Miss Potterton's Birthday Tea

by Amanda Prowse

  MISS POTTERTON’S BIRTHDAY TEA

  Amanda Prowse

  Start Reading

  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.headofzeus.com

  About Miss Potterton’s Birthday Tea

  Cordelia Potterton is about to turn ninety-four, and she’s determined to do it in style. The antique cake stand has been polished, the white linen napkins are folded, and the darjeeling is brewing in a silver tea pot. There’s only one thing missing: the guests.

  It’s up to her cleaner and her nephew to keep the celebrations going - and make sure Miss Potterton’s birthday tea is a day she will never forget.

  Contents

  Cover

  Welcome Page

  About Miss Potterton’s Birthday Tea

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About Amanda Prowse

  About No Greater Love

  About No Greater Courage

  Also by Amanda Prowse

  From the editor of this book

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  1

  ‘Your grammar is appalling!’ Miss Potterton slammed the notepad onto the desk. ‘I mean, I don’t see what is so difficult about it. Did you not cover the subjunctive at school? In fact, no, don’t answer that!’ She held the magnifying glass aloft in her knobbly hand and closed her eyes, as if even the sight of the girl standing awkwardly in front of her was injurious. ‘I am quite sure that your response would only depress me further.’

  She sighed and blinked opened her eyes to see the girl stooping down to gather up her anorak and the carrier bag containing her magazine and packed lunch. ‘Wh... what... what’s going on? Where are you going?’ she shouted.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ the girl replied. ‘I’ll tell the agency that you not only want someone to clean, but they also need a degree in spelling!’

  Cordelia Potterton winced. ‘A degree in spelling! What kind of degree is that?’

  The girl slammed the door behind her, sending a shiver through the dark-wood African masks collected by Miss Potterton’s father and still hanging on the wall of the basement flat in Lexham Gardens, Kensington, where he had positioned them long ago.

  ‘Good grief!’ Miss Potterton gasped as she lifted the receiver. She pressed the numbers on the large-button keypad, repeating them out loud as she did so.

  A voice on the other end sighed a morning greeting.

  ‘Now, which one are you?’ Miss Potterton asked curtly. ‘You all sound the same. Is it Joanna or Katie?’

  ‘It’s me, Miss Potterton. Katie. And goodness me, this is nearly a personal best! It’s only a quarter past nine and Martine was booked from nine o’clock!’ The girl snorted her amusement.

  ‘It really isn’t a laughing matter. She was absolutely useless!’

  ‘They usually are,’ Katie muttered under her breath.

  Miss Potterton gripped the phone, keen to explain further. ‘I asked her to take dictation of a simple letter and she had the secretarial skills of a child! In fact, no, my sister and I would have done better when we were ten, and this girl was at least twenty!’

  There was no response. Miss Potterton pulled the phone away from her mouth and gave it a rattle, as if that might fix the silence coming from the other end. ‘Are you there, dear?’ she shouted.

  ‘Yes! Yes, Miss Potterton, I’m here.’

  ‘I was told that the girl had been to university, a recent graduate, so I naturally assumed that she’d be able to jot down a simple letter to my MP. I feel very strongly about all these basement excavations that are going on. It can’t be good for the foundations and I don’t want to be discovered under a pile of expensive rubble one morning with a sign saying “I told you so” sticking up from the ruins.’

  She drew breath. ‘I assumed a university education would mean she was capable of drafting my letter, but no, apparently she studied meeeja, whatever that is. And she had the scrawl of a toddler with palsy.’

  ‘And I’m afraid that’s the problem. Martine is not a secretary. In the same way that Andrea was not a horticulturist—’

  ‘It was a couple of snips to my bonsai…’ Miss Potterton interrupted.

  ‘Lynda was not a cat groomer—’

  ‘Three measly claws that needed clipping!’

  ‘And Katarzyna was not a hairdresser.’

  ‘I couldn’t see my Kindle! One swipe at my fringe with the nail scissors is hardly asking for a full perm and comb-out!’

  Katie sighed. ‘We are a cleaning agency. We hire out cleaners. Our staff are paid thirteen pounds an hour to clean!’

  ‘And yet you charge me twenty-two pounds fifty!’ Miss Potterton grumbled.

  Katie mentally reloaded, cursing her misfortune at having answered the phone to this particular call. ‘I tell you what I’ll do, Miss Potterton. I shall pop another leaflet through your door detailing our charges, which are all quite transparent, together with the leaflet that lists the chores and tasks that our staff are happy to undertake. Things like dusting, ironing, cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, hoovering—’

  ‘The term is vacuuming!’ Miss Potterton shouted. ‘Hoover is the brand and I find it most irritating that people think it is a verb.’

  There was a moment of silence, during which Miss Potterton was sure she could hear counting.

  ‘Hello? Hello?’ she shouted.

  ‘Yes, still here! Just, erm... just thinking how best to proceed.’

  ‘It’s quite simple really, Katie. I want a reliable cleaner for two hours, three times a week.’

  ‘And trust me, I would like nothing more than to be able to provide that for you. If only to stop these calls.’ Katie whispered the last part.

  ‘What was that?’ Miss Potterton shook the phone again.

  ‘I said, thank you for your call!’

  ‘So what do you propose, Katie?’

  ‘That’s the trouble.’ Katie sighed. ‘I’m running out of propositions. Usually, after a client has refused one of our staff, we give them a strike, and after three strikes we don’t supply them with cleaners any more. That’s our policy.’

  ‘Goodness me! How many strikes have I had?’

  There was a pause while Katie placed the end of her pencil on the screen and counted.

  ‘Twelve,’ came the definitive reply.

  Katie listened to the faint wheezing on the other end of the phone. At first she thought the old lady was crying, but then she realised it was actually the sound of laughter.

  2

  Dr Ian Munroe dried his hands on a paper towel, balled it and lobbed it at the wastepaper bin in the corner. It missed.

  ‘Bollocks.’

  It felt shameful, emasculating, somehow, having to walk all the way over to the other side of the room and stoop low to retrieve it. Proof, if proof were needed, of his lack of sporting prowess. He scooped up the handful of stiff paper towel. This time it skimmed the rim of the bin, which was now mere inches away, and fell to the floor once again. With uncharacteristic aggression, he kicked the bin. It hit the wall and disgorged its contents under his desk. Stretching out his legs, he bounced his shoes on the paper-strewn floor, rather enjoying the sponginess beneath his feet.

  He clicked the icon on his
computer that meant the appropriate message would pop up on the waiting-room screen, then placed a mint on his tongue.

  ‘Oh shit!’ he muttered as he saw the name of his next patient. At almost the exact same moment there was a feeble knock at the door.

  ‘Come in!’ He searched for a tone that was neutral and professional but also welcoming.

  The door remained closed.

  ‘Come in!’ He rolled his eyes and spoke a little louder.

  The door opened a few inches and Mrs Coates popped her miserable face into the gap. ‘Should I come in?’

  Her sour demeanour had the most depressing effect on everyone she encountered, especially on Dr Ian Munroe, who was already feeling less than sunny today. She had what his late mother would have described as a face that curdled milk.

  ‘Yes! Yes, please do, Mrs Coates.’

  She crept apologetically into the small room and sat down warily, as though the chair were smeared with something unpleasant. She was just the type to complain a lot, about everything, thought Ian. The sort of person who would send food back after having eaten three quarters of her plate. And she probably spent a large amount of her time watching her neighbours, with the council number on speed dial, ready to report any suspicious non-food items being hurled into the little brown compost bin. She wasn’t what you would call joyous.

  Ian beamed at her nonetheless. ‘So!’ He did this, tried to rally her with invigorating enthusiasm, as though his tone and volume could sweep away the negativity that she emitted. He pictured her dourness as a physical thing, like little balls of miserable fluff that trailed behind her. ‘What can I do for you today?’

  ‘It’s the cancer,’ she muttered, head cocked to one side as she looked mournfully at the floor, her mouth set in a grimace.

  ‘Whose cancer?’ He darted his head forward, wondering how he had lost the thread so early on.

  ‘Mine.’ She pulled the thin blue hem of her raincoat up over her knees.

  ‘But you don’t have cancer,’ he levelled.

  ‘I didn’t have it, Doctor, but I do now.’

  ‘You do? Goodness me, Mrs Coates, I am so sorry to hear that. I had no idea! You must have seen one of my colleagues.’ He decided to call her bluff. ‘Let me take a quick look at your notes.’ He placed his gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose and clicked and scrolled through several pages on his screen. ‘Ah yes, here we are. December 4th: suspected appendicitis, which was just gas, is that right?’

  She nodded regretfully.

  ‘Then December 28th, we had Lyme disease symptoms, but that also tested negative. January we didn’t see you.’ He looked up at her, as this required an explanation.

  ‘I was at my sister’s in Fuengirola. We go there to save on the heating,’ she clarified without a smile. ‘But I was admitted to the local hospital with a suspected severe allergic reaction.’

  ‘Suspected and severe?’ He exhaled, intimating that she’d had a lucky escape. ‘What was it you were allergic to? We should probably make a note.’

  ‘They never found out,’ she replied. ‘But I’ve given up paella and foreign sherry. Just to be on the safe side.’

  Ian bit his lip to stop himself mentioning that, for Brits, all sherry was foreign! ‘Righto.’ He looked back at his screen. ‘February 16th: ankle pain when you coughed, but not when you sneezed. March 3rd: double vision and diarrhoea. March 12th: double vision and constipation. March 20th: temporary blindness and acute thrush. And so on and so forth. But I can’t seem to find your cancer diagnosis?’ He placed his hands in his lap and stared at her.

  She held his gaze, with a glint of something resembling triumph in her eyes. ‘That’s because I haven’t shown it to anyone yet. But what do you think of this!’ She positively glowed as she unbuttoned her blouse with what could only be described as vigour, and there on her right breast sat a brown lump.

  ‘Goodness! Let’s have a closer look.’ Ian adjusted his specs and scooted his chair across the linoleum, carefully avoiding two paper towel mountains that threatened to get stuck in its wheels. He stared at her chest, then returned to his desk and retrieved a pair of tweezers.

  Mrs Coates gasped and swallowed. ‘Is it going to hurt? I mean, I can take the pain, and the treatment, and I’m even prepared to say my goodbyes, but I just need a minute to calm myself.’

  Ian gave a tight-lipped smile as he went in with the tweezers. He gave the blob a small tug and dropped it into Mrs Coates’ hand. ‘Brown toast and Marmite!’ He grinned.

  ‘Oh, Doctor!’ she trilled. ‘I feel so foolish. I hate wasting your time. Thank you! I’ve been worried all morning. Thank you!’

  ‘All part of the service, Mrs Coates. See you very, very soon, no doubt.’

  As she left the room, Ian sank low in his chair and placed his head in his hands. ‘Give me strength,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Seven years of training and twenty-one years of practice for this – toast and sodding Marmite!’

  When his phone rang, he reached out and, still with his eyes closed, gathered it under his chin. ‘Dr Munroe.’ His tone was clipped, conveying that he was both interested and harried.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Oh, hello, love.’ He sat up straight and opened his eyes.

  ‘I’ve made my decision.’ There was no clue in her tone.

  He swallowed. ‘And?’

  ‘I’m leaving you.’

  3

  ‘Mum! Your programme’s on!’ Marley shouted into the kitchen from the leather sofa on which he reclined.

  Tina bustled in with a mug of coffee and a side plate piled with three slices of Battenberg cake.

  ‘Moveyrft!’ She tried to speak but found it hard to make herself understood on account of the bag of salt and vinegar crisps dangling from her mouth.

  ‘What?’ Marley raised his head and stared at his mum.

  ‘I said, move your feet!’ Her crisp bag fell onto the deep-pile rug that created a cosy patch on the laminate floor. ‘Jesus, lucky for you I’m only tiny, otherwise you’d have to sit up properly.’

  The teenager tutted as he bent his knees into a pyramid and scooted his white sports sock clad feet along the cushion.

  Tina plonked down at the end of the sofa and her son promptly laid his feet on her lap. ‘Marley!’ she screamed, before conceding defeat and placing a cushion on his shins to make a makeshift table for her plate and the crisp packet she’d retrieved from the floor.

  ‘Is that your breakfast?’ He grimaced.

  ‘Yep.’ She kept her eyes on the forty-two-inch curved screen, a present from Marley’s dad and Lord only knew how he had acquired it. The vast thing made their tiny sitting room feel more like the local Odeon. She had hated it on sight, but had to admit to rather enjoying watching ’Enders on the monstrosity.

  ‘Turn it up.’ She nodded as she crammed half a slice of cake into her mouth.

  ‘Ooh, look, Marl, this’ll be good!’ The show title flashed up on the screen. I’ll Prove I’ve Got What It Takes To Be A Dad, Even Though I Slept With Your Sister! ‘They might have your dad on it!’ She laughed, shaking her head so her large gold earrings jangled.

  ‘Very funny.’ He blinked. ‘You haven’t even got a sister.’

  ‘Lucky for me or he definitely would have!’ She winked at him.

  Marley was keen to change the subject. ‘I can’t believe you eat that junk. You need a healthier start to the day.’

  ‘Oh good, does this mean you got that undercover job recruiting for All-Bran then?’

  ‘Ha ha. I mean it! Just because you’re skinny doesn’t mean you’re healthy.’ He tutted.

  ‘Marley, you’ve only been at college for three weeks, you’re on your first module and already you’ve turned into Dr Bloody Hilary! And besides, I’ve done a job this morning, don’t forget, so this is more like lunch.’

  ‘It’s just as bad for you even if it’s lunch. I just want you to be healthy.’

  ‘Aww, bless!’ She smiled at her beautiful boy, who sh
e knew spoke the truth. She couldn’t imagine what his life would be like if she weren’t around to smooth his path; they were a great team. ‘Anyway, enough talking.’ She sipped her coffee and pointed at the screen. ‘That bloke in the wings looks like fat Barry from the chippy.’

  They both squinted at the screen as Jeremy’s voice cut through their morning chatter. ‘I’d like to welcome Barry from Hammersmith onto the stage!’

  The audience clapped on cue as Tina sat forward and squealed. ‘Flamin’ Nora! It is fat Barry from the chippy!’

  The two of them were transfixed.

  ‘The dirty bastard!’ Tina pulled open her crisp packet and they both laughed.

  4

  Cordelia Potterton flexed her fingers as best she could. It irritated her beyond belief that her body no longer did the things she wanted it to and yet also did several things she would rather it didn’t. Her mind was as sharp as a tack and for that she was grateful, but the weakness in her wrists meant lifting and twisting was almost impossible, the lack of dexterity in her digits made her feel like a clumsy child and the general softening of her physique was nothing short of maddening.

  Eventually, she managed to button her coat over her slender frame, pulling it to straighten the shoulder seams that now sat a little askew on her bowed body. She had known that she would shrink with age, but when your starting point was six foot, this wasn’t too lamentable. She had always stood a good few inches above Tom, not that this had mattered a jot, not to them. She’d expected to lose the odd inch here and there, bringing her down to a more average height, but what she hadn’t banked on was the curve to her spine, the collapse of her hip and the sag to her shoulders, all of which had increased the shrinkage.

  She placed her navy beret over her short, grey, razor cut, twisting it to a jaunty angle low over her right ear, then did her best to keep the slick of crimson lipstick on her lips, despite the wobbly hand that seemed to have a will of its own. Next she arranged her lime-green chiffon scarf in a pussy bow at her crêpey neck and collected her wicker basket, in which nestled a bunch of blue stocks, tied around the stems with a small twist of brown string.