Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery (10 page)

‘Well, stop making him wear a jacket.’

‘It was only that one time, when it was cold,’ said Polly.

‘And I still don’t think those wellingtons…’

‘No,’ admitted Polly. ‘Those wellingtons were a mistake, on balance.’

Patrick let out a sigh.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I did warn you this would happen.’

‘I know,’ said Polly, hanging her head.

‘You domesticated an animal that isn’t designed to be domesticated.’

‘I know that.’

‘It’s probably not too late to re-wild it, you know.’

‘Maybe I should domesticate another one to be his friend.’

Patrick eyed her. ‘You will not!’

‘No. I won’t.’

Polly sighed. ‘I just want him to have what’s best. And for the other birds to accept him.’

Patrick nodded. ‘I know, Polly. But you know what you’d have to do.’

 

 

Polly was still deep in thought when Kerensa came back, having finally got the barman to clean the glasses, plus dig out an ice bucket, plus let the wine breathe. She was pretty much all yelled out.

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing. Apparently re-wilding Neil would be difficult but not impossible.’

‘I’m sure he’s fine. Playing all by himself in his rock pool. Maybe he’ll think his reflection is a friend… Oh Polly, your face!’

‘Whoa,’ said Dubose suddenly, putting down his beer bottle. ‘Now who is THAT?’

Polly and Kerensa turned around.

At first Polly couldn’t make her out in the dark of the pub courtyard, lit only by strings of fairy lights that could make this bit of Mount Polbearne, the fishermen said, look like a cruise ship when you were out at sea.

Then her mouth fell open. A young girl was walking towards them, wearing a soft Lycra dress that clung lightly to her slim figure. Her black hair was combed back and fell like a waterfall on to her shoulders; her eyelashes were so long they cast shadows on her cheeks, her dark eyes huge. The entire pub fell silent.

‘That’s… that’s Flora!’ said Polly in astonishment.

Flora approached them. She looked like some beautiful witch girl.

‘Can I sit with youse?’ she said. ‘Only I missed the tide again.’

‘You may!’ said Dubose, jumping up and pulling out a chair for her. ‘I’m Dubose.’

Flora looked at him without interest.

‘You look beautiful,’ said Polly. She couldn’t help it: the transformation from dowdy, greasy-haired Flora, always staring at the floor and giving wrong change, into this goddess was overwhelming.

‘Oh, I know,’ said Flora in a flat voice. ‘People keep saying. It’s boring.’

The girls exchanged looks of disbelief.

‘So are you from round here?’ said Dubose. ‘I’m from America!’

He said this with a flourish. Flora looked up at him mournfully under her big lashes.

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘You’re fascinating,’ said Dubose, heading to the bar to get her a drink. As he did so, Polly noticed out of the corner of her eye the fishermen all gazing open-mouthed. Jayden was so pink she thought he was going to burst.

‘Does this… does this happen to you often?’ asked Polly.

Flora nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘But don’t you want to go and make it as a model or something?’ said Kerensa. ‘I mean, I could introduce you to some people…’

Flora shook her head.

‘I just want to bake,’ she said. ‘That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. And people just want to take stupid photos. It’s rubbish.’

Polly grinned. ‘I can’t believe I’ve wasted my life like this,’ she said, ‘when all I had to do was to be born unbelievably beautiful.’

‘It’s rubbish,’ said Flora. ‘People just bug you all the time.’

‘Is that why you never wash your hair?’ said Polly.

‘Yeah,’ said Flora. ‘Oh, also, I forget.’

Suddenly, Jayden was at the table. He’d obviously had a couple of jars and plucked up the courage.

‘Hello, young ladies!’ His moustache was thicker than ever, his cheeks round and unusually pink.

‘Hello, Jayden!’

‘Hello, Miss Polly! Hello, Kerensa! Hello…’

Jayden had completely lost the power of speech.

‘Did you want something?’ said Polly gently. Jayden, so incredibly charming and sweet with the older women of the town, was generally terribly unsuccessful with the opposite sex if they were younger than fifty. Turning red was something of a giveaway, although Jayden also turned red if he was warm, cold, excited, cross, tired or perturbed, so you couldn’t exactly rely on it.

‘I just… I couldn’t help hearing…’

Jayden’s table was three noisy tables and a fiddle band away.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing that Miss Flora… might need a place to stay.’

‘That’s some pretty good bionic ears you’ve got going on there,’ said Kerensa.

‘Because, you know…’

‘Jayden, you live at your mum’s,’ said Polly.

‘Uh,
thanks,’
said Jayden crossly. ‘We’ve got a spare room, you know. I’m only trying to be polite. I don’t know why everyone’s making such a big deal about it or getting so worked up about it, honestly. I didn’t even hear what was going on and even if I did I don’t even care, so there. And I don’t live at my mum’s. I lodge with an older woman. I pay rent. So actually I’m a young single man renting. It’s just coincidence that it’s my mum’s.’

He stalked off.

‘Uh, yes please?’ said Flora, quietly.

Jayden froze. Then he turned round incredibly slowly.

‘SERIOUSLY?’ he said.

‘Uh, yeah?’ said Flora.

Jayden looked like he was going to faint. He flushed a brighter pink than ever, and his face was a mixture of delight and terror.

‘I’ll just tell my mum… I mean, my landlady. She can make up the spare bed.’

He looked shyly at Flora and then back at the floor.

‘You can come and sit with us if you like.’

‘No thanks,’ said Flora, staring at the floor too.

‘Oh,’ said Jayden. There was a moment’s silence. ‘Okay. Phoning my mum.’

As he sidled away from them, Polly burst out laughing.

‘Flora, I think you’ve pulled.’

Flora looked unhappy.

‘I’ve always pulled,’ she said.

‘Well, I really feel sorry for your terrible, terrible problems,’ said Polly, smiling.

‘Did I go to the bar for ten seconds and miss out?’ said Dubose, smiling his nice white smile. His eyes were drawn to the entrance to the courtyard. ‘Oh well,’ he said, perking up.

A slender figure was standing nervously underneath the eaves, scanning the busy tables. Polly glanced over, then waved heartily.

‘Aha,’ said Kerensa, taking another large gulp of her wine. ‘It’s the Merry Widow.’

‘Be. Nice,’ hissed Polly, composing her face.

‘Hey, I’m not the one who —’

‘Shut up.’

Selina came over looking apprehensive.

‘I wasn’t going to come out,’ she said. ‘But I was sitting in there all alone… It’s quite spooky, isn’t it?’

Polly nodded. ‘A little bit, but only at first. It’s quite useful knowing that nobody can get across from the mainland. Keeps all the baddies out.’

‘Or in,’ said Selina, glancing about. ‘I think I was half asleep. Then I heard the music, and thought I would come down.’

‘Well you’re here now,’ said Polly. Even compared to Kerensa, who was very slim, Selina was punishingly skinny, in a tight black top that emphasised her knobbly collarbones, and jeans that were falling off her.

‘Hi,’ said Selina directly to Kerensa.

‘Hello,’ said Kerensa, slightly stand-offishly, Polly thought. She really wanted them to get on; it would be much more fun. Plus it would be nice to have a new friend in the village. Kerensa was always heading off to the Monaco Grand Prix or Coachella; Muriel, between working in the grocer’s and looking after her new baby, couldn’t keep her eyes open for more than half an hour, and conversation with Flora had its limitations.

‘Can I have some of that wine?’ asked Selina. ‘Possibly quite a lot?’

Kerensa softened a bit.

‘Are you going to screw up your face like Flora does?’ she said.

‘No,’ said Selina. ‘I’m going to neck it, then buy us some more.’

Kerensa smiled. ‘Welcome.’

 

 

Dubose leaned in and joined in the conversation.

‘How on earth did you end up married to a fisherman?’ he asked in genuine puzzlement.

‘Sorry,’ said Polly gently, sitting beside Selina. ‘We don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to.’

Selina shook her head.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Everyone pussyfoots around me all the time. I really, really want to talk about him.’

Polly nodded.

‘Well,’ said Selina. ‘I was on holiday down here, staying in one of those really posh houses.’

Flora suddenly brightened.

‘Are you one of the posh girls?’ she asked.

‘Not any more,’ smiled Selina. ‘Why?’

‘Oh yes, you should do that,’ said Polly to Flora. ‘Looking like that, you could marry Prince Harry or something.’

Selina laughed so hard at this, Polly was worried she was going to choke. She also, Polly thought, had the look of a person who hadn’t laughed enough for a very long time, and wasn’t always entirely sure when it was appropriate.

‘Um, okay, do NOT marry a posh boy,’ said Selina. ‘Unless you like, you know, being their mummy, dealing with drug abuse, never ever knowing how they feel and having to stick things up their bottoms.’

Flora looked horrified.

‘Seriously? All of them?’ asked Polly, fascinated. She didn’t know any posh people.

‘All of them,’ said Selina. ‘Every single one.’

Flora bit her lip.

‘Are you joking?’

‘No,’ said Selina. ‘I would never joke about that.’

‘So you married Tarnie because… what, because you didn’t have to do any of that?’ said Kerensa, getting borderline hysterical.

‘Kerensa!’ said Polly. ‘Seriously, watch it!’

Selina shook her head.

‘Oh, I’m meant to talk about him,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Therapist says so, and it’s costing me enough…’

‘Well, you can’t have everything,’ said Kerensa.

‘He was going back and forth between here and Looe back then,’ said Selina, taking on a slightly dreamy look. ‘Oh my, he was so handsome. It was before the beard. I was very against the beard. I think he only did it to annoy me.’

‘Oh I quite liked it,’ said Polly without thinking, earning herself a warning kick under the table from Kerensa. ‘What? Oh.’

But Selina went on, lost in her reverie.

‘He was gorgeous. Every other idiot I’d met was such a prannet, going on and on about the City, or oil speculating, or what their daddy did or whatever.’

‘Whilst requiring insertion,’ added Kerensa.

‘Quite,’ said Selina, lighting up a cigarette and waving it around. Polly and Kerensa didn’t mind, but Flora looked horrified.

‘Get used to smoking if you want a posh boy,’ said Selina. ‘Their parents abandoned them to boarding school. They all have to smoke to stop themselves from crying.’

‘Maybe I shouldn’t marry a posh boy,’ said Flora. She glanced over at Jayden, who hadn’t taken his eyes off her, and who waved furiously.

‘I sure am learning a lot tonight,’ said Dubose.

‘And he was real,’ Selina went on. ‘He didn’t speak unless he had something he needed to say. He didn’t turn on the charm… I hate charm. Such a bloody overindulged characteristic. As if it means anything. Charm is just a way of fuckers getting you to do what they wanted you to do all along. They might as well hold a gun to your head. They’re both short cuts.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said Kerensa. Reuben was so abrasive and uncharming that Polly found it came all the way round the back and ended up charming again.

‘He just said it like it was… of course at first I found that really attractive. Later on it made me want to kill him every time I attempted to start a conversation about our relationship.’

The girls nodded.

‘And he was just… he was just so different from all the nobbers that I’d known before. So straight. So honest.’

Polly gazed at the table, her ears burning.

‘So,’ said Selina, ‘I gave up everything. Oh my lord, my parents went mental. I felt like one of those sixteen-year-olds in the newspapers every summer who goes on holiday to Turkey and accidentally marries a waiter. Seriously, you’d think that’s what I’d done. My stepmum was the worst. She’s a vicious character to begin with, but she’d fought her way up from nothing to marry my dad, who had a bit, and she was all like “You don’t know what it’s like being poor, Selina. You think it’s romantic, but it’s not the least bit romantic when the boiler breaks down in the middle of the winter, and he’s off on the high seas.”’ She mimicked a high-pitched estuary voice. ‘“Also, you know, all sailors have venereal disease.”’