Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 2
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‘A speedy toaster?’ said Polly. ‘What?’
‘Toast takes too long,’ said Huckle.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘I really want some toast, and I put your sourdough in the toaster – which makes the best toast in the world by the way…’
‘I knew there was a reason you were with me,’ said Polly.
‘… and then OMG, it just smells so good, it’s like you can’t wait, you have to eat the amazing sourdough toast straight away.’
He pressed the button, and two not-quite-toasted pieces of light golden bread popped out.
‘See?’ he said, attacking them crossly with a butter knife. The butter was still hard from the fridge and tore a hole in the soft crumb. Huckle looked down gloomily at his plate. ‘Every time. I panic and take it out too early and really regret it, and that’s my toast experience totally spoiled.’
‘Make more.’
‘It doesn’t work, I’ve tried it.’
Regardless, Huckle popped another couple of slices in.
‘The problem is, I’ll have eaten the first lot before the second lot is ready. It’s a vicious circle. Exactly the same thing will happen all over again.’
‘Maybe,’ said Polly, ‘you should just stand over the toaster with your mouth open when it’s about to pop up.’
‘Yeah, I thought of that,’ said Huckle. ‘Possibly with a kind of butter spray gun so it’s all ready to go and you don’t have to hack it on in a hurry because you need to eat all the delicious toast so quickly.’
‘I didn’t think it was possible to meet someone more bread-obsessed than me,’ said Polly. ‘But – and I can’t quite believe I’m saying this – I think it’s possible you overthink toast.’
‘If I could just invent the Speed-E-Toaster,’ said Huckle, ‘we’d be richer than Reuben.’
The toast popped up.
‘QUICK! QUICK! QUICK!!!!’
And after that, they simply went back to bed, because Polly, being a baker, had to go to bed incredibly early every other day of the week, and Huckle, being a honey seller, didn’t particularly, so their hours didn’t always match up. And Polly sent a text to Kerensa saying not to worry, everything would be fine, she’d call her later, and then she turned off her phone.
This was to prove a terrible, terrible mistake.
Chapter Two
So let us be clear: none of what happened was truly Polly’s fault, or Huckle’s fault. It was obviously Kerensa’s fault, as you’ll see, and a bit Selina’s, who wouldn’t admit it in a million years but absolutely liked encouraging these things along (because some people are just a bit like that, aren’t they? Stirrers).
But it was also a tiny bit Reuben’s fault, because – and I can’t stress this highly enough – even by his standards he was being the most unbelievable putz that day.
He had forgotten it was their wedding anniversary – their first wedding anniversary – and when Kerensa had pointed this out to him, he’d said yeah, well, he’d done a lot of that lovey-dovey stuff in the past and they were married now, so that was all kind of fine, right? Like, he’d done it and now they were all awesome, and anyway, she had a dozen handbags, right, and by the way, he had to be on a plane to San Francisco to talk to his massive IPO base, and Kerensa had said she hadn’t known that and he’d said well she should read the schedule his PA emailed her, he was leaving in two hours, and she said could she come too, having heard that San Francisco in the spring was a magnificent place to be, and he said not really, sweetie, he’d be super-busy. Then he’d kissed her goodbye and suggested that seeing as they’d had a gym put in the house, why didn’t she use it?
So. You see what I mean. He didn’t mean it unkindly, that’s just what Reuben is like: when he’s working, he kind of turns into Steve Jobs and doesn’t really think about anyone but himself, which is why he’s pretty much as rich as Steve Jobs, more or less. It’s a big number anyway.
So Kerensa stood in the completely empty huge luxurious hallway of their massive amazing house with its own beach on the northern coast of Cornwall and wondered about crying a little bit. Then she decided to be angry instead, because this had been happening more and more often, and Reuben never seemed to see that actually she didn’t really like being contacted by his PA, who was cool and American and dressed very expensively and who Kerensa was slightly intimidated by, even though nothing much intimidated her, and ever since he’d kick-started his career last year, after a near-bankruptcy, she’d barely seen him at all; he’d never been off a flight.
So she’d decided to get angry and in a frenzy called Polly, who was busy as it turned out guffing on about toast with Huckle on her only day off, and absolutely was not as sympathetic as a friend should be in those circumstances, which Polly regretted bitterly afterwards.
So then Kerensa called their other friend Selina, who had been through a terrible time being widowed two years before and could still be a little emotional on occasion, and Selina, who had lived on the mainland and always had a fashionable career before she’d accidentally fallen for a fisherman, said she had a great idea: she was bored out of her mind, why didn’t they go into Plymouth, go to the smartest restaurant they could find and drink the most expensive thing on the menu, then charge it to Reuben and say thanks for the lovely anniversary gift the next time she saw him?
And Kerensa liked this idea very much, so that was what they did. And what started out as lunch – and a lot, and I mean a lot of complaining about the men in their lives, or that had been in their lives – got a little out of hand, and they ended up meeting a bunch of other girls there on a hen night who immediately incorporated them into their gang, and they went to see a ‘dance show’ with those girls and I will leave it totally up to your imagination what the dance show entailed, but there was quite a lot of baby oil on display, and some very tall men with Brazilian accents, and flaming sambucas, and then Kerensa’s memory gets a bit hazy after that, but when she woke up in the morning in an incredibly posh hotel she dimly recalled waltzing into brandishing a platinum credit card at some ungodly hour, she remembered enough to know that if she could possibly have it surgically removed from her brain, she absolutely would.
‘Toast takes too long,’ said Huckle.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘I really want some toast, and I put your sourdough in the toaster – which makes the best toast in the world by the way…’
‘I knew there was a reason you were with me,’ said Polly.
‘… and then OMG, it just smells so good, it’s like you can’t wait, you have to eat the amazing sourdough toast straight away.’
He pressed the button, and two not-quite-toasted pieces of light golden bread popped out.
‘See?’ he said, attacking them crossly with a butter knife. The butter was still hard from the fridge and tore a hole in the soft crumb. Huckle looked down gloomily at his plate. ‘Every time. I panic and take it out too early and really regret it, and that’s my toast experience totally spoiled.’
‘Make more.’
‘It doesn’t work, I’ve tried it.’
Regardless, Huckle popped another couple of slices in.
‘The problem is, I’ll have eaten the first lot before the second lot is ready. It’s a vicious circle. Exactly the same thing will happen all over again.’
‘Maybe,’ said Polly, ‘you should just stand over the toaster with your mouth open when it’s about to pop up.’
‘Yeah, I thought of that,’ said Huckle. ‘Possibly with a kind of butter spray gun so it’s all ready to go and you don’t have to hack it on in a hurry because you need to eat all the delicious toast so quickly.’
‘I didn’t think it was possible to meet someone more bread-obsessed than me,’ said Polly. ‘But – and I can’t quite believe I’m saying this – I think it’s possible you overthink toast.’
‘If I could just invent the Speed-E-Toaster,’ said Huckle, ‘we’d be richer than Reuben.’
The toast popped up.
‘QUICK! QUICK! QUICK!!!!’
And after that, they simply went back to bed, because Polly, being a baker, had to go to bed incredibly early every other day of the week, and Huckle, being a honey seller, didn’t particularly, so their hours didn’t always match up. And Polly sent a text to Kerensa saying not to worry, everything would be fine, she’d call her later, and then she turned off her phone.
This was to prove a terrible, terrible mistake.
Chapter Two
So let us be clear: none of what happened was truly Polly’s fault, or Huckle’s fault. It was obviously Kerensa’s fault, as you’ll see, and a bit Selina’s, who wouldn’t admit it in a million years but absolutely liked encouraging these things along (because some people are just a bit like that, aren’t they? Stirrers).
But it was also a tiny bit Reuben’s fault, because – and I can’t stress this highly enough – even by his standards he was being the most unbelievable putz that day.
He had forgotten it was their wedding anniversary – their first wedding anniversary – and when Kerensa had pointed this out to him, he’d said yeah, well, he’d done a lot of that lovey-dovey stuff in the past and they were married now, so that was all kind of fine, right? Like, he’d done it and now they were all awesome, and anyway, she had a dozen handbags, right, and by the way, he had to be on a plane to San Francisco to talk to his massive IPO base, and Kerensa had said she hadn’t known that and he’d said well she should read the schedule his PA emailed her, he was leaving in two hours, and she said could she come too, having heard that San Francisco in the spring was a magnificent place to be, and he said not really, sweetie, he’d be super-busy. Then he’d kissed her goodbye and suggested that seeing as they’d had a gym put in the house, why didn’t she use it?
So. You see what I mean. He didn’t mean it unkindly, that’s just what Reuben is like: when he’s working, he kind of turns into Steve Jobs and doesn’t really think about anyone but himself, which is why he’s pretty much as rich as Steve Jobs, more or less. It’s a big number anyway.
So Kerensa stood in the completely empty huge luxurious hallway of their massive amazing house with its own beach on the northern coast of Cornwall and wondered about crying a little bit. Then she decided to be angry instead, because this had been happening more and more often, and Reuben never seemed to see that actually she didn’t really like being contacted by his PA, who was cool and American and dressed very expensively and who Kerensa was slightly intimidated by, even though nothing much intimidated her, and ever since he’d kick-started his career last year, after a near-bankruptcy, she’d barely seen him at all; he’d never been off a flight.
So she’d decided to get angry and in a frenzy called Polly, who was busy as it turned out guffing on about toast with Huckle on her only day off, and absolutely was not as sympathetic as a friend should be in those circumstances, which Polly regretted bitterly afterwards.
So then Kerensa called their other friend Selina, who had been through a terrible time being widowed two years before and could still be a little emotional on occasion, and Selina, who had lived on the mainland and always had a fashionable career before she’d accidentally fallen for a fisherman, said she had a great idea: she was bored out of her mind, why didn’t they go into Plymouth, go to the smartest restaurant they could find and drink the most expensive thing on the menu, then charge it to Reuben and say thanks for the lovely anniversary gift the next time she saw him?
And Kerensa liked this idea very much, so that was what they did. And what started out as lunch – and a lot, and I mean a lot of complaining about the men in their lives, or that had been in their lives – got a little out of hand, and they ended up meeting a bunch of other girls there on a hen night who immediately incorporated them into their gang, and they went to see a ‘dance show’ with those girls and I will leave it totally up to your imagination what the dance show entailed, but there was quite a lot of baby oil on display, and some very tall men with Brazilian accents, and flaming sambucas, and then Kerensa’s memory gets a bit hazy after that, but when she woke up in the morning in an incredibly posh hotel she dimly recalled waltzing into brandishing a platinum credit card at some ungodly hour, she remembered enough to know that if she could possibly have it surgically removed from her brain, she absolutely would.
