Page 52 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
‘Isn’t Zelda about to hit the big four-oh, Mum?’ asked Bel, then explained to me, ‘Nile’s partner spent a couple of gap years working her way round the world before she went to university.’
‘You know, I think you’re right,’ Sheila said, looking struck. ‘Time flies – and she’s such a lovely girl that I’m surprised she hasn’t settled down and had a family by now.’
‘Oh?’ I said, trying not to sound as curious as I felt, for Zelda was an unusual name so she had to be the one who had phoned him that time, and from my end, it hadn’t sounded like just business. ‘She and Nile aren’t a couple?’
‘I don’t think they’ve ever really been anything other than friends,’ Bel said. ‘She’s had a couple of long-term relationships, but they fizzled out.’
‘Bel used to see a lot of her, because her ex-husband is a doctor at one of the London hospitals,’ Sheila explained.
‘I hated living in London,’ Bel said. ‘And in the end, I hated my husband, too! Once he became a consultant he seemed to expect everyone, including me, to obey his every word. And when I didn’t, he would look at me as if I was a bad case of some nasty disease. And then having a fling with someone I thought was a friend was the finishing touch.’
‘You were a bit of a mismatch from the start,’ Sheila said. ‘He was very handsome, though.’
‘I think we both thought we were marrying different kinds of people,’ she said. ‘It didn’t work out – and now I don’t want to be married to anyone ever again. I’m going to live at Oldstone for ever and do my own thing.’
‘I used to go out with a dentist years ago, when I lived in Cornwall,’ I said.
‘Really? Did he fix your teeth for free?’ Bel asked interestedly.
‘No, I was lucky and didn’t need anything doing to them, because he was a rotten dentist. He was a lot more interested in his hobbies –surfing, white-water rafting, and hang-gliding – anything a bit dangerous.’
‘At least he soundsfun.’
‘He was, and I was very fond of him, but he emigrated to Australia eventually and I didn’t want to go with him.’
‘Do you still hear from him?’ asked Sheila.
‘Oh, yes, but usually when his latest girlfriend has dumped him and he’s feeling lonely and sorry for himself. Then the next one comes along and he goes silent again. He’s quite attractive in a big, boyish kind of way, though almost totally self-centred,’ I added. ‘I think he only gave me his old Beetle car because he forgot to sell it before he left.’
‘Aren’t they all,’ Bel said gloomily.
‘Then I moved to Scotland and got engaged to a climber – Dan Carmichael. You may have heard of him.’
‘Of course – but wasn’t he killed—’ began Sheila and then stopped. ‘I’m so sorry, Alice. You did say you’d had a recent bereavement.’
‘It’s about six months ago. Dan died in a freak climbing accident at the start of March,’ I told them, and felt a sudden pang of guilt that I should have been attracted by Nile so soon. But then, the dark chasm of depression I’d fallen into after Dan died made it feel as if it had happened a lot longer ago. Now I only felt a poignant sadness when I thought of him.
‘It was a shock,’ I said, ‘almost as much as finding out he was still married to his first wife just before the funeral.’
‘Really?’ Bel said, wide-eyed, so I told them all about Dan’s dreadful wife, Tanya, coming out of the woodwork and grabbing everything with her pointed turquoise talons.
‘But she couldn’t grab Dan’s insurance policies, because he’d named me as the beneficiary in them, and when they paid out I had enough to buy the café and flat. Ihopedthere’d be enough to live on if I was frugal, only now I can see it will all vanish into the renovations.’
‘But it’s an investment and I think it’s going to begreat!’ enthused Sheila. ‘We’ll book a table for the very first sitting and all come!’
‘That’s kind of you and I hope you’re right,’ I said, and then she got up and headed back to her studio.
Bel and I collected clipboards and tape measures and soon followedher, to plan out the Norwegian waffle house. By the time we returned we’d got to the stage where we were bouncing silly promotional slogans off one another, like ‘Jam yourself into our café for the waffle of the century!’ and, my favourite, ‘Waffle on in – Norwegians would!’
Next morning Teddy, Geeta and Bel went over to the Pondlife office to work on the waffle house plans, while I retired to the house’s library with my laptop to contemplate the novel I was supposed to have almost finished by now.
I wasn’t entirely sure where it was going and feared this horror fairy tale with a twist might well end up more twisted than most.
‘There’s something else you ought to know, too,’ added the stepmother, and the prince looked pensive: it was all sounding very tiresome and he was by nature exceedingly lazy.
‘The original curse, cast over Beauty’s cradle, bestowed on her a beautiful face, but an evil nature,’ her stepmother explained.
‘A curse can be undone,’ said Prince S’Hallow.
