Page 106 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
‘Great idea, if you think she’d like a job.’
‘They all want a bit of money, don’t they? And she’ll finish early enough so she can still go out gallivanting. I’ll get her to pop in and talk to you. She’s not chatty, mind – wears a lot of black and says she’s an emu.’
‘Emo?’ I asked after a minute. ‘Like a Goth, but gloomier?’
‘Sounds about right,’ she agreed.
I went to thank Nile for the Edinburgh rock, but he was out again so instead I texted him and he rang me back from his mobile to ask if I’d like to go to the pub later.
‘It’s Friday,’ I pointed out.
‘That’s OK, they open on Fridays.’
‘I thought you were a creature of habit, so we only went on Tuesdays.’
‘I’m infinitely adaptable – I can learn new ones. What about it?’
‘I really can’t,’ I said, torn between wanting to go and a compulsion to keep working. ‘I’ve only got one last chapter of the first draft to write, though I think it’s going to take me till late.’ And even then, it would only be roughly blocked out, like all of the last few chapters, because the words never seemed to take wing towards the end until I was rewriting the whole novel.
‘You’ve still got to eat.’
‘I’m going to make a plate of sandwiches to keep me going. This could be a marathon session.’
‘I was going to show you my sporran,’ he said enticingly.
‘Which sporran?’ I asked.
‘A lovely old one that was at the bottom of a box of oddments I bid on in an auction. I know someone who’d buy it like a shot, but it’s quite handy to put my loose change in.’
‘I hope you’re joking,’ I said severely. ‘And now, though I’m terribly tempted by the idea of escaping for a bit, my Fear of Agent means I’ll have to resist.’
‘OK, see you in the morning then, with the rest of the clan,’ he said.
‘You’re coming over in the morning?’
‘Of course! Sheila told me you’d invited the whole family to see the finished tea emporium and I’m looking forward to it.’
‘But you know it’s not totally finished. This is simply a kind of trial run and then I’ll have just over two weeks to iron out any kinks before we open on 4 November – and anyway, you see it all the time!’
‘Then I’ll see it again with fresh eyes – and perhaps you should open on Bonfire Night, instead, so it all goes with a bang?’
‘Ho, ho,’ I said. ‘I don’t want there to be any fireworks, just a quiet, civilized opening welcome and then straight into the teas.’
‘It sounds a riot of gentility,’ he said drily, then added, ‘I like your friend Edie and she gave me lots of good advice.’
‘What about?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘Oh – all kinds of things,’ he said vaguely, and then rang off.
The bright, friendly rectangle of Nile’s window glowed warmly that evening as I worked on, laying down the bones of that last chapter and, when I’d finally finished and noticed the empty box of Edinburgh rock at my elbow, I felt quite sick, but in agoodway.
The lasting powers of attorney were signed in the nick of time, for Father’s mental faculties have definitely begun to fail, too. His memory in particular is not what it was, so that he continually repeats information he’s already given me – a trait that in other people used to infuriate him.
Yesterday, I caught him engaged in a one-sided conversation with Hugo. In my opinion, this is not the action of a rational mind.
It is sad to see the decline of so sharp an intellect.
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