Page 14 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
There was a cubbyhole of a windowless office, with built-in desk and wooden shelves, and a utility room through an arch where, to my relief, I found that the big fridge, freezer and chiller cabinet were still there, turned off and with the doors slightly open to air. Like the one in the kitchen, the Belfast sink was scrubbed a spotless white, too. It was as though someone had done their best to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, and I was certain it wasn’t Mrs Muswell. On one wall was fitted the obligatory staff hand-washing basin, and next to it a floor-to-ceiling cupboard was full of cleaning materials.
The back door was in a little hallway, but whatever was outside could wait until the end of the apocalypse, if it ever came. There was another flight of steps vanishing down into darkness in there, too, but I’d seen too many horror films to go exploring the basement with a torch. I didn’t remember any mention of a cellar in the details.
Anyway, it was the flat, where I hoped to make my home, that I was most eager – and afraid – to see now. There was a door at the bottom of the stairs that led up to it. Mrs Muswell had told me that in the days when it had been a holiday let, the café and flat shared the rear entrance.
She’d also said she’d rarely used the flat herself, preferring to board with friends who had a nearby guesthouse when she was over here, so I unlocked the door with some trepidation. Who knew now what was true and what wasn’t? Because it was plain that I’d been sold, if not a pup, then an elderly and slightly flea-bitten mutt.
Those pictures I’d pinned my dreams on must have been from some long-ago incarnation and hadn’t included the flat.
Still, I’d sort of assumed that whatever I found, it would at least be as clean as the café, but I was immediately disabused of this idea by the furry festoons of cobwebs that clutched at my face as I went upstairs. I opened another door at the top with a metal latch and shone my torch round a kitchen-cum-living room that stretched from front to back of the building. Old lino had worn into holes and dust lay like thick felt along every surface … except the bare places where furniture had once stood and the marks of footsteps going to and fro. It clearly hadn’t been occupied for years, except by about a million huge black spiders.
There was a sliver of a bathroom, containing the smallest bath I’d ever seen, and two bedrooms, one of them partly over the passageway between the café and the next building.
It all looked dismal, dank, chilly and unwelcoming, though the ghastly weather wasn’t helping it any. I’d need to spend time and money refurbishing it before I moved in, which I hadn’t banked on, and I wouldn’t even let myselfthinkabout what I’d have to do to get the café up to scratch!
I went back downstairs, ducking below the cobwebs this time and feeling glad I’d booked myself in for the first night at a guesthouse …the one recommended by Mrs Muswell, now I came to think about it. If they were her friends, I wasn’t too sure how good an idea that was.
I felt damp and cold, and there was no point in lingering there. I’d get a better look next day in good light and perhaps things wouldn’t seem quite so dismal.
So I unstrapped my overnight bag and tucked the suitcase under the desk in the office, then put on my wet anorak and went out, locking up carefully behind me even though there wasn’t a single thing in there worth stealing.
The cascades of rain had finally stopped, but it was still Waterworld out there and I was now so stiff from the damp and cold that I felt as if I’d been hung to petrify in the Dropping Well at Knaresborough for a century or two.
Next day, although physically I felt as if I’d been fed through a mangle, mentally I’d entirely returned to my usual calm and logical self. This was more than could be said for Mum, once she finally awoke from her pill-induced oblivion.
‘What did you do with—’ she began fearfully, when I took her some early lunch in on a tray. With her bleach-blond hair and pale, pond-water eyes, she always looked like Marilyn Monroe’s less attractive sister, especially now her generous curves were running to fat. Luckily, I take after my long-absent father in appearance … and presumably in intelligence. I must have got it from somewhere.
Then Mum added quickly, in a trembling voice, ‘No – don’t tell me! I don’t want to know.’
8
Away with the Fairies
Luckily the Gondal Guesthouse was only a short walk away, but it was not the welcoming haven I’d hoped for. Instead, it wore a slightly depressed, shabby, end-of-season air and I was checked in by a morose and pimpled youth, who seemed to take positive pleasure in informing me that they didn’t do evening meals.
But at least my room was clean and warm, with a kettle, tea and coffee. I changed into dry clothes and then, over a hot drink, looked through a menu I’d picked up from a box on the café counter on the way out, then read through the paperwork the solicitor had given me when I’d collected the keys.
Facing the reality of what I’d actually bought had had the effect of shocking the last lingering miasma of mingled grief and antidepressants right out of my system and I’d snapped straight back into my old self – the one who operated on a practical level to earn a living, but was away with the fairies whenever she could escape into her writing … though actually I reallymusthave been away with the fairies when I bought the café sight unseen.
Why hadn’t I so much as looked at Google Street View? Or checked for reviews on travel sites, to see if customers had mentioned the place?
But no, I’d blindly trusted Mrs Muswell and rushed straight into the biggest purchase of my life with less care and thought than I’d have given to the buying of a pair of shoes.
The papers the solicitor had given me contained no promised file of catering suppliers, addresses for the staff, useful contacts – nothing.There wasn’t even any indication of the café turnover. And when I came to look more closely, most of the documents were those passed on by the previous owners of the property, which had operated under the not very upmarket name of The Butty Box.
I made another hot but disgusting cup of instant coffee, sat on the bed and phoned Lola.
‘You told me you visited the Branwell Café when you came to Haworth with the WI, and it was a thriving business in the middle of the village,’ I told her accusingly, though that was rather unfair, seeing that I’d already bought the place before I’d mentioned the name to her.
‘TheBranwellCafé?’ Lola exclaimed. ‘Oh, I misheard you – I thought it was that wonderful teashop in the heart of the village that’s been there for ever.’
‘No – how could I have afforded that, even if it was for sale?’ I demanded. ‘And though I was expecting the Branwell Café to need a lot of updating, it’s a far cry from how Mrs Muswell described it to me. She sounded so nice and genuine, too,’ I added bitterly. ‘I should have smelled a rat when I couldn’t see her Facebook profile once the sale went through and my emails started to bounce.’
‘Is itverydreadful?’ Lola asked tentatively.
‘It’s run down and grim, and it looks as if she’s sold off all the kitchen equipment of any value, even though everything was included in the price. Not only that, but the flat obviously hasn’t been used for years and it’s totally bare – not even a cooker up there, just a space where one has been.’
‘How sneaky, removing things she said she’d leave! Isn’t that illegal?’
