The Teashop on the Corner

by Milly Johnson

  Carla’s eyebrows raised so high they were almost lost in her hairline. She fought the urge to say any more than, ‘They are “complete”, I can assure you.’

  ‘Well, that’s that then. We have nothing else to say to each other do we?’ And with that Julie’s lips curved into a triumphant smirk just before she slammed the door in Carla’s face. Their business was concluded. Their paths, they both hoped, had no reason ever to cross again.

  Chapter 30

  The teashop was empty, but it didn’t matter because Leni was busy opening up boxes of newly arrived stock and marvelling at it. She never got tired of sourcing new things and taking delivery of them. Today’s consignment included heart-shaped confetti which had been cut from sheets printed with the words ‘Reader, I married him’. There were beautiful hard-backed notepads and journals and wrapping papers. There were compact brollies covered in umbrella-related book designs, cufflinks featuring tiny Ladybird book covers. And there were five heavily woven tapestry door curtains featuring shelves of books in their design which had arrived from Italy. She had been asked by an internet customer if she could find any and, though it had taken her almost a year, Leni had done it. She couldn’t wait to advertise them.

  She looked up as the doorbell sounded to see a slightly-built boy with untidy light brown hair, wearing a school uniform: a bottle-green blazer and black trousers. The blazer needed stitching at the shoulder and there was a button missing at the front.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Leni, smiling at him. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Got any Saturday jobs?’ the boy replied, after a cough to clear his throat. ‘And if you have, can I apply? Please.’

  ‘Funny you should ask, I do have one and yes, you can,’ said Leni.

  ‘Oh, man, you’ve got a cat.’ Leni watched as the boy bent down to stroke Mr Bingley’s head.

  ‘That’s Mr Bingley.’

  ‘Nice name. Suits him. Soft, inne?’

  ‘Take a seat. I’ll interview you now if you like.’

  The boy pulled out a chair and sat down but he had to drag his eyes away from the contents of the cabinets. Leni could have sworn he said ‘wow’ under his breath. He rested his elbows on the table then immediately took them off again as if someone had snapped at him to do so.

  ‘Let’s begin with your name,’ said Leni, lifting up a pad and pen from the counter. She had been about to put an advert in the Chronicle for a Saturday person, funnily enough, as the card on the noticeboard hadn’t drawn any enquiries. The young man had perfect timing, it seemed.

  ‘Ryan O’Gowan. And I’m fourteen. Just. Last month,’ he said, pre-empting her next question.

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Wombwell way. I got the bus straight up after school,’ said Ryan.

  ‘Have you had a Saturday job before?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I did some errands for people on the estate to get some money for last Christmas but . . .’ his voice trailed off as if he had been about to go on and say something he shouldn’t. ‘Not a real job in a shop though.’

  ‘Most of the help I need is for packing up things which people have ordered. I don’t have that many customers in the teashop yet.’

  ‘I don’t mind what I do,’ said Ryan.

  ‘Where did you hear about this place then?’

  ‘On the net,’ said Ryan. ‘I was looking up bookshops. This place came up, but it isn’t a bookshop really, is it?’

  Leni picked up on his disappointment.

  ‘Ah, so you like books?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ryan nodded. ‘I read a lot.’

  He didn’t look like a reader, thought Leni. But she could have been wrong, of course.

  ‘What’s your favourite book?’ she asked him.

  ‘Ninteen Eighty-Four,’ Ryan answered without even having to think about it. ‘I thought it was brilliant. But I’ve read loads of books. All sorts. I’m going to be an English teacher one day.’

  Leni nodded, not quite sure if she believed him, but she admired his plan to impress her, if that’s what it was.

  ‘So you’d prefer to work in a bookshop?’

  ‘No, this place would be great,’ Ryan said keenly, as if he were afraid that he had blotted his copybook. ‘I’d love to work here.’

  ‘The shop opens at nine,’ she said. ‘I’d need you till about five. I’ll make sure you’re well fed on your breaks and the wage is four pounds an hour.’

  ‘Discount if I buy stuff?’ Ryan added hopefully.

  ‘We’ll sort something out,’ smiled Leni, coming out from behind the counter and presenting her hand. Ryan stood and wiped his hand down his trouser leg before shaking it.

  ‘Do I start this weekend?’

  Leni liked him on first impressions enough to give him the job.

  ‘Yes please,’ she said.

  ‘Great,’ he said. ‘I’ll be here on time.’ He moved backwards towards the door, looking not at her but in the cabinets, at all the literary things she wouldn’t have thought would be on a young lad’s list of wants. He stopped at the postcards.

  ‘Who are these all from?’

  ‘My daughter. She’s travelling around the world before she goes to university.’

  He nodded as if the answer satisfied him.

  ‘I’ll see you Sat’day.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ said Leni, resuming her unpacking duties.

  Chapter 31

  By the time Carla had got back to Dundealin, her furniture had arrived and Theresa was ripping plastic from the sofa.

  ‘They’ve put the bed upstairs for you and set it up. I fluttered my eyelashes at them,’ said Theresa, amazed at how composed and straight-backed Carla seemed. She hadn’t expected her to return from Julie Pride’s house looking like Boudicca. She scurried to put the kettle on. ‘Oh and you’ve inherited a cat, did you know? I found the postman outside with a tin of pilchards. Apparently he’s been feeding it every morning since the man who lived here “did a runner” was how he put it. Scraggy thin thing it is, but quite friendly. It was rubbing around my legs as I was standing on the doorstep.’

  ‘The cat or the postman?’ asked Carla.

  ‘Silly,’ chuckled Theresa. ‘The postman is a bit of a chatterbox. He said he thought the guy who lived here might have done a runner with some diamonds. That’s more detail than I got from Jonty. I shall have words with him when I get home.’

  ‘Really?’

  Mr Pink.

  ‘So, how did it go?’

  Carla sat down onto one of her four new cheap but cheerful dining chairs.

  ‘Put it this way, I’m glad I kept the watch.’

  ‘I would have slaughtered you if you’d given it to her,’ said Theresa, taking the top off a new plastic bottle of milk. ‘What was the house like?’

  ‘Big and showy.’

  ‘Surprise, surprise,’ sniffed Theresa. ‘You’re very calm. Are you all right?’

  ‘I think I’m on the mend,’ replied Carla, with a cold snap in her voice.

  ‘Oh my poor darling,’ said Theresa with a heavy sigh. ‘You’ve had a bloody awful year. Things are going to get much better for you now, though. I can feel it. They have to. I positively insist they do.’

  ‘Oh, they will,’ said Carla, with a confidence that put Theresa on edge. It wasn’t natural that Carla had gone out of the door a sad and vulnerable woman and returned an iceberg. She was just about to ask, yet again, if her friend was okay when Carla offered up an explanation.

  ‘Apparently Martin was going to leave me on the Monday after he died. His stress levels must have been up in the clouds, trying to appear normal.’

  Good, thought Theresa, but she kept it to herself.

  ‘He would have left me earlier had my mother not died.’

  Carla’s words hung in the air, a faint echo clinging to them. Theresa’s eventual reply was almost breathless.

  ‘She didn’t actually say that, did she?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  Ther
esa’s mouth searched for the right words. ‘Fucking bitch’ fitted.

  Carla held her hand up in protest. ‘No, I’m glad she said it. Because any atom of sympathy I had for her has gone, along with any feelings I had for Martin.’

  Theresa didn’t quite believe the latter part, but nodded in support anyway. Anger was marvellous for masking heartbreak; and anger was so much easier to live with. Long may Carla be furious with the fat bastard.

  ‘Good for you, darling. Neither of them deserves any of your headspace.’

  Above the noise of the kettle and their conversation, Carla could hear a scratching sound at the kitchen door.

  ‘What’s that? Can you hear?’ she asked Theresa who was spooning coffee into a cup.

  ‘Cat?’ asked Theresa.

  ‘What cat?’

  Theresa tutted. ‘The cat that used to live here before Mr Costa del Sol abandoned it. The postman has been feeding it. I’ve just been telling you. Pay attention Mrs Pr . . . Miss Martelli.’ Carla saw Theresa wince as her foot narrowly missed her mouth.

  Theresa opened the door and in strolled a small black cat as if he owned the place. He walked over to the run of kitchen units by the side of the fridge and sat down. He was covered in raindrops and started to lick his paw and wipe them away.

  ‘Cocky little sod,’ said Carla.

  ‘He’s a cutie, isn’t he?’ said Theresa, who loved cats. She came over and gave him a stroke behind his ears. ‘He doesn’t look very old.’

  ‘He doesn’t look very healthy either,’ said Carla. ‘He’s awfully thin. Have we got anything I can feed him? Do they eat bread?’

  Theresa laughed. ‘No. And I don’t think they’re partial to Greek salad either.’

  ‘I think I’ve got some tuna in a tin somewhere,’ said Carla, getting up from the table to look in one of the unopened boxes.

  ‘I’ll give him a saucer of milk,’ said Theresa. ‘I know you aren’t supposed to, but I can’t see one little dish doing him that much harm.’

  Theresa folded some tin-foil into a dish shape and poured in some milk. The little cat started lapping it greedily as the women watched him. Then he climbed into an upturned empty cardboard box and settled down to sleep.

  ‘Who the hell does he think he is?’ said Carla, shaking her head.

  Theresa hoped that Carla wouldn’t turn the cat out. Both undernourished, both abandoned, both in need of a bit of human kindness. They were a perfect match for each other.

  Chapter 32

  It was a toss-up whether Molly was going to faint or go the whole hog and drop dead with shock. Every nerve in her body seemed to vibrate at the same time and her head felt as if a clutch of fireworks had gone off inside her skull.

  This couldn’t be happening, she thought. After all these years, Harvey Hoyland turning up on her doorstep? Twenty-eight years, to be exact. Bold as brass. And with a suitcase. How dare he? After all he had done to her. She was consumed by a swell of anger as pictorial bytes of their shared history fired like missiles through her brain. Harvey catching her before she fell on the patch of black ice and turning her heart up to five hundred degrees Celsius; Harvey telling her he was leaving her for another woman; Harvey sneaking off with her few precious pieces of jewellery, her memories; Harvey sending her that damned postcard from Blackpool that only said ‘Wish you were here’ on it.

  Rage tore through Molly’s veins obliterating every other emotion she was feeling.

  ‘You have to be joking,’ she said, and shut the door in his face.

  ‘Wait, please,’ he said, his words muffled through the glass panel, his image a thin, dark blur. ‘Molly. I came to say I’m sorry.’

  ‘Apology accepted,’ said Molly. ‘Now push off.’

  ‘I’m dying, love.’

  Though she wanted to ignore him and walk back to the TV, her feet wouldn’t move. She slowly opened the door again, sliding off the chain. She knew he was lying. It wasn’t exactly an original ploy. The newspapers and women’s magazines were full of charlatans preying on the emotions of the trusting with tales of dying. She looked into his face and saw his sunken eyes and sallow skin and she knew that he wasn’t well. He looked older than his seventy-two years. When she compared him with how fit and strong Bernard was, Harvey could have out-aged him by fifteen years.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Harvey, as the door fully opened and she stood there with her arms folded, looking as emotionally impenetrable as it was possible for Molly to appear. His hand came out to find the wall for support, but his legs gave way and he started to sink to the ground. Molly instinctively reached for him, looping his arm around her shoulder and then she was pulling him down the hallway and into her kitchen towards a chair. He felt like skin and bone; Molly could never have shifted him in his heyday – he’d been all rock muscle and solid. She left him on the chair whilst she went back to the front door to bring his battered suitcase inside, then she filled a glass with water.

  ‘Here,’ she said, putting it in front of him and then stepping backwards as if she expected him to leap up and attack her now that he had managed to gain entry.

  Molly watched his hands extend out for the glass. They were old hands, thin and bony and shaking. She remembered how strong they once were. She remembered them threading in her hair as he pulled her mouth to his. She tried to cram those thoughts back into that do not open box in her head.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said again, taking a long sip before putting the glass back down. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to go quite like this.’

  ‘What did you think would happen?’ Molly snapped. ‘You turn up here after twenty-eight years and expect what?’

  ‘To say goodbye and sorry to you before I shuffle off this mortal coil,’ said Harvey. ‘I don’t have a lot of time left. But I wanted . . . needed . . . to see you.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ said Molly brusquely. She was still reluctant to believe his story.

  ‘Restrictive cardiomyopathy,’ replied Harvey and reached into his pocket. When his hand came out, it was full of bottles of tablets. ‘These are working less and less but I wasn’t ready to let go until I’d made my peace with you.’

  Molly swallowed hard. The evidence was stacking up but still she wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to believe him. Whatever she might think about him, she wouldn’t have wished this on him. She picked up one of the bottles and read the label: Lanoxin. She recognised the name. A drug to help the heart beat stronger. His name was printed on the label.

  ‘How long have you been unwell?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve been on heart medication for a few years now, but my condition was managed. Then things started to get worse and I seemed to be more or less living at the hospital, getting poked and prodded at. I’d had enough of it. No more, I told myself.’

  ‘Where were you staying?’ Are you still with her? Molly wanted to ask, but couldn’t quite bring herself to.

  ‘I’ve lived all over,’ said Harvey. ‘London, Torquay, Spain, Germany, New York, even Shanghai for six months. I ended up in Portugal three years ago and settled there, sort of, but none of those places ever felt like home to me. They aren’t though, are they? Thoughts turn to your roots when you’re near the end.’

  ‘Why the suitcase?’ Molly bobbed her head towards it. ‘Please don’t tell me you’re thinking of moving in with me.’

  ‘No, no,’ he replied quickly. ‘I gave up my flat so I could move back and die in Barnsley. I’ve got a little bit of money. And this suitcase. That’s all I amount to, but it’s enough. I can’t take it with me. I thought I’d go and stay in a room in the Vine or the Coach and Horses.’

  ‘Both of those were knocked down an eternity ago,’ sniffed Molly. She was swaying towards not believing him now. Was he really saying that he’d lived all over the world and wanted to die in Barnsley? She stiffened her back. Same old Harvey, despite the years and the tablets, thinking he can get anywhere on the strength of a few softly-spoken words and a plea to the heart.


  ‘If you can tell me that you forgive me, Molly, I promise I will go and you’ll never hear from me again.’ He took another sip of water and for some reason his weakened state suddenly infuriated Molly.

  ‘Just like that?’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘All those years without a word and you expect me to say “absolutely, Harvey. Of course I’ll forgive you. Off you go and pop your clogs in peace.” Have you any idea how much you broke my heart, Harvey Hoyland? So much I never got over it and yet – yep – off you would trot to the bloody Pearly Gates with your conscience scrubbed cleaner than a whistle. Well no, I won’t forgive you. No. I hope you rot in hell, Harvey Hoyland. You and her. I don’t care.’

  Harvey dropped his head as if it was weighted with shame.

  ‘I’m sorry, I had no right,’ he said and put his hand flat on the table and levered himself up. ‘Molly, I shouldn’t have come. I should have left you in peace. It appears I never learn.’

  Then his legs gave way completely and he fell heavily to the floor, cracking his head on the table, and Molly knew that Harvey Hoyland wasn’t joking when he said he was very, very ill. And that she’d been lying when she said that she didn’t care.

  Chapter 33

  Theresa left the house at nine-thirty that evening. Between her and Carla every room in Dundealin was as spotless as a new pin; the furniture was in situ, the curtains were hung, her bed was made up, the carpets freshened up with Shake n’ Vac and the ancient oven as clean as it ever could be. Jonty arrived after work and had great fun burning all the packaging in an old incinerator which he found in the garden. He was a typical bloke, happiest when employed in an occupation of controlled arson. The skinny black cat remained asleep in the cardboard box next to the radiator.

  ‘What do I do with him?’ asked Carla as she walked out with Theresa and Jonty to their car. The sky was growling and fat drops of rain were starting to fall from the doughy grey clouds.

  ‘Are you going to throw him out on a night like this?’ replied Theresa, raising her eyebrows. She knew there was more chance of Martin coming back from the dead.