Afternoon Tea

The new café opening next door gave Molly an idea . . .

COMMUTING to work on the Victorian funicular was the only way to start the day, Molly thought. From her apartment on the cliff top she was carried each morning in the old wooden cliff lift down to the sea.

Molly had been using the funicular to get to and from work on the seafront for over 30 years. She could have walked, of course, but the cliff lift was fun.

The funicular drew slowly to its journey’s end and Molly stood, waiting for the doors to open and her day to begin.

As she stepped out of the station on to the seafront, she could see traders setting up stalls and opening shops, hoping to entice in daytrippers and tourists.

It was looking like it would be a beauty of a day, with a deep blue sky already smiling on the bay.

“Morning, Stan!” She waved to a man leading a group of donkeys to the beach.

“Lovely morning for it,” he replied. “Any news yet?”

“No, they won’t tell me anything!” Molly called as she walked away to her shop.

Molly’s shop on the seafront was a tiny kiosk decorated with pink and white stripes. The building had originally been a boathouse and then later split into two and converted into shops.

Molly and Bob had bought one of the two shops and set up their business selling candy rock and ice-creams. It had been their dream business, and kept both of them busy and happy for years.

Since Bob passed away, the rock shop meant more to Molly now than ever before. Inside the shop was Molly’s domain, with its glass jars full of boiled sweets, shelves filled with candy rock stripes and ice-cream made exclusively for her by the local farm.

The other half of the old boathouse had stood empty for months and Molly missed having someone working next door.

The empty shop had been used as a newsagent for as long as she could remember, but the last couple working there had moved to Spain and the shop had stood empty since. That is, until the Sold sign appeared last month.

Molly had called the estate agent to see if she could find out who was moving in. But no-one knew anything, or at least nothing they were prepared to make public.

Molly opened up her shop and propped the door open, letting in the gentle sea breeze and the sound of the gulls. The sea air set the toy windmills turning on the shop counter, and made the bunting sway around the door.

A trickle of holidaymakers started appearing on the prom, walking off their breakfasts as they made their way to the beach with children carrying buckets and spades.

Molly sat behind her shop counter and gazed out to the sea. The sun’s rays were already making the sea sparkle, as if it were covered with dancing diamonds.

Directly outside Molly’s shop was a bench. It was where Bob used to sit and read his newspaper on a sunny morning, or take his crossword and coffee when he took a morning break.

Sometimes the two of them would sit there together at the end of the day, eating fish and chips. Bob loved his fish and chips from the chip shop along the seafront.

Eating fish and chips from a box, Bob would always insist that they tasted better in the days when they came wrapped in newspaper. Now, families would sit on the bench eating ice-creams sold by Molly, but it would always be Bob’s bench to her.

Oh, she missed him. But before she could give way to the lump rising in her throat, a young woman walked into her shop.

“Hello,” Molly greeted the woman. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“Mrs Carruthers?” the woman asked politely.

“Oh, no-one calls me that. It’s Molly, please.” she replied.

The woman extended her hand across the counter.

“I’m Emma,” she said, shaking Molly’s hand. “I’m moving in next door, into the shop.”

“Oh, how lovely!” Molly exclaimed. “What kind of shop will it be?”

“It’s a vintage tearoom,” Emma said excitedly, pulling her phone from her pocket and swiping it into life.

She showed Molly the pictures on her phone.

“This is what it will look like when it’s all done. I’ve bought a franchise, you see. They provide all the fixtures and fittings.

All I have to do is wait

for the company to finish installing it and I’ll open next week. You can come in and take a look any time you like, Mrs Carruthers. Sorry, I mean Molly.”

Molly smiled brightly. She was so relieved that such a lovely young woman was going to be her neighbour in the shop.

“I’d love to come in and have a look around,” Molly said with a smile.

The summer days rolled by and Molly’s rock shop buzzed with activity.

The farmer’s wife had devised a new ginger ice-cream and Molly was selling it almost as fast as it was being delivered to the shop.

Every now and then Molly could hear work going on next door as Emma’s tearoom took shape.

One day, when Molly was just about ready to close up the shop and make the most of what was left of a beautiful day, she called into the tearoom.

Emma waved when she saw Molly peering through the windows.

“Come in, Molly,” she said. “What do you think?”

Molly took in the newly renovated shop. Where once had stood the counter and racks of papers and magazines was a pastelcoloured counter from which Emma would serve tea and cakes.

Where shelves of books had once stood were now white-washed tables, ready to welcome in customers.

“It’s beautiful, Emma,” Molly said admiringly, looking around.

“The franchise people have thought of everything,” Emma said. “I’ve followed their business plan to the letter. They’ve even given me a plug-in air freshener that smells of coffee and cake! Apparently there’s a machine they can sell me that wafts the smell outside the café to entice people in!”

Molly did her best to suppress a giggle.

“When I used to go to tearooms like this as a girl, there were big, noisy coffee machines that filled the place with the most delicious smells.”

Emma’s face took on a pensive look as she checked her phone.

“Do you think the air freshener idea’s a bit over the top?” she asked Molly, concerned. “I’ve been worried the place might seem a bit sterile, or a bit too organised.”

“Too business-like?” Molly suggested, looking around.

“But it’s got to work,” Emma said. “The company have given me a customer target number to reach every day otherwise my business projections and cash flow will end up all wrong.”

Molly smiled encouragingly.

“Well, I’ve worked next door in the rock shop for decades, Emma, and I’ve never worried about business plans and cash flows. I just sell my rock, people love it and they keep coming back. I wouldn’t worry, if I were you.”

Emma checked her phone again.

“I’ve got to engage my social media followers, too. I’m not even sure when I’m going to have time to update my website, never mind tweet and update Facebook.”

Just then, Molly had an idea.

“Do you know something, Emma? I think we might be able to work together on this. If you’d like to, that is?”

Emma raised her eyebrows.

“How do you mean?” Molly nodded towards the counter.

“Is your kettle working yet?”

Emma smiled.

“I think I can rustle up a cuppa for us both. You can be my first customer before I open tomorrow.”

“A coffee and a chat sounds perfect.” Molly smiled, glancing out of the window at Bob’s bench next door.

After coffee and shortbread, Emma locked up the café and Molly took her for a walk along the beach.

Every now and then they stopped to pick up a shell or piece of coloured seaglass.

The two women fell into easy conversation as they walked along the sand. Molly told Emma all about Bob and the history of the rock shop.

In return, Emma told Molly about her business degree, her family’s hopes for her as an entrepreneur and her dream of opening a chain of vintage tearooms.

“Is there scope for creativity within this business plan of yours?” Molly asked. “Will the franchise operator allow you a few hand-made touches around the new tearoom?”

She held out her hand to show Emma the shells and seaglass she’d collected.

“These would be lovely in little glass pots on your tables,” she suggested.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Emma replied. “I’ve been so focused on the business plan I haven’t thought of anything creative for the place.”

“I’ve got a few bits and pieces you might like,” Molly offered. “In the back room of the shop. They’re things that I can’t use any more, but I’ve never had the heart to throw out. Old weighing scales, sweets jars that we can no longer use, that kind of thing.

"There are even some old pictures of the seafront back in the day. And I’m sure I’ve got a photograph of our shops before the conversion, when it was still an old boathouse.” Emma’s face lit up. “That would be wonderful, Molly! I can dot them around the place to make the café look a bit more homely and inviting. I don’t know how I can repay you, though. It’ll be a long time before I start making money and paying off my loan for the franchise.”

A cheeky smile played around Molly’s lips.

“Well, I don’t need repaying with money, Emma, but there is something I’ve been dying to learn how to do, and I think you might be just the person to teach me.”

Over the coming weeks, Emma’s tearoom opened and flourished.

The coffee and cake air freshener wasn’t needed after all, as Emma’s new coffee machine hissed and blew great gusts of warm, scented air out to the seafront every time the

Molly was loving the new interaction with her customers

door to the café opened.

Next door in the rock shop, Molly was putting her new social media skills to the test. Emma had shown her how to set up the rock shop online and Molly was loving the new interaction with her customers.

“Can we put a picture on Facebook, Mum? It’s the famous rock shop!” Molly heard many times during the summer.

“Let’s do tweets about the sweets!”

“I’m going to check us all in online at the rock shop!”

Molly was just happy to see her customers smile. She knew Bob would have felt the same, too.

After work one day in the summer, Emma and Molly sat side by side on Bob’s bench, talking about their day as they watched the sun set over the sea.

“Fancy fish and chips, Molly?” Emma asked as the two enjoyed the sea view.

Molly smiled and nodded, and Emma disappeared to the fish shop along the seafront. Within minutes, Emma returned with two boxes in her hands.

Molly smiled, sitting on Bob’s bench, with a little wooden fork in one hand and her fish and chips in the other.

Emma glanced over at Molly.

“They used to taste better in newspaper, don’t you think?”