Rosie’s Travelling Tea Shop

Chapter 5

Am I off to an unlucky start choosing April Fool’s day as the beginning of my journey? Fools rush in, right? With my forehead pressed against the living room window I watch as rain lashes down on poor Poppy. Her windscreen is frosty and opaque, the wipers half-mast like eyes closed for sleep. So much for a sunny-skied spring – although the weather does match my mood.

Drenched Poppy, copping bucket loads of rain, seems solemn somehow. I know it’s the first sign of madness having affection for an inanimate thing, but I feel an affinity with her, perhaps because she is finally going to ferry me away from here, hopefully onto better, brighter things.

In the time since this whirlwind happened, Callum hasn’t called or visited once. All our discussions have been handled through lawyers. Lawyers. Grave and dull men with no spark in their eyes. They handle our case, the two opposing sides, as succinctly as possible. There’s a sterility to it all, and I can’t help marvel that life can change so devastatingly fast.

He’s agreed to buy out my share of the apartment, which comes to almost nothing since we’re still paying the interest on the debt and not much else, and I gave myself until today to embark on my new adventure.

As I gaze around our once happy home, the same old feelings claw at me. How could he discard me so quickly, so easily, as if I were rubbish? I don’t want to be alone, to be unsocial, to push people away, but I struggle making friends because there was never the time or the inclination.

This loneliness is deafening.

Getting away will broaden my horizons, give me some much-needed life experience, and I’ll find my place in the world. I’m aware of my downfalls. That need to retreat usually trumps everything else, and I can’t let it.

Hefting the last box from the tiny little south London flat Callum and I have shared for the last seven years, my heart shrinks once more.

With a lump in my throat, I shut the door and try my best not to think of my replacement – Khloe, a younger, perkier version of myself – moving in as soon as I move out.

As I walk to Poppy I feel boneless, like I’m going to fall, and no one will be there to catch me.

For the first time in fifteen years I won’t have to be at Époque this coming Friday ready for the three busiest days in the restaurant. This feels so alien, so foreign to me that of course I’m bound to feel a little jelly-legged.

‘Ready, Poppy?’ My voice breaks. I tap the side of the van before stowing a box inside and hopping up into the front seat. I freeze. What the hell am I doing, leaving London, leaving all I know?

I sit there catatonic for so long that one of my neighbours, old Mrs Jones, raps on the window, her face pinched, and asks if I’m waiting for the RAC.

A flush of embarrassment flares. I shake my head, and say, ‘Oh no, nothing like that. I’m just …’ Summoning courage, wondering if you can die from a shattered heart, the usual. ‘Waiting for the right time to leave.’

Old Mrs Jones shakes her head in that supercilious way of hers. She’s never liked me – doesn’t like the hours I keep, the way I stack the recycling, the fact I lock my letterbox, trivial things that leave me bamboozled. But over the years I’ve learned she’s like that with everyone, a little judgemental, a lot dramatic.

‘Well, off you go!’ she harries. ‘My daughter is on her way, and she could use this parking space. She has a baby, you know.’

I hold in a sigh. Everyone has a baby these days. Probably Khloe will have a baby that she and old Mrs Jones can bond over, cooing and speaking baby language. Best not to think of it.

‘Right,’ I say and start the engine, wondering if old Mrs Jones will make friends with Khloe. They can gossip together, just like she’s tried and failed with me, because I don’t care if the single guy in apartment four ‘plays those fecking video games with all the guns and the shooting at midnight!’ And I especially don’t care if the twenty-something in six wears ‘those trashy boots that go all the way up to her derrière as if she’s a lady of the night!’ Their lives have nothing to do with me. Perhaps she, Khloe and Callum can dine together at her infamous Monday night supper clubs, and whisper gleefully that they’re grateful I’m gone. Tears sting the back of my eyes and it feels like I might implode – I have to get out of here.

But my imagination runs wild and I visualise Mrs Jones sniping, ‘She’s an odd one that Rosie; always darting away from people like she’s got something to hide.’

I won’t miss old Mrs Jones.

With a deep breath, I pull out and tackle the traffic, ignoring a blast of horn and the wide-eyed look of a pedestrian who edged a little too close for comfort. How many hours of this do I have ahead?

I drive, well, sputter along in Poppy, clamping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turn white. London is difficult to navigate on foot at the best of times, but in Poppy it’s downright terrifying. My first rendezvous point is the camp in Bristol so I set my mind to achieving the goal of arriving there, not dead.

With grim determination, I manage to concentrate and also to ignore the sound of my pulse thrumming my ears by turning the music up. Like people, Poppy has her quirks: she backfires when she’s disgruntled as if she’s telling me off, and pulls sharply to the left if senses me veering this way and that.

It’s a learning curve, and we simply must get to know each other better. When I have a moment of panic, just the usual, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS I THINKING, she drives straight and true as if she knows she must take control while I briefly lose my mind. Before long, I find my groove, and Poppy belches and squeaks as if urging me on.

Goodbye, London, hello … brand new, exciting life! I crank the music and a slow smile settles over my face. I’ve done it, I’ve really done it and a sort of pride creeps over me.

Chapter 6

Five hours later, well over schedule, I reach the camp in Bristol, accidentally accelerating when I mean to brake, and careen out of control towards a beautiful red-headed girl who wears a look of abject horror because I’m about to run her down!

I stamp hard on the brakes, Poppy fishtails wildly as airborne pebbles shoot into the poor unsuspecting girl like bullets, the sound pow, pow, pow ricocheting off her tiny frame but before long she’s shrouded in a mist of dust. I come to a screaming halt, the smell of burnt rubber permeating the air. Have I hit her? Stiff as a toy solider I manage to fall out of Poppy and land directly into a pile of mud with squelch as I miscue my exit from such a high perch. I turn onto my back, my bones creaking with effort. While my body may have the appearance of someone in the first stages of rigor mortis, I feel strangely euphoric.

I survived!

Poppy survived! London is long gone and I can finally breathe fresh air, and … and then I remember the girl! As the dust settles, I see she’s frozen on the spot, her mouth opening and closing but no words fall out. I’m hoping it’s on account of the dust she’s swallowed and not because a pebble punctured her lung or something. Just as I’m about to call for help, she chokes out, ‘That was some entrance!’

Still supine, relief washes through me as I stare up into her face, her coppery hair falling over her cheeks. She seems calm enough considering I almost killed her. Well, to be fair, Poppy almost killed her. Bloody hell, we’re going to have to practise when it comes to parking and dismount.

When I don’t respond she says, ‘Are you OK?’ Concern ekes from her voice. She’s one of those effortlessly pretty girls whose natural good looks don’t need adornment. Her bright hazel eyes are framed by lustrous black lashes sans mascara. Her hair is the colour of fire, and flashes in the soft sunlight and I feel drab in comparison.

I’ve taken too long to respond, and her eyes dart about looking for help. I get that look a lot.

‘I’m … great,’ I say with what I hope is a convincing smile that belies my inner turmoil. Just the where am I, why did I buy a van under the influence of Shiraz, how am I meant to wash this mud off me, kind of thing.

But there’s no need to panic, it’s all going on the to-do list, things I can improve on, a list of people not to run over, that kind of thing.

A frown appears between her thick, perfectly symmetrical eyebrows. How are girls achieving eyebrows so thick they need their own postcode? Tentatively I touch mine, wondering how you can add body to such a thing. There’s a whole world out there that I haven’t had a moment to consider while I’ve been cooped up in a commercial kitchen.

‘You don’t look great, to be honest.’ She’s noticed my eyebrows, and their rather spartan lustre, dammit. ‘You look like you’ve just escaped the jungle, or something.’ She grins.

I laugh for the first time in aeons but by the look on her face the sound is more maniacal than I intend. The jungle, that’s one way to describe it. ‘I have. I’ve just come from London. The urban jungle.’

The unreality of my situation hits me and I just feel so … disconnected from my old life, my old self, and while it’s strange, it also produces a feeling of wild jubilation. From this very moment on, I can be whoever I choose to be!

She holds out a hand to help me up. I pray my legs carry me after being ramrod in Poppy for so long. ‘Let’s get you cleaned up.’

I follow the girl to a bathroom and jump in fright when I see my reflection in the mirror. There’s no way she could have been judging my eyebrows or any of my face for that matter, because she can’t have seen it under all the caked-on grime from the muddy puddle and who knows what else. Bloody hell! I look like I’ve just participated in a mud wrestling competition, and even my hair sticks out at odd angles, probably because I spent the better part of the drive pulling at it.

‘Did you sleep rough?’ she asks, concern on her face.

‘No, gosh no. The mud is the culprit. It’s amazing that I can find the only puddle from here to the never-never, but there you go.’ After I’ve cleaned up as best I can, we head back outside. Poppy makes the strangest hissing sound and I give her a quick once-over to determine where the noise is coming from.

‘The tyre!’ Air slowly leaks from the front tyre and Poppy droops to the right, as if she’s exhausted. ‘It’s OK,’ I say more to myself than anyone. ‘I’m sure I can …’ I realise I’ve never changed a tyre in my life, and wouldn’t have the foggiest how to go about it.

Bloody hell, who goes travelling around the countryside without knowing how to change a tyre? It defies belief that I could have overlooked such a thing. Me, methodical to a fault, queen of contingency plans.

‘Don’t panic,’ the girl says. ‘I can help you change it. Do you have a spare?’

Oh golly. ‘I’m sure I must do. I guess van maintenance slipped my mind.’

‘I can also give you some pointers on the mechanical side of things. I’m a gun at oil changes and whatnot now, anything to save money, right? I’m Aria, by the way,’ she says, holding out a hand, which I find endearing since my own hands are stained black after my ordeal.

‘Great. I’m Rosie.’ We shake and she gives me a wide smile as if my presence has brightened her day.

‘How’d you find us here?’

‘I stumbled across the Van Lifers online forum and got chatting to a guy called Oliver who told me this was a good starting point, close enough to Wales to stock up and get my bearings.’

You mad, mad thing.

My body aches in strange places, and I’d found the drive as hard as being in command of a busy kitchen. A different sort of hard.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she says, flashing bright white teeth.

‘Me too,’ I say, and find myself meaning it.

‘The Van Lifers forum is great. Lots of tips on there, maps, market and festival info, that kind of thing. Plenty of people offering support.’

I nod, overwhelmed by the environment. It’s like I’ve fallen through a trapdoor and arrived in a parallel universe. Checked shirts are obviously a prerequisite. A group of bearded hipsters sit around a campfire, as a gorgeous brunette strums a guitar and sings a haunting song. A few play cards on fold-out tables, some hang washing under their awnings, while others bustle about packing their vans in readiness to leave. A handful give me a wave as I walk past, and I smile tentatively back.

I’m not like them. I sense it already. They exude this sort of worldly air, a certain grace as if they’re comfortable in their own skin, with their open faces and wise eyes that sparkle with all they’ve seen. But I’m determined to sink into this lifestyle and find the ease they all wear in their ready, lazy smiles.

Aria pulls me from my reverie. ‘I’ll make you a brew and we can chat.’

She opens the door to her little van and I gasp as the inside comes to life under flickering candlelight. It’s a utopia for bibliophiles. Rickety bookshelves line the sides of the van, filled to the brim with chaotically stacked books. On the floor, cane baskets cradle bundles of vintage Mills and Boon books, bound together with string. Every nook and cranny is bursting with novels, candles, cushions or rugs and the scent of recently brewed coffee lingers in the air.

While I understand how this would appear like a nirvana for most, for me it produces a sense of unease. This kind of clutter all begins innocently enough. A few things here, then there. Then everywhere.

‘You have a travelling bookshop?’ I say and then mentally slap my forehead.

‘The Little Bookshop of Happy Ever After. I sell romance novels. Word nerd at your service.’ She salutes and I can’t help but laugh.

‘Word nerd has a nice ring to it.’

The dim space is perfumed by posies of fresh wild flowers, and scented candles. Coupled with the aroma of old books, there’s a musty dustiness that hints of times gone by. An old, wrinkled, leather high-back chair sits squished against the side of the van and I bet it’s where Aria spends most of her days.

There’s a bunch of ruched velvet ruby cushions stacked in a pile, textured woolly throw rugs drape from hooks. I imagine whiling away time in the Little Bookshop of Happy Ever After would appeal to bookworms everywhere, but another thing concerns me, and I grapple with whether I should speak up or not.