11 The Teashop on the Corner (21 page)

‘What can I get you, Carla?’ asked Leni.

‘I’ll just have a coffee, I think, but give me two minutes. I want to look for a present for a friend of mine first.’

Carla started at the nearest cabinet, next to the wall of postcards pinned up in a higgledy-piggledy fashion to hide the missing top corners where the stamps once sat.

In the third cabinet, Carla spotted the ideal present for Theresa: A scarf woven with scenes from
Wuthering Heights
. Heathcliff’s glowering face filled one end, the other –
Catherine Earnshaw sporting some wild bed-hair. There was even some wrapping paper covered in small Top Withens buildings, the sky mean and moody behind it. Perfect. Theresa could take a little bit
of Yorkshire with her when she went to New Zealand.

Carla carried on looking, though, fascinated by the things to buy. There were new things since the last time she had been: a set of china mugs featuring Dickens characters, coloured paperclips
in the shape of Jane Austen’s profile, a tiny bookshelf filled with all the books Agatha Christie had written in perfect miniature, a ‘writers block’ notepad that looked as if it
had been made out of a chunk of wood, bracelet charms made from old typewriter keys. And – joy of joys – the most gorgeous journal in the world, replicating the cover of
Hard
Times
, by Charles Dickens. It was exactly what she needed to record her plan of action to get her life back into some semblance of order.

‘Found anything you like?’ asked Molly. ‘I could buy everything in this shop.’

‘I’m going to have the
Hard Times
journal, the Top Withens roll of wrapping paper and the Heathcliff scarf, please.’

‘Certainly,’ smiled Leni. ‘I’ll get them ready for you whilst you’re drinking your coffee.’

‘Heathcliff. What a bastard he was.’ Harvey’s voice filled the teashop.

‘For goodness sake, Harvey,’ hissed Molly. ‘Keep it down.’

‘Well he was,’ said Harvey, refusing to be hushed. ‘I never understood why they always picked the good-looking actors to play him in films. He was an absolute psychopath. Quite
the most unpleasant character I’ve ever read.’

‘I totally agree,’ said Mr Singh, excitedly accentuating his words with a waving finger. ‘Laurence Olivier, Timothy Dalton, Ralph Fiennes – all very striking
men.’

‘And Cliff Richard. Don’t forget Cliff Richard,’ put in Leni.

‘I think you mean let’s forget Cliff Richard,’ said Harvey.

‘Cliff Richard? Surely not?’ said Mr Singh, tilting his head in confusion. ‘I can’t remember that version.’

‘It was a musical,’ Harvey replied. ‘Though with the best will in the world I can’t imagine Cliff Richard hanging a dog.’

Molly shuddered. ‘Did he hang a dog? I can’t remember that part.’

‘Cliff Richard didn’t but Heathcliff did. What’s-her-name’s dog. The sister.’ Harvey tapped the table in frustration at not being able to remember the
character.

‘Isabella.’

All eyes turned to Ryan.

‘That’s it, lad. That’s the name,’ said Harvey.

‘You really do read then,’ Leni smiled at him.

‘I told you I did,’ Ryan replied, shrugging his shoulders as he unwrapped a box of small metal lapel pins shaped like old typewriters and took them into the back room.

‘But because he loves Cathy so passionately, we’re supposed to wipe Heathcliff’s slate clean,’ said Harvey in a very mocking voice. ‘Oh, you women do love a bad
boy.’

Carla let loose a quiet dry laugh. She wasn’t one of those women. She had recently realised how much of a bad boy she had been living with and it didn’t make her excited in the
least. She didn’t want another bad boy. Nor did she want a good boy, because that good boy might really be a bad boy after all. She’d never trust another one of them again.

‘I don’t,’ she said.

‘Me neither,’ agreed Molly and threw Harvey a disapproving look. ‘Personally, I’d much rather have a Mr Rochester.’

‘Shouldn’t we be saving this conversation for Brontë Tuesday?’ asked Carla.

‘What’s Brontë Tuesday?’ asked Harvey.

‘Every Tuesday there is a theme here,’ replied Molly. ‘It’s Brontë Tuesday next week.’

‘I can’t wait until Tuesday,’ replied Harvey putting his hands on his hips. ‘I live in the here and now.’

‘Me neither,’ agreed Mr Singh, nodding his head heartily. ‘Now, Mr Rochester didn’t treat his wife very well, did he? He locked her up in an attic.’

‘I have to defend him, I’m afraid,’ Carla jumped in. ‘He was seduced by two families into marrying Bertha Mason who kept it from him that she had hereditary madness. He
could have put her in an asylum but he didn’t. He kept her in the house and employed a carer. Admittedly she was a bit rubbish at keeping the door locked. Of course if you were to read Jean
Rhys’s
Wide Sargasso Sea
, you might feel more inclined to be on Bertha’s side but . . .’ Then she realised all eyes were on her and her mouth clamped shut. She
wasn’t used to being the centre of attention.

‘Go on, dear,’ urged Molly. ‘I haven’t read that book.’

‘Well,’ gulped Carla. ‘Put it this way, if you like Rochester and want to keep liking him, don’t read it. He comes across as a bit of a—’
Martin.
‘He doesn’t come across well at all. In fact, he’s a bit of a git. The sympathy is totally weighted towards her.’

‘Then I definitely shan’t read it,’ said Molly. ‘I like my Rochester gentlemanly and considerate. I would rather not see him any other way.’

Mr Singh laughed. ‘Yes, I see I see. Maybe he isn’t as bad as I remember.’

‘And Rochester liked dogs,’ put in Molly. ‘He didn’t hang them.’

‘He was far from perfect though,’ said Mr Singh. ‘You have to give me that point.’

‘Girls don’t mind a little bit of imperfection,’ called Leni over her shoulder as she walked into the back room for some fragile tape. ‘Luckily.’

‘A perfect man would be far too daunting,’ added Molly, before she realised that Harvey was looking at her with barely concealed amusement.

‘Flawed heroes are good. So long as they don’t hang dogs,’ chuckled Mr Singh.

‘Well that’s got my blood flowing, all this talk of Byronic heroes,’ chuckled Harvey.

‘We should make a move soon,’ said Molly, who was aware that Harvey was getting far too animated, which couldn’t be good for him. ‘Could we have the bill please,
Leni?’

‘So it’s Brontë Tuesday, is it? I hope we’ll be here for that,’ said Harvey, after swallowing the last piece of his chocolate cake. ‘I could slag Heathcliff
off all day every day. Bye Ryan. Don’t let them work you too hard. Join a union and insist on plenty of tea-breaks.’

Ryan, putting some washed plates back on the shelf, grinned.

Molly hung behind for a second after Harvey had walked outside.

‘Thank you for listening to me the other day,’ she said to Leni and Carla. ‘I think I did the right thing. I do apologise for his bad language. He was always so very . .
.’
impassioned ‘. . .
loud.’

‘He was enjoying himself and we were enjoying listening to him,’ said Leni, waving away that apology. ‘And what better place to have a literary argument than in
here.’

‘He seems a nice man,’ said Carla, hoping he was, because she was the world’s most rubbish judge of character. She’d thought Fred West looked like a jolly bloke when
she’d first seen his face in the newspapers.

Molly caught Harvey up. He had started a new argument about Heathcliff and was chuntering away to himself about what might have happened in his missing years. Which seemed more than ironic to
her.

‘Come and have your break,’ said Leni, going into the back room where Ryan was pricing up items. ‘You must be hungry. Cheese and ham toastie?’

‘Yeah, great,’ said Ryan, putting down the roll of stickers and following Leni into the by now empty tearoom.

‘I thought you might. I’ve put one on for you.’

‘Ta.’

‘Tea, coffee, milk or orange juice?’ Leni asked Ryan as she put the sandwich down in front of him.

‘Er, orange please.’

By the time she had poured a glass out and taken it to him, the sandwich had disappeared.

‘Goodness me,’ laughed Leni. ‘Were you hungry? Do you want another?’

There was a telling pause before he answered, ‘No thanks.’

‘I’ll make you another,’ smiled Leni. ‘It’s no trouble.’

She tried not to watch, but she couldn’t help herself. He ate quickly, like an animal who was afraid that if he didn’t get his food into him, it would be stolen away. She cut him an
extra-large piece of chocolate cake. She figured he would enjoy that, seeing as he had been eyeing it up all morning. And she was right.

‘Don’t you have any breakfast before you come out?’ she asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

‘We don’t do breakfast at ours,’ Ryan said, through a mouthful of cake. ‘I’m not that bothered.’

Oh, the arguments I used to have with Anne, Leni remembered.
Mum, I don’t want any Ready Brek. I’m not hungry.

Well you aren’t going out of this house without a breakfast inside you, young lady.

I’ll be sick if I eat it.

Compromise. Half a bowl.

I’ll have a Weetabix then. How’s that?

It’ll do.

Ryan finished the cake and dabbed up all the crumbs with his finger.

‘Thanks, that were lovely,’ he said and stood to go back to work.

‘Sit down and finish your drink,’ Leni commanded. ‘You’ve only had a ten-minute break.’ He obeyed her. ‘I’m sorry about what happened this morning. With
the landlord, Mr McCarthy.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Ryan with a resigned lift and drop of his shoulders. ‘Everyone knows us. The O’Gowan name’s always cropping up in the Chron.’

‘Well, I hadn’t heard of you,’ smiled Leni softly.

‘You must be the only one who hasn’t. I can’t really blame anyone for hearing the name O’Gowan from Ketherwood and thinking bad stuff. We’ve got a bit of a
reputation.’

‘I might need some help after work sometime if you’re free and it doesn’t interfere with any homework,’ she said, moving on to another subject. She didn’t want to
embarrass him.

‘Yeah, great,’ Ryan replied.

‘Saving up for anything?’

‘A Kindle,’ he beamed, without having to think about it. He drank the remainder of his orange juice and went straight into the back room and Leni thought she just might send him home
with the rest of the chocolate cake.

‘Fancy meeting you here.’ Will waved across to Carla as she was about to get into her car.

‘Oh, what a surprise,’ said Carla. ‘You work here then?’

‘Hoping to,’ said Will. ‘A few days’ casual work carrying a hod.’

So he was a labourer, thought Carla. That accounted for the strength in lifting up that armchair. His arms were bare now and she could see his muscle definition. She hoped he hadn’t
spotted her looking at them.

‘I’ve just been for a coffee,’ said Carla, pointing back at the teashop on the corner. ‘It’s really lovely in there.’

‘Yeah, I’ve been in before.’

Unable to think of anything witty or incisive to say, she settled on, ‘Well, bye. See you later. Good luck with the job.’

‘Cheers.’

Shaun was running late and was at the builder’s merchants, one of the lads on site informed him. Will thought he might as well have a coffee in the teashop. He could just
about afford one.

How the mighty had fallen.

Those words from Gerald Scotterfield had been playing over and over in his head like a stuck record since he had said them. They kept him awake for a good chunk of last night as he lay on the
inflatable mattress with his new hollow-fibre quilt from Brenda’s Bedding Shop covering him (obviously Nicole had taken the Hungarian goose down duvet). Even more cutting than the words
themselves had been the derision in Scotterfield’s piggy little eyes. He had enjoyed every minute of seeing Will brought low. Will decided in the middle of the sleepless night he could either
let that vision crush him or use it to kick himself up the derrière. As he never wanted to see anyone looking at him in that way again, he chose the latter course of action.

He hadn’t put any food in his cupboards yet. He’d go to the supermarket after meeting Shaun and stock up. Carla had left some shelves clear for him and said he was free to use the
kettle and things like the washing-up liquid, sponges and tea-towels. Initial impressions told him that Carla would be a relaxed landlady and he hoped that her initial impressions were that he
wouldn’t abuse that. She was a nice woman, pretty, with a lovely smile, and he wondered what her story was. She must be as skint as he was, having to rent out half a house she had only just
moved into.

He walked into the teashop and sat at a table.

‘Afternoon,’ said the cheery café-owner. ‘Be with you in a minute.’

Will picked up the menu and spotted straightaway what he fancied. Two egg mayo sandwiches and a huge pot of tea. He relayed his choice to the young lad who appeared at his side within a few
minutes, notepad and pencil poised. Then he looked around at all the lovely cabinets full of book-related things. Will hadn’t read half as much as he used to in the past few years; he’d
been too busy and too stressed out. He came from a family of serious readers. His mum loved her Midnight Moon romances and his dad couldn’t get enough of his spy novels. His sister read
Agatha Christie books over and over again and he enjoyed biographies and history. He’d always liked having books around; they were furniture to him, made a house a home. Nicole didn’t
read books, only fat glossy magazines full of models wearing designer clothing. Strangely enough, she had them all over the house, yet banned any books from the shelves, saying they looked untidy.
Dear God, every day was bringing another reason why they had been a ridiculous match.

The egg mayo sandwiches came on hunks of soft granary bread with crunchy salt and pepper and were absolutely delicious. Will thought he could have sat all afternoon in the teashop, eating
sandwiches and drinking tea. There was a lovely atmosphere in it: warm, inviting, calm. He wished he could bottle it and sprinkle it around his new flat so he would have a good night’s sleep.
He’d forgotten what one of those was. He got to his feet reluctantly to pay the bill after he spotted Shaun across the square.