Caroline Roberts - The Cosy Teashop in the Castle

Mum poked her head out from the living-room door, eyebrows raised. Ellie made a small thumbs-up gesture and then tilted her head sideways with a jerk, indicating the phone call was still ongoing, as if to tell her to disappear.

‘Right, well that’s settled, Ellie. We’ll see you on Thursday at eleven, then.’

‘Yes … and thank you.’ She hung on the line, heard the click and silence. It wasn’t a yes by a long way, but it was a definite maybe. Impressed – the word swum in her mind. And she’d thought all she’d done was gabble on like a loony at the interview.

She did a little dance into the lounge, where Jason lay draped across a sofa and her mum was making a pretence of watching the telly, ‘Well, then?’

‘It’s a maybe,’ she sung, ‘Guess who’s got a second interview?’

Jason managed a nod and the word ‘Cool’. Mum was more cautious, ‘Well, that’s good news, pet,’ adding, ‘Now don’t get your hopes up too high,’ with a knowing smile.

Ellie was undeterred, skipped out into the hall, punched the air and then wondered how the hell she was going to keep up the good impression with virtually no experience and no qualifications to show for herself. Her skipping slowed.

Ellie

Sickie pulled, she was heading north again. Ellie turned off the A1, away from the trail of lorries and cars, driving one-handedly at times, the other securing the cake box that sat on her passenger seat as the lanes got more winding. The box contained the choffee cake, Nanna Beryl’s special recipe, that she had created last night. A batch of cherry-and-almond scones, baked fresh at six-thirty this morning, were nestled in a tub in the foot well.

She’d thought and thought about how she might impress Lord Henry and Joe, but with her ‘on paper’ lack of experience, the only thing she could come up with was to take a sample of her baking along with her and suggest a spot of ‘afternoon tea’ at eleven o’clock. It was her best shot.

Ellie had turned to Nanna’s recipe for ‘choffee cake’ in her hour of need, mixing and baking, and decorating it with fat curls of white and dark chocolate and those lovely dark-chocolate-covered coffee beans (her own tweak on the original recipe). She had been up until the early hours, as the first attempt hadn’t risen as well as she wanted. Her mum appeared in the kitchen in her dressing gown and slippers, bleary-eyed, wondering what the heck her daughter was doing at one o’clock in the morning still cooking; she had thought they were being burgled. Oh, yes, she was an intruder bearing a palette knife and chocolate buttercream, Ellie had joked.

Anyway, there she was driving rather precariously along the lanes, whilst securing her precious cargo. There was no way she was going to risk the whole lot sliding off the seat, down into the foot well, ending up a smashed mess.

She was on a long straight now and she relaxed a little. The panorama panned out ahead of her; sheep were scattered across rolling green fields, clusters of small villages, the foothills of the Cheviots. Cattle were languidly grazing, the odd shaggy head lifted and gazed across their domain. Could it be her domain? For a city kid she was curiously drawn to the countryside. When she was smaller the family used to come up for picnics to the Ingram Valley once or twice a year, park the car on the chewed-down grass of the river bank and spend the day in shorts and T-shirts paddling in the icy brown waters, damming up a small pool area. Finally coming out, to be wrapped in towels when the shivers struck, to munch away on cheese-and-ham sandwiches and packets of Mr Kipling angel slices or mini apple pies (her mother had somehow missed the baking gene). They’d often track down some other kids along the river bank and have a game of bat and ball or rounders, if there were enough of them. Then, the hour back down the road to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, tired and happy, leaving the sheep and the bracken in peace once more.

Her little Corsa wound its way down into the valley below, through a small village: stone cottages, a village pub, a friendly nod from an old man with his dog. She’d bet they all knew each other around here. Turned off at the sign for Claverham Castle.

That was when the nerves hit.

How the hell was she going to convince them that she could run a successful teashop and afford to pay the lease, when she wasn’t even sure of it herself? She didn’t even have any qualifications. She’d been chatting with Kirsty at her café, and she knew some of the basic health-and-hygiene and food-handling requirements from when she had worked there that time. And then there was the health and safety side of things to consider, customer service, staff issues – it seemed a bloody minefield. If she hadn’t spent half the night baking these bloody cakes, and the thought of her mother’s ‘I told you so’ ringing in her ears as she landed back at Fifth Avenue, then she might have turned around right there and then.

Thankfully her optimistic alter ego took over, in fact the voice in her mind sounded very like Nanna Beryl’s, ‘You’ve got this far, girl, keep going. Just try your best and see what happens’ and the warm flicker of her dream gave her the courage she needed to drive on. Turning into the castle driveway, she slowed instinctively to take it all in this time. Crocuses and snowdrops lined the grassy verges, making way for the tight yellow-green buds of daffodils just about to bloom; she’d hardly noticed these a few days before. Tall gnarled trees lined the track, dappling the road with shadows and light. Then the majestic outline of the stone castle itself, curls of smoke from a couple of its chimneys, the turrets along the rooftop. It was regular in shape, four storeys high with the main door bang smack in the middle and four square towers securing its corners; like a castle a child might draw. She wondered briefly what might have happened between its ancient walls, what trials and tribulations – the joys, the pain, loves, births, deaths?

And her own little bit of history about to unfold, would she ever be back? Was there a glimmer that her future might be here, for a while at least? What would it feel like to come here every day to work, to be baking cakes and scones, prepping sandwiches and soup in the kitchen, serving customers, dealing with Lord Henry, Joe? Her heart gave a tentative leap. If only she’d get the chance to find out.

She parked up, gave her hair a quick brush, then twisted it into a loose knot and popped it up in a clip at the back of her head. The last thing she wanted was a stray strawberry-blonde strand attaching itself to the chocolate buttercream of her pièce de resistance. She’d decided on wearing a dark-grey trouser-suit with flat black suede shoes this time – the high heels having proven tricky before, and she was going to have to carry the choffee cake and scones.

There was no sign of Deana or anyone at the front steps, so she would have to carry the goods all by herself. She took one last look in the rear-view mirror, slashed a little gloss over her lips. She’d have to do, it was ten to eleven, so she’d better get out and get on with it. Deep breath. Car door open. Check for muddy puddles – all clear. Phrases she’d practised were whizzing through her head, the likes of ‘I am organised’, ‘a team player, with leadership skills too’, ‘able to take the initiative’, ‘sole responsibility of bistro/café’, ‘good business mind’ (passed GCSE in business studies, got a B no less). Walk round car. Open passenger door. Hang the bag of scones from wrist. Lift cake box very carefully. A slow shift of the hip to close the passenger door. Proceed with caution to castle steps.

The main door was closed. There was an old-style bell button apparent, but how the hell was she going to press it without dropping the cake? She was starting to feel flummoxed when a crack appeared between the two heavy wooden doors. A gruff male voice said ‘H’lo?’ The crack widened to reveal a young man with a gappy grin and shorn-short hair, dressed in camouflage-style jacket and trousers.