Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams
Page 42

‘There you are,’ he said.
‘Well, where else would I be?’ said Rosie.
Jake smiled. ‘Of course. I’ve just finished work. So, come on. Saddle up.’
‘I am not getting on that bicycle again,’ said Rosie. ‘No way.’
‘You need milk for the morning, don’t you? Old lady’s bones and all that.’
‘I do not have … Oh yes.’ Rosie saw what he meant. ‘Anyway, no. I’ll get it from the Spar. I do not want to run across Mrs Isitt again, thank you.’
‘Oh, she’s not so bad,’ said Jake. Then he reflected. ‘OK. She is very, very bad. But she’s had a hard life.’
‘Sitting in her big house drinking milk,’ said Rosie. ‘Yes. I see it.’
‘No, more than that …’ Jake’s voice tailed off. ‘Anyway, don’t worry about that. You have to come with me now. We have stuff to do.’
Rosie protested faintly. ‘But I’m …’ She turned her head towards the sitting room. From indoors came the mournful wavering tones of a soap opera theme. Outside, the sun was gently cresting pink over the hills, with the faintest touches of indigo just beginning to lick the very edges of the sky.
Jake looked at her with his eyebrows raised. ‘Yeah?’
‘I’ll get my coat,’ said Rosie, resignedly.
Jake went easy on her to begin with – he was completely amazed to find out she’d never had a ‘backie’ before – and rode up and down the streets a few times to get her used to it. Rosie sat on the saddle, the wind in her hair, the warm summer air hitting her skin, the sensation of travelling quickly exciting and new. She found herself starting to giggle, then laugh out loud as Jake went faster and faster (waving, she found herself noticing, in a friendly fashion to the vicar as he went past), then taking the slope down to the Isitts’ farm, gathering even more pace. But this time she had a clear sense that someone was in control, that Lilian’s old bike could cope with how fast they were going. Rosie tilted her head back and let out a happy yelp, amazed at herself – she certainly wouldn’t have done this at home – war-whooping down the rutted track.
Jake dismounted safely at the bottom, grinning widely.
‘Are you always that noisy?’ he said. Then he looked suddenly embarrassed, as if he’d asked something cheeky. Which of course he had. Rosie was saved from answering by the line of garden instruments up against the wall.
‘What are those for?’
‘For us,’ said Jake. ‘You hammered Peter’s vegetable garden. We have to put it back together. Or rather you do, but I figured if I left it to you you’d try sowing packets of crisps and chocolate cake and things.’
‘Ooh, a crisp tree,’ said Rosie. ‘That’s a wonderful idea.’
Jake didn’t say anything, but handed her a hoe and gave her instructions on what to do with it. Together, in the fading sun of the day, they worked over the patch, raking it and setting it into tidy rows, whereupon Jake let her pop the seed in – for cabbages, potatoes and purple sprouting broccoli – at regular intervals. Rosie found to her surprise she rather enjoyed the neat work, setting up the strings and sticks to guide the growing patterns, then labelling each row. After an hour, the entire patch looked much better than it had before.
As the two of them stepped back to admire their handiwork, the last rays of the setting sun alighted on a heavy-set woman who was carrying out a tray from the house as if she held a grudge against it.
Mrs Isitt looked at the new vegetable patch, sniffed, then, without a word, set down the tray and turned back indoors. Jake inspected it. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that’s her way of saying thanks.’
On the tray sat two foaming mugs of beer, and two plates with gigantic slices of buttered fruitcake alongside a large pale-yellow hunk of cheese. Jake and Rosie sat down side by side on the edge of the grass.
‘I don’t think I’m going to like this,’ said Rosie, picking up the tankard. ‘I’m not really a beer drinker. More rosé.’
‘More rosé,’ mimicked Jake. ‘Well, I am sorry, your majesty. I’ll have yours.’
But when Rosie tried the beer – dark, not too fizzy, not too cold – and found it bitter and slightly peculiar at first, by the third sip she was a convert.
‘This is gorgeous,’ she said.
‘And about the same proof as a bottle of wine,’ said Jake. ‘Go easy on it, old Mr Isitt has been felling the men of the village with that stuff for years.’
Rosie stuck her tongue out at him, took another long draught, giggled and sank her teeth into the melting, tangy fruitcake.
‘Oh God,’ she sighed. ‘I am going to get as fat as Mrs Isitt if I hang around here. This is amazing.’
Jake smiled. ‘Maybe it’s just being outdoors.’
‘No,’ said Rosie. ‘It’s because it isn’t a kebab or KFC.’
‘What’s KFC?’ said Jake.
‘Shut up,’ said Rosie.
‘No, I mean it. I’ve heard of it, but I don’t really know what it is.’
‘Well, you know a chicken, right?’ started Rosie. Then, halfway through her beer, the thought of explaining seemed too stupid for words, and she started to laugh.
‘Right,’ said Jake, laughing because she was so helpless.
‘And you know frying, right?’
‘Right.’
‘OK,’ said Rosie, breathless with laughter. ‘Well, it’s just the Kentucky bit you’re having trouble with. Ahahahaha!’
Jake shook his head and munched on his cheese. ‘You’re mad, you are.’
‘Who eats cheese with fruitcake?’ wondered Rosie, then took another bite of cake, quickly followed by another bite of cheese and a slug of the beer.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh, wow.’
Jake took a long look at her.
‘I think I’d better get you home,’ he said, neatly gathering up the cups and plates. ‘Before you start blundering around and muck up that bloody veg patch again.’
Up the hill, Rosie found pushing the bike hilarious for some reason, and when Jake dropped her off at the house she found herself inadvertently leaning on him.
‘Whoops!’ she said. Then she leaned in. ‘But I have … I have a boyfriend, you know. He’s not got as many muscles as you though.’