Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 25

‘So, did you have a good weekend?’
She passed him a coffee with three sugars, which he gulped down.
‘Heavy one,’ said Malcolm, sounding pleased with himself. ‘Down the Sugar House. Out with the lads. Bit of footie, few pints, nightclub. There were some right slags in there, though, know what I mean?’
This was directed at Jayden, who looked confused. Polly knew his mother would have boxed his ears if that word had even crossed his brain.
‘Yeah, they all think they’re just so great in their little short skirts.’
He took another slurp of his coffee and shook his head.
‘Little…’
He seemed to recollect where he was and didn’t finish the sentence, smiling instead, showing grey teeth.
‘So, yeah, great weekend, yeah.’
He sniffed.
‘Right, I’ve been poring over these figures, right? Okay? So I think I’ve got us a plan together.’
Polly wiped her hands, washed them again, then she and Jayden started pounding out the lunchtime bread together.
‘See,’ said Malcolm, ‘you doing this. It’s inefficient, is what it is. You making all this bread every day.’
‘I know,’ said Polly. ‘If I wanted it to be efficient, I’d probably just go and work in a factory or something.’
‘ZACTLY,’ said Malcolm, looking pleased. ‘Doesn’t make any sense you doing this every day. I bet you’d rather not.’
Polly looked at him, astonished.
‘But I love doing it,’ she said.
‘Bit much like hard work, innit?’ said Malcolm.
Polly shook her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Well, yes. But it’s good work. Good, honest work that people like.’
Malcolm sniffed again.
‘That’s all very nineteenth century,’ he said. ‘Nice and everything, but cahm on. Centralised distribution, bulk discounting… that’s how things work these days. In the business world. Cost, that’s all anyone cares about. Why do you think everyone shops in Lidl?’
‘Nothing wrong with Lidl,’ said Jayden.
‘Zactly.’
‘I didn’t say there was anything wrong with Lidl,’ said Polly, exasperated. ‘But there’s more than one way of doing things. There’s no reason you can’t get some things cheaply and pay a bit more for other, special things. It’s the difference between a plastic bag and a Hermès bag.’
Polly had never seen a Hermès bag in her entire life, but she’d read about them in the kind of magazines she pretended fervently to Huckle she didn’t really enjoy.
‘Both work, but you don’t necessarily want them to do the same thing.’
‘Yeah,’ said Malcolm. ‘You pick the one that makes financial sense.’
Polly’s mobile rang. This was unusual, partly because coverage here was patchy at the best of times, partly because her mother was terrified of mobiles and never phoned them in case they were accidentally one thousand pounds a call. Polly kept in touch with her old friends via Facebook, and everybody else she knew would just drop in to see her; it was never a mystery where she was going to be.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, heading out the back to take the call.
‘Hello?’
The voice on the other end of the line was posh, sharp and quick.
‘Hi? Is that Polly Waterford?’
‘Yes, um, hi,’ said Polly, helplessly watching through the door as Malcolm ate another cinnamon roll, then another. Those things retailed at £1.50; he was chomping through the day’s profits at the speed of light.
‘I’m Kate Lacey. I write for the Bugle on Sunday, but I’m based down in this neck of the woods. We’re doing a pullout for our food section entitled “Best Artisan Food Shops in the West Country”, and your name came up.’
‘Really!’ said Polly, totally delighted and thrilled. ‘Who from?’
‘All sorts of people,’ said Kate, sounding amused. ‘We set up an Internet forum and your name kept appearing.’
Polly couldn’t help the massive beam spreading across her face.
‘Well that’s… that’s lovely news.’
‘So we’re going to come down, maybe take a couple of photographs, would that be okay? We’re going to make it kind of a lifestyle piece.’
Polly bit her lip and immediately wondered if there was a way to get Neil in the pictures.
‘Of course.’
‘Lovely, how about the first Tuesday in June? It’ll go in our big summer issue. Maybe a Saturday, get a bit of a bustle, local colour.’
‘Perfect,’ said Polly.
‘Okay then, give me your email and we’ll be in touch.’
Polly came back into the shop absolutely beaming, as Jayden served a line of customers. Thankfully they seemed to be buying all the cinnamon rolls, thus getting them out of Malcolm’s line of sight.
‘A newspaper is coming to do a feature on us!’ she said. ‘A proper big Sunday newspaper! With pictures and everything! As one of the West Country’s best artisan shops.’
Malcolm looked unimpressed.
‘A newspaper?’ he said. ‘Who reads sodding newspapers?’
‘Lots of people,’ said Polly.
‘Neh,’ said Malcolm. ‘Everyone gets their news on their phone these days. Look at this.’
He showed her his news feed. It was almost exclusively stories about Formula 1.
‘Who actually goes out and buys a boring old newspaper?’
‘I do,’ said Polly.
‘This won’t be something lots of people read, though, will it?’ said Malcolm. ‘It’ll be some posh nonsense for five idiots in London. It’ll be no use to us at all.’
‘But we can put it in the window,’ said Polly. ‘And people will see it and come down and visit…’
She lost herself in a reverie of foodies from far and wide exclaiming over her olive loaf, begging for the secrets of her cultivated yeast. Poilâne, she knew, the famous Parisian bakery, had people who sent their private jets for loaves. Obviously that wouldn’t happen to her. But how incredibly exciting to be in the paper.
‘I think it will be amazing for us,’ she said, undaunted. ‘It will be… um, won’t it be like really good marketing? Marketing is very important, isn’t it?’