Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 63

‘What do you mean?’ said Polly. ‘I thought Reuben lost all his friends when he lost his money.’
Kerensa snorted, loudly.
‘Thank you for that huge vote of confidence in my life partner.’
‘Oh yeah, sorry,’ said Polly. Reuben had hung out with lots of cool dudes and model-type women. Polly just assumed they’d have passed on to the next multimillionaire.
‘No, you’re right,’ said Kerensa. ‘They are horrific fair-weather friends. But they keep their hand in with Reuben, just in case he does something genius again and all the parties are back on.’
‘Well, they do sound completely charming,’ said Polly. She paused. ‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘Why is he only sending them now?’
Reuben had obviously been listening on speakerphone and came on the line.
‘In case you were garbage, of course,’ he said. ‘What if you’d moved and turned into total garbage? Sheesh, don’t be nuts. Of course I had to wait and see.’
‘Oh,’ said Polly. ‘Well, thanks, I guess.’
‘Don’t mention it!’
‘You even look witchy in the photo,’ said Kerensa.
‘Stop it,’ said Polly. ‘My mum’s already had a panic attack.’
They’d sent a photographer down later that day – which Kate hadn’t mentioned would happen, so Polly still didn’t have any bloody make-up on. The wind had really got up by then, and there wasn’t a soul to be seen anywhere around. He had made her sit on the wall, the van slightly out of focus behind her, and behind that the great looming mass of Mount Polbearne. In the photo, her strawberry-blonde hair was flicking behind her head as she stared out to sea, her face thoughtful – or, as Polly’s mother’s put it, miserable – as if you could see her thinking, oh lord, this is a mistake. The headline underneath read, Purity in Polbearne.
‘Lonely Virgin Witch,’ Kerensa said cheerfully. ‘Even better!’
Huckle looked at the link online. He stared at it, his heart so full of longing he could hardly breathe. She looked so sad; he had never seen her so sad. And she had got so thin. Where was her full bosom, the gentle curves of her hips? This Polly was angular and thoughtful.
He felt unnervingly homesick for the life they had had: the quiet evenings listening to seagulls, teasing Neil, companionably reading, or cooking, or just being near one another, when neither ever left the room without a gentle caress, a quick passing kiss, a tender embrace. He wanted to reach out to her, but they seemed to be drifting further apart. He printed out the article, then folded it up and slipped it into his wallet.
Did you want me to talk about a new job for you? Candice’s text message had said. Of course, trust Candice to still be working first thing on a Sunday morning. She’d probably already had her workout. She wanted Huckle to go to brunch with her and Lily – hemp smoothies and egg-white omelettes, and Ron talking about his share portfolio.
He didn’t want to text her back quite yet. Didn’t even want to admit to himself that he was stuck on this farm for the near future, and even if he wasn’t, even if by some miracle Dubose did show up, that he still needed a job to carry them through the long Cornish winter, given what the article had made clear: that Polly was making absolutely no money. They were living in a place with no insulation that needed absolutely loads doing to it to even make it habitable. They needed money! They needed money, goddammit. He loved Polly, but could she pull this off? It didn’t look like it. It really didn’t. He gazed at the picture for a long time and wondered how on earth he could break it to her that he was not coming home any time soon; that he felt like he was being torn in two.
Huckle couldn’t get through on the phone for ages. He guessed everyone was chiming in with their thoughts. He hoped they were positive. Finally, it rang, tinny and so far away.
‘Hey!’ he said. ‘Who is that unbelievably hot woman in that magazine?’
‘Seriously?’ said Polly. ‘Because everyone else is sending me links to the Samaritans. Apart from two really strange guys who wrote on the newspaper website that they’d like to marry me because they liked bread and being by themselves.’
‘Hmm,’ said Huckle. ‘Well, you should have smiled.’
‘Really?’
‘I like it when you’re smiling.’
‘That’s been quite tricky,’ said Polly.
‘But it’s a good piece.’
‘Is it?’
There was a slightly awkward silence between them. This was new.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Huckle. ‘Because you know, I’m… I mean, everything is going well here. I’m turning the farm around. Definitely.’
Another pause.
‘Well,’ said Polly. ‘That’s great.’
‘And, you know, I’m sure this is the start of something for you…’
‘I hope so,’ said Polly. They both did.
Chapter Eighteen
In fact, they didn’t have to wait long. By Monday, there were a few more cars.
By Tuesday, there was a line.
‘Oh my God,’ Polly had said that first morning. The people who came weren’t like any she’d served before.
They were very intense, and peppered her with lots and lots of questions about process and ingredients and provenance and methodology. They were, as Selina said when she came over later, and stayed to help, foodies, people who only liked the rarest and newest of things. She was, it seemed, a discovery. Many of them tried some of the seeded loaf she put out for testing as if it were wine: holding it in their mouths, rolling it round and round, or pinching it between their fingers and making humming noises. All the men had beards.
She texted Kate to say an ecstatic thank you, and Kate had texted back to say not at all, she deserved it, and she had looked like she needed it. Which was true.
The other odd thing was that many of the cars didn’t then go on to Mount Polbearne, even though it was a clear day with low tides. Many just drove into the car park, bought some bread – for boasting rights, Selina informed her – and drove off again. There was also a healthy proportion of surfers who Polly semi-recognised as being friends of Reuben, all of whom bought warm loaves and little pots of butter to take to the beach with them but then started tearing it off as soon as they got the bag in their hands. Most people did that: it tasted better fresh from the oven, crammed greedily into your mouth, the little seeds getting caught in your teeth, the nutty, salty crunch of the crust spluttering into life, the soft insides squelching with delicious warmth and runny butter.