The Teashop on the Corner

by Milly Johnson

  Ryan, putting some washed plates back on the shelf, grinned.

  Molly hung behind for a second after Harvey had walked outside.

  ‘Thank you for listening to me the other day,’ she said to Leni and Carla. ‘I think I did the right thing. I do apologise for his bad language. He was always so very . . .’ impassioned ‘. . . loud.’

  ‘He was enjoying himself and we were enjoying listening to him,’ said Leni, waving away that apology. ‘And what better place to have a literary argument than in here.’

  ‘He seems a nice man,’ said Carla, hoping he was, because she was the world’s most rubbish judge of character. She’d thought Fred West looked like a jolly bloke when she’d first seen his face in the newspapers.

  Molly caught Harvey up. He had started a new argument about Heathcliff and was chuntering away to himself about what might have happened in his missing years. Which seemed more than ironic to her.

  Chapter 45

  ‘Come and have your break,’ said Leni, going into the back room where Ryan was pricing up items. ‘You must be hungry. Cheese and ham toastie?’

  ‘Yeah, great,’ said Ryan, putting down the roll of stickers and following Leni into the by now empty tearoom.

  ‘I thought you might. I’ve put one on for you.’

  ‘Ta.’

  ‘Tea, coffee, milk or orange juice?’ Leni asked Ryan as she put the sandwich down in front of him.

  ‘Er, orange please.’

  By the time she had poured a glass out and taken it to him, the sandwich had disappeared.

  ‘Goodness me,’ laughed Leni. ‘Were you hungry? Do you want another?’

  There was a telling pause before he answered, ‘No thanks.’

  ‘I’ll make you another,’ smiled Leni. ‘It’s no trouble.’

  She tried not to watch, but she couldn’t help herself. He ate quickly, like an animal who was afraid that if he didn’t get his food into him, it would be stolen away. She cut him an extra-large piece of chocolate cake. She figured he would enjoy that, seeing as he had been eyeing it up all morning. And she was right.

  ‘Don’t you have any breakfast before you come out?’ she asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

  ‘We don’t do breakfast at ours,’ Ryan said, through a mouthful of cake. ‘I’m not that bothered.’

  Oh, the arguments I used to have with Anne, Leni remembered. Mum, I don’t want any Ready Brek. I’m not hungry.

  Well you aren’t going out of this house without a breakfast inside you, young lady.

  I’ll be sick if I eat it.

  Compromise. Half a bowl.

  I’ll have a Weetabix then. How’s that?

  It’ll do.

  Ryan finished the cake and dabbed up all the crumbs with his finger.

  ‘Thanks, that were lovely,’ he said and stood to go back to work.

  ‘Sit down and finish your drink,’ Leni commanded. ‘You’ve only had a ten-minute break.’ He obeyed her. ‘I’m sorry about what happened this morning. With the landlord, Mr McCarthy.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Ryan with a resigned lift and drop of his shoulders. ‘Everyone knows us. The O’Gowan name’s always cropping up in the Chron.’

  ‘Well, I hadn’t heard of you,’ smiled Leni softly.

  ‘You must be the only one who hasn’t. I can’t really blame anyone for hearing the name O’Gowan from Ketherwood and thinking bad stuff. We’ve got a bit of a reputation.’

  ‘I might need some help after work sometime if you’re free and it doesn’t interfere with any homework,’ she said, moving on to another subject. She didn’t want to embarrass him.

  ‘Yeah, great,’ Ryan replied.

  ‘Saving up for anything?’

  ‘A Kindle,’ he beamed, without having to think about it. He drank the remainder of his orange juice and went straight into the back room and Leni thought she just might send him home with the rest of the chocolate cake.

  Chapter 46

  ‘Fancy meeting you here.’ Will waved across to Carla as she was about to get into her car.

  ‘Oh, what a surprise,’ said Carla. ‘You work here then?’

  ‘Hoping to,’ said Will. ‘A few days’ casual work carrying a hod.’

  So he was a labourer, thought Carla. That accounted for the strength in lifting up that armchair. His arms were bare now and she could see his muscle definition. She hoped he hadn’t spotted her looking at them.

  ‘I’ve just been for a coffee,’ said Carla, pointing back at the teashop on the corner. ‘It’s really lovely in there.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been in before.’

  Unable to think of anything witty or incisive to say, she settled on, ‘Well, bye. See you later. Good luck with the job.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Shaun was running late and was at the builder’s merchants, one of the lads on site informed him. Will thought he might as well have a coffee in the teashop. He could just about afford one.

  How the mighty had fallen.

  Those words from Gerald Scotterfield had been playing over and over in his head like a stuck record since he had said them. They kept him awake for a good chunk of last night as he lay on the inflatable mattress with his new hollow-fibre quilt from Brenda’s Bedding Shop covering him (obviously Nicole had taken the Hungarian goose down duvet). Even more cutting than the words themselves had been the derision in Scotterfield’s piggy little eyes. He had enjoyed every minute of seeing Will brought low. Will decided in the middle of the sleepless night he could either let that vision crush him or use it to kick himself up the derrière. As he never wanted to see anyone looking at him in that way again, he chose the latter course of action.

  He hadn’t put any food in his cupboards yet. He’d go to the supermarket after meeting Shaun and stock up. Carla had left some shelves clear for him and said he was free to use the kettle and things like the washing-up liquid, sponges and tea-towels. Initial impressions told him that Carla would be a relaxed landlady and he hoped that her initial impressions were that he wouldn’t abuse that. She was a nice woman, pretty, with a lovely smile, and he wondered what her story was. She must be as skint as he was, having to rent out half a house she had only just moved into.

  He walked into the teashop and sat at a table.

  ‘Afternoon,’ said the cheery café-owner. ‘Be with you in a minute.’

  Will picked up the menu and spotted straightaway what he fancied. Two egg mayo sandwiches and a huge pot of tea. He relayed his choice to the young lad who appeared at his side within a few minutes, notepad and pencil poised. Then he looked around at all the lovely cabinets full of book-related things. Will hadn’t read half as much as he used to in the past few years; he’d been too busy and too stressed out. He came from a family of serious readers. His mum loved her Midnight Moon romances and his dad couldn’t get enough of his spy novels. His sister read Agatha Christie books over and over again and he enjoyed biographies and history. He’d always liked having books around; they were furniture to him, made a house a home. Nicole didn’t read books, only fat glossy magazines full of models wearing designer clothing. Strangely enough, she had them all over the house, yet banned any books from the shelves, saying they looked untidy. Dear God, every day was bringing another reason why they had been a ridiculous match.

  The egg mayo sandwiches came on hunks of soft granary bread with crunchy salt and pepper and were absolutely delicious. Will thought he could have sat all afternoon in the teashop, eating sandwiches and drinking tea. There was a lovely atmosphere in it: warm, inviting, calm. He wished he could bottle it and sprinkle it around his new flat so he would have a good night’s sleep. He’d forgotten what one of those was. He got to his feet reluctantly to pay the bill after he spotted Shaun across the square.

  ‘That was just what I needed,’ he said, giving the young lad a two-pound coin extra, who held it in his hand as if he was scared it would blow up if he put it down.

  ‘Your tip, you earned it,’ said Leni. ‘S
o you keep it.’

  ‘Mint,’ he said, delighted.

  ‘New starter,’ Leni explained with a grin. ‘He’s done brilliantly.’

  ‘No cock-ups on my order, it was great,’ said Will. ‘Beautiful little place this. If the other shops he’s building are as nice as this one, you should have a good footfall of customers coming your way, touch wood.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Leni. ‘I hope so. Feel free to call again and give me your custom.’

  ‘I will,’ he said and stuck his thumb up at the boy.

  Will stopped to look in the cabinets as he walked out. There was a notepad with the cover of Five Little Pigs. He had once snatched that book from his sister’s hands and flicked to the back, teasing her that he was going to tell her who the murderer was. She had thrown her hairbrush at him and it had cut his eye open. He’d had to go to hospital, where he’d had two stitches, and his mother had made his sister go as well. Jackie had cried for the whole two hours that they had sat in Casualty and swore they’d never fight again, and they never had. God, he wished she were here fighting with him now, living her life, loving a man and children. Nicole had staved off some of his loneliness, being a point of reference in his life, a significant other to concentrate on and stuff up the gaping hole of sadness which the absence of his family had left him with. More and more he was thinking that was her main function for him, as his had been banker for her. He sniffed back the rising emotion inside him and crossed the square to talk to Shaun.

  Chapter 47

  ‘I must say I like your friends, Molly,’ said Harvey, picking up the post from behind the door as they entered Willowfell. ‘Wasn’t Pavitar Singh a fascinating chap? I bet he was a doctor or a solicitor or something very highbrow in his heyday. Something about the way he carries himself.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Molly, taking off her jacket and hanging it up on the hook behind the door. She had to confess that she was curious about Pavitar Singh too. He was always so beautifully dressed and was a very handsome man. She wouldn’t have been surprised to discover he was an old Bollywood star.

  ‘We must go back there again. I enjoyed it so much. All that book passion. My blood was flowing.’

  ‘I noticed. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘I would indeed, please.’

  Harvey followed Molly into the kitchen.

  ‘And what a beautiful young lady Carmen was.’

  ‘Carla.’

  ‘Yes, sorry, Carla. Although Carmen suits her more, I think. Very Spanish looking.’

  ‘Italian actually,’ said Molly, pulling two cups out of the cupboard. ‘Lovely girl. Such a sad story.’

  She said it without thinking. Harvey picked up on it straightaway.

  ‘Sad? In what way?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Molly, but Harvey wouldn’t let it drop.

  ‘I shall take anything you tell me to the grave,’ he promised.

  ‘I wish you’d stop saying things like that,’ snapped Molly.

  Harvey chuckled. ‘Believe me, my dear, laughter sometimes really is the best medicine. Now tell me.’

  Molly sighed, hoping she wasn’t being disloyal to her new young friend by relaying her business.

  ‘Carla found out that the man she was married to never divorced his first wife and was planning to go back to her. She discovered all this at his funeral last month. Isn’t that awful?’

  Harvey blew out two slow lungfuls of air and shook his head slowly from side to side.

  ‘And you thought I was a cad,’ he said.

  ‘You are,’ said Molly, putting a plate of assorted biscuits on the table.

  Harvey reached immediately for a chocolate finger.

  ‘That is sad. I hope she finds a nice young man soon to heal her heartbreak.’

  He chomped on the biscuit for a moment then asked, ‘Did you, Molly? Did you find someone after me?’

  Molly put the teapot down on the table with an unintentional slam.

  ‘No,’ she said stiffly. No one could ever make me feel like you did.

  ‘Not even a dinner date?’

  ‘I had a meal with a local reverend one time,’ admitted Molly. ‘It wasn’t a success.’

  ‘I could see you as a vicar’s wife.’ Harvey winked at her. ‘What went wrong?’

  He wasn’t you.

  ‘He was ten years older than me physically and twenty mentally. We hadn’t even got to dessert and he was planning the wedding.’ Molly shuddered. Even now, fifteen years later, she could envisage that date in all its horrid clarity. The Reverend Clarence Cartwright had been persistent to the point of bullying in his efforts to fix up a second date with her. Once again she’d had to turn to Bernard Brandywine for help in getting him to stop pestering her. ‘He was borderline stalking me.’

  Harvey guffawed with laughter, slamming his hand down on the table.

  ‘You’re very giddy today,’ noted Molly, trying to appear serious. Harvey’s laugh was always so very infectious.

  ‘I feel on top of the world for that debate in the teashop.’

  Molly poured out the tea. ‘It’s a lovely little place. There are some quite delightful things in those cabinets.’

  ‘I remember you always used to write letters on scented notepaper,’ said Harvey.

  ‘No one writes letters any more,’ sighed Molly. ‘It’s all emails and texts. I do feel for the young ones, never knowing the thrill of waiting for a letter to arrive from a loved one.’

  ‘I bet you’d buy all the contents of that shop if you could.’

  ‘I would. Though I’d probably misplace them and they’d end up in an antiques shop in Holmfirth,’ Molly said without thinking.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ replied Molly. ‘My memory isn’t what it used to be. I keep losing things.’

  ‘Of value?’ Harvey’s eyebrows were raised.

  What a strange question to ask, thought Molly. She gave him a small nod by way of an answer.

  ‘Have you told Graham about me yet?’ said Harvey then.

  Molly wondered why he had leapt to the subject of her son from talk of the missing items. She hoped he wasn’t insinuating anything by that. He didn’t exactly have room to talk if he was.

  ‘He’s in Greece at the moment on holiday. He and his wife have a villa.’

  Harvey was so surprised, the passage of the second chocolate finger to his mouth was temporarily interrupted. ‘He has a wife?’

  ‘Yes. Sherry. And they have a son at university.’

  ‘Well, bugger me,’ said Harvey, letting out a surprised whistle of breath. ‘Is that them there?’ He pointed to a photo on top of her display cabinet. It was a family portrait of the Beardsalls which Sherry had given her as a Mother’s Day present a couple of years ago. He pulled himself out of the chair to take a closer look. ‘Dear God, he hasn’t aged well, has he? Is that shredded wheat on his head? Mind you, he’ll be in his mid to late forties now, won’t he?’

  ‘If you aren’t going to say anything nice . . .’ Molly made a move to take it from him, but Harvey snatched his arm away.

  ‘No, let me see. I promise, I’ll play nice.’ He studied the picture and Molly could almost hear the inner workings of his brain trying to form something positive to say. ‘Well, there’s a woman who likes her pies,’ was what he came up with.

  ‘She’s been good for him,’ said Molly, turning away before he saw the giggle escape. ‘They’re happy together.’

  ‘And the young man. So like both his parents in looks. Poor sod.’

  Molly took the photo from his hand and put it back in its place. ‘That’s enough,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry, Molly,’ said Harvey. ‘There was never any love lost between your son and me, but that was a long time ago. Does he look after you? That’s the main thing.’

  ‘Yes, yes, he’s very good,’ Molly lied. Well, he wasn’t bad to her anyway. She would have liked to have seen more of him and less of Sherry. There was something about th
e woman she could never trust. She always felt as if Sherry had a hidden agenda every time their paths crossed.

  ‘Well, that’s all that matters,’ Harvey said on a long drawn-out yawn.

  ‘You’ve done too much. Finish that tea off and go and have a nap.’

  ‘I will obey,’ he said, lifting the cup to his lips. ‘One more biscuit.’

  Molly slapped his hand as it snaked towards the plate.

  ‘No. I’m not going to be responsible for you going to an earlier grave than you should.’

  ‘Molly, I do not want to extend my life by two hours by substituting the food I love for boiled cabbage. I shall die a bon viveur, as I have lived.’

  Molly humphed and her arm shot out to lift the plate of biscuits out of his reach. Harvey gripped it en route and looked into her eyes.

  ‘You, my dear Molly, have made my heart feel stronger today than it has done for a long time.’

  Molly tried not to let the sadness show as he quietly finished his tea and then crossed the room and made a slow walk up the stairs to the bedroom with the pale green curtains.

  Chapter 48

  Shaun McCarthy arrived at Leni’s house at six-thirty on the dot.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ she said in her usual bright and breezy way. ‘I’ve just put the kettle on. Can I get you a coffee?’

  ‘Please,’ said Shaun. He walked into Leni’s ridiculously cosy cottage to find that her portly ginger cat was sitting on the arm of the sofa and appeared to be watching Ant and Dec on the TV. His tail was tapping out a rhythm like a slow hand clap. Shaun didn’t know if that was a good or bad sign. What he did know was that he would have killed to be as at peace as that cat, no worries in his brain, able to shut out the world and relax.

  ‘Have you eaten? Would you like me to make you a sandwich, Mr McCarthy? Always plenty of food in my cupboards, as you would probably imagine.’