Page 87 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
‘I wasn’t shacked up with him, we were engaged,’ I said coldly, though actually, since Dan was still married at the time, I wasn’t sure that was technically possible.
‘My mother was asking after you the other day,’ he said, changing the subject.
‘Yourmother?’ I repeated incredulously, because the only time he’d taken me to visit his parents, she hadn’t exactly made me welcome.‘Why? I mean, she didn’t like me and thought I wasn’t good enough for you.’
‘You’re quite wrong,’ he said earnestly. ‘She said you were a nice girl who kept me grounded.’
Even a sheet anchor wouldn’t keep Robbie grounded when he felt the urge to jump off a cliff, holding a bit of canvas canopy, or catch the next monster wave.
‘Remember that time you took me to visit them, Robbie? The moment you and your dad sloped off to the pub before lunch, she said they’d always hoped you’d marry someone with aprofession, not a waitress. When I told her I wasn’t a waitress and she needn’t get her knickers in a twist, because we weren’t engaged or even living together, she was delirious with happiness.’
‘I think you must have misunderstood her, because she’s never said a word against you,’ he assured me. ‘In fact, that time a couple of years ago when she and Dad came over to visit me just as things were getting serious with Lucy, they asked me why I couldn’t come back home and settle down with a nice girl like you.’
‘Was Lucy the one who got arrested for mooning at people on the beach?’ I asked, interested.
‘Yes, but she was drunk. It’s the sort of thing anyone might do.’
‘I’vemanaged to resist the urge so far,’ I said, but he wasn’t listening: he never had. It had been one of his many drawbacks as a boyfriend.
‘So when Mum mentioned you the other day,’ he carried on, as if I’d never spoken, ‘I told her you’d lost your fiancé and bought a café in Haworth and she said she’d love to see you again and I should take you down for the weekend.’
‘That’s very kind of her,’ I said, even though I’d rather gnaw my arm off than spend a weekend in Wimbledon with the Frays. ‘But I’m afraid I’m way too busy to go anywhere, because my teashop opens at the start of November.’
‘I’ll have to come up to see you there, then. I’m thinking of moving back to the UK and it would be nice to talk it over.’
‘Are youseriouslythinking of it?’ I asked, surprised. ‘I thought you were set to be an eternal beach bum?’
‘I’m more into microlight aircraft and white-water rafting these days,’ he said. ‘My best mate had a chunk taken out of his leg by a Great White last year and it’s put me off a bit.’
‘That isn’t something that generally happens to surfers in Cornwall, that’s for sure.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Another reason to come back. Anyway, I thought I’d put my stuff into storage and come over for three months, while I made my mind up.’
‘What about your job?’
‘I gave up the dentistry and became a beach lifeguard ages ago – didn’t you know?’ he said, as if I could divine every aspect of his life through his Facebook posts. ‘But I can always take it up again. There’s a shortage of NHS dentists in the UK.’
I pitied any patients if he did, because he wasn’t that brilliant a dentist in the first place, so he’d probably be even worse after a long break.
‘You’d like to see me, wouldn’t you, Alice?’ he coaxed.
‘I suppose it would be good to catch up with you,’ I agreed, remembering that I had been quite fond of the large, friendly and almost entirely harmless lump. ‘Give me a ring when you’ve landed and we’ll try and arrange something, though I reallyambusy just now. I need to finish my next book before the tearoom opens, too.’
‘Book?’ He sounded baffled, which reinforced what I’d always thought: he never noticed a thing I was doing, or listened to a word I said.
‘I’ll explain when I see you,’ I said patiently and put the phone down, thinking that I certainly didn’t need anything else to distract me from my work. And that was even truer when I checked my emails, because there was one from Senga reminding me that the new novel had to be delivered by 24 October, which was now less than three weeks away! I’d been convinced it was November, but when I checked my contract, she was quite right.
I had an ‘Oh my God!’ moment and then, since it was a rare, workman-free day, spent all of it writing like fury and carried on well into the night.
Even when Nile texted to say did I want to go over to his place for supper (a first) I just said no, I was too busy writing, and he went quiet.
Later, something made me glance up from my desk and there was Nile in the window opposite, drawing his curtains. He stopped and looked straight across at me, gravely.
I waved, but then slid off back into my fictional world, though feeling just alittleemotionally ruffled. I had no idea why.
Still, there’s nothing like a good bloodletting to make you feel better, is there?
Beauty soon saw that if they were to survive, she must take charge of the situation herself, so when the magic stick refused to launch any more bolts from the blue upon the advancing throng of nymphs, she grabbed Kev’s scimitar and laid about her with a vengeance.
