Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery (22 page)

‘FUUUUUCKKKKIIIINNNNGG AWWWWWEEEESSSOOOOMMME!’

In the event, once Polly had printed out all the forms at the library in Looe, it wasn’t nearly as complicated as she’d expected. The lady at the council had looked at her briefly, run through her application and told her that they would have to have a proper council bin nearby, that any rubbish or extra seagull infestation would result in a review, that they would need a health and safety certificate publicly displayed and that it would be for a three-month trial period only. Her spot would be in the side entrance to the car park: no entry to Mount Polbearne itself, which was a World Heritage Site and needed to be treated like one. She could also have one picnic table, as long as it didn’t protrude more than fifteen centimetres into the public roadway; she would be liable to spot inspections at any point, and could operate between the hours of eight and four, seven days a week. All for thirty-five quid.

Polly nodded, unable to believe it could be quite so straightforward. Those weeks of lying around feeling sorry for herself seemed such a waste now; could this possibly work? Might it? She’d rung the sellers of the van, who, yes, still had it, and was steeling herself to go and negotiate. Reuben had offered to go with her, but Polly had figured that whilst she personally thought Reuben was ace, sometimes the first impression he gave wasn’t entirely the best way to get a nice friendly deal out of people.

‘Oh,’ said the council woman. ‘And you’ll have to wear a hairnet.’

Polly looked at her.

‘Seriously?’

‘I don’t make the rules,’ said the woman. ‘Well, I do, obviously, make some of the rules.’ She smoothed down her cerise suit jacket, which looked too warm over her floral frock. ‘But in this instance, it comes from far higher up. Yes, higher up even than me!’

‘A hairnet?’ said Polly. Suddenly her image of a lovely scenic little van with gorgeous chic food and even a place to sit and eat whilst staring out at the sea took on a slightly dowdier perspective. A hairnet really hadn’t been in it.

The woman looked at her sternly.

‘Is a hairnet going to be a deal-breaker?’

‘No,’ said Polly quickly. ‘But is it —’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay,’ said Polly. ‘What about, like, really natty little baseball caps?’

‘We’re not in the business of giving out licences to the uncommitted,’ said the woman, hanging back from handing over the forms.

‘Yes. All right, all right. Thank you so much. I’ll do absolutely everything.’

‘You certainly will!’ said the woman. ‘Or we have instant authorisation to shut you down. Good luck!’

 

 

Polly was on a train, en route to Penzance. She was speaking to Huckle on the phone. Jayden had given her a lift to the mainland in the taxi boat that morning, whilst the causeway was underwater.

‘Got nowt else to do,’ he had pointed out gloomily. Sales had absolutely fallen off in the bakery and he wasn’t allowed to chat to customers now, so he spent most of the day just staring out to sea. He was still pretty glad he wasn’t out there, but it was becoming a close-run thing, particularly when he saw the lads coming in of a morning, laughing and joking and giving him a terrible slagging for his nasty sausage rolls.

Malcolm wasn’t much better, complaining about how lazy and useless Jayden was, then disappearing for a couple of days, coming back smelling of old booze. And he spent much more time in the other bakery. Jayden suspected he was trying to chat up Flora. He himself had got absolutely nowhere with her, but he still felt she could do better than that sleazy jackass.

The cheery grin had gone from Jayden’s features as he puttered Polly across to the mainland. It was a windy morning, sunny, but with a chill breeze that necessitated a warm cardigan for emergencies.

‘Bring something good back,’ he said to Polly. ‘Sort it out.’

He turned pink.

‘If it… if it goes well… can I come and work with you again?’

‘Of course,’ said Polly, who hadn’t in the slightest figured out how she could possibly manage to do everything herself, but equally couldn’t see how there could be two full-time jobs in it either.

Jayden perked up.

‘You’ll do it, Polly. You’ve done it before.’

Polly remembered his words as she gazed out of the window at the beautiful vista of cliff and sea. Tucked in amongst the green was an amazing old boarding school that looked like a castle. Muriel had told her it was there, but she’d never noticed before. She watched, dreamily, as a posse of distant figures pranced around on a lacrosse court. It was very different to her own upbringing, she thought. And her present, when she considered it.

‘Pol?’ Huckle sounded uncharacteristically irritated. ‘Are you listening? You sound miles away.’

‘Sorry,’ said Polly. ‘Just got distracted. Maybe I should go and teach home economics.’

‘What?’

‘Sorry. Ignore me. I’m talking rubbish. AND in a quiet carriage!’

Shocked with herself, she got up and went out to where the loos were. Now he was almost impossible to hear.

‘Don’t pay more than four K for it, Polly! Four K, okay! I know you don’t like doing it, but you have to bargain. You’re a businesswoman now. You’re not trying to get these people to like you, you’re doing a job. And it’s the only job you have, so do it right. It’s not all about making scones, you know.’

Polly was disgruntled.

‘I know that,’ she said.

But he was right, she knew. She hated bargaining, couldn’t even bear to do it in a market; found the whole concept humiliating.

‘Well, do it,’ said Huckle, sounding stern, and with a shiver she thought how much she missed him.

‘Are you naked?’ she said suddenly.

‘Stop it! I mean it! Get to business!’

‘I will get to business. What are you wearing, though?’

She could hear the smile in his voice.

‘I have a meeting with the bank, to sort out the farm.’

‘And?’

‘So I can’t stop and chat to you.’

‘Just tell me…’

‘Suit, striped shirt. Blue tie.’

‘Ooh,’ said Polly. ‘I think I like that even more than you naked. Are you looking all buttoned up? I like that in a man, like you could burst out any second. I could undo the buttons very, very slowly…’

She reckoned she could hear him breathing slightly more heavily on the other end of the line.

‘Shut up,’ he said eventually. ‘I have to get to my meeting.’

‘Don’t be too long.’

‘The less of my money you spend on this truck, the sooner I’ll be home,’ he said, and his voice held a heavy weight of longing.

 

 

It took Polly a while to find the address the man had given her on the phone. Eventually, though, she found him: a tall, skinny chap in his late twenties with a prominent Adam’s apple and wearing a baseball cap.

‘Hi, Evan, yeah, sorry,’ he said immediately, as if apologising for his very existence.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Polly. ‘It took a little longer to get over than I thought.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Mount Polbearne,’ said Polly, waiting for the customary intake of breath as people wanted to know how it was possible to live there. What did they do? How did they get to the shops? Didn’t they get drowned all the time? But Evan barely raised an eyebrow.

‘Huh,’ he said. ‘Right.’

Polly would have liked a glass of water, but she wasn’t sure whether she should ask, or whether the Huckle School of Business would say this made her look weak, so she didn’t mention it.

‘Uh, the van?’ she said. Evan looked anxious.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, fumbling with keys. They were outside a tumbledown row of little terraced houses, and she followed him through to the back garden, the thought briefly crossing her mind that statistically very few serial killers advertised catering vans, right?

‘Have you had many people look at it?’ she asked perkily, wondering if she should try to dial the first two 9s on her phone just in case.

‘No, just you,’ came the dolorous voice.

The garden was larger than she’d expected. It was overgrown and messy, bits of cracked paving stone here and there, rampant weeds, stained plastic chairs and, at the bottom, a large garage. It took Evan a while to find the right key, but he managed to in the end.

‘So,’ said Polly brightly. ‘You’re out of the catering van business, huh?’

In answer to this, Evan just let out a shiver, and a low ‘hmm’ noise. There was also something that might have been ‘Thank God.’

The garage was dark, the dirty windows letting in hardly any of the bright light of the day outside. At first it was difficult to make out anything but the big looming shape. Polly blinked and moved forward. Evan hung back, as if reluctant to approach it.

‘So…’ said Polly, but Evan still didn’t move. She looked back at him. He had a look of unabashed disgust on his face.

‘Um,’ said Polly. ‘Are you all right?’

Evan’s shoulders shook a little, and Polly wondered if he was going to cry.

‘This damn van,’ he said, finally.

‘Oh,’ said Polly. The front of the garage was a normal up-and-over door. ‘Do you mind if we just open this so I can take a look?’

Evan shrugged, so Polly took hold of the handle and twisted it. The door rose with a groaning noise, and light flooded in.

The van was in even better nick than it had looked in the advert. There was no smell of old grease or decay, which she had feared. There were some scratches on the dark red bodywork, but this was easily handled, she reckoned. She went all round it, and, nervously, kicked the tyres. She had absolutely no idea why anyone would do this, but Huckle had told her to do it to look like she knew what she was about.

Evan showed no sign of moving to help her, so she pulled open the door by herself. Sure enough, inside were the rows of immaculate stainless-steel baking trays she’d seen in the advert, perfect for fresh loaves. The large oven wasn’t a brand she was familiar with, but she could see immediately that it was well put in, with good ventilation and space for it to get very hot at minimum discomfort to the chef. The sink was plumbed in and looked nearly new. She didn’t understand.

She stepped down from the little van. The canopy that extended out above the selling side was in a cheery red and white stripe. She walked round the van again and again, but couldn’t find a single thing wrong with it.

‘Evan,’ she said. ‘What happened here?’

Evan hung his head. ‘Do you wanna cup of tea?’

Polly nodded.