The Little Teashop of Lost and Found by Ashley, Trisha (27)

27

Distant Views

Lola had to set out for Shrewsbury early next morning and once Ross arrived and started sanding the floorboards in the café, I began to wish I’d gone with her.

Bel had suggested that I went over to stay with them that day, though, so we could walk up to the Oldstone together very early the next morning, so in the end I put my overnight bag in the car and left Ross to it.

I had an appointment to meet a local artisan baker I’d heard about, who was young and enthusiastic about the idea of providing the bread for my teashop, then afterwards I went on to check out the stock of a cash and carry, before ending up at Oldstone Farm.

When I was there the previous night with Lola it was clear that Sheila assumed that I’d be spending my weekend with them, probably helping to paint the room she was revamping. It was a bit of a busman’s holiday, but I didn’t mind. It would get me away from the reek of the floor sealant too, which I hoped would have abated a bit by the time I returned to my flat on Sunday.

Just after dawn on Saturday morning, Bel and I set off across the moors in my car with an eager Honey in the back.

In fact, it was so early that we were surprised to find a glossy new Renault hatchback already parked on the turf below the Oldstone.

‘I hoped we’d have the place to ourselves,’ I said, disappointed. ‘There was no one about last time.’

‘It could be a twitcher, out watching birds,’ Bel suggested.

‘Is there anything much to watch at this time of year?’

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ she confessed.

But it appeared that it wasn’t a twitcher, for as we headed up the path a woman appeared from the other direction, with a white Bichon Frise at her side.

‘Early dogwalker,’ Bel said.

‘I thought that was a lamb, at first,’ I said. ‘They’re very woolly little things.’

When we got nearer, I could see that she was perhaps in her fifties, of medium height and well built, without being stocky. She had steel-grey hair pulled back into an uncompromising plait, pale lipstick, chilly blue eyes and an expression to match.

But there was something familiar about her … and then I suddenly realized she was the woman I’d met driving towards me in the narrowest part of the lane the day of my first visit, when she’d simply sat there waiting for me to reverse miles to a passing place. You don’t forget someone you’ve had that kind of stand-off with – especially when you came off the worst! So, either she lived nearby, or this was a favourite haunt of hers … or perhaps both.

The cold, uninterested gaze swept over us, though I thought her eyes lingered on me for just a moment, so the recognition might have been mutual.

‘Good morning,’ she said briefly.

I’m sure she would have continued on past, if Bel hadn’t exclaimed, ‘Oh, it’s Dr Collins, isn’t it? Perhaps you don’t remember me – I’m Bel Giddings and we met when you were called out to Oldstone Farm one night. My baby nephew was running a high fever.’

‘Oh – of course,’ she said, stopping and shaking hands in a professional manner, but without any enthusiasm. Her ice-floe eyes rested on me again and Bel introduced us.

‘This is my friend Alice Rose. She’s opening a tearoom in Haworth.’

‘Rather a crowded field, I would have thought,’ she said in clipped tones, and the little dog, who had been exchanging friendly sniffs with Honey, looked up at her, its head on one side.

‘I’m sure there’s room for one more,’ I replied pleasantly. ‘We’ve actually come face to face once before, Dr Collins.’

‘We have?’

‘The Saturday before last. I was here a little earlier than this and our cars met in the lane as I was leaving.’

I didn’t mention the reversing for miles bit, though it hadn’t endeared her to me. ‘This must be a favourite spot of yours?’

She shrugged. ‘The dog needs to be walked and I like to be solitary at the start of the day – which can usually be counted on here,’ she said rather pointedly. ‘Excuse me, I must be getting back now. Come along, Hugo.’

The dog obediently trotted after her, though he turned his head with one of those lolling-tongued canine grins, his eyes bright, as if to say: ‘Just you wait – I’ll get up to some mischief as soon as we get home!’

‘Well, I think that was meant to be a bit of a slap in the face,’ I commented as we carried on.

‘Yes, but she’s very brusque like that. We all prefer to see one of the others at the practice,’ Bel said. ‘She’s super-efficient, but I think she views people as cases to be dealt with, rather than as individuals, so she’s not very popular. But they were desperate for another GP to share the workload, even if she’s only part time.’

‘Was she OK with the baby?’

‘Fine. Geeta was convinced he had meningitis, though it turned out to be just a slight fever, but Dr Collins told her it was always better to get a professional opinion if a baby showed any symptoms, so she’d done the right thing calling her out.’

‘Well, that seems … kind.’

‘I’m not sure it was intentionally kind, just a statement of fact. I heard she was working in Scotland before, and then moved back here about ten years ago, because her elderly father was getting very frail. He has a large house this side of Upvale.’

‘I suppose registering with a doctor is one of the things I should do soon,’ I said.

‘You’d better register with the same practice, then,’ suggested Bel. ‘It’s the nearest. Just remember to ask for another doctor if you make an appointment!’

It took us most of Saturday to strip the wallpaper off the bedroom opposite mine. I think the Victorians must have invented some kind of Superglue-type paste.

Teddy joined us for the first couple of hours, before he and Geeta went out, and by the time Nile arrived to take his place with the water spray and scraper, we’d almost finished.

Bel accused him of getting there late on purpose and they had a bit of a battle with the water sprays. My hair went extra curly in the damp mist.

It was just the four of us for dinner and afterwards Sheila took her coffee out to her conservatory studio at the back of the house and Bel went to answer some urgent emails about the forthcoming exhibition of her work in York.

‘Well, it’s just you and me, kid,’ Nile said in a fake American drawl. ‘Film? Or shall I beat you at Scrabble?’

And he did win the first game, but only because some evil fairy had bestowed letters on me that naturally formed themselves into a series of such terribly rude words that I couldn’t bring myself to put them down.

Then later, when I’d gone to bed and was in that delicious limbo state between awake and asleep, the characters in my novel suddenly decided to have a conversation in my head and I had to get grumpily out of bed and put it all down before it vanished like a popped bubble.

Annoying.

In fairy tales, especially mine, things were never quite as they seemed …

I could have done with a bit more sleep, because I set off with Bel and Nile before eight to a car boot sale on the outskirts of Keighley, the last local big one of the year.

Nile had insisted on the early start: he said you got all the bargains at the beginning of the day. I’d have thought car boot sales were beneath his notice, but no, he absolutely loved it, swooping down like a magpie on small sparkling objects and making several finds. He had a way of methodically but rapidly turning over the stuff on every stall and in every box and moving on, while Bel and I were more leisurely.

We quickly parted company with him, but met up later at the refreshment van, where a few plastic picnic tables and chairs had been set out for customers, where we compared our purchases.

I’d bought a battered but still lovely blue and white Minton teapot to display in the café – I wanted some variety, because you can have too much willow pattern.

‘It reminds me of that beautiful jug you’ve got at the back of your window,’ I said to Nile.

‘Do you mean the Spode?’ He looked at me as if I was mad. ‘It’s nothing like it!’

‘It might not be to an antique dealer, but the pattern’s the exact same shade of blue,’ I said firmly.

‘Show him what else you got,’ Bel said quickly, scenting an argument brewing, so I opened the wooden box containing six mother-of-pearl-handled cake forks.

‘I got them for a fiver, but they’re for the flat,’ I said. ‘I don’t want any cutlery in the teashop that I can’t put through the big dishwasher.’

Bel had bought a strange and slab-like pot as a present for her mum. ‘I can’t find a mark on it, but it looks like Troika,’ she said, passing it over the wobbly plastic table to Nile.

‘Is that good?’ I asked. I thought it looked more like the product of an evening class, but what do I know?

‘I think you’re right,’ Nile told her, and then explained to me, ‘Troika pottery is very collectable and you don’t find much of it cheap any more. Sheila loves it and I buy it at auctions for her, if it doesn’t go too high.’

Nile himself had purchased an old breadboard with a cute mouse carved on it, which he said was a genuine Mouseman, so it was my day for learning about obscure collectable stuff. His pockets were full of all kinds of other things too, including a domed greenish glass paperweight in which bubbles seemed to be rising in a cloud … which reminded me of something I’d been meaning to ask him.

‘Is that small millefiori paperweight in your window as hideously expensive as I suspect it is, Nile? Only Lola spotted it and absolutely loved it, so I thought if I could afford it I’d buy it her for Christmas.’

‘It is, but I’m sure we could work out some kind of discount – for services to be rendered,’ he said, eyeing me speculatively, much as the three young women at the next table were regarding his handsome, austere profile and the tumbled blue-black hair.

‘What kind of services?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘Free afternoon tea delivered to my door every day?’

‘In your dreams, buster!’ I said.

‘You must be joking, Nile,’ Bel said, grinning. ‘If you ate a full tea every day you’d soon be like Winnie-the-Pooh after he guzzled all the honey and was too fat to get out of his hole again.’

‘I might manage a small bag of sandwiches and savouries every afternoon, if you came over to pick them up,’ I suggested. ‘You did say you weren’t a big fan of sweet things.’

‘Oh, I like some sweet things,’ he said, giving me that sudden and knee-quivering smile, so that I was quite glad I was sitting down. ‘But in moderation. It’s a deal – we’ll arrange full terms later and sign it in icing sugar.’

When we got back, we found the rest of the family gathered in the kitchen, helping or hindering Sheila’s preparations for the usual lavish Sunday lunch.

Casper was in his highchair, splashing a plastic spoon about in a bowl of something gloopy, while Honey sat in his usual position underneath, looking hopefully up.

‘Here’s the prospective bridegroom,’ Teddy said with a grin at Nile as we walked into the kitchen. ‘Do you want me to be best man, bro?’

Nile seemed totally taken aback. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Don’t tease, Teddy,’ chided Sheila, turning round from the stove. ‘Zelda rang while you were out, Nile, and she told me you were going to get married, which was a bit of a surprise, after all these years of thinking you were only friends.’

My heart did that weird thing again, where it seemed to stop dead and then restart with a thump, and I turned to look at Nile.

‘It’s a surprise to me, too,’ he said drily. ‘She was only joking.’

‘She didn’t sound as if she was joking,’ Sheila replied doubtfully. ‘When I said it was a bit sudden, she told me you’d made a pact long ago that if you hadn’t married someone else by the time you were forty, then you’d marry each other.’

‘Except you’ve only just turned thirty-eight, Nile – I don’t call that near forty,’ Teddy said.

‘Gee, thanks,’ said Nile.

‘But Zelda is forty,’ Bel pointed out helpfully. ‘And she hasn’t been in a relationship for ages, has she? Perhaps that’s what made her remember it.’

‘I do vaguely recall saying something like that when we were students, but only because she reminded me about it recently,’ Nile said. ‘I mean, we weren’t serious then, or now.’

‘Well, you weren’t serious, but maybe she was?’ Bel suggested.

He frowned. ‘I don’t think so, it was just one of those daft things you say. But you know what Zelda’s like – always tossing squibs into the conversation to see what reaction she gets.’

‘I suppose that’s it,’ Sheila said, looking strangely relieved seeing that she and the rest of the family seemed to like Zelda. ‘I did think it was odd, after all this time.’

‘Friends are all we’ve been for years, and that’s the way it’s staying,’ he said firmly. ‘She knows that; she was just winding you up.’

I wondered if she really did know it. I mean, perhaps she’d suddenly realized Mr Right had been under her nose all the time.

Teddy looked as if he was going to tease Nile again, but Bel gave her twin a quelling look and changed the subject quickly.

‘You’ll never guess who we met up on the hill near the Oldstone, yesterday morning – I completely forgot to tell you.’

‘No, we won’t guess, so you might as well say,’ Geeta told her from her seat next to the highchair, wiping a speckling of food from her face. Casper made another expansive arm movement with a loaded spoon and Honey leaped up with surprising agility for his age and caught the flying blob mid-air.

There could be a good market for flying kitchen waste disposal units, if someone invented them.

Bel was fishing out a shape sorting game in bright colours from the carrier bag she’d brought in with her and handed it across the table. ‘I just remembered I got this from the car boot sale.’

‘Oh, is that for Casper?’ Geeta said.

‘Yes, and it’s like new, but I know what you’re like for germs, so I expect you’ll want to disinfect it before he goes anywhere near it.’

‘You can’t be too careful,’ Geeta said seriously. ‘Remember that nasty bug he caught earlier in the year? I thought it was meningitis,’ she explained to me, her beautiful brown eyes full of the remembered horror of that moment. ‘I was beside myself.’

‘I’m not surprised!’ I said.

‘Well, oddly enough, it was the doctor who came out to Casper that night that we met up by the Oldstone yesterday morning,’ Bel revealed.

‘What, Dr Collins?’ said Sheila. ‘What was she doing up there?’

‘Walking a small white dog. And she wasn’t that pleased to run into us, because she said she’d gone there for a bit of peace and solitude.’

‘That was rude of her,’ said Geeta. ‘But Rilla, the receptionist at the surgery, goes to my yoga class and she told me that Dr Collins moved back here to look after her father when he became very frail, so she must have a kind heart, really.’

‘Well, I was told that she moved back because she’d heard her father was getting too fond of his live-in carer and was afraid she’d lose her inheritance,’ Bel countered. ‘The cleaner told me.’

‘That’s probably all just gossip,’ said Teddy mildly, but was ignored.

‘Dr Collins can’t be that young, so her father must be getting on a bit,’ Bel suggested.

‘She’s only in her mid-fifties, like me,’ Sheila said slightly indignantly. ‘She could be very attractive, too, she just doesn’t make the best of herself. And I think she’s his stepdaughter – his late wife’s child by her first marriage.’

‘How do you know all that?’ asked Bel.

‘Your dad told me after we bumped into her at the garage in Upvale years ago. They’d met as teenagers at a local tennis club one summer when he was staying with his grandparents and though he couldn’t have changed that much, she just brushed past us without a word as if she didn’t recognize him and went out.’

‘He did spend a lot of his school holidays here at Oldstone with his grandparents, didn’t he?’ Nile said. ‘That’s why he was so attached to the place.’

‘And his university holidays too, until he dropped out and went to work for those family friends in Germany who had the swimming pond business,’ Sheila agreed.

‘So – was she an old flame?’ asked Bel.

‘I think they’d had a bit of a teenage summer fling, from what Paul said. I saw her at the surgery once, soon after she joined the local practice, and said I believed she’d known Paul when they were younger, but she was very brusque.’

‘What did she say?’ asked Bel, interested.

‘She said, “I barely knew him, except as a decent tennis player. The locals played like rabbits.” ’

‘I think if I saw her coming towards me holding a racquet, I’d run like a rabbit, too,’ Geeta said.

‘Or with a loaded syringe,’ I agreed, resolving that if I registered with that practice, I’d make sure my appointments were with one of her colleagues.