Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 19

‘Yup,’ said Polly.
‘By yourself?’
‘No… with my boyfriend,’ said Polly. ‘And my… my pet.’
Selina’s face dropped.
‘You’re so lucky,’ she said.
Polly didn’t know what to say. She knew she was.
‘Are pets allowed here?’ Selina said to Lance.
‘Um, dunno.’ He looked at his papers. ‘No snakes.’
‘Do I look like I keep snakes?’
‘Nobody looks like they keep snakes,’ said Lance wisely. ‘But you find the buggers all over the place. Take it from an estate agent. Worst bit of my job.’
‘The worst bit of your job is all the snakes?’ said Polly.
‘Yes,’ said Lance stoutly.
‘I would not have guessed that.’
‘Me neither,’ said Selina. ‘Anyway, no. It’s a cat.’
‘Snakes with fur,’ said Lance, sniffing, then remembered he was meant to be showing a flat. ‘And also, wonderful. I love them.’
‘He’s beautiful,’ said Selina.
‘It’s nice to have a pet,’ said Polly, stopping herself when she realised she was about to add ‘when you’re all alone’.
‘What have you got?’ said Selina. ‘We could have a play date.’
‘I’ve… it’s a bird,’ said Polly. There was no point in explaining Neil to people who didn’t already know. They either thought she was a total weirdo, or cruel, or a cruel weirdo.
‘Oh. Like a canary?’
‘A bit like a canary,’ lied Polly.
‘Although I do think it’s cruel to keep birds in cages.’
‘Oh no, this one is totally free-range,’ said Polly. ‘So probably no play dates.’
‘Oh, Lucas is very gentle,’ said Selina.
‘So you’re taking it?’ interjected Lance cheerfully. If the client was already booking social occasions, the deal was probably in the bag.
Selina glanced back at the flat and sighed, then looked ahead at the horizon.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I guess I am.’
Chapter Seven
‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’
Kerensa was getting dressed in Polly’s bedroom. Polly was trying not to send covetous glances via the mirror at Kerensa’s patently very expensive matching underwear. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn matching underwear. Come to think of it, Huckle had also mentioned mildly in passing that if it wasn’t too much to ask, could she possibly stick to the traditional number of holes in her underpants, i.e., three.
‘Are you eyeing me up?’ said Kerensa, expertly applying layers of serum, moisturiser, primer, CC cream and bronzer in the manner of somebody painting a house. ‘Only, I’m totally married.’
Her enormous engagement ring caught the light of the evening sun.
‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘It’s been a really tough secret to carry around all this time. But I feel like I’m there now. Actually, no, I just like your posh bra.’
Kerensa smiled. ‘I know. I spend a lot of time with not much on…’
‘Can we not go into this again?’
Kerensa glanced at where Polly was sitting on the bed, haphazardly trying to paint her nails.
‘How do you guys sleep on such a tiny bed?’
Kerensa’s bed was bigger than king-size. It was in fact called emperor-size. It was basically about four beds stuck together, in Polly’s opinion. The sheets were changed every single day. This would have horrified Polly if she hadn’t been so desperately envious. There wasn’t much of Kerensa’s life that she was envious of – she was too busy to travel, she couldn’t imagine wanting to kiss Reuben, she didn’t really have a lot of interest in handbags, and there was nowhere she’d rather live than the lighthouse.
But the bed was really very, very nice.
In the lighthouse, by way of contrast, they hadn’t been able to get a full double mattress up the stairs, never mind a bedstead, and there wasn’t a flat wall to stand it against anyway. They could have conceded defeat and moved into the little dank room at the bottom of the tower, but Polly was having none of that. So instead they slept upstairs in a three-quarter-sized double bed. Huckle’s feet stuck straight out the bottom, like he was in ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. Kerensa thought it was appalling. Polly didn’t know how Kerensa could find Reuben so far away in their acres and acres of white linen. She herself vanished inside Huckle every evening, curled up underneath his arm, a tangle of limbs until it was impossible to know where one of them ended and the other began, their hearts beating in unison, their breathing slowing together. On the rare nights when he was away from home, she had found herself propped up in front of the window, looking out to sea again, completely unable to sleep without him. Even though she wouldn’t mind a proper bed, Polly knew she would never again sleep as soundly as she did on those nights in their tiny rolled-together space.
‘We manage,’ she said defiantly.
‘I suppose you’re so knackered from running up and down those ridiculous stairs…’
‘You’re right,’ said Polly. ‘If only I was wealthy, I could hire someone to carry me up on their shoulders.’
Kerensa grinned. ‘Or put a lift in.’
‘If you put a lift in,’ pointed out Polly, ‘there’d be nothing left but lift.’
Kerensa pulled on a pair of tights, brand new, an expensive make, straight from the packet. She never wore her tights twice. Polly couldn’t get her head around that fact.
‘You’re making best friends with the widow of the guy you banged. Are you sure this is a good idea?’
‘It’s just a night out,’ said Polly, glancing at her watch. ‘It seemed mean to go out with everyone and not invite her. I remember what it was like when I first moved here and didn’t know anyone.’
‘Yeah,’ said Kerensa. ‘You had to go out and shag the first married fisherman you saw.’
Polly gave her a look.
‘Oh, come on,’ said Kerensa. ‘Isn’t it better this way? Better out than in? So I don’t accidentally sploof it up after my third glass of wine?’
‘No,’ said Polly. ‘Seriously, I don’t want it mentioned at all. It’s embarrassing to me, and it could be devastating to her. She’s in a bad state. This could make things worse.’