The Cornish Cream Tea Bus Read online

  ‘OK, Sal?’ she called back into the bus, where Sally, The Café on the Hill’s newest staff member, seventeen years old, and with a pile of caramel curls on top of her head, was sitting quietly.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she replied, her high voice rising further as they went over a large rut in the grass.

  Charlie grinned. They had made it. Clive’s hard work had paid off and now, with only the loss of a couple of downstairs seats, she had a small preparation area, and an under-the-counter fridge where she could keep chocolate éclairs and fresh cream cakes. She had made individual portions of Eton Mess and Key Lime pies, and a range of flapjacks, brownies and millionaire’s shortbread. Clive had also installed a fresh-water tank. It was small, but it meant she could have a proper coffee machine with a milk frother.

  Everything was fairly cramped, but that didn’t matter because she wasn’t going to invite people onto the bus. What remained of the downstairs seating was taken up with her trays of goodies, and one of the long windows was now a serving hatch. She could unclip it and pull it up, securing it inside the bus while she served through the opening, as with any other food truck. It was perfect.

  Gertie was a half-cab Routemaster, with the traditional hobbit-sized door on the driver’s side, used to climb into the cab, and the main doorway and stairs at the back of the bus. When Hal had given her a makeover a couple of years ago, he had made the cab accessible from inside the bus – he told Charlie he was getting too old to hoick himself over the wheel arch – and installed a tiny but functional toilet under the stairs. Clive had made Gertie as good as new and, with the extra additions, she had everything she needed, Charlie hoped, to work as a café bus. But this day would prove it either way; she was determined to make a success of it.

  She slowed the bus down, and a young man in a fluorescent jacket waved her into position. Sally arranged the trays of bakes strategically around the serving hatch while Charlie jumped down from the bus and, registering nervously how spongy the grass was, slid her menu into the frame Clive had bolted on next to the opening. She was offering a selection of sweet and savoury treats, including a sausage roll with flaky pastry and a herby sausage-meat filling. Ideally they’d be served warm, but they tasted delicious cold as well.

  ‘Ready to go?’ she asked Sally, who was smoothing down her apron and staring at the sausage rolls as if they might bite. ‘It doesn’t open officially for another half an hour, but it may be that other traders will want a snack before the general public arrive.’

  Sally had only been working at The Café on the Hill for two weeks, and behaved as if everything was a potential threat. Charlie knew she’d come out of her shell sooner or later, and thought that a day spent at a fair, where almost anything could happen, would be good for her.

  ‘I’ve arranged all the cakes and pastries,’ Sally said, giving Charlie a nervous smile.

  ‘They look great. Shall we go and hang the banner up?’

  She’d had it made at one of the local printer’s; a beautiful sign in tarpaulin-weight material that would run the length of the vehicle, declaring it to be The Café on the Bus in burgundy writing on a cream background. Beneath it, in a forest-green font, it read: An offshoot of The Café on the Hill. It had brass-capped eyelets threaded through with thick chord, so she could attach it easily over the upper deck windows. Even Bea had widened her eyes appreciatively when she had showed her, rolling it out along the tabletops in the café.

  She had also added a couple of photos of Gertie to The Café on the Hill’s Instagram page, and had received 117 likes on the picture she’d posted yesterday. It needed work, but it was a solid start.

  Now Charlie led the way up the narrow staircase, the metal rail cool under her hand, and passed one end of the banner to Sally.

  ‘We’re going to have to hang it out of that end window, and then I’m going to have to grab it and unroll it outside, going to each window in turn to get it running the whole length of the bus. So just hold on, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Sally parroted back.

  It was hard going. She had to lean her arms out of adjacent windows so she could hold it up and then unfurl it further, but after ten minutes of sweating and muttered swearing, she was tying her end of the banner firmly onto the window. It was the right way round. It wasn’t upside down. Quietly triumphant, they rushed outside to look at their handiwork, and Charlie grinned. ‘The Café on the Bus,’ she declared. ‘We are open for business!’

  Within two minutes of the banner going up, she had a queue of five people looking eagerly up at her through the serving hatch.

  ‘What’s this, love,’ said an old man with a flat cap pulled low over his eyes. ‘Hal’s old bus getting a new lease of life?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she replied. ‘He left it to me, and I’m giving it a fresh start as a food truck. What do you think?’

  ‘I think my Daphne will miss the tours,’ he said, accepting a sausage roll and a black coffee in a sturdy takeaway cup. Charlie hadn’t had time to get them branded, but had picked out cream and green cups to tie in with the bus’s colour scheme.

  ‘Lots of people will,’ Charlie admitted. ‘Hal ran brilliant tours, but I can’t do that.’

  ‘Someone else could mebbe take them on, then,’ he added thoughtfully, and bit into the sausage roll. He eyed it appraisingly, and then her, and then shrugged. ‘Not sure it’s meant to be a café bus, like.’

  Charlie kept her smile fixed. ‘I’m just giving it a go. This is our first outing together.’ She patted the side of the bus, feeling like something out of a cheesy Sixties film.

  ‘I say good luck to you,’ called a tall man in a navy fleece from further back in the queue. ‘Coffee out of a bus is a marvellous idea. Gives it a bit of individuality. You going to serve three-course dinners from your little window, too?’

  ‘Oh, shush your mouth, Bill Withers,’ said a bright-faced, plump lady Charlie recognized from the chemist’s in town. ‘This young lass is using her initiative. Would you rather the bus stayed locked away in a garage until it rusted to nothing? We all know Hal wouldn’t have wanted that.’

  ‘I just think it’s hilarious,’ Bill countered, while Charlie tried to serve and not let embarrassment overwhelm her. ‘Serving food from Hal’s old bus. Whatever next? Driving to work in the Indian takeaway?’ He laughed a loud, unbridled laugh that had several people turning in their direction.

  ‘Oh, don’t mind him,’ the woman said as she reached the front of the queue. ‘He’s so far stuck in the past he should be wearing black and white.’ She rolled her eyes, and this time Charlie’s smile was genuine.

  ‘It was only an idea,’ she replied. ‘Hal left me the bus, and I wanted to put it to good use, to have it out in the open, like you said. I’m a baker, so I thought I could combine the two.’

  ‘And it’s a grand idea,’ her supporter said, accepting a slightly haphazard-looking Eton Mess that was living up a bit too well to its name – Charlie would have to do something to keep her puddings upright when they were driving across rough ground. ‘You iron out a few … wrinkles, and it’ll be a triumph. Don’t listen to the naysayers. You do you, and let everyone else worry about themselves.’

  ‘I will,’ Charlie said. ‘Thank you for the vote of confidence.’

  The morning passed quickly, and Charlie had a constant stream of people buying coffees, flapjacks and Bakewell tarts, and the sausage-roll stock was depleting quickly. Music had started up from somewhere, and there were families and groups of friends, people with dogs on leads milling about the field. A falconry demonstration was taking place in the cordoned-off square they were calling the arena, and Charlie knew that, despite all the hustle and noise, Gertie stood out. She was taller than most of the other food trucks, striking with her cream and green paintwork and, if nothing else, word of mouth was doing its job regarding her cakes.

  ‘What do you think, Sal?’ she asked. ‘Are you enjoying yourself?’

  ‘It’s great,’ Sally squeaked. Charlie would
have to work on her confidence once they were back in the café.

  She turned to the hatch, her head full of strategies for female empowerment, and her smile fell. There, first in the queue, was Stuart Morstein. He looked effortlessly handsome in his jeans, white shirt and navy jacket, his light brown hair pushed away from his forehead. He grinned at Charlie, and her insides shrivelled.

  ‘A cheese scone and a latte, thanks, Charlie. Can I have the scone buttered?’

  ‘No problem,’ she said, through lips that wouldn’t work properly. What was he doing here? Was it something to do with their flat? If so, why hadn’t he called her? The last time she had spoken to the solicitor she had said the sale was going through, they were just waiting on some final paperwork. It was a typically vague answer, and she should have gone to Stuart to begin with, but she was avoiding him at all possible costs. He was obviously not affording her the same courtesy.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked, while Charlie frothed the milk and Sally buttered a scone and put it in a paper bag with a green napkin and some Parmesan crisps.

  ‘Good, thanks,’ she said, wondering where Annalise, her replacement, was. Charlie wouldn’t be surprised to discover she was too proud to come to the countryside, and lived her life entirely in London or on holiday in the Maldives. At least, she thought as she gazed at the man who until four months ago had been her boyfriend, being in the bus meant she could look down on him for a change.

  Sally handed her the bag. Charlie leant out of the hatch to pass Stuart his coffee and scone, and the bus lurched forwards. Charlie was thrown sideways, scalding latte covering her hand, her shoulder bashing against the window frame. Behind her, Sally screamed, and Stuart took a step backwards, his features contorting in alarm.

  ‘Shit.’ Charlie tried to right herself and the bus lurched again, this time sending up a thick spurt of mud from the front wheel onto Stuart’s jeans.

  ‘We’re sinking!’ Sally screamed. ‘Is it a sinkhole? Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!’ She ran through the bus and flew down the steps.

  Charlie tried again to pull herself up and Gertie lurched for a third time, the front left-hand wheel sinking further into the mud. Stuart’s latte cup was almost empty now, most of it dripping over Charlie’s hand, and she had dropped the scone after lurch number two. Stuart was standing back, looking at her as if she’d turned into a monster, and he wasn’t the only one.

  A crowd had formed, and as Charlie scanned the faces of the people who were standing and staring, rather than helping, she saw that their expressions ranged between horror and glee.

  After the third lurch the bus seemed to settle, and Charlie dragged herself to standing, which was difficult now that the ground below her was tilted.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Charlie,’ Stuart said, somewhat pompously, she thought. ‘This bus is a death trap! Anyone could have been standing at the front.’

  ‘The ground’s too soft, that’s all. And nobody would have got hurt even if they had been standing at the front. It hasn’t rolled. It’s just … sunk a bit.’ She peered out of the hatch and looked at her submerged wheel. Would she be able to drive it out? Would anyone help with planks?

  Her ex took a step closer, his hands on his hips. This was classic Stuart: he would rescue her, fix her calamities and errors of judgement like the wonderful, patient human being that he was, and expect her to be eternally grateful. Charlie narrowed her eyes, preparing to do the opposite of whatever he suggested, when there was a flapping sound and the banner, which they had secured so tightly at the beginning of the morning, came free of its restraints and fell towards the ground. Except that Stuart was in the way, so it landed, quite expertly, on top of him, as if he was a fire that needed extinguishing.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Charlie!’ came Stuart’s muffled voice from somewhere beneath the banner. Even though Charlie’s audience seemed less than approving of her, and poor Gertie was clearly wedged quite solidly in the mud, and this probably meant that her time running The Café on the Bus was already at an end – the shortest-lived career in history – Charlie started laughing. Once she’d started, she couldn’t stop, tears of mirth pouring down her cheeks as she surveyed the carnage from the hatch window, trying to keep her footing on the lopsided floor. As Stuart emerged, flustered and fuming, Charlie hid inside her bus, where scones and flapjacks were scattered like autumn leaves, and the coffee machine was beginning to leak.

  ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Shitting hell.’ The sight was sobering, and her laughter left her as suddenly as it had started.

  She heard footsteps and looked up, prepared to brace herself against her ex-boyfriend’s anger, and found another man standing in the doorway, his movements hesitant as he tried not to succumb to gravity and fall into her.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘How can I help?’ In the circumstances, it was a ridiculous thing to say. She wasn’t in a position to help anyone.

  ‘Are you all right?’ He had dark blond hair crafted into some sort of quiff, and was wearing a denim jacket over dark cords and a black T-shirt with a green logo on it. His skin looked impossibly smooth above the designer stubble, and his hazel eyes were warm.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said, raising her arms hopelessly.

  ‘I’ve had this happen before.’ He edged forward and held out his hand. ‘Oliver Chase. I run The Marauding Mojito.’ He gestured over his left shoulder. ‘I’ve got experience of sinking, leaking, wasp swarms – you think it up, I’ve had it happen. But this is your first time?’

  ‘First and last, I should think,’ Charlie said, shaking his hand.

  He gave her a gentle smile. ‘No need to be so dramatic. First thing we need to do is get her upright. And I’d like to say I can help, but I’m a man, not a god. So … recovery?’

  ‘I have a number in my phone.’ Charlie walked hesitantly to the cab, holding onto anything she could, and took her phone out of the valuables box. She didn’t know Oliver or The Marauding Mojito, but she was grateful for his calmness. Of course she would have made this decision on her own, but it was as if he’d sucked all her panic away.

  He was peering out of the hatch towards the site of the submergence. Some of the crowd was still there, and Stuart was tersely dusting himself down, his ego more bruised than anything else. Charlie took a deep breath. It was a hiccup, nothing more. She could still do this.

  And then there were more footsteps. She and Oliver both turned to see who else had come to help, and were met with a face that was very familiar to Charlie, and yet stormier than she had ever seen it.

  Bea Fishington gripped onto the walls of the bus as if it was a sinking boat, still rocking violently.

  ‘Oh Charlie,’ she said, her expression a mixture of pity and distress, ‘what on earth has happened here?’

  Chapter Four

  ‘A sabbatical? But I—’

  Bea held a hand up to shush her, picked one of the fallen sausage rolls off a seat, dusted it down and bit into it. Charlie glanced out of the window and was relieved to see that the crowd had mostly dispersed now the action seemed to be over. They were waiting for recovery to come and haul them out of the mud.

  ‘My niece, Nora, is coming to stay with me over the summer,’ Bea said. ‘I know that’s a way off, but I can train Sally up. She may be timid, but she’s got baking experience and a willing attitude.’

  ‘But you can’t do without me,’ Charlie replied, failing to keep the shock out of her voice.

  ‘Charlie,’ Bea sighed and lowered herself into a tilting seat, ‘you’re taking on too much. This would have been a good idea, I think, if you had been able to give more time and thought to its execution, but I’m just not sure you’re capable of that at the moment. Losing Hal, breaking up with Stuart and having the responsibility of the bus, too. You’re trying to run at a hundred miles an hour when, really, you should be slowing down.’

  ‘I don’t need to slow down,’ Charlie said. ‘I need to keep working, to stay busy and—’

  ‘S
ometimes we have to let other people decide what’s best for us,’ Bea cut in, ‘and I am telling you to take a break. Come back to the café after the summer. Spend time looking for a new place to live, go and see Juliette or go and lie by a pool, somewhere hot. But stop thinking about work. Give yourself time to heal.’

  Charlie opened her mouth to respond, but Bea’s warning look said it all. Instead, she slumped into a chair and surveyed the destruction around her.

  Most of her stock had fallen onto the floor, the coffee machine was broken and the fridge was making a strange whirring noise. She could hear people outside, shouting for other stalls to be moved out of the way in anticipation of the rescue truck’s arrival.

  She should be grateful that Bea was being so lenient, even if her appearance had made Oliver retreat so hastily that she could only offer a shouted ‘thank you’ as he hurried away. Stuart seemed to have stalked off to nurse his wounded pride, though she wasn’t about to check. She would be happy if she never saw him again.

  In the quiet that followed, Charlie thought back to their final argument. She had found out from Andrew, one of Stuart’s friends, that her boyfriend had been cheating on her with Annalise, a sultry, dark-haired analyst who worked at the same bank as him in London. She hadn’t confronted him immediately. She hadn’t wanted to believe he’d been cheating.

  She’d gone into Cheltenham and found a beautiful teapot shaped like a narwhal. In the midst of her worries, it had made her smile, so she’d bought it and taken it back to the flat. Stuart had told her it was hideous, and that she couldn’t have it out on display while he was there. She had flipped, and it had all come spilling out. He hadn’t seemed remotely sorry for betraying her, and he certainly hadn’t uttered the ‘s’ word. Stuart Morstein was the definition of unapologetic.