‘No,’ said Rob, shortly.
‘Oh.’ The silence grew, developing a portentous quality. Alys had the feeling that she had said something wrong.
Finally, Rob sighed, shifted up a gear as the road levelled out, and said, ‘Robin’.
‘Robin!’ Alys tried to stifle a snort of laughter. The name really didn’t suit him.
‘Ok, I know.’ Rob glanced sideways at her. She was relieved to notice the hint of a smile lifting his previously stern expression. ‘Blame my mum. When she was expecting me she was stuck at home with bad morning sickness. She fed this robin in the garden every day, apparently. It got so tame that it would fly over to sit on her hand as soon as she stepped outside the back door. She saw it as some sort of good omen, so she promised to name her firstborn after it.’
It was Rob’s turn to snort, sardonically.
‘Aah, that’s a lovely story.’ Alys was encouraged by how positively chatty he’d become. ‘Well, I don’t know who I’m named after. Alice in Wonderland, perhaps?’
‘Hmmm, that figures,’ said Rob, but before she could ask him what he meant by that, the Land Rover came to a halt and Rob leapt out, leaving the engine still running. He opened her door, and turned to haul her suitcase from the back.
‘Don’t forget your letter,’ he said. ‘The postbox is on the main street. Moira will be pleased to see you. That back injury has been making her feel a bit desperate. Can you manage now?’ He paused. ‘I’ll give you a hand with your case onto the path. It’s that door along there – the blue one. Don’t let Moira lay a hand on this case, mind, or she’ll be in hospital.’
Clearly finding this funny, he chuckled to himself, settled back in the driving seat and drove off, leaving Alys to struggle her one-wheeled case along the path that ran between a row of cottages and the church. She had the distinct feeling that she hadn’t made a very good impression and she couldn’t for the life of her work out why she even cared.
The blue door flew open before Alys reached it, and there was Moira, leaning heavily on a walking frame. Her short wavy hair was threaded with far more grey than when Alys had last seen her, and she looked pale and drawn, but she was beaming from ear to ear.
‘I thought I heard Rob’s Land Rover,’ she said. ‘You’re here at last. Come in, come in. There’s tea, and cake, of course.’
Later that evening, after Moira had shuffled painfully up the stairs to rest in bed, and Alys had made sure that she’d swallowed her painkillers, before arranging her pillows to support her back and ease any pressure on her spine, Alys decided it was time to get her bearings and take a tour of the village before it got dark.
Latching the door behind her, she headed along Church Lane into the cobbled main street. Seen up close, the cobbles came as a shock – she had expected smooth, polished, rounded stones of different hues of brown. She’d seen something like that before, but where? Perhaps in a museum in York, when she was small? The Northwaite cobbles, however, were pretty much uniform in size and looked as though they might have come from a garden centre. Alys wasn’t sure that the local tourist authority would appreciate her description, but they’d added nothing to her journey along the road in the Land Rover. She’d be surprised if any of the cars around here still had their suspension intact.
She spotted the postbox: a flat, red panel set into the grey-stone wall, a tub of bright daffodils beneath it. She hesitated a moment – the letter now looked a bit of a mess. Tim wouldn’t be happy. Then she shrugged, and posted it. After all, he’d be even less happy when he’d read it …
Turning her gaze to the road ahead, she took in the grey-stone houses fronting the street, hugging it on each side. Window boxes and flower tubs and, in one case, a tiny stone seat, had been squeezed into the available area between the front windows and the pavement, the strong colours of the spring flowers throwing the blackened and weathered stone into sharp contrast. The front doors opened straight into the sitting rooms and, where lights had been turned on inside, Alys could see that the rooms were dominated by huge stone fireplaces that seemed out of place in such small spaces.
Pausing to catch her breath as the road climbed steeply out of the village, she found herself already high up and quite exposed, gazing out at three surrounding and distant hills of a similar height. The road swept off into the distance over one hill, a monument topped a second, moorland the third. Lights were starting to twinkle here and there in the gathering dusk.
Although it was past eight in the evening it was still not quite dark. The light had the strangest quality, tinged with both a grey and a yellow hue. Dark clouds were gathering over to her left and Alys could see a mist sweeping through the valley. It looked as though rain was heading her way. Her hair, whipped by the wind, was springing free of the elastic band and blowing across her eyes. She shivered, wishing she’d worn something warmer under her cagoule. She remembered Moira’s advice before she’d left London. ‘Pack some warm clothes. It always feels about ten degrees colder up here.’ Perhaps this wasn’t the right evening to continue her explorations?
She turned, heading back towards the lights of the village. The last cottage on the high street was more noticeable viewed from this angle. She’d been struck by its ornate stone gatepost and the front door with a carved stone arch above it as she’d headed out of the village. It had seemed unusually grand for a cottage. She now saw that there was a side door, too, with a little niche cut quite high on the wall beside it, similar to the type of thing you might see in a church. This was also decorated with a stone arch, and a pillar candle burned in a glass storm lantern placed in the niche. It was a nice touch, thought Alys, hurrying back towards the haven of Moira’s cottage as the first drops of rain began spattering the paving stones. She hoped the flame would survive the coming storm.
The key felt weighty in Alys’s pocket, where it sat along with the code for the café alarm on a folded piece of paper that she turned through her fingers as she walked. She felt a mixture of trepidation and excitement: trepidation that she would fumble the alarm code and trigger the alarm, and excitement at getting a proper look at the café for the first time. It lay in the opposite direction to the one she had taken when she had explored yesterday evening. The memory of posting her letter came back to her and she experienced a frisson of worry as she walked. Her letter would be on its way to Tim now. When would the consequences be felt?
At breakfast that morning Moira had said, ‘Why don’t you take the keys and go and have a look around the café? Then maybe we could think about baking and you could open it on a part-time basis until I’m feeling a bit better, so that my regulars don’t think I’ve abandoned them.’
Then she’d given Alys directions and the instructions for the alarm and so here she was, standing outside the door. The Celestial Cake Café was well placed, on a bend shortly after you came into the village. They must have driven right past it after Rob had collected her from the station the day before, Alys reflected, but she had failed to register it. The café had one large window and a smaller one on either side of the front door, which was set back, providing shelter from the weather. Yesterday’s rain had given way to clear skies and a brisk wind that had buffeted her on her walk and Alys appreciated the moment’s respite as she prepared to open the door. The door handle, fingerplate and letterbox were made of ornate brass, polished and with a lovely soft sheen that suggested years of use. The exterior paintwork had been freshly done, in a light-sage green to match the door, and ‘The Celestial Cake Café’ was lettered in a simple black script across the top of the façade. The most striking thing, though, was the pair of white angel’s wings that hung in the largest of the two windows. They looked as though they might have been taken from a statue. Alys smiled