Christmas for One: No Greater Love

by Amanda Prowse

  After showering and blow-drying her auburn hair into its blunt bob, Pru sat down at her dressing table where she applied the merest hint of taupe lip stain and one wand-slick of mascara. She rubbed her fingers over her temples. She had never thought she would become this older lady. Any imaginings she had in her youth, placed her in her mid twenties, old enough to know best and still young enough enjoy herself. And yet there she was, hardly recognising the face in the mirror and it had happened in a heartbeat. She sighed and pulled her lower teeth over her top lip in the mirror, making her neck and chin taut, the way it used to look. A liberal spritz of Chanel number five and she was set for the day. She accessorized her navy trousers with a white silk blouse and two rows of pearls that hung in differing lengths against her small, high chest. She slipped her feet into navy penny loafers; her foot wear of choice on days like these.

  Pru held her breath and pulled the blind. She watched a white transit van pull up on to the curb with its hazard lights flashing, delivering to Guy all that they might need for a day of baking and trading. On the opposite side of the street, two young men in dinner jackets, with ties loose about their necks and a wobble to their saunter, walked arm in arm. No doubt homeward bound at this early hour. She smiled; there it was, Curzon Street, just as she had left it.

  She worried that one day she might pull the blind and see the traffic of the Kenway Road a few miles across town in Earls’ Court, as if she had dreamt her success, her home in Mayfair, her Italian marble flooring, espresso machine and walk-in closet and was still there, living that life. Back then, although her surroundings had been drab, she had herself been full of life: a young girl with a defiant stare and a gut full of determination.

  The day that she and Milly had arrived at the six-storey terrace in Kenway Road, they had thought they were invincible, immune to the regret and recrimination that came with old age. It was the last of a long line of places that she and Milly had painstakingly ringed in the small ads, and from the moment they arrived, they knew it was the place for them. A statuesque, elegant woman opened the door wearing a silk kimono and smoking a thin cigar in an ivory cigarette holder. She introduced herself as Trudy; she lived in a flat on the top floor. Pru walked to one of two deep-set sash windows on the landing that gave her the most incredible view across the London skyline, all the way out to Fulham and beyond. She let her eyes skim the horizon and red brick chimney pots. This would be the start of their journey, here among the west London rooftops, living with this elegant worldly woman. Pru followed Trudy down a narrow hallway, noting the way she swept along on her high heels, which made her look refined and sophisticated, sexy. She was going to practise that walk and when she had enough money, buy herself a pair of high heeled, red patent leather shoes, just like Trudy’s.

  ‘Who’s David Parkes?’ Milly asked. She had stopped at a framed certificate that hung on the wall and pointed to it.

  ‘David was my brother.’ Trudy sighed, ‘He died a couple of years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Pru offered as she rolled her eyes at Milly who was always jumping in feet first.

  Pru and Milly told Trudy how they wanted to open their own bakery with a shop and a café, where they would make the most delicious cakes and bread that London has ever tasted. Trudy didn’t laugh or mock the way others had when she shared this, instead she nodded and blew large O’s of cigar smoke, before pressing her full, carmine painted lips together.

  ‘I think people without dreams are only living half a life and that’s a life I wouldn’t want to live.’

  Pru had been impressed, Trudy sounded like a poet.

  ‘But it’s no good dreaming unless you are prepared to work really hard. You have to dream it and set yourself a path to make it happen. A dream won’t put food on the table or money in your purse.’ Pru subconsciously patted the purse in her pocket, which contained their first weeks rent, bus fair and a lucky coin with a hole drilled in it. It was the sum total of their combined wealth. Pru nodded, wondering what they would need to do to clear their path – the one that led straight to the shiny, glass window of Plum’s Patisserie.

  ‘What’s your dream then?’ Milly asked over Pru’s shoulder.

  Trudy gave the younger girl her full attention, and drew on her cigar, ‘To have a little love in my life,’ she offered as she turned her back and walked forward, ‘I think that’s everyone’s dream, really.’ Dear, dear Trudy.

  Pru closed her bedroom door and popped her head into the kitchen where she spied Milly, clad in a tiger onesie.

  ‘What are you wearing?’ Pru shook her head.

  ‘It’s new and quite possibly the cosiest thing I have ever owned. I might never take it off.’

  ‘That’ll be nice in the front of house.’

  Milly dipped a large croissant into her coffee before lowering the soggy mess into her mouth.

  ‘Gross.’ Pru commented.

  ‘It’s what they do in France!’ Milly spoke with her mouthful.

  ‘Maybe, but you’re not French, Mills.’

  ‘What? You are kidding me! Mon Dieu! I had no idea. I thought I’d imagined growing up in Bow and I was actually from a fashionable little suburb of Paris!’ She winked at her cousin.

  Pru grinned as she left the flat and trotted down the stairs, taking a deep breath she opened the door of the café. She and Milly took it in turns to do the early check on the bakery and it was her turn this week. In truth, after two decades in these premises, and with the celebrated, Guy Baudin at the helm of a trusted team, it was more a cursory nod to all that she was around, a reminder of who was boss and the chance to monitor quality rather than get her hands stuck in.

  The cleaners in their blue nylon tabards and with their hair scraped up into untidy knots were hard at it, buffing the brass fixtures with yellow dusters and mopping the pale, waxed wooden floor. The sun had started its creep through the large window that displayed the Plum Patisserie logo, working its way up like the revelation of a dancers fan until the whole room was awash with light. Tiny white bud-roses had been placed in slender, finger-sized vases on every table. The glass display unit, which they had re-created to mimic those found in the Parisian coffee houses of the eighteen hundreds, gleamed. The tiered, glass cake stands and fancy china plates with hand-painted flowers and swirls, delicately kissing their fluted edges, sat shining, awaiting the scones packed with jam and cream, soft iced buns, frosted sponges and flaky pastry masterpieces, stuffed with marzipan and dotted with an almond, which those with a sweet tooth would devour with a cup of hand blended French roast coffee.

  She particularly loved this time of the morning, before the customers arrived, before the problems arose, before tiredness crept over her aging joints.

  ‘Good morning all!’ Pru offered with a singsong note, many of these girls spoke little English, but could glean enough from her tone to reciprocate with a nod and a smile.

  ‘This looks lovely, thank you.’

  The girls smiled and nodded in return.

  Making her way down the twist of staircase, she placed her foot on the last step, the wood creaked unexpectedly beneath her weight and she gasped, placing one hand at her breast and the other against the wall, trying to steady her heart rate. She exhaled and leant on the wall, using her index finger and thumb to wipe away the tiny dots of perspiration that had gathered on her top lip. She placed her flattened palm against her chest, trying to calm her flustered pulse.

  ‘Come on you silly moo.’

  It still had the power to do that to her, the flash of a memory, an image, a sound. It could transport her back to a time she would rather forget.

  She waited a second and dug deep to find a smile before taking one final step and pushing on the wide double fire door with its brass edged porthole glass window. Immediately, she was engulfed by the smell of fresh bread, baking in the oven. She never tired of the warm scent; it cocooned her in a blanket of well-being and was evocative of full tummies, log fires, cosy rooms and all that was homely.r />
  ‘Good morning, Guy.’

  ‘Is it? I’m not so sure!’ He slammed his clipboard with its checklist on the stainless steel counter top.

  This was entirely expected; Guy lived his life with his fingers, tense against his flustered, plucked brow and a sigh hovering in his throat. Whippet thin and groomed to within an inch of his perma-tan, Guy lived off caffeine and on his nerves.

  ‘What’s up?’ Pru refrained from adding, now. Guy was undoubtedly a worrier, a panicker and a drama queen, but all that was forgiven when she considered his insistence on the inflexible standards both in and out of the kitchen. His attention to detail and design ideas kept them at the forefront of global cake design. He was the jewel in her crown, an analogy that he particularly loved.

  ‘I specifically ordered extra lemons for our dessert du jour, lemon posset with almond crusted shortbread, and they have sent me my standard order. These people drive me crazy! Are they trying to ruin my day? How can I deliver what I promise with this?’ He poked at a large net of sorry-looking yellow fruit and turned down his mouth as though he had been presented with road kill rather than inadequate waxed citrus.

  ‘I expect they haven’t set out to ruin your day intentionally, they probably just forgot or got muddled, you know how it is when an order deviates from the norm, it often gets confused somewhere along the line. We could always send someone up to the supermarket to grab you some more lemons?’

  Guy placed his hands on his hips, ‘well, I suppose we will have to.’

  Pru as ever, noted the slight flicker of disappointment that crossed his face when a solution was easily and quickly found.

  ‘Also, Guy, can we get someone to fix the bottom stair that comes down from the café. It’s got a creak.’ She gave a small cough.

  ‘Oh, Pru! You and your creaks! I could have a man here every day, fixing one creak or another. This building is over two hundred years old, it’s going to creak!’ He raised his hands up to the sky with flattened palms.

  ‘And as I’ve said before, I don’t mind if a man or a woman for that matter, has to come every day or indeed, every hour of every day and I don’t care it what it costs. I can’t have the stairs making that noise. Any of them, at any time, I can’t. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ He shrugged, before muttering something inaudible in his native French.

  ‘How’s the window display coming along?’ Pru knew she could easily distract him and if she were being honest was keen to change the subject. In between the double-fronted café and the front door that lead to their apartments, sat a tall bow window, emblazoned with the Plum Patisserie logo, the window was all that was left of the Victorian pharmacy that had been knocked through and subsumed into their current corner premises. The space behind it was a little over five foot in depth and with no particular purpose other than decoration; it was the ideal space in which Guy could showcase the latest Plum creations. The little gallery had become one of the most photographed spots in Mayfair. This pleased Pru no end, whether for a magazine or as one of a tourists haul of snaps, the fact that her logo and cakes of such breath-taking magnitude were being ogled, meant great advertising.

  He clapped his hands under his chin, instantly diverted from his lemon crisis, and lack of empathy when it came to stair repair, ‘Oh, Pru, oh my! It is beyond exquisite, its divine. No, its beyond divine, it’s epic, it’s… words fail me.’ Guy placed his middle three fingers over his pursed lips and blinked away tears that threatened.

  ‘That good huh?’

  He slowly nodded, unable to fully articulate. ‘Mais oui and more!’ He was quite breathless.

  Pru smiled, she was used to this, each of his creations was always similarly lauded and the funny thing was, it was always entirely justified.

  ‘I can’t wait to see it. Any luck with the new trainee?’

  ‘Don’t. Even. Go. There!’ He held up a palm in front of her face. ‘Every single person they have sent has been completely useless. I have the same conversation with the agency after every sorry interview. I tell them repeatedly, I don’t need bakers! Bakers are ten a penny, no offence intended, Pru,’

  ‘None taken.’ She was a baker and proud.

  ‘But I don’t need a baker, I need an artiste! Someone who has the eye, the touch and the imagination, someone who can turn sugar paste into pure fantasy, someone who can make the dreams of others into reality! Is it too much to ask?’ For the second time in as many minutes he looked close to tears.

  Pru stared at him in silence, fishing for a suitable response and wondering if this was the job description he had given the agency, before giving up and abandoning the topic altogether. ‘I’m nipping out this morning. Bobby has a dress fitting in Spitalfields, but Milly is around if you need anything.’

  ‘Oh, a dress fitting? How exciting! I saw the lovely couple yesterday afternoon, strolling hand in hand like love’s young dream. Oh my goodness, so beautiful together! Can you imagine what les enfants will look like? They are a couple that heaven blessed for sure.’

  ‘I know, Bobby’s a lucky girl. She certainly doesn’t take after me; she takes after her mum, Astrid. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.’

  It wasn’t a topic she normally discussed. Bobby’s mum had disappeared when she was three months old, leaving her in the care of her drug-addled boyfriend to pursue a life in India. Ironically, it probably saved her life. Astrid too was fond of the recreational drugs that formed the backdrop to Alfie’s life, but left before he progressed to heroin and the habit that would eventually kill him. She told Alfie she needed space and enlightenment, which he thought was a bloody shame, as what their little girl needed was a mummy who wasn’t over six thousand miles away needing space and enlightenment.

  ‘Oh Pru, she most certainly does take after you. You are beautiful inside and out. I can see you now,’ he raised he hand as if shielding his eyes, ‘you could model for denture cream or stair lifts!’

  Pru threw a napkin at him and turned on her heel, smiling as she did so.

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  Forbidden love in 1960s London has heart-wrenching consequences. The next powerful page-turner in Amanda Prowse’s No Greater Love sequence.

  Prologue

  I often think about the day we got married, replaying the best bits in my head. I picture us laughing as we walked to the pub afterwards and the way he held my hand, tightly, possessively, stepping slightly ahead as if leading me. I was happy to follow. It felt safe and comforting. The bloke that owned the local café drove past in his van and shouted out of the window, ‘Oi oi! It’s Mr and Mrs!’ It was the first time we’d been called that and we exploded with giggles. I thought I looked very average – dreadful, really. It wasn’t like I had the posh frock and all the trimmings. But when I look at the pictures now, of the younger me, I can see that I looked far from dreadful. I was glowing, as if my joy shone out of me; no fancy dress could match that.

  Later that night I climbed into the rickety bed alongside my husband. The gas heater hissed, doing its best to take the chill off the damp room. My face ached from all the laughing and the permanent grin I’d worn. We were both tired. I was about to drop off. My eyelids were drooping and I was really, really comfy, when suddenly he flicked on the lamp and sat up. I opened my eyes, wondering what was wrong, thinking that maybe those seven pints of Guinness and the kebab on the way home had finally caught up with him.

  He lay back down and turned over, positioning himself on his side, with this head propped up on his elbow. And then he said, ‘I love you so much. I want to give you the moon with a bloody big bow tied around it. My wife! I’ve got a wife and not just any wife but the best bloody wife in the whole wide world!’

  I laughed as flames of happiness flickered inside me.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you want and, one way or another, I’ll get it for you.’ He reached out and knotted his free ha
nd with mine.

  I remember looking at the bumps of our knuckles side by side, with our little wedding bands sitting next to each other, shiny and new. ‘I don’t want anything, only you,’ I whispered, which was the truth.

  He shook his head. ‘Nah, that’s not the answer, girl. If you could have anything, and everything was possible, what would you want?’ His expression was bright, hopeful and child-like.

  I lay back and closed my eyes, trying to picture a world for us where I could have anything, and everything was possible. ‘Well…’ I swallowed. ‘I’d like two kids, a boy and a girl, who are happy and secure. I want them to be like us, but smarter and cuter.’

  ‘Well that wouldn’t be too difficult!’ He laughed.

  I didn’t open my eyes; I stayed in that world that he’d created for me. ‘And I’d like a swimming pool shaped like a kidney—’

  ‘Why like a kidney?’ he interrupted again.

  ‘Because, apparently, rectangular pools are the cheapest design, but a kidney takes some doing, with all them curves. Costs more. So everyone would know how much dosh we’ve got, just by its shape.’

  ‘Gotcha. What else?’ He moved closer. I could feel his minty breath against my face.

  ‘I’d like a diamond ring. Not just any old diamond, mind, but one the size of an ice cube. And I’d show it to everyone from school and on the estate who has ever laughed at me or made me feel like I was nothing.’ I felt his lips graze my neck and a shiver of joy travelled down my spine. ‘And I want to lie on a tropical beach and feel the soft powdery sand slip through my fingers and the hot sun on my face.’ This was the wish of a girl who had rarely left the postcode of her childhood.

  ‘So, not Southend?’ He kissed me again.