed an attachment to the thieving, idle old bat.

  ‘You’re much smaller than Ruth though,’ he went on with a chuckle.

  Who wasn’t, thought Cheryl. Moby Dick was smaller than Ruth. Cheryl wiped the perspiration from her brow. It was boiling in this house.

  ‘Should I turn the heating down?’ he asked.

  ‘It is very hot in here,’ replied Cheryl.

  ‘I’ll do it now,’ he said and rose slowly from the chair, holding on to his aching back. ‘There was no point in having it so high today, was there?’

  ‘Er no,’ replied Cheryl, though she hadn’t a clue what he meant.

  By the time she had cleaned three bedrooms, a bathroom, the hall and stairs there was no time left to do anything else.

  Mr Morgan had left a hundred pounds out for her on the hall table. No wonder Ruth enjoyed coming here, thought Cheryl. Here was another old person she was fleecing. Cheryl lifted only the money she was due and left the rest.

  ‘Oh you must take it,’ Mr Morgan insisted, pressing it into her hand. ‘Go and buy yourself something for next week.’

  ‘No, really Mr Morgan, I can’t.’ She’d accepted the odd fiver tip from a client, but this was a bit much. When he turned his back to take her coat from the hallstand, she opened a drawer in the hall table and quickly slipped the excess money into it. She didn’t know how anyone slept at night robbing from old folk.

  Mr Morgan held out the coat for Cheryl to slip her arms into. Again, his fingers skimmed her edges of her breasts and this time she was sure it was more deliberate than clumsy.

  Cheryl lifted up her bag and walked quickly out. Next week she wouldn’t give him the slightest opportunity to touch her inappropriately.

  *

  ‘Jimmy’s gone out. So has Ivanka,’ said Della, talking to Connie via her new mobile phone just after half-past twelve. ‘How are you getting on?’

  ‘Not brilliantly,’ sighed Connie. ‘I’ve managed to find one more client but it’s only for two hours every fortnight and a couple of people haven’t committed, but said they’d ring back. People seem to be wary of a brand new firm with no website, no land-line number yet and no testimonials to offer. I can’t remember it being this hard to drum up business when we first set up Diamond Shine.’ It was too early for Connie to start panicking, but she was panicking.

  ‘Think of it like a huge snowball at the top of a mountain,’ said Della. ‘It might take a bit of huffing and puffing to budge it at first, but once it starts to roll . . .’

  ‘Knowing my luck, I’ll do my back in pushing it and we’ll be stuck at the top of the mountain for ever and I’ll die of frostbite.’

  ‘That kind of defeatist attitude won’t get you anywhere,’ Della admonished her. ‘Now, I have an idea. What you need, Connie, is a good, strong curry . . .’

  Chapter 23

  Cheryl came downstairs the next morning to find more eggs all over her windowsill and door. She knew now that her house was being deliberately targeted and it could only be someone from the Fallis family. She had entertained the idea for no more than seconds that it could be Gary’s mother. Ann Gladstone would never have stooped so low as to be involved in anything as sly and undignified as that.

  Gary still had lots of things in the house – his passport in the drawer, some clothes, a watch, a book, trainers, a guitar that he had bought but never even plucked. She had initially taken that as a sign that he had ‘wedged the door open’. That he knew he would be coming back. Of course she still loved him; she might not have wanted to, but she missed him terribly. They had been together for a decade of dreadful lows but some lovely highs too. The house was so quiet without him and much tidier. She’d always reprimanded him for leaving crumbs on the work surface or not hanging his coat up but she would have given anything to have him back with his irritating little ways. But you can’t, said the calm but definitive voice of reason in her head. You would never trust him again. One more chance, just ring him and tell him you’ll give him one more chance, her heart argued. No, said her head. You gave him one more chance twice before. Let him go. Bag up his stuff and take it round to his mum’s house. You have to.

  Cheryl cleaned up the eggy mess outside. Her neighbour spent the winter months in Benidorm and wasn’t back until Easter so Cheryl couldn’t ask her if she’d seen anyone suspicious hanging around. The neighbours further up were old and she didn’t want to frighten them so she would just have to hope that Jock or Jock Junior Fallis got bored very quickly.

  At least on Thursday afternoon Cheryl had her dear Edith to clean for in the afternoon and though the old lady was the favourite of her clients, she had some others she was very fond of too. There was her Friday morning gentleman Mr Fairbanks, who was a retired lecturer and had a beautiful house full of exquisite treasures, and her Friday afternoon lady, eighty-year-old Miss Potter, an ex-business manager who had never been fully able to retire and was always wheeling and dealing on the internet. Then there was her Monday afternoon lady, the glamorous Miss Molloy, who was kind and clever and rich and had her own private school for educating adults. Cheryl wished she had been blessed with brains and could have run her own business but she knew that people like her were put on this earth to be the servers of others. Still, as jobs went, she liked hers most of the time and was good at it.

  The postman called just after lunch as she was setting off to Edith’s house and delivered a letter. It was rare for Cheryl to get anything other than junk mail so the textured white envelope with the words ‘Cripwell, Oliver and Clapham – Solicitors’ in the top corner, made her slightly nervous. Why would a solicitor be writing to her? She slipped an apprehensive finger under the flap and slit it open. A piece of paper fluttered to the ground and Cheryl picked it up to find it was a cheque. For five thousand pounds.

  Dear Miss Parker

  Re: Our client: The Executors of the late Maurice William Herbert

  We are instructed by the Executors of the late Mr Herbert to distribute certain bequests from his estate. Mr Herbert left instructions that you be given the sum of £5,000 for your kindnesses to him, his brother and their dog Gerald.

  We therefore enclose a cheque in respect of that bequest.

  Yours sincerely,

  David Oliver

  Cheryl’s eyes flicked between the letter and the cheque. Five thousand pounds. She couldn’t believe it. Oh, dear Mr Herbert. Her eyes clouded over with emotion. If only he was standing there in front of her now, she would throw her a
rms around him. This money would allow her to pay her gas bill without having to wait for the red reminder. Or she could buy herself a little car for work. And she badly needed a new coat.

  NO.

  The word sounded so loudly in her head it was as if it had been shouted into her ear. Just one word, but its meaning was clear as Dartington crystal. Mr Herbert had left her that money to do something special with it – and paying her gas bill wasn’t it. It was a massive amount of money for her and she didn’t want to fritter it away. How ironic was it that she could have afforded a cycle of IVF with it and here she was – single. She would know what to do with the money when the time was right, but that time wasn’t now.

  She blew a kiss up to heaven where it was sure to find the Herbert brothers and bobble-eyed Gerald with the wobbly arthritic legs. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll spend it wisely, boys. I promise.’

  Chapter 24

  The offices of Dartley Carpets would need two cleaners twice a week, which was great news if Connie had any on her books. For now, she would have to do it on her own, which would be really hard work. The smile trembled on her mouth as Jeff Froom signed the agreement form which she had printed off for potential clients. Then, when she went back to her car, she sank her head into her hands and wondered, yet again, what the hell she had got herself into. She had a thrumming stress headache by the time she left Dartley and had to divert to a petrol station to buy some paracetamol and a bottle of water. There were shelves full of chocolate in the garage and Connie couldn’t remember the last time she had been in a shop and not bought any. It made her feel sick to even look at it. Giving it up for Lent and beyond would be no challenge at all.