The Captain and the Baker

by Catherine Curzon

  “This is shortcrust,” Locryn said, for the benefit of the audience. “There’re two golden rules that my grandmother taught me. Be gentle, be quick, and you won’t go far wrong.”

  Jake didn’t often cook alongside other chefs for entertainment. He was more used to roasting them on television as they fumbled and panicked. In his restaurant kitchens it was different, of course, but nurturing and training didn’t make good telly. This was more like those celebrated kitchens where people learned from each other, driven not by the terror of another sweary outburst, but the shared aim of producing fantastic, fresh food.

  “You don’t like to linger when it comes to pastry, Loc?” Jake sprinkled a pinch of pepper over the contents of his bowl, then stirred.

  “Pastry’s an instinct,” Locryn replied. “It’s like walking—better if you don’t stop to think about how it works whilst you’re doing it!”

  Jake chopped an onion at lightning speed and while he did, he went on talking. “So, Loc, did you train as a pastry chef? How does that all work?”

  “I trained as a barrister—” Locryn faltered, then asked, “Actually, do you mind if that bit doesn’t go in? I’d rather it didn’t if it’s not a terrible trouble.”

  The director looked to Jake for a reply, telling him, “We can snip it if you like. Jake?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine, we’ll edit that bit.” A barrister? Jake’d had no idea. “So you were born with the knack?”

  Serenity restored after his unexpected if rather less than scandalous revelation, Locryn replied, “When I was a little boy, my grandparents lived in an old smugglers’ cottage, and for a lad like me, it was like going back in time. I played in the tunnels and built dens in the caves under the cottage, cozy by my campfire with a pasty fresh out of Gran’s oven. To me, she was magical, conjuring the tastiest things from the simplest ingredients, and she taught me too. Almost everything I know about baking, I know because of her, and she gave me a passion for it that’s never gone away.”

  “That’s great! Now, I’ve been in Locryn’s kitchen”—and I stripped off to my shorts—”and you’ve got a lovely Aga. Is that your grandma’s original oven, then?”

  “It is.” He nodded, rolling out the pastry. “And the bakehouse where I work has a mixture of modern and traditional equipment, because I love having the choice. Baking’s really such a huge part of my life, it’s one thing that’s been constant for as long as I can remember, and there a comfort in it.”

  “Therapeutic, right?” Not something that shouty, sweary Jake would ever have said, but still. Balls to Fionn! “So, kneading bread, you can get a lot of rage out doing that?”

  Locryn paused, thoughtful again. “I think you could possibly avoid the rage in the first place by having a good old knead. There’s a lot to be said for it, kneading away your cares.”

  “Does pastry have the same effect?” Jake leaned against the table, admiring Locryn’s light touch as he worked. There was a dusting of flour on his forearms and hands, an expression of contentment on his face. It was quintessentially him.

  “I just love baking.” He smiled. “I love making bread and pastry and cakes and I love the care that goes into a mille-feuille or the rustic finish of a gorgeous loaf. And to see people enjoy it is the cherry on top really.”

  “Yes! I love cooking for same reasons. Creating something from—what’s this? An onion, bit of potato.” Jake beamed at Locryn. “When someone enjoys something I’ve cooked, it’s great.”

  And when they all think my pastry’s crap, it’s not so fucking great.

  “And cooking is collaboration in a lot of ways, isn’t it?” Locryn stood aside to allow Jake to spoon the mixture onto the pastry. “I learned to cook from my gran and I’ve been able to teach other people what she taught me, but I’m always learning, there’s always something new to discover.”

  Jake tried not to press himself against Locryn, but they were standing so near to each other that it was inevitable. And very pleasant. And in front of a crowd, but surely people would only assume that they were used to dashing about in busy bakehouses and kitchens where everyone always fell over one another.

  “There we are, your pastry’s stuffed!” Jake had to stop himself from kissing the patch of flour on Locryn’s cheek. “Do you want to crimp, Loc?”

  “I think that honor should be yours,” Locryn suggested. “Or we could finish it together?”

  “Go on, then!”

  The crowd craned their necks, moving just a little nearer as Jake’s and Locryn’s hands met on the pastry. Zoe looked to her mother and said a little too loudly, “Awww,” her face set in an affectionate smile. Jake was acutely aware of how close Locryn was now, how their fingers were working so nimbly together and how this was going to be the pasty that would knock the socks off the Porthavelans. Together he and Locryn could do anything.

  One camera had come in close, pointing straight at their hands, the other was a little farther back, on their faces. And finally. The folding and crimping was done.

  “Into the oven it goes!”

  “Forty-five minutes until the moment of truth,” Locryn said as he put the pasty onto a baking sheet and passed it to Jake to go into the oven alongside his earlier effort, which he could already see was far from golden brown and perfect.

  He put the sheet in and closed the door as the director called, “Cut! That’s going to make a lovely bit. Twitter’s going to love it.”

  “Great!” Jake slipped his arm around Locryn’s waist. It was only when he heard another awwww from the audience that he realized what he’d done in front of the crowd. But he didn’t flinch. Nor did Locryn, who put his arm around Jake’s waist in turn, earning them a third awwww that turned into something like a whoop from some of the crowd when Locryn planted a soft peck on Jake’s cheek.

  Jake grinned at him.

  You really did just do that!

  So Jake touched his fingertip to Locryn’s jaw and brushed his lips over Locryn’s.

  “Come to the café later?” Locryn suggested. “We can have a cuppa and look over the wedding menu with Zoe?”

  “Yeah, okay! On camera?”

  “Come to the café!” Zoe agreed as she approached over the sand, David’s hand held in hers. She glanced back over her shoulder to where Merryn was chatting to a group of women and dropped her voice to ask, “Can I have a quick word? I don’t want Mum to hear.”

  Locryn peered toward Merryn and said with a smile, “What’s up?”

  “Since you two look like you don’t any help getting together,” she whispered, “what’re we going to do to get them together?”

  “Merryn and Petroc?” Jake glanced at Locryn. Thank goodness they weren’t the only people who thought they should be together. “Well, we had some thoughts.”

  “So did we.” She tugged at David’s hand, bringing him forward. “We’ve tried everything, but Petroc’s too shy!”

  “He changes the subject every time we drop a hint. It’s obvious Merryn likes him, and he likes her, but—” David shrugged. “Don’t know what to do now.”

  Locryn brushed his hands together, dusting the flour from his palms as he promised, “You leave it with us. I’ve got a pasty plan hatching.” Then he turned to the milling audience and told them, “To celebrate kissing a chef on Porthavel beach and since we’re waiting for the pasties to cook, I’m giving away gingerbread mermaids at the café for the next twenty minutes, but only if you put a donation in the lifeboat fund. Merryn, would you mind shepherding people in an orderly fashion?”

  “Of course!” Merryn, stepping over the sand in her silver trainers, guided everyone back toward the path. “This way, everyone, for Locryn’s gingerbread!”

  “See you back here for the big pasty moment!” Locryn called, waving them off. Then he turned his attention back to his companions and said, “I think I have a plan and I’m not sure if it’ll work, but it’s one that Petroc won’t be able to run out on.”

  “Are you going to train Me
rryn up as a mechanic so she can help Dad fiddle with his car?” David laughed. “She might break a nail!”

  “I hope fiddle with his car isn’t a euphemism, young man,” Jake joked. “But it should be!”

  But Locryn shook his head. “No. Jake and me are going to do some tasting menus and serve them in the café after closing. We’ll invite you two, of course, and Petroc and Merryn, and we’ll have some nice wines as well that we think might go well on the wedding day.” He took Jake’s hand and squeezed it. “The cameras will roll, we’ll all sit around eating and chatting until you and the crew get called away to do some bits to another camera and Jake and I have to pop into the kitchen to get the next selection ready. I know it’s not exactly romantic, but it’ll mean that Petroc and Merryn have to actually stay in one place, alone, and talk. It’s a start, isn’t it?”

  David nodded keenly. “Yes! I like that, Dad won’t shift, and if there’s wine about, nor will Merryn!”

  “Obviously this’ll only work if my new boyfriend’s willing to spend the next couple of days chained to the kitchen.” He turned his gaze on Jake. “What do you say?”

  “There’s few places I’d rather be,” Jake replied, and kissed him.

  “We’ll leave you to it,” Zoe told them with a wink, ushering her fiancé back. Only when they were a good few feet away and heading for the café did Locryn break the kiss.

  “Fancy a walk along the beach?”

  “Go on, then. I haven’t had the chance for a stroll down here yet. Other than when I wandered down in the storm!” Jake took Locryn’s hand. “Can I see your house from here?”

  Locryn nodded, extending his arm to point along the beach. “Just before the headland, sheltered by the cliffs. Do you see it? The goats are all on the lawn.”

  And so they were, tiny white pinpricks against the bright green slope of grass. The cottage was idyllic and needed only a curl of smoke to rise from one of its chimneys to perfect the view.

  “You have such a lovely home,” Jake said.

  “What about that view? The cliffs, the ocean.” He sighed as they strolled on. “What’s Jake’s view? Do you look out over the Thames?”

  “Almost,” Jake replied. “I’ve lived there for ages. I could afford somewhere in a much nicer spot now but I never have the time to get round to moving.”

  “Do you love it though?” Locryn’s voice was enthusiastic, but Jake already knew that it wasn’t the place for a man like Locryn. “It must be exciting to be in the thick of it.”

  “Can’t say I notice, really. I seem to spend most of my time trying to block it out!” Jake swung their joined hands back and forth. “It’s handy to have loads of stuff on my doorstep, but you’ve got the sea on yours.”

  “And goats.” Locryn smiled, kicking his feet in the sand. “And two fat donkeys.”

  Jake laughed, his eye on the cottage as if he half-wondered it would disappear like a daydream. “It’s a perfect place for a baker like you, but I can’t see a barrister living there. How did—I had no idea.” Then Jake’s words halted in his throat. Would Locryn want to talk about something he’d never mentioned before and wanted to have edited from the show?

  “There’s no great story, no skeletons in the cupboard,” Locryn assured him. “Dad’s a barrister, his dad was a barrister, blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t…it wasn’t me. I ran away back to the Aga, left a trail of unfinished exams in my wake. Tell me about you instead. I want to know what amazing place you trained at, which stellar culinary school turned you out!”

  Jake scrubbed his hand back through his hair. Locryn had clearly been at some fancy university somewhere and Jake’s experience had been very different. “Erm…it was a technical college! And before that, my parents’ kitchen. After college, I got a pot-washer job at a restaurant and the head chef said I had potential, and that’s it really.”

  “So where did the Routemaster come into it?”

  “Dad was a bus driver, and his dad before him. It’s how I ended up in the burger van outside the bus station. Dad put in a good word for me.” Jake sniffed the air, and for a moment the tang of salt and the vegetable scent of the seaweed vanished under the remembered smell of greasy fare. “All day Saturday, I used to work there. And I haven’t eaten a burger since!”

  Locryn turned to face him as he asked, “I bet you were happy though? You must’ve been to buy a bus!”

  “Dad used to take me out on the bus when I was little.” Jake grinned as he remembered being Little Jake, wearing a bus driver’s hat that was too big for him. “Mum worked at the hairdresser’s and they were busy on Saturdays, so he’d buy me a packet of sweets and a comic, and I’d sit there going round and round London on his route. I loved it!”

  “That’s the sort of memory a chap should have!” Locryn put his arm around Jake’s waist as it occurred to Jake that Locryn’s parents didn’t seem to figure much in his memories. Life with his grandparents was all romance and intrigue. His parents were blah. “Will you take me for a sightseeing trip on the Routemaster? A proper London bus with a proper Londoner.”

  “Yes! And I’ll even get you a Dip Dab and a Beano. How’s that sound?” Jake laughed. “Neither of us have ended up as our parents thought we would, eh? Dad thought I should be a bus driver too but when he found me putting mashed potato in one of Mum’s icing bags, he said, You want to be a chef!”

  “And I bet they’re proud as anything, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah! Dad can’t wait until the bus is ready to bring down! And your—” Jake stopped himself. Something had happened in Locryn’s family and he wasn’t sure if he should ask him about it. It was better, surely, if Locryn volunteered it. He could already picture a blustery, ambitious barrister father spluttering at the thought of his son having more fun in a kitchen than a courtroom.

  Above them a flock of seagulls squawked and circled, waiting for the next round of pasties, but Locryn’s attention was all on Jake. “When he brings the bus, I’d love to do him an afternoon tea. Your mum too, if she’d be tempted?”

  “They’d love it! And Mum says she’s coming down on the train. She never got into buses!”

  “I hope they’ll think I’m suitable for their son,” he teased. “I’ll polish my shoes and fasten a couple more buttons.”

  “They’re going to love you!” Jake said. “I’m hoping the bus’ll be on the road in time for the wedding, but I don’t think we’ll be able to drive it down to the harbor!”

  Locryn cocked his head to one side, a breeze ruffling his hair again. “The wedding’s only a week or so before Christmas. It’ll be magical.” He lifted Jake’s hand and kissed it. “Is Porthavel working its magic on you? Have you felt better since you arrived?”

  Jake paused and, swinging Locryn’s hand, gazed out to sea. He closed his eyes and breathed in a lungful of briny air, then he opened his eyes again and nodded.

  “Yeah. Porthavel’s working its magic. And you are, too.”

  “And Cornwall’s not so far from London.” Locryn kissed Jake’s hand again. “I really like you a lot, Jake. You’re like a breath of gorgeous fresh air.”

  “Sweary fresh air?” Jake joked, trying to distract himself from dwelling on Locryn’s words. Because Jake would have to go back to London, and— “No, it’s not far at all. At. All.” He gave Locryn’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “Five minutes!” The director’s voice rang across the sands toward them, sending the seagulls into a circle again. “Then we’re back!”

  Jake called up at the seagulls who were circling overhead. “You better love this version, you noisy bastards!”

  “Darling, if our joint pasties are better that your solo effort, I don’t mind if you cut me altogether and just say that you made them. It’s your show, after all.”

  “I’m not going to lie to the viewers and claim responsibility for your amazing pastry!” Jake bounced up and down, the wet sand squelching under his trainers. “Come on, I can’t wait to taste it!”

  As they
headed back, the crowd was gathering once more. Word had clearly spread around the village because the audience was even bigger now, and a good number of them were still munching on the gingerbread Locryn had so generously made a gift of. It might be off season but it was still Saturday and whether it was the pasties or gossip about the kiss, the moment of culinary truth was suddenly the hottest ticket in Cornwall.

  A runner intercepted them to check their radio microphones, then Jake and Locryn were behind the fold-up table again. It had apparently sunk an inch or two since Jake had last seen it. But he didn’t care. The smell coming from the oven was divine.

  “Let’s hope it tastes as good as it smells!” Jake said.

  “Are we doing your solo first or cutting straight to the one you did with Locryn?” the director asked. “Yours aren’t looking great!”

  “Yeah, thanks a fucking lot, I know mine are shit.” Jake picked up a tea towel and prepared to open the oven. “Let’s cut straight to the Brantham-Trevorrow co-production.”

  “Not exactly shit,” was the verdict of the smiling director as he strode away toward the camera. “Just a bit sad!”

  To Locryn, Jake whispered, “Knowing you’ve got nice, firm buttocks, there shouldn’t be a soggy bottom on these!”

  The cameraman, whose headphones were connected to the radio microphones, looked rather surprised to hear that, and Jake chuckled.

  “Well, you are the expert in—” Locryn glanced toward the cameraman, then bashfully mouthed the word bottoms.

  “Especially yours!” Jake gave Locryn’s bottom an appreciative squeeze. His reward was a kiss to his cheek as the assembled audience gave a saucy cheer and the runners did their best to make the table look halfway decent as the coastal winds blew across the beach.

  “Ready when you are, Jake,” called the director. “Action!”

  “It smells bloody good,” Jake said, his hand ready on the oven door. “Join me in a countdown, Loc? Starting from three.”