The Cornish Cream Tea Bus. Cressida McLaughlin

prepared to defer my judgement.’

      ‘How very gracious of you.’

      Daniel laughed. ‘Fancy a tour of the hotel? I could show you the spa facilities, the restaurant. We have a five-course à la carte menu.’

      ‘Sometimes people just want a bit of stodgy, sugary cake.’

      ‘And sometimes,’ he said, stepping closer, ‘they want something more extravagant. Sometimes they want the best.’

      ‘I am the best.’ Charlie lifted her chin in defiance, and immediately felt stupid. What was this? A pre-boxing-match showdown? She waited for Daniel’s pithy reply but it didn’t come. He looked at her coolly and then turned away.

      ‘I need to get on,’ he called as he walked. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’

      ‘Uhm, not at the moment. Thanks.’ She followed him back through the beautiful gardens and into the foyer, where he promptly said goodbye and disappeared through a door behind the reception desk.

      Charlie said goodbye to Lauren and went to find Marmite. As she made her way down the hill, a snoozing puppy in her arms, all in all she felt relieved with the way her visit had gone.

      It was understandable that Daniel was sceptical about the charms of The Cornish Cream Tea Bus; it wasn’t anything like his slice of cliff-top luxury. But he hadn’t turned her away. He’d said her photos were good and he’d followed her on Instagram; he hadn’t discounted coming to the launch on Saturday.

      As she reached the bottom of the hill, eager to see how Juliette had got on, she wondered why Daniel’s approval mattered to her so much. Did she want to show Juliette that he wasn’t as evil as she thought he was, or was it simply that he had been against her bus from the start, and she wanted to prove him wrong? All she knew was that standing close to the edge of the cliff, at the same time as standing close to Daniel, had done nothing for her levels of composure.

       Chapter Eight

      Charlie stood on the end of Porthgolow’s jetty, looking back at the village that, in the last few weeks, had become her home. She didn’t know for how long – Juliette had told her she could stay as long as she liked – but she knew she wasn’t ready to go back to Ross-on-Wye, or her parents’ house. She crouched alongside Marmite, who was peering over the edge of the jetty, and looked at the sea spilling out in every direction. Porthgolow’s quaint, haphazard vista was behind her, Reenie’s yellow hut to her left, Daniel’s shimmering empire at her right side.

      Soon, there would be a new addition to the landscape. She was picking Gertie up later that day. Her Cornish Cream Tea Bus was finished, and she had heard the pride in Pete’s voice when he’d called to tell her it was ready. She couldn’t wait to see it. But Lawrence was working and Juliette had a meeting, and she needed one of them to drive her to the garage, so she would have to be patient.

      She stood up and tugged gently on Marmite’s lead, and a flash of light caught her attention. A short woman was standing in front of the primrose-yellow cottage, long dark hair straggling out behind her. She was holding something, and it was that object that had caught the light. Charlie couldn’t see what it was from this distance, but she found herself raising a hand in greeting. She held her breath, and watched as Reenie’s arm rose into the air, mirroring Charlie’s gesture. Then she turned and, in a moment, had disappeared inside her precarious little house.

      Charlie made her way back to Juliette’s with a spring in her step.

      ‘A wave,’ she said to her friend as they hefted tins of scones and cookies, cakes and doughnuts first into Lawrence’s arms and then their own, and walked out into the fresh air. ‘An actual wave. It reminded me a bit of the perplexed greeting Tom Hanks gives Meg Ryan at the end of Sleepless in Seattle.’

      ‘I think Reenie’s more Castaway than Sleepless,’ Juliette said, grimacing under the weight of her boxes. ‘But a wave’s more than I got. I think she was pretending not to be in when I tried to talk to her the other day, which was a bit harsh considering her place isn’t the easiest to get to. There’s not a path all the way, you have to navigate over rocks, and if it’s damp they can be treacherous.’

      ‘Has anyone ever seen her leave the house?’ Lawrence asked. ‘Seen her in the pub or the shop or anywhere?’

      They reached the bottom of the hill and Lawrence’s question was forgotten as Gertie, in her new, Cornish-Cream-Tea-Bus glory, came into view.

      The three of them paused to gaze at her.

      The day of the grand opening was calm, hardly any wind to whip the waves into a fervour, but the cloud cover was thicker than Charlie would have liked. There was a break over the horizon, where opaque rays spilled out and raced down to meet the sea’s surface. Charlie’s dad called them the fingers of God, though he wasn’t remotely religious. But at this point, with the still, blue water, the cliffs rising up either side, and Gertie, resplendent in her new red coat and gleaming with possibility on the sand, it did seem almost magical.

      ‘Let’s stock her up, then, shall we?’ Lawrence grinned and, despite his boxes, managed to give Hugh, who had appeared at the door of The Seven Stars, a quick wave. ‘Coming to have a look, Hugh?’

      ‘Of course,’ the landlord replied. ‘I’ve held off having coffee so I can sample some of Charlie’s, along with a slice of carrot cake, if there’s any?’

      ‘Carrot cake is here somewhere,’ Charlie said, raising her stack of boxes. ‘Give us ten minutes to set up and I’ll give you the grand tour.’

      ‘I’ll be over dreckly,’ he called.

      She resisted the urge to hug Hugh, and wondered if his enthusiasm would spread through the village. Her chat with Myrtle had been chilly to say the least, and the young woman who had answered the door of the bed and breakfast seemed distracted and uninterested. Charlie had been left sleepless the night before, imagining her and Gertie sitting, deserted, on the beach, while villagers passed by as if she didn’t exist.

      But being here, seeing the bus in situ, and with her arms full of fresh cakes, her worries seemed laughable.

      The inside of Gertie was as impressive as her exterior. As Charlie unlocked the door she was delighted all over again by the transformation. On the lower deck, at the end where customers got on, there were four tables. The benches were padded with red fabric on one side, blue on the other, and the cream tables had elegantly curved edges. The walls had been repainted in fresh, bright cream, and the light from the large windows added to the airy feel.

      Beyond the tables was Charlie’s kitchen. It had a countertop and sink, with a small oven below for heating up scones and sausage rolls, and a fridge for storing perishables. Next to the driver’s cab there was a shiny new coffee machine, with mugs in red and blue stacked up alongside it. The bottoms of the mugs perfectly fitted the cup-holders in the tables, and they had plastic lids that could be used when the bus was moving.

      Around the roof of the lower deck, and again on the upper, were glowing, LED fairy lights. With wall space at a premium, Charlie had wanted something special for when the days were dull and the sun failed to shine brightly.

      ‘Just beautiful,’ Juliette murmured, as they placed their cake boxes on the counter. Charlie started up the coffee machine, checked the filter was full of beans, ran the tap in the sink and switched the oven on. She still marvelled at how all these mod cons could work on her uncle’s bus as easily as if she was in a house.

      ‘Check upstairs?’ Juliette asked.

      ‘You go,’ Charlie said. ‘I want to make sure everything’s ready here. Can you fill the vases?’ They had bought