Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 4
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‘What happens one day,’ said Polly, getting dressed again in a tearing rush, trying to text Jayden her assistant to tell him she was running late, ‘after we’ve been together for ages and everything, and sex kind of tails off?’
‘That won’t happen.’
‘Well, it does.’
‘Not to us.’ Huckle gave her a warning look. They had got engaged in the summer, and every time he mentioned the future, Polly changed the subject or fretted about being too busy. He knew he had to sit down and properly talk to her about it; he knew she was busy, but he didn’t understand why it seemed to be a problem. To Huckle it couldn’t be simpler – they loved each other, they wanted to be together for ever, they wanted to raise a family. Of course, he sometimes reflected, he loved Polly because she wasn’t like other girls. But he couldn’t help thinking that most other girls, surely, would have been happy with that.
He decided, once again, that this wasn’t the time. He grinned at her.
‘Can’t you enjoy just one thing for five minutes?’
Polly smiled back. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And I think it was longer than five minutes.’ She frowned. ‘Mind you, I kind of lost track of time.’
‘Fine. Deal with it. Be happy. Everything lasts for ever. I’m going back to sleep.’
And he did, even as Polly pulled on her thick woolly socks, his face completely smooth and relaxed in sleep, and Polly loved him so much she thought her heart would explode; she was terrified by how much she loved him. It was just everything that came next that scared the life out of her.
Downstairs, she stoked up the Aga for Huckle later, grabbed a quick coffee and ran out of the lighthouse door. The rain threw itself violently at her face. She could always tell by the wind whistling through the windows how bad the weather was, but you had to steel yourself for it when it truly arrived, and now that it was nearly December, it was definitely here, with no end in sight.
That was what you got, Polly supposed, when you lived on a lump of rock in the middle of the sea, with houses built on steeply winding streets in grey slate, the same colour as the stone itself, leading upwards towards the great ruined church at the very top. The ancient causeway that led to the mainland was dangerous to navigate, although possible, but mostly the many tourists parked at the car park on the other side and walked the cobbled road, squealing if they mistimed it and the tide rushed in closer and closer. The fishermen who made their living on Mount Polbearne had a handy sideline in rescuing the stranded and acting as a highly expensive taxi service.
There had been a movement a year or so ago to build a permanent road to the island, but it had been defeated by the villagers, who liked its unique character; who didn’t want Polbearne to change from the way it had been for hundreds of years, regardless of how inconvenient it was.
The sandwich shop Polly also ran up the road was closed for the winter, but the bakery continued, as busy as ever, as villagers and off-season tourists queued to get the freshest, warmest bread from the oven, not to mention the hot tasty pasties for the fishermen to take out in their boats; the flaky croissants that Patrick the vet would devour in his sunny office, waiting on his barking clients; the cream cheese brownies adored by Muriel, who worked in the little grocer’s that sold every single thing you could possibly want; the doughnuts for the construction workers doing up the posh new second-home extensions, with their glass-walled balconies and steel wires; and the jam tarts for the old ladies who had lived here all their lives, whose voices had the low hum and musical cadence local to the region, whose own grandparents had spoken Cornish and who remembered Mount Polbearne without electricity or television.
Polly braved the incredibly high winds on the shell-embedded steps that led down from the lighthouse – then battled her way across the promenade, with its low stone wall, crumbling slightly from the years of pounding waves, and down the seafront to Beach Street, the cobbled road that faced out to sea.
Buying the lighthouse had been an act of temporary madness, she knew, triggered by the astonishing fact of it coming up for sale. There was far too much work that needed to be done, and they absolutely couldn’t afford to, but still, she couldn’t get over how much she loved it, or the great feeling of pride she experienced when she saw it beaming out through the darkness (the top, working segment still belonged to the government), its red and white stripes a cheerful bulwark at the very edge of the village. The light didn’t reflect back into the house – it was the only place on Mount Polbearne where you couldn’t see it shining – and from the seaward side there was a completely unbroken view out across the Channel. In Polly’s eyes, the ever-changing panorama – sometimes angry and dramatic, sometimes stunningly restful, and sometimes, when the sunset hit, the most radiantly beautiful thing on earth – was worth every penny of the horrifying mortgage, and the freezing early starts.
The only lights on this early, apart from one or two lanterns along the seafront, were, of course, in the bakery. Polly ran round to the back door and slammed inside.
The kitchen was gorgeously, ravishingly warm, and she took off her gigantic parka with a sigh of relief. Jayden looked up enquiringly. Polly went pink, and it wasn’t just from the heat in the kitchen; she was remembering with a smile what had made her so late.
‘Um, hi!’
‘The cheese twists are in,’ said Jayden self-importantly. He’d grown a moustache for Movember the year before, and it had suited him so much he’d ended up keeping it. That, combined with his white apron and a rapidly increasing girth through stock sampling and eating far more from the bakery than Polly would recommend anyone to do, gave him the look of a jolly tradesman from about 1935, and it suited him rather well. Jayden was madly in love with Flora, a local girl who had an incredibly light hand with pastry, and she was feeding him up too, despite being very thin herself. They looked like a couple from a nursery rhyme.
At the moment, though, during the winter closure, Flora was at college on the mainland – the first time she’d ever spent much time there – studying at a patisserie school in Devon. Jayden was absolutely miserable about it; he couldn’t bear her being away and humped around like a sad walrus. Polly thought their romance was very touching, but wished he wouldn’t be quite so miserable with the customers. He used to flirt with them and cheer them up no end.
‘Thanks, Jayden,’ she said, topping up her coffee cup from the machine.
‘That won’t happen.’
‘Well, it does.’
‘Not to us.’ Huckle gave her a warning look. They had got engaged in the summer, and every time he mentioned the future, Polly changed the subject or fretted about being too busy. He knew he had to sit down and properly talk to her about it; he knew she was busy, but he didn’t understand why it seemed to be a problem. To Huckle it couldn’t be simpler – they loved each other, they wanted to be together for ever, they wanted to raise a family. Of course, he sometimes reflected, he loved Polly because she wasn’t like other girls. But he couldn’t help thinking that most other girls, surely, would have been happy with that.
He decided, once again, that this wasn’t the time. He grinned at her.
‘Can’t you enjoy just one thing for five minutes?’
Polly smiled back. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And I think it was longer than five minutes.’ She frowned. ‘Mind you, I kind of lost track of time.’
‘Fine. Deal with it. Be happy. Everything lasts for ever. I’m going back to sleep.’
And he did, even as Polly pulled on her thick woolly socks, his face completely smooth and relaxed in sleep, and Polly loved him so much she thought her heart would explode; she was terrified by how much she loved him. It was just everything that came next that scared the life out of her.
Downstairs, she stoked up the Aga for Huckle later, grabbed a quick coffee and ran out of the lighthouse door. The rain threw itself violently at her face. She could always tell by the wind whistling through the windows how bad the weather was, but you had to steel yourself for it when it truly arrived, and now that it was nearly December, it was definitely here, with no end in sight.
That was what you got, Polly supposed, when you lived on a lump of rock in the middle of the sea, with houses built on steeply winding streets in grey slate, the same colour as the stone itself, leading upwards towards the great ruined church at the very top. The ancient causeway that led to the mainland was dangerous to navigate, although possible, but mostly the many tourists parked at the car park on the other side and walked the cobbled road, squealing if they mistimed it and the tide rushed in closer and closer. The fishermen who made their living on Mount Polbearne had a handy sideline in rescuing the stranded and acting as a highly expensive taxi service.
There had been a movement a year or so ago to build a permanent road to the island, but it had been defeated by the villagers, who liked its unique character; who didn’t want Polbearne to change from the way it had been for hundreds of years, regardless of how inconvenient it was.
The sandwich shop Polly also ran up the road was closed for the winter, but the bakery continued, as busy as ever, as villagers and off-season tourists queued to get the freshest, warmest bread from the oven, not to mention the hot tasty pasties for the fishermen to take out in their boats; the flaky croissants that Patrick the vet would devour in his sunny office, waiting on his barking clients; the cream cheese brownies adored by Muriel, who worked in the little grocer’s that sold every single thing you could possibly want; the doughnuts for the construction workers doing up the posh new second-home extensions, with their glass-walled balconies and steel wires; and the jam tarts for the old ladies who had lived here all their lives, whose voices had the low hum and musical cadence local to the region, whose own grandparents had spoken Cornish and who remembered Mount Polbearne without electricity or television.
Polly braved the incredibly high winds on the shell-embedded steps that led down from the lighthouse – then battled her way across the promenade, with its low stone wall, crumbling slightly from the years of pounding waves, and down the seafront to Beach Street, the cobbled road that faced out to sea.
Buying the lighthouse had been an act of temporary madness, she knew, triggered by the astonishing fact of it coming up for sale. There was far too much work that needed to be done, and they absolutely couldn’t afford to, but still, she couldn’t get over how much she loved it, or the great feeling of pride she experienced when she saw it beaming out through the darkness (the top, working segment still belonged to the government), its red and white stripes a cheerful bulwark at the very edge of the village. The light didn’t reflect back into the house – it was the only place on Mount Polbearne where you couldn’t see it shining – and from the seaward side there was a completely unbroken view out across the Channel. In Polly’s eyes, the ever-changing panorama – sometimes angry and dramatic, sometimes stunningly restful, and sometimes, when the sunset hit, the most radiantly beautiful thing on earth – was worth every penny of the horrifying mortgage, and the freezing early starts.
The only lights on this early, apart from one or two lanterns along the seafront, were, of course, in the bakery. Polly ran round to the back door and slammed inside.
The kitchen was gorgeously, ravishingly warm, and she took off her gigantic parka with a sigh of relief. Jayden looked up enquiringly. Polly went pink, and it wasn’t just from the heat in the kitchen; she was remembering with a smile what had made her so late.
‘Um, hi!’
‘The cheese twists are in,’ said Jayden self-importantly. He’d grown a moustache for Movember the year before, and it had suited him so much he’d ended up keeping it. That, combined with his white apron and a rapidly increasing girth through stock sampling and eating far more from the bakery than Polly would recommend anyone to do, gave him the look of a jolly tradesman from about 1935, and it suited him rather well. Jayden was madly in love with Flora, a local girl who had an incredibly light hand with pastry, and she was feeding him up too, despite being very thin herself. They looked like a couple from a nursery rhyme.
At the moment, though, during the winter closure, Flora was at college on the mainland – the first time she’d ever spent much time there – studying at a patisserie school in Devon. Jayden was absolutely miserable about it; he couldn’t bear her being away and humped around like a sad walrus. Polly thought their romance was very touching, but wished he wouldn’t be quite so miserable with the customers. He used to flirt with them and cheer them up no end.
‘Thanks, Jayden,’ she said, topping up her coffee cup from the machine.
