43
Fat rascals
I’d dreamed of this moment for so long that when it finally came, I had to keep pinching myself to make sure I was awake.
The first service was in full swing and I peeped through the kitchen door into the tearoom. Every single table was occupied, and a constant buzz of conversation filled the air like the sound of a happy hive. Nell and Tilda, in their all-enveloping white frilled aprons, bustled busily about.
There had been a round of applause when I’d opened the door to welcome everyone to the opening of The Fat Rascal, and the reporter had insisted on taking my photograph, flanked by Nell and Tilda, before I beat a hasty retreat to the back premises.
Luckily he now appeared too busy stuffing his face with sandwiches and cake to think about taking any more. George Godet was sitting opposite him and, with his beaky nose and grey-streaked black hair sticking up in an angry crest, looked like a slightly demonic cockatoo. He’d shaved and spruced himself up for the occasion, though, in a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and a finely checked shirt.
‘It’s going well, isn’t it?’ I whispered to Tilda as she paused briefly next to me, holding a fully loaded tea-tray. ‘I think I’d better do a little circuit round the tables and talk to some of the customers.’
‘It’s like Blackpool on a bank holiday in here!’ Tilda said, which from her expression I took to be a good thing, then with a nod at George’s table added, ‘Them two seem to be having some kind of eating competition. Eh, you’d think it was an all-you-can-eat buffet!’
‘I suppose it is, in a way,’ I said. ‘An all-you-can-eat tea.’
‘Tables three, six and nine are the competition,’ she hissed, though they were well out of earshot. ‘Come to see how much threat you are to their business.’
‘The competition? You mean from other local cafés?’
‘That’s right, and the expressions on their faces could curdle milk,’ she said with satisfaction, then headed off back into the fray, while I worked my way round the room, having a brief word with everyone.
Most were friends: the Giddingses, of course, were seated in the bow window, though Nile had been in and out of the kitchen helping me, and Bel was with Thom at one of the smaller tables down the side of the room. Ross had brought his mum and they were sharing a round table with Jack and his wife, Viviane.
When I got to Henry and Eleri, she said the Bump had made her ravenous and she was eating for six.
‘Why not?’ I encouraged her, thinking how glowingly pretty pregnancy had made her. ‘I’m glad you’re enjoying your tea. Just ask Nell or Tilda if you’d like some more of anything.’
‘Those scones weren’t too bad, but—’ began Henry critically, and then I think Eleri must have kicked him under the table because he suddenly shut up and glowered at her. She didn’t look noticeably impressed by this, so I expect it’s simply his default expression.
‘It’s all delicious,’ she assured me.
‘That’s right, flower, and you need to keep your strength up, when you’re expecting,’ chimed in Tilda, neatly decanting lemon and orange curd tartlets on to the depleted top tier of the cake stand. ‘Don’t let yon great streak of nowt snaffle all the tarts, this time.’
Henry seemed pleased with this rudeness and grinned at her. ‘Couldn’t I entice you into coming to work for me, instead? Seeing such a vision of loveliness and hearing your dulcet voice every day would be worth paying good money for.’
‘Give over, you daft bugger,’ she said amiably, and I left them to their verbal sparring and moved on to greet Emily Rhymer and her husband. I was sure she’d said he was a vicar, but if so, he wasn’t in the traditional style, since he had long grey hair tied back in a ponytail and wore gold crosses in his ears. They’d both arrived in black motorbike leathers, though after a while they’d hung their jackets over the backs of their chairs, probably because it had got hot in the teashop.
I promised to give Em my fat rascal recipe and was about to stop by George’s table when I heard Nell tell him roundly, ‘If you ask me for any more of them cheese scones, greedy guts, you’ll be the fat rascal and we’ll be able to hire you for a mascot!’
‘If I’d wanted to be insulted by a skinny old bat, I could have stayed at home,’ he rejoined dourly.
‘Think thisen lucky any decent body talks to thee, tha miserable little snirp,’ she told him. Going by his dropped jaw and mottling red face, I think he must have missed the advertising about the rudest waitresses in Yorkshire, so I beat a strategic retreat to the kitchen.
I have to admit that I’d wondered if perhaps my natural mother might have booked a table today, so that she could see me without making herself known, but none of the women present struck me as an obvious candidate.
But then, maybe we humans don’t possess an innate ability to tell our parents from the rest of the herd?
I had to bake more cheese scones for the second sitting, mainly due to George taking such a liking to them, and while I was mixing the dough Sheila came in with Nile to say goodbye.
‘Congratulations, darling. It’s a huge success!’ she said, kissing me.
‘Yes, and I apologize for ever doubting it would be,’ Nile agreed.
‘It will be a success if business carries on being so brisk – but will it last?’ I said anxiously. ‘How many of them only came today out of curiosity?’
‘Some of them may have come out of curiosity, but they’ll return for the food,’ Sheila assured me.
After she’d gone, Nile stayed for a while longer, plying me with coffee and stacking the dishwasher whenever Nell or Tilda cleared a table. Then he had a call and had to go over to his shop.
‘One of my clients is coming to collect a Clarice Cliff milk jug – an unusual design and the last piece she needs to complete a whole tea service,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long.’
He wasn’t, either, for he returned just as the scones were cooling on the rack.
‘What perfect timing,’ he said, taking one and looking for butter. ‘You bake like an angel.’
‘Do angels bake?’ I asked.
‘Pre-Raphaelite angels do.’
‘Put that scone down, tha’ great lummock, and fill some of them little pots with jam,’ ordered Nell, who had reversed through the swinging door carrying a full tray of dirty dishes with the ease of long practice. She looked amazingly perky, considering she was no spring chicken and had been trotting to and fro ever since we opened.
‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘Cream, too?’
‘Yes, a dozen of both, before the next lot come in – I’m putting the reserved signs back on t’ tables as fast as this lot go, though some of them are hanging about so long you’d think their bottoms had been glued to t’ chairs.’
She went out again.
‘Was it my imagination, or was Nell jingling?’ I asked.
‘Her pockets are weighed down with tips. I noticed the same with Tilda,’ he said. ‘The ruder they are, the more money people seem to give them. That was a promotional brainwave!’
The second sitting mainly consisted of strangers, though I did recognize one or two, like the receptionist from my doctor’s surgery, who was one of Geeta’s friends, and Geeta and Teddy’s nanny, Jan, but it seemed to go with as much of a swing as the first sitting.
When the bell had finally jangled behind the very last departing happy customers, clutching card carriers filled with leftover cake and little pots of Lola’s preserves, the tearoom suddenly looked strangely empty.
Tilda was in the little office, cashing up, while I was stashing left-over cheese straws into a tin.
‘Only one person wanted a totally savoury afternoon tea, so I overestimated the number of savouries I’d need,’ I said to Nile.
‘I’ll eat anything that won’t keep,’ he offered helpfully.
‘I seem to remember promising you a takeaway of savouries for ever, in return for Lola’s paperweight,’ I reminded him. ‘And you’ve been so brilliant today, helping out whenever we needed it, that you deserve it!’
‘Just feed me the leftovers and I’ll be happy,’ he said.
‘Here’s our Daisy, come to help clear the last tables and then give Tilda a hand with the cleaning up,’ Nell said, sticking her head through the hatch, like a puppet in a Punch and Judy show.
At last the teashop was clean, tidy and quiet, except for the chugging of the dishwasher, and Nile and I were alone.
I felt tired but also still somewhat wired from the adrenalin rush, so when he suggested we go over to his place so he could cook me his supper speciality, I agreed.
His signature dish turned out to be Welsh Rarebit, and delicious it was, too. But right after that I suddenly went so spaced-out with sleepiness that even a cup of his very good coffee couldn’t keep my eyes from closing, so he walked me back over to my door, kissed me quickly and then pushed me through it. Maybe he thought if he kissed me fast enough, I wouldn’t notice. It’s a theory, anyway …
I noted on the way through the teashop that there were twelve messages on the answer phone, but the only one I answered that night was a brief text on my mobile from Edie.
Count your cutlery, it said.
But of course Tilda, who was even less trusting than Edie, already had.