I HAVE always had milk in my tea. This is because of three things: Firstly, I can’t stand the taste of black tea; bland, leafy and bitter. Secondly, I don’t like drinking boiling hot fluids that burn my lips so that I have to pretend that I am enjoying them. Thirdly, because everyone I have ever known who has not taken milk in their tea has either been stuck – up or up – tight.

To tell this story, it is necessary to introduce certain aspects of my tea drinking habits; not that this story is directly about tea, but because it plays a rather unexpected and important role. This tale is a warning to all those who would reject the powers of the natural world. This is the story of how a hot beverage became responsible for one of the greatest disasters ever to befall Great Britain.

CHAPTER ONE - The India Tea House

‘Green, you disgust me do you know that?’

I looked up from the tea cup I was stirring absent mindedly and met Henry’s heavy lidded stare; my spoon made a small ting against the rim.
‘Really…’ I said without enthusiasm.
‘Yes’ He leant even further back into his arm chair, ‘In terms of beverage drinking, you are by far in a way, the worst person I have ever met.’ He said all of this with an air of repulsed fascination.
‘Right’ I said, deciding to let this one go, my mind elsewhere.
‘Good’, Henry said, ‘Just so you know’.
We were sitting at a small cafe table in low sunk arm chairs, the sun coming through the tall glass windows hot on our faces. The India Tea House, although tucked away in one of London’s more alternative villages, was one of Henry’s new favorite places to go. It was what some might have called ‘cute’ or ‘quaint.’ I called it bizarre.
The table tops were covered in neat white table clothes, replete with flowered patterns and the teapots had doilies under them.
Everything had doilies. Even the serving staff had little aprons and hats which seemed to make them mingle deceptively into their surroundings so that when you got up to find the toilets you had to stand very still for a moment to check which parts of your immediate environment were moving. It was English at Warp Factor Nine, and yet by an odd design quirk it still retained some echoes of the Raj.
Indian Sitar music twanged peacefully in the background, and the place was decorated with golden furnishings of Gods with varying numbers of limbs and elaborate wall paintings depicting ancient palaces with their great onion shaped domes poking above the jungle treetops. You might have expected to see Queen Victoria sitting stern faced on a chair by the small fountain in the centre of the tearoom, surrounded by her royal guard.
‘You know,’ I said, looking over the teacup that was halfway to my lips, ‘this place is proof that the aristocracy can’t let go of the past.’
Henry, who had a teacup casually gripped in his left hand while holding a copy of The Telegraph open with his right, spoke without taking his eyes of the page.
‘It is also extremely classy my dear Green, something someone such as yourself might find difficult to grasp.’
‘Class I can grasp Henry’ I said, ‘the upper classes, I can’t.’
‘Ah, spoken like a true member of the bourgeoisie,’ Henry recited, ‘we don’t ask for comprehension we simply request tolerance.’
Silence again. I was fighting back a smile.
‘And do you tolerate Indian run Tea shops on British soil?’ I said, taking another sip of tea.
Henry stared at me for a few moments and then brought his own cup to his lips, ‘Green, anyone is good enough to serve me Tea, even you,’ he sneered ‘besides this place isn’t run by Indians, it’s been owned by an English family for years.’
‘Henry, the waiter who served us today was Indian, so was the woman who greeted us’ I said and nodded my head towards the small entrance hall where an old woman in a Shari was ushering a well dressed couple into the seating area.
The well dressed couple smiled at the woman and then was greeted again by a tall grey haired Indian man wearing a cream linen suit.
‘And if I’m not mistaken, that man over there is the manager’.
Henry sighed and placed his paper on the table top before turning in his seat. He took in the grey haired man, the old woman and the waiter walking by, and, very slowly, a frown appeared across his forehead.
Then he turned to me with an expression of utter miscomprehension on his face.
‘How absolutely absurd’ he said ‘I heard nothing about a change of ownership.’
‘Oh dear!’ I said in mock concern, ‘we’d better leave.’
‘Oh do give yourself a rest Green.’ Henry was still looking over his shoulder at the manager. I followed his gaze and saw the man finish seating the well dressed couple before leaving the room through a door behind the ordering desk.
‘Who owned the teahouse before then?’ I asked.
Henry who had stopped staring turned back to me.
‘Oh, some friends of my parents. Something like Trupich, Trup-something, Trupswick. Lord and Lady Trupswick.’
‘Sounds about right.’ I said. Everyone knew Henry’s parents.
‘I think they lived in Surrey.’ Henry continued, ‘Thought they did at any rate.’
‘Perhaps they perished in a freak Yachting accident’ I said.
Henry frowned ‘Don’t joke about things like that.’ Yachting accidents – the number one killer of aristocrats.
‘No, maybe they sold out.’ He said with a look of tired resignation. ‘It’s happening all the time now. The wealthy selling up their businesses that have kept this country afloat for hundreds of years, and moving where? To Bloody Spain, that’s where, or to some Mediterranean island.’
‘Not you.’ I said.
‘Not yet, and never’ he said, ‘I shall nail my parents to their armchairs before they get up and set sail to sunny Costa de Bloody Awful.’
‘You mean they weren’t already nailed there?’ I made surprise.
‘Ha. Ha. Green you seem unusually sharp this afternoon.’
‘You know me, sharp like a pencil’ I said.
‘A poor graphite stick. You don’t have enough lead in you to make real poison’ smiled Henry.
‘Touché’ I replied.
Just then the waiter, a small dark featured Indian man, approached the table from behind Henry’s armchair.
‘Sorry Sirs, is everything to your liking?’
‘Yes, fine’ I said, and the man looked at Henry, who smiled awkwardly.
‘My friend and I will have another cup of Earl Grey, but first I would like to ask you a few questions my good man.’
The look of fear that flashed across the waiter’s face lasted for a microsecond as his eyes caught mine, but then his expression became one of happy-to-help expectancy.
‘Absolutely Sir, how can I help?’ He had an accent, but it was slight.
Henry fixed the man with a stare, just enough under the eyelids to root him to the spot - a Mortimer family trait.
‘Who owns this Teahouse?’
‘Ah, that would be Mr. Shashid’, replied the waiter.
‘Mr. Shashid?’
‘Yes indeed Sir, he has owned it for years.’
‘Years?’ Henry suddenly looked indignant. ‘That’s impossible.’
Now it was the waiters turn to look confused. ‘I’m sorry Sir, I don’t understand.’
‘This restaurant was owned by Lord and Lady Trupswick was it not?’
‘Lord and Lady…’ the waiter paused, as if suspecting a trick. ‘No, no I’m sorry Sir I have never heard of them, and I have worked here for five years now.’
Henry placed the Telegraph on the table and turned to me. ‘This makes no sense.’
I shrugged, ‘I know this is hard for you Henry, but couldn’t you be wrong about these previous owners of yours’.
Henry merely stared at me, then through me, apparently lost in thought. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. The waiter waited.
‘No’ he said finally
‘No?’
‘I know that this place was owned by Lord and Lady Trupswick, I visited their home in Surrey.’
The waiter’s face was expressionless.
‘Look here, I’d like to speak to this manager of yours.’
The waiter nodded but seemed rooted to the spot.
‘So,’ Henry aimed a hard stare at the man ‘go and get him.’
Suddenly the waiter snapped to life ‘Yes sir, right away’, and left in an instant.
‘Honestly’, Henry began ‘I don’t understand why plain English isn’t enough for some people. I mean…’ but he did not have time to finish his sentence.
Just then, there was a loud crashing sound, followed by a scream, and, in an instant, there was panic. For a few moments I was left gawping, unable to see the source of the commotion as distraught customers piled out of their seats, but as the crowd pushed and shoved its way towards the far wall of the shop I got a clear view:
A man was standing in the doorway, now a glittering crystalline chasm; the glass door had clearly been smashed against the inside wall. Pale daylight flooded in behind the figure and shimmered over the thousands of tiny glass shards, giving the scene an ethereal pallor. He was a tall man, his skinny face a mask of horror, wearing a white lab coat that appeared to be the reason for the sudden upheaval, because it was covered in blood.
‘Dear Lord!’ Henry exclaimed, just as the man began to speak.
‘Oswald…’ the man took a few staggering steps into the teahouse, ‘Oswald. He, he bit me!’ He made a sudden convulsion and bent double, his left arm clutching his right forearm. A woman screamed.

To be continued…