Page 130 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
‘Yes, and I apologize for ever doubting it would be,’ Nile agreed.
‘Itwillbe 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 themmayhave 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.
I assumed that when Alice Rose heard nothing from her appeal, she would think her birth mother dead, or moved away from the district – or even that she had seen the article in the paper but did not wish to reveal herself. Perhaps then she would finally cease to rake the whole thing up.
