Page 24 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
‘I hope for your sake you do. And what are you going to call this little oasis of refreshment?’ he asked sardonically as he turned to leave, clutching his reclaimed antiquities as if I might leap forward and snatch them back.
A vision of Molly Muswell’s social networking avatar flashed across my mind, her plump face bunched up in a friendly smile, so that her small eyes looked like deeply set currants in a bun.
‘The Fat Rascal,’ I told him.
Luckily, my grammar school was closed on the Friday, since it was a staff training day. Although normally I resented the way these Baker days interrupted my lessons, this time it had worked to my advantage.
And of course none of my school friends noticed any difference in me, because, being a year younger than the rest of my class but twice as clever, I didn’t have any.
12
The Blasted Heath
I felt strangely unsettled by this encounter, though I suppose unexpectedly coming face to face with so much male beauty was enough to throw anyone! And Nile Giddings appeared to have the mercurial temperament to go with the Greek god looks, too.
We didn’t seem to have got off to a good start, though admittedly I’d been just as spiky and sarcastic as my visitor. But then, anyone would be who’d been brought up by Nessa: I tended to give at least as good as I got.
I went to check on how Tilda was doing and found she’d thrown herself into cleaning the flat with huge enthusiasm. Although I offered to help, she said firmly that she could do it quicker and better without me.
So I dusted the café and kitchens instead, though they barely needed it, and then settled in the office with my laptop to type up the first of several lists from my notes. If I was going to wave a magic wand over the café and undo Wicked Witch Muswell’s evil spell, I’d need more elbow-grease than fairy dust to achieve it, so it was time to get practical.
But unfortunately, I strayed again.
The evil fairy lay on her deathbed, suffering from a fatal surfeit of spite. She contemplated her life of misdeeds and wickedness with satisfaction but then, with a deep sigh, waved her wand weakly.
‘Unspell!’ she cried. It was that easy.
All over Fairyland, frogs turned into princes and geese stopped laying golden eggs. And deep in a wood, where an impenetrable thicket grew around the bower where Beauty had fallen asleep, a portal shivered into existence and a small mouse took the opportunity to scurry through into another time and place …
A loud thump in the flat over my head brought me back to the present and I firmly closed theBeauty Goes Baddocument and opened a new one called, simply, ‘Tearoom Lists’.
The shortest was of those items I wanted to get rid of, like the café chairs and tables and all the thick white crockery, since Mrs Muswell hadn’t left much else behind. I followed that one with the list of replacement equipment and furniture I’d need, which ran to two pages without my even having to give it much thought.
But the very first thing I’d have to buy was gallons of paint, stepladders and brushes to transform the dingy café – and I’d do as much of the work as I could myself, because I’d have to be on a tight budget if I wasn’t to find I’d run out of money before I reopened.
There’d besomemajor things I wouldn’t be able to do myself, like renovating the café cloakroom and fitting new work surfaces into the kitchen. I’d have to ask about for a reasonably priced local handyman.
I was still giving myself a headache over some financial calculations when Tilda called me upstairs to see the fruit of her labours.
‘Oh, wow!’ I said when I did, because although it was still bare and dingy, it was now totally clean and smelled of pine disinfectant and lemon antibacterial cleanser – tangy. It practically made your eyes water. You could see through the windows now, too – the back one at the kitchen end overlooking the small garden and the front directly facing Small and Perfect. There was a light on behind the thick bull’s-eye panes of the shop window, so Mr Small and Perfect was probably polishing his curios.
‘It’s absolutely amazing – thank you so much!’ I said gratefully.
‘Eh, I’m black as a sweep, but I’ve had a grand time,’ she assured me, ‘and you’re paying me for it. There’s nothing else up here needs doing now, bar a lick of paint and some curtains, carpets and furniture.’
That was a slight understatement, but at least if it came to it, I could camp up here from Sunday, once my car full of belongings had arrived.
‘You’re not completely on your own down here in Doorknocker’s Row, because you’ve got a neighbour in t’ shop across the ginnel,’ Tilda said.
‘Yes, I just met him.’
‘Oh? He’s a proper handsome lad, that one. When he first moved here and the local girls got a good look at him, it was like putting a cockerel in a hencoop, there was such a flutter.’
‘I can imagine,’ I replied, and immediately determined to make it clear in any future encounters with Nile Giddings that there was going to be no fluttering fromme. ‘He said you warned him Mrs Muswell had been selling the antiques she was displaying for him in the café, and pocketing the cash. When he saw the lights were on, he thought she was here.’
‘I put a note through his door, but he’s been away a while so I expect he only just got it,’ Tilda said. ‘Bit too late to do anything now.’
‘Yes, though Mrs Muswell had missed a couple of things that were hanging in that dark corner near the stairs and he’s taken those. And he’s reporting the theft to the police.’
