by Sue Watson
‘Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry,’ I sighed, putting my arm around her. She was dressed in one of her ridiculous Doris Day pinafores but looked like a lost little girl.
‘I’m okay, Sam, really. I had become quite used to him being around – but I’ll be fine,’ she smiled a wistful smile. ‘He says he’s looking for a beach. I hope he finds it.’
‘Will you be okay?’ I asked.
‘Of course. It will be a relief to be single. I spent last Christmas imagining Simon in flagrante with the woman from the wine warehouse. How random was that? Mrs J never saw that in my tea leaves.’
I laughed, a little uneasily. Now I was privy to some of the school conversations, I’d heard that Simon had been quite the ladies’ man.
‘And this year was going to be the same,’ she sighed. ‘Simon’s strange behaviour was worrying me even more than the white fur and crystal table-scape. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there were the hushed phone calls, even more late nights at the office. Phaedra said it was an affair, ‘text book,’ she’d said. Anouska insisted it wasn’t, but what would she know? She’d been in denial for months about her own husband, until she found him face down in Angela Huntington-Whitely. But Simon’s behaviour hadn’t been about another woman - it had been all about money,’ she said, sipping her tea.
I hoped she was right.
‘I don’t miss Simon, but I do miss hosting parties, especially this time of year. I loved planning the table, the decor, feeding people, making them happy, choosing the music – it’s just so much fun... it’s Christmas to me. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Yeah it’s your thing, and you do it so well, it’s a shame you can’t do it this year, perhaps by next year?’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘I doubt it, love, I don’t even have my own place to live!’
‘Mi casa es su casa,’ I said, squeezing her arm. We were working side by side in the kitchen and I was high on the scent of cinnamon and vanilla.
Tamsin was missing the limelight, she loved being the centre of attention, the ‘go-to’ girl for everyone’s needs, and everyone’s good time.
‘Tonight would have been my Christmas soiree,’ she sighed. ‘I so loved that – dressing the house, choosing the canapés, the people...’
‘Only you could use phrases like “dressing the house, and choosing the people”,’ I giggled.
‘Yeah... she never put out knives and forks like everyone else, she always had to have a “table landscape”,’ came Mrs J’s voice from the stairs.
Tamsin and I looked at each other. ‘Mrs J... I didn’t even know you were here,’ Tamsin laughed.
‘I think she lives under the stairs and just pops out every now and then,’ I whispered. ‘She’s been here for days, just waiting for something to comment on.’ We both giggled.
‘We’ll make the best of it this year – together.’ I put my arm around her and she rested her head on my shoulder.
‘What? You’re not doing that sworry thing you do every year?’ Mrs J appeared, hands on hips.
‘Hardly – we can’t afford to do it, Mrs J. Besides, you may have noticed, I lost my venue two weeks ago to bailiffs.’
‘What about the 500 canapés and bottles of champagne you told me to order in October?’
‘You didn’t, did you?’
‘Yes I always do what I’m told. “Oooh Mrs J, I will die without my Christmas Moet... it’s a matter of life and death that you order well in advance, I can’t have lady Titterton-Arse, or whatever her name is, getting in first”.’ This was all said in an over-the-top (but scarily accurate) impersonation of Tamsin.
‘So you ordered...?’
‘Yes.’
‘And we can’t...?’
‘Cancel. No. But it’s paid for, so you might as well have it... 150 bottles of champers and 500 canapés. You’ll be able to take a bath in all that drink and you’ll still be eating smoked salmon in April,’ she laughed, and shaking her head at the sheer madness, continued to dust vigorously, adding as a caveat. ‘You lot? You make me die laffin.’
‘Shit, shit, shit.’
‘You hate that word and you just said it three times,’ I pointed out.
‘Well, needs must. I have 500 canapés, 150 bottles of the finest champagne, no guests and no venue. And nobody else is laughing, Mrs J,’ she called into the dusting, chortling abyss. ‘Oh shit again, I just remembered Jesus is coming tomorrow. He’s flying in from New York. Do you mind if he sleeps on your living room floor, Sam?’
I smiled, there were already about five people sleeping on the floor – what difference would one more make? Jacob and I could always go to Richard’s now things were more concrete between us. He was living in a flat too – but it was Tamsin-free and as it had two bedrooms Jacob and I had spent a couple of nights there already.
‘If Jesus is coming, he’ll drink all that champagne and scoff the canapés, there will be no waste,’ I laughed.’
‘‘You must want to kick yerself,’ Mrs J said, wandering back in with a bucket. I was never quite sure what she did, but she seemed to have lots of cleaning accessories about her person at all times, day or night, and as I’d inherited her from Tamsin, I never questioned it.
People had always been surprised at Mrs J speaking to Tamsin like she was a teenager, but now I knew more about Tamsin’s childhood, our family dynamic, I wondered if perhaps my sister liked having her around. It was clear that in their own way they had an affection for each other. Despite the personal comments and spiky retorts from Mrs J, Tamsin often hugged her or spontaneously kissed her cheek. Mrs J always pretended to brush her off, but you could tell she liked it.
‘Yes, I could kick myself, but I’m already a little bruised, Mrs J. I’m about to take delivery of a champagne lake and a canapé mountain – and I have no guests. So, if you don’t mind, I won’t kick myself until next week,’ Tamsin snapped.
‘Well, I don’t know what you’ve got to moan about – you’ve got ovens and fridges... you might as well have your Christmas “do” here.’
With that, she filled her bucket with water from the tap and headed back upstairs. Tamsin and I looked at each other.
‘You know, Mrs J might just have something. Who says a soiree has to be in one’s home? We have a ready-made “white Christmas” here and all it would take is a little tweaking, an hour of Heddon and Hall and...’ Tamsin started. I could see she already had it planned out on the whiteboard in her head.
‘You mean we could have your party here... in the shop?’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m sorry Tamsin... this isn’t a “why not?” moment. It’s more of a “why?” moment. We’re only just being resurrected from the fire, we have no money, no guests and we are so busy we may have to bring people in off the street to help us make up orders. Oh, and it’s less than a week before Christmas. Do I need to go on?’
She shook her head slowly. She wasn’t listening and I knew why – she was going to host her Christmas soiree in The Angel Bakery regardless.
‘This is the answer we’ve been looking for, the icing on the Christmas cake if you will. We’ll invite everyone, the whole community and their kids and the local press and make it a very special Re-opening for Christmas party.'
I didn’t burst her balloon. She was so excited, Tamsin was back doing what she loved best, planning parties and interiors and almost delirious with happiness and purpose.
‘A party would be great for the bakery! I reckon we can make enough money from that one day to pay several months’ rent AND the van,’ she said. Think of it as PR for the business, a showcase of our fabulous baked goods and a message to the world that The White Angel Bakery is back in business.
Now I felt more like listening.
‘And it won’t just be about that day, that week – or this Christmas. We are a small business, we can offer the friendliness and one-to-one service the supermarkets and bigger shops can’t.’
Tamsin’s idea was that our customers would f
all in love with the bakery as much as we had. It looked magical and now all we had to do was make sure the customers wanted to come back again and again. She said we had to make friends with our customers and what better way of doing that than throwing them (and their kids) a Christmas party?
I couldn’t argue with that, even though I did feel like dropping with exhaustion at the thought of the mountain of work we had ahead of us.
‘I can see it all now – we won’t make this some stuffy, adult only soirée,’ she was saying. ‘It will be a family Christmas party, a community event, everyone welcome.’
I didn’t want to be a wet blanket, but I did point out that thanks to her ‘fabulous’ sales we had lots of orders to fulfil too.
But she told me in her Hermione voice to ‘chill, sister.’
I never thought I’d see the day when she was telling me, the laid-back, easy-going sister, to ‘chill’.
32
Swiss Peaks, Edible Pearls and Ravishing Queens
Tamsin
On the day before the party, Heddon and Hall arrived just as we were closing the bakery after a long day. ‘We are here – your very own ravishing queens – we’re going to do you up, darling, and add some extra Christmas style and sparkle for the tomorrow’s re-opening,’ Hall declared.
It was going to be a huge event and Sam had a million cupcakes to bake so we pushed everyone available into the kitchen to work on the edible stuff. Sam was kneading dough, Hugo beating eggs and Hermione it seemed had inherited my talent for colour and style and was creating some amazing designs with icing. Even Jacob joined in, building his own gingerbread house from the leftover gingerbread.
Sam seemed to get some of her energy back but I was concerned because she still seemed pale and had to keep sitting down. Despite feeling poorly she made several hundred cakes including my personal favourite - red velvet cupcakes with a dash of coconut liqueur and a topping of glittering Swiss peaks. We put all the large Christmas cakes in the window; they were all iced in white, some with Christmas roses, some with edible pearls, but all with sparkles.
Jacob and I went outside to see how they looked as Sam repositioned them under our direction. When we finally gave her the thumbs up through the window she ran outside to see the finished effect.
Standing on the pavement together, we all gazed at the pyramids of glittery cupcakes, the big frosty Christmas cakes, and the sparkly snowflake cookies. The lights were on inside and though the window was glacial there was a warm glow emanating from the bakery.
‘It looks like Richard’s painting,’ Sam said. I nodded in agreement, she was right, it was just as he’d imagined it – polished and sparkly, all ready for Christmas.
It was late afternoon and quite dark, the glow from the bakery shone on Sam and Jacob’s faces and as we stood together gazing in, I could see the red glass heart hanging from the tree. ‘We brought the White Angel back to life,’ I sighed, and the window glittered with light and hope and cakes – and in the middle of the winter white landscape the little heart glistened like a scarlet secret.
33
Snowy Cupcakes and Shimmering Cookies
Sam
The final Saturday before Christmas was our party day, and Tamsin turned up in white angel wings, as did Heddon and Hall, who always jumped at the chance to wear fairy wings. There was great excitement and anticipation – this was our last chance to make enough money to keep the bakery open beyond Christmas. We needed rent, money for raw ingredients and still we had to pay for the van repairs, and now Gabe had gone it was even more vital.
The day was also about giving the bakery and us a secure future beyond next month’s bill. It needed planning and strategy, something I didn’t do; I concentrated on cake flavours and designs, the colours I’d use, the scones I’d serve in the tiny cafe. I’d never really considered a business or marketing plan. And this is where my sister came in, with her great talent for planning, selling and PR.
Tamsin had called up some ‘contacts’ from her charity events, which resulted in a front page picture in the Wilmslow Advertiser and a slot on local radio and TV. Of course she loved the media attention, posing in what was left of her designer dresses, draping herself across the bakery counter and talking ‘celebrity customers,’ of which we had none – but I didn’t let on to the press. As she said, we needed to ‘ramp up the PR’. My sister knew about these things – and I knew about cake.
The day of the party was not like Tamsin’s usual project-managed soirees. It was more happy cake chaos. The reindeer was moved to a special, central spot under the glistening chandeliers and was a real pull. People were out in the square and children were dragging their mums in to see ‘the white Rudolph’, who then bought cakes from the bakery and were invited by Tamsin to make those last minute Christmas orders. ‘Why struggle round the supermarket on Christmas Eve?’ she was saying. ‘We can have your freshly made bread packed up in bags with your Christmas cupcakes and cookies – a one-stop shop.’
Just walking into the bakery was like wandering into a winter wonderland of glitter and sugar – everyone gasped and smiled and was seduced by the sparkle. The counter was stacked with glittery sugar icicles, pyramids of snowy cupcakes, sparkly macarons and shimmering cookies. White chocolate and meringue frosting whirled around in peaks, creating the perfect snowy mountain topping, and something inside me sparkled to life.
Hugo and I served customers while Tamsin and Hermione offered champagne and canapés, all to the Christmassy soundtrack of ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘Frosty the Snowman’ and all the others in between.
Around midday I caught sight of Richard and Ella arriving into the madness and mayhem. I was desperate to see him and I left the counter rushing to him, my arms open. He seemed surprised at my show of affection, and so was I – but I couldn’t help myself.
I ran back behind the counter, and within minutes, Tamsin had put Richard to work. Hugo and I were serving customers and Richard was asked to take over from Hermione, who started on a fresh batch of bread in the kitchen with Jacob and Ella’s ‘help’.
Looking out from behind the counter, Michael Bublé’s Christmas album bubbling away in the background, my heart felt like it was stuffed with tinsel. ‘Isn’t it just gorgeous?’ I said to Mrs J, who was serving with me and doing her usual running commentary.
‘Lovely! About time you two sorted yourselves out... I thought last week her ladyship was headin to the funny farm!’
I smiled. Mrs J wasn’t known for her sensitivity, but as a former member of ‘the funny farm’ myself I had to smile.
‘She’s been the talk of the place with Gabe. I told her he only wanted her for one thing... and she gave it to him by all accounts...’
‘I did, and I bloody loved it, Mrs J,’ Tamsin said. Mrs J was deaf and always louder than she needed to be.
I smiled to myself thinking about how Tamsin had changed, and how her husband, the bakery and Gabe had all played their parts. And though Gabe had gone to find his beach, he’d left quite an impression on her, throwing her designer shoes in the snow and bringing passion and caring back into her life at a time when she was lost.
Along with the everyday struggles we had with money, van repairs, kids, hormones and lovers, Tamsin and I were finally enjoying being sisters again and sharing our stories. Some days I’ll admit that closeness made me feel like I was drowning. Living and working with my sister was claustrophobic and irritating to the point where I felt I couldn’t breathe. I loved her so much, but there were moments I could cheerfully have pushed her face in a gallon of cake batter. Then, other days – most days – we’d laugh with each other, at each other and the rest of the world. We’d talk about our husbands, our lovers, the past, the present and what we both hoped our futures would be.
‘I always thought the future would be Simon and I in one of our homes abroad,’ Tamsin said. ‘But life had other plans for me.’
I agreed. I’d always thought I’d be a teacher, but losing Steve made me re-evaluate
my life and when this bakery came up for rent I just knew I had to take the risk. It took me a little longer to take a risk with a guy again though,’ I smiled. I’d always thought I’d be married to Steve, have baby Jacob, one day followed by another baby... but that particular scenario wasn’t meant to be. There was a new scenario being nurtured now – a new future for all of us just waiting to be grasped.
Both Tam and I had gone to hell and back to be where we were and it may not have been the paths we’d chosen – fate chose them for us – but we were making the most of the journey.
‘Losing my home and my husband has definitely had a silver lining,’ Tamsin had said. ‘I feel wanted, needed again – I used to fill the holes in my life with shopping and Chardonnay – and I haven’t been shopping for almost three weeks now. And I haven’t had a glass of Chardonnay since, well okay – yesterday – but it is Christmas.
Baby steps, I thought.
34
The Delicious Sound of Reindeer Hooves
Tamsin
This is what I loved, the challenge of creating something from nothing, and the fact this would be great publicity for the business added an extra frisson for me. Heddon and Hall set up an awning and tables at the front of the shop and made it look like a cross between a fairy tale and a Victorian bazaar. They’d dismissed all talk of payment, asking only to be allowed to wear various fancy dress (fairy wings and full make-up) and permission to ride the reindeer. How could I refuse?
The party was planned meticulously down to the very date – there’d be time for guests to order for Christmas and the local press and TV could get the story out in time. I used all my friends shamelessly. I recruited Jesus to be the official photographer and momentarily forgetting his Portuguese accent, promised to ‘shoot the arse off it’, so we could send out press releases after the event too and put the photos on our new website. Mimi’s husband, the football manager, donated two tickets for the following Saturday’s game and a signed ball by a footballer with strong thighs and a Latin name. Jacob also had a signed ball waiting for him on Christmas Day and even I was excited about him opening that gift – even though I hadn’t a clue who the delicious, and apparently very famous footballer was.
