Page 20 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
‘I was born not far away,’ I said vaguely. ‘We lived in Knaresborough for a few years and then moved to a village near Shrewsbury.’
‘That would account for it, then,’ she said, though she didn’t define what ‘it’ was. Maybe the lack of accent. I’d noticed hers was considerably less broad while talking to me than in the YouTube clips – perhaps she and her aunt put it on, along with those strange mobcaps and stripy dresses?
‘In those old photos, the café and flat looked really nice, just in need of a bit of updating.’
I fetched the printouts to show her and she studied them with interest.
‘That’s the Copper Kettle, all right! Nell was the waitress for the Misses Spencer, but I had a decent job at Betty’s of Harrogate at the time – I was easier-going then, though some customers would turn the best nature sour over the years, with their complaints.’
‘The Misses Spencer’s café would be quite some time ago?’ I ventured.
‘Years. Then it became more of a coffee bar and they called it The Butty Box. Mrs Muswell gave it a posher name when she bought it and took me on as well as Nell, but it still wasn’t much better than a sandwich bar.’
‘I read the menu, such as it was. There didn’t seem to be a lot of cooking involved.’
‘There wasn’t, it was all microwaved. And she insisted on doing everything on the cheap, even buying tubs of ready-made fillings for the sandwiches. I told her it was a false economy, because I could have made much nicer ones myself for very little more money, but she wouldn’t listen. She bulk-bought economy burgers, too. I reckon they make them from the bits of meat they scrape off the factory floor.’
She gloomed into her tea, which was the colour of overdone fake suntan.
‘You can’t have got a lot of passing trade, tucked away down here?’
‘No, and it wasn’t like anyone who found us would tell other people about our great food, was it? Though, of course, Haworth’s standing room only with tourists in season and people have to eat somewhere.’
‘How would they even find the Branwell Café – did you advertise?’ I asked.
‘There used to be a sign fixed on the side of the shop by the entrance to the main street, but it dropped off at the end of last season and hasn’t been put back. She probably stopped paying them to let her have it there, thinking on it. The antiques shop opposite puts a board out when he’s open, but he doesn’t keep regular hours. He’s away a lot.’
‘It’s a funny way to make a living … if he does?’
‘I asked him once and he said he finds things for special clients, so he doesn’t rely on selling to the public.’
‘Oh, right.’ I wasn’t that much interested, to be honest, I was more concerned with what I was going to do with the Branwell Café. And now, especially after talking to Tilda, all the vague ideas that had been swirling through my head since last night suddenly coalesced into a cloud of enlightenment – or maybe unfounded optimism.
‘So, whatareyou going to do with the place?’ she asked, as if she’d read my mind.
‘I have a plan to breathe new life into it – but I’ll need you and Nell as permanent staff to do it.’
I didn’t know how I’d pay their wages at first, but they were bothvital.
‘Seasonal?’
‘No, I’ll open all the year round, except perhaps for a couple of weeks after Christmas.’
A smile tweaked the ends of those straight, grim lips. ‘That’ll be champion,’ she said, then qualified cautiously, ‘or it will be, provided you’re not as daft as you look.’
‘I’m not,’ I assured her, and then, clearly feeling that some kind of celebration was in order, she fetched a packet of gingernut biscuits from her basket and piled six up beside my mug like oversized gaming counters.
I certainly had a lot at stake.
In the unlikely event of the bundle up on the moors being discovered, I wondered whether the person I’d passed in the lane on the way back had been able to recognize the distinctive shape of a Mini and might put two and two together.
With this in mind, I decided to stop at the petrol pump in the heart of the village to fill up the car so that, if asked, people would recall that I’d behaved perfectly normally that day. Or normally for me, at any rate, since I don’t see any point in making observations about the weather to someone who can see it perfectly well for themselves.
11
Small and Perfect
‘So,’ Tilda said, removing the lid of the teapot and giving the remaining contents a good stir with her teaspoon, before refilling our mugs with treacly liquid, ‘what’s this plan for the café, then?’
