Sweet Treats

by Christine Miles

  Bryn scribbled a large asterisk in Laud Mayor’s space, then deftly turned to a clean page.

  “Don’t know about moving him on,” he said. “Gets pleasure from making life miserable.”

  “But we should be able to turn his nasty tricks on himself,” Nina said. “Fight the enemy with his own tactics, you know.”

  “I say,” Maudie said as she let Nina out into the dark street, “Bryn’s got a bit of his spark back. I haven’t seen it since Jen died.”

  Chapter 29

  c. AD 700, EUROPE: tooth cavities are filled with stone chips or pine resin – sometimes even stale bread, candle wax, or raven dung.

  Nina fell into bed. Its lumpiness didn’t bother her. She was so tired she could have slept on the floor. Her legs ached – would they ever stop aching - and her hair smelled of smoke. She brushed it away and tried to imagine Greg in Sweet Treats.

  Her imagination wouldn’t work. She was too tired. She wondered briefly about John – was he well or was he having yet another blood transfusion? Miss Clapham crept into her consciousness but she pushed her down. Thoughts of the sweet shop and the fete and the mayor and even the campground flitted through her mind, trying to edge sleep out and wakefulness in.

  Go to sleep, Nina growled. Morning will come soon enough.

  And it did. Old Tom turned up and lit the fire, and Nina was pleased to give him a batch of coconut ice that she’d cooked herself the previous day. He chopped a pile of wood and hauled water for the fire. He released a grandiose belch, and offered to clean the front windows.

  Nina looked at the windows in surprise. Perhaps they did need a wash. Was this a job Miss Clapham would have given Old Tom?

  She decided with a burst of decisiveness that it was indeed exactly the sort of job Old Tom would have been given. Hadn’t Miss Clapham said in her note that Old Tom would help her? And hadn’t he already been a fine help providing wood and water and making sure she had everything she needed?

  “The pump been okay?” he asked as he clattered out the door with the bucket.

  “Yes.”

  “Decided to keep the dog. Until Marilla returns. You’ve got enough on your plate.”

  Nina nodded. She’d forgotten about the dog. “Why did you ask about the pump?” she said.

  “Felt a bit loose yesterday,” he said. “Wanted to make sure it still worked. I’ll look at it now.”

  “Tom? Is there someone who can help me?”

  “I help you.”

  Nina nodded. “You do, and you’re great, but…”

  “You need someone to cook. Serve the customers if you’re cooking. That kind of thing.” He looked at her as though wondering he dare speak. “My Claudia helped Miss Clapham when she wasn’t helping Maudie. Which was most afternoons.”

  “Did she? Why doesn’t she help me?”

  “Waiting for you to ask,” Old Tom said with a shrug. “Didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

  “Hurt my feelings!” Nina said. “Are there any other questions I should be asking?”

  “I’ll tell Claudia she’s needed, shall I? Will this afternoon be too soon?”

  At mid-morning a tour bus rumbled to a halt and disgorged its passengers at her door. Nina looked at the fudge just beginning to boil, and the happy, expectant faces crowding into the shop. The fudge would wait; the customers wouldn’t. She took the pot from the fire, straightened her apron and hoped she hadn’t smeared chocolate on her face.

  The bus left in a cloud of exhaust nearly an hour later. Nina returned the fudge pot to the fire, and stirred the rich chocolate. She’d need more wood before the day was out. She was hot. She was hungry. She was thirsty. What she’d give to have an iced chai latte right now.

  On impulse, she took the pot off the fire, placed the fireguard in front, and locked the cash drawer. She must look ridiculous in her Victorian clothes, but surely even Miss Clapham slipped away from her shop for brief moments dressed in costume. Across the road she went, struggling to walk sedately while at the same time wanting to run from the curious stares of idle onlookers.

  Maudie stood behind the counter. “How do you do?” she said, very formally and dropping in a faint curtsey. “Would you be wanting a fine English tea on this beautiful day?”

  “No, thank you,” Nina said. “An iced chai latte with a salmon and feta panini please.”

  “I don’t believe the chai nor the panini has been discovered in this part of the world.” Maudie winked. The woman in the line behind her drummed her fingers against the plastic tray. Nina turned to smile, but the woman turned away, barely hiding the impatience in her face.

  Nina flicked her eftpos card against her nails as she stared up at the drinks menu. Halfway down the menu board on the right hand side, she saw what she looked for. Iced chai latte. She made up her mind. She could play the same game Maudie played. “Uh, I’ll have an icy cold chai latte made with the finest of cow’s milk, please,” Nina said. “Would you know how to do froth on top?”

  “Indeed. I shall shake the cow’s udder before milking her,” Maudie said. “Four dollars.”

  Nina held out her eftpos card. Maudie looked at it blankly, wrinkling her pale brow while she worked on the right words.

  “What is that device, madam?” she said. “It is money I am wanting.”

  “Oh, Maudie!” Nina said. “Do hurry. I am a modern Victorian woman!”

  “A modern Victorian woman, eh?” Maudie said, and she shrieked with laughter. Patrons at nearby tables sniggered, and openly stared at Maudie, and then at Nina. A hot blush rushed up Nina’s neck and into her cheeks.

  “Sorry,” Maudie said, but Nina didn’t think she was very sorry at all. This must be a country-woman’s sense of humour. She owed Maudie now; Maudie had better watch out.

  “I’ve had an idea,” she said.

  “Ooooh, tell.” Maudie was all interest, but Nina shook her head.

  “You’re busy,” she said, “and I want my chai.”

  Maudie’s face was all sparkle. “I am dying to know. Will I get Bryn?”

  “If you want,” Nina said. The woman beside her tipped her tray as though to make it fall to the floor.

  “Ooops,” she said, but the guilt on her face was obvious. She wanted to be served, and Nina couldn’t argue with that.

  “I’ll come back in five minutes,” Nina said, knowing that Maudie wouldn’t do a single thing while she stood waiting for her drink. “Take-away cup.” And she was gone before Maudie could say another word.

  Chapter 30

  c. AD 710, EGYPT: Arabs plant sugarcane.

  When Nina popped back to get her drink, Maudie gripped her forearm. “I’ve put two and two together,” she said, “and I know your idea.”

  Nina shook her head. “No you don’t,” she said, with a wry smile. “Adding two and two together is not going to get you anywhere near guessing my idea. And I’m not giving any clues.” And she scarpered out the door before Maudie could detain her any further.

  The chai latte had so much cinnamon sprinkled on top that Nina choked. As she struggled to regain her composure, Bryn bounded into Sweet Treats. “I’ve had an idea,” he said. “You busy?”

  It was then he saw Nina’s efforts at breathing around the cinnamon dust. “Right hand up,” he ordered. “Up! Up! Higher!”

  “How does that work?” Nina said when she could breathe again. “Does it matter which arm?”

  “Dunno to both,” Bryn said. “It’s enough that it works. What’s in that cup?”

  “My favourite drink,” Nina said. “Even if it will one day kill me.”

  *

  They strode down the beach, the three of them, having agreed at the end of the day that their heads would work better for having had a break. Mrs Potts had insisted Nina sit down and eat dinner – this time a mushy mixture of brussel sprouts and red cabbage. “Sprouts are finished,” Mrs Potts said.

  Nina bit her tongue hard. “Yay!” she wanted to shout, but it would not do to be gleeful about th
e demise of the sprout. “Shall I make dinner tomorrow?” she said instead. “I’ll make sure I’ve got everything I need. Is there any food you totally hate, or absolutely love?”

  Mrs Potts’ face reddened. She moved her hands as though trying to express without words her thoughts. “You’ll be wanting your board money back,” she finally said.

  Nina’s face clouded with confusion. “Why?”

  “Seeing as you’ll be providing a meal and all,” Mrs Potts said, garbling taking the place of the embarrassed silence.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Nina said. “Do you like feta cheese? Almonds? Stuff like that?”

  Mrs Potts snorted. “Thems the things the Mayor gets Bryn to order. Nobody eats that stuff in this village. Only His Majesty.”

  For a brief moment, Nina wondered if Mrs Potts was referring to Bryn as “his majesty”, but Mrs Potts didn’t leave her wondering.

  “Bryn is a lovely boy,” she said. “I’ve known him since he was not much bigger than a grasshopper. Laud Mayor intends to force Bryn to close Staceys.”

  “How?”

  “By telling him to order in fancy goods, and then not buying them. No one else will buy them in these parts. We’re bread and potatoes people, not feta and almonds. And when he does buy from Bryn’s shop, he puts it all ‘in the book’ claiming he will pay for it later. Well, later is a long time away, because he hasn’t paid for a single thing that he has taken from Bryn since he became Mayor. Three years ago,” she added.

  “Then we’d better help Bryn,” Nina said. “If you’ll eat feta and almonds, I’ll prepare a meal using them tomorrow.”

  Mrs Potts shrugged. She dropped the dirty plates into the sink of tepid water and gave a cursory swipe with the dishcloth. Nina dried the dishes in silence, putting them away in their places and thinking about nothing at all. As she hung the towel on the oven door, Mrs Potts shuffled into the living room. Under her breath, so low that Nina only just heard her, she said, “Posh one we’ve got here. Feta indeed!”

  *

  “Nina can tell us her idea first.” Maudie was full of enthusiasm as she walked between Bryn and Nina along the beach. They had admired the stars and gasped at the chill of the water. For an inescapable moment, Nina had remembered Greg and his enthusiasm for the sea. “He’d swim in the sea even in the dead of winter,” she said, and when Bryn looked over Maudie’s head at her, as though to ask who she spoke of, she’d lowered her own head and been grateful for the night’s darkness. It was enough that she suffer; the rest of the world didn’t need to – couldn’t, in fact – suffer with her.

  “Bryn can go first,” Nina said. Her idea seemed rather silly and insignificant now that she’d had a few hours to think on it. Perhaps she would share her idea after Bryn had shared his. Perhaps she would not.

  “Got to thinking about our businesses,” Bryn said. “Which are both Miss Clapham’s businesses. Made me think about Miss Clapham and Laud Mayor, together-like. Reminded me of a story when I was a kid.”

  Miss Clapham owns Staceys? And Sweet Treats? Who owned the café? Who owned the fish and chip shop, and all the other closed-down businesses? It couldn’t, surely, be an entire village owned by Miss Clapham?

  “You listening?” Bryn said.

  “My mind wandered,” Nina said, apologetically. She’d hear Bryn out, but she really must find out about this shop ownership thing.

  “So there you have it,” Bryn said. “Do you think there’s a link between them now?”

  “Put mind into gear.” Nina berated herself. She didn’t have the first clue what Bryn had said, nor did she have the first clue about the possibility of a link. In fact, now that she looked from Maudie’s hopeful face to Bryn’s questioning face, she wondered if she had any clue about anything at all in her entire life.

  Her mother had a way of getting the facts of a conversation without listening to the entire spiel. “What link do you think you’ve got?” she said.

  “Dunno,” Bryn said, and for a brief moment Nina thought he had read her mind and knew she was trying to gain information she should have heard in the first place. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

  Maudie came to the rescue. “If you remember right,” she said, “Mum’s story about going with Miss Clapham and Mrs Potts’ on their trip to the big city might mean a lot to the situation now. If we put two and two together, we might get five.” She looked doubtful.

  “Is that what you want to get?” Nina said. “Five?”

  “It’s a manner of speaking,” Maudie said.

  Not getting it, Nina thought. Not getting it at all.

  “What’s your idea?” Bryn said.

  “Oh, it’s nothing really,” Nina said, hurrying on in the hopes that quickest said, soonest forgotten. “Just that if we heap coals of fire on Laud Mayor’s head, we might achieve more than we would if we go all out trying to make him back down.”

  “Coals?” Maudie’s mouth hung open. “Will they be burning?”

  “Burning’s good,” Nina said. “I’m not talking about real coal,” she added.

  “Have you heard of fake coal?” Maudie asked Bryn.

  Bryn ignored the question. “You might like to explain,” he said.

  “Well, if we go out of our way to make Laud Mayor feel that we honour and respect him, and that he’s a welcome sight in the village, perhaps he will feel incredibly bad about what he’s doing and stop doing it.”

  “Weird,” Bryn said.

  “Would never work,” Maudie said. “He’d put two and two together…”

  “Oh, leave two and two out of it,” Bryn snapped, and Maudie instantly shut up. “Too late for two and two, and too late for heaping coals.”

  “I said it wasn’t a good idea,” Nina said. “What are we going to do with your idea?”

  “Ask some people,” Maudie said. “See if anyone knows anything more about that trip to the big city.”

  “And Mrs Potts is the obvious person to ask,” Nina said. “Who will do it?”

  “You live with her,” Bryn said. “You ask her, over breakfast or something.”

  But, Nina wanted to say, if you were a fly on the wall at Mrs Potts’ you wouldn’t think us capable of speaking of anything deeper than the next meal. And you’d have seen how Mrs Potts stomps around the kitchen, and how she refuses to have a conversation if she can’t be bothered.

  “You’d get a better response,” Nina said. “She thinks the sun shines out of you.”

  “You live there,” Bryn said. “Not enough time for me to swing past. You do it.”

  “She’ll talk to you.”

  “She’ll talk to anyone.” Bryn was stubborn. Hadn’t he ever experienced the silence of Mrs Potts’ tongue? “She’ll loosen up if you talk about art.”

  The three walked in silence for several minutes, then Bryn spoke again. “Seems to me,” he said, “that if there is any pre-village link between at least Laud Mayor and Miss Clapham, it came about as a result of that trip with my mother. I wonder if he has still has an interest in art.”

  Art? There were clusters of pictures down the hallway, in her bedroom, on the kitchen wall well away from the grease splatters of the stove… Mrs Potts had pictures all over the place. “But what does a bunch of pictures collected by a couple of friends have to do with the Mayor?” Nina said.

  “It wasn’t a couple of friends,” Maudie said. “It was a school leaving trip to an art exhibition. They got on a bus together, headed off to the big city, and came back with a subscription to an art magazine, a couple of pictures each, and a bit more tension than was normally there.”

  “Going back to my mother’s story,” Bryn said, “about the newspaper article which Mum believed featured Mrs Potts, Miss Clapham, and Nigel Laud from ‘way back.”

  “Along with artwork?”

  “I don’t remember. That’s what we’ve got to find out.” They walked past the spot where Nina had sculpted young Greg. The tide had washed him well and truly away. She paused, looking out
to sea.

  “Someone’s out there, watching out for you.”

  “God.” Nina gazed into the distance.

  “No,” Bryn said. “The one you lost.”

  “The one I lost is not watching for me. The one I lost is buried in the grave.”

  “Whatever.” She felt his shrug rather than saw it. “You’ll gain more comfort from knowing he’s a perfect angel.”