31
Distant Echoes
Robbie, having heard about Dan’s death from mutual friends, actually rang me, all the way from Australia! This wasn’t something he was prone to do. In fact, I didn’t think I’d heard his voice since he emigrated, but he sounded just the same.
‘Where did you get this landline number from?’ I asked, astonished, once he’d trotted out his ‘Sorry for your loss, mate’ condolences, like a pale imitation Crocodile Dundee. I’m pretty sure the ‘mate’ was unintentional, it just slipped out.
‘Edie gave it to me and told me where you were. She always had a soft spot for me,’ he said smugly.
‘She did until you vanished to Australia. After that, whenever your name came up, she said you were a great daftie.’
‘It’s probably a Scottish term of endearment and I think she’s forgiven me. Anyway, I’ll be coming over soon and I wanted to see you.’
‘Why? You didn’t bother last time, or the one before.’
‘No, but that was because you were at the other end of the country, shacked up with Dan Carmichael.’
‘I wasn’t shacked up with him, we were engaged,’ I said coldly, though actually, since Dan was still married at the time, I wasn’t sure that was technically possible.
‘My mother was asking after you the other day,’ he said, changing the subject.
‘Your mother?’ I repeated incredulously, because the only time he’d taken me to visit his parents, she hadn’t exactly made me welcome. ‘Why? I mean, she didn’t like me and thought I wasn’t good enough for you.’
‘You’re quite wrong,’ he said earnestly. ‘She said you were a nice girl who kept me grounded.’
Even a sheet anchor wouldn’t keep Robbie grounded when he felt the urge to jump off a cliff, holding a bit of canvas canopy, or catch the next monster wave.
‘Remember that time you took me to visit them, Robbie? The moment you and your dad sloped off to the pub before lunch, she said they’d always hoped you’d marry someone with a profession, not a waitress. When I told her I wasn’t a waitress and she needn’t get her knickers in a twist, because we weren’t engaged or even living together, she was delirious with happiness.’
‘I think you must have misunderstood her, because she’s never said a word against you,’ he assured me. ‘In fact, that time a couple of years ago when she and Dad came over to visit me just as things were getting serious with Lucy, they asked me why I couldn’t come back home and settle down with a nice girl like you.’
‘Was Lucy the one who got arrested for mooning at people on the beach?’ I asked, interested.
‘Yes, but she was drunk. It’s the sort of thing anyone might do.’
‘I’ve managed to resist the urge so far,’ I said, but he wasn’t listening: he never had. It had been one of his many drawbacks as a boyfriend.
‘So when Mum mentioned you the other day,’ he carried on, as if I’d never spoken, ‘I told her you’d lost your fiancé and bought a café in Haworth and she said she’d love to see you again and I should take you down for the weekend.’
‘That’s very kind of her,’ I said, even though I’d rather gnaw my arm off than spend a weekend in Wimbledon with the Frays. ‘But I’m afraid I’m way too busy to go anywhere, because my teashop opens at the start of November.’
‘I’ll have to come up to see you there, then. I’m thinking of moving back to the UK and it would be nice to talk it over.’
‘Are you seriously thinking of it?’ I asked, surprised. ‘I thought you were set to be an eternal beach bum?’
‘I’m more into microlight aircraft and white-water rafting these days,’ he said. ‘My best mate had a chunk taken out of his leg by a Great White last year and it’s put me off a bit.’
‘That isn’t something that generally happens to surfers in Cornwall, that’s for sure.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Another reason to come back. Anyway, I thought I’d put my stuff into storage and come over for three months, while I made my mind up.’
‘What about your job?’
‘I gave up the dentistry and became a beach lifeguard ages ago – didn’t you know?’ he said, as if I could divine every aspect of his life through his Facebook posts. ‘But I can always take it up again. There’s a shortage of NHS dentists in the UK.’
I pitied any patients if he did, because he wasn’t that brilliant a dentist in the first place, so he’d probably be even worse after a long break.
‘You’d like to see me, wouldn’t you, Alice?’ he coaxed.
‘I suppose it would be good to catch up with you,’ I agreed, remembering that I had been quite fond of the large, friendly and almost entirely harmless lump. ‘Give me a ring when you’ve landed and we’ll try and arrange something, though I really am busy just now. I need to finish my next book before the tearoom opens, too.’
‘Book?’ He sounded baffled, which reinforced what I’d always thought: he never noticed a thing I was doing, or listened to a word I said.
‘I’ll explain when I see you,’ I said patiently and put the phone down, thinking that I certainly didn’t need anything else to distract me from my work. And that was even truer when I checked my emails, because there was one from Senga reminding me that the new novel had to be delivered by 24 October, which was now less than three weeks away! I’d been convinced it was November, but when I checked my contract, she was quite right.
I had an ‘Oh my God!’ moment and then, since it was a rare, workman-free day, spent all of it writing like fury and carried on well into the night.
Even when Nile texted to say did I want to go over to his place for supper (a first) I just said no, I was too busy writing, and he went quiet.
Later, something made me glance up from my desk and there was Nile in the window opposite, drawing his curtains. He stopped and looked straight across at me, gravely.
I waved, but then slid off back into my fictional world, though feeling just a little emotionally ruffled. I had no idea why.
Still, there’s nothing like a good bloodletting to make you feel better, is there?
Beauty soon saw that if they were to survive, she must take charge of the situation herself, so when the magic stick refused to launch any more bolts from the blue upon the advancing throng of nymphs, she grabbed Kev’s scimitar and laid about her with a vengeance.
The magic words ‘Made in Sheffield’ flashed in the sun and soon her enemies were in retreat.
Bits of dryad and pools of blood lay on the smooth turf, though since the blood was grass green, it blended in quite nicely … and even as Kev and Shaz stood there gazing at the scene in deep shock, moonflowers began to unfurl wherever a drop had spattered.
Edie called next day to warn me she’d given Robbie my phone number and new address and was amazed to be told he’d already called.
‘You didn’t mind, did you?’ she asked. ‘Only he said he hoped to see you when he came over and he’d only just heard about Dan and was very sorry.’
‘He’s emailed me from time to time, but I hadn’t mentioned Dan. And I don’t really mind if he wants to see me – he’s harmless. Self-absorbed, but harmless.’
‘I suppose you’ve been too busy to get any further with trying to trace your birth mother?’ she asked.
‘Yes, what with the teashop and trying to finish my new novel, but I really should get on with talking to the two people who found me on the moors, though I’m sure it will be a dead end. The only way I’m going to find her is if I put something in the local paper and she comes forward.’
‘I expect you’re right, but you’ll be the better for talking to them and hearing first-hand about it.’
‘Actually, I know now where one of them lives – the farmer, Joe Godet – so I thought I might go over there on Thursday morning and see if he’ll talk to me. I’m going to be too busy tomorrow.’
‘I don’t see why he shouldn’t talk to you. Let me know how you get on.’
‘OK, I’ll email you all the details. And Sheila Giddings thinks the other witness, Emily Rhymer, might still live in Upvale, so I’ve no excuse for not getting on with it, really.’
‘No, you might as well tie up the loose ends,’ Edie agreed.
I’d been relying on Edie’s experiences in the hotel trade to help me set up the teashop, so now I told her I’d followed her latest advice and bought simple, plain, inexpensive but classic cutlery, since she’d assured me it had a tendency to vanish into pockets and handbags.
‘I’ve never understood why customers think it isn’t theft to take the cutlery home with them,’ I said.
‘I’ve no idea either, but in my experience, people staying in hotels often leave with the soap, towels and toilet rolls, too,’ she said.
I told her about the cartons of linen-look tablecloths and napkins that had arrived that morning all the way from China. ‘They seemed to arrive faster than things I’ve ordered from this country! And I’ve found a local laundry already, so I can tick that off my list.’
‘I can see it’s all starting to take shape,’ she said approvingly.
‘Yes, and I’m starting on the fine details now – the fun bit.’
In fact, the only thing I hadn’t managed to source were willow-pattern tiered cake stands, as I said to Nile later when he turned up and positively marched me to the pub, where he insisted I eat a square meal and think about something other than my novel for five minutes.
‘Though I suppose the tearoom is another topic,’ he said. ‘But I can’t say that the struggle to find the right cake stand is one that moves me deeply.’
‘You’re right, it’s not that important, because I could always have plain white ones instead,’ I agreed, and then fully absorbed what he’d just said and looked at him with a wry smile. ‘Have I become a writing and tearoom bore?’
‘Not entirely, now I’ve read your book and started to get the hang of what’s going on in that twisty little mind of yours,’ he said. ‘You’re a bit like a graceful swan swimming serenely along, while underneath the water, the legs are frantically paddling.’
I looked at him doubtfully. I liked the swan bit, but I wasn’t too sure about the rest.
‘Well, you’re a complete enigma to me,’ I told him frankly. ‘I know you love antiques and enjoy hunting them down for clients.’
‘Yes, the thrill of the chase.’
‘But what do you do for fun, Nile?’
‘Coerce stunning redheads to go to the pub with me, then go home alone and read gory, warped fairy stories,’ he said.
When we got back I declined his offer of coffee and worked even later that night to make up for going out, and also because I wanted to take a couple of hours off the following morning to finalize my teashop menu.
Most of the recipes I intended to use were old favourites, but there were one or two new ones I needed to try out first.
So next day, while Jack and Ross were laying the vinyl flooring in the kitchen, their last big job, I was baking up a miniature storm in my flat kitchen.
Then I called them up for a taste test, along with Nile, who appeared to have let himself in again.
‘I’ve been to get a sandwich and bought an extra one in case you were working and had forgotten to eat. But I think it was a bit redundant,’ he added, eyeing the table groaning under the weight of a morning’s baking, ‘so I’ll eat it myself: I need to build my strength up.’
He didn’t say for what.
‘A woman can’t live by cake alone,’ I told him. ‘I’d love the sandwich.’
Jack and Ross took the tasting session seriously and everything passed with flying colours. I divided what was left (not a huge amount, due to Ross’s having popped morsels into his mouth one after the other, in a kind of conveyer-belt action) between them to take home.
When they’d gone back to the floor-laying, Nile and I ate the sandwiches and a few of the savouries I’d kept back.
‘I’ve got the electrician coming to put up the chandelier and the new wall lights this afternoon,’ I told him. ‘But then it’s back to work on the book.’
‘I’m out for the rest of the day, probably home very late, and I bet you’re still working when I get back,’ he said.
He didn’t tell me where he was going and I didn’t like to ask. He did go out a lot, so perhaps he was seeing someone else, and that was why he was so against Zelda’s idea that they should get together? I supposed I was just someone to tease and flirt with when the fancy took him.
I’d fully intended telling him I was going in search of Joe Godet next morning, but he dashed off before I got the chance.
Still, it was something I needed to do alone anyway.
‘What’s happening to us, Shaz?’ asked Kev. ‘I thought I was having a weird dream at first but it doesn’t stop and … it feels sort of real.’
Then he looked admiringly at the golden-haired princess beside him, the scimitar still dripping green gloop on to the grass, and added, ‘Beauty, you’re a real kick-ass kind of girl!’
‘You’re Beauty?’ the prince asked, looking at her narrowly. He’d suspected it when she’d grabbed that strange sword and gone into action – which he was happy to let her do, because there was nothing like dryad blood for staining a velvet tunic – but she was a far cry from the slender sylph he’d hoped for.
‘Yes,’ replied Beauty. ‘And I expect you’re this Prince S’Hallow I was betrothed to in my cradle,’ she went on, eyeing his willowy frame and butter-yellow hair with disapproval. Somehow, she’d hoped for something a little more dark and rugged.
‘I was – but actually, I prefer Princess Shaz!’ he declared defiantly. ‘She’s the fairest of them all.’
‘You’re not too bad-looking yourself, even if you do talk a bit daft,’ Shazza said, letting him hold her hand.
‘Well, I prefer Prince Kev to you,’ Beauty told him.
‘You tell him,’ Kev said smugly, then added, ‘This place yours, Princess?’
‘Of course – it’s my bower.’
‘Right … and is that roof made of metal?’
‘Solid gold – what else?’ she said. ‘We can live here happily ever after.’
‘No, we can flog it and live somewhere else, instead,’ he said, and gave her plump waist a squeeze. ‘Better than winning the Lottery, you are.’
It was the early hours of the morning before I went to bed and I’d had the curtains in the living room open until then, waiting to see the warm, friendly square of light that meant Nile was home.
It never came.