I wish I’d caught the train, Stevie thought, as she hauled her car around yet another bend, hoping there wouldn’t be a tractor coming the other way (been there, done that, nearly had a head-on collision). Tanglewood really was out in the sticks and although most of the roads were two-lane, Stevie had the idea the person who had measured the width of the road down some of the stretches must have been under the impression cars were half the size they actually were.
She held her breath as she pulled in close to the hedge, hearing branches slap her little car in its proverbial face, then scrape down the paintwork. She winced every time it happened, and the wince became a grimace as the van she’d pulled in for carried on going at a fair old clip and whizzing past her without even a token touch of the brakes. Bloody white van drivers – they shouldn’t be allowed on the roads and certainly not on roads as narrow as these.
A line of vehicles had built up behind her, and she noticed it was getting longer every time she slowed down for any oncoming traffic. She couldn’t see the end of it, obscured as it was by the bends in the road and the overgrown hedges on either side.
And that was another thing! There was far too much vegetation for Stevie. She simply wasn’t used to it and it made her feel rather uncomfortable, as if it might close in on her at any second and swallow her car whole.
But at least the locals appeared friendly enough, she decided, as yet another car took the opportunity to slip past her on one of the rare straight stretches of road. A toot and a wave – that was nice. Stevie waved back and got a flash of tail lights in return, then realised the “wave” was actually a rude gesture.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the hedgerows and the trees fell away and the road opened up to reveal fields with fluffy white sheep grazing on them on the right, and purpled mountains on the left. She didn’t mind the sheep (and she adored lamb with mint and rosemary) but those mountains looked a bit wild and a bit high. Trees and fields were spread halfway up their slopes, but above that they looked pretty desolate. They were a nice backdrop though, as long as she was never expected to go anywhere near them. She’d never actually been up a mountain, and she wasn’t sure what you were supposed to do when you got to the top. Stevie preferred the flat – you knew what was what on the flat. She wasn’t entirely sure about the countryside, either… it all looked so green.
A mile or so further on, she came to a crossroads with a sign pointing to a narrow stone bridge arching over a wide, serene river.
Tanglewood.
She had arrived, and from what she could see of it, the village looked chocolate-box pretty, with little stone-built cottages, grey slate roofs and planters filled with spring flowers.
She couldn’t wait to get close enough for a proper look, but first she had the tiny, narrow bridge to negotiate. Continuing to peer at the houses on the other side of the river, she flicked on her indicator, turned the steering wheel sharply, and attempted to turn right, only to be blared at by oncoming traffic. She slammed on her brakes, her heart thumping. Oops. I’d better concentrate, or I might cause an accident. But despite her good intentions, her gaze kept returning to the hump of the bridge and the imagined delights of the buildings on the other side.
Another blast of a horn and she was jolted back into the here and now. What? Oh, traffic lights. How come she hadn’t seen them before now? But at least it explained why the driver coming from the opposite direction had been so irate – it had been his right of way. But now it was hers, she realised, and she shoved the car into first gear before the traffic lights had a chance to change their mind. Aiming her car at the bridge, she trundled up the little hump, before cresting it, then pootled down the other side, grinning like an idiot at what she saw.
‘Oh, but the village is so pretty!’ she said aloud. The main street rose gradually from the river, and as she travelled slowly up its gentle slope, she glanced at a little row of five cottages which lined the riverbank, adoring their quaintness. On the right was a pub called The Duke’s Arms, whose garden stretched almost to the water’s edge, and further along the road she could see a variety of shops, and was that another pub at the crossroads at the top?
A double-fronted shop on the right caught her eye just as she was dawdling past, and she slowed even more, desperate to get a decent look while at the same time trying to keep an eye on where she was going.
She knew she’d recognised it! It was her shop. Hers! Looking all sweet and inviting in the early afternoon sun.
Drat! She slammed the brakes on, narrowly avoiding shunting the car in front, and muttered a string of swear words. It wasn’t easy driving in this part of the country, she decided, what with car-eating verges, massive tractors and numbskulls who stopped dead in the middle of the high street.
Then she saw what had caused the car in front to stop, and her eyes nearly popped out of her head.
It was a man on a horse, trotting up the road as if he owned it. All the other vehicles in front of her were giving him a wide berth or waiting patiently for their turn to pull out around him, while the oncoming traffic had slowed to a crawl.
What on earth was the guy playing at?
Stevie didn’t even know if it was legal to ride a horse on a road. She’d gone to Hyde Park a couple of times and watched the riders and their mounts, but that was in a park with grass, and trees and stuff. You’d expect to see a horse there. And of course, police horses could go anywhere they wanted because they were allowed. ‘But as for the general public – shouldn’t they be in a field somewhere? Not the people,’ she hastened to add, chuckling to herself, ‘the horses.’
And while all this was going through her head, she was examining the bum of the rider as it rose and fell. On the way up it was all taut muscle and firm thighs, and coming down it was about the same, apart from a brief squish when the man’s backside connected with the saddle, and then it was up again, and—
More tooting and Stevie looked back at the road to see an impatient driver waving at her, indicating she should pull out around the beast. The beast in question hadn’t much liked the car horn, because it danced a little, skittering further into the road, prancing and flicking out its hooves and swishing its tail.
As Stevie gingerly manoeuvred her car into the centre of the road, she feared for her new Beetle’s paintwork.
The rider must have feared for his life, because he hauled on the reins, trying to edge the horse closer to the side of the road, and at the same time he turned to give her a disgusted glare as she eased around the excitable animal.
What? She gave him a glare in return. It wasn’t her fault – she wasn’t the one who’d beeped her horn.
Spotting a sign for a car park, she accelerated quickly to get past the horse, then pulled in again just as fast and made a swift, sharp turn to the left. As she pulled off the road, she could have sworn the rider had yelled at her, so she took her time in finding a space and getting out of the car. She wanted to make sure he was long gone before she ventured back onto the main road. Stupid man. He would be better off prancing about on one of those mountains. That’s where animals belonged, not on roads.
She grabbed her bag off the passenger seat, got out of the car, and stretched. It had been a fair old drive from London – a bit further than she’d anticipated to be honest, and she felt as though she was in a different country. Which she was, if she thought about it, because once she’d crossed the massive bridge (it was a day for bridges, it seemed) separating England from Wales, then the signposts had suddenly become unintelligible (bits of them, anyway), and stopping for a rest break had revealed some decidedly non-London accents.
Stevie had to admit she felt a degree of trepidation in coming here, as she made her way out of the carpark. Tanglewood was a considerable distance from everything she was used to, and apparently the nearest city was Cardiff, or was it Bristol? (she couldn’t remember which), and both of those were simply miles away. Tanglewood was in the Welsh Marches, which apparently referred to those counties running along the border between England and Wales (although what the term “March” meant she had absolutely no idea) and—
She halted, her eyes wide with pleasure. Oh, the village really was lovely, she realised as she came out onto the road she’d driven up and saw Tanglewood properly for the first time. Hardly a main road at all, the street she was standing in was more like a sleepy high street, and she decided to walk up the one side, then back down the other until she reached her shop – no matter how much she tried to hold her excitement in, she couldn’t help but think of the tea shop as hers.
Tanglewood itself was built on a crossroads, with tiny old streets, some of them still cobbled, radiating outwards from the two main roads. The other shops were a perfect complement to a tea shop business, she noticed. On her left was an old-fashioned, traditional butcher shop, selling home-cured bacon and with rabbits hanging naked in the window, although she tried not to look too closely at those. A baker, with the mouth-watering smell of freshly baked bread wafting out through the open door was next to it, and Stevie was relieved to see it seemed to specialise in breads, rolls, and buns, and had little in the way of cakes and pastries – she didn’t need any competition. There was a grocer, a florist, one or two hiking shops, a shop selling bicycles, and even an old-fashioned ironmonger.
But what swung it for her were the three pubs (‘Only three – yippee!’ and at least one of them didn’t seem to serve food) and the handful of art and craft shops selling hand-made cards, carved Welsh coal, love spoons and everything else a tourist could possibly want to spend their money on. This meant that there was only one café in the village – hers!
Finally, after a good scout around and after scrutinising anyone and everyone she passed and taking a guess on what they were (tourist, tourist, local, hiker, local, tourist), she reached her tea shop and the estate agent who was waiting outside to show her around.
He looked a bit miffed, and Stevie realised she was a little late. Never mind, she was here now, and eager to see inside.
The shop itself was beautiful. Two large bay windows were situated either side of a central door which had a tinkling little bell that rang whenever someone came in or out, and the space itself was large enough to hold around fifteen tables. A counter with a display cabinet underneath ran almost the full width of the café at the back, with plenty of workspace behind it, plus a sink, a fridge, and a gleaming metal monster of a coffee machine. There was also a customer loo.
Behind the counter was a door leading to a surprisingly large and well-equipped kitchen, boasting an abundance of steel cabinets, worktops and two enormous double ovens. In the middle was a good-sized island with shelves underneath, suitable for storing pans and bakeware.
Stevie stared around in excitement. It was perfect, absolutely perfect. The business could be up-and-running in a matter of weeks, and her mind darted ahead as she envisioned herself standing behind the counter, serving a delicious selection of cakes and pastries to a patient queue of waiting customers.
Now all she needed was somewhere to live…
‘The flat upstairs is part of the purchase price, isn’t it?’ she asked, and the estate agent pointed to a door to her right.
‘You can get to it through here, but there is a separate entrance outside if you wanted to use it.’
Stevie poked her head out of the door marked “Fire Exit” and found herself staring at a tiny, walled courtyard with a tall, wooden gate and a metal spiral staircase to one side.
‘If you want to rent it out, this can be the entrance to the flat,’ he explained, as he closed the door and pointed her in the direction of the internal stairs instead. ‘This door can be locked from down here, so you won’t have your renters traipsing through the café every five minutes.’
She followed him up the stairs and he showed her into a two bedroomed flat, which was partly furnished and nicely decorated. Stevie was in complete agreement with the current owner’s taste, which was lucky because it would save her having to fork out for redecorating. She especially loved the main bedroom, with its sanded floorboards and white walls.
Having two bedrooms meant her friends could come and stay, (she couldn’t wait to show it to Karen) and a little kitchen meant she didn’t have to fire up the eight-ring hob in the kitchen downstairs whenever she wanted to heat up a tin of soup. The living room looked out onto the street and had a view of the river – if she craned her neck a bit.
Perfect, she thought again. Simply perfect.
‘I want it,’ she declared.
‘Good.’ The estate agent smiled benevolently at her.
‘Can I pay for it now? Will you take a card?’ She thought of all the money sitting in her deposit account and her heart did a little flip of excitement. It had only been transferred to her a couple of weeks ago and she still couldn’t believe it, checking her online balance with something bordering on obsession.
‘Um…,’ Mr Whitworth replied, watching as Stevie fiddled about in her bag. ‘Um…’ he repeated loudly.
Stevie lifted her head and smiled questioningly at him. ‘Yes?’
‘There’s just one little problem,’ he said, his brown eyes solemn and his moustache drooping with anticipated sympathy.
‘Problem? What problem? Oh, no, don’t tell me, let me guess. Rats.’ She paused for a second, but not long enough for the estate agent to get a word in. ‘Or what about flooding – the river is only a stone’s throw away? Or perhaps the place is haunted, or you don’t sell properties to women on a Friday?’
‘No, to all of those,’ he replied, calmly.
‘So, what is it, then?’ Stevie demanded impatiently, her eyes wide with anxiety. Nothing was going to stop her from buying this beautiful little business – nothing!
‘It’s for sale by auction,’ he said.
Nothing except other people bidding against her, she realised, and Stevie’s shoulders sagged. Just her luck. Someone else was bound to want it.
‘Can’t you take it out of the auction?’ she asked, in a small voice.
Mr Whitworth shook his head sadly. ‘I’m afraid not. However, I can tell you that you are the only person to have viewed it so far. The auction is on Monday so you may be lucky,’ he added.
‘Are you allowed to tell me that sort of thing?’ Stevie wanted to know. ‘I thought estate agents had a law or something which said they had to make people think the whole world wanted to buy it.’
Stevie watched the man’s moustache droop even further as he replied by way of explanation, ‘I always wanted to be a racing driver.’
‘Ah.’ Stevie could accept that as a perfectly good reason for him informing her she was the sole interested party. ‘Would you have been any good, do you think?’
‘No,’ he replied, his voice mournful.
‘Ah,’ she said again. ‘Are you any good at being an estate agent?’
‘Yes. Very.’ By now Mr Whitworth was sounding like a whipped dog and looking like one, too. ‘But I tend to be too truthful for my own good.’
Stevie changed the subject back to the tea shop. ‘I’ve got to have it,’ she said again.
‘See you on Monday,’ Mr Whitworth replied firmly, locking up behind them and slipping the keys into his pocket.
Oh, how Stevie wished those keys were in her pocket right now. She couldn’t wait to start baking in that glorious kitchen.
‘By the way,’ the estate agent said, as Stevie began to head to her car. ‘The price listed is only a guide price, not necessarily the price you’ll actually pay.’
Stevie sighed. Typical! She’d thought it had been too good to be true.