Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 41

‘This is kind of romantic,’ Polly said.
‘Whoop! Sorry, it’s hard to pee in the dark,’ yelled Huckle from the bathroom. ‘Sorry!’
‘Okay, so there was a romantic mood going on,’ said Polly, smiling. She went and looked out of the window. Could she manage? Could she cope with Huckle gone? He was her rock, her everything. But also, she felt inside herself, also there was something else.
Because she’d been alone before. Because she’d started over before. Because, Kerensa’s help aside, she had had to deal with Tarnie’s death alone too. And that had changed her. She wasn’t as needy as she once had been. Even though she had failed, she knew somewhere deep inside that when you were tested with the worst that could happen, and you didn’t fall apart, then more things were possible than you imagined. Everyone was stronger than they thought they could be, when the worst came to the worst. It was one of the very few good things about confronting the worst.
Huckle came out of the loo looking slightly shamefaced, and cuddled up to her.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘I am thinking,’ said Polly, ‘that as long as you come back…’
‘I have a gorgeous naked woman who bakes, a friendly local pub, a motorbike and a lighthouse,’ said Huckle. ‘I am fascinated to know just exactly what you think this world holds that is better than what I have going on right now. Apart from, you know. A fireman’s pole.’
She smiled and cuddled up to him.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ she said.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Huckle. ‘Are you going to watch Game of Thrones without me?’
‘No!’ said Polly, horrified. ‘God, I would never do that to you! The betrayal! No, we can watch it together every night. I’ll stay up late and you can watch it on the farm.’
Huckle nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Employers almost never mind that.’
‘No, it’s not that,’ she said. ‘But you know I don’t mean this the way it’s going to sound…’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Huckle.
‘I can do without you,’ said Polly. ‘For a little bit, you know. Just a little bit. In fact, you offering to fund my van… it’s amazing. It’s wonderful. I’m completely thrilled and incredibly grateful.’
‘Excellent,’ said Huckle. ‘I have plans to exploit this for years.’
‘But it’s not just doing without you,’ said Polly. She sat up in bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. ‘There’s someone else I’m going to have to do without too, and that’s really going to make it hard.’
Huckle looked at her.
‘Are you sure?’
She nodded, a massive lump in her throat.
‘It’s time. It is time, whilst everything else is changing. I have to do without you… and Neil has to learn to do without us.’
Chapter Twelve
It was a windy, bright morning with a chill in the air. The tide was in and the spray was high as they took a long, meandering walk around the headland and up and down the town, occasionally chucking Neil off things to see how he could manage. He fluttered and bounced cheerfully and seemed, in every respect, totally recovered. Which meant only one thing.
Polly had one hand in Huckle’s pocket, to keep out the chill. He looked at her. She had a bit of a set to her jaw, but apart from that she seemed all right.
‘You seem calmer than I thought you were going to be,’ said Huckle, gently.
Polly nodded. ‘I know.’
Neil perched on her shoulder.
‘That’s because, I don’t care what Patrick says, Neil won’t want to go. He’ll come back. He’ll find his way home. He knows where we live. He knows where his home is. I’m going to do the right thing and take him to the sanctuary, but it won’t make any difference, you know.’
Huckle made a non-committal sound. He thought Polly was in denial. He would miss the little bird too, but Patrick was right: Neil had to go and find his place in the world, and his place was with puffins, not humans. Huckle would be heartbroken to see the little fellow go. But he understood Polly was clinging on to something else, some belief that Neil wouldn’t leave, and he didn’t think it was very helpful.
‘So,’ she said defiantly, ‘I’ve decided not to be that sad.’
‘O-kay,’ said Huckle, grasping her hand more tightly in his pocket. ‘Wow, it is fresh today.’
He looked at her.
‘Are you sure you don’t just want to come to Georgia with me? It’s wonderful this time of year. Big bougainvillea everywhere; all the houses dripping with ivy; warm, fragrant evenings…’
She looked at him.
‘That does sound nice,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you’ll want to come back?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Huckle. ‘But couldn’t I take you anyway?’
‘We’ve been through this,’ said Polly. ‘The more flights you have to pay for, the longer it will take to save up the money. Plus I have to be here to talk to the council and do all that stuff.’
As they were talking, Archie stepped out in front of them.
‘What?’ he shouted. ‘What the hell is this?’ He held up a plastic-wrapped white-bread ham sandwich. ‘Taste it,’ he said, proffering it to Polly. ‘Taste this!’
‘No thank you,’ said Polly.
‘It’s disgusting,’ he said, his face all red. ‘It’s bloody horrible. It’s a disgrace! Two pounds fifty! Two pounds fifty for this! That’s more than one of your pricey old loaves with seeds and stuff in it.’
‘That you didn’t like.’
‘I didn’t always like them,’ said Archie. ‘But I liked them a hell of a lot better than what we’ve got now.’
He looked haggard and tired.
‘Archie, are you getting enough sleep?’ said Polly.
‘No,’ said Archie. ‘But at least I was eating properly before. This. This is a travesty.’
‘I know,’ said Polly. ‘I don’t like it either.’
‘You have to do something about it,’ said Archie. ‘You have to. Everyone will just stop going.’
‘But where are you going to eat?’ said Huckle.