Page 74 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
My heart did that weird thing again, where it seemed to stop dead and then restart with a thump, and I turned to look at Nile.
‘It’s a surprise to me, too,’ he said drily. ‘She was only joking.’
‘She didn’tsoundas if she was joking,’ Sheila replied doubtfully. ‘When I said it was a bit sudden, she told me you’d made a pact long ago that if you hadn’t married someone else by the time you were forty, then you’d marry each other.’
‘Except you’ve only just turned thirty-eight, Nile – I don’t call that near forty,’ Teddy said.
‘Gee, thanks,’ said Nile.
‘But Zeldaisforty,’ Bel pointed out helpfully. ‘And she hasn’t been in a relationship for ages, has she? Perhaps that’s what made her remember it.’
‘I do vaguely recall saying something like that when we were students, but only because she reminded me about it recently,’ Nile said. ‘I mean, we weren’t serious then,ornow.’
‘Well,youweren’t serious, but maybe she was?’ Bel suggested.
He frowned. ‘I don’t think so, it was just one of those daft things yousay. But you know what Zelda’s like – always tossing squibs into the conversation to see what reaction she gets.’
‘I suppose that’s it,’ Sheila said, looking strangely relieved seeing that she and the rest of the family seemed to like Zelda. ‘I did think it was odd, after all this time.’
‘Friends are all we’ve been for years, and that’s the way it’s staying,’ he said firmly. ‘She knows that; she was just winding you up.’
I wondered if she really did know it. I mean, perhaps she’d suddenly realized Mr Right had been under her nose all the time.
Teddy looked as if he was going to tease Nile again, but Bel gave her twin a quelling look and changed the subject quickly.
‘You’ll never guess who we met up on the hill near the Oldstone, yesterday morning – I completely forgot to tell you.’
‘No, wewon’tguess, so you might as well say,’ Geeta told her from her seat next to the highchair, wiping a speckling of food from her face. Casper made another expansive arm movement with a loaded spoon and Honey leaped up with surprising agility for his age and caught the flying blob mid-air.
There could be a good market for flying kitchen waste disposal units, if someone invented them.
Bel was fishing out a shape sorting game in bright colours from the carrier bag she’d brought in with her and handed it across the table. ‘I just remembered I got this from the car boot sale.’
‘Oh, is that for Casper?’ Geeta said.
‘Yes, and it’s like new, but I know what you’re like for germs, so I expect you’ll want to disinfect it before he goes anywhere near it.’
‘You can’t be too careful,’ Geeta said seriously. ‘Remember that nasty bug he caught earlier in the year? I thought it was meningitis,’ she explained to me, her beautiful brown eyes full of the remembered horror of that moment. ‘I was beside myself.’
‘I’m not surprised!’ I said.
‘Well, oddly enough, it was the doctor who came out to Casper that night that we met up by the Oldstone yesterday morning,’ Bel revealed.
‘What, Dr Collins?’ said Sheila. ‘What was she doing up there?’
‘Walking a small white dog. And she wasn’t that pleased to run into us, because she said she’d gone there for a bit of peace and solitude.’
‘That was rude of her,’ said Geeta. ‘But Rilla, the receptionist at the surgery, goes to my yoga class and she told me that Dr Collins moved back here to look after her father when he became very frail, so she must have a kind heart, really.’
‘Well,Iwas told that she moved back because she’d heard her father was getting too fond of his live-in carer and was afraid she’d lose her inheritance,’ Bel countered. ‘The cleaner told me.’
‘That’s probably all just gossip,’ said Teddy mildly, but was ignored.
‘Dr Collins can’t be that young, so her father must be getting on a bit,’ Bel suggested.
‘She’s only in her mid-fifties, like me,’ Sheila said slightly indignantly. ‘She could be very attractive, too, she just doesn’t make the best of herself. And I think she’s his stepdaughter – his late wife’s child by her first marriage.’
‘How doyouknow all that?’ asked Bel.
