The Teashop on the Corner

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Yes I think I might,’ replied Molly, although she had no intention of doing so. She didn’t want the éclair either. She cut the end piece off and ate it out of politeness.

  Sherry had finished hers and was eyeing up Molly’s.

  ‘Don’t you want that?’ she asked.

  ‘I did have rather a large breakfast.’

  ‘Waste not, want not.’ Sherry lunged for the bun. She seemed incredibly jolly – as if she’d just had some great news. ‘They’re from our local patisserie. I hope we don’t move too far away. I don’t think I could survive without my weekly fix. Then again, you’ve got a lovely bakery around the corner, haven’t you? In fact I think it’s even better than ours.’ She devoured the second éclair in two bites, with the ease of an anaconda swallowing a ferret.

  ‘Have you had some good weather over here? You look very mocha.’

  ‘Do I?’ replied Molly.

  ‘Yes, you do. Very well, in fact.’

  Molly heard a small creak upstairs. Harvey had rocked on the chair, she could tell.

  ‘I think I’ll have another cup of tea, please. I’m a bit dry after those éclairs. Would you put the kettle on again, Mother? I think I’d like a fresh brew if you don’t mind.’ Sherry rocked to her feet. ‘I’ll just pay a little visit. How can you be thirsty and want the toilet at the same time? Seems mad, doesn’t it?’ Again that frothy laugh. She was a very happy bunny.

  And with that she waddled up the stairs, leaving Molly to make a fresh pot of tea. It appeared that Sherry Beardsall was going to be there for another twenty minutes at least.

  Upstairs Harvey tried not to rock in the chair. He broke off attention to his newspaper on hearing footsteps on the stairs and remained as still as he could, his ear trained to pick up every sound. He heard the bathroom door open and then, a second later, he saw the door to the room he was sitting in creep open and an enormous fleshy woman with a mop of white blonde hair tiptoed incongruously into the room. She didn’t see him because he was half-obscured by a wardrobe door and had a tartan cover pulled up to his nose. But he needn’t have worried because she didn’t even glance at his side of the room; her attention was firmly fixed on the large desk.

  As Harvey watched, she pulled something out of her skirt pocket and started poking it into the lock of the desk drawer. He wondered if she had tried to open it before, failed and come back with a more specialised tool to trigger the lock. As she bent over to see if there was something blocking the hole, Harvey was presented with a sight that he never wanted to see again. A woman with an arse like two giant uncooked dumplings should never wear a G string, he decided.

  ‘Fuck,’ the woman whispered under her breath. ‘Fuck fuck fuck.’

  Harvey really tried to keep his mouth closed, but the brake badly needed attention.

  ‘You won’t find any pies in there, my dear. Only a last will and testament and the house deeds. Or maybe that’s what you are looking for?’

  Sherry spun around, saw the man in the chair, threw whatever she had in her hand up in the air and screamed as if he were a poltergeist.

  Seconds later the house shuddered as Sherry thundered down the stairs and crashed into Molly who was on her way to see what the commotion was all about, though she could make an intelligent guess.

  ‘Ring the police. You’ve got a burglar upstairs.’

  Oh, Harvey.

  Then Harvey appeared in the doorway and Sherry screamed again. ‘There he is.’

  ‘He’s not a burglar, he’s a guest,’ explained Molly, casting an evil eye at Harvey.

  ‘A guest?’ exclaimed Sherry, her face screwed up with revulsion. ‘What do you mean a guest?’

  ‘Delighted to meet you. Name’s Harvey Hoyland.’ Impishly, Harvey extended his hand which Sherry viewed with disgust.

  ‘Harvey Hoyland? The Harvey Hoyland? The Harvey Hoyland you were married to, Molly?’

  I’m going to kill you, Harvey Hoyland, when Sherry has gone.

  ‘Yes,’ Molly was forced to say.

  Harvey, realising that Sherry wasn’t going to shake his hand, dropped it back by his side.

  ‘Sherry was looking for pies in your desk, Molly,’ he twinkled.

  ‘We’re not having this,’ growled Sherry, grabbing her handbag from the table. She was bright crimson in the face and the whites of her eyeballs contrasted madly with it. ‘I’ll see what my Gram has to say about this.’

  ‘Do give him my best,’ said Harvey called after her, with the smoothness of Cary Grant. ‘Tell him he still owes me a goldfish.’

  Sherry teetered out of the house, rattling her car keys, and stomped down the path towards her car.

  ‘That was a very telling conversation you had with her, my love,’ said Harvey, watching Sherry through the window squeezing her bulk into the driver’s seat. He hoped the car had reinforced suspension. ‘Heard every word through the floor. Voice like a bloody foghorn, but thank goodness for that. Selling up their assets, eh? And trying to bung you in an old people’s home. What does that tell you, I wonder?’

  ‘Oh Harvey, what have you done?’ said Molly, slumping onto a chair and burying her head in her hands.

  ‘I’m lancing a boil,’ said Harvey. ‘I don’t want to leave you at the mercy of those two. So I’m bringing it on, as the youth of today say.’

  Chapter 84

  ‘Will, it’s bad news, I’m afraid,’ said Shaun, not comfortable at having to deliver it. ‘My labourer is coming back full-time tomorrow.’

  Will nodded his understanding.

  ‘Look, Shaun, I’m really grateful for the work you’ve given me already.’

  ‘If I need you again, I’ll give you a ring,’ said Shaun. ‘I was talking to John Silkstone, who’s a building contractor in Oxworth. He mentioned he might have something suitable soon.’

  ‘Well, I appreciate that,’ Will smiled. ‘And if I stop passing out when I get above the twelfth rung, I’ll get in touch with him.’

  ‘You ought to see a doctor about that,’ said Shaun. ‘I’m sure it’s fixable.’

  ‘I shall,’ said Will. He’d have to. Or he’d starve.

  Back to the drawing board after today then, he thought. Who would have reckoned he’d ever be worried about keeping a roof over his head in his profession?

  *

  ‘My dear Molly, please don’t panic.’

  But Harvey might as well have told the tide to stay back. Molly was mentally following Sherry on her way to Dream Hall. She would burst in and tell him all about finding Harvey in the bedroom and Molly could envisage Graham going the same shade of beetroot purple that his father had when he was enraged. Graham would pick up his jacket and follow Sherry out to her car to ‘sort this out immediately’. By her calculations, they would be here in ten minutes maximum.

  She turned from the window back to Harvey, his mood annoyingly buoyant as he sat in the armchair conducting an imaginary orchestra with his foot.

  ‘Are you sure that’s what you saw? Tell me again.’

  Harvey dropped a loud sigh. ‘Yes I’m very sure. Sherry tiptoed in, as far as a woman of that size can tiptoe anywhere, and she made straight for your desk and started poking around in the lock with this.’ He held up the tool which he had retrieved from the floor after Sherry had dropped it. It was like a Swiss army knife, except all the arms looked suspiciously like various kinds of lock-pickers.

  ‘What was she doing in that bedroom in the first place?’ Molly muttered to herself. So she’d been right to suspect that Sherry might be snooping around upstairs when she had heard all those tell-tale creaks before.

  ‘I’m no Brain of Britain, my love, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d had a few cracks at opening that desk already and returned with some specialised equipment this time. Do you keep anything important in it?’

  ‘Yes, all my bank books, premium bonds, some cash for emergencies, passport, house deeds, will.’

  ‘Yes, I suspected as much. You remember when you told me that things of v
alue were going missing . . .’

  But the conversation was cut short as the squeal of a car tyre dragged Molly’s attention back to the window.

  ‘I knew it, they’re here. They must have flown.’

  ‘Good, you’ll get some answers sooner rather than later then, won’t you?’ said Harvey, rising to his feet. He wouldn’t have admitted this to Molly but he was very curious to see what the years had done to Graham. He couldn’t imagine that they’d ironed him out into a decent man who really did care for his mother. Well, his death might be imminent, but he could pay Molly back in some way for her kindness. He could give her some temporary protection until her sister and Bernard came home at least.

  Harvey took a deep breath and prepared to meet with his ex-stepson. He was strangely excited. His illness had made him warrior-fearless. There was only one enemy he intended to fall prey to – the last one. He heard Sherry twittering shrilly like a budgie on speed and saw Graham’s giant bulk pass the window and the room darkened as if there had been a solar eclipse.

  The colour had drained from Molly’s face. She felt shaky and panicky. Graham had a loud and scary shouting voice and a clever way of running rings around her verbally. Molly caught a glimpse of his face through the window and he looked furious – and extra-purple. Graham charged into the room, his jacket, bought at a time when he could close it in the middle, was now open and framing his swollen gut like a pair of pin-stripe curtains. He halted and Sherry, unable to stop her momentum at such short notice, barged into his back, which inflamed him even more.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘If it isn’t you, Ronald bloody Biggs.’

  ‘Graham,’ coughed Harvey, straightening his back. ‘You haven’t changed a bit. Alas.’

  Graham’s head swivelled around to Molly. ‘Mother, what do you think you are doing having him in your house? Have you completely lost your mind? Can’t you remember what happened last time you had anything to do with him? You nearly had a nervous breakdown. I had to pick up the pieces.’

  A picture flashed through Molly’s mind of Graham’s arms around her, his voice soft in her ear: Don’t worry, Mother. I’ll look after you and she was momentarily weakened by it.

  ‘That was a long time ago, Graham,’ said Harvey. ‘Things have changed.’

  ‘You haven’t changed,’ screamed Graham. ‘Look at him, Mother. I bet he hasn’t got a penny to his name and he’s wormed his way back into your house. Why do you think that is, Mother? Hmm? Hmm?’

  ‘He’s after your money, Molly dear,’ said Sherry, her voice a soft, reasonable antidote to her husband’s fury. Good cop, bad cop.

  ‘I most certainly am not. Absolutely no use for it at all,’ replied Harvey.

  ‘You don’t fool us,’ Sherry hissed. ‘Once a liar, always a liar. Once a thief, always a thief.’

  Harvey let loose a trill of laughter. ‘I went to prison once and that was ten years before I even met Molly and I never went back. Now if we are talking about thieves, I suggest we discuss why you, dear lady, were picking at your mother-in-law’s desk lock.’

  Sherry’s voice rose in volume. ‘Oh, don’t you divert attention away from yourself. You’re the only thief in this room and you know it.’

  ‘What were you doing in my bedroom, Sherry?’ Molly heard her own voice and couldn’t believe she had been brave enough to speak out.

  ‘I . . . I noticed you didn’t have a key. I was going to have one made for you. As a surprise,’ Sherry said confidently, as if it was a pre-rehearsed answer.

  Molly’s counter-parry was delivered in a calm, confident voice totally at odds with the tremors claiming her whole body. ‘How do you know I didn’t have a key? You must have been in that room before to notice there wasn’t one in the lock.’

  ‘Of course I went into the room before. I do check around to make sure everything is okay, you know. I wouldn’t run off with your jewellery.’ She purposefully narrowed her eyes at Harvey.

  ‘I do have a key. I keep it safe out of the way of intruders.’ Molly’s voice was packed with unsaid accusation.

  ‘Don’t you dare imply that my wife has anything but your best interest at heart,’ said Graham, advancing with his finger extended.

  Harvey pushed Molly behind him to a position of safety.

  ‘How’s business, Graham? Doing well, are you?’

  Graham froze and his eyes widened to their maximum. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Selling up a lot of assets, I hear. This house would be worth a pretty penny to you. What’s the plan? To shove your mother in an old people’s home and bleed her bank account dry?’

  Graham had grown so purple now that his head looked in danger of exploding like a giant grape. ‘How . . . how bloody dare you suggest that . . . that . . .’

  He was rattled. Harvey had hit the nail on the head. He could read Graham like an open large-print book. But then, he always could.

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me that you’re terrified your mother might be manipulated into leaving me everything she has, instead of you?’ Harvey opened his arms as if he meant to put them around all that Molly owned. ‘That’s the real reason you’re so furious, isn’t it? You’re not defending your mother, you’re safeguarding your inheritance. Well please don’t worry, dear boy. I’m dying, as it happens. And I can’t take Molly’s money with me, even if she stuffed my shroud full of it.’

  Sherry was silent for a moment, then she nodded slowly as if she had worked out what Harvey was up to.

  ‘Yes, of course you are. So that’s how you managed to get around Mother. The old sympathy card. Very clever.’

  Graham was so angry he couldn’t talk. Instead, he let loose a series of half words, gasps, and unintelligible sounds.

  Harvey turned to Molly. Something was buzzing around his head and wouldn’t stop. ‘What did she mean just then by: “I wouldn’t run off with your jewellery”? and then making the point of looking at me?’

  ‘You know bloody well what I meant, you thieving scumbag,’ snarled Sherry.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Molly. ‘It was a long time ago. I’ve forgotten it.’

  Harvey’s interest spiked. Sherry’s words had obviously been more loaded than he initially thought.

  ‘Molly, what did she mean?’

  Sherry opened her mouth and Harvey raised his finger to her. ‘You be quiet. I want to hear from Molly.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Harvey. I think I understand.’

  He wanted to hurt her by taking her jewellery, punish her for rejecting him. It was never his prime concern to gamble it away, she knew now. He wouldn’t have crushed her like that. That’s why he tried to make himself believe he hadn’t done it.

  Harvey’s brow pleated with puzzlement. ‘Molly, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.’

  Sherry started to applaud his confusion. ‘Oh don’t tell me you’re going to blame an early stage of dementia for forgetting.’

  ‘Leave it, Sherry,’ snapped Graham. ‘We’ll see what Auntie Margaret has to say about all this.’ He took hold of his wife’s sleeve and attempted to tug her out.

  ‘Whoa. You’ll wait there until I get my answer,’ said Harvey. ‘Molly?’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Sherry gave a dry snicker. ‘We know all about it. Not only did you walk out on this poor woman but you took all her most precious possessions with you as well.’

  Graham pulled harder at Sherry’s arm, but her feet appeared glued to the floor.

  Hearing it said aloud, especially from the sneering mouth of Sherry, Molly winced.

  ‘What jewellery?’ Harvey looked genuinely mystified. ‘Molly? What jewellery?’

  Molly couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to witness Graham and Sherry’s enjoyment at his shame.

  ‘Her wedding ring, her engagement ring, presents from the Brandywines . . .’ Sherry’s mouth formed into a triumphant crescent: she was relishing this.

  ‘What?’ It was Harvey’s turn to be on
the back foot. ‘You think I would steal from Molly?’

  ‘Ha.’ Sherry laughed. ‘Once thieving scum, always thieving scum.’

  Harvey’s hands came out to either side of Molly’s face and he forced her to look into his eyes. ‘Molly, I swear that when I left, I put my wedding ring in the box with yours. I wasn’t worthy to own it. I never took a penny from you.’ He laughed soundlessly. ‘Please tell me that you haven’t believed all these years that I would or could do that to you?’

  Molly could barely see him through the mist of tears. She didn’t know what to believe. But what was true was that Harvey had walked out of her life without laying claim to anything he had a legal right to, something that had always puzzled her. But if he didn’t take the jewellery, who did? No one had been in the house but Margaret and Bernard and she trusted them with her life.

  No, no. It couldn’t be. Surely, no.

  She remembered Graham’s visit the day Harvey had left and the concern her son had shown.

  She recalled Graham directing her attention to the empty jewellery box and insisting that there was only one conclusion to be drawn.

  ‘No, no, not that,’ Molly cried out. Hurt and disappointment and guilt rose like a huge wave inside her, engulfing her stomach, making her nauseous.

  ‘What is it, my love?’ asked Harvey tenderly as Molly’s features went through a metamorphosis in front of him. The water in her eyes cleared, her lips narrowed, her jaw hardened. Molly’s head swivelled on a smooth slow arc to her son and she said, ‘It was you, wasn’t it, Graham? You took my jewellery that day.’

  ‘You’re deranged, Mother. Get a grip.’ He couldn’t meet his mother’s eyes. ‘Come on Sherry, we’re going. She won’t listen to us.’

  ‘My own son,’ Molly could see it in his twitching features, guilt flicking at his eyelids, making them blink madly. He always did that as a little boy when he lied.

  The hurt inside her flipped to a raging torrent of anger. She picked up the nearest thing to hand – a cushion from the sofa – and launched it at her son where it hit him squarely in his face. He tottered backwards, and Sherry reached for his arm to steady him.