The Little Teashop of Lost and Found by Ashley, Trisha (19)

19

The First Cuckoo

With some faffing around, I managed to get my router working early next day and there was an email from Edie, asking me how I was getting on with my ‘little Brontë café’. She’d be sorry for that ‘little’ when I started deluging her with requests for advice!

I emailed her back saying my afternoon tea emporium would probably merely be the start of a world-wide chain of Fat Rascals. Then I told her all about what I’d found out in the newspaper articles. I’d already given Lola a quick phone update last night after dinner and she’d been fascinated by all the details and supportive about my intention of trying to track down the two witnesses and, if possible, my birth mother.

‘That’s not what Nile says – he thinks I shouldn’t attempt to find her,’ I’d told her.

‘Of course you must attempt to discover everything you can,’ she’d said. ‘I expect Nile is only afraid that if you find your mother and she doesn’t want to meet you, you’ll be terribly upset. He sounds such a nice, caring man.’

I don’t know what I could have said to give her that idea!

‘I suppose he has his moments,’ I’d agreed reluctantly, and then it had occurred to me that for a man I’d only known for a matter of days, I must already have mentioned him so many times that his name was familiar to my oldest friend!

But he had been really helpful and I’d repaid him with spiky defensiveness … even more so since that moment in the Oldstone kitchen when I’d suddenly realized that if I let myself, I could fall for him hard and be abandoned all over again: my own little Groundhog Day of the heart.

For the next couple of days I focused on getting the flat ready to move into.

Sheila, with experience gained from renovating Oldstone Farm, was an invaluable source of information on things like where to find the cheapest good-quality carpets and vinyl, and I got her handyman, Jack, to come round and give me an estimate for what work needed doing in the flat – mostly new worktops in the kitchen end of the living room, but there were also a couple of other odd jobs.

I liked him straight away: he was a man of few words, but those were all to the point and his on-the-spot estimate was very reasonable, so after we’d agreed terms I took him over the café, too.

Until he’d run his expert eyes over the premises, I don’t think I’d quite grasped just how much needed doing and how little of it I’d actually be able to manage myself. Plumbing, flooring and electrics all needed to be done in the right order and by professionals, so when he suggested he site-manage the refurbishment between his other jobs, it seemed to me that it would be a practical move.

‘And I’ll repair that front porch first, before I start on the flat, or it’s going to fall down,’ he told me. ‘Victorian, that is – it’s a feature.’

Which I suppose it was, like the bull’s-eye-glass windows – not original to the building, but having a certain strange charm.

I gave him a spare set of keys to the café – Sheila had said he was totally trustworthy and I could tell that for myself within a minute of meeting him.

Bel helped me with the painting again and though I didn’t really expect Nile to make good his promise, he simply turned up later, carrying a folding stepladder and wearing a strange brown linen overall to protect his clothes.

‘Leftover from my days at the London auction house,’ he explained, but since he was painting the ceilings, it was a pity he didn’t have a matching hat. He wouldn’t even borrow one of the mobcaps, so it was his own fault if his mop of glossy blue-black curls got speckled with white paint.

Since I didn’t want to keep popping down and letting them in, I gave both Bel and Nile keys to the café, too. Just as well I’d had a couple more spares made when I bought the paint.

In any case, if I was out and there was a delivery, I hoped Nile would let them in. I offered to do the same for him, but he pointed out that anything sent to him tended to be small, very valuable and couriered – and he didn’t offer me a key to Small and Perfect in exchange.

The drive back to Oldstone Farm over the moorland in the late afternoons began to grow familiar, though the sky gave it an ever-changing beauty.

Over dinner in the evenings I’d discuss my plans for the café, and Bel and Sheila were finally starting to grasp just how much was involved.

‘It’s all the rules and regulations, the hygiene and food safety aspects, record keeping …’ Bel said. ‘I’d no idea.’

‘Nor me,’ said Sheila. ‘It sounds a bit daunting, seeing we only intend selling coffee and a bit of cake.’

‘You still have to register the premises and they’ll be inspected and hygiene rated and all the rest of it,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry, if we plan it out carefully right from the start, there won’t be any problem with that.’

‘Maybe we could go out to the coach house over the weekend and measure up to see what’s feasible?’ Bel suggested. ‘If we’re going to open next spring, we need to apply for planning permission soon, don’t we?’

‘Yes, organize that first step and then you can get to grips with the rest of it.’

‘Teddy can draw up the actual plans, so that will save some money,’ Sheila told me.

‘The only bit I’m really looking forward to is the décor,’ Bel said ruefully.

We’d entirely finished painting the flat by Wednesday afternoon, including two coats of gloss on the skirting boards. I thought one looked fine, but Mr Small and Perfect insisted it needed a second coat.

Still, it was dry by next morning, when the carpet fitters came and laid a nice hard-wearing oatmeal-coloured wool Berber throughout, except for the kitchen end of the living room, where I had a square of more practical vinyl.

It didn’t take them long at all, for as well as being small, the flat was still empty, apart from the stack of my belongings in the spare bedroom and one of the rickety tables and a chair from the café that I’d set up in the living-room window for my laptop.

When they’d gone, I was dying to start getting my stuff out and turning the flat into a home, even if I couldn’t stay there until my bed was delivered next day, but first I bit the bullet and ordered online the basic white goods I needed – a small fridge-freezer, oven, microwave and washing machine – with the promise of next day delivery.

All of that, plus the paint and carpet for the flat, had already bitten into the small reserves of cash intended for the teashop – which simply had to be a success!

I was about to begin hanging curtains – Sheila had kindly made my old ones fit by the simple expedient of turning them on their sides and sewing curtain tape along one long edge – when I decided to check my emails first. There was a maudlin one from Robbie, of the kind that had periodically punctuated the seven years of his absence, saying he missed me and perhaps moving to Australia hadn’t been such a good idea, after all.

It had taken him a while to figure that one out, but I deduced from it that the current girlfriend had ditched him and he was drunk and feeling sorry for himself.

There was mail from Lola and Edie, too, but before I could read them one suddenly popped up from my agent, Senga McWhirter – almost as if she could magically divine that I was there looking at the screen. The whole table the laptop rested on seemed to quiver with tension, but then, all the café tables were so battered and flimsy that they trembled with every movement anyway.

Or perhaps it trembled from my guilty conscience? I’d become so engrossed with getting the flat ready that I’d barely written a thing in the last couple of days.

Still, I had to open it and she started off by telling me that the edits for the first of my backlist books to be reprinted by my new publisher would be arriving shortly. That was a bit of a surprise: I mean, it had already been out as an e-book, so why did I need to do anything else to it?

Then Senga really struck fear into my heart by adding that she hoped I was getting on with the first new book of the contract, because she was looking forward to seeing it very soon. And, of course, though I’d been writing down snatches of story and dialogue whenever they’d popped into my head, I’d just been drifting with the flow. Eventually I meant to pull it all together and finish it, but I had a feeling that ‘eventually’ wasn’t a word in Senga McWhirter’s vocabulary.

The postscript was probably the scariest of all: she was travelling up on 20 September – only ten days away – for the second Eleri Groves annual book launch party, which would be held at her husband’s remote moorland restaurant, and Senga hoped to meet me there. I’d forgotten all about this.

I emailed quickly back, assuring her I was working hard (though I didn’t say what on) and repeating that I was positive all the tickets for Eleri Groves’ event would have sold out months ago. (And I might have to invent a pressing engagement elsewhere, when Senga was up here. . .)

She’d asked me for my new address and landline number, so I added those and then pressed Send, my heart thumping slightly.

On the only occasion we’d met, Senga had struck me as fierce, which I suppose is what you want in an agent, so long as it isn’t directed at you. Or maybe it was what you wanted anyway, because the fear of her imminent arrival meant I’d really now have to throw myself into completing the new book the moment I moved into the flat.

And I’d need something more solid to put my printer and laptop on than the horrible café table, too, but which would still fit under the window: it was the perfect spot for a desk, where I could gaze absently across at Small and Perfect just as I was doing now … and then suddenly I remembered where I’d seen a lovely desk.

Hanging the curtains would have to wait until later.

When I bounced into Nile’s shop five minutes later, he’d just started bubble-wrapping a tiny piece of netsuke. It was in the shape of a grotesque little skeleton and I’d seen it the day before, when I’d gone in and fingered all the curios, on the pretext of asking him where the nearest post office was, even though I already knew the answer.

‘Nile, can you give me the directions to the antiques barn?’ I asked now. ‘Only I don’t think I could find it otherwise.’

Actually, I wasn’t sure I could find my way there even with a map – and I certainly couldn’t get a desk in the back of my Beetle, so I was deviously hoping he’d offer to take me again.

‘You want to go back there already?’ he asked, surprised.

‘I urgently need to buy a desk and I saw one there that would be just the right size.’

‘Buying a desk is urgent?’

‘It certainly is! My agent just rang and she’s expecting me to have almost finished my new book, but I’ve barely started. I need something solid enough to put my printer and laptop on – and I could do with a decent chair, too. Those tubular ones from the café are hideously uncomfortable and they creak and sway.’

‘Agent?’ he said, raising a dark eyebrow. ‘What sort of agent?’

‘Didn’t I say?’ I said, distractedly. ‘No – perhaps I just told Bel that I write sort of updated adult fairy stories. Darkish, with a twist. I self-published a couple and then a publisher offered me a contract.’

‘There’s no end to your talents, is there?’ he said, taping the bubble wrap round the netsuke and laying the parcel down on a tray.

I gave him a look. ‘My agent is dead scary, so I’ll have to get on with my writing in the evenings, despite the café renovation. So – do you think you could draw me a map of how to get to Rick’s?’

‘I could, but I think you’d get lost and we’d never see you again. Delightful thought though that might be, I feel Sheila would hold me to blame.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve got to phone a client, but then I could run you out there, I suppose.’

‘Not if you’re really busy – I expect I’ll find it. I really want something nicer and preferably cheaper than flatpack MDF.’

‘Then I’ll have to come so I can do the bargaining.’

I was pretty sure I could beat his friend Rick down on the prices myself, but I just smiled sweetly and suggested I buy him lunch on the way.

We returned with a sturdy and rather Arts and Crafts-style oak desk and matching cupboard, just the right height to put my printer on – and, as a bonus, a small gate-leg dining table and two wheel-back chairs. It was lucky it was a dry day, because some of it ended up tied to the roof rack.

We managed to unload them and carry them up to the flat between us, because I’m an Amazon, and Nile, as I’d already discovered, is surprisingly strong despite all that willowy elegance.

While we were at it, I got him to help me take up the ottoman that I’d stored in the café and the other bits and pieces before he made his escape to finish packing his netsuke.

Once he was gone, I finally began the pleasurable task of moving things about until I was happy they were in the right place, unpacking and turning the flat into a home, though my lovely new desk in the window, with one of the wheel-back chairs in front of it, kept beckoning enticingly …

Since it was a weekday, I was surprised to find Nile at dinner that evening, though I don’t know why I should be, since it was his home after all.

In fact, everyone was there, but until Nile commented on it, I hadn’t realized quite how well I’d settled in and how much Oldstone Farm had already come to feel like home to me.

Sheila smiled at me across the table and said, ‘Oh, yes, Alice is an honorary Giddings now. We’ve unofficially adopted her and even though her flat’s almost ready, we hope she’s going to spend this weekend and any more she can spare with us.’

‘You know I’d love to – as long as you let me pay for my bed and board!’ I said.

‘Oh, no, because you’ll be paying us with all your help in planning our little café,’ she insisted.

‘Not to mention roping you in to help with the house renovations,’ Bel put in with a grin.

‘I’d be more than happy to do that,’ I said.

‘I’m outnumbered by women anyway, so one more sister around the place doesn’t make any difference,’ Teddy said gloomily and then he yelped, so I think Geeta had kicked him under the table.

‘You’re all very kind and I’d love to stay this weekend, though I think I’ll have to spend tomorrow night at the flat. I had a text saying my fridge and cooker were being delivered in an evening slot, so it might be a bit late to come out after that.’

‘Well, you’ve got your key and can let yourself in on Saturday if we’re not around,’ Sheila said, and Nile raised his eyebrows.

‘You really have got your feet under the table remarkably quickly,’ he drawled.

‘He wouldn’t be so rude if he didn’t like you,’ Bel explained. ‘And anyway, it’s open house here, we’re always having visitors and some of Mum’s arty friends stay for months.’

‘Yes, and it’s a pity they’re not the paying kind,’ Nile said.

‘I get lots of those in season,’ Sheila said mildly. ‘But it’s lovely to have other artists around to bounce ideas off sometimes.’

‘Dad was a painter and quite well known,’ I told her. ‘Alexander Rose – I don’t know if you’ve heard of him?’

‘Of course,’ said Sheila, interested. ‘I adore his work and I remember meeting him once, years ago, at one of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions. Such a nice man.’

‘Yes, he was,’ I agreed, thinking how much he would have loved the Giddings family and wishing he could have been there, too, though of course, if he hadn’t died then I probably would never have ended up there myself. ‘I have a portrait he painted of me and I’ll show it to you when I’ve unpacked it. I paint a bit, but it’s only for fun: the writing is more important to me.’

Nile gave an unsettling smile. ‘Ah, yes, the writing … I assumed you’d be spending next weekend chained to that desk you just bought, knocking out a bestseller.’ Then he told everyone about my novels and that he’d downloaded one on to his e-book reader and read the first couple of chapters. He didn’t say what he thought of it.

‘Oh, you told me you wrote, but I assumed it was a hobby!’ Bel exclaimed. ‘I didn’t know you were a real, genuine novelist.’

Geeta, who had been quietly and efficiently spooning food into Casper’s mouth, which opened and shut like that of a hungry baby bird, said she enjoyed a good love story.

‘They’re not really love stories as such,’ I said. ‘Well, not in the traditional sense, like Eleri Groves, for instance.’

‘Oh, I adore her books,’ Geeta agreed. ‘She lives nearby, you know – over towards Upvale.’

‘I did know and actually, her agent has taken me on,’ I said. ‘She emailed me today about my new book, which I’ve barely started, so Nile took me to the antiques barn to buy a proper desk I can work at. I got a couple of other pieces of furniture too, so when my bed arrives tomorrow morning I’ll have everything I need to move in.’

‘And then you can start work on your teashop,’ Nile said. ‘That and writing a book should keep you quiet for a while.’

‘Not until she’s had a nice rest over this weekend and recharged her batteries,’ Sheila told him.

Bel, who had been abstractedly frowning and staring into space for the last few minutes, suddenly looked up and exclaimed: ‘Eureka! All this talk about writing has made me remember why the name of that woman who was on the scene when you were found, Emily Rhymer, sounds so familiar!’

‘What are you talking about, darling?’ asked Sheila, puzzled, so then we had to explain about the newspaper searches we’d done and what we’d found out, though of course Nile already knew.

‘Anyway,’ finished Bel, ‘I’ve just realized that Emily Rhymer is one of the daughters of Ranulf Rhymer, the biographer. There was a feature in a Sunday magazine about him ages ago – he called his children after the Brontës, so there’s an Emily, Anne, Charlotte and Branwell.’

‘I’ve heard of Ranulf Rhymer – but that’s pretty odd,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’d want to call my children after such a doomed family, however brilliant they were.’

‘I’ve read a few of his biographies and he’s an odd kind of man,’ Sheila said. ‘His driving force seems to be to prove that all the great works of literature written by women were actually penned by their male relatives.’

‘If the Rhymers are still living in Upvale, that should make finding Emily easy,’ I said. ‘As soon as I’ve got a little bit of free time, I’d like to talk to her and that farmer who rescued me.’

‘Didn’t you say he was one of the Godets?’ asked Teddy. ‘He should be easy to track down.’

‘Are you sure about it?’ Nile asked me. ‘I don’t suppose they can add anything to the newspaper reports.’

‘I don’t expect them to, but they were actually there – at the moment, they’re the only links to my past I have.’

‘That seems perfectly reasonable to me, Nile,’ Sheila commented, then added, ‘Did I hear you say you’re off to London tomorrow?’

‘Yes, early.’

‘Then do give my love to Zelda.’

‘That’s Nile’s partner,’ explained Bel. ‘She lives on a boat in Camden.’

‘Business partner,’ Nile amended, frowning down at his plate as if it had a disquieting message written across it in chocolate sauce.

I remembered the phone conversation I’d overheard and wondered if there was, or perhaps had been, more to it than that …

Not, of course, that it was any of my business.

Later, when Nile had gone and Bel and I were alone in the kitchen clearing up, she explained a bit more, some of which Nile had already told me.

‘Nile and Zelda were at university together. She occasionally comes up to stay and we love having her, because she’s fun, in a mad kind of way,’ she added, and I felt a pang of jealousy, though if anyone was the cuckoo in the Giddings nest, it was me.