Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 10

Tarnie let out a low whistle as he looked around the flat.
‘You’re living here?’ he said.
It looked, if possible, even worse than before. There was dust everywhere, rafters creaking, tiles shifting here and there.
‘It’s just temporary,’ said Polly in a rush, not wanting to have to explain her entire life.
‘It certainly is,’ said one of the men, who Tarnie introduced as Jayden, and they all laughed again.
Polly looked around. ‘I… I think… Well, with a bit of work…’
‘And a bulldozer.’
‘That’ll do, Jayden,’ said Tarnie and the lad fell silent straight away.
Polly glanced about. ‘I’d love to offer you a cup of tea…’
The men looked hopeful.
‘But I don’t even know if the water’s on.’
‘And you lot have got bilges to rinse,’ said Tarnie.
There was a collective groan.
‘Come on.’
‘Um, can I use your loo?’ asked one of them.
‘Of course,’ said Polly.
‘Oi, don’t start that,’ said Tarnie. Polly looked confused. ‘Once one starts, they’ll all want to,’ he explained.
‘I really don’t mind,’ said Polly.
‘We don’t have one, you see.’
Polly blinked, and Tarnie looked a little embarrassed.
‘So, er, see you around,’ he said, holding up the book.
‘Thanks,’ said Polly. ‘Thanks so much… for bringing it back and helping me and…’
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Tarnie, looking a little pink. ‘Can’t bear to see a lady in distress.’
One of the young fishermen made a ‘woo’ noise and the captain swung round with a fierce look.
‘Right, you shower. OUT!’
After they’d gone, Polly hauled up the last few bags. She took out her sheets and covered the sofa with them, then investigated the large box of industrial cleaning products that Kerensa had given her as a parting gift.
‘You work with these for forty minutes,’ she’d said fussily, and you’ll realise how absolutely terrible your life is now. Then you’ll turn round and come straight back home.’
Polly grinned and checked the water – it was running, thank goodness, and the boiler made a very reassuring whooshing noise when she turned the hot tap – then realised that after her long drive and her cry, she was absolutely starving. Something to eat first, then she’d hit the bleach. It would be like hitting the beach, she figured. Just many, many times worse.
The weather hadn’t really cleared up, so she put on her thickest jacket and a hat. She desperately needed a cup of coffee, even though the fishermen helping her had made her feel slightly less chilled inside than she had before.
She took the cobbled road that led upwards and curled round into what she supposed must be the main street. There was a little newsagent’s that also sold shrimping nets and buckets and spades, all of which looked dusty and neglected; a bar with a fishing net hanging outside, and a beer garden; a butcher’s, a greengrocer’s and a hardware shop. There was a van down by the harbour that had a sign outside indicating that it sold fresh fish, but it was shut; and a little minimart-style shop that appeared to sell everything – she popped in there for some milk for her coffee, and some soup for later. Next door to that was a bakery, with some rather gummy-looking unidentifiable cakes in the front window, and a dusty wedding cake that Polly wasn’t entirely convinced was real.
Emboldened by the first locals she’d met, she decided to venture inside. After all, if this was going to be where she was buying her bread…
Polly was very specific about bread. She loved it. She had loved it in fashion and out of fashion; as a child, as an adult. It was her favourite part of going to a restaurant. She loved it toasted or as it was; she loved bagels, and cheese on toast, and pain d’épices, and twisted Italian plaits. She loved artisan sourdough that cost six pounds for a tiny loaf, and she loved sliced white that moulded and soaked up the juices of a bacon sandwich.
She had started making her own bread at college, and it had become a fully fledged hobby when she and Chris had got the flat; she would spend her Saturdays kneading and pulling it, leaving it to rise. Then one day about a year ago, for his health he’d decided on no more bread; he was allergic to gluten. Given that he had been eating the stuff for thirty-four years with no negative effects whatsoever, this had seemed unlikely, but Polly had bitten her tongue and stopped making it.
For now, though, what was she going to have to eat? Some nice local… Well, what was local? she wondered. Maybe a cheese scone?
‘Hello,’ she said cheerfully. She had always felt a huge affinity with bakers. Their commitment to early mornings; warm, strongly scented yeast; feeding the hungry. It had always seemed a noble profession to her. When they had gone on holiday to France once, she had driven Chris nearly demented by wanting to visit boulangeries just as he wanted to visit vineyards; to feel the difference between the various grains and local specialities.
Behind the counter was, Polly saw, a woman who absolutely resembled her own products. If Polly had been feeling less foreign and strange, she might have found it amusing. The woman looked like a bun. She was completely circular in her flour-dusted white apron. Her face was utterly round too, folds of skin overlapping her hairnet, doughy cheeks hanging down. Her hair – very long, and streaked with grey – was tied back in a bun too. She resembled nothing more than an enormous brioche. Polly was inclined to like her.
‘What do you want?’ said the woman shortly, looking very bored and glancing at her watch.
‘Ooh, let me take a second,’ said Polly. ‘I’m new here. What do you have?’
The woman rolled her eyes and simply nodded at the wall, where in badly spelled scrawl was a list: pan, sliced pan, pasty, cheese toastie, ham toastie, cheese and ham toastie, cheese, ham and pineapple toastie – hmm, exotic, thought Polly – fancy cakes, tea cakes, Welsh cakes and scones. As far as she could tell, there was only one sort of bread. There wasn’t, now she came to think of it, much of a smell of baking in the air; more a kind of slightly stale, starchy aura that might even be coming from the woman herself.
‘Um, toastie, please,’ said Polly. The petrol-station sandwich seemed a long time ago. She looked round. There was nowhere to sit and eat, and apart from a few dusty cans of Fanta, nothing to drink either.