Christmas At Thrush Green (3 page)

‘Home-made Scones’ said the little printed notice propped up against the large plateful on the counter, ‘served with locally made jam’.

During the summer, when it was sunny and hot, she would serve the scones with whipped cream (made by Percy Hodge who had a fine herd of dairy cows) with strawberry jam. The notice then read: ‘Home-made Scones, served with locally made cream and strawberry jam’.

As she rubbed the butter into the flour, she let her gaze wander across her pristine kitchen. Never let it be said that there was a speck of dirt in Nelly Piggott’s kitchen at The Fuchsia Bush. There was a large hatchway in the middle of the far wall, and through it she could see Gloria was hard at work. Goodness how things had changed over the last couple of years!

Nelly had had a somewhat chequered life, but that was all in the past. Suffice to say she set her cap at Albert Piggott at a time when he seemed to be at a particularly low ebb. Despite his protestations, she scrubbed and polished his little cottage next to The Two Pheasants until it was gleaming, and cooked him the most mouth-watering dinners. When therefore she suggested she make her presence a permanent arrangement, he found himself agreeing and they were married in the church on the green. The marriage had had its up and downs for both of them but Albert had to admit that when she returned to him after a liaison away with Charlie the oilman, he was thankful to see the untidy and dirty cottage put to rights, and his nose wrinkled with pleasure at the smell of her steak and kidney pie coming out of the oven.

After a few unsatisfactory jobs, Nelly was taken on as a cook at The Fuchsia Bush by Mrs Peters who had been the tea-shop’s proprietor for many years. Mrs Peters soon recognized that Nelly was a great asset and acted quickly to ensure that she was not prised away by any other establishment in the High Street. She made Nelly a non-financial partner, leaving her to produce all the food while she herself concentrated on the business side of things. ‘That suits me,’ Nelly said. ‘I might be able to cook but I be hopeless at sums.’

It had come as a great shock when, just over two years earlier, Mrs Peters’s health had suddenly deteriorated and, after a distressing illness, she had died. For once, Nelly’s usual brash cheerfulness let her down: what would happen to the business now? The people who bought it would probably bring their own staff or, worse, they would close down the tea-shop and turn the premises into yet another hairdressing salon. The Fuchsia Bush was in a prime position in Lulling’s High Street.

But Nelly underestimated the high opinion her employer had of her. Having no direct relatives of her own, Mrs Peters left the whole business, lock, stock and cake plates, to a completely stunned Nelly.

Mr Venables, the more-or-less retired Lulling solicitor who had always looked after Mrs Peters’s affairs, told Nelly that she was not to worry at all about the business side of The Fuchsia Bush; perhaps Mrs Peters had told him about Nelly’s protestations that she ‘be no good at sums’. In due course, Mrs Border was appointed to look after the ordering and the accounts. This efficient woman in her early thirties wanted a part-time job so she could spend more time with her young children. Nelly and Clare Border got on well together, neither interfering with the other’s side of the business.

During the heyday of Mrs Peters’s and Nelly’s partnership, they had expanded the business to handle some outside catering. To begin with, this was local catering - small wedding breakfasts and birthday celebrations - but that section of the business had grown fast as word got round that The Fuchsia Bush provided excellent food at reasonable prices. Not very long before Mrs Peters was taken ill, they had separated the catering business from The Fuchsia Bush and had brought in a highly competent manageress to run the catering side. When Nelly inherited her legacy from Mrs Peters, she was thankful that she didn’t have that to look after as well.

Nelly had now finished gently kneading the dough for the scones and concentrated while she cut out 2½-inch rounds and placed them on a huge baking tray. She had some time to spare while they cooked so she made herself a mug of coffee and gave herself the luxury of taking her not inconsiderable weight off her feet. Sipping her coffee, she continued to think back to the events that took place after she had become sole owner of The Fuchsia Bush.

It was the following July that Nelly heard that the lease of the ground floor of the premises on one side of the tea-shop was for sale. She was secretly pleased that the shop that had been selling what she considered to be less than useful or even pretty knick-knacks was closing down.

‘I can’t understand why they thought they could make a go of it in the first place,’ Nelly said to her friend, Mrs Jenner. They still managed to meet once a week for a game of Bingo in one of Lulling’s community halls. ‘Apart from anything, why would anyone even go into a shop with such a silly name as “Little Pressies”!’ She snorted, her bosom heaving in indignation.

Mrs Jenner agreed that she would not. ‘Are you worried what might replace it, though?’ she asked. ‘The devil you know and all that.’

The two women were walking back up the steep hill to Thrush Green, and Nelly used her friend’s question as an excuse to stop for a breather while she pondered the answer.

‘It seems to me,’ she said, ‘that most folk are like a flock of sheep. They just follow on aimlessly, not botherin’ to ask why the gift shop that was there before wasn’t a success. Little Pressies seems to have a sale most of the year, and even now is using the Christmas rush as an excuse to get rid of its stock.’

Nelly set off up the hill again, the overhead lights throwing her large shadow onto the pavement.

‘You ought to buy it, and expand,’ said Mrs Jenner behind her.

This stopped Nelly in her tracks again, and she turned so suddenly that Mrs Jenner bumped right into her.

‘You must be mad!’ Nelly said to her friend. ‘I’ve more than I can cope with as it is.’ And with that, she turned on her heel and marched on up the road.

Nelly was reminded of this conversation the following day. Standing on the pavement opposite The Fuchsia Bush, waiting to cross the High Street, she looked at the two premises across the road with fresh eyes, and suddenly saw how well they looked next to each other. On the left of The Fuchsia Bush was a handsome Georgian house, its fine front door - albeit in need of a coat of paint - approached by three steps and two elegantly curved iron handrails. This is where the ancient Misses Lovelock lived. The house was one of the few remnants of old Lulling High Street. Many years ago, the houses on either side of the road had been converted into shops, modern windows and fascias being inserted into the fronts of the ground-floor premises, with only a vestige of the glories of the Georgian architecture remaining above. However, both The Fuchsia Bush and the three shops next to it in the row had retained the steps up, although none sported such fine handrails as the Lovelocks’ house.

Yes, thought Nelly, if they were decorated in the same style as each other they would look pretty good. She knew that Little Pressies only occupied the ground floor - a good-sized room in the front, and a couple of smaller back rooms that held the shop’s stock.

‘Hmm . . .’ she said to herself. ‘I wonder . . .’

At eleven o’clock that July morning, Clare Border arrived, and settled down in the little office to look after the order books.

Nelly took her a cup of coffee but instead of just putting it down on the desk and returning to the kitchen as usual, she sat down somewhat heavily on the spare chair. ‘Do you have a moment, Clare? I’ve something I wants to ask you.’ And she proceeded to tell Clare of her half-formed plan for the premises next door.

‘I’ve been a bit concerned recently,’ she said, ‘that we don’t - that we can’t - give enough room to the sandwiches and rolls for the office workers’ lunches. What we prepare is gone in a flash. I’ve tried to make more but, to be honest, they get in the way when we’re serving lunches.’

Although The Fuchsia Bush was officially a tea-shop and its busiest time was generally in the afternoon, it had always served light lunches as well.

Nelly proceeded to tell Clare about the lease of Little Pressies being for sale and asked whether they could afford to buy it, and turn it into a sandwich bar. There was no doubt that sandwiches were a growing market. Office staff no longer made their own sandwiches to take to work, and few of the workers seemed to come in for a proper lunch. The Fuchsia Bush’s clientele was mostly shoppers and visitors to the little town.

It was agreed that Nelly would enquire from the commercial agent who was selling the lease what price was being asked, and then Clare would see whether, with a mortgage, Nelly could afford to buy it.

In due course, Clare reported back to her employer. The long and the short of it was that Nelly couldn’t. The mortgage would put an impossible burden on the business.

‘Oh,’ said Nelly, feeling deflated when Clare told her, ‘that’s a real disappointment. I’d begun to think how I would plan it. I’d even started to think of names. Foolish of me, I know, to have pipe dreams.’

‘Well, there is one way you could afford it,’ Clare said.

Nelly’s heart did a little jump. ‘Yes?’

‘You could sell the catering side, and expand into the sandwich business instead.’ Clare looked at some figures she had written on a piece of paper. ‘You should be able to sell the catering business as a going concern, staff and everything, and have enough to buy the lease of next door and what it would need to convert and decorate the place. And, if you did need a bit more, then you could get a small bank loan.’

Nelly stared at her, and then her big face broke into a smile. ‘That sounds just the biscuit!’ she exclaimed. ‘I don’t have any great affection for the catering side. I’m so remote from it now. The kitchen here shares a wall with the back room of next door. Do you think we would get planning permission to knock the two together?’

The two women’s faces shone with excitement.

 

And so it came about that a new sandwich shop opened in Lulling High Street. Nelly had originally thought she would call it Peter’s Sandwich Parlour, with a nod to her benefactor’s memory, but no one seemed very keen on the name.

Clare Border, who was never backward about coming forward, robustly disagreed with her employer. ‘I don’t think that’s a very good name. People will endlessly ask who Peter is. Unless, of course, you have a Peter in mind to run it for you?’

Nelly explained her thinking behind the name. ‘Mustn’t have anything too twee,’ she said firmly. ‘Nothing like Little Pressies.’

‘Well, if not the last owner of The Fuchsia Bush,’ said Clare, ‘what about the present owner?’

Nelly looked at her in surprise. ‘What? Piggott’s Sandwich Parlour?’

Clare laughed. ‘No, I don’t think that sounds right. But what about Nelly’s Sandwich Shop? That has a really good ring to it.’

‘Well!’ exclaimed Nelly, going rather pink in the face. ‘Nelly’s Sandwich Shop, indeed! Yes, I have to agree. It does sound good, doesn’t it?’ She repeated the words slowly. ‘Nelly’s Sandwich Shop. Yes, I think that will do just dandy.’

One of the last jobs that the solicitor, Justin Venables, had done before he retired for good was to look after the acquisition of the lease, having ascertained from the proper authorities that it would be in order for the nature of the business to change from gift shop to catering. There seemed to be no problem over this at the county council offices: Mrs Peters had ensured that The Fuchsia Bush had built up a very good reputation, and Nelly had proved herself a worthy successor. The planning department had, however, baulked at the request for two kitchens to be made into one, and Nelly had to accept that the best she could have was the large hatch and a connecting door.

Before Nelly had had time to think about who was going to be in charge of the new sandwich bar, Gloria Williams, the senior waitress, had presented herself one morning in the little office and asked if she could be considered for the job.

‘You see, you’ve always admired my sandwiches, and liked some of the fillings that I’ve suggested. You’ll need a manageress next door and I just don’t see why it can’t be me!’ Then she shut her mouth firmly and gazed at Nelly in an almost challenging way.

Nelly was taken by surprise. Now, there’s a thought!

She leaned forward across the desk. ‘Well, Gloria, that’s certainly an idea. I will, of course, need a supervisor for next door. I hadn’t given it any great thought yet because we shan’t need anyone till the building works are done and the kitchen installed. But, yes, when the time comes, I’ll certainly consider your application.’

Over the next few months, Gloria blossomed. When Nelly had first started working at The Fuchsia Bush, the girl had been uninterested and would rather file her nails than see to the customers. But Nelly had encouraged both her and Rosa, the other waitress, to be more a part of the establishment, and it now seemed that they actually enjoyed working there rather than enduring it. Gloria certainly worked hard, and the sandwiches in particular were very popular. The office workers seemed to come in earlier and earlier to buy their lunches before the sandwiches ran out. It was when one of the most regular customers - her bank manager - complimented her on ‘the superb sandwiches you provide for us’ that Nelly decided to put Gloria out of her suspense and appoint her manageress of the new shop.