Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery (3 page)

But he did have a terrible, terrible habit of chomping on the stock.

‘It’s not like I don’t know you’re doing it,’ said Polly, indicating his belly, growing ever stouter underneath his grey apron.

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

He really was sorry too, his face bright pink. He had grown a moustache last year for Movember, and everyone said it suited him – it rather did – so he had kept it, and now he flushed to the tips of it.

‘I don’t mind you eating a bit,’ said Polly. ‘But you know, that was meat. It’s expensive.’

Despite the moustache, Jayden looked about seven years old as he stared at the floor.

‘You’re not being cross with that nice young man,’ said Mrs Corning, the reverend’s widow. ‘He’s a blessing, so he is.’

The other ladies in the queue agreed. For some of them, Polly suspected, having a flirt and a chat with Jayden was the highlight of their days.

‘He’s a very hungry blessing,’ grumbled Polly.

‘And she’s left that bird of hers outside,’ said another lady, disapprovingly. They all muttered amongst themselves. Polly felt like rolling her eyes, but didn’t. To some people she would always be the new girl, she knew. She moved along to the next person in the queue.

‘What can I get you?’ she asked politely.

‘Have you got any of those yummy loaves with the little bits of sausage in them? I loves them.’

‘No,’ said Polly, with a last glare at Jayden, who pretended she wasn’t there and suddenly looked very busy. ‘We don’t.’

The shop bell dinged.

‘Hey, Poll, you left Neil outside!’ said a big booming American voice.

The shop, very small to begin with, suddenly felt smaller still as the shadow of Huckle fell over the counter. He was very tall, long-legged, broad in the shoulders, with a thick head of yellow hair that made him look larger still. Even now Polly was sometimes amazed that he was her boyfriend; he looked like he’d stepped out of an advert that would have lots of desert and cacti and cowboy hats in it.

‘Seriously, man,’ said Huckle. Neil was sitting on Huckle’s jacket sleeve – he didn’t normally do this – gazing at Polly with a wounded expression.

‘I didn’t leave him anywhere,’ said Polly, exasperated. ‘Birds aren’t meant to be in the workplace. He should be hopping over to the rocks and trying to pick up a lady puffin.’

‘Or another boy puffin,’ said Huckle. ‘I don’t think you should be prejudiced.’

Polly looked straight at him.

‘Are you calling me a bird homophobe?’

‘I’m just saying we need to be open to all of Neil’s choices.’

‘Except the one about letting him in the shop!’

Huckle sighed. The old ladies gathered round to examine Neil (or, Polly reckoned mischievously, to get their clawed hands on Huckle’s bicep). When they’d finally cleared, she leaned over to kiss her boyfriend.

‘Hey,’ she said, breathing in his lovely warm scent, slightly tinged with the oil from the motorbike he rode everywhere. ‘Not out and about this morning?’

Huckle shook his head. ‘Sure am! I just popped in to tell you: Dubose is coming.’

Polly bit her lip.

‘Seriously?’

Her heart started to beat a little faster. She’d never met Dubose. She’d never met any of Huckle’s family before; Dubose was his younger brother, and something of a black sheep.

‘What’s he up to?’

Huckle rolled his eyes.

‘Don’t start me. Apparently he needed a break.’

Polly looked confused.

‘Isn’t he a farmer?’

‘Yes,’ said Huckle. ‘Exactly. Farmers don’t get breaks!’

‘Like bakers,’ said Polly.

‘Except tougher,’ said Huckle.

‘Oh yeah.’

Huckle shook his head.

‘He’s left Clemmie in charge.’ Clemmie was Dubose’s girlfriend.

‘Isn’t she any good?’

‘She’s great! She’s fine. But running a farm… it takes a lot of effort.’

Huckle’s brows drew together. It wasn’t often that he looked cross. Polly thought it was cute.

‘When is he showing up?’

‘A couple of weeks, I think. He’s “bumming about”.’ Huckle gave a resigned smile. ‘He doesn’t like making plans or being tied down by anything like notice. It’s okay if he stays, right?’

‘Well of course, but oh wow. Do you think he’s going to like me?’

Huckle rolled his eyes.

‘Dubose likes everyone,’ he said. Polly looked at him.

‘Is that a note of jealousy in your voice?’ she asked slyly.

‘Is there a new young man coming?’ said Mrs Corning. ‘Oh, it’s all excitement round here these days.’

 

 

When Polly and Huckle had first met, he had been a beekeeper nearby, and she had sold his honey through the shop. After their first attempt at romance hadn’t worked out, he’d gone home to his native Savannah and worked in an office job there. But he hadn’t been able to readapt to an indoor, air-conditioned, corporate life after six months in the fresh open air of Cornwall, and had come back again – his father had been born in the UK, which helped a lot with the passport situation.

Now, with so many people downsizing and moving to the country, where they had perhaps a couple of goats, some chickens and a hive or two, he’d become a travelling apiarist, consulting and helping people concerned about maintaining bee stocks and reversing the trend of the declining bee population. He also still had an interest in his original cottage, which was now occupied by an elderly couple who happily enjoyed the flowers and let Huckle manage the hives in return for a couple of jars of honey every month or so. It was a very cheerful arrangement. He wasn’t making a lot of money, but then apart from a bit of diesel for the bike, and a big veggie box once a week from a local farmer, they lived pretty simply, him and Poll. They didn’t need much. Well, he thought occasionally, actually, to do up the lighthouse and buy out Polly’s business properly – she was still under licence to Mrs Manse, the original owner, and had to funnel a great deal of the profits that way – they would need a ton of money. But they didn’t have it, and that was absolutely fine, he told himself, because what they did have was more than enough.

‘Okay,’ said Jayden. ‘I’m off to the other shop. Check on the mainlander.’

Polly rolled her eyes.

‘Jayden, everyone on the entire earth is a mainlander. There are seven billion mainlanders and seven hundred Polbearnites. You just can’t separate the world out like that.’

Jayden was busy with his broom, but she could tell from the cast of his forehead that he disagreed with her.

‘Let me go and see her,’ said Polly. ‘I can walk Huckle to his bike.’

‘That means she wants rid of me,’ said Huckle, twinkling at the old ladies.

‘I don’t want rid of you,’ said Polly. ‘I want rid of Neil. I’m just hoping he’ll follow you.’

Sure enough, as they left together, Neil hopped happily into the sidecar. There was no doubt he enjoyed the ride.

Huckle grinned back at Polly.

‘Do you want to cook?’ she asked.

Huckle shrugged. ‘How about you cook and I run and get all the condiments and things you’ve forgotten from four storeys below.’

‘Deal,’ said Polly, kissing him again. Huckle glanced at his watch, then hopped on the big bike. Neil stuck his head to the side to enjoy the slipstream.

‘I don’t know what that bird thinks he is,’ grumbled Polly, but she enjoyed watching them zoom off at high speed – accompanied by an infernal noise – towards the causeway, which was still uncovered from the morning tide.

She took a breath of fresh salty air deep into her lungs as the clouds danced like clean laundry across the sky, and wondered what Huckle’s brother would be like. She’d never had a brother of her own; maybe it could be like that.

She made her way down Beach Street. Even though the island was so small, it supported two bakeries. The Polbearne bakery, the original one, still sold sandwiches, toasties and more traditional fare – iced biscuits, sponge cake and fancies. Whereas Polly had been allowed to make her own way in her little bakery, with artisan breads, interesting olive loaves and savoury tarts. Now that Mrs Manse had retired, Polly was technically in charge of both shops.

It was the clearest of spring days. In the springtime, Polly really couldn’t imagine living anywhere except in Mount Polbearne. Mind you, she felt like that in the summertime too, with the clatter of buckets and spades and the smell of suncream, and ice cream, and little lost sunglasses in pink and blue plastic left carefully on the harbour wall in case their owners returned to pick them up. And she liked the autumn, when the surfers came to make the most of the waves off Breakwater Point in their black costumes like seals, and turned up at her bakery freezing and absolutely starving. She served coffee and hot soup then, when they were quieter after the summer holidays were over and the children were back at school. And she liked the winter, when it was absolutely windy and freezing and pointless going anywhere, and she and Huckle would snuggle up together and watch box sets of American television shows and eat hot buttered toast and drink gallons of tea in their little eyrie as the storms raged outside. It was impossible to avoid the changing seasons on an island; impossible to insulate yourself from the world like you could in the city, in climate-controlled offices, under fluorescent lighting, with the occasional scrub of a park square covered in cigarette ends.

Here, she liked it all.

Polly had never imagined two years ago, when her entire life was in ruins, a blackened husk on the floor, that she could ever reach a state of such contentment, so in tune with the seasons and the days of her life. Even on the most freezing of mornings, or after a back-breaking stint with the oven, on days that didn’t end until she’d done all the cashing-up late into the night, or the long hours sweating over VAT returns and deciding what was a cake and what was a biscuit; even when it rained for days and days on end whilst the rest of the country had bright sunshine, or when she wanted something new to wear and realised that nobody would deliver anything and it was too far to drive and she couldn’t afford anything anyway; even then, she never regretted changing her life so radically, couldn’t truly believe her luck. She also reckoned that she had had her share of bad luck, and that nothing more was likely to go wrong.

The universe, in general, has absolutely no truck with this kind of thinking.

Flora Larson, who worked in the old bakery, always had the look of someone expecting to be in trouble at any moment. She was thin and stooped, with a hangdog stance, and had a way of peeking up through an overlong fringe that simply looked guilty, even though there was a pretty face hiding in there somewhere.

But she could bake, which was a huge help to Polly. Jayden could do simpler things, but Flora had a touch with the dough, even though she had a tendency to mumble at customers, which Polly had asked her not to do, and she fiddled with her hair constantly, which made Polly worry about hygiene. Mrs Manse would have eaten her for breakfast. Also, Flora’s timekeeping was atrocious. Polly didn’t want to make a fuss, but she thought it was very bad form when customers at one bakery had to pop into the other because they couldn’t get hold of a sandwich.

This morning Flora was standing in the middle of a very untidy shop, with crumbs from yesterday not swept up, a disenchanted look on her face.

‘Hi, Flora!’ said Polly, trying not to sound exasperated. Jobs were hard to come by in this part of the world, particularly out of season. Polly had always sworn not to be a horrible mean old boss, but Flora did wind her up. Huckle thought she was hilarious.

‘My ankles is soaking,’ Flora was saying crossly, staring at the floor. Sure enough, when Polly looked closer, she could see that Flora was standing in what was almost a puddle, her shoes and socks soaking wet and dripping on the floor.

‘Did you mistime the tides again?’ said Polly.

‘They don’t print it right on them almanacks,’ said Flora. ‘They just gets it wrong.’

‘It always seems all right to me,’ said Polly mildly.

‘That’s because you’ve got a posh watch and that,’ said Flora pertly. It was a new experience to Polly that somebody thought that because she was the boss she was rich and powerful.

‘Well, shall we get on with setting up?’ said Polly, as Patrick the vet strolled in for his morning scone.

‘Hello, Polly,’ he said. ‘How’s that ridiculous bird of yours?’

Polly had been about to say that she was thinking of giving Neil a job in the bakery, but managed to bite her tongue in front of Flora.

‘You know, daft as a brush,’ she said.

‘I have never known anyone keep a seabird as a pet,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Never known anything like it.’

Polly smiled. She liked hearing compliments about Neil.

‘But don’t let any of those cats near him,’ Patrick added, shivering. ‘Nasty creatures.’

Patrick’s dislike of cats had never held back his veterinary career, and he rarely bothered to hide it.

‘I got a nice cat,’ said Flora, still standing there as Polly wrapped up a fresh scone still warm from the oven.

‘This smells amazing,’ she said. ‘You know, Flora, you should go on
Bake Off
.’

Flora giggled, her wet feet forgotten.

‘My ma says that!’ she said. ‘Reckon it would be nice being on television.’

‘
You
should do it,’ said Patrick to Polly.

‘You are joking,’ said Polly. ‘I can’t think of anything more horrifying. Plus, I think if being a baker is actually your job, you can’t enter it. Otherwise Paul Hollywood would just win every year, don’t you think?’

Patrick glanced at Flora.

‘You should get out of those socks and shoes,’ he said. ‘You’ll catch a chill.’

Flora scowled. ‘I don’t know why you can’t just have your shop on the mainland, like normal people.’

Polly picked up a tray of scones and sandwiches and gave Flora the loaves and savoury twists she had brought with her. Division of labour was the most efficient way to run things, although she was under no illusions that it was particularly efficient at all.

‘Can you tidy and clean up in here, please? You’ll have the lunchtime crowd in soon enough, and there’s a few day trippers. And can you prep for tomorrow as well?’

It was Friday. Saturday was a big day for day trippers. Sunday they were traditionally closed. Polly was trying to figure out a way to open on a Sunday for the massive throughput but then take Mondays off. Having thought about this a lot, she had settled on the fact that nobody who lived on Mount Polbearne wanted that to happen and therefore they had better stay exactly as they were if she was to get a day off at all. Some things you didn’t mess with. She was considering getting an extra member of staff to cover the summer season, and maybe even a café licence to extend the Little Beach Street Bakery…

She smiled wryly at her own ridiculous ambitions. At the moment she couldn’t get the two members of staff she did have to either stop eating the profits or avoid getting drowned on their way in to work. Possibly best not to leap ahead too soon.

 

 

As it was a fine day, Polly headed straight back to the Little Beach Street Bakery. On good days, it had queues out the door at lunchtime, because everyone wanted to eat their lunch sitting on the harbour wall in the sunshine. The fishermen had a kind of kitty situation going on and all ate whatever sandwiches Polly had made for them.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Today I have warm giant sausage rolls with ketchup and mustard on the side, plus a little pot of beans.’

Archie, the fishing boat skipper, tried to smile.

‘That sounds absolutely champion,’ he said.

‘You tired?’

The fishermen were always tired. They had to land their catches early in the morning to make sure the freshest of fish were available for the restaurants that day. They worked extraordinarily long hours, and still had to live their lives in the daytime. There were EU regulations on how much they could catch, but none on how long they could work, and it showed.

Archie had taken over
Trochilus II
, the boat that had replaced the original one that Tarnie had captained. He also had a baby boy, his fourth, called William. He looked knackered.

‘Oh, you know,’ he said, handing over a pile of coins. ‘William’s a lively one. Then the others have got to that age… they’ve got sports days and outings, and you know the schools are always on holiday, right? Children at school
never actually go to school
. When I was a kid I remember being at school the entire time. But now they don’t ever go. It’s called inset days, and it means, can you arrange some extra childcare, please.’

Jayden served the rest of the queue whilst Polly got Archie a coffee from her beloved espresso machine. He obviously needed it. She passed it over with four sachets of sugar, and he emptied in all of them.

‘And then the wife wants to go out to dinner and says I’m no fun, and…’

This was a long speech from Archie, who was normally a taciturn man, and he trailed off before it was finished and turned slightly pink.

Polly nodded. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘You guys work so hard. Can’t you sleep on the boat?’ Sometimes Tarnie used to snatch a quick half-hour as they headed out to the fishing fields, before the real work began.

Archie winced. ‘Maybe after I’ve been in the job a while,’ he said. ‘Right now, it’s taking all my energy just to stay afloat. Me
and
the boat.’

Polly nodded and patted him gently on the shoulder.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s a tough living.’

Archie looked out of the window. The fishing boats made such a pretty sight, all pitched up in a row, their masts jangling in the faint breeze.

‘I didn’t… Until we started getting all these tourists,’ he said, ‘I didn’t realise how soft other people had it.’

Fishing, Polly knew, was in your blood or it wasn’t. It was a vocation you were born to; otherwise, it was just too tough.

‘It’s not like that really, you know,’ she said. ‘You see people coming here in big cars and relaxing and walking along the beach and eating ice cream and you think that’s what they do, but it isn’t. It’s their holidays, that’s all, like when you went to Cyprus that time.’

‘Four years ago,’ grunted Archie.

‘They all have their troubles too. Working really long hours in horrible offices for horrible bosses. Moving paper round all day and hating it. Commuting an hour there and an hour home every single day to do a job they hate that means they never see their own children.’

‘I see too much of the buggers,’ said Archie.

Polly grinned. ‘That’s because you’re a good dad,’ she said. ‘Now, I’ll take the sausage rolls down. You go sit on the bench over there and have a snooze, and I’ll wake you up in an hour.’

Archie looked at her.

‘I don’t want the lads to think I’m slacking.’

He was trying so hard to live up to the memory of Tarnie, and it was taking its toll.

‘I’ll tell them you’re helping me shift something in the shop. Something really large and dirty and heavy,’ said Polly. ‘Covered in spiders. Okay?’

Archie nodded thankfully, and Polly walked him round the corner to an out-of-the-way bench between the old town cross and an empty stone horse trough. It was a sunny spot, and Polly noticed that his eyes closed almost immediately.

Down by the harbour wall, the wind was gustier. The rest of the crew were on the boat. Dave had started out as a beekeeper, sent by an agency last year, but his terrible fear of bees had meant he had ended up on the sea instead. He had turned out to be born to the job; a genuine fisherman who loved the water and, as they said, could sniff out fish. Then there was little Kendall, the youngest, who grinned endearingly at Polly, his eyes fixed on her paper bag, and Sten, who was new, a big Scandinavian chap Polly barely knew.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Archie’s just helping me with something.’

Kendall grabbed at the bag and inhaled it.

‘Oh that smells good good good!’ he said. ‘Did you bring us sweets for afters?’

‘I don’t sell sweets,’ Polly told him for the millionth time.

‘Is Archie having a rest?’ said Dave.

‘No, he’s —’

‘Because he needs a rest.’

The others nodded their agreement.

‘He keeps trying to do everything,’ said Kendall. ‘It’s okay. He’s fine. He just gets a bit panicky. Tarnie wasn’t panicky.’

‘He wasn’t,’ said Polly, and they were silent for a second.

‘He was a bit shouty, though,’ said Kendall. ‘Archie isn’t shouty.’

‘Well there you go,’ said Polly. ‘When he gets back, tell him you knew he was working, otherwise he’ll never take ten seconds off ever again.’

‘He has to,’ said Sten, speaking for the first time. His accent was slow and deliberate. ‘It is dangerous to run a boat on not enough sleep,
ja
? He needs to make himself relax.’

Polly smiled. ‘I’ve never understood how anyone’s meant to make themselves do that,’ she said. ‘But yes, I agree.’

She went back and zipped through the rest of the lunchtime rush with Jayden, people cheerfully queuing halfway up the quay. This made her happy every time she saw it. The fact that people were there, day after day, handing over money for something she’d made with her own hands! Sometimes it didn’t quite seem real; she wanted to rush up to someone eating a bun and say, ‘I made that, you know!’

She managed to avoid the temptation.

Once they’d cleaned up after lunch, if everything had gone – and it usually had – they’d close. Very early starts to get everything ready on time meant that by 2 p.m. Polly had normally already been on her feet for nine hours, and there was still cashing-up to do. Huckle tried to schedule his appointments so that he could sometimes nip back for an hour or two and, for the only time all day, they could relax, laze in bed for an hour, chat and laugh. Then he would be out again and Polly would cash up, start setting the dough for the next day, make supper and begin all over again in the morning.

Today, as she walked back into the empty lighthouse – it felt even emptier when Neil wasn’t there – she could hear the home phone ringing. She furrowed her brow. She did use the home phone from time to time – the mobile signal could be a little erratic – but not that often, and certainly not in the daytime. She’d spoken to her mum yesterday and everything was fine there. It must be Huckle; he must have been held up somewhere.

Polly mounted the stairs two at a time, wondering how long the phone would ring for. There was no point in rushing, she thought as she rounded the first landing. Getting up took as long as getting up took, and if she tried to rush, she wouldn’t have enough puff to speak when she did make it up there.