11 The Teashop on the Corner (37 page)

He had just ordered two toasted teacakes when Carla bounced in with a broad beaming smile.

‘Someone’s happy today,’ greeted Molly.

‘I’ve been over to the shop to start moving things in,’ said Carla, the smile so big now, her lips could barely contain it. ‘I’m opening Wednesday.’

Mr Singh and Harvey applauded. ‘That’s wonderful,’ Mr Singh praised her.

‘I know,’ Carla clapped her hands together with glee.

‘I intend to be your first customer,’ said Harvey, behind his hand so Molly couldn’t hear.

‘You’d be very welcome,’ said Carla. She was hungry this morning. All the excitement had given her a proper healthy appetite that she hadn’t had in a long time. She
ordered a huge piece of the chocolate pie. Today was not a day for dieting.

Through the window Leni could see a van with the name
Northern Deliveries
sign-written on it on the other side of the square.

‘Oh, that’s for me,’ she said. ‘Excuse me.’ When she went outside to wave over the driver, Mr Singh suddenly leapt up out of his seat and shouted for Ryan.

‘Quick everyone, look, whilst Leni is busy,’ he said, pulling a folded page from a newspaper from his pocket and handing it over to Harvey. ‘Not a word to her. I have
recommended the Teashop on the Corner for this.’

Ryan peered over Harvey’s shoulder to see that it was a page from the
Daily Trumpet
, featuring a competition to find the most welcoming café in South Yorkshire. The prize
was five hundred pounds and a full page of advertising in their new Thursday magazine supplement.

Molly nodded with approval. ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely if Leni won. She deserves some extra business.’

Carla nodded in agreement. Leni was a darling. She wasn’t sure she would have had the guts to take the lease for the shop had Leni not tipped her over the edge towards the decision.

Mr Singh lifted a finger to his lips. ‘Not a word,’ he warned Ryan. ‘I want to see the surprise on her face when she wins.’

Ryan grinned. He was in a happy mood. After today’s wages, he would only be ten pounds short for his Kindle. And as luck would have it, Leni had given him a voucher cut from
yesterday’s paper. With it he could get ten pounds off a Kindle if he bought it at Tesco. He was going to catch the bus straight from work and buy it.

‘She’s coming back,’ warned Carla, and they all assumed their former positions just as Leni walked in with a handful of small packages.

Harvey noticed that Molly hadn’t eaten much of her teacake.

‘I don’t want you to be upset, my love,’ he said.

‘All these years I thought you—’

Harvey shushed her. ‘I acted like a scoundrel and it was an easy conclusion to draw. And you were manipulated by Graham when you were vulnerable. I’m only glad that I didn’t
die before you realised the truth. I remember how much you treasured those few pieces.’

He wondered who was wearing that beautiful engagement ring now with the diamonds and the oval sapphire which he had chosen for her because it was the same colour as her eyes.

‘To think that my own son . . . I always hoped he had some love, some respect for me . . . but I’ve been fooling myself on that score too. I don’t want to leave him anything in
my will. I feel like selling up and blowing the lot of my money on something frivolous.’

‘You should,’ said Harvey. ‘Go travelling. See the world.’

‘It’s too late in life,’ replied Molly. ‘I’m too old now.’

‘Too old? Don’t be daft, woman. There are some things it is never too late for: holidays, good friends, happy endings.’ He turned to Mr Singh. ‘Pavitar. Please tell Molly
that she isn’t too old to buy herself a round the world ticket.’

‘Not at all,’ said Mr Singh with a deep merry chuckle. ‘I would be happy to come with you and carry your bags.’

‘There you go, I’ve even found you a chaperone,’ laughed Harvey. Then, he suddenly folded over, pressing his chest.

‘Harvey,’ Molly cried.

‘It’s all right,’ Harvey said, straightening up and letting slip a white lie with his next breath. ‘Only a smack of heartburn. Nothing to worry about.’

‘You should be resting,’ said Pavitar, his serious professional head on. ‘It’s easy to think you are more well than you are and overdo things.’

‘I’ve never felt better,’ Harvey insisted, his eyes bright and twinkling and fixed on Molly. His lovely Molly. Oh, how he adored her. He hoped he would last until Margaret came
back home. He wouldn’t rest in his grave knowing those fat greedy vultures Graham and Sherry were circling.

Ryan had rushed over with a glass of water.

‘Bless you, lad,’ said Harvey. ‘You’re a good boy. I should like to be in one of your classes when you’re older. I think you’d make an excellent English
teacher. One of those superb pedagogues you remember for all the right reasons.’

‘I had an English teacher like that,’ put in Molly. ‘Oh, she was wonderful. Miss Cole. She was a terrifying woman with a very hairy upper lip but she brought every book we read
alive. Oh, I remember reading
Great Expectations
and thinking what a fascinating creature Miss Havisham was.’

‘Do you know that book, Ryan?’ asked Mr Singh.

‘Yep,’ said Ryan. ‘Pip’s sister was awful. She’s like my brother Leslie. Right bully.’

‘Yes, Ryan, she was. I always did want to kick Joe up the bottom and tell him to stop being so henpecked,’ Molly smiled.

‘Can I get you anything, Harvey?’ asked Leni, her face full of concern.

‘I have all I need,’ said Harvey. He would miss this little world of warmth and camaraderie. He wondered if God would allow him to visit occasionally on a Tuesday, to sit invisibly
in a chair and drift past the cabinets full of literary gifts and listen to the banter about Marley’s ghost, that bastard Heathcliff and old cobwebby brides. Harvey Hoyland thought he could
handle death quite easily if he could do that.

Leni called a cheery Sunday ‘Good morning’ to Shaun as she walked across the square from her car to her teashop. He waved back with some reluctance, as if his
politeness had won over his will. She wondered if there had ever been a Mrs McCarthy and if she had broken his heart and that was why he pulled away from the world.

She put the cat basket down and opened the door for Mr Bingley. As usual, he took his time about leaving the warm blanket inside. And when he did, he walked straight across to his regular bed in
the corner.

Leni attached a new postcard to Anne’s wall.

Leni stood back to look at all the postcards. Her vision instantly blurred with tears.

‘Oh Annie, I miss you so much,’ said Leni, her hand coming out, touching the latest of the postcards. She thought of her daughter, slim and tall like her ex-husband, but with her
colouring; dark hair, eyes a combination of green and muddy brown. She turned quickly away and towards the day’s work. She had a lot of photographs to take of the new stock for the internet
site. There was no point being maudlin, wishing her daughter was here with her.

*

Margaret and Bernard had barely got through the door at three-thirty p.m. when the phone started ringing.

‘Oh for goodness sake, let the answerphone pick it up,’ said Bernard. ‘It can’t be anything important.’

‘There are nine messages saved,’ said Margaret, crossing over to it and seeing the number flash. She pressed the play button.

‘Auntie Margaret. If you are there, can you please pick up,’ came a horribly familiar voice through the machine speaker. ‘It’s about Mother. It’s urgent, I must
speak to you.’

‘God, it’s Graham,’ said Margaret. He never rang so it must be serious. She didn’t even realise he had her number.

The second message was also from Graham. ‘Hello, hello. Are you there, Auntie Margaret? Uncle Bernard?’ Then followed a mumbled impatient aside about old people not having mobile
phones before the receiver was put down.

‘Are all of them from him?’ asked Bernard, more concerned now.

‘Can you please ring me, Auntie Margaret? It’s about Mother. I have to talk to you. She’s gone mad.’

Margaret and Bernard looked at each other.

Without hearing more messages, Margaret lifted the receiver and dialled the repeated number listed on the incoming call register. She pressed the speakerphone button so Bernard could hear too.
It was answered almost immediately.

‘Graham, Graham, it’s Margaret. We’ve just this minute got in from holiday. What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘Mother has gone barmy,’ screeched Graham. ‘I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have her mentally assessed. I’ll be over in ten minutes. Don’t go over to
her house until you’ve seen me.’

‘Graham . . .’ But he had gone.

Margaret put down the phone. Bernard was looking at her expectantly.

‘I didn’t catch the last part of what he said. He was half-hysterical. He’s coming over straightaway, and then what? We better go over to Molly’s and see what’s
wrong.’

‘He said not to and to wait for him.’ Margaret was worried. What on earth could warrant Graham being so concerned over his mother? It didn’t bode well at all.

Leni was in the back room pricing up some notepads when she heard the shop door crash open and slam shut again. She got up from the table and walked into the teashop and there
she found Ryan sitting at a table, his head down on his arms, his shoulders shaking with sobs.

She rushed over and pulled up a chair at the side of him.

‘Ryan, whatever is the matter? Are you all right, love?’

‘No, I’m not,’ said Ryan, lifting his head. His face was red and tear-stained as if he had been crying for a long time. ‘He’s taken my Kindle and flogged
it.’

‘Who has?’

‘Our Leslie. Me brother. He took it out of my room when I was asleep. The box is missing as well. He’s flogged it. And he’s going to kill me because I’ve thrown his wraps
down the bog. I’m dead.’

Ryan’s head dropped down again and he howled.

‘Oh love,’ Leni said, and put her hand on his shoulder. And Ryan sobbed harder, then suddenly turned to her and threw his arms around her and cried into her neck. And Leni held him
tightly and thought how slight he was for a boy of fourteen.

As if suddenly embarrassed by his weakness, Ryan pulled abruptly away and wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m just so bloody angry. I hadn’t even had a chance to download a book.’

Leni handed him over a serviette. ‘Let me get you a drink of orange juice. You wipe your eyes and sit there for a minute.’

‘Will you lock the door?’ asked Ryan, his voice hiccupping with sobs.

‘Yes, of course I will,’ replied Leni, crossing to the door to drop the latch. Shaun’s warning about the O’Gowans flared in her brain and she felt a heavy knot of panic
form in her stomach. Especially as, framed in the pane of door glass, she saw a black Fiesta with one red door screech into the grassy middle of the square and then someone got out and started
striding purposefully towards the shop.

Margaret hadn’t seen Graham for a few years now, but he hadn’t changed, apart from having added a couple more stones of lard to his gut. And his hair had thinned
and remarkably got less grey and more yellow-blond. She found herself instinctively curling back her lip and tried, for the sake of politeness, not to. Had she been a cat, the hairs on her back
would be standing up and her tail fuzzed to five times its normal size.

Nevertheless she and Bernard listened as objectively as possible to Graham and Sherry’s shared account of the nightmare which occurred in Willowfell the previous day.

‘She attacked Gram,’ Sherry reported, palm flat on her enormous chest as if attempting to still a racing heartbeat. ‘His own mother. Physically attacked him.’

‘More than that, Sherry. She actually issued a death threat.’

‘That doesn’t sound like Molly.’ Bernard’s eyebrows were dipped in concern.

‘It didn’t look like her either. She was possessed. Possessed by that . . . that man. She was accusing Gram of all sorts. Screaming at him.’ Sherry’s hand flew up to her
forehead. ‘It gave Gram a migraine last night. He was nearly sick on the sheepskin rug.’

Margaret was having a real problem fathoming all this out. She was pre-disposed not to believe anything Graham said, but then he could hardly lie about having seen Harvey Hoyland in the house.
And he certainly must have been extremely concerned to search out his aunt for help.
Harvey Hoyland.
How had he managed to inveigle his way back into her sister’s life? And why
– at this time of their lives?

‘What was she accusing you of, Graham?’ asked Bernard, his calm, calculating barrister’s head on.

‘Theft. Can you believe?’ Sherry answered for him. ‘She actually accused Gram of all the things she knows
that man
did. I tell you, we were that far off ringing up to
have her sectioned,’ and she pincered her thumb and finger, leaving the minutest gap between them.

‘She went for me,’ said Graham. ‘I felt frightened of my own mother.’

‘And she was about to go for me too,’ added Sherry. ‘She had this wild look in her eyes. It was as if she’d suddenly been turned into Russell Crowe.’

Bernard looked at the twenty-eight-stone, six-foot-two man and his rotund five-foot-ten wife and tried to imagine them in a physical confrontation with five-foot-five, seven-stone Molly. She
couldn’t have done them much damage even if she’d gone at them full pelt.

‘It’s all that Harvey Hoyland’s fault,’ put in Graham. ‘It has to be.’

‘Oh and you haven’t heard the best of it,’ said Sherry, her chin wobbling like a turkey’s wattle. ‘He says he’s dying. He’s actually had the nerve to
use that line and the sill . . . Molly believes it. He’s totally brainwashed her.’

‘I think it’s best we all go across to Molly’s house,’ Bernard said calmly, needing to see this phenomenon of a rabid gladiatorial Molly for himself. He didn’t
wholly trust Graham’s account, but he was concerned about Harvey being back in Willowfell.