The Sweetest Thing (18 page)

‘It feels very quiet, which is what I thought I was looking for …’

Penny smiles.

‘I’m glad I made the move down here, otherwise I’d never have met Declan. He’s my carer, a few years younger than me, and – do you know Fifi Green? You must have met her.’

I nod as Penny continues, ‘She calls me the cougar of Talyton, which makes me sound like the Beast of Dartmoor. I take it as a compliment. I can’t be too critical of Fifi – she buys my paintings. Not because she appreciates them, but because she hopes they’ll appreciate in value.’

‘Can you manage to make a living from your work?’ I ask, knowing it’s relevant to my own business. Her response is disappointing.

‘Only because I still sell in London. People who live in the city don’t seem able to get enough of the Taly Valley, fortunately. I make a little money from the tourists too – I’ve got a line of prints which sell well as
souvenirs in the gift shop and the garden centre. I get by.’ Penny pauses, tipping her head to one side, a twinkle of amusement in her eyes. ‘I can afford a decent cake for the wedding anyway, in case you’re wondering.’

‘No, of course not,’ I say quickly. ‘I didn’t mean …’

‘Declan and I want to do it properly. Neither of us has any intention of marrying again.’ Penny sighs. ‘I’m so lucky. When he first asked me out, I kept thinking, “Why me? Why not a girl your own age?”’

When I’m driving home, I’m torn between feeling happy and sad – happy that I’ve got a substantial order at last, and sad when I remember my own wedding day, and how I miss having a partner to share everything with: from late-night chats about life, the universe and everything, to a bar of Kendal Mint Cake or a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

The only partnership I have now is between me and my Aga.

‘Well?’ says Adam when I draw up outside Uphill House. He’s outside with Georgia and Sophie, waiting. ‘Did you do it?’

‘Yes! Look.’ I hold the paperwork out through the open window. ‘I’m going to frame this.’

‘Yay!’ Adam punches the air, making me smile. He might behave like a world-weary cynic at times, just like his father, but it’s all an act. ‘How many tiers?’

‘Three,’ I say.

‘Three cheers for three tiers,’ he says, the girls skipping around and echoing him.

I go inside. I have to get baking. The wedding’s in less than four weeks, not really long enough for a fruit cake to mature, but I’m sure it will be fine. Later, when I’m curled up on the old wicker sofa in the drawing
room, Lucky beside me, I start making a list of ingredients: dark muscovado sugar, sweet glacé cherries, succulent raisins, Courvoisier brandy to feed it. This is going to be the best cake I’ve ever baked.

I set aside a whole day for the wedding cake. I take the children with me to buy ingredients, then return to my kitchen. All my worries disappear. This is it, I’m doing what I am good at, what I love. Am I worried about the state of my bank balance? A little. I need to get some money coming in soon. Okay, David pays maintenance for the children, but I’ve had what I’m owed.

I dig out Delia’s recipe for The Classic Christmas Cake, the one I use every Christmas. I work out the amounts of the ingredients, scaling them up for the three tiers, and checking in with Adam that my calculations are correct. I’m going for round tins – with square ones, the corners tend to cook faster than the rest of the cake.

Firstly, I measure out currants, sultanas and raisins and throw them into a huge mixing bowl, along with most of a bottle of brandy to soak. Secondly, I stick the treacle tin in the warming oven of the Aga – it’s easier to handle when it’s runny. Then I find the glacé cherries. Unable to resist, I pop a cherry in my mouth, and another, relishing their sweet, sticky syrup … I slam the lid back on the pot. No more or I’ll end up as big as a house.

I chop the cherries, then weigh out some mixed peel, almonds, plain flour and a pinch of salt. A few grains spill across the worktop. I take another pinch from the box and throw it over my left shoulder. Why? I’m not superstitious, but it’s something I learned from my
grandmother. ‘Hit the Devil in the eye,’ she used to say. I wish I’d managed to save her old recipes – apparently they were thrown out when her house was cleared after she died.

Next, I grate some nutmeg, and the rinds of an orange and a lemon, until the kitchen smells of Christmas.

Adam and the girls turn up, hovering. Adam takes a few raisins from the bowl and throws them down his throat, then coughs.

‘Ugh, what’s in that?’

‘Brandy,’ I say.

‘That’s disgusting.’

‘Well, it serves you right for taking without asking,’ I tell him, lightly. ‘You can have the raisins that are left in the packet.’ I pause. ‘Georgia, will you fetch me the eggs? They’re in the larder, middle shelf.’

‘I wish you were using our eggs, Mummy,’ says Sophie. ‘Couldn’t you have some of Guy’s?’

‘I’m afraid not – you can’t use any old eggs in cakes that you’re intending to sell to the public. Rules is rules.’ I’m planning to get authorisation to use our own – if we ever get any. I glance out through the open door to the back garden where the hens are foraging over the lawn, pecking, scratching and leaving droppings all over the place. I didn’t realise they were so messy. ‘Sophie, if you’d like to help too, you can get the butter out of the fridge.’

In a large mixing bowl, I cream the dark muscovado sugar and butter together. I beat the eggs then add them a little at a time, with a spoonful of flour, to the fluffy butter-and-sugar mixture. Then I fold in the dry ingredients and stir in the rest, including the chopped almonds, until the mixture is thick and sticky, and
difficult to move around the bowl, which is when Guy’s face appears at the window.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Congratulations on the sale. Adam mentioned it this morning.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ I say. Adam went to help with the milking again – he seems to be enjoying it.

‘You know you said you were planning to grow veg?’ Guy says.

‘I do, but I haven’t got around to doing anything about it yet.’ I’m aware that my tone is tinged with frustration. It’s another of the multitude of tasks I’ve so far failed to address. ‘As you can probably see, I’m up to my elbows in cake mix.’

‘Don’t let me stop you. I thought that as I’ve got a spare hour, I could run the rotavator over the old veg patch for you. It would be much quicker than digging it with a spade. That clay’s heavy stuff.’

‘Guy, you’ve done more than enough for us already.’ I don’t think he understands, but I’m beginning to feel as if I’m under some kind of obligation to him.

‘I’m happy to do it.’

‘Well …’ I falter. ‘I’ll pay you.’

Guy frowns, and immediately I know I’ve said the wrong thing and offended him.

‘I’m not some odd job man,’ he says stiffly. ‘I’m offering because we’re neighbours.’

‘Yes, but you’ve done so much for us … the chickens, Adam’s job …’

Guy sticks his hands in his pockets and gazes at the ground for a moment before looking up at me.

‘Look, Jennie, if you think I’m being a pest, then say so and I’ll leave you alone.’

‘No! No, I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to do it,’ he says. ‘And I’m not expecting cake or anything else in return.’

I give in. It would be great to have the garden dug over and the ground prepared for planting in the spring, but I don’t want it to seem as if I’m taking advantage of him. I’m beginning to question why Guy’s always here, in my house or on my property, when he has – what did he tell Adam? – a hundred and fifty acres of his own. Is it because he’s lonely up at the farm, or is he happier here because this was once his home, or does he enjoy our company, even if we are townies?

‘Okay, thank you,’ I say.

‘I’ll go round the back,’ he says.

‘Can I help?’ Adam asks.

‘Of course,’ Guy says, and I think how good it is for Adam to have a man around. I wish David had been more like Guy – David’s idea of father–son bonding consisted of riding on roller-coasters, paint-balling and walking the high-wires, not staying quietly at home and doing real-life things together.

I turn back to the cake and give it another stir. The mix doesn’t look dark enough somehow, but maybe my memory isn’t what it was, which is odd because I thought I was over the mumnesia that I had for a while after the children were born. I glance out of the window over the sink and watch Adam and the girls who have decided that rotavating is more compelling than baking. Guy has set them marking out the edges of the vegetable patch with sticks and string. I smile as I watch them work, then remember I’m supposed to be working too.

With a sense of pride I continue, deciding to go down the traditional route of greasing and lining the
cake tins with baking parchment, before I start spooning the mix into them. Actually, it’s more about guiding it as it crawls stiffly out of the bowl, like a sleepy snake. As I smooth the top of the first tin of mix, I breathe in the scents of spice, alcohol and citrus, but I’m sure now that there’s something missing.

The treacle! I’ve left it in the Aga.

It serves me right for allowing myself to be distracted. I tip the contents of the cake tins back into the mixing bowl and stir in the treacle, then I panic and wonder if I’ve been too rough with the mix. If I have, I’ve ruined the texture of the finished cake.

I go ahead, washing and re-lining the tins before cajoling the cake mix, which is darker now, into them. To reduce the risk of burning, I tie a double layer of brown paper around the outside of each tin, then cover the tops with a circle of baking parchment with a small hole in the centre to let out any steam.

I decide after much deliberation to cook each tier separately, which means I’ll be up until – I check the clock – about midnight if they each take about four hours to cook. I slide the first tier, the largest, on to the lowest set of runners in the baking oven and close the door. I set the alarm on my mobile phone, then decide to take some drinks outside rather than make a start on the washing up. That can wait.

It looks like pretty hard work, digging the vegetable patch, even with a rotavator. Now I know why most people don’t grow their own. Why did I want such a big garden? Guy is operating the machine. It’s noisy and the vibrations go right through me when I’m standing close by, hands resting on my girls’ shoulders, eyes drawn to Guy’s naked torso, his skin glistening with sweat, every sinew visible as he forces
the machine through the yielding clay.

He has flung his vest around his shoulders to stop them burning in the sun. He looks … utterly masculine. My chest grows tight with yearning – not for Guy particularly, but in general. I haven’t seen a naked torso since before David told me about Alice, and I’ve never seen one quite like this, not in the flesh. Think Greek god meets Daniel Craig.

I turn my gaze towards the sky where the jet streams play noughts and crosses against the bright blue and a buzzard soars high over the copse. I lower my eyes towards the paddock. Beyond the fence the chickens have flocked together, afraid at first of the noise but now more confident. Lucky barks from somewhere in the yard as if he’s discovered a rat. I love this place. I love my life.

The chickens may turn out to be a mixed blessing though, I think. They keep crowding into the kitchen, which doesn’t do anything to help maintain hygienic conditions, and they don’t take much notice of me when I grab a tea-towel to chase them out.

When I say, ‘Shoo! Out, ladies,’ they look at me, with heads twisted to one side, and cluck and caw. ‘Go on, get your feathers out of here.’

They respond better to Sophie, but that’s because they follow her for food. Poor Sophie comes indoors every time after feeding them, saying, ‘No eggs today,’ and I’m afraid that she’s doomed to eternal disappointment. I check with Guy and he says to give them more time. You can’t rush these things, he adds, yet I find it frustrating that I can’t do anything about it, that I can’t give them a pill or talk them into laying eggs.

Later, after Guy has gone with Adam to milk the cows, I take the first tier of the cake out of the oven. It’s
browned on top, and when I test it with a skewer, it comes out clean. Perfect. I put the next tier in to bake and then phone Summer to invite her to the house-warming. I speak to her and my mum most days.

‘Of course we’ll come,’ she says. ‘I can’t wait to see you and the kids. Jade’s missing Georgia.’ Jade, Summer’s daughter, is twelve. When David and I split up, some couples of our acquaintance shunned one or other of us. Summer and Paul, her husband, are on my side: Team Jennie. ‘And this neighbour of yours? He sounds intriguing.’

‘Well, he’s often here, but he doesn’t give any impression that he wants to be more than friends.’ I have refrained from mentioning the way he brushed his lips against my mine the other evening. He hasn’t mentioned it and neither have I. It’s almost as if it never happened, and I think I’d prefer it to stay that way. It makes everything … less complicated.

‘Are you sure?’ Summer chuckles when I don’t respond. ‘I’ll ask him for you.’

‘Promise you won’t embarrass me? I’m the one who has to live next door to him for the next however many years.’ I’m expecting to spend the rest of my life at Uphill House: till death do us part.

‘Have you seen him recently?’ Summer says.