Page List

Font Size:

‘And I’ll repair that front porch first, before I start on the flat, or it’s going to fall down,’ he told me. ‘Victorian, that is – it’s a feature.’

Which I suppose it was, like the bull’s-eye-glass windows – not original to the building, but having a certain strange charm.

I gave him a spare set of keys to the café – Sheila had said he was totally trustworthy and I could tell that for myself within a minute of meeting him.

Bel helped me with the painting again and though I didn’t really expect Nile to make good his promise, he simply turned up later, carrying a folding stepladder and wearing a strange brown linen overall to protect his clothes.

‘Leftover from my days at the London auction house,’ he explained, but since he was painting the ceilings, it was a pity he didn’t have a matching hat. He wouldn’t even borrow one of the mobcaps, so it washis own fault if his mop of glossy blue-black curls got speckled with white paint.

Since I didn’t want to keep popping down and letting them in, I gave both Bel and Nile keys to the café, too. Just as well I’d had a couple more spares made when I bought the paint.

In any case, if I was out and there was a delivery, I hoped Nile would let them in. I offered to do the same for him, but he pointed out that anything sent to him tended to be small, very valuable and couriered – and he didn’t offer me a key to Small and Perfect in exchange.

The drive back to Oldstone Farm over the moorland in the late afternoons began to grow familiar, though the sky gave it an ever-changing beauty.

Over dinner in the evenings I’d discuss my plans for the café, and Bel and Sheila were finally starting to grasp just how much was involved.

‘It’s all the rules and regulations, the hygiene and food safety aspects, record keeping …’ Bel said. ‘I’d no idea.’

‘Nor me,’ said Sheila. ‘It sounds a bit daunting, seeing we only intend selling coffee and a bit of cake.’

‘You still have to register the premises and they’ll be inspected and hygiene rated and all the rest of it,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry, if we plan it out carefully right from the start, there won’t be any problem with that.’

‘Maybe we could go out to the coach house over the weekend and measure up to see what’s feasible?’ Bel suggested. ‘If we’re going to open next spring, we need to apply for planning permission soon, don’t we?’

‘Yes, organize that first step and then you can get to grips with the rest of it.’

‘Teddy can draw up the actual plans, so that will save some money,’ Sheila told me.

‘The only bitI’mreally looking forward to is the décor,’ Bel said ruefully.

We’d entirely finished painting the flat by Wednesday afternoon, including two coats of gloss on the skirting boards. I thought one looked fine, but Mr Small and Perfect insisted it needed a second coat.

Still, it was dry by next morning, when the carpet fitters came and laid a nice hard-wearing oatmeal-coloured wool Berber throughout, except for the kitchen end of the living room, where I had a square of more practical vinyl.

It didn’t take them long at all, for as well as being small, the flat was still empty, apart from the stack of my belongings in the spare bedroom and one of the rickety tables and a chair from the café that I’d set up in the living-room window for my laptop.

When they’d gone, I was dying to start getting my stuff out and turning the flat into a home, even if I couldn’t stay there until my bed was delivered next day, but first I bit the bullet and ordered online the basic white goods I needed – a small fridge-freezer, oven, microwave and washing machine – with the promise of next day delivery.

All of that, plus the paint and carpet for the flat, had already bitten into the small reserves of cash intended for the teashop – which simplyhadto be a success!

I was about to begin hanging curtains – Sheila had kindly made my old ones fit by the simple expedient of turning them on their sides and sewing curtain tape along one long edge – when I decided to check my emails first. There was a maudlin one from Robbie, of the kind that had periodically punctuated the seven years of his absence, saying he missed me and perhaps moving to Australia hadn’t been such a good idea, after all.

It had taken him a while to figure that one out, but I deduced from it that the current girlfriend had ditched him and he was drunk and feeling sorry for himself.

There was mail from Lola and Edie, too, but before I could read them one suddenly popped up from my agent, Senga McWhirter – almost as if she could magically divine that I was there looking at the screen. The whole table the laptop rested on seemed to quiver with tension, but then, all the café tables were so battered and flimsy that they trembled with every movement anyway.

Or perhaps it trembled from my guilty conscience? I’d become so engrossed with getting the flat ready that I’d barely written a thing in the last couple of days.

Still, I had to open it and she started off by telling me that the edits for the first of my backlist books to be reprinted by my new publisher would be arriving shortly. That was a bit of a surprise: I mean, it had already been out as an e-book, so why did I need to do anything else to it?

Then Senga really struck fear into my heart by adding that she hoped I was getting on with the firstnewbook of the contract, because she was looking forward to seeing itvery soon. And, of course, though I’d been writing down snatches of story and dialogue whenever they’d popped into my head, I’d just been drifting with the flow. Eventually I meant to pull it all together and finish it, but I had a feeling that ‘eventually’ wasn’t a word in Senga McWhirter’s vocabulary.

The postscript was probably the scariest of all: she was travelling up on 20 September – only ten days away – for the second Eleri Groves annual book launch party, which would be held at her husband’s remote moorland restaurant, and Senga hoped to meet me there. I’d forgotten all about this.

I emailed quickly back, assuring her I was working hard (though I didn’t say what on) and repeating that I was positive all the tickets for Eleri Groves’ event would have sold out months ago. (And I might have to invent a pressing engagement elsewhere, when Senga was up here. . .)

She’d asked me for my new address and landline number, so I added those and then pressed Send, my heart thumping slightly.