Little Beach Street Bakery

by Jenny Colgan

  Sure enough, she had him mopping when she finally noticed an awkward-looking man hovering near the doorway.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  The man, who had a rather spotty neck and slightly greasy dark hair and was wearing a suit and tie, coughed politely.

  ‘Er,’ he said. ‘I’m… I’m here about the bees?’

  For a second Polly didn’t realise what he was talking about. Then she remembered.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Hu —’

  She realised, suddenly, crossly, that just saying his name made her feel bad.

  ‘I heard you were coming,’ she said shortly. ‘Actually, let me just wash my hands – Jayden, you wash your hands too,’ she commanded quickly. ‘Just do it every fifteen minutes, in fact.’

  ‘Roger,’ said Jayden, who was humming a little song as he mopped the kitchen. At this rate the Little Beach Street Bakery was going to be gleaming.

  ‘We close up at two,’ she said to the man. ‘Can you wait till then?’

  The man nodded awkwardly, his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down. Then he went out and sat on the harbour wall, staring out to sea. Jayden and Polly could see him from the shop. It was rather peculiar.

  ‘He doesn’t look like a beekeeper,’ said Jayden.

  ‘What does a beekeeper look like?’ asked Polly, cross that she’d been thinking the same thing.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jayden. ‘Not like that. Can I have a sandwich?’

  ‘You can,’ said Polly. ‘Every day you can have a sandwich and one loaf for your mum, but no more, okay? You’re a growing boy, you’ll eat the profits.’

  Jayden nodded and tore into a cheese croissant.

  ‘I will never get tired of these,’ he said with satisfaction.

  Polly smiled. ‘I’ll show you how to make them, if you like.’

  His eyes widened.

  ‘No way!’

  ‘But eat plenty of fruit and vegetables too,’ she heard herself saying.

  At 1.45 Polly could stand it no longer. She left Jayden on his own to sell any remaining stock and tidy up. He could take the till over to Mrs Manse and she’d cash it up. She didn’t think Jayden would ever steal anything, but even if he had a mind for a bit of mischief, the mere mention of the words ‘Mrs Manse’ seemed to have a terrifying effect.

  She went back out to the man.

  ‘I’m Polly Waterford,’ she said, putting out her hand.

  ‘Er, Dave,’ he said. ‘Dave Marsden.’

  His local accent was thick and his hand was a bit sweaty. He seemed very nervous.

  ‘Hello, Dave Marsden,’ said Polly. ‘Okay, it’s a bit of a walk out to Hu — the cottage, but it’s the only way, unless you have another mode of transport?’

  Dave shrugged. ‘Naw. The bus dropped me off.’

  ‘Okay, fine. Let’s go, then.’

  She passed him a bottle of water – she’d brought two, speculating, correctly, that he wouldn’t have his own – and they set off across the causeway, along the country lanes and towards Huckle’s turn-off. Dave, in his suit, started sweating almost immediately. It was a hot day.

  ‘So,’ said Polly, after they’d walked for thirty minutes in silence. ‘How did you get into working with bees?’

  There was another silence. Polly took a sideways glance at Dave. He had gone absolutely beet red, right to the very tips of his ears.

  ‘Um,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  They had turned off the lane and were walking along the shaded track towards the little cottage in the woods.

  ‘Er,’ he said. ‘I don’t really…’ He coughed. ‘I haven’t spent much time with…’

  Polly gave him a shrewd look.

  ‘You’ve been hired to look after some bees. You know that, right?’

  Dave suddenly looked very much like he might start to cry.

  ‘Aye,’ he mumbled, staring at his shoes, which were getting covered in mud and early-fallen leaves.

  ‘I mean…’ said Polly. They were nearly at the cottage now. ‘I mean, do you actually know how to look after bees?’

  ‘I… um, I looked up some stuff on t’internet.’

  ‘You what?’ said Polly.

  Dave swallowed hard. He was sweatier than ever.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking about five years old. ‘I’m sorry. I really, really need this job. The temp agency just keep not having anything, then they asked if there was anyone with bee experience and… I don’t know what I was thinking. I was…’

  He rubbed his eyes.

  ‘My girlfriend’s pregnant,’ he said quietly. ‘I were just…’

  Polly shook her head.

  ‘Good God,’ she said. ‘What if they’d needed someone down at the tiger farm?’

  Dave looked at her in surprise that she wasn’t cross with him.

  ‘Are you going to phone the agency?’ he mumbled. ‘Because they’ll drop me for ever.’

  ‘Do you know ANYTHING about bees?’ asked Polly. She pushed open the gate.

  ‘I told you… I did read some stuff on the internet,’ said Dave. ‘But I’ve forgotten it all now.’

  ‘You have?’ said Polly. She thought back to the night she and Huckle had spent here, so comfortable with one another. So happy. He had showed her then, she supposed. Everything she needed to know, really.

  The garden, a little wilder perhaps than the last time she had been there, had, with the heavy rain from the storms, then the bright sunshine, overbloomed into full mid-July blowsiness; it was almost too much. Great big pink fuchsias and roses, their petals trailing, grew wild around tree trunks; every square of grass was littered with daisies and meadowsweet, so it was less of a lawn, more of a meadow. There was even some bougainvillaea, shocking in its bright pinks and purples, and the collection of apple and cherry trees were heavy with fruit, windfall already collecting round their roots. Polly couldn’t resist trying a cherry, but they were small and sour. Perfect for jam, she thought. Sour cherry jam on a good country roll.

  Down by the stream, the hives buzzed excitedly. Lots of the bees were nosing in and out of the flowers, their vibration humming in the air.

  Dave was no longer red. He’d gone white.

  ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Them’s big buggers, ain’t they?’

  Polly turned to face him.

  ‘You are kidding me?’ she said. ‘You’re not frightened of bees?’

  ‘Are those even bees?’ he said, gradually backing away. ‘They look more like hornets. I mean, some people die from bee stings, don’t they?’

  Polly stared him out.

  ‘We’re going to put the suits on,’ she said firmly. ‘Come on, they’re in the shed.’

  The shed was open, as she’d known it would be. You would have to be a particularly unusual and committed burglar to make it all the way to Huckle’s house.

  Dave looked at the suits hanging up and rubbed the back of his neck again.

  ‘What?’ said Polly, rather cross now.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Dave. ‘It’s just, I get really claustrophobic. I mean, I’ve got a note from my doctor and everything. I don’t… I mean, I don’t really think I could get in one of those suits.’

  ‘So when you looked up beekeeping,’ said Polly, ‘I mean, did you actually look it up, or did you look up “World of Warcraft, bee edition”?’

  Dave looked more embarrassed than ever.

  ‘I really wish I hadn’t told them I could do this,’ he said.

  ‘Not as much as I do,’ said Polly. She glanced at her watch. It would be early in the morning where Huckle was. And she didn’t really want to speak to him, not after… well. He could certainly have called her if he had something to say. And he had not.

  The cottage was giving her a terrible, indefinable ache. How much she would have loved, she admitted to herself, letting her mind stray where it shouldn’t; how much she would have loved them to leave Reuben’s beach, to come back here, with the heady scent of flowers, and
the complete and utter privacy, and squirrel themselves away, doing nothing but make love until…

  ‘So, er,’ said Dave. His spotty neck seemed worse than ever; he kept picking at it. ‘I mean, do you want to phone the temp agency?’

  Polly sighed.

  ‘When’s the baby due?’ she asked.

  ‘September,’ said Dave. His face perked up a bit. ‘It’s a little girl. Our first. We want to call her September. My mum reckons it’s silly, but we like it. Because she’s going to be born in September, you see?’

  Polly rolled her eyes.

  ‘Yes. I do see.’

  She sighed again.

  ‘Okay, so I’m NOT going to phone the agency. But you can tell them they’re just to pay you for today, okay?, and that we don’t need anything else. Then get yourself to a building site; they’re recruiting in town, doing loads of renovations.’

  This was true. House sales were picking up all over the area, and scaffolding was sprouting like mushrooms as people demanded roof conversions and open-backed indoor/outdoor kitchens.

  ‘Er huh,’ said Dave. ‘Only I’m a bit afraid of —’

  ‘Heights?’ said Polly.

  Dave nodded. Polly smiled.

  ‘Okay, okay. Do you think you can find your way back to town?’

  Dave looked doubtful.

  ‘Along the track, follow the signposts,’ said Polly patiently. ‘And good luck with the baby, okay?’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Dave wholeheartedly. ‘I mean it. Thanks so much.’

  ‘Off you go,’ said Polly severely. She watched him march away, looking around him curiously, then wiping his forehead with his suit sleeve and pulling off his tie. She shook her head, then suited up as Huckle had shown her. It hurt so much to remember them laughing together, and him trying to tickle her through the suit. Hadn’t there been something between them even then? Or had she imagined it all? Obviously, yes. She sighed. It was a physical pain.

  She went down to the hives, glad that she hadn’t brought Neil, who would not have liked it at all, and tried to remember everything Huckle had shown her. She smoked down the hives to make the bees quiet, then cleaned out the dust, added some sugar syrup in case they were hungry and scooped up some of the lovely thick combs, ready for pulling out. It didn’t take long, and it was quiet and restful in the garden with the little bubbling stream babbling away to itself, and the occasional drifting dandelion puff. And even though she knew it was unutterably pathetic, demeaning, and everything she was trying so hard to get away from in her life, she felt closer to Huckle doing it. Even though it didn’t matter now, even though he’d gone – and might never come back – a tiny bit of her could pretend. He could be in the house now, having a nap. The motorbike was still there too…

  She opened her eyes, cross with herself. This was stupid and wouldn’t get her anywhere. But at least she was keeping the bees alive.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The weeks passed, with no word from Huckle, but Polly simply carried on.

  She was impressed by how well Jayden was doing. He was brighter than he’d seemed, and so happy and relieved not to be on the boats any more he bounced into work, his leg barely troubling him, heaving flour about with ease, taking care of all the cleaning, chatting nicely to the local customers and curtly with the incomers (he hadn’t travelled very widely).

  Polly had upped her baking as a result, meaning the shop didn’t empty till three or later, which was fine because now they could both take breaks. And something else had happened too: a new restaurant – a proper restaurant, with white linen napkins and real glasses, not just bottles of Fanta – had opened up in one of the tumbledown buildings along the front. They got their fresh fish from the boats that had been hired or bought afresh with insurance money by the fishermen who were once again plying their trade along the harbourside – and their bread from Polly!

  It had been very exciting. Samantha had come into the shop one morning, introducing the son of a friend of hers from London, announcing him as the most talented young chef, who was going to put Mount Polbearne firmly on the map – Polly had not commented on this – and urging him to try Polly’s speciality breads. To Polly’s huge gratification, he had pronounced them excellent, and put in a daily order that she baked along with the rest. Samantha, very kindly, had negotiated a fee on her behalf that was substantially more than Polly had been expecting, though when she saw the prices on the menu – the restaurant was called ‘Mount’s’ – she didn’t feel guilty. Living the quiet life she’d adopted here, and working incredibly hard, she was actually starting to make some money. Mrs Manse had agreed that she should have a share of the profits, and there was absolutely no doubt they were on the rise, for both of them. Polly was able to take all her restaurant earnings and put them away for safe keeping. It wasn’t much, but it was a real start.

  She finally managed to grab lunch with Kerensa, who’d been mysteriously out of reach, only contactable occasionally on the telephone. She appeared to be in sex prison or something; whenever they spoke, she always sounded a bit breathless and half naked. They turned up at Mount’s, looking around it curiously. It had been an old bucket and spade shop that had gone bust without anyone bothering to remove the old fixtures and fittings, or pick up the post. Now it had been completely transformed; it had flagstone floors and cool white walls, white tables with little lemon trees on, and a glass frontage with a perfect view of the harbour. There was a new terrace too, where people could sit outside, but Polly and Kerensa stayed indoors, as it had been colonised by a group of very noisy people talking about Chelsea.

  Kerensa looked awesome, Polly had to admit. She was suntanned, and had put on a little bit of weight, just enough to make her pleasantly rounded rather than over-worked- out; her eyes had a dreamy, sleepy expression and her skin was flawless. Polly saw what it was. She looked happy.

  ‘Look at you,’ Polly said. ‘You’ve vanished off the face of the earth. Because you’ve got a boyfriend! Reuben is your boyfriend!’

  ‘God no,’ said Kerensa. ‘No. He’s my… er, shag toy?’

  ‘Bleargh,’ said Polly. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  Kerensa’s phone beeped with an incoming text. She glanced at it, gave an infuriatingly smug smile and put it face down.

  Polly rolled her eyes.

  ‘Mash note?’

  Kerensa took a sip of her sparkling water and changed the subject. ‘Goodness, this place is coming up in the world.’

  Their waiter was a gorgeous boy in his early twenties; Polly had no idea how he’d ended up here. He took their order solicitously, and Kerensa insisted they have a glass of Sauvignon Blanc too, whilst Polly mentally wrote off going back to work that afternoon.

  ‘So,’ she said, treading carefully. ‘What about your job?’

  Kerensa looked down at her plate.

  ‘Um,’ she said.

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘Er, well, Rubes called the office and threatened to buy the company and sack everyone in it if they didn’t let me have a leave of absence,’ mumbled Kerensa, at least having the grace to sound embarrassed.

  ‘Kerensa! Are you a kept woman? What happened to “the house I live in, I bought it”?’

  ‘I did buy it,’ protested Kerensa. ‘It was either that or he threatened to hire me as a consultant. I am going straight back. Just as soon as I’ve got this very annoying man out of my system.’

  There was a long pause. The phone beeped again, and Kerensa smiled and texted something back.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Polly. ‘This is totally a casual fling that you can take or leave.’

  ‘No, no, hang on, I’ll stop.’

  Polly rolled her eyes. ‘I think you’re in love with him.’

  ‘He’s a doof,’ said Kerensa, but fondly. ‘You know, there is something very sexy about somebody who tells you they’re going to be fantastic and then is.’

  ‘Well now,’ said Polly, pleased. ‘I’ve always liked him.’

  ‘H
ave you heard from Huckle?’

  Polly took a large gulp of the delicious freezing cold wine that had just shown up. Kerensa had told her in advance that she was paying for lunch so shut up, and they had both ordered the oysters and the whitebait, which was a lot fancier than what Polly normally liked, but she found to her surprise that she was enjoying it.

  ‘Because it was weird, wasn’t it, him shooting off like that? When’s he back?’

  Polly hadn’t told a living soul about the kiss she and Huckle had shared at the party. She was too ashamed, especially after Tarnie.

  ‘I don’t know, she said.

  She was heading down to the cottage every couple of days to collect the honey and keep an eye on things. She hadn’t told Huckle it wasn’t the temp agency doing it; he’d have felt guilty and hired someone else. Anyway, on these glorious long summer days it was actually very enjoyable to be outside: the drowsy humming, the heavy scents, and everywhere the astonishing flowers. Plus the honey was a good seller in the shop.

  Kerensa put down her glass.

  ‘Nothing happened between you two, did it?’

  Polly nodded slowly.

  ‘HURRAY! Great! I knew it! He’s a total hunk!’

  ‘Yes, and he’s gone back to the States,’ said Polly, trying to be brave.

  ‘For a bit,’ said Kerensa. ‘Probably getting his affairs in order so he can fly back and do you senseless.’

  Polly shook her head sadly.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It didn’t… it didn’t go well. It was just… it was so weird it happening at Tarnie’s wake and everything and I got a bit spooked… and he pulled back, did that funny closed-up thing again. I think… I think I totally freaked him out and now it’s all gone wrong.’

  ‘Oh don’t be ridiculous,’ said Kerensa crossly. ‘Call him and tell him you made a terrible mistake and he has to stop being a nobber and come home.’

  Polly shook her head. ‘He hasn’t called, emailed, nothing at all. He left the country. I think I have to see that as a very clear message.’

  ‘Yes, a very clear message that you’re both total idiots,’ said Kerensa.

  Polly bit her lip.