‘Rumours of your beauty didn’t lie – you were truly named,’ said Prince S’Hallow. ‘Kiss me again!’
‘I don’t mind if I do, love,’ she said, with a glance at her boyfriend, now hand in hand with another woman. If Kev preferred fat girls with brassy blond hair, then it was his loss!
On the edge of the wood there was a fluttering of green draperies and a faint, faraway snarling. Unnoticed by the charm-crossed lovers, the dryads were regrouping and ready to take revenge for their poor, fallen sister.
‘Alice?’ repeated Nile patiently and I blinked and came back to reality again.
‘Sorry, I just had another idea for the book. Did you say something?’
‘Nothing important. How is the book coming along?’
‘A bit quicker now, though of course I’m constantly having to break off mid-sentence. If Jack isn’t interrupting me, then I’m chasing up equipment and fittings, not to mention sussing out my catering suppliers and … well, all the million and one other things on my lists.’
‘Just as well Bel and Sheila have till next Easter to get their heads round it all for their waffle house,’ he said. ‘And at least now Sheila’s realized she needs to employ someone else to run it for her.’
‘If my tearoom is a success, then I’m sure Tilda can manage it, and I’ll only have to do some early morning baking – I enjoy that – then go back to the flat and write unless I’m needed. But at first, of course, I’ll have to be there most of the time.’
We studied our menus while we talked, and when our delicious- looking starters had been set in front of us, he said, ‘I’ve finished the first of your novels and it was … a bit of an eye opener. I can see it owes a lot to old fairy tales and I know the earlier versions were quite horrific, but yours sets them in a contemporary world and gives them a lot more horror and some very unexpected twists.’
‘I don’t know about unexpected: half of my plots seem to end up reworking what happened to me in various ways, though I suppose most novelists do the same. The abandonment theme, and finding out you’re really a princess and all that.’
He smiled and the soft light of the candle made his eyes gleam like silver against his olive skin. They held mine and I found somehow I couldn’t look away.
‘Tonight you’re my princess, though I won’t imprison you in my tower, Rapunzel, because after reading your novel, I’m afraid some hideous comeuppance would be on the cards,’ he said softly.
I was still staring mesmerized into his eyes and I’m not sure what I would have replied, if anything, had Henry not appeared just then and said, ‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I? Only Nico told me a customer had brought me something – I love the flail!’
‘Great, isn’t it?’ agreed Nile. ‘I know where I can get you a couple of really ancient scythes as well, if you don’t think they’d be too Grim Reaper.’
‘No – they’d literally give a bit of edge to the place!’ Henry said, grinning.
Then we told him how wonderful his food was, which was the perfect truth, and asked after Eleri.
‘She’s blooming,’ he said, and added that she hoped to see me again soon, though I expect he was simply being polite.
But he obviously thought Nile and I were a couple, because after he’d gone back to the kitchen the waiter brought over a bottle of champagne, courtesy of the house, and then, after our main course, the other waiter, Nico, suddenly appeared with a violin and gave us a table-side rendition of ‘O Sole Mio’.
Jack would have loved it and probably sung along …
I felt hideously embarrassed because everyone looked at us, but Nile seemed amused and played up to it, first holding my hand across the table and then edging around the bench seat until he was sitting close enough to put his arm around me.
‘What are you doing?’ I hissed.
‘We can’t disappoint them,’ he said. ‘Relax and get in the groove.’ Then he poured me another glass of champagne, so I didn’t so much relax as go limp. He was driving, so I’d already had more than my fair share.
When it was time to leave, Nile insisted on paying the bill, since he’d invited me. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, so finally I left him to settle it while I went to the cloakroom. I wasn’t entirely in command of my legs and I felt a bit weird, so it was a relief to find I looked fairly normal in the mirror, though a little flushed and glittery-eyed.
I returned to find Nile by the door, looking a bit like a stag at bay and with the bunny bride draped all over him.
‘It was always you I really loved, Nile,’ she sobbed into the lapels of his lovely suit.
‘But we only went out for a few weeks, Chloe, and then you left me for Gareth,’ he protested, looking even more hideously embarrassed when he spotted me.
I shrugged myself into my coat and walked on past and out of the door, just as two of the hen party started peeling Chloe off him.
‘You know you adore Gareth and he thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread,’ one of them was saying. The country must be littered with Nile’s exes, which reinforced my determination not to weaken and become one of them.
The moment the cold air hit me, so did the full effect of the alcohol and I reeled. Nile must have escaped right after I left, because suddenly his arm came round me just before I fell over.
‘Hold up,’ he said. ‘You should have waited for me – you’ve had too much champagne.’
‘There’s no such thing as too much champagne,’ I informed him. ‘And I left because it was all a bit embarrassing in there.’
‘Tell me about it!’ he said ruefully. Then he began to steer me in a straighter line towards the car.
‘The sky’s so pretty,’ I said, stopping dead suddenly and staring up into the midnight-blue darkness, scattered with sparkling points of light.
‘Yes, lovely. Can you see your lucky star, Alice?’ he asked, and when I looked heavenward again, quickly kissed me … or I think that was his intention until I kissed him back. I was not entirely in control of my lips.
By the time he released me, the stars had developed a tendency to spin round, but I was sure that was just the champagne.
‘Sorry – but that was irresistible,’ he said. ‘You were irresistible!’
‘I – don’t think that was a good idea,’ I told him with as much firmness as I could muster.
‘Perhaps not,’ he agreed, looking down at me gravely. ‘Put it down to an unwise impulse.’ Then he added inconsequentially, ‘There’s an Arlo Guthrie song called “Alice’s Restaurant”. Apparently you can get anything there you want – except Alice.’
‘I’m not opening a restaurant, just a tearoom,’ I said, but I didn’t shake off his arm when he put it round me again and walked me over to the car. I’d definitely overdone the bubbly, because the ground shifted underfoot and the stars were now not so much spinning as whirling about as if they’d escaped from a Van Gogh painting.
‘A tea emporium,’ he agreed, opening the car door and helping me in, where I’m afraid I fell into a light, befuddled doze, so he had to wake me when we got home.
Still, by the time I got out of the car again the cold night air woke me up a bit and as I unlocked the back door I remembered my manners – and that he had insisted on paying the rather large bill – and turned to say politely: ‘I had a great evening, thank you so much.’
‘You know, so did I, embarrassing interlude with Chloe excepted,’ he replied, then casually flicked my cheek with one finger, turned and walked off up the passageway to his shop without another word, though he seemed to be humming something … maybe it was that song he’d been on about earlier.
I didn’t even change when I got upstairs, just threw my coat over a chair, made a pot of strong coffee, then went to my desk and wrote and wrote into the night.
I was vaguely aware of Nile’s window opposite, glowing with light and then, when I looked up later, dark again.
Towards dawn, just before I finally went to bed, I searched for tha
t Arlo Guthrie song on YouTube …
Once I’d had time to reflect on things, I felt no more than mildly irritated by this young woman’s appearance on the scene, for even were she to stir things up in a search for her birth mother, it would be unavailing.
Of course, I hoped she would not – this emotional and irrational urge to find and forge a connection with someone who clearly didn’t want you in the first place is beyond my understanding.
Certainly, considering our relationship, I’d felt no warmer emotion than surprise at seeing her. How horrified my colleagues would be if they knew the true story – and how cold they would think my attitude!
30
Stand and Deliver
I woke up horribly early, with the scenes of the book I’d written late last night clear as crystal in my head, but the events at the restaurant after my third glass of champagne rather fuzzy.
I could remember the way Nile had looked at me across the table, while a violin played … and then a blonde in a bunny-girl outfit and a bridal veil making a scene. After that, it got even hazier: stars came into it … and a song about another Alice and a restaurant. And a kiss or two … unless I’d dreamed those up, which was entirely possible.
I pulled myself together with an effort: I was expecting the overdue delivery of the new double catering-sized oven, in another of those wonderful time slots, this one being between half past seven and twelve noon. So I carried my mug of coffee down with me to the kitchen, arriving just in time to spot through the window the tall and unmistakable figure of Nile, heading for his car.
Another early riser – and I was positive he hadn’t mentioned that he was going anywhere – but then, why should he? My hazy recollections of last night were that we’d kissed, come home and then parted perfectly casually after a nice evening. Nothing to give me the right to bounce out of the back door and demand to know when he’d be back.
I had plenty of time to file the latest business receipts and update the accounts book before the inevitable phone call from the delivery driver. He was in some giant pantechnicon and the nearest he could get to the teashop in that was the cobbled main street at the end of the passage. His satnav had told him to turn down Doorknocker’s Row, but fortunately he’d had enough sense not to try it.
I went through and opened the front door to the café and a few moments later there was a rumbling noise and a disgruntled-looking man appeared, wheeling the oven on a trolley.
He said he couldn’t leave his van where it was, so he’d have to drop the oven off at the door.
‘No you won’t,’ I told him pleasantly. ‘I’ve paid for delivery and connection, and that means you have to bring it right through to the kitchen: come along – you’re in luck, because I’ve had a wheelchair ramp fitted so you don’t have to get it down the step.’
I was so glad I’d laid a walkway of flattened cardboard boxes over my beautifully sanded new floor, too, to protect it from workmen’s feet, because those trolley wheels wouldn’t have done it any good at all.
Once he’d got it through the front door, he tried again to make his escape, but I stood my ground, blocking his exit, and told him that if he just got on with it instead of arguing, he’d be away the quicker. Eventually he gave in.
In sulky silence, but with the speed of practice, he ripped open the box and installed my beautiful double oven, which was merely a matter of connecting it to the newly wired socket and pushing it into place. Then he tossed all the packaging back into the box, put it on the trolley and went off, muttering darkly. I suspected he had misogynistic tendencies.
Tilda arrived to clean while I was still reading the instruction manual before switching it on and heating the ovens through. She went up to do the flat first, which took her no time at all, and then she did the best she could with the teashop, complaining all the while that as usual the workmen had left dust everywhere.
We shared a pot of stewed tea at eleven and she admired the new ovens. ‘Space age, them are,’ she said approvingly. ‘I can feel the heat from here, too, though I can’t see anything cooking.’
‘No, you have to run them empty for at least an hour, before you bake anything.’
‘Why’s that, then?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ I confessed. ‘Though new ovens smell better when you’ve done it, so maybe that’s it?’
‘If they’re new, they should smell fine anyway.’
‘It’s one of life’s great mysteries,’ I agreed, passing her the chocolate digestive biscuits, and she looked around her.
‘It’s more like a hospital in here now, with all these white units and tiles.’
‘Easy to clean – and easy to see when it is clean,’ I explained. ‘I’ll add a bit of colour with new blinds and some tough vinyl flooring – I’m having the same one all the way through to the back door.’
‘What about in the basement? They’ve taken up all the old stuff, what was nearly wore through.’
I got up and showed her the samples I’d chosen from. ‘This dove-grey one – the same as upstairs. Now the tiling is finished in the customer toilets, the flooring can all go down as soon as it arrives – Jack’s organizing that.’
‘Nell and I will be glad when it’s all done and the teashop opens, because we like to keep busy and that cleaning agency pays peanuts.’
‘Isn’t Nell …?’ I wondered how to put it tactfully. ‘I mean, won’t she be thinking of retiring soon?’
‘No, why should she? She’s fit as a fiddle and walks for miles every day with our Frank,’ she said, looking astounded at the mere suggestion.
‘Frank?’
‘Our greyhound. There’s a rescue place always trying to find homes for them. You should have one for a bit of company.’
‘I’ll certainly think about it, when I’ve settled down,’ I agreed, then added, ‘Nell must be fit if she’s out with the dog every day.’
‘She always says you have to use it or lose it,’ Tilda said. ‘You think on about getting a greyhound.’
‘I will,’ I promised.
Then I heard the back door open and assumed it was one of the workmen.
‘Cooee!’ called the unmistakable and unwelcome voice of Jim Voss, and then he strolled in as if he was sure of his welcome.
‘Our Nell said she’d seen him here before,’ Tilda said, eyeing him with disfavour. ‘Does he haunt the place?’
‘I might say the same about the Capsticks!’ he snapped back, disconcerted. ‘Don’t let me keep you, if you’re leaving.’
‘I’m not – I work here,’ she said.
‘Did you want something?’ I asked him bluntly.
He glanced at Tilda, who was clearly immovable, then said with an ingratiating smile, ‘I’m here on a delicate mission – Mrs Muswell called us last night in great distress.’
‘Has she found her conscience lying about somewhere?’ asked Tilda.
‘She should have called me,’ I said. ‘I’m the one she’s cheated.’
‘Quite unintentionally, it appears,’ he said quickly. ‘She didn’t think you’d want any of those old things, they were only fit to be thrown out.’
‘Yeah, right,’ I said. ‘So, can I have her phone number?’
‘I don’t have it,’ he lied. ‘But she’s calling us again later today because, as I say, she’s sent me on a delicate mission. She suddenly remembered that she’d left her mother’s tea set in a box under the stairs to the basement – and it’s of great sentimental value and she’d like it back.’
‘But that’s where the willow-pattern china was, and there isn’t anything else in there, other than a vacuum cleaner.’
‘She was positive it was there, behind the boxes of willow pattern – and since she has no objection to your having that, she thought you wouldn’t have any objection to giving me the tea service to pass on to her.’
‘Having stripped the place of anything of any value, it’s kind of her not to demand that willow pattern back, too,’ Tilda said drily. ‘Eh, the ch
eek of the woman!’
‘The value of the willow-pattern china is a drop in the ocean of the amount she owes me,’ I said. ‘And I’m entitled to keep anything I find on my premises.’
‘But surely, her mother’s tea set …’ he blustered.
‘Alice’s already told you, it wasn’t there,’ said Tilda. ‘The cupboard’s empty apart from that clapped-out old vacuum cleaner – an antique like you, Jim Voss!’
He flushed an unbecoming dark red, right up to the top of his balding head. ‘Perhaps I could see for myself.’
‘Perhaps you could take yourself off,’ she returned.
‘Yes – we’ve already told you it isn’t there and we’re very busy, so we’d prefer your space to your presence,’ I told him.
He glowered at us, clamped his lips together on whatever he was thinking of saying and marched out, slamming the back door behind him.
‘Our Nell has the right of it: he’s a little sneaking snirp,’ Tilda said.
Later, just after Tilda had left, the teashop sign came back, newly lettered in white on dark teal to match the rest of the outside paintwork. ‘The Fat Rascal’ was in large script and underneath, in smaller lettering, it read, ‘Afternoon Tea Emporium’.
When it was fixed up I stood there for ages, simply drinking in the wonderful effect of the sign, the glossy paintwork, the pretty trellis porch and the shining bull’s-eye glass of the bow window. (That was Tilda’s doing – she swore by vinegar and crumpled newspaper.)
Bel, who had driven in for some shopping, found me there and said admiringly, ‘Oh, it looks perfect now, doesn’t it?’
‘Well, almost, but I think it still needs a couple of finishing touches,’ I said consideringly. ‘Nile gave me a big blue and white jug and I’ll have that on the window ledge, filled with seasonal flowers, but don’t you think there should be something else actually outside to brighten it up?’
‘Yes, perhaps a tub of flowers or something,’ Bel suggested. ‘We could go to a garden centre over the weekend and see what we can find, if you like. You are coming out to Oldstone again, aren’t you? You know Mum expects you to now, unless you tell her you can’t make it?’
The Little Teashop of Lost and Found Page 25
