Sweet Treats

by Christine Miles

  Bryn wasted no energy on niceties. “Do you have one of these?” he said.

  Maudie squinted at the paper, then gasped. “I do,” she said. “It was about cake.”

  “And was there any mention of anyone else in the letter?”

  “Miss Clapham,” Maudie said. “I couldn’t figure out what Miss Clapham had to do with cake. Two and two and all,” she said. “It just didn’t add up.”

  Nina looked at Bryn and Bryn looked at Nina. They smiled at each other, and Maudie, intercepting the look, asked, “What? What are you two smiling at?”

  “You.” Nina could never stand it when people had a conversation behind their hands about her, so she decided to be honest with Maudie. “We’re laughing about you and your two and twos. It wouldn’t matter how many times you tried to understand your letter, you never would. Just like we’re never going to understand the letters he sent to Bryn, and Mrs Potts, and Miss Clapham.”

  “You’ve all got letters?” Relief flooded Maudie’s face. “I thought it was just me. I thought I must have done something dreadfully bad. I thought I must deserve his cruel words.”

  “No one deserves what he’s done,” Bryn said. “You can stop thinking you might be on your way to jail.”

  “Jail!” Maudie screeched, and Nina kicked Bryn beneath the table. “Is he likely to put me in jail?”

  “Of course not,” Bryn said. “I was exaggerating. Forget about the jail.”

  Maudie looked from Nina to Bryn and back to Nina again. “Should I be worried?”

  “No.” Nina rose to leave. “For now it’s enough to know that we’ve all got dreadful letters. I’m going back to work.”

  Bryn nearly ran out of the shop, with Nina close on his heels. “You idiot,” she said, laughing. “You know Maudie takes everything literally.”

  Bryn pushed open the door to Sweet Treats, and followed Nina into the shop. She turned on him, still laughing, promising that when it was all over she’d get him back on Maudie’s behalf.

  He couldn’t help himself. She was so beautiful, laughing up at him, her eyes sparkling beneath her bonnet. He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it.

  “What are you doing in here?” she said. “You’ve got to go back to Staceys. There’s work to be done.”

  “Ah, there’s not a soul besides His Majesty in town,” he said, feeling like he had when he was fourteen.

  “But you have nails to count and expiry dates to check,” Nina said. “Plenty of work to do.”

  “Come over this evening.” Bryn nodded as he spoke. “I’ll make dinner. Bring Mrs Potts with you. Maudie makes mean dumplings, and I fancy a lemon meringue pie.”

  “You’re on,” Nina said. “I’ll bring cauliflower cheesecake.”

  Bryn looked at her, horrified. “You’ll what?”

  “Cauliflower cheesecake,” Nina said. “I’ve developed a liking for it.”

  “You will not,” Bryn said. “Lemon meringue pie is enough.”

  “Jokes!” Nina shouted after him. “Lemon meringue sounds great.”

  Chapter 70

  c. AD 1721, JAPAN: Shogun bans luxuries, including candy, to save money.

  “Before we go to Bryn’s, there’s something you need to know,” Mrs Potts said. “May I show you something? It’s in your room.”

  Mrs Potts went directly to the bottom drawer in the chest of drawers. She pulled it out, and flipped through its contents. “It’s here somewhere,” she said. “I know it is.”

  “Are you talking about this?” Nina held out the crumpled paper.

  Mrs Potts took the letter, smoothed it out again, read it through from start to finish, then tucked it beneath her watch strap along with the hanky. She hadn’t asked why Nina already had it. A guilty lump filled Nina’s throat.

  “I heard you fossicking in the drawer,” Mrs Potts said. “The drawer has a little squeak when it is pushed in.”

  Little squeak indeed, Nina thought. She hadn’t even noticed it. Mrs Potts and her hearing was something else!

  “The link between me and Miss Clapham and Laud Mayor is not a pleasant one. Marilla and I were once best friends. Certain life circumstances tested our friendship and it is to my shame that I tell you that I treated her badly at a time when she needed a good friend more than anything else in the whole wide world.” Mrs Potts heaved a sigh that would have blown over a vase of flowers if there had been one in sight. “Laud Mayor wooed us both. I wanted him because my father said I was nothing without a man. Miss Clapham wanted him – well, Miss Clapham did actually love him. I discovered a weak side to him, a bullying side. Instead of warning Marilla, I watched with a certain glee as he attempted to make her successes his own. In the end, neither of us wanted him, yet we chose to fight our battles alone.”

  They walked in silence towards Bryn’s home, Mrs Potts carrying a pot of beetroot tea, and Nina carrying a loaf of soda bread which she’d cooked in the camp oven nestled among the dying coals in Sweet Treats.

  Mrs Potts, when she spoke again, was so quiet Nina strained to hear her. “Marilla is not stupid. She wanted to break with him, I found out, at the same time as I was making a distance. He didn’t care about our relationship dying a miserable death but he did care about the loss of Marilla’s success story.

  “He hit her, and he took money from her, and he defamed her, and in the end the only thing she could do was run. Marilla and I were flung together and run we did, all the way back here.”

  “Back here.”

  “Oh yes,” Mrs Potts said. “We met Laud when we were at university, studying Classical Art. I don’t know what we’d have done if he’d been here.”

  “How long did it take him to find you?”

  “Years,” Mrs Potts said, “but it feels like days. Perhaps months. It’s amazing how time disappears when a bad dream catches up with you.”

  Nina nodded. She knew about bad dreams, although she doubted her nightmares were on a par with Mrs Potts’.

  “Anyway, I’ve told you enough,” Mrs Potts said abruptly. “Here. You take the teapot. I’m going home.”

  “But Bryn invited you for dinner too.”

  “I’ve lost my appetite,” Mrs Potts said. “Go on, don’t worry about me.”

  She pressed the teapot into Nina’s arms, turned back towards home. “Don’t spill the tea,” she said. “It’s a fine brew.”

  Nina watched as Mrs Potts shuffled away. A movement caught the corner of her eye but when she looked, she could see nothing. Perhaps it was the cat. Perhaps a possum. Her heart pumped a little faster, but she told herself she was being ridiculous. A twig crackled, its sound coming from the same direction as the maybe-movement. Nina didn’t pause to wonder what was in the bushes. She fled along the road to Bryn’s.

  “What on earth is the matter?” Bryn said when she fell in the door.

  Nina pushed the teapot into his hands. “Beetroot tea,” she gasped. “From Mrs Potts.”

  *

  Miss Clapham had a funny feeling. She had a penchant for funny feelings and she had learned to trust her funny feelings. Instincts, she supposed they were. The funny feeling was strong enough that she decided it was time to go home. It was late, but her car was well-fuelled and it would only take three hours to get to her own bed. She wondered if Nina slept in her bed; she rather hoped not, but it would not have been unreasonable for her to move into Sweet Treats, bags and all.

  *

  Mrs Potts had heard the movement in the bushes. Her heart, too, thumped a little fast, a little erratically. Someone was there. Perhaps it was an animal, but an animal would not have gone suddenly silent. She walked a little quicker, a little afraid but sure that the screwdriver in her bag would be weapon enough to protect her. She was glad she’d thought to replace the screwdriver with a new one from Staceys.

  She rummaged in her bag as she walked. For all his faults, her father had taught her a little self-defence. “If you can’t knock him down,” he’d said, “at least injure him enough that so
meone will see the wound. And if you can get a bit of DNA under your nails, all the better.” She never needed to defend herself; she tried to convince herself she would not need to now.

  Perhaps she should have continued on her way with Nina. There was safety in numbers. She looked back along the road, but saw no one. It would be better for her to return home, lock all the doors, and pull the curtains tight shut. She’d get the telephone reconnected in the morning. It was ridiculous to cut oneself off so entirely from the rest of the world.

  Don’t panic, she said to herself. No one’s following you. It’s just a cat.

  Chapter 71

  c. AD 1784, ENGLAND: “lolly” for tongue, and “pop” for noise combine to form the word lollipop, hard candies without a stick.

  Maudie dug the spoon into her dessert. Bryn always piled the pudding plate high. Tonight the pie was nearly invisible beneath a pile of ice cream and crowned with a healthy dollop of whipped cream. She figured if she ate with a teaspoon that she’d be less likely to get through the entire bowl but somehow it never worked like that. She looked at Bryn, her worries creased into her eyebrows.

  Behind Bryn, outside the house, close to the window but not close enough, Maudie saw the face.

  Bile rose in her throat. “Bryn,” she said. “Close the curtains.”

  “There’s nobody to look in,” Bryn said. “Not a neighbour in sight.”

  The blood had drained from her face. “Just shut the curtains, alright?” she said, and Bryn, his own heart racing because of Maudie’s fear, rose and shut the curtains, all of them, and deadlocked the door.

  Nina, who had not seen the face, found herself clenching her teeth. Had she been followed? Who was it?

  “Better now?” he said, his voice surprisingly calm. “Feel safe?”

  Maudie nodded, but her teeth chattered. “You can’t send Nina home in the dark,” she said. “There’s someone out there.”

  *

  They set out a board game, one which Nina had seen another child playing in hospital and had thought would be fun to learn, but there was no concentration to be had. Their desserts lay unfinished on the coffee table. Maudie and Nina clutched a hot drink to their chests, the heat warming their hands and providing a little comfort in their fear. Bryn regathered the game pieces.

  “It looked like Laud Mayor out there.” Maudie’s voice shook. “How did he know we were all here?”

  Bryn shrugged. “He probably didn’t know,” he said. “Seems a long way from home for him, though.”

  “He might have followed me,” Nina said. “There was a sound in the bushes when I was nearly here.”

  “You’re definitely not walking home tonight then. There’s a spare bed in Maudie’s room.” He raised an eyebrow at Maudie. “You don’t mind?”

  It would be relief to not have to go out in the dark. “Mrs Potts!” Sudden realisation swept over her. “I heard the crack just after we parted. She shouldn’t be alone. He’s stalking her for sure. I’ve got to go back to her.” She was on her feet and at the door before her words were spoken.

  “I’m coming too,” Bryn said. “Come on, Maudie.”

  “I’ll wait here,” Maudie said, her voice trembling. “He might try to get in here.”

  “You’re right. We’ll be back.”

  “Soon,” Maudie said. “As soon as possible.”

  “Don’t be afraid of him,” Nina said. “He’s a bully, and a bully will always be weaker than a strong woman.”

  “But I’m not strong,” Maudie whispered. “Look at me, shaking like I’ve just run a marathon.”

  “You are strong. You are woman. Remember that.” And they were gone before Maudie could argue.

  Chapter 72

  c. AD 1847, ENGLAND: Tom Smith tucks sugar-coated almonds and love notes inside coloured tissues, making the first Christmas crackers.

  Laud Mayor knew when his number was up. He had two full months of his term as mayor to run but it may as well be over now. The voting public had no confidence in him. This stupid little village would not be cowed. Miss Clapham and Mrs Potts – he refused to call them by their first names, it would break down his defences – had once been his friends. He had destroyed their friendship. He would leave, just as soon as he got those prints off the wall.

  One of them was an original, he knew it. They’d been denying it ever since their university days, but he knew for a fact that he was right and they were wrong. He’d know the moment he shone his torch on the pictures exactly which print should be his.

  Mrs Potts had scurried off like a frightened rabbit. Maudie and Nina were with Bryn. He’d slip into Sweet Treats, perhaps trash it up a bit so it looked like a burglary, and take all the pictures from the wall. He would leave Queen Victoria. Who needed a picture of the fat old duck?

  He’d have to do Mrs Potts’ house tonight too; she’d be on her guard the moment word got about that the sweet shop had been burgled. It was a pity she’d turned back from dinner with Bryn. He hoped she’d just make it easy for him, he didn’t want to hurt her.

  Sweet Treats was easy. He cracked the front door, stumbled over the cast iron rooster that Miss Clapham used to keep the door open. Cursing a little, he felt his way along the wall until he found the pictures. He snapped them off the wall, shoved them under his arm. He should have brought a bag.

  His eyes had got used to the darkness. The weights on the scales caught his attention. He picked one up, hurled it at the jars of sweets behind the counter. Picked up another one, and smashed the clock, rendering it silent. Enough damage, he said. Time to move on.

  He took one last weight and hurled it at Queen Victoria. The glass, shattering into a thousand pieces sounded like a tinkling waterfall. Better than a waterfall, he thought. It was a sound he’d enjoy hearing more often. A hole, torn through Her Majesty’s cheek twisted her face into a grimace. “I am not amused,” he snapped, “and nor should you be.”

  Now for Mrs Potts. He couldn’t wait to see the fright on her face. He tripped on the uneven concrete and dropped the pictures. He swore under his breath, scrabbling in the dark to find them again.

  Hidden behind Governor Grey, safe in the shadows of the public toilets, Bryn and Nina waited. He’d done terrible things to Sweet Treats; hadn’t they heard him? And now, without a shadow of a doubt, he was headed towards Mrs Potts.

  They had to stop him. Preferably before he got to Mrs Potts. “She will die if he turns up to mug her,” Nina said. “She’s an old woman.”

  “Shh,” Bryn said. “He’ll hear you.”

  “He mustn’t get to her.”

  “He won’t.” Bryn grabbed Nina by the hand. “Shortcut,” he said.

  Can’t be much of a shortcut, Nina thought. Mrs Potts’ house was hardly more than a five minute walk from Sweet Treats.

  It wasn’t a shortcut, but they were running while Laud Mayor walked, confident of his success.

  A car spluttered down the main street and Nina wished they had followed her usual route to and from the shop. Help would be needed, she was sure of it. “Come on,” Bryn said, slipping down the side of Mrs Potts’ house. “We’ll wait for him inside the gate.”

  “But it creaks.”

  “We’re not going over it. We’re going through the hedge.”

  “It’s a gorse hedge!”

  “A few prickles never hurt anyone.” Bryn grunted as he crawled through the hedge, flat on his stomach. “Made a bit of a path,” he said. “Scratched my eye. Be careful.”

  Some path, Nina thought. You’d never even know that Bryn had just forced his way through.

  He hunkered to the ground, close to the gate. “Can’t see anything,” Bryn said, and Nina thought he spoke of the blackness, not of his weeping, swelling eye. “It’s over to you. Let him walk through the gate, and once he’s in, whack him on the head with this.” He passed the teapot to Nina.

  “You brought the teapot?” she said. “What for?”

  “To return to Mrs Potts.”

  Mrs
Potts wouldn’t be all that glad to know her Wedgewood teapot was about to be smashed to smithereens on Laud Mayor’s head. Nina hunched on the ground beside Bryn. “Mrs Potts will kill me,” she said. “This teapot lives in her china cabinet.”

  They could hear him blundering along the street. “Can you see anything,” Nina said.

  “Not a thing from my left eye,” Bryn said. “Everything’s a bit one-sided.”

  “If he overwhelms me, then you can save the day, but right now you’re fit for nothing.”