The Runaway by Katie Flynn

now become the tea room’s kitchen – so that they might toast bread and teacakes, and warm through such items as scones and sausage rolls. Caitlin had told James that they had looked wistfully at a magnificent urn, but for the time being they had simply purchased a very large kettle with which to make cups of tea, coffee and cocoa, as required.
    James had bowed to the girls’ superior knowledge regarding the decoration of the tea room, though he had pulled a doubtful face over the plain deal tables with their square tops. But in this instance at least, Dana had proved right. The room, shorn of its counter, was square – fourteen feet by fourteen feet – and though round tables might have been prettier, they would have wasted space. Also, square tablecloths were considerably cheaper than round ones, and in the event of a party of ladies numbering more than four wanting to sit together, square tables could be pushed end to end to accommodate them.
    The night before the café was due to open, James tookboth girls to the Adelphi for dinner, telling them jubilantly that they would rapidly become the proprietors of their own successful business. ‘I want to be able to pay Uncle Seamus back,’ Caitlin said, dimpling at James. ‘Not that he expects it, and he’ll probably insist that the money he gave me was a present, but it would be nice to offer, don’t you think?’
    James did not agree; to his way of thinking, an investment was just that, and though this Uncle Seamus might be entitled to a share in the profits when the tea room was thriving – even beginning to expand – he thought it would be downright foolish to pay back money whilst they might still be having to work very hard just to take a small wage from the profits.
    The girls were understandably nervous at first, picking at their food, but he jollied them along with stories of successes achieved by people no older or more experienced than themselves, and when he finally deposited them outside Cathy’s Place he knew that their nervous fears had been calmed, for the moment at any rate.
    Next morning, James was tempted to go straight round to the tea room, but decided this would be unfair. The girls would be busy, taking delivery of stock, chalking an A board which they would stand outside on the pavement, and deciding which items would draw in most customers. Instead, he sat at the table in his boarding house eating toast and drinking strong tea, and when his landlady came into the room and handed him his post he was glad he had not abandoned his breakfast, for the very first letter on the pile was from his old friend and one-time partner, Jack Ewing. Good old Jack. The two men had never lost touch and still wrote regularly,though they were now miles apart. Smiling in pleasant anticipation, James slit open the long blue envelope.
    Polly had been sad when Dana and Caitlin had left the Willows, but she had continued her admiring surveillance, occasionally forgoing her evening meal at the girls’ home and getting off the tram halfway up Heyworth Street to check on progress in the butcher’s shop. Though now it was no longer a butcher’s shop, but a tea room with a neat green fascia board upon which was written, in curly script, Cathy’s Place .
    Polly had longed to offer help with the cleaning and redecorating, but she was frightened of the man who seemed to be in charge. The girls called him James and they did not seem to be in awe of him. Polly herself was scared stiff of Mr Lionel and made more mistakes when his eye was upon her than at any other time, so she thought it was a good thing that Dana and Caitlin seemed to be at ease in the presence of this James.
    And today they were to open for the first time and Polly was determined to be there; to be their first customer if she could manage it. She and Ernie travelled to work on the same tram, so she waited at the stop and grabbed Ernie’s arm as soon as he appeared. ‘Ern! Can you tell the Hag that I