Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 77

His eyes widened.
‘No way!’
‘But eat plenty of fruit and vegetables too,’ she heard herself saying.
At 1.45 Polly could stand it no longer. She left Jayden on his own to sell any remaining stock and tidy up. He could take the till over to Mrs Manse and she’d cash it up. She didn’t think Jayden would ever steal anything, but even if he had a mind for a bit of mischief, the mere mention of the words ‘Mrs Manse’ seemed to have a terrifying effect.
She went back out to the man.
‘I’m Polly Waterford,’ she said, putting out her hand.
‘Er, Dave,’ he said. ‘Dave Marsden.’
His local accent was thick and his hand was a bit sweaty. He seemed very nervous.
‘Hello, Dave Marsden,’ said Polly. ‘Okay, it’s a bit of a walk out to Hu — the cottage, but it’s the only way, unless you have another mode of transport?’
Dave shrugged. ‘Naw. The bus dropped me off.’
‘Okay, fine. Let’s go, then.’
She passed him a bottle of water – she’d brought two, speculating, correctly, that he wouldn’t have his own – and they set off across the causeway, along the country lanes and towards Huckle’s turn-off. Dave, in his suit, started sweating almost immediately. It was a hot day.
‘So,’ said Polly, after they’d walked for thirty minutes in silence. ‘How did you get into working with bees?’
There was another silence. Polly took a sideways glance at Dave. He had gone absolutely beet red, right to the very tips of his ears.
‘Um,’ he said.
‘What?’
They had turned off the lane and were walking along the shaded track towards the little cottage in the woods.
‘Er,’ he said. ‘I don’t really…’ He coughed. ‘I haven’t spent much time with…’
Polly gave him a shrewd look.
‘You’ve been hired to look after some bees. You know that, right?’
Dave suddenly looked very much like he might start to cry.
‘Aye,’ he mumbled, staring at his shoes, which were getting covered in mud and early-fallen leaves.
‘I mean…’ said Polly. They were nearly at the cottage now. ‘I mean, do you actually know how to look after bees?’
‘I… um, I looked up some stuff on t’internet.’
‘You what?’ said Polly.
Dave swallowed hard. He was sweatier than ever.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking about five years old. ‘I’m sorry. I really, really need this job. The temp agency just keep not having anything, then they asked if there was anyone with bee experience and… I don’t know what I was thinking. I was…’
He rubbed his eyes.
‘My girlfriend’s pregnant,’ he said quietly. ‘I were just…’
Polly shook her head.
‘Good God,’ she said. ‘What if they’d needed someone down at the tiger farm?’
Dave looked at her in surprise that she wasn’t cross with him.
‘Are you going to phone the agency?’ he mumbled. ‘Because they’ll drop me for ever.’
‘Do you know ANYTHING about bees?’ asked Polly. She pushed open the gate.
‘I told you… I did read some stuff on the internet,’ said Dave. ‘But I’ve forgotten it all now.’
‘You have?’ said Polly. She thought back to the night she and Huckle had spent here, so comfortable with one another. So happy. He had showed her then, she supposed. Everything she needed to know, really.
The garden, a little wilder perhaps than the last time she had been there, had, with the heavy rain from the storms, then the bright sunshine, overbloomed into full mid-July blowsiness; it was almost too much. Great big pink fuchsias and roses, their petals trailing, grew wild around tree trunks; every square of grass was littered with daisies and meadowsweet, so it was less of a lawn, more of a meadow. There was even some bougainvillaea, shocking in its bright pinks and purples, and the collection of apple and cherry trees were heavy with fruit, windfall already collecting round their roots. Polly couldn’t resist trying a cherry, but they were small and sour. Perfect for jam, she thought. Sour cherry jam on a good country roll.
Down by the stream, the hives buzzed excitedly. Lots of the bees were nosing in and out of the flowers, their vibration humming in the air.
Dave was no longer red. He’d gone white.
‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Them’s big buggers, ain’t they?’
Polly turned to face him.
‘You are kidding me?’ she said. ‘You’re not frightened of bees?’
‘Are those even bees?’ he said, gradually backing away. ‘They look more like hornets. I mean, some people die from bee stings, don’t they?’
Polly stared him out.
‘We’re going to put the suits on,’ she said firmly. ‘Come on, they’re in the shed.’
The shed was open, as she’d known it would be. You would have to be a particularly unusual and committed burglar to make it all the way to Huckle’s house.
Dave looked at the suits hanging up and rubbed the back of his neck again.
‘What?’ said Polly, rather cross now.
‘Nothing,’ said Dave. ‘It’s just, I get really claustrophobic. I mean, I’ve got a note from my doctor and everything. I don’t… I mean, I don’t really think I could get in one of those suits.’
‘So when you looked up beekeeping,’ said Polly, ‘I mean, did you actually look it up, or did you look up “World of Warcraft, bee edition”?’
Dave looked more embarrassed than ever.
‘I really wish I hadn’t told them I could do this,’ he said.
‘Not as much as I do,’ said Polly. She glanced at her watch. It would be early in the morning where Huckle was. And she didn’t really want to speak to him, not after… well. He could certainly have called her if he had something to say. And he had not.
The cottage was giving her a terrible, indefinable ache. How much she would have loved, she admitted to herself, letting her mind stray where it shouldn’t; how much she would have loved them to leave Reuben’s beach, to come back here, with the heady scent of flowers, and the complete and utter privacy, and squirrel themselves away, doing nothing but make love until…