Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 39

The wind had blown out the power temporarily. The lighthouse itself had back-up generators, but the building wasn’t connected to those, so Huckle went searching for candles. Normally Polly didn’t mind a power cut: they snuggled up together and had an early night. But tonight they were looking at paperwork, which was tortuous but essential and unavoidable, so they lit as many candles as they could find and worked off the laptop’s battery, peering at the piles of bills on the table. They did live cheaply – Mount Polbearne didn’t offer that much in the way of shopping, unless you wanted a bucket and spade, chips, or a piece of driftwood with ‘LOVE’ spelled out on it in white paint, and Polly cooked most things they ate from scratch – but there was the mortgage, and taxes, and electricity and water and just the usual flotsam and jetsam of everyday life. Polly had poured all her meagre savings into the lighthouse, and now they had a vastly reduced income. Almost nothing, in fact. She shook her head in disbelief.
‘Oh goodness, it’s worse than I thought,’ she said. ‘Seriously, it is awful.’
Huckle nodded gravely.
‘Mind you, Reuben’s will look just like this, minus several million extra dollars.’
‘I know,’ said Polly. ‘But somehow I can’t help thinking that they’ll be absolutely okay.’
‘Well, sure,’ said Huckle. ‘They’re probably thinking exactly the same thing about us.’
The candles flickered, and their shadows glowed high up against the rough whitewashed wall, a pin of light in the thick darkness of the sea, with the great swooping lamp above them. Polly looked at their silhouettes, their heads close together against the dark, and leaned in even closer.
‘What are we going to do?’
They’d looked into buying a van, and it was possible – entirely possible – but expensive. Well, everything was expensive when you had no money, that was an absolute fact, but to buy a van, and get it clean and ready to work and certified, would take time. And they didn’t have time. Polly needed to work. She had to.
She’d met up with Jayden that morning, who’d texted her in a panic.
‘That weird man,’ said Jayden. ‘Flora doesn’t like him either.’
‘Flora doesn’t like anyone.’
‘That’s true,’ said Jayden, going slightly pink.
‘So,’ prompted Polly. She couldn’t deny it: it made her feel slightly better to hear someone saying she was really missed, and she hoped Jayden would.
‘He’s bought in all this kind of garage pre-packed stuff,’ said Jayden. ‘I don’t think it’s actually much cheaper than you doing it. I think it’s much more expensive actually.’
‘But he doesn’t need to pay me to do it,’ said Polly.
‘Oh yeah,’ said Jayden. ‘I never thought about that.’
‘You just pour it out in front of the display case.’
Jayden nodded.
‘It’s not as nice as yours,’ he said, sadly.
‘Well that’s good,’ said Polly. ‘Maybe you’ll eat less of it.’
‘He counts the stock,’ said Jayden gloomily. ‘It’s all plastic-wrapped. A plastic-wrapped eclair isn’t very nice.’
‘A plastic-wrapped eclair?’
Polly genuinely couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe that anyone would do that. What kind of a fiend would plastic-wrap an eclair?
‘But everyone is so conscious of their weight these days, and what they should and shouldn’t put in their bodies… and if they’re going to have a treat, something as lovely and gorgeous and delicious as an eclair, why wouldn’t they have the best, made with proper cream and icing, and fluffy flour that’s been raised that morning, and all chilled deliciously so it’s absolutely gorgeous and fresh in your mouth, and one, two, three bites and you’re happy for the rest of the day, because it’s lighter than air, and nothing so light and lovely can really be bad for you, not when it’s made with love from good stuff.’ Her mouth took on a defiant line.
‘I know,’ said Jayden.
Polly wrapped her arms around her knees and stared out to sea.
‘I hate him so much.’
‘Me too,’ said Jayden, quickly glancing behind him to make sure Malcolm wasn’t stalking about.
‘Um…’ Jayden was bright red and staring at the ground. ‘Um, would you like me to quit for you? Because you know I would.’
Polly’s hand flew to her mouth.
‘Oh no, Jayden, NO! Definitely not. No. Not at all. Honestly, I would not want you to do that for me. In fact, as your ex-boss, I order you NOT to do it. Seriously.’
Jayden had hated being a fisherman, and he loved working in a bakery. Jobs in the region tended to be seasonal and hard to come by, and Polly couldn’t bear the idea of him giving up the first job he’d ever had that he’d actually liked. She put her hand on his arm.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for that, it means a lot. I’m very touched. But no, you don’t have to give up your job for me. You just need to do it properly, hang on in there, then when Malcolm gets bored of it and goes to do something else…’
She tried to think of precisely how this would happen, but couldn’t, quite. She made sure her voice didn’t choke up too much.
‘Just don’t… don’t clean it as well as you did for me. No, hang on, what am I saying, you’ll make everyone sick. That’s a terrible thing to say, ignore me. Just do what you always do, Jayden. You’re great at it.’
Jayden beamed. ‘Thanks,’ he said. Then added, ‘Nobody ever said I was good at anything before.’
‘Well you are very, very good in a bakery,’ said Polly. ‘Far better than that ratfink deserves.’
Jayden looked up at her.
‘You’ll be all right, Polly,’ he said. ‘I know you will. Whatever you do.’
But now that the numbers were in front of their eyes, Polly had lost the optimism that seeing Jayden had given her.
They simply didn’t, couldn’t add up, even if they could borrow money to buy a van, which they couldn’t, because Polly was a discharged bankrupt and Huckle was an American. Even then it would still take time to get it up to scratch, sort out the paperwork. Time they didn’t have. The repayments on the lighthouse were very high, and that was before you even got near all the work it needed.