11 The Teashop on the Corner (17 page)

Pets R Us seemed the best bet – a superstore with ‘Everything for your pet friend’. Pest friend, more like. She had never gone shopping for a cat before. Which did they prefer
– fish or chicken? Fine flakes? Bite and Chew or Lick and Chew, gravy or jelly? Whiskas or Felix – or would he want biscuits? She put a selection in her trolley and then walked on to
the bowls. She didn’t know whether to get a blue one or a pink one. Was the cat a boy or a girl? Would it give a stuff if it got the wrong colour? Still, she played safe and bought a yellow
one, to go with her kitchen. Cat milk? They had special milk for cats? Should she get him a bed? Blimey – some of them were dearer than her own new double from Argos. And how big a litter
tray did she need? And what sort of litter – clumping or non clumping? Pellets, anti-bacterial, grey, pink, organic? God – it was a minefield. And she supposed she’d better get
one of those spatula scoop things as well. She collared one of the assistants to help her choose a flea treatment as they were stored in a glass cabinet. ‘Don’t forget the
wormer,’ the assistant advised. Carla’s trolley contents cost nearly as much as her weekly shop at Morrison’s.

She started to drive home, except that she was on automatic pilot and was almost outside Martin’s house before she realised her mistake. She was just about to reverse, then decided to
drive on, slowly, curious to see what the house looked like now that she was no longer living there. A scarlet Porsche was sitting in the drive. Julie’s Porsche if the personalised number
plate was anything to go by. A cocktail of emotions rose up and swirled inside her: a measure of hurt, a measure of betrayal, a measure of annoyance. Carla did a three-point turn and zoomed away
from the estate before she felt any more of its poison. She decided to indulge in a spot of retail therapy for herself at the Teashop on the Corner and buy the Home Sweet Home sign.

*

Molly let the calm and warmth in the teashop pervade her bones. She felt every one of her sixty-eight years today, tired and stiff. She ordered a coffee and a toasted teacake.
She wasn’t really hungry but she hadn’t eaten much yesterday at all. She was going to have to take some headache tablets in a moment and thought she shouldn’t swallow them on an
empty stomach.

She was in such a world of her own that she didn’t even notice when Carla walked in, and so didn’t acknowledge her when she bid her good morning. Only when Leni put the buttered
teacake and the cup and saucer down in front of her did she come back into the room.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she called to Leni who had taken a step back to the counter. ‘Thank you. Oh, good morning, Carla. I didn’t see you come in.’

‘You were lost in your thoughts there, Molly.’ Carla smiled, but she didn’t think Molly looked right at all.

Neither did Leni because in the next breath she said, ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, Molly, but are you all right?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Molly tried to smile bravely and failed. ‘No, no I don’t think I am.’ She didn’t mean to crumble in front of strangers but she
couldn’t stop herself. Margaret would have known what to do, but she wasn’t here. And Molly needed to lean on something, someone, anyone. Her brain felt full of thoughts too big for her
head to carry. She felt gentle fingers take hold of her hand and looked up to see that Leni was sitting opposite her, her lovely elfin face concerned and interested. Molly couldn’t hold
back.

‘Years ago,’ she began, ‘I was married to a man I loved. But he left me. For someone else.’ Molly bit her lip as she made the admission. ‘It wasn’t entirely
his fault. I could have been . . . warmer. He was a man who needed . . .’ She came back to the word again, for want of a better one: ‘. . . warmth. I never quite got over him, I think.
And yesterday, he turned up on my doorstep with all his worldly goods in a suitcase and told me he had a heart condition that meant he didn’t have long to live and he wanted me to forgive
him. Then I told him to go away and he collapsed and he’s in hospital. He’s got nowhere to stay and . . .’ She lifted her shoulders and gave a dry laugh. A tear rolled slowly down
her cheek and landed on the teacake.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Carla, from the next table.

‘And you haven’t a clue what to do?’ suggested Leni.

Molly nodded eagerly. ‘That’s exactly it. I can’t take him in to stay with me. It’s impossible. I won’t. Not after what he did. We divorced twenty-seven years ago.
We have no ties to each other.’

Leni squeezed her hand softly. ‘And yet you can’t leave him to die alone?’

‘He knew I wouldn’t be able to,’ snapped Molly, with a flare of anger. ‘He’s a crafty one, that Harvey Hoyland. A seducer.’ She sniffed and raised her head up
to tilt back the remaining tears that were trying to make an escape. ‘I’m going to the hospital now. He’s stabilised. I doubt they’ll be letting him out today but they will
eventually I presume, and he’ll need looking after; that’s more than obvious.’ Molly growled. ‘How dare he put me in this position? He’s a stranger to me now.’
She looked from Leni to Carla, her eyes pleading for direction. ‘What should I do?’

Carla didn’t think she would be the best person to ask. She imagined Martin walking in through the door and begging her for forgiveness. She wouldn’t give him the time of day. Or
would she? Saying what she would do was one thing, but when you were actually put in that position . . .

‘Oh Molly, I honestly wouldn’t know,’ she gulped. Even if she did, she would have been very reticent to say. It was a hell of a responsibility to suggest that an old lady fling
open her doors to a dying ex-husband whom she hadn’t seen for over a quarter of a century.

‘Could you turn your back on him?’ asked Leni, gently. She suspected that Molly’s old love still had roots in her heart.

Molly sighed. ‘No. I don’t think I would ever forgive myself if I did.’

‘Then you have your answer.’

Leni knew that life was so very precious. For Molly to have a warning that her old lover’s life was on the wane was, in a strange way, a gift. Not everyone was granted the chance to let go
gently and have the time to say goodbye.

‘I’m not sure that I’d forgive myself if I forgave him either,’ said Molly, her voice croaking with confusion then she groaned. ‘I’m lost.’

Carla opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again as quickly. Maybe if she told Molly the truth about herself it might give her some direction. But could she dare to shame herself for a
relative stranger? She glanced at Molly’s worried face and decided that she should.

‘I’m not a divorcee,’ Carla blurted out. ‘I’m a widow. Sort of. My husband died last month, and at his funeral I found out that I wasn’t actually married to
him after all because he never divorced his first wife and he was planning to leave me for her.’ She realised that Leni and Molly were staring at her open-mouthed.

‘My point being, Molly, that I wish I’d had the chance to let go of him myself. I’d have had to say goodbye one way or another, but being able to allow him to slip from my life
rather than be wrenched from it . . . I’m not putting this very well . . . I could have coped with it all so much better.’

‘Oh, you poor dear,’ said Molly.

‘I’m okay,’ smiled Carla. ‘I’m on the mend.’

Molly closed her eyes and nodded a slow agreement. ‘I’ll drive to the hospital then and take it from there,’ she said.

‘I hope it turns out to be the right thing for you,’ said Carla.

‘Well, time will tell, won’t it?’ said Molly. Where Harvey Hoyland was concerned, life was always more of a roller-coaster than a sedate boat ride. She had no reason to think
that, despite their advanced ages, it would be any different now.

Carla was surprisingly glad that she had told Molly and Leni about Martin. She didn’t feel in the slightest judged by either of them, or stupid for having been duped by
him. And if the telling of her story helped Molly, then at least some good would come out of the whole sorry mess.

The cat was waiting by the door for her when her car rolled into the drive of Dundealin. He was turning circles as she approached with her bags of cat shopping and the Home Sweet Home sign, his
tail a shepherd’s crook of welcome. She applied the flea lotion behind his neck whilst he was scoffing his chicken flakes. He didn’t seem to mind.

Carla wondered if he was the lucky black cat which Pat Morrison had told her about. She’d consider herself very lucky if she didn’t have flea bites after finding him in her face that
morning.

*

Harvey was fully dressed and remonstrating with a nurse when Molly arrived in the ward.

‘You really need to stay in bed, Mr Hoyland,’ she was saying.

‘I can assure you, dear lady, that I am leaving and yes, on my own bruised head be it. I most certainly am not dying in a hospital ward.’ Then he saw Molly and he beamed.
‘Molly, you’re here. Please tell the Sister that you’re taking me home.’

The nurse turned around and threw up her hands in a gesture of frustration.

‘Just let me sign a consent form, or whatever they call them, and you can let me go,’ said Harvey. ‘I assume full responsibility for my own bodily and mental state.’

Molly knew that Harvey’s worst nightmare was to die in hospital. They’d had the conversation many years ago when Harvey’s mother died in the cardiac unit in Sheffield.

She sighed. ‘Yes, I’m here to take him home.’

The Sister looked gobsmacked and who could blame her. Molly wondered what Margaret would have said if she were still a Matron and faced with this situation. Molly thought her answer would have
depended on whether the person arguing with her was
alone.
She didn’t think her sister would stand in the way of anyone determined to die his or her way, if they were at the very end
with no hope of coming back from it.

‘It’s so wonderful to see you, darling Molly,’ said Harvey bending over and resting his hands on his thighs when they reached the lift. ‘They told me you’d rung
this morning to see how I was. Are you taking me home? I always liked that house.’

‘I’m taking you to
my
home. You know, you really aren’t well enough to leave here . . .’

‘Molly, trust me, I know I have a bit of life still left in me, but don’t worry – I won’t encroach on your time long term,’ Harvey replied with a grin.
‘Promise.’

Harvey was full of the joys of spring in the car. Molly wondered if they’d given him a blood transfusion. He had some colour in his gaunt cheeks and a sparkle in his
eye.

‘Beautiful house,’ he said as Molly pulled into Willowfell’s drive. ‘It was like seeing an old friend when I turned up yesterday. We had some good times here,
didn’t we, Moll?’

‘I’ll put you in the spare room,’ said Molly, not answering him as she switched off the car engine. ‘The bed’s made up, but it could do with an airing. You go and
rest in the sitting room whilst I do it.’

‘Thank you, I will,’ said Harvey, getting out of the car.

Molly went upstairs and into the second bedroom, lifting and wafting the quilt to let some air reach the bottom sheet. She suddenly thought,
Harvey will die in this bed
and felt a chill
whip down her spine. She tried to push the vision of him lying there out of her head by giving the quilt an extravigorous shake. It was a lovely room, east-facing, so Harvey would awaken to the
sunshine squeezing through the pale green curtains.

He was asleep by the time she went back downstairs so she took up his suitcase and hung up his clothes and put his underwear in the drawers next to the bed. She left his other possessions in the
case, which she put in the bottom of the wardrobe.

Harvey looked so peaceful in the chair, snoring softly, his thin fingers interlaced on his lap. Molly draped a throw gently over him then sat on the sofa and studied him. Even despite the weight
loss and the ageing, she could see the younger Harvey Hoyland underneath all the changes. Oh, he was so handsome, so charming. The first time he had kissed her, she’d thought she was going to
faint. After all that had happened to her, Molly had felt that she had found her prince. Prince Harvey. And when he put the engagement ring on her finger, she thought she would die with happiness.
She wished she still had that ring with the oval sapphire and the tiny diamonds around it. But Harvey had stolen it from her, taken it to pawn or sell to clear his gambling debts, most likely. And
it hadn’t been alone in his cache.

The spell was broken. Awful thoughts started to bleed into Molly’s mind. He had taken the locket Ma Brandywine had given her as an eighteenth birthday present too, as well as the rest of
the contents of her jewellery box: precious gifts from Margaret and Bernard and pieces inherited from Ma Brandywine. And her wedding ring which she had ripped off as soon as she had found out he
was being unfaithful. She had discovered them gone on the same day he had left. She had been so angry, so hurt.

What the hell was Margaret going to say when she returned from holiday and realised that her sister was giving free board and lodging to the man who had cheated her on so many fronts? She
didn’t dare think about it.

By the end of that week Carla had internet access and a house phone connected. She then spent an hour on her laptop trying to find herself a job before Mr Rex Parkinson arrived
to view the mini flat.

Despite the number of sites advertising positions, there weren’t any vacancies for a trained florist. That was all Carla had ever done, give or take her first-ever job working in the
office where she had met Theresa. Flowers were her great passion. She knew every name of every flower, which scents mixed, which made the perfect visual combination and for what occasion. Still,
needs must. She would just have to get herself any job to earn some money until a florist position came available. But she wasn’t qualified enough for any of the full-time positions and the
part-time ones on offer were so lowly paid. Plus she’d lost her confidence. It had been years since the last time she’d had to apply for a job, and the thought of going out into the
world and working for strangers filled her with dread. Rex Parkinson’s arrival at her door at least had the effect of snapping her out of a cold sweat about rejoining the rat race.