Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 83

‘Well you’re an idiot!’ said Polly. ‘I’d love to go in a helicopter. I think the rest of our lives should be spent just riding round and round in Reuben’s helicopter.’
They hugged in the pub courtyard.
‘We’re getting married!’ shrieked Kerensa. Every time they’d spoken recently, Polly reflected, she’d sounded like she was going to explode. Reuben must be rubbing off on her. ‘We’re getting married! WAAAH!’
Polly marched up to the bar and ordered champagne. Dave looked very doubtful, but managed to dust something down from the back of the fridge.
‘Since when is my bankrupt mate ordering champagne?’ frowned Kerensa.
‘AHA!’ said Polly, smiling. ‘You’re not the only one with news.’
The post had come that morning – the postie always brought it into the bakery. Jayden had never had a letter in his life and was always fascinated by what arrived, even though it tended to be flour invoices and a lot of bank paperwork. Today there was a large cardboard envelope with Do Not Bend printed on it, addressed to Polly, handwritten. She recognised the lovely handwriting, dusted the flour off her hands and opened it, puzzled.
Carefully she extracted the contents, and gasped. It was a painting: a beautiful, architecturally precise rendering of the Little Beach Street Bakery, with the masts and sails in the foreground, the bread in the window, a tiny watercolour suggestion of her inside. It was ravishing.
‘Chris!’ Polly said in delight.
‘That sulky guy?’ said Jayden, squinting at the painting. ‘That’s REALLY good,’ he added with feeling. ‘I wish I could do that.’
‘Isn’t it?’ said Polly, her heart swelling. ‘He hasn’t painted like that in such a long time. Oh, how lovely of him.’
There was a note attached. Polly read it, and her hand flew to her mouth.
‘Oh my God!’ she yelped. ‘Oh my God! We’ve sold the flat! We’ve sold it! And we did all right… we’ve paid off our debts! Oh my God, we’re going to be discharged! WHOOP!’
And she turned up the radio and danced around the counter with Jayden, who hopped willingly. Neil squawked and jumped up and down so he didn’t miss out on the fun.
‘I don’t know what that means,’ Jayden said. ‘But it sounds good.’
‘It is GREAT!’ said Polly. ‘Oh my God. I’m free! I’m free! I have money! I’m free! I can…’
She sobered up.
‘Wow, I could move.’
Jayden looked at her.
‘Why would you move?’
‘You’ve changed your tune,’ teased Polly. ‘Of course I’m not going to move away from Polbearne. I mean out of the flat. Oh my God. But I could buy out Mrs Manse. Or I could put a roof on the flat. I could…’
She glanced down at the paper once more. ‘Okay, I couldn’t do that much. But STILL!’
And that was the reason for the happy raiding of the petty cash tin to buy some champagne. Polly also, unselfishly, gave the picture to the nice young men at the restaurant, who sold it almost immediately for a fortune and straight away got him to do more, which also sold. She finally kept the tenth one for herself, before she priced herself out of the market.
‘So,’ said Polly, settling down at their table in the courtyard, unable to keep the grin off her face. Kerensa had hugged her and told her how wonderful it was and how you wouldn’t believe she was the same person after what a terrible rotten old misery-guts she’d been six months ago, to which Polly had rolled her eyes and said seriously, she wasn’t that bad, and Kerensa had said, okay, no totally, you were brilliant, and so happy, and then they both fell about laughing.
‘So what about that guy you hated?’ said Polly.
‘That was before I had sex with him,’ said Kerensa. ‘Man.’
‘All right, all right, no more,’ said Polly. ‘Not to someone who is never going to have sex again and has settled for being a successful businesswoman. Congratulations!’
‘I know!’ said Kerensa. ‘This is going to be awesome. We’re going to have the most immense wedding ever.’
‘Ha,’ said Polly. ‘You’re starting to sound like him.’
‘We’re very similar in a lot of ways,’ said Kerensa. ‘Except he’s really annoying and I’m not.’
Polly smiled.
‘And you have to be my maid of honour,’ said Kerensa, swigging her champagne.
‘I am FAR too old for that.’
‘Nonsense. You have to. I have to have about a billion bridesmaids anyway; we’re getting married in America.’
‘No way!’
‘Yes way. Reuben’s family have some massive estate up in Cape Cod on the ocean, which is apparently quite nice.’ She tried to say this in a way that indicated it wasn’t at all a big deal, but the two of them couldn’t keep it up and fell about laughing at that too.
As if magnetically drawn by the champagne cork popping, posh Samantha popped her head into the pub courtyard and came towards them, stopping several metres away as the sunlight washed across Kerensa’s absurd, bird’s egg engagement ring and blinded everyone within range.
‘OH MY GOODNESS,’ she said. ‘NEWS!’
‘It is news,’ said Polly. ‘Do you want some fizz, or are you pregnant too?’
Samantha joined them immediately and peppered Kerensa with questions about the size of the Cape Cod estate, the number of guests, the catering options. Then she went quiet, put her immaculate hands on her tiny lap – her own engagement ring was huge, but nothing on Kerensa’s, which technically qualified as a weapon – and sighed.
‘You know, I don’t think any of our friends have ever been to a wedding like that.’
Polly and Kerensa exchanged looks.
‘Of course you can come,’ said Kerensa kindly.
Samantha let out a tiny shriek of joy.
‘Now of course you know Reuben is insisting on a Star Wars theme…’
The girls left the pub later, quite tiddly, and wandered over to the dock, where the boys were making a commotion. Polly looked over. Dave was holding up a gigantic fish, his face red with pleasure.
‘You didn’t catch that?’ she said. Dave was beaming. The fish was the size of his chest.
‘First big cod I’ve seen round these parts for a few years,’ said Archie. ‘Those quotas must be working.’