Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 61

Polly looked at it, wondering if it would be someone else wanting a holiday home. Although that tended to be families. This car did not belong to someone with a family, or if it did, they were a particularly daring one.
She got out of the van, propped up the canopy, arranged the still slightly steaming loaves, added the little chalkboard of prices, and tried her best to look cheerful.
An incredibly thin, elegant-looking girl, her hair pulled back in a shiny swinging ponytail, clambered out of the car. She didn’t look local at all, Polly thought. Mount Polbearne wouldn’t be right for her; she needed something a bit more developed, for sure, if she was after a second home. But Polly arranged a cheery smile anyway. A customer was a customer, after all.
The girl marched over, a broad smile showing well-looked-after teeth. She had a high stride, like a rather pretty horse, and Polly envied her, whoever she was.
‘Hello!’ the girl said, sticking out her hand with the easy confidence of someone other people were generally pleased to see, whether they knew it or not. ‘Kate Lacey?’
It took Polly a second to place the name.
‘Oh my God,’ she said.
‘Oh, you know who I am?’ said Kate. ‘God, that’s amazing. Call the papers. Hang on, I am the papers.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘The newspaper,’ said Polly, frozen. ‘Oh my goodness, the newspaper.’
‘Yes, I was just going to ask you the way to Polly Waterford’s bakery? On Mount Polbearne? I appear to have misjudged the tide.’
‘Yes, it’s tricky,’ said Polly. ‘Um…’
She looked at Nan the Van, who had got very splashed around the bottom with mud and salt water as she trundled her way across the causeway every morning.
‘You see, the thing is,’ she said, ‘I forgot to call you. Only, I’m Polly Waterford.’
Kate looked confused.
‘What, and this is how you get to work?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Polly, her heart sinking. This was to have been her break, her amazing crack at the big time. But now, with her stupid van… This incredibly chic woman was just going to turn around and go home, she knew it. Or worse, write something scathing and awful. She heaved a great sigh.
‘Um, I don’t work for the bakery any more.’
She didn’t want to elaborate, but Kate pounced at once.
‘Why not?’
‘Um, new owner,’ said Polly, doing a quick censorship job. ‘So it’s a bit different. Sorry, I’ve been manic, I forgot to let you know, and I should have.’
Kate narrowed her eyes.
‘So basically you now have a burger van?’
‘Um, it’s not quite…’
Out of the corner of her eye, Polly caught sight of the tatty old BMW turning in to the car park. Oh no, she thought. Oh no, not now. No no no-no-no. Please. Anything but this.
Her wish was not to be granted. The car screeched to a halt, throwing up a spray of water that soaked their legs, and Malcolm jumped out, red-faced as ever.
‘Don’t eat here!’ he shouted. ‘She’s dirty.’
Polly sighed and turned bright pink, her humiliation complete. This was what would be written up for the national press; any chance of any sort of a career in baking completely scuppered by people being able to read about this, which would be on the Internet, and therefore visible for ever more.
‘Please, Malcolm,’ she said, in a low voice, but it was no use. Polly wanted to cry as the journalist listened politely to him without identifying herself – why would she, when she was already getting all the real dirt?
Finally he ran out of steam and stopped ranting, a satisfied look on his face.
‘Right, well that’s done for another one of your customers. Almost none left now, huh? Feeling sorry yet? Hmm? Got something else to go and do? Maybe something secretarial. Or bird management, huh? Ha! Good one, eh! Bird management!’
Polly couldn’t think too much about Neil at the best of times, and this was emphatically not the best of times. A lone tear came to her eye. Malcolm slammed his car door and drove away across the causeway.
Kate watched him go.
‘Do people drive off the causeway often?’ she asked in clear tones.
Polly shook her head.
‘No, never,’ she said.
‘Shame,’ said Kate. She turned back to Polly, a smile playing on her lips. ‘I’m assuming that was the new boss.’
Polly nodded.
‘Wow,’ Kate said. ‘No wonder you don’t work for him any more. He’s mental.’
Oddly, the simple fact of someone else saying that Malcolm was behaving strangely had a huge effect on Polly. She had, she realised, been thinking that on some level she deserved this kind of bullying and had had nobody around, not really, to convince her otherwise.
‘I’d report him,’ said Kate. ‘That’s harassment.’
Polly swallowed. She didn’t forget, though, that Kate was still a journalist. Making any comment at all probably wouldn’t be that great an idea.
‘Would you… would you like something to eat?’ she offered, shyly.
‘Yes!’ said Kate. ‘That’s why I’m here, remember?’
They sat together on the car park wall and ate slices of the warm lardon bichette underneath the heavy grey sky and chatted about their lives. Kate was very impressed that Polly lived in a lighthouse, and Polly was sympathetic as Kate told her at great length about her problems with the separated man she was seeing back in London, so it ended up being a rather mutually enjoyable conversation.
After an hour, Kate got up to leave. Polly had served one other person in that time, an old man who wanted two rolls. She had felt nervous doing so, not wanting Kate pitying her any more than she did already. She piled Kate up with goodies to take away with her.
‘Are you not going on to the village?’ she said.
Kate frowned. ‘What’s that man’s bakery like?’
‘Gruesome,’ said Polly. ‘Well, unless you like your bread to last two months, in which case it’s ideal.’
‘Hmm,’ said Kate. ‘Maybe not, then. Nice to meet you. I have to tell you, though, we don’t normally review vans in our restaurant pages. I don’t know what my editor will say.’
‘I realise that,’ said Polly.
‘I’ll give it a shot, okay?’