Rosy Teas Invite

With the Summer break looming, Cynthia bent down and blew out the candles.

She silently made her wish.

"I just want my fuckin' sister back."

Standing up straight she stared at her workmates, who were all slurping coffee staring back at her.

From nowhere came a single whispered reply. 

"Soon."

Cynthia stiffened and the hairs rose on the back of her neck.

"Did you hear that?"

"What?" Replied Linda finishing her cup. 

"Someone said soon. Was it you Mand?"

"Me? No. I don't hear anything Cynthia."said Mandy.

"You OK girl?" Asked June, holding Cynthia's arm.

"I'm fine thanks. Just not keen on birthdays".

"Jesus, I must be hearing things. For fucks sake, get a grip woman," she thought to herself.

She sighed loudly.

Cynthia's life wasn't going the way she had wanted. 

The kids were a pain, the husband's a total dick and her ancient dad was up living in her attic like a hermit.

God! Where had it all gone wrong? 

Her job as a teaching assistant at Benton Primary took it out of her and then she had to go home to that zoo! Even though it was just a village school it was still knackering work. The kids were all bonkers.

Still, it was her birthday and the girls had bought her a new toaster.

"Don't singe your muffin doll!"

They'd howled at Birdi's joke.

There were a bunch of cards too.

One from June, Birdi, Sharon, Mand, Linda and Sar.

All very funny. 

But then she noticed another one.

The envelope had Cynthy on it, in rough red crayon, which was still lying on the desk next to it.

No-one ever called her Cynthy.

Except her little sister Ida.

And she was dead. 

Well, presumed dead.

She'd been missing for forty five years.

Forty five years since all those terrible times in the village.

The anniversary was tomorrow. Always the day after her birthday.

Back then, God, it had been terrible. Those had been the darkest days for sure and she was glad they were buried in the past. Well, at least most of it.

Her Mum and Dad had been in a bitter family feud with the Higsons next door. 

It had all started over nothing really, a couple of cat whistles from out-of-work Mr. Higson to her Mum when she'd been hanging out the washing that spring in a skimpy dress.

Problem was, her Dad had heard. 

Down on his luck, he was enraged and confronted Higson over the garden fence. Insults were thrown and mud was slung and from then on the two neighbours had hated each others guts. 

It got worse too. 

Tit for tat jibes at each others' expense, car tyres knifed, social services falsely called, friends warned off on arrival, Christmas decs vandalised and the dole office alerted to over-claiming.

That had messed things up for Cynthia's family good and proper and her parent's benefits were slashed.

They'd gone on the breadline, the kids were hungry but all her Dad could think about was Higson, that "fucking twat next door!".

So on it went. The feud. It became part of their thin, sorry lives. 

It was in the summer that Cynthia's kid sister vanished, along with the Higson girl, who she knocked about with, despite all the mean adults telling her not too. 

"They're only five for God's sake Mum! They're little girls!" Cynthia ranted at her Mother, sick of the constant battling with next door.

It was fantastically hot that August 1st and school had finished early for the summer. It'd been roasting in the classrooms. 

Ida had been out playing in the street with other kids. Cynthia was ill after eating too much jelly and cream on her birthday the day before, so stayed in bed, otherwise she might well have stopped what was going to happen.

Times were so tough back then and loads of people were out of work, pissed off and very angry with the Tory government.

It was just a matter of time before it all exploded. The relentless heat was just the fuse everyone needed to blow.

That day at the start of August riots broke out in all the major cities.

Shops were looted, fire engines stoned and police attacked. It was a huge mess and the politicians branded the rioters as jobless thugs on the telly, which just made things worse.

In Benton, the vandalism was later centred on the local Tory club, tolerated up to that point on account if it's fabulous full-size pair of snooker tables, but with the current febrile climate that became the target.

It went up in flames. 

But that wasn't the first fire in Benton that afternoon. Rosy Teas went up too.

Cynthia was sick as a dog that day. Mum was scrubbing the step. Dad was down the Social club as usual.

It was Mum who pointed it out, the cafe. She could see it from her daughters' tiny shared bedroom window when she came to see Cynthia.

"Jesus, that looks like Rosy Teas! It's on fire!"

The loud too ta ta of fire engines filled the air and half the village came out to gawp at the slow destruction of the only cafeteria still open in Benton. All the rest had shut in the downturn.

After the evening's mayhem, the fires at the cafe and the club, everyone seemed to pause and falter and simply went to bed dreaming dreadful things like where would be next in this summer of destruction.

It was the following morning that Dad said that Ida wasn't in her bed. Cynthia said she'd probably gone to the holiday club to get some of the early free toast and everyone agreed that was it.

As time went on it became obvious that Ida was missing and the longer it took the more certain they all were that something dreadful had happened to her and the Higson kid.

Days became months and months ...

Well, years and years, and they dragged by like rotting dead souls.

Their sweet Mum died and Cynthia knew it was Ida. It had broken her heart when she went. It was just awful after she vanished.

Not much improved in the village over the decades either.

Jobs were still hard to find and the post office closed. No-one wrote letters anymore. Even the milkman packed in his route round Benton. Not enough demand. New snooker tables found there way to the Labour club and no-one had any real prospects but everyone had a mobile phone. Deliveroo did Benton so that was OK.

But Ida and her friend were never seen or heard from again. Never. 

The family had had a funeral a year after the violence but they'd just been absorbed into thin air. Those two little kids caught up in a riot.

The primary school stayed open. There were still babies in Benton because the poor would never stop having kids, which meant eventually Cynthia got a job there as a TA. About the only thing she could do and here she was now 55 years old, exactly 45 years on from Ida's disappearance.

For Cynthia time was frozen and she was stuck in the ice of the hateful past. She'd built a dam around her heart. To keep the devil out. 

But, it had all come flooding back seeing Ida's nickname for her again.

Cynthy.

Her reverie was broken when the school bell sounded.

" C"Mon guys, breaks nearly over, we gotta get back to class." Said Sarah.

"Yep! God! There's not even time to take a pee on my birthday in this place," complained Cynthia but she was still thinking about the strange whisper and her c name in crayon.

If she was being honest with herself her missing sister was always on her mind.

"Ida" she whispered and stuffed the envelope in her jacket. 

She'd read it a lunch. There was no damn time now.

Lunchtime arrived with the peel of the bell and Cynthia nervously opened the envelope. Inside was a card. 

An invitation.

It read: Rosy Teas Cafe, Late Afternoon Cakes, Just for you! 4-6 PM, 1st August, 1970, Benton High Street Corner.

Why on Earth would someone leave her an invitation to Rosy Teas from 1974? 

And from the 1st August!

The day it burnt down!

Today, 45 years ago .....

With Ida's writing on the envelope!

A dreadful feeling came over Cynthia as if someone had poured cold water over her head. 

It couldn't be.

But there it was. 

An invitation.

From Ida. From beyond the grave. 

She felt compelled to go.

Come what may.

Cynthia hurried from school clutching the invite tightly and made her way to where Rosy Teas had once stood, demolished some 44 years back after the terrible fire. All had escaped thank God but the building was a ruin afterwards, a reminder of the dark times and pulled down. They'd put a park there.

Panting she walked through the playing fields to the High Street. Her heart was pounding as she squeezed the invitation.

On reaching the end, she turned the corner and could not believe her eyes.

She stood transfixed with her pupils wide and her mouth agape.

Instead of the new park.

There it was.

Rosy Teas.

Just as it had been all those years ago, a bright colourful cafe full of vigour and noise.

In the window was a poster just like her invitation. 

Special Afternoon Cakes, 4 till 6pm.

It was 5 'O'clock. Plenty of time.

Disbelieving but believing, Cynthia stepped through the door.

She was immediately transported back nearly half a century to when she was a little girl.

The cafe was bustling with families and old dears. She knew them all.

Mrs. Drobson and her son Benny from up Peddars Lane, the old Jones couple from Edgerton Road, John Clifton the local snooker champ who'd popped in for a cuppa between frames no doubt and Mrs. Florence and her children, Barb, Rene, Steve and Eugene, all tucking into cinnamon toast, muffins and lemonade floats.

A soft melody came from the kitchens where a radio played Seasons in the Sun.

"We had joy, we had fun ....."

It was a charming scene, full of local life from a time beyond time before the darkness came.

But the dark seemed nowhere today, shunned, invisible. The forces of good ruled this place and the sun was the summer king.

Sat sitting there idly reading the menu, Cynthia realised after some time that no-one could see her. The people in the cafe did not know she was there.

She was a bystander to what was happening, an onlooker, a witness.

She was mesmerised by the song on the radio as it grew louder and louder until:

"Goodbye Papa it's hard to die, when all the birds are singing in the sky."

It was then Cynthia saw Ida and her friend, the Higson girl.

She froze, her heart seemed to stop and her breathing ceased.

Everything else in the cafe did too. All movement ended and the people's outlines faded.

All except Ida and her friend.

They were sneaking past the kitchen with some cakes and into a passageway beyond.

"But the song and the wine like the seasons have all gone."

The tune descended into a dreadful growl as if the radio was melting. 

Cynthia rose and walked through people's ghosts to see where Ida went.

Down a staircase she ran after her, into the cellar packed with phantom food cans, through a tiny hidden steel hatch in the floor and down, down into a dark secret hole, where Ida and her friend were eating the pilfered cake.

Ida looked up.

"Cynthy! I knew you'd find us. I always knew Big Sis." 

"Ida. Ida! Oh my God, my sweet Sister. You were here all this time!"

Cynthia stepped into the hole to rescue the two small girls and Ida looked into Sister's tearful eyes and smiled. She held onto her friend, their fingers sticky with cake and both stood up to take Cynthia's hand.

But Ida and her friend stopped dead.

"It's here Cynthy! It's here," She whispered.

Suddenly the hole filled with thick choking smoke and Cynthia felt the children's' fingers slipping from her own.

"No, no, no, no!" She yelled.

"Tell them where we are Sis, tell them where we are".

The metal hatch slammed shut.

"Idaaaaaaaaaa!" 

The smoke now filled the entire cellar and flames had begun to appear on the staircase. The whole place was going up.

Cynthia, sobbing uncontrollably, ran up the steps towards the back door.

" I will my sweet Sister, I'll tell them all."

She burst through the door to the back yard of the cafe, where the summer sunlight made her squint.

It was through her half-closed eyes that she saw movement by the oil store next to the building. 

She peered with her palm and saw her Dad and the neighbour Higson fighting by the drums. 

"What?"

They were belting each other, fags in their mouth, really going for it. 

"I'll fuckin kill you Higson you fuckin wanker!"

"We'll get on with it then you ugly bastard, I need to get back and bang your wife, seeing as you can't get it up anymore!"

"You fuckin scrawny twat!"

They flew at each other like bears and it was at this moment, this precise second that their cigarettes flew into an open oil drum and set it alight. 

The fire was instantaneous as the fuel caught, the flames spreading like a roaring monster over the whole cafe. The two men heard children screaming from the cellar but ran off, telling no-one.

Cynthia was witnessing the past.

The atrocity's spark and the first of the fires in the riots to follow.

Seeing who was to blame for this, the beginning. 

The baleful start.

The crime of their Fathers, the hellish summation of violence in one irretrievable act of blind hatred projected by Ida for Cynthia to see.

And she saw.

"I'm so sorry little sister. For your friend too. So so sorry. They could have saved you. Your Dads."

The following day Cynthia informed the police that she had new evidence as to the missing girls' whereabouts. 

Her Dad was dragged from the attic cowering in his own hole. He couldn't look at Cynthia as the Police took him away, but she knew it had been all true what she'd seen. Just one look at his face told her.

Higson was arrested too and thrown into the back seat with her Dad. The two together again. Hatred come full circle.

At the site of the old cafe the Fire Service had located the hidden metal hatch under the new park lawn and after being closed since that terrible afternoon, opened it once more.

A half-century's innocence and sorrow breathed outwards over the assembly, as the plight of these two small lost children was revealed at last.

"The sins of their Fathers," whispered the lead Detective to himself.

The forensics team were next but before they moved in, the Detective allowed Cynthia in the tent for one last look at her little sister Ida and her friend.

"Thank you," she'd said.

Under the bright spotlight, deep in that secret burrow, where she had spoken to their spirits the day before, Cynthia could now see them clearly, through her tears, as they really were.

Two little skeletons curled up and facing each other, each with an invite to Rosy Tea's Afternoon Cakes held tightly in their hands.

-

For Iain