Page 103 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
Bel and I exchanged glances. Whatcouldshe be asking him now?
Nile came back looking like a thundercloud and poured himself a cup of coffee in silence.
‘She’s actually called the banns this time?’ Teddy teased.
Nile gave him a look, said he had some more calls to make and emails to send, and then took his coffee off back to the library with him, this time closing the door with a decisive click.
Our sunny, happy afternoon might never have happened … and it was just as well I didn’t want to work in the library that night!
‘Oh dear,’ said Sheila. ‘I could have told her that the more you try to pressurize Nile into doing something, the harder he resists. But then, perhaps it’s just as well I didn’t, Alice, isn’t it?’
She gave me one of her most sunny, innocent smiles.
Nile still seemed to be seething in a gently volcanic kind of way at breakfast, but he insisted on coming to Oxenhope with Bel and me, so we transferred all the willow-pattern plates to his boot and let him drive.
I didn’t need him to do any haggling, because Thom Carey, the upcycling man, was offering me very reasonable terms for my bulk order – though of course I was providing the plates, he was just turning them into stands.
I think he saw making them as his bread and butter for years to come, customers tending to be clumsy with the crockery. Though on the other hand, even the most light-fingered of them would have trouble getting a tiered cake stand into a handbag.
When we’d finalized the deal he made us tea and then invited us to see his work in progress in the shed at the bottom of the garden. It turned out that the upcycling of small items like the cake stands was just to keep the wolf from the door and his real interest was in building one-off unique pieces of furniture from reclaimed wood. There was a half-completed tree-shaped wall shelf unit I coveted, the branches supporting bookshelves, but I took a firm grip on myself, because luxuries would have to wait until later.
He was a pleasant, unassuming man with a thick head of dark brown hair and eyes to match and I was starting to suspect that Bel was interested in more than his plates …
‘What a nice man Thom is,’ I said as we drove back. I was sitting next to Nile in front and he slid me one of his more unfathomable sideways looks.
‘Yes, isn’t he?’ said Bel innocently, ‘and a very talented woodworker too. It’s a pity he can’t make his living from the bigger pieces.’
‘Not a pity for me, or I wouldn’t get my cake stands,’ I pointed out.
‘I don’t mind going there to fetch the first lot for you, when he’s made them,’ she offered. ‘I’d like to see that tree bookshelf when it’s finished – it was so realistic, as if it was growing up the wall.’
I glanced across at Nile and we exchanged smiles: I didn’t think Bel’s avowed intention not to get involved with another man was going to hold up for very much longer.
Quite suddenly Father’s mobility seems to be dwindling at a faster rate, so that I have had to arrange for extra carers and have ordered special equipment to help them move him more easily and see to his personal care. He was never an even-tempered man, or one who suffered fools gladly, and they have learned to do what they are employed for without undue familiarity.
Father likes to hear the details of my patients and offer irrelevant and out-of-date advice – he was never in general practice and though he might still be sharp as a tack on the subject of ophthalmic surgery he has not kept up with other medical advances.
Other than this, he has the TV and his computer for entertainment, and Hugo also spends a lot of time with him. For a man who once had no use for pets, he dotes on the creature just as much as he did on his predecessor, Drogo, which I find rather strange, though I presume it is simply a sign of the slow eroding of his faculties.
36
Well Fruited
When I got back to my flat after lunch, I dashed straight out again into the village and bought a Brontë jigsaw for Edie (her secret passion – she always had a large and complicated one on the go), and a box of clotted cream fudge. Then I carried them across to Small and Perfect, which was, for once, open.
A customer was examining a selection of antique paper knives of the kind you imagine sticking out of a victim’s back in old murder mysteries.
Nile looked up and raised a dark eyebrow at me.
‘This box is for Edie – I’ll just pop it in the back room for you,’ I said quickly, and when I had, I left, because I didn’t want to hang around and possibly scotch his sale … and that wasn’t intended to be a pun, though I repeated it to Edie when I rang her later to say that Nile would be dropping in some time soon.
‘Very droll – and I’ll look forward to meeting yourfriend,’ she added, with strange emphasis, before ringing off to attend to some hotel- keeping crisis that was going on in the background.
Friend? Was that what Nile was? I really didn’t know any more.
I thought Nile might come over later, but he didn’t – and I know he went to bed early, as he’d said he would, because as usual I had my living-room curtains open while I was working and I saw his light go out.
Despite working late, I was still up and at it again early next morning – and just in time to see Nile locking the door of Small and Perfect and then heading for his car, though he didn’t look up.
