11 The Teashop on the Corner (6 page)

Until she heard the splash, she wasn’t aware she was crying into her cup. How much of the past ten years with Martin had been a lie? He’d had an affair in the first year of their
marriage, a brief stupid fling that she’d found out about because he hadn’t been very good at covering it up. She had known without a doubt that if it ever happened again she would have
seen it coming a mile off because he was rubbish at deception. But she hadn’t, had she? Somewhere in their marriage he had acquired a master set of duplicitous skills. But why? He had to have
been unhappy to have started up another extra-marital relationship, didn’t he? What had she done wrong? She kept a clean house, cooked and washed for him, never gave him grief about being
away from home so much with his job, always greeted him with affection when he came home on Fridays. She looked after herself, she was always clean, and nicely dressed. She might have been carrying
a few extra pounds on her but she could still squeeze into a size fourteen and she was curvy rather than fat – her waist was ten inches smaller than her bust and hips, just as her Italian
mother had been built. So why had he wanted to leave her for a woman he hadn’t seen for thirty years? Her mind wanted to rip apart the last year and scour it for answers to the questions
which were banked up in her head but she knew if she let them, she would be drowned by them, destroyed by the sheer weight of his dishonesty.

She felt as though she would never be able to sleep again. As soon as her brain was off its leash, it would begin its quest to dissect every single part of her life with Martin from the phone
calls he made to her from ‘hotels’ when he was supposedly on the road to the ten days he spent ‘team-building’ playing golf in Scotland last October when he’d returned
as brown as a berry and blamed a freak Indian summer up there. On Christmas Day, he had gone out for a lunchtime drink with ‘an old friend’ who had come over from Los Angeles and she
hadn’t batted an eyelid when he came in at four p.m. apologising that he hadn’t been able to get away. And because she’d served up a very dried-out dinner, she hadn’t blamed
him when he hadn’t eaten all that much. Had he had his Christmas dinner with
her?
Did the friend from Los Angeles even exist? He had never mentioned him before or after so what did
that tell her?

She hadn’t doubted a single thing he’d said to her. How stupid was she? He could have told her that he was late home because he’d been abducted by aliens and she would have
believed him because she loved him and trusted him. She picked up her mug and then noticed it was one Martin had bought her. ‘World’s Best Wife’. He had given it to her on
Mother’s Day. He always bought her some trinket on Mother’s Day because she didn’t have a child’s card to open. Something like a mug was supposed to take that pain away.
She’d thought he was kind to do that.

Carla launched the cup, still full of tea, at the wall with a primal scream. Then she watched the brown liquid roll down the pale-painted wall, which it would stain indelibly.

‘Ah, good morning, Mr Singh,’ said Leni, as the bell above the door jangled and the handsome Sikh gentleman came into the shop as immaculate as ever in a suit and
dark blue turban. Leni thought he must have been a very handsome man in his youth. He had a generous mouth, large, beautiful dark eyes and thick eyelashes that any young woman would kill for.

Pavitar Singh had just earned the title of her very first ‘regular’ and that thought made her smile inside. This was the fourth time he had been in the café now. They had both
introduced themselves formally last week. He called her by her first name now, yet it didn’t feel right to call him by his.

‘Good morning, Leni. It’s a nice bright one.’

‘Rain forecast this afternoon, Mr Singh. So don’t hang out your washing,’ laughed Leni. ‘Now, what can I get for you?’

‘Tea. And what is the cake of the day please?’

‘Carrot and orange or chocolate and brandy. The latter is quite naughty.’

‘Oh,’ said Mr Singh. ‘That sounds very interesting. I think I will have to try the chocolate and brandy.’

‘Cream?’

‘No thank you. Now, what do you have new that I haven’t seen yet?’

‘The handbags,’ said Leni. ‘They’re made out of actual classic books. A present for your good lady perhaps?’

‘Alas, my beautiful Nanak is . . .’ Mr Singh raised his hands heavenward by way of explanation.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Leni.

‘No, no, don’t be sorry, it was ten years ago.’ Though it still hurt him, even after all that time, to say that she had gone. They should have been enjoying their retirement,
seeing the world as they had planned, visiting their daughter in America. But Nanak’s car had been rammed by a drunken driver who had been celebrating his release from prison – for
drunk driving. ‘My daughter loves handbags and she has always loved her books. That would be a perfect combination.’

‘Not just handbags, the wallets are new. And those gift money wallets. What else? Oh yes and those rocking desk ink blotters with the refill paper. Walnut. They’re from a retired
craftsman in Maltstone who makes them himself.’

‘Oh my,’ said Mr Singh, hardly able to wait until Leni opened up the cabinet to show him. He handled the largest blotter with a reverence worthy of a rare religious artefact.

‘Beautiful, aren’t they? That one is the most expensive at fifty pounds. But you’re in luck. I’ve decided to try and drum up some trade by having special offer Tuesdays.
Ten per cent off.’

‘I have to have it,’ said Mr Singh, his large chocolate-coloured eyes shining. ‘You understand of course.’

‘Oh yes, I understand. I totally
get
the stationery thing,’ nodded Leni. ‘Ever since I was a young girl I always loved nice stationery: pads, pens –
couldn’t get enough of it. I thought I was the only one, until I read an article in a magazine about other people who love it too.’

‘And so you started this wonderful business,’ said Mr Singh, taking one of the handbags out of the cabinet. It was a large hardbacked book version of
Pride and Prejudice
converted into a proper purposeful handbag with handles and a red velvet lining inside.

‘That’s fifty pounds too,’ said Leni, not sure if he had seen the price tag. ‘Less ten per cent today of course.’

‘It’s very nice,’ said Mr Singh. ‘My little Siana would love this. Although she’s not so little any more. She’s a surgeon in an American hospital. Do you have
a sturdy box, Leni? I think I would like to buy this for her birthday next month.’

‘I am sure I can find you a box, Mr Singh,’ replied Leni. ‘Is this the book you want? I have
Wuthering Heights
,
The Hound of the Baskervilles
,
The
Tenant
—’

Mr Singh held up his hand and stopped Leni talking. ‘This is her favourite. If only I could get Mr Darcy to deliver it to her in person.’

Leni chuckled. ‘I can’t arrange that, but I can get you a box,’ she said, taking the bag from him and locking up the cabinet. ‘Come and have your tea and cake and tell me
what you think. It’s a new recipe.’

‘I will indeed,’ said Mr Singh, taking a place at a table and reaching in his pocket for his wallet. He was so glad that he had stumbled upon this teashop on the corner with its
kind-eyed, cheerful owner a few weeks ago. It was such a relief to be lifted from his lonely existence, if only for an hour or so.

‘This chocolate and brandon cake is divine,’ chuckled Mr Singh with a look of rapture on his face. ‘I mean brandy, forgive me. I am being taken over by Jane Austen.’

‘No need to apologise, Mr Singh,’ mused Leni. He had just given her a cracking idea.

For Carla, the next week passed in a smog of confusion. Something deep within her did its best to help her survive. It drove her to take a shower, get dressed, try and eat
something. She did so with the air of a zombie who had managed to retain a smidgeon of its humanity. Everything seemed a major effort – brushing her teeth, putting a slice of bread in the
toaster.
Get a grip,
said the voice within her.
This is doing you no good at all. You need to start thinking about your next moves.
Seven days after Martin’s funeral, Carla
plugged in the vacuum and forced herself to run it over the carpet. Then she took the sheets off the bed and washed Martin from them and cried watching them tumble around in the machine.

She couldn’t go on without answers, but she had to. But she couldn’t. It was a never-ending circle which she couldn’t break. She sat down with a bowl of soup and turned on the
TV. An old black-and-white film was showing –
Séance on a Wet Afternoon
. She remembered seeing it years ago. It was the story of a medium who kidnaps a child in order to
receive praise for finding her with her ‘psychic’ skills.

A medium.

The word landed in Carla’s brain like a seed and immediately began to germinate. Of course. That’s what she needed. A medium. A bridge between this world and the next. Theresa would
have said she was mental even to entertain such an idea, but Theresa wasn’t here, and it was the only place she had to go.

She put the soup down, glad to have an excuse not to eat it, and reached for her laptop, typing the words
clairvoyants, Barnsley, Sheffield, Leeds
into Google.

She found loads on the internet and a couple in particular stood out. The first had an incredibly slick website so Carla rang her and found that she could make her an appointment in fourteen
months at the earliest. The second, in Rotherham, had a massive parade of testimonials, but couldn’t see her until Christmas. The third, in Leeds, carried the profile pic of a friendly,
down-to-earth lady sitting on a sofa and holding a crystal ball. She looked warm and genuine and Carla felt drawn to her for a reason she couldn’t fathom.
Pat Morrison, Clarevoyent for
forty years
– as her website title proclaimed – could fit her in the next day at two p.m.

Pat Morrison lived in an estate of well-looked-after 1960s semi-detached houses in Horcroft on the outskirts of Leeds. The gardens were neat without exception, with well-tended
borders and lots of coloured flowers, wishing wells and gnomes with fishing rods. Pat Morrison’s door was a striking shade of cyclamen and the nets that hung at her windows, a delicate hue of
blush pink. Carla suspected it was a definite pointer to pink overload inside – and she wasn’t wrong.

Pat Morrison herself was a vision in fuchsia. She opened the door in a floor-length kaftan that did nothing to hide her small bulky figure. Her lips were coated with a thick slick of neon pink
that could have been seen from orbit.

‘You must be Carla,’ she said, her accent thick Leeds with a nasal twist. Vera Duckworth with a sinus problem. ‘Come in, lovey, I’m just with a client at the
moment.’ She waddled down the hallway, her kaftan-clad girth rocking from side to side like a fishing boat in a force ten crosswind. She opened a door to the left which led into a small
sitting room smelling strongly of berry pot-pourri and gestured that Carla take the dark pink-upholstered chair in the corner. From a dish on an oval coffee table at its side, Pat picked up a
crystal sphere the size of a tennis ball and handed it to Carla.

‘I want you to hold this in your hand for five minutes whilst I leave you here,’ she instructed. ‘The ball will absorb your energies which I will read and interpret.
That’s how I work. Now you just take this – that’s it – and I’ll be back for you. And whilst you’re waiting, look through these and pick the one you are most
drawn to. Okay?’ She took a square plastic tub from the top of a display cabinet and put it on Carla’s lap.

Carla nodded obediently. Pat wobbled off and shut the door behind her and Carla rolled the ball around in her hand, letting her eyes take in her surroundings. There were two framed pictures on
the wall: one of Pat as a younger woman standing next to an old lady wearing a veil, in front of a tent with a large Petulengro sign behind them. The other featured Pat holding her crystal ball and
sporting that bright pink lipstick. Carla wondered what the shade was called. Boiled crab? There were small bowls of cherry-pink pot pourri everywhere and a huge one on the display cabinet which
housed a variety of topical items within its ornate glass doors: a rabbit’s foot, models of black cats, crystals, sets of tarot cards, horseshoes, more photos in frames of Pat posing with
people.

Carla poked around in the tub with her right hand whilst holding on to the ball in her left. There were lots of different items: a brooch with the word ‘Mother’ on it, a pipe, a
packet of needles, a souvenir pen from Blegthorpe-on-Sea, a ring, a small brass cat, a military medal, an enamel red heart, a lipstick. Carla plucked out that one, took off the top and twisted it
out. It was the very same shade of pink that Pat wore. She turned it upside down to read the name on the bottom:
French Fanny.

Blimey, are French ones really that pink, thought Carla with a sudden inner giggle. She squinted to read it again. The letters were slightly worn, hence the mistake.
French Fancy
. She
covered her mouth to stop the laughter frothing up inside her from escaping. The harder she suppressed it, the more it bubbled up.
French Fanny.
It was too funny. The censoring silence of
the room wasn’t helping. She had a sudden vision of being sixteen and having a fit of giggles in her Maths GCSE when the exam invigilator sneezed and let out a giant fart at the same time.
She’d thought she was going to burst from keeping that laugh in, it was seeping out of her eyes in tear form, so desperate was it to find its way to the outside. Just like now.

This was the first time the corners of her mouth had turned up since ages before Martin died, she suddenly realised. She chose the lipstick as her object, then her brain went into reverse
thrust.
Am I only picking this because I was drawn in by the colour and the comical reading error?
she asked herself. She needed to think carefully – after all, the object she chose
could have important repercussions. She dug into the tub again and examined the scraps of jewellery and charms but there was nothing that had captured her attention as much as the French Fanny
lipstick.