by Della Galton
Her mobile was tucked in her bumbag, snug against her waist – she’d been tempted to leave it at home in an effort to prove to herself that she wasn’t obsessing about Clarice’s call, but she hadn’t quite had the resolve. Who was she kidding anyway? She was obsessing.
She ran past the beautiful old Victorian building that was the Royal Hotel and the garish clock that had been erected in 1888 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s jubilee – she bet it hadn’t been painted maroon and sky blue then, although apparently it had been garish for its time – and then on around the coast until she was far enough away from home to feel totally free. This route was part of the South West Coast Path that ultimately ended in Poole.
Only when she was a couple of kilometres from home did she slow down a little and let herself reflect back on yesterday. She had done the best she could. She had practised, prepared, researched the role and put everything she had into it, and yesterday she had given it her all. Whether or not she got the part was in the lap of the gods. But just for a moment she let herself dream.
Having a major part on Casualty wasn’t just ‘a nice little earner for a while’ – as Clarice had put it – it was a gateway to a dream. She knew it would open doors that until now had been closed. It would mean that at some point in the future she could give up making cakes for a living – or at least pick and choose her clients, which was not something she did now.
It wasn’t so much the making cakes that she dreamed of giving up. It was everything else she had to do too. Making cakes for a living wasn’t quite as simple as people thought. As well as being a baker and designer, she also had to be office administrator, accountant, manager, marketing and sales assistant, cleaner and delivery girl. When she wasn’t baking cakes, she was designing them, shopping for the ingredients and dealing with all the relevant admin. In wedding season, which tended to be mostly in June and July, she could have four wedding cakes a week.
Olivia paused on the coast path and checked her Fitbit. It was time she got back. She’d been running with the wind behind her, which was always deceptive. It would be much tougher on the return journey with the strong sea breeze in her face.
Taking a lungful of the coastal air, she headed for home. She had shedloads of work to do today and it was already nearly eight.
When she had started Amazing Cakes, Olivia had never imagined she’d spend so many of her Saturday mornings fashioning pink willies out of sugar paste. But naughty cupcakes were eternally popular for hen nights.
Today’s willies would have little black bow ties and top hats and they would sit on red heart-shaped seats. The trick was getting the curve right without them falling over. As a hen had once told her, no one wanted a droopy willy on their special night!
After she’d delivered the cupcakes, she planned to take Aunt Dawn a thank you bunch of her favourite flowers – freesias – and maybe a treat for Emmeline and her feathered friends.
There was still no news from Clarice. Olivia swung between two scenarios. The first was that Clarice might not be working as it was Saturday and therefore wouldn’t let her know until Monday, in which case there was still hope. The second was that Clarice had already had the ‘thanks but no thanks’ email and hadn’t forwarded it as there would be no urgency.
Olivia sometimes had phone calls and emails out of hours from Clarice, but she didn’t think she’d ever had one on a Saturday. She spent a tense ten minutes on her phone looking back through historical emails to check and couldn’t find any that had been sent on a Saturday. Which gave her hope. But surely Clarice would tell her if she knew one way or the other. Because she would also know how important it was. Except that it would be small fry to Clarice.
Since her run, Olivia hadn’t dare let her phone out of her sight just in case she missed a call, which had already resulted in her almost losing it down the loo. Brilliant. A dead phone. That was all she needed.
When it rang at just after eleven and the word, Mum, flashed up on the screen, Olivia took a break to answer it. At least she had the kind of phone that let her know if another call was trying to get through.
Besides, her parents weren’t hugely regular correspondents – they tended to have the attitude, ‘you know where we are if you need us’ and whenever she phoned them, they’d always answer instantly, even if they were totally distracted with history and ancient rocks. It would be nice to have a chat.
‘Hello, love. Just phoning for a quick catch-up.’ Her mother sounded her usual bright, cheery self. ‘Nothing exciting to report unless you count cataloguing Neolithic fertility symbols. Which is what your father’s doing, as we speak. What are you up to?’
‘Um.’ Olivia glanced at the seven completed male appendages lined up on her worktop and she was tempted to say she was doing something similar, but decided against it. ‘Icing cupcakes,’ she said instead.
‘How lovely and wholesome. So you’re keeping busy then?’
‘Always.’
‘How did the audition go?’
She was touched that her mother had remembered. Her parents had been known to forget birthdays and other special occasions when they were totally immersed in a dig. ‘It went great. I haven’t heard anything yet though.’
‘Fingers crossed then.’ Was she being ultra-sensitive or was there the faintest of sighs in Mum’s voice? It was no secret that her parents thought she should forget about acting and focus on Amazing Cakes. Although how much more focused she could get she wasn’t sure.
‘Is your sister all right? She didn’t answer when I called?’
‘I think so. I expect she’s working.’
‘And I suspect your aunt is knee-deep in vintage clothes today, isn’t she?’
‘I suspect you’re right.’
‘I’d better get back to it then, darling. You will phone and tell us if you get the part.’
‘I will, Mum.’
If I get the part, everyone in Weymouth will know because I’ll be singing it from the rooftops.
‘Toodle-pip.’
‘Toodle-pip,’ Olivia echoed, smiling, but her mum had already gone.
By midday, Olivia had finished the cupcakes, boxed them and put them in her van without mishap, to her very great relief. She wasn’t sure if she could face having to remake twenty-four willies.
The forecasters had been right and despite the fact it was still only the first week of March, the earlier chilliness had given way to a warm and springlike day. Apparently, it was going to be even warmer tomorrow.
She delivered the cupcakes to a delighted hen at a house on the other side of town and called in to the supermarket on her way back to stock up on ingredients for the coming week and get some flowers and some treats for hens of the feathered variety to take to Aunt Dawn’s.
She had a wedding cake appointment with a couple on Monday, which would include a tasting session, and she was making a sponge for an eightieth birthday party on Tuesday, ready for Wednesday. Eric, a widower, was a regular client and a cheeky old git – his words not hers. When they’d first discussed his birthday cake, he’d said that what he’d really like was for a gorgeous scantily clad woman to leap out of his cake, but presuming Olivia couldn’t arrange that, would it be possible to have a gorgeous, scantily clad woman on the top?
Olivia had told him it was definitely possible, but was he sure that was appropriate as he’d have his daughter and all his grandchildren and great-grandchildren at the party? He’d looked disconsolate for a few moments but had agreed with her and in the end, he’d settled on an open-top red Mercedes with a model of himself, complete with white hair, beard and a flat cap, sitting in the driver’s seat.
‘It’s the closest I’m ever going to get,’ he had said with a wink.
Olivia was looking forward to making it. She liked Eric.
Just before lunch, she let herself in to Vintage Views with an armful of flowers and some low-fat cheese, which was one of the few treats Aunt Dawn allowed her chickens to be fed. They’d probably quite like
the flowers too, given half a chance.
The door of the shop jangled as it shut behind her and she saw that her aunt was dealing with a customer. A smartly dressed older woman who was looking through a rail of flapper dresses from the twenties.
‘How quickly could you source the others?’ she asked as Olivia walked towards the counter and then busied herself looking at a display of hats so as not to interrupt.
‘You tell me your deadline and I’ll deliver the day before,’ Dawn told her. She smiled across at her niece. ‘Hello, darling, that was good timing. I don’t think you’ve met Jennifer Mount, have you? She works for the costume department on Channel Four.’ She turned back to her customer. ‘My niece, Olivia Lambert’s, an actress.’
‘Good to meet you,’ Olivia said politely.
Aunt Dawn never missed a trick. Vintage Views regularly supplied clothes for period dramas and her aunt often introduced her to people connected with the productions. Who knew, one day she might well meet someone who was in a position to give her a job. If she still needed one and wasn’t too busy being a stroppy consultant on Casualty. Fingers crossed!
She wished she could think of something else but her audition, as the three of them made small talk. Then finally Jennifer Mount left and Aunt Dawn came and hugged her. She was wearing the polka dot skirt again, this time with a rather beautiful vintage cream silk blouse, and she smelled of roses and lavender. It was her signature scent and to Olivia it was the smell of love.
‘Are those flowers for me? You shouldn’t have.’
‘I absolutely should. You got me out of a huge hole yesterday, not to mention staying up half the night the day before, and I’m eternally grateful. You must be tired out.’
‘Does it show?’ The older woman rubbed her eyes.
‘No,’ Olivia said loyally.
‘Good. Let’s grab some lunch, shall we? I’ll put the Closed sign up. I won’t ask you if you’ve had any news yet because I’m sure you’d have already told me.’
Ten minutes later, armed with a plate of cheese sandwiches and some cubed cheese for the hens, they let themselves out of the fire exit and went down into the secret garden. The door itself wasn’t to the secret garden, but like the wardrobe to Narnia, it was the portal to it and Aunt Dawn had disguised the portal so well that it was as though the two now merged.
Aunt Dawn’s garden never failed to take Olivia’s breath away. It wasn’t just the fact that it felt like stepping into an oasis of peace, it was just so unexpected to go out of a fire exit and into a space filled with the fragrance of flowers and herbs.
Immediately beyond the door, there was a metal terrace encircled by iron railings. Strung from these were hanging baskets of herbs. Blooming at the moment were rosemary, thyme, sage, chives and mint. On the coldest nights, Dawn brought the more frost-prone baskets in, but they were all flourishing at the moment. It was a warm March. There was also a tub of purple and white pansies and another of daffodils, which were just beginning to stick their yellow heads out into spring. There were pots of other things not yet awake, but they would be soon.
The fire escape’s metal steps led down into the garden itself, but even the steps weren’t the ugly functional things they could have been. Aunt Dawn had painted them white and every third or so step had been stencilled with a pattern of sunflowers. Olivia remembered long-ago summer days when her aunt had started the trend. They’d begun with a step close to the ground. Her aunt, mindful of safety had never let her help with the ones higher up, but slowly, week by week, they’d been done too.
The garden itself wasn’t a huge area, but it had been divided by decking and artfully placed trellises, entwined with clematis and rambling roses. The most had been made of every inch of space. In one part, there was a lover’s bench sitting beneath a rose bower. In another, a swinging chair where Aunt Dawn sometimes sat with a book if she wanted to relax.
There wasn’t much grass; the chickens had some, but a lot of the area was either paved, slabbed or decked, and a crazy paving path wound its way to the biggest area of garden in front of the back wall.
The garden could also be accessed via a gate in the wall which ran around it to separate it from its neighbours and also along the back boundary. There was also a door that led into a tiny office and storeroom at the back of the shop, but they rarely went out this way. If they had, Olivia had sometimes thought, it would have been even more like Narnia because they would have had to push past rails of vintage clothes and coats that smelled of age and mothballs.
Close to the back wall, beyond which were two car parking spaces, was the area where Aunt Dawn kept her chickens. The six, sleek and glossy, black-feathered birds that kept her supplied with eggs for baking, were spoilt rotten. They had a state-of-the-art chicken coop. This was comprised of a two storey cedarwood henhouse that was accessed from a ladder below it with loads of space to peck about beneath and the whole ensemble was shored up against fox invasion, although when Aunt Dawn was out and about, they wandered freely at her feet.
‘No fox would dare touch my chooks when I’m there.’
That was true. Aunt Dawn was more than a match for the most fearsome of predators, especially if something she loved was at stake.
Olivia had experienced a taste of this when she’d split up with Tom, and Aunt Dawn, who never fell out with anyone, had told him in no uncertain terms what she thought of him when he’d turned up at number five to collect a charger he’d forgotten.
Tom had looked so startled at the onslaught that he’d turned tail and run.
‘Just like the coward I suspected he was,’ Dawn had said with some satisfaction. ‘Let him go and buy another charger.’
It was towards the hen coop that they were headed and the hens were already crowding against the wire. Her aunt unlatched a door and opened it and they poured out, clucking and cooing in anticipation of a treat. They flocked around the two women and her aunt threw a handful of seed across their grassy area to distract them. Then she and Olivia settled themselves at the pretty wrought-iron table for two that sat in a little lunchtime suntrap.
Most of the hens were now pecking idly in a flower border, but one of them was determined to elicit more treats and was jumping up at Aunt Dawn’s chair almost as if she was a determined dog after a biscuit.
‘Is that Emmeline?’ Olivia asked. She couldn’t distinguish one hen from another. They all looked the same to her.
‘No, it’s Greta. She’s the youngest – you can see her comb and wattles are still a little on the pale side. They get a deeper shade of red when they start to mature. She’s the youngest, but she’s also the bravest,’ Dawn added and glanced at the hen with affection.
‘Greta Thunberg,’ Olivia guessed.
‘Correct. What else could I call her?’ There was a pause. ‘So – how are you feeling?’
‘Anxious – even though I’m trying not to be. Clarice hasn’t emailed – I’d thought she might have done by now.’
‘Maybe they haven’t got in touch with her yet. It is the weekend.’
‘I know. And I need to stop stressing. Mum phoned this morning. I was quite surprised. She doesn’t usually remember stuff like auditions – you didn’t remind her, did you? She texted to say good luck too while I was on the train.’
‘When have I ever had to remind my sister about important dates.’ Dawn’s eyes were wide and guileless. It was a rhetorical question. They both knew she did it regularly. Although both sisters had a foot in the past – Olivia’s mother was obsessed with fossils and her aunt with vintage clothes – her aunt was the more grounded.
‘I knew it. I knew she wouldn’t have remembered. But it was nice to hear from her. Apparently, Dad was cataloguing some ancient fertility symbols or something.’
‘Lucky dad.’
After a moment’s hesitation, Olivia told her about the sugar paste willies because she knew her aunt would find it amusing and they both laughed.
Aunt Dawn was a widow. Uncle Simon had died of
a heart attack in August 1999, just before the millennium, when Olivia had been seventeen.
Olivia had loved him to bits. She remembered him being very clever but with an acute sense of fun. He’d adored his nieces and they’d adored him, so some of the light and fun had gone out of the family when he’d gone.
He and her aunt had been together since they were teenagers and Dawn had always referred to him as her soulmate. In the years since his death, encouraged by her family, Dawn had occasionally dated, but none of them had got past the friendship stage and Aunt Dawn had said that she was perfectly happy that they hadn’t.
Olivia knew there was still a photograph of Simon on her aunt’s bedside table. It was in a gold frame, a photo of a smiling man against the backdrop of a beach somewhere.
Olivia worried sometimes that her aunt didn’t have anyone in her life, but when the subject occasionally came up, she insisted that she was fine as she was and if it happened it happened.
By the time they’d eaten the cheese sandwiches and fed the hens their cubed cheese treats, Olivia was feeling relaxed again. It was amazing what forty-five minutes of chat and sunshine could do.
She left Vintage Views feeling optimistic once more. As everyone kept telling her, it was still early days. And it was the weekend. Her audition had been good. She’d done the best she could do. It was all in the lap of the gods.
7
On Sunday, Olivia woke up with the same lovely feeling of optimism which had carried her through the previous afternoon and evening. There had still been no news from Clarice, but she had, with Phil’s help, now convinced herself that nothing much happened at weekends. There would definitely be news tomorrow.
