Page 73 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
‘Princess?’ Beauty scowled: she had competition?
A skinny woman with short, spiky pink hair, a cropped top that showed a washboard stomach and a navel-piercing set with a gold ring, stepped through a gap in the hedge – and at the same time, with a kind of popping noise, a tall, handsome, princely figure walked out of thin air and came face to face with her.
They stared deep into each other’s eyes, and then the prince stepped forward and kissed her.
In fairy tales, especially mine, things were never quite as they seemed …
I could have done with a bit more sleep, becauseI set off with Bel and Nile before eight to a car boot sale on the outskirts of Keighley, the last local big one of the year.
Nile had insisted on the early start: he said you got all the bargains at the beginning of the day. I’d have thought car boot sales were beneath his notice, but no, he absolutely loved it, swooping down like a magpie on small sparkling objects and making several finds. He had a way of methodically but rapidly turning over the stuff on every stall and in every box and moving on, while Bel and I were more leisurely.
We quickly parted company with him, but met up later at the refreshment van, where a few plastic picnic tables and chairs had been set out for customers, where we compared our purchases.
I’d bought a battered but still lovely blue and white Minton teapot to display in the café – I wanted some variety, because you can have too much willow pattern.
‘It reminds me of that beautiful jug you’ve got at the back of your window,’ I said to Nile.
‘Do you mean the Spode?’ He looked at me as if I was mad. ‘It’s nothing like it!’
‘It might not be to an antique dealer, but the pattern’s the exact same shade of blue,’ I said firmly.
‘Show him what else you got,’ Bel said quickly, scenting an argument brewing, so I opened the wooden box containing six mother-of-pearl-handled cake forks.
‘I got them for a fiver, but they’re for the flat,’ I said. ‘I don’t want any cutlery in the teashop that I can’t put through the big dishwasher.’
Bel had bought a strange and slab-like pot as a present for her mum. ‘I can’t find a mark on it, but it looks like Troika,’ she said, passing it over the wobbly plastic table to Nile.
‘Is that good?’ I asked. I thought it looked more like the product of an evening class, but what do I know?
‘I think you’re right,’ Nile told her, and then explained to me, ‘Troika pottery is very collectable and you don’t find much of it cheap any more. Sheila loves it and I buy it at auctions for her, if it doesn’t go too high.’
Nile himself had purchased an old breadboard with a cute mouse carved on it, which he said was a genuine Mouseman, so it was my day for learning about obscure collectable stuff. His pockets were full of all kinds of other things too, including a domed greenish glass paperweight in which bubbles seemed to be rising in a cloud … which reminded me of something I’d been meaning to ask him.
‘Is that small millefiori paperweight in your window as hideously expensive as I suspect it is, Nile? Only Lola spotted it and absolutely loved it, so I thought if I could afford it I’d buy it her for Christmas.’
‘It is, but I’m sure we could work out some kind of discount – for services to be rendered,’ he said, eyeing me speculatively, much as the three young women at the next table were regarding his handsome, austere profile and the tumbled blue-black hair.
‘What kind of services?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘Free afternoon tea delivered to my door every day?’
‘In your dreams, buster!’ I said.
‘You must be joking, Nile,’ Bel said, grinning. ‘If you ate a full tea every day you’d soon be like Winnie-the-Pooh after he guzzled all the honey and was too fat to get out of his hole again.’
‘I might manage a small bag of sandwiches and savouries every afternoon, if you came over to pick them up,’ I suggested. ‘You did say you weren’t a big fan of sweet things.’
‘Oh, I likesomesweet things,’ he said, giving me that sudden andknee-quivering smile, so that I was quite glad I was sitting down. ‘But in moderation. It’s a deal – we’ll arrange full terms later and sign it in icing sugar.’
When we got back, we found the rest of the family gathered in the kitchen, helping or hindering Sheila’s preparations for the usual lavish Sunday lunch.
Casper was in his highchair, splashing a plastic spoon about in a bowl of something gloopy, while Honey sat in his usual position underneath, looking hopefully up.
‘Here’s the prospective bridegroom,’ Teddy said with a grin at Nile as we walked into the kitchen. ‘Do you want me to be best man, bro?’
Nile seemed totally taken aback. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Don’t tease, Teddy,’ chided Sheila, turning round from the stove. ‘Zelda rang while you were out, Nile, and she told me you were going to get married, which was a bit of a surprise, after all these years of thinking you were only friends.’
