The Teashop on the Corner

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Theft. Can you believe?’ Sherry answered for him. ‘She actually accused Gram of all the things she knows that man did. I tell you, we were that far off ringing up to have her sectioned,’ and she pincered her thumb and finger, leaving the minutest gap between them.

  ‘She went for me,’ said Graham. ‘I felt frightened of my own mother.’

  ‘And she was about to go for me too,’ added Sherry. ‘She had this wild look in her eyes. It was as if she’d suddenly been turned into Russell Crowe.’

  Bernard looked at the twenty-eight-stone, six-foot-two man and his rotund five-foot-ten wife and tried to imagine them in a physical confrontation with five-foot-five, seven-stone Molly. She couldn’t have done them much damage even if she’d gone at them full pelt.

  ‘It’s all that Harvey Hoyland’s fault,’ put in Graham. ‘It has to be.’

  ‘Oh and you haven’t heard the best of it,’ said Sherry, her chin wobbling like a turkey’s wattle. ‘He says he’s dying. He’s actually had the nerve to use that line and the sill . . . Molly believes it. He’s totally brainwashed her.’

  ‘I think it’s best we all go across to Molly’s house,’ Bernard said calmly, needing to see this phenomenon of a rabid gladiatorial Molly for himself. He didn’t wholly trust Graham’s account, but he was concerned about Harvey being back in Willowfell.

  Margaret was silent with a steely expression on her face. Bernard recognised that look as one to beware of. The Terminator wouldn’t have had a chance against his wife in full matron mode.

  ‘Let’s go then, shall we? Now,’ she said. No one dared to disobey.

  Chapter 89

  Leni didn’t have time to drop the latch before she was thrown backwards with the force of the door opening and Leslie O’Gowan exploded into the teashop.

  ‘You fucking little bastard!’ Leslie launched himself at Ryan who moved like a whip out of the passage of his brother’s closed fist. Mr Bingley jumped down off the chair next to Ryan and in an effort to get out of the way, wrong-footed the elder O’Gowan, who banged his knee hard on a table leg. Now Leslie’s fury was diverted to the cat. Swearing, he pulled back his foot to kick it but just before it made contact, Ryan barrelled into his brother’s side, pinning his arms by clinging on to him with all his might, giving the cat the opportunity to speed off into the back room.

  ‘Get off you little twat,’ Leslie screamed, shaking off his brother until Ryan landed on the floor. Again Leslie aimed a kick, which was thwarted this time by Leni, who smashed him on the arm with the cake stand she had just picked up from the counter, complete with half a chocolate pie.

  ‘Fucking ’ell,’ winced Leslie, grabbing his arm in pain, then looking down in horror feeling his fingers squish into a mass of mousse adhering to his sleeve – a three-hundred-pound Stone Island sleeve at that – which ratcheted his anger up several notches. He shoved Leni and she crashed hard into the wall, then as he turned round, his younger brother rammed into his stomach sending him flying backwards. Leslie tried to right himself from falling but his foot slid forwards on a patch of cake until he was virtually doing the splits. Then Leslie felt himself hauled upwards to his feet and slammed against the wall and a man with scary blue-green eyes was gripping his shirt at both sides of his neck.

  ‘Get fucking off or I’ll kill ya,’ spat Leslie, lips peeled back from his cheesy teeth.

  ‘Oh you will, will you? Well, I’ll tell you what I think shall I? I think you better leave,’ said Shaun with arctic menacing calm. ‘And I also think you better not come back here ever again.’

  ‘Do you know who I fucking am?’ Leslie sniffled, the intimidation effect totally cancelled out by the sight of pastry and mousse smashed flat on his head.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Shaun laughed, very unpleasantly. ‘I know exactly who you are, Leslie O’Gowan. And you want to ask your daddy who you’ve just threatened. Then stand well back whilst he shits himself.’

  Leslie lifted his head, locking eyes with the man who was holding him as firmly as chain. He didn’t recognise him, but there was something about him that told him he would be wise to take a step down from his high horse. That accent was chilling, the expression on his face was even more so.

  ‘Now, I won’t see you or that skip of a car anywhere near here again, do you hear me, Leslie O’Gowan?’ It wasn’t a request from Shaun. It was a very definite order. ‘Do you?’ he asked again, shaking him.

  ‘All right. Let go.’

  Shaun took a step backwards to let Leslie move. He strode off, head down, still full of swagger. Then at the door, he turned, made brave by distance from the Irishman, and lifted his finger to Ryan.

  ‘Don’t you fucking come home.’

  Shaun stepped forward, Leslie threw open the door and walked out at speed. Seconds later, they heard the blowy exhaust as the Fiesta raced off.

  Shaun turned back towards Leni and Ryan.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he addressed them both.

  ‘I think so,’ said Leni. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s fine. You don’t grow up like I did without learning how to fight. What the hell was all that about?’

  ‘He nicked my Kindle,’ said Ryan, ‘so I threw his wraps down the toilet.’

  ‘I presume we aren’t talking cheese and tomato wraps?’ said Shaun, bringing a breath of light relief to the heavy atmosphere. He was shaking his head at Leni and she knew he was going to say that he told her so. The O’Gowan family were trouble and it was only a matter of time before she realised it too.

  God she was so frustrating, thought Shaun. He’d told her what was sure to happen and it had. It was lucky he was still on site. What if he had been a normal man and not heard O’Gowan’s car pull up because he was at home where he should be on a late Sunday afternoon? What sort of five-foot wee idiot tries to step in the fighting line of a twenty-year-old O’Gowan nutter? Especially to stop him hitting someone she barely knows?

  ‘Not so sniffy about me being on surveillance duties now, are you?’ he levelled at Leni.

  ‘No,’ she replied. He saw that she was shaking and his hand almost came out to her arm. Almost.

  ‘Now what?’ Shaun said.

  ‘Ryan, is there anyone I can ring to come and fetch you?’ asked Leni gently.

  Ryan shook his head from side to side. ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Just great,’ said Shaun, lifting his arms and dropping them.

  ‘Then he’ll come home with me,’ said Leni. ‘There’s no way he’s going back to that man.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ That was taking do-gooding to an insane degree, thought Shaun. How could she take in a virtual stranger from that family? Was she asking to get murdered in her bed? He turned to Ryan. ‘Where’s your father?’

  ‘He’s living with Orange Shannon.’

  ‘I’m presuming that’s his girlfriend. You’ll have to go to him then.’

  ‘No chance,’ said Ryan. ‘I don’t even know where they’re staying.’

  ‘Jeez,’ Shaun shook his head with impatience. ‘Where’s your sister?’

  ‘Dunno. Haven’t heard from her since last year.’

  ‘What about aunties and uncles?’

  ‘Dun’t have any.’

  ‘It is not possible with a family your size that there is no one to look after you,’ said Shaun, almost laughing with disbelief. Then something rapped on the inside of his brain as if to remind him of his own circumstances. Hello Shaun McCarthy – are you in there? Shaun McCarthy who couldn’t remember how many brothers and sisters he had. Or what happened to his mother. Whose birth certificate says that his father is unknown. Chances were, being poor Irish Catholics, that he had aunties and uncles aplenty, although not one of them had stepped in to look after him.

  He had never had the slightest inclination to try to find his family. They were linked by blood only. And in these days of promiscuity and careless contraception, so were half the population probably. He could never understand why, on those TV programmes, people reconciled with a relat
ive they’d never seen, acted as if they were suddenly fused into one being of shared history and experience. How could they? Blood wasn’t thicker than water. It was merely a different colour.

  ‘There’s only our Leslie.’ Ryan’s head dipped and Shaun saw a tear-splash land on his trousers. ‘Fin’s in prison and our Josh is on remand.’

  ‘What a surprise,’ said Shaun.

  Unbidden he heard the echo of a soft female voice in his head: Treat a person as if they were what they should be and they will become that person. Sister Rose-Maria. That old nun with the wrinkled face and thin lips and the kindest eyes he had ever seen in his life. Shaun McCarthy, don’t let your past experiences harm your future. You can’t escape what has happened, but you can learn from it. She looked at him with her wolf-grey eyes not only as if she could see right into his soul with them, but as if she liked what she saw there. You’ve got a good heart, Shaun. Don’t be like the others who think their past is all the excuse they need to waste their future. Look forward, not backwards.

  She was as wise as an owl and smelt of clean soap, which was as sweet to him as any perfume when he was a boy. He wished he could have told her how much her compassion had meant to him and that it set him on the right path. Sister Rose-Maria gave him the first seeds of his self-worth and over the years they had taken root in his soul.

  ‘Ryan. You’ll come home with me tonight. All right?’ said Leni. ‘We’ll work out the rest later, but I think for now that might be the best move.’

  Ryan nodded and tried to wipe his eyes without anyone seeing him.

  Shaun watched Leni search in her bag for her car keys. Her hands were trembling.

  ‘You can’t drive home in that state,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you. If you give me the keys, I’ll get one of the lads to help me get your car to you later.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’ll be fine,’ Leni smiled and promptly dropped the ring of keys on the floor.

  ‘You want to risk crashing with a wee boy in the car?’

  Leni, bending to pick up the keys, momentarily froze as if his words had immobilised her. When she was fully straightened she lifted her eyes to his and said, ‘Yes, you’re right. We will be happy to accept a lift. Thank you.’

  Shaun held out his hand for the key, which Leni separated from the keyring before giving it to him.

  ‘Come on then. Lock up. I think you can safely call it a day.’

  Leni touched Ryan gently on the arm. ‘Are you okay coming home with me?’

  ‘If you are,’ said Ryan.

  ‘Come on then,’ said Shaun. ‘I’ll take you both home.’

  Chapter 90

  Margaret marched straight into her sister’s house to find Molly alone in the kitchen washing up. She looked like the same old Molly, from the back at least, and not a woman frothing at the mouth who had grown horns on her forehead and had been overtaken by a demonic force.

  Molly turned around and any joy she might have felt at seeing her sister and Bernard was dampened by the sight of Graham and Sherry behind them.

  ‘Molly,’ said Margaret, not approaching her sister for what would have been a natural hug of greeting. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine, Margaret,’ replied Molly suspiciously, her eyes flicking across the crowd now in her kitchen. ‘Did you have a good holiday?’

  ‘Oh please dispense with the small talk,’ said Graham with a spray of saliva. ‘I’ve told Auntie Margaret all about it, Mother.’

  Molly folded her arms and she leant back against the sink. ‘Oh you have, have you, Graham? Told your Aunt Margaret how you let an innocent man take the blame for stealing from me, when all the time it was you? Did you tell her that bit?’

  ‘See?’ Graham threw up his hands and swivelled his head from his aunt to his uncle.

  ‘Oh and, Sherry, I worked out that you stole my Royal Doulton figurine. I found it in an antiques shop in Holmfirth. How many other things have you taken from the house that you thought I wouldn’t notice?’

  ‘Pardon?’ Sherry’s cheeks were suffusing with colour.

  ‘Molly dear, what’s been happening whilst we were away?’ said Bernard. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s been happening, shall I?’ Molly’s eyes narrowed to dark slits as they locked on to her son and his enormous blubbery wife. ‘Harvey came to see me because he’s dying of a heart condition. I took him in. He caught my wonderful, concerned blancmange of a daughter-in-law over there trying to break into the desk where all my private documents are kept. I’m presuming it isn’t the first time she’s been snooping around upstairs because I’ve heard her walking about in there before, and things have been going missing from the house. So off she goes scurrying to Moby Dick there and both of them are thrown into total panic because suddenly their inheritance doesn’t look one hundred per cent safe any more. God forbid I might spend some. That’s what’s happened. No doubt they’ve come to you with some cock and bull story about me going bananas? Are they attempting to get you on side to have me sectioned, Bernard, so they can apply for power of attorney and shove me into Autumn Grange to rot in a corner?’

  ‘You aren’t well, Mother. You physically attacked me,’ yelped Graham.

  ‘Oh for goodness sake, I threw a cushion at you, you big wet lettuce,’ Molly tutted, shaking her head at the absurdity of it. ‘I tell you what, that’s nothing compared with what I’d like to do to the pair of you after finding out that you’ve both stolen from this house. Did you know that he’d done that to me, Sherry? And you, Gram, were you aware that your wife was pilfering? I always wondered what force had drawn you two together and now I think I can guess. You’re both a pair of blooming crooks.’

  Margaret turned to face her nephew. ‘Is this true, Graham?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. My mother seems to have lost the ability to determine lies from truth. Harvey Hoyland is no more dying than I am. He’s still as big a charlatan as he ever was and she needs protecting from him. Be honest, have you ever seen her like this?’ He appealed to his aunt and looked as if he were about to cry. ‘Throw him out, Auntie Margaret. It’s your house after all.’

  ‘It’s your mother’s house and always was,’ said Bernard firmly.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ snapped Margaret. ‘Where is he – the man at the centre of it all? In here, presumably?’ She strode off in the direction of the lounge, Sherry and Graham trotting behind.

  Harvey had his hands in his lap, his head on his chest as he dozed.

  ‘Oh yes there he is, sitting in the armchair, sleeping like an innocent baby,’ sniffed Sherry.

  Harvey’s eyes flittered awake but before he could lift his head and say a word, Margaret spun on her heel and addressed Graham and Sherry.

  ‘You two – out. This is your mother’s business, not mine and certainly not yours. Leave.’ She flapped her hand at them.

  ‘You are joking,’ humphed Sherry. ‘After everything we’ve just told you?’

  Margaret’s expression told Sherry that she most definitely was not joking.

  Sherry gave an incredulous laugh. ‘This is ridic—’

  ‘I said OUT.’

  Margaret’s voice was enough to make the Beardsalls scuttle towards the door.

  ‘You haven’t heard the last of this,’ spluttered Graham as a parting shot.

  ‘Oh, I think we have,’ said Margaret. ‘Bernard, make sure they’ve left.’

  ‘Hello Margaret,’ said Harvey, his eyes now fully focused on proceedings. ‘You haven’t changed.’ But he said this with a fond smile.

  ‘As for you,’ Margaret turned to Harvey, ‘you need to rest. Molly, if those two come anywhere near you, you ring Bernard and me straightaway.’ And her arms came around her sister and she squeezed her tightly. ‘I’ve had the most wonderful holiday but I’ve missed you, darling,’ she said tenderly.

  Chapter 91

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Leni, as Shaun turned right when he should have turned left on Higher Hoppleton
Lane.

  ‘I’ve left my drill. I’m calling home to get a spare. You need a bolt on your door.’ He’d noticed on his last visit that she didn’t have one. He thought she might benefit from some extra security, especially now.

  ‘Did you see our Leslie slip in the chocolate cake, Mr McCarthy?’ came Ryan’s giggle-filled voice from the back. ‘He must have split his nuts.’

  ‘Ryan.’ Leni’s voice was disapproving.

  ‘Cat all right?’ said Shaun, trying not to let the smile show on his face.

  Ryan was poking his finger through Mr Bingley’s carry case. ‘He’s purring. Leslie missed him. I’d have killed him if he had hurt him.’

  ‘Thank you for this, Mr McCarthy,’ said Leni again. ‘It’s much appreciated.’

  Shaun made a grunting noise as if embarrassed by her gratitude. He drove on in silence until he swung into a twisting private road and braked outside his gothic-style house.

  ‘This where you live? Wow,’ said Ryan, seemingly very impressed. ‘Any chance I could go to your toilet, Mr McCarthy, please?’

  ‘Erm, yeah, of course. Come in.’ Then, without thinking, he extended the invite to Leni. ‘Come in yourself, and wait if you like,’ he said, then wished he hadn’t. He was only going to be a couple of minutes – he didn’t have to say that.

  Leni got out of the car and followed Shaun and Ryan down the path to the front door.

  ‘It’s like the house in Psycho,’ said Ryan, his head at a severe angle as he looked up at the high roof.

  ‘Thanks very much,’ said Shaun, not attempting to hide his indignation.

  ‘In a good way though,’ added Ryan, hopping from foot to foot now.

  Shaun pushed the door open to let Ryan in first. ‘Straight forward through the kitchen and it’s the end door you need.’ Ryan sped off. Shaun stood aside to let Leni in. ‘Take a seat, I’ll not be a moment.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. There was none of the usual strength in her voice, he noted. She was as meek as her cat. He saw her sit down tentatively at the large kitchen table and wondered if she was in pain. She’d possibly hurt her back when Leslie O’Gowan threw her against the wall; not that he could ask to inspect any injury. A sudden vision of him seated where she was, Leni standing between his legs lifting her blouse to allow him to search for damage rose unbidden in his head. He thought her skin would be pale and soft and fragranced.