I wasn’t out long, but Nile’s car had vanished when I returned, though whether off on a trip, or hotfooting back to his London partner or … well, who knows what other interests he might have?
Or maybe he’d already gone to the café to speak to me about something, spotted the white goods at the bottom of the stairs and escaped before I could ask him to help me get them upstairs.
But no matter, because Jack the handyman, aided by a bashfully silent teenage assistant called Ross, did it later. Then he spread out a collection of new kitchen worktop samples, so I could choose what I wanted. Everything would be fresh, hard-wearing and easy to clean, and the kitchen table would be relegated to the back room so I could have a central island with cupboards instead.
After that, I went upstairs and left them to it. Jack had his keys and we’d agreed what needed doing, and in which order it should be done, so in theory my input from now on would be confined to a bit of painting and choosing fitments and fittings.
Just as well, because I still had to source equipment and find catering suppliers. I had a whole list of other things to do, too, including going through some of the official guidelines on taking over a catering business, which I’d downloaded from the internet.
Until Dan’s death I’d been getting a salary from my work in the café but since then, my only income had been a small amount of royalties from the e-books and a modest advance from my publisher. Now I’d be the sole owner of a tearoom, with staff to pay, and I’d need to put a bit of the insurance money aside as a contingency fund for unexpected expenses and to tide us over until the business got going.
I started yet another list: ‘accounts book, record books, whiteboards and pens, envelopes, files’. Thank goodness Mrs Muswell hadn’t considered taking the heavy filing cabinet! ‘Hanging files’, I added. ‘Filing trays’ …
By then the day was slipping away and there was no point in starting painting anything before Nell and Tilda came for tea, so I spread my cookbooks across the gate-leg table and began thinking about what to have on the menu: the fun, easy part of setting up a tearoom.
I was lost in pastry heaven when Jack called up the stairs to say my visitors had arrived and Nell and Tilda clumped their way up.
‘You were right, our Tilda: there is a wreath of dead flowers on t’ door,’ I heard Nell say as I got up to greet them.
I knew from the YouTube video that Nell was a skinnier, flatter- chested version of her tall, raw-boned niece. She was elderly, but it was hard to tell how old, for there was no question of a stoop and though her hair was grey it was thick, shiny and cut off at chin length. Parted in the middle, it was held back with butterfly-shaped slides at each temple.
Her eyes were a sharp periwinkle blue and her rather splendid nose was attempting to meet her chin and would probably one day succeed.
‘Hello, come in – I’m glad you could make it,’ I greeted them.
‘Eh, you’re a grand, strapping lass,’ Nell said, eyeing me approvingly. ‘Our Tilda said you were born round here too, though you talked a bit plummy, so there’s good blood in you.’
‘That’s right,’ I said, ‘though we lived in Knaresborough till I was eight.’
‘Well, there’s nowt much wrong with Knaresborough, I suppose,’ she conceded magnanimously.
‘Sit down and I’ll make the tea,’ I said, pushing the books and notes aside. ‘Or coffee?’
‘Tea – and I’ll wet it, I’ll make a better job of it,’ Tilda said, suiting the action to the words.
I took the lid off the sheep biscuit barrel, which Nell admired greatly, and offered her an iced biscuit.
‘So,’ she said, scrutinizing one closely before taking a bite, ‘our Tilda said you were going to reopen t’ place as a fancy teashop and you’d want us both to work here all t’ year round.’
‘Yes, you’d both have permanent jobs if you wanted them, though not full time.’
‘Our Daisy could help out too, when she’s not at college,’ Tilda said, putting the pot with its knitted blue bobbled cosy on to the table and sitting down opposite. I’d brought up one of the two rickety kitchen chairs for me to sit on (the other was in the office) leaving the two decent wheel-backs for my guests.
‘I hope to open by the start of November at the latest,’ I said. ‘I think that’s realistic, because there’s a lot to do and I want everything just right. And as much publicity as possible, too.’
‘That gives you well over a month, plenty of time,’ Tilda said, so I don’t think she’d really grasped all that had to be done.
‘My idea is that we open five afternoons a week, Tuesday to Saturday. What do you think?’
‘Sounds good to me, if we get Sunday and Monday off … and you said we’d just open in the afternoons?’ asked Nell.
‘Yes, the first afternoon tea sitting would be at two, then the second at four, so people could have a leisurely experience. If any of the tables weren’t reserved, then they could be given to casual customers coming in – we could have something on the sign outside like “Table reservations not always necessary.”’
‘You’re not going to have a high turnover of customers doing that,’ Nell said.
‘No, our Nell, but they’ll be paying a lot more for the privilege of sitting there stuffing their faces for as long as they like,’ pointed out Tilda.
‘Yes, it will be quite pricey, but the food, tea and coffee will be unlimited – we’ll just keep it coming till they’ve had enough. And we’ll only stock good-quality, traditional cold drinks, with natural ingredients. I might make lemonade myself in the summer.’
‘I’m not faffing around with one of them fancy coffee machines what take an hour to make a cup of froth with a pattern on it,’ Nell declared pugnaciously.
‘You won’t need to, because we’re going the more traditional route. Coffee shops are two a penny now,’ I agreed. ‘We’ll offer pots of proper Yorkshire tea and a range of speciality teas and herbal teabags. The coffee will be in individual cafetieres – I hate coffee that’s been made and left sitting to stew on a hotplate.’
‘As well as milk, you’ll need lemons: some of them take their tea weak as cat’s pee, with a slice of fruit in it,’ Nell said.
‘Yes, we’ll have lemons sliced ready and jugs of extra hot water.’ I made a note about that. ‘I’ll bake early every morning, but I’ll need someone to cut sandwiches, set the tables and generally get ready to open.’
‘I can do that and Nell can come in later,’ said Tilda. ‘And if I don’t have to cook, then I’ll be manning the tea and coffee counter after that and taking the money, as well as helping Nell wait on, I suppose?’
‘That’s right, though you might have to cut more sandwiches if we start to run out. You can give the customers their bills at the tables and they can pay at the counter.’
‘I like waiting on best,’ Nell said. ‘I like to get them fed and watered, especially them poor devils of tourists what get off the coach more dead than alive, with only a couple of hours to see everything in.’
‘I think most of our customers will be staying a bit longer than that,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll leave leaflets at all the guesthouses and hotels.’
‘Aye, and locals with more money than sense will come in, too. There are enough of those,’ Tilda said. ‘You won’t have to hurry the customers out, though, our Nell. They’ll be paying to sit there as long as they like, stuffing their faces and demanding more.’
‘And complaining, most like,’ Nell said dourly.
‘I’ve been getting ideas about what to offer on the cake stands,’ I said. ‘I’m thinking of tiny dainty versions of classic cakes and pastries – but we’ll be advertising it as a proper Yorkshire high tea, so I need some particularly local specialities. There’ll be miniature fat rascals, of course, but if you think of anything else, let me know.’
‘My mother always had a good big seed cake on t’ table of a Sunday,’ Nell said.
‘Caraway seeds?’ I asked, and she
nodded.
‘I’m going to have two large cakes on the counter every day, as well as the little ones on the stands, so the customers can choose a slice of those if they want to. Seed cake would be perfect.’
‘There’s going to be a generous lot of food,’ Tilda said, not altogether approvingly.
‘I’m still working out the options, but I think the classic tea will be finger sandwiches, scones or fat rascals, and cakes. There’ll be a savoury option, too, with things like tiny cheese tartlets.’
‘Our Graham has a couple of pigs, if there’s going to be lots of crusts and such left over,’ Nell said.
‘Unofficially, you can take any leftovers you like,’ I said. ‘But food waste must be disposed of properly each day.’
‘I’ll just take the bread and he’ll pay you back with a bit of bacon or such later,’ she offered.
‘What’ll you have on the sandwiches?’ asked Tilda practically, stirring the inky brew remaining inside the teapot and then putting the lid back.
If there was a dormouse at this Mad Hatter’s party, it was probably tanned darkest brown by now, and there were certainly two mad queens, neither of them me.
‘Roast beef and a hint of horseradish sauce, egg mayonnaise with cress, cream cheese and smoked salmon …’ I listed.
‘What about them vegetarians?’ asked Nell, as if they were an entirely different species.
‘Home-made vegetable pâté, cucumber, cheese and tomato, avocado … I’ll look up a few recipes for interesting fillings,’ I said. ‘I might add a gluten free version later, but I thought we’d start out simple at first. I mean, we’re a small teashop and if we had only one customer for a gluten free tea in a day, we’d be wasting a lot of food.’
‘Gluten free!’ Nell said scathingly. ‘They’ll all be thinking their systems can’t take a bit of fresh air soon, and buying it in cans from the supermarket.’
She was probably right, but some people really couldn’t digest gluten, so I’d have to work on that one later.
‘So, it’s all going to be cold food?’ Tilda said.
‘Unless anyone wants their cheese scone warming,’ I agreed.
‘What about kiddies? Mrs Muswell wouldn’t have highchairs, because she didn’t want to encourage people to bring small children in. Said they were more trouble than they were worth,’ Tilda said.
‘I shouldn’t think many people would want to bring small children for a lush and expensive afternoon tea, but we’d better have a couple of highchairs just in case. But baby buggies will have to be left outside, because there simply isn’t going to be enough room and it would block the exits in an emergency.’
‘No, you can’t have them in the way,’ Tilda agreed.
‘Disabled access will be difficult too, because of the nature of the old building. I thought I’d have a ramp over the one step down into the café, but I can’t do anything about the steps down to the toilet other than put in good handrails.’
‘You can only do your best with what you have,’ Tilda said. ‘I can see you’re putting a lot of thought as well as good brass into making this work.’
‘There’s just one thing …’ I said slowly, wondering quite how to phrase what I wanted tactfully. ‘From a customer service point of view …’
‘You want us to be nicer t’ customers, however daft they are?’ Nell asked, then looked accusingly at Tilda. ‘You said she didn’t mind a bit of plain speaking.’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said quickly. ‘That’s just it: I don’t want you to change how you deal with the customers at all. In fact, you have such a reputation on YouTube for plain speaking that I’d like to advertise the teashop as having the rudest waitresses in Yorkshire – if you don’t mind,’ I finished in a rush.
‘Well, I’ll go t’ foot of ower stairs!’ Nell said, staring at me, though luckily she seemed amused rather than insulted.
And after that, we had more cups of treacle and got down to discussing the mundane behind-the-scenes nitty-gritty of running a café, most of which Tilda already had at her fingertips: I could see she was going to be a major asset.
When they’d gone and I’d shut the café door behind them, I began stacking the horrible tubular metal tables and chairs out of the way and putting down dustsheets.
I hated painting ceilings, so I decided I might as well get it over with right there and then, using the long-handled roller. I put on one of the mobcaps first, though, tucking my hair up into it. They might be hideously unbecoming, but they’re surprisingly useful.
‘ “O Sole Mio”!’ Jack sang in a pleasant light tenor from the basement, his Italian tinged with Yorkshire.
It had proved to be a surprisingly productive day.
Of course, it was as I thought and Father had simply been feeling lonely. Once he had someone of equal intellect to talk to, his carer found her nose put right out of joint.
I was considering how best to dispense with her services, when fortunately I discovered that several small but quite valuable items had gone missing from my mother’s room. Patsy Dodds left precipitately and under a cloud.
I gave our weekly cleaning lady a bonus and a healthy pay rise.
23
Dragooned
I’d barely finished rolling the first coat of paint on to the ceiling when the phone in the office rang so loudly that I nearly fell over. I must have accidentally turned the volume up to maximum.
When I dashed through and picked the receiver up, all I could hear at first was someone softly singing, ‘Will ye no come back again?’ to the accompaniment of impatiently drumming fingertips. I guessed who it was – the energy was crackling down the line.
‘Senga?’
‘There you are!’ my agent said, as if she’d found me by divination with rods. ‘I knew you were around, though your mobile kept going to answer.’
‘It’s in my bag … up in the flat,’ I explained. ‘I’m in the café.’
‘Café?’
‘Yes, my flat’s over a café and—’
‘Handy,’ she said, without letting me explain that I’d bought it with the flat. ‘Now, as I said, I’ll be heading up north for Eleri’s book launch and annual Mr Rochester’s afternoon tea this Saturday, the 20th.’
‘Yes …’ I agreed.
‘So if you arrive there early, we can have a little chat. And your edits have apparently been delayed, but they’ll be emailed to you within the next couple of days, so we can discuss any little points that might have come up.’
‘But I’m not going to the book launch,’ I said quickly. ‘I mean, I did tell you I hadn’t got a ticket and I’m sure it’s been booked up for months – probably since right after the last one!’
‘Oh, don’t worry your wee head about that. I told Eleri I was sure she could squeeze one more in, especially since this year they’re using the restaurant rather than the tearoom. Or two more, if you know a dishy man. There simply weren’t enough of them last time and all the Heathcliffs except Eleri’s husband were dismal. Do you know one?’
‘I-I suppose I do,’ I stammered, thrown off balance. ‘My neighbour … though I’m not sure he’d want to come to a—’
‘Great, I’ll tell Eleri. And don’t worry too much about the costume – anything vaguely Victorian will do.’
‘Costume?’
‘Everyone dresses up as a Brontë or a character from one of their novels.’
That put paid to the idea of my even mentioning to Nile the possibility of his going with me, though actually, I don’t think I’d have dared anyway.
‘But I haven’t got time to get a costume by Saturday,’ I began. ‘I mean, it’s Monday now and I’m terribly busy, so I really don’t think—’
‘I’ll see you there, then – and I look forward to meeting your new bloke,’ she said. ‘Quick work!’
Before I could refute the idea that I’d pounced on the nearest unattached male the moment I arrived in Haworth, she’d gone. The line crackled for a moment, probably from Senga
’s excess energy, and then went dead.
‘Gawd!’ said Prince Kev, staring at her in amazement. ‘How did you get in here, then? Is there an easier way round the back?’
‘I’m Beauty and I was brought here from the Once-upon-a-time. I’ve been waiting for you to come and set me free, silly,’ she told him, and he frowned as if she’d said something difficult to understand.
He was quite handsome in a darkly glowering kind of way, though dressed very strangely for a prince …
‘If you kiss me, we’ll be back home in a trice,’ she said impatiently. ‘What are you waiting for?’
I didn’t see how I could get out of going to the book launch event, but I was quite determined I wasn’t going to ask Nile to go with me!
I decided I’d be Emily, the tallest of the Brontës, though height was about the only physical characteristic we had in common. Apparently she was about half the width of a taper, an interestingly gruesome bit of information I learned from a book about the Brontës, because the coffin maker said it was far and away the narrowest adult one he’d had to supply.
I was very tall but not thin, which made finding a Victorian dress to fit me at a couple of days’ notice almost impossible. My queries via the internet drew a blank that evening, so next morning, after slapping a second coat of paint on to the café ceiling, I began ringing round local fancy-dress shops.
This didn’t meet with any success either (though I could have had any amount of naughty nurse outfits), but help was to come from the most unexpected direction. Tilda called in with Nell’s seed cake recipe and when I told her my problem, she said she had the perfect thing.
‘We all had to dress up one year for the Women’s Institute Victorian Extravaganza – load of nonsense it was, really. Anyway, being tall like you, there was no way anything to hire would be long enough, so Nell ran me up a dress in sprigged muslin.’
I looked at her doubtfully: it sounded a whole unlikely Kate Greenaway step too far. ‘Sprigged muslin?’
The Little Teashop of Lost and Found Page 18
