Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery
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Bernard shrugged as if he didn’t care either way, which he didn’t.
‘Anyway, how are you?’ said Huckle, changing the subject, because it was making him so sad.
‘Not bad,’ said Bernard. ‘I own a failing puffin sanctuary and I’m in love with a beautiful jewellery designer who doesn’t know I’m alive.’
They chinked beers again, Huckle deep in thought.
‘Merry Christmas,’ he said.
‘And to you.’
Chapter Thirty
By the time Polly and Kerensa got back inside, everyone had left. There were still some people dismantling the stage, but otherwise it was as if the hundreds of beautiful people had appeared and dematerialised in a dream; everything had been swept up and put away and returned to how it was, and the magic of the house had gone.
Kerensa stood staring out of the window, like a bird in a cage desperate to be free.
The promised snow had not come down after all. It was bleak outside; not clear and cold but grey and solid, as if the clouds were blanketing the world, making everything heavy and sad.
Polly stood at her shoulder and gazed out too. There was little to see; just the occasional glimpse of a lighthouse. There was a ship a long way out to sea, a tanker, on its way to Plymouth perhaps, from who knew where – Sri Lanka? China? Italy? What was it carrying? The men who crewed her would be missing their families tonight. Missing their loved ones. She raised her rapidly chilling cup of tea to them as the great blinking lights passed by.
The shadows under Kerensa’s eyes were more pronounced than ever.
‘What happened to Huckle?’
Polly shook her head.
‘Never mind. Difference of opinion.’
‘Tell me,’ said Kerensa. ‘Tell me what’s happened. Is it to do with me? Please tell me.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Polly, more harshly than she’d meant to. ‘We’re fine. He thinks I’m working too much.’
‘Well tomorrow’s going to be fun,’ said Kerensa. ‘When you’re working again.’
‘You can’t have Christmas without a gigantic fight,’ said Polly. ‘Isn’t that the law?’
‘Oh God, and my lot are coming too,’ said Kerensa. ‘You know what my mum’s going to be like with Rhonda.’
‘They’re very similar personalities,’ said Polly without thinking. ‘I mean… I don’t mean that. I really don’t.’
‘And what about your mum?’
Polly sighed. ‘Oh God. I texted her to say I’d come over after lunch.’
‘And?’
‘She didn’t say yes. And she didn’t say no either. It’s been quite the silent treatment. She’s relentless.’
‘She’s all right,’ said Kerensa.
‘Well I wish she’d tell me. I’m going over anyway, though I don’t think she really wants me to come. And I’ll be driving, so no booze. Yeah. And possibly no Huckle. Will be brilliant. I’m looking forward to sitting in total silence and watching EastEnders.’
Kerensa nodded.
‘That sounds better than here.’
Polly thought self-pityingly of the plan she and Huckle had had originally – lying in bed in the lighthouse, drinking champagne. Why couldn’t she have just done that? Why had everything got so mad and out of control? Why had she ended up saying yes to everything except the one thing she really wanted to do? Yes to everybody else, and no to them.
‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Next Christmas will be better, won’t it? Won’t it?’
Kerensa didn’t say anything for a while.
‘But Polly, what if… what if…’
Polly didn’t say anything. She simply moved towards Kerensa and gave her a huge hug. She couldn’t quite get her arms around her, but they stood there together, two friends in the dark.
Polly suddenly became conscious that she was standing in something. Had she spilled some of the leftover milk as she was taking it to the fridge? What had happened to the cup of tea she’d been continuously remaking and forgetting to drink for the last seven hours? She cast round, then glanced at the floor.
‘Oh,’ she said. Kerensa hadn’t realised.
‘Um,’ Polly said. Kerensa still had her eyes closed and was leaning in, enjoying the hug.
‘Kez,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to alarm you. But I think… I think your waters might have broken.’
Kerensa’s eyes snapped open.
‘What?’ she said, and looked down. ‘Oh Lord,’ she said. ‘Oh Lord. But it’s WEEKS away.’
Polly sat Kerensa down on an expensive leather armchair. She thought briefly about the consequences of this, but put them out of her mind. Kerensa’s eyes were wide open and she was breathing heavily. Polly found a cloth.
‘OMG, what happens now?’ she said.
‘I don’t know!’ said Kerensa. She looked up at Polly. ‘I didn’t go to any of the antenatal classes.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Polly. ‘That’s where you were all those times you were out of the house! That and shopping for the baby.’
Kerensa shook her head.
‘I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘I went to one and it was all so vomitous, all those carey-sharey husbands, everyone showing off and pretending they were more in love than anyone else and that their birth was going to be the best. I couldn’t do it. Reuben wouldn’t come anyway, and I couldn’t handle everyone else with their perfect lives. Couldn’t handle it at all.’
‘So what were you doing?’ said Polly, grabbing the phone handset.
For a moment, Kerensa half smiled.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Not now, anyway.’
Polly shot her a suspicious look, but this wasn’t the time.
‘So, who do I phone?’
‘Actually,’ said Kerensa, ‘I feel okay. I don’t… Polly, it’s weeks to my due date. It must just be a mistake.’
‘I don’t think burst waters are a mistake. So that’s all fine,’ said Polly, trying to stay calm. ‘You get to skip the boring hanging-about bit.’
There was a pause. Then Kerensa gasped as she thought of something.
‘It means the baby’s got too big,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears. ‘It’s a gigantic big Brazilian stripper baby.’