Page 107 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
Ancestral Traces
Despite my late night I was still up and baking in the teashop kitchen early the following morning – cheese and tomato tartlets, mini fat rascals and iced fairy cakes.
Then I set the large round table in the bay window with a crisp, snowy cloth and napkins, plates, glasses and cutlery – a kind of trial run. I unfolded one of the highchairs recommended by Geeta, too, ready for Casper.
It all looked lovely, if I said it myself, and by the time the family arrived, closely followed by Nile (not, I was pleased to observe, wearing an antique sporran), everything was ready apart from putting out the cake stands and making tea and coffee.
The soft turquoise and dusky pale raspberry-pink glass of the art deco chandelier and wall lights were reflected in the mirror behind the counter, so that what might have looked quite a long, narrow cave appeared to go on for ever.
Bel and Nile had, of course, seen the evolution of both flat and café, but trooped upstairs with everyone else – I thought we’d start at the top and work down – and at least Sheila admired my dried flower door wreath and then stood in deep, appreciative silence in front of Dad’s portrait of me for quite ten minutes.
‘Wonderful!’ she said, finally. Then she peered out of the front window and remarked, ‘When you’re sitting here at your desk, you must practically be able to have a conversation with Nile in his flat!’
‘Well not really, it isn’tthatclose,’ I said quickly.
‘I often see Alice working away when I pull down my blind,’ Nile said. ‘But usually she’s so lost in what she’s writing, she doesn’t notice.’
‘Perhaps you should have a rope and pulley across the gap, so you can send baskets to and fro,’ Sheila suggested. ‘The hooks on the wall outside were probably for laundry lines that went across like that.’
‘You know, I hadn’t noticed those,’ I said, amazed, and then we all went back downstairs and viewed the immaculately hygienic kitchens.
There was no place for a single germ to hide and all the cleaning rotas, daily and weekly, were up on the wall already, as were charts near the fridges and freezer for marking when and where from the various food products had arrived.
‘Luckily Tilda managed the Branwell Café and kept herself up to date with all the rules, regulations and paperwork, because I don’t think Mrs Muswell was very interested,’ I told them. ‘Tilda ran a very tight ship and she’s still going to do the day-to-day management once we’re up and running, so I can take more of a back seat, apart from the baking.’
‘It all looks perfect to me, especially now I understand more about what’s involved,’ Sheila said, and the others agreed.
‘I think we’ve got our café plans right too, thanks to your advice,’ Teddy said. Casper had suddenly fallen asleep against his shoulder and looked angelic, though he’d done his best to grab the dried flower garland from the flat door as we came down.
We did a final loop down to the boiler room and then through the fire door to the now rather palatial cloakrooms.
‘I’m taking notes for the Oldstone Farm customer conveniences,’ Teddy said. ‘The sanitary ware, I mean – I’m not really into interior design.’
‘You’re not into interior design at all,’ Geeta told him. ‘Left to you, the apartment would have been all gloomy dark leather and decorated with old railway signs.’
‘We’ll sort the décor out anyway,’ Bel assured him. ‘It’s the fun bit, isn’t it, Alice?’
‘It’s probably theonlyfun bit,’ I agreed.
Emerging up the short flight of stairs into the teashop, I left them to make themselves comfortable at the window table while I warmed thefat rascals and filled the cake stands. Bel helped ferry everything through, while Nile made the tea and coffee behind the counter, as if he’d been a Fat Rascal employee for years.
Casper, secured in one of the new highchairs, was drinking a cup of juice Geeta had brought for him, but it occurred to me that I ought to buy one of those little baby-bottle warming machines, even though I didn’t think I’d get many small children coming in.
Everything passed the taste test with flying colours, especially the fat rascals, warm, split in half and buttered.
‘Was your trip to Scotland successful?’ Teddy asked his brother, beating him to the last one.
‘Oh, yes, I think you could say it was,’ replied Nile.
‘He bought a sporran,’ I told them.
‘I thought it would be handy for keeping my small change in,’ he said with a straight face. ‘But then I mentioned it in an email to an American client who loves anything Scottish and he’s snapped it up.’
‘I’m afraid I snapped up all that Edinburgh rock you brought me back, too,’ I said ruefully, ‘but it did keep me going while I roughed out the last chapter.’
‘Sugar gives you worms,’ he reminded me.
‘Don’t be revolting, Nile!’ Geeta said.
