Ivy Lane: Winter: (4 page)

She rolled her eyes and chuckled. ‘I take it you haven’t looked outside recently. Go on, away with you, I need to start pouring cups of tea.’

I scurried to the door to open up but Nigel caught hold of my arm as I passed.

He cleared his throat and shuffled from foot to foot. ‘Tilly, before you open the doors, I just wanted to thank you for putting on this event.’

I smiled at him. Nigel had been the most sceptical member of the committee, not that that had stopped him working his socks off for me this morning. But I was delighted to see his change of heart, nonetheless. ‘Let’s hope you’re still saying that at the end of the day, Nigel. We might not make any money if we don’t get any entrants!’

‘Well, I’m entering a cake, so that’s one at least,’ he said proudly. ‘And anyway, that’s not what I wanted to thank you for,’ he added, lowering his voice. ‘Spending a morning with Liz, in her kitchen . . . Well, let’s just say that a bit of female company, not to mention a most informative baking lesson, has done me the power of good.’

Was it my imagination or had his face gone a bit pink?

I threw my arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. ‘Thanks, Nigel. Now, battle stations, I need you selling those raffle tickets as if your life depends on it.’

‘Roger that,’ said Nigel with a salute and he marched off to his position.

I wrapped my fingers around the door handle and took a deep breath. The moment of truth.

I opened the door a sliver and squinted through it with one eye. Oh my word! A queue of people all bearing cake tins, boxes or plastic tubs snaked back as far as the end of the car park.

‘I think we’re going to need more tables,’ I said to the rest of the committee tremulously.

I swallowed an anxious squeal and flung back the door with a flourish.

‘Come in, everyone, and welcome to the Ivy Lane Allotments Great Cake Competition,’ I cried. ‘Only one pound to enter!’

Unless anyone looked very closely, I doubted they would have seen my legs trembling at all.

An hour later, the Quality Street tin was heavy with coins, the pavilion was humming with the sound of people chatting and the tables were positively groaning under the weight of the competition cakes. I had been so busy welcoming everyone in and handing out entry forms that I’d not even moved from my seat at the front door.

‘Where on earth are these people coming from?’ whispered Roy incredulously as he raided the tin for money. He was off on a second trip to buy more milk for the tea stall. Christine was on permanent duty at the tea urn.

‘W-e-ll, Mia and I might have gone a bit overboard on the leafleting,’ I admitted sheepishly. ‘And at the last minute yesterday, I invited all the staff from my school to take part too, just in case we didn’t get enough entries. Which in hindsight . . .’ I looked over my shoulder at the packed pavilion and cringed at Roy.

‘You’re doing grand, girl,’ he chuckled and patted my head as he squeezed past my little table to make his way outside. ‘Oh and here’s all the family!’ he cried, holding the door open to let Gemma, Mia and Mike in.

I stood up to hug them, touched that they had all come to support us.

‘Pink cheeks suit you,’ said Gemma, pretending to burn her fingers on my skin, ‘very English rose.’

‘Oh no! Do I look hot and sweaty?’ I tried to see my reflection in the window but it was too steamed up. I pressed my hands to my cheeks instead.

As well as being flushed with the event’s success, my high colour was due in no small part to the fact that I appeared to be semi-famous. ‘I recognize you from the
Green Fingers
show!’ being the most common observation, with my least favourite being: ‘You look much thinner in real life.’ Although I supposed looking fatter in real life would be marginally worse.

‘You look gorgeous, Tilly, as ever,’ said Mike and then chuckled at his wife’s mock outrage. ‘What do you want us to do with these cakes? I’ll warn you, Mia wants to win the unusual flavour competition, so you might want a glass of water handy for judging.’

‘They are edible, though,’ Mia added, although the glint in her eye did make me wonder.

I peered at her cakes and tried to commit them to memory. I could be in for some fun this afternoon. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only judge: Toni, our school cook, was coming to help me out. She might not have Mary Berry’s audience-pulling power, but round here her treacle sponge was legendary.

I sent them off to deliver their cakes to the correct tables and sighed happily. We still had another half an hour to go until the judging would commence and already I was sure we had raised enough to put on a spectacular Christmas party next month. And once the cakes had been judged, they would be sold off to make even more money. Every single plot holder had delivered a cake for the refreshment table and entered at least one for the competition.

The door opened again and a little boy poked his head in. He had wavy blond hair, huge blue eyes and the longest eyelashes I had ever seen. He stepped inside and smiled at me shyly, holding out a battered tin in front of him.

I caught my bottom lip between my teeth. He was so absolutely adorable that I thought my heart might melt.

‘Hello.’ I smiled, fighting the urge to scoop him up in a huge cuddle. I peered around the open door to see if he was being followed by an adult. ‘Are you with anyone else?’

He nodded solemnly. ‘My dad. But he’s a really slow runner.’

‘I see,’ I said, amused, looking forward to the moment when his ‘slow’ dad appeared. I wondered how far away the poor man was.

‘Is there a prize for boys’ cakes, miss?’ he said, resting the tin on my desk.

‘Er, let me see,’ I said, hastily scribbling a new sign under the table. I was breaking all my carefully constructed rules in one fell swoop, but who cares, he had me besotted from the first second I saw him. ‘Ah, yes, here it is.’ I looked back up, holding the new sign, to see his father standing behind him. The likeness was unmistakable now that I saw them both together.

‘Charlie!’ I gasped.

Charlie was the last person I’d expected to see today. He hadn’t returned my phone call and his last words to me were pretty final. But putting our situation to one side for a moment, he was spending time with his son, and for that, I was truly delighted for him, for them both.

Charlie rubbed a hand over his cropped hair. ‘Hi, Tilly, this is Ollie. Ollie decided to run across the car park without me, didn’t you?’ He was a bit out of breath and had a panicky look in his eye.

‘Sorry, Dad.’ Ollie grinned, not looking especially penitent.

‘Why don’t you go and give your cake and this sign to that man over there, while your dad gets himself a cup of tea?’ I pointed Peter out to Ollie and he scampered off to deliver his masterpiece.

I felt at a distinct disadvantage sitting down with Charlie towering over me, so I stood up.

There was an awkward silence and we both cleared our throats.

‘Ollie’s a lovely boy,’ I said eventually.

Charlie nodded. ‘He is. I thought about what you said in the summer about having Ollie in my life. About what a privilege it is. You were right, as usual.’ He rolled his eyes teasingly. ‘Getting access is still tricky, my ex doesn’t make anything easy for me, but I’m making the effort to see him as much as I can.’

‘I’m very proud of you,’ I said, turning to hug him.
He doesn’t want to be friends any more, remember?
I dropped my arms instantly. ‘Whoops, sorry.’

Now my face was less English Rose and more Blazing Inferno.

‘Don’t apologize,’ Charlie muttered, wrapping his arms round me. He rested his chin on the top of my head. ‘That’s
my
job. I seem to be a proper idiot where you’re concerned. And I’m sorry.’

I sighed and relaxed against him, inhaling his familiar scent, a mixture of wood smoke and earth. Gemma caught my eye across the room and I felt my face heat up an extra notch.

‘Apology accepted.’ I stared down at my feet as I pulled away. ‘Look, Ollie’s waving to you from the raffle, you’d better go over.’

It appeared that Nigel was doing his best to explain to Ollie that he needed to have the winning ticket in order to take home the chocolate hamper.

‘Never a dull moment,’ sighed Charlie, going to Nigel’s rescue. I pressed my lips together hiding my smile. He didn’t fool me; his eyes were shining and I’d never seen him look so relaxed. He was enjoying every minute of looking after Ollie, I thought as I sat back down at my table.

The door opened again and the waitress from the café launched herself through it, red hair flying in a swirl behind her.

‘Am I too late? I’ve made banana muffins for the hidden fruit and veg—’ She clapped a hand over her mouth and opened her eyes wide. ‘Shoot! I shouldn’t have said that, should I?’

I giggled and shook my head. ‘You could go for another category?’ I showed her the list. ‘I’m Tilly, by the way.’

‘Freya. Otherwise known as Freya the terrible cook.’ She showed me the contents of her cake tin and pulled a face.

‘Mmm, well, I think you’re spoilt for choice as far as competition categories go,’ I said. I’d never seen such lumpen, wholesome-looking cakes. But bless her for making the effort. ‘Am I right in thinking there’s bran in there too?’

Freya nodded and opted for the ‘taste better than they look’ category and I sent her off in Peter’s direction with a suggestion that she also book him for a tour of the allotments later.

I watched her plough her way through the crowds towards Peter. I hoped she would take on an allotment, I liked her. A lot.

‘Here you go, love,’ said Christine, setting a cup of tea in front of me.

‘Ooh, you’re a life saver.’ I picked it up and took a long slurp.

‘I think we should get cracking with the judging, Tilly, we’ve run out of cakes on the refreshments stall and the sooner we can start selling off the competition cakes, the better.’

Before I had chance to reply, Toni appeared with a blackberry tray-bake that was nearly as big as her.

‘Our esteemed judge, hurrah! Just in time!’ I said, jumping up to give her a hug.

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I only had time to make one cake.’

‘Nonsense, that’ll keep us going for an hour!’ said Christine, whipping it away to serve up to the waiting customers.

I whisked Toni towards the kitchen to explain the competition rules and passed Dougie on the way.

‘Dougie, do me a favour and sit in my seat in case anyone new arrives, will you?’

‘No problem.’ He cupped a hand over his mouth. ‘Just watch out for the dark fruit cake, I went a bit wild with the rum.’ He winked at me and sauntered off.

‘I’m a bit nervous,’ said Toni. She was in her thirties, had short black hair, sharp blue eyes and an endless supply of patience. She was also incredibly slim. If I worked in such close proximity to Toni’s treacle sponge, I’d be huge.

‘There’s nothing to be nervous about,’ I assured her. Except, of course, the ‘unusual flavour’ category. I handed her a glass of water (Mary Berry always has a drink on hand when she’s judging, I’d noticed) and ushered her towards the cakes.

Thirty minutes later, I was full to bursting and convinced I would never eat another crumb of cake as long as I lived. I had been delighted with the entries; some of the cakes were amazing. My favourite had been a rectangular cake decorated to look like an allotment plot, complete with bamboo canes, tiny pumpkins, perfect little cabbages and even a miniature butterfly. It put my flapjacks to shame! There were one or two less successful entries. One particular fruitcake had been so dry that I could still feel it on the roof of my mouth, but the baker had made the effort and that was what counted.

All the cakes had been judged, prizes awarded and Toni had gone to chat with a friend over a cup of tea. All that was left to do was the clearing up. Officially the event had ended, not that anyone seemed in a hurry to leave.

Ollie, by default, had won the boys’ cakes category, although of course he wasn’t aware of the lack of competition, and was very pleased with his chocolate selection box prize.

Dougie won the ‘tastes better than it looks’ category, which wasn’t difficult: his offering could hardly have tasted any worse than it looked. Karen won the award for ‘best icing’ and Shazza took the prize for most unusual flavour with her dark chocolate and bacon cake, beating Mia’s marmite and fudge cupcakes by the narrowest of margins. Both of them had a sweet and salty thing going on, which should have been wrong, but they were delicious! There were winners from outside our allotment community, too: the cake with the hidden vegetable that we couldn’t fathom to save our lives contained parsnips and came from a neighbour of mine. And the novelty shape award was won by a lady who had fashioned a wellington boot out of sponge cake.

I spotted a seat next to Gemma and made a beeline for her. She only had four weeks to go until the baby was due and while she was absolutely huge, probably uncomfortable and almost certainly nervous about the impending birth, she looked impossibly beautiful and I couldn’t help feeling proud and envious all at the same time.

‘Call yourself a friend,’ she said, pouting at me as I squeezed in beside her. ‘I can’t believe my ginger cake didn’t win.’

‘Sorry, Gem, but if it’s any consolation, it certainly was the strongest flavour of any of the entries,’ I said and sipped gratefully at my water. I had a feeling the memory of her ginger cake, not to mention the heartburn, would stay with me for days.

‘Anyway, not to worry,’ she grinned and pulled me in for a hug, ‘I still think you’re amazing. This must be the busiest fund-raiser Ivy Lane has ever seen.’

‘Really?’

‘Definitely.’ She nodded earnestly.

I beamed back at her with delight.

My first event – the busiest ever! I felt a lump-in-the-throat moment coming on as I glanced around at the crowded room. The community had really come together today – not just the plot holders, but people from the neighbouring area too.

And I was part of it. James would be so proud of me. Tears pricked at my eyes and I blinked them away.

James
.