Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 62

‘Thanks,’ said Polly.
‘And so I thought… when everything was really tough… I thought, why don’t we do it for you! Then you’ll be all married and you can just get on with your lives.’
‘I can’t get married!’ said Polly. ‘I need to lose half a stone and get everything arranged and grow my nails and…’ She petered out.
‘Of course you don’t have to,’ said Kerensa, looking slightly concerned. ‘I mean, there’s a few people coming, but we can just have like a New Year’s party.’
‘What do you mean, a few people?’ said Polly, feeling panicky.
‘Well. Obviously all our old crowd from school… and your college crowd… and your mum… and… Well, I wasn’t sure who to ask from the village, so I just invited everyone.’
‘Everyone?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘You invited every single person in the entire village?’
‘They won’t all come,’ said Kerensa uncertainly.
‘They will,’ said Polly. ‘Oh my God. Oh. No. Kerensa… I mean… I mean, it’s a fun idea and… I mean, I don’t know how you could possibly want to do this a week after having a baby…’
‘Because I have the most awesome wife and baby in the world,’ said Reuben smugly. ‘They can do anything.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Polly. ‘But this is just… it’s just…’
Caterers arrived with a massive ice swan. They all stopped and watched it pass.
‘Can’t you marry Jayden and Flora instead? They’re definitely up for it.’
Kerensa’s face fell.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought… I thought it would be an amazing idea. I thought you guys would be absolutely delighted. You know, to not have to worry about the stress and the cost and everything.’
‘Stop talking about how skint we are,’ said Polly. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Kerensa, I know you meant well, but I didn’t… I mean, we wouldn’t ever want a big thing…’
She paused.
‘Are Huckle’s parents here?’
Kerensa didn’t say anything. Polly swore. Then she turned to look at Huckle.
‘This is awkward, eh?’ she whispered. ‘Shall we just tell them thanks, and maybe sneak out? Or stay for a bit, possibly…’
Huckle looked at her, straight into her eyes.
‘Or,’ he said quietly, ‘we could just do it.’
‘You knew about this?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But, you know. We’re here now.’
‘I’m wearing dungarees! And thermal pants.’
‘Ah,’ said Kerensa. ‘I might be able to help you with that.’
‘And, you know, WAXING, and my eyebrows need plucking and my hair is a mess and…’
Huckle blinked.
‘I think you look beautiful,’ he said.
And suddenly, for Polly, it felt like all the anxieties, all the frustrations and worries of keeping the bakery running and the lighthouse warm and her friends happy and dealing with her own deep-buried issues… it suddenly felt as if everything, every one of those was lifted from her shoulders, everything was taken away and the world seemed a brighter place, as the sun glinted off the snow outside and the huge fire crackled merrily in the grate, and all her fears about marriage, about that step, and what it meant, and what it had meant for her family, seemed to vanish as she looked at the handsome, open, guileless face of the man she absolutely adored…
And everything else fell away.
‘And I would like to marry you,’ he said.
‘Are you sure you weren’t in on this?’ said Polly suspiciously.
‘I promise I wasn’t.’ He shook his head. ‘Although my parents did mention they’d suddenly changed their plans.’
‘So you had a hint?’
‘Come on!’ said Kerensa. ‘Come with me! I have lots of stuff to show you, all of which you can fit into but I can’t because my tits have exploded into milk-filled HHs and I still appear to look eight months pregnant despite the fact that the baby is officially out and not in any more.’
And she spirited Polly, whose head was in a whirl, upstairs to her room.
Chapter Forty-Two
Polly walked into the room.
‘What the hell? What is this?’
Kerensa beamed with happiness.
‘I know!’ she said.
The dressing room annexe, normally full of Kerensa’s ridiculous collection of shoes and bags that Reuben insisted on buying her, had been completely transformed into a white boudoir. And in every available space a different style of wedding dress was hanging – strapless; lacy; a ridiculous princess number over the door.
‘What… what is this?’ Polly blinked.
‘Choose one.’
And there, at a little table at the side, looking slightly concerned but sipping from a flute of champagne nonetheless, was Polly’s mum.
‘Mum?’ said Polly.
Doreen stood up and they embraced.
‘You knew about this?’
Her mother, who was all done up in a fuchsia suit that had last seen use in about 1987 – and still fitted – smiled and nodded.
‘You have a very good friend in Kerensa.’
‘What did you… I mean, are we really getting married, or is it a fake one?’
‘We posted the banns for you,’ said Kerensa. ‘They’ve been up in the church for six weeks.’
‘Why did nobody tell us?’
‘We swore everyone to secrecy and threatened them with not being invited. We knew there was absolutely no way you two heathens would be setting foot inside a church anyway. You have to go to the registrar in a couple of days, but apart from that, it’s the real thing, baby.’
Polly shook her head.
‘And this is what you were doing all that time?’
Kerensa shrugged. ‘You know how miserable I was. I hated thinking about the baby; hated thinking about how I’d ruined my life. And I was worried, you know. Worried about you.’
‘YOU were worried about ME?’ said Polly.
‘Yes! You had this fabulous guy standing right there and you were all like, oh, I’m too stressed out to get married, oh, I’m not ready, blah blah blah.’