Christmas at the Little Village Bakery

by Tilly Tennant

  ‘Do you think it’s a bit late to take him out?’

  ‘If I wrap him up he should be fine.’

  The idea of waking up, just one morning, and not having a screaming baby drowning out the radio in the kitchen as she worked was an appealing one. Darcie didn’t think for a moment that Millie would say yes to Jasmine, but she hoped she would. ‘Shall I go and ask her?’

  There was a loud giggle from the kitchens, followed by a second crash, another giggle and then silence. Jasmine raised her eyebrows at Darcie. ‘Maybe not just yet, eh?’

  Darcie knotted her hands together and wished she could stop listening. It was obvious that Millie’s recent sleep and Dylan’s inebriated state had stirred up urges that hadn’t been at the forefront of either of their minds for quite a while. They might have been doing many things in the kitchen, but she didn’t think that making coffee was one of them.

  A few minutes later, Millie appeared with a couple of mugs, Dylan following with the rest. They were both grinning broadly, Millie looking flushed while Dylan just looked supremely pleased with himself.

  ‘We were wondering if you wanted me to take Oscar tonight,’ Jasmine said as Millie placed a mug of coffee on the small table next to her. ‘I thought it might do you good to have a night off and I have an empty house so it would be no bother.’

  ‘Oh, that’s lovely of you,’ Millie began, ‘but I don’t know…’

  ‘I think that’s a great idea,’ Dylan said. Millie glared at him, but he just gave her a soppy smile.

  ‘Come on, Mill. We haven’t had a full night’s sleep for ages and you must be as knackered as I am. I bet Darcie would like a night of lovely peaceful sleep too, wouldn’t you, Darcie?’

  ‘Um…’ Darcie glanced from Dylan to Millie and back again. She knew what she wanted, but she had no idea whether she was really being asked for her opinion or not.

  ‘I’ve raised three of my own,’ Jasmine said gently, ‘so I’m sure I can manage little Oscar for one night. You need a rest, even if you say you don’t. You were practically asleep as soon as I walked in and took him from you this evening, so I know it’s a lie if you tell me you’re fine.’

  ‘I’ve had a sleep now so I’ll probably be awake half the night anyway.’

  ‘Are you mental?’ Dylan said, taking Millie by the shoulders. ‘Let her take him! For the love of God, please let her take him for one night! I’m knackered and I would do anything for one night that doesn’t involve being puked on by a very angry tiny person.’

  ‘He’s our baby!’

  ‘Yes, and I love him more than life itself, but I need some sleep! You need some sleep… Darcie needs some sleep… Jasmine, not so much.’

  Jasmine chuckled. ‘I think you’re outvoted, Millie. You need to accept that you can’t do it all alone and I want to help. I am his aunty, after all.’

  Millie glanced at Rich, who was now snoring softly in the chair. ‘What about him?’

  ‘We could leave him in that chair and he wouldn’t wake up until Christmas Eve,’ Jasmine said wryly. ‘But he’ll sober up a bit once we get some coffee inside him and I’ll take him out of your way.’

  Millie bit her nails and gazed at Oscar, who was now peacefully sleeping in Jasmine’s arms. ‘Ok,’ she sighed. ‘I’m going to be a nervous wreck, but let’s try it for one night.’

  Darcie cleared her throat.

  ‘What is it?’ Millie asked.

  Darcie hesitated. ‘I wondered if it would help Jasmine if I went to her house with her to look after Oscar. I mean, I know a bit about what he likes and doesn’t – not more than you, obviously, Millie – but I’ve seen what helps to calm him down and I might be more useful there than here. And you can have the place to yourselves.’

  ‘The reason I am going to say no is that you’re as knackered as us,’ Dylan said. ‘And I think you should take advantage of a few undisturbed hours of sleep too. We’ll be getting up early enough as it is to start work, and if you really want to help then your assistance here in the morning would probably be more useful. Jasmine has this, don’t you, Jas?’

  His sister nodded. ‘Absolutely. It’s really kind of you but I can cope. In fact, I’ll enjoy it.’

  Darcie gave a small smile. ‘If you’re sure,’ she said.

  ‘Perfectly,’ Jasmine replied. ‘So if someone could pack a bag for this little fella, I’ll get out of your hair and let you all get some sleep.’

  The alarm clock still went off too early, despite the unbroken sleep. Darcie opened one eye. It was dark and silent outside, and it felt like the middle of the night. It was the middle of the night for most people. The bedroom was cold too. She hit the snooze button and nuzzled into her pillow. As she dozed, she could hear the sounds of Millie and Dylan getting up – the tap being run in the bathroom, whispering and light footsteps along the hallway. It still didn’t persuade her to open her eyes. Just ten more minutes…

  Darcie turned over and looked at the clock.

  ‘Shit!’ she cried, bolting up in bed. How had this happened? A snooze of ten minutes had turned into an hour. Millie and Dylan would be rushed off their feet, already behind schedule because she hadn’t been up to help them. She dreaded to think what sort of stress was going on down in the kitchens.

  Swinging herself out of bed, she pushed her slippers on and ran for the bathroom. In a matter of minutes, she had brushed her teeth, thrown some jeans on and dragged a comb through her hair, and was heading out to the kitchens.

  The radio was on. The radio was on really loud. Darcie frowned as she heard giggling. She stopped at the doorway. Dylan was twirling Millie around to some old sixties song while the worktops lay covered in flour, blobs of butter and mixed fruit. The kitchens were often messy as they worked, but this was carnage. Millie had flour all over her backside, in her hair, white handprints all over her breasts, while Dylan had smudges of jam on his face. Darcie could tell that they’d put something in to bake by the smell coming from the ovens, but they certainly weren’t baking anything right now and they didn’t look stressed about her absence either. By the looks of things, Dylan had been busy putting another bun in Millie’s oven rather than anything less metaphorical and more useful. They hadn’t been missing her help at all because they were barely working themselves.

  ‘This looks sanitary,’ Darcie said coldly. But then her face burned as she realised how it sounded and she instantly regretted the comment.

  They spun around to face her.

  ‘Good morning!’ Millie beamed, appearing not to have noticed Darcie’s sarcasm. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Yes,’ Darcie said briskly. ‘I’m sorry I got up late – I’ll start now.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Dylan said. ‘In fact, sit down. We’ve got everything under control, so we thought we’d let you sleep in today. In fact, I’m going to make pancakes for you.’

  ‘Pancakes? But—’

  ‘No arguing. Bottom on chair, right now!’

  Darcie began a reply, but then sighed and did as she was asked, pulling a high stool from beneath a worktop to sit. Damn it, why did he have to be so nice? This was torture, and every time she found a reason not to be attracted to him, he went and undid it. And then she was forced to watch him love Millie, who was lovely too and who didn’t deserve the traitorous thoughts harboured by her cousin. Darcie imagined that if the moment ever came and Dylan ever lapsed back into his old ways – which Ruth Evans had been only too happy to inform her of one quiet Wednesday afternoon in the café shortly after Oscar was born – she would find the resolve to refuse him, if only because she cared for Millie so dearly. But she couldn’t be certain of that, and it was something that tore her up inside, because she wasn’t that sort of person and she never wanted to be. Morals for her had always been as simple as right and wrong, and there was no question of the line ever being crossed. But things had become so complicated these days she no longer knew who she was or what she believed. If this was love, she didn’t want it.

  D
ylan pulled Millie close and planted a kiss on her lips, and then he patted her bottom as she pirouetted away from him to check the ovens. ‘Right then,’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘Pancakes à la Smith…’ Whistling loudly along to the radio, he pulled out an old stoneware basin from beneath the units and began to measure in some flour, then adding the egg, milk and water before whisking vigorously. As he worked, he kept looking up at Darcie and smiling. He looked like a little boy doing his first grown-up chore and begging for his mummy’s approval, and the whole effect was so ridiculously adorable that Darcie didn’t know whether to throw herself into his arms or run away crying. This was too painful and she didn’t know how much more she could take.

  ‘I need some air,’ she said, leaping down from the stool. Dylan looked up from the bowl, and then glanced out at the dark sky beyond the kitchen windows.

  ‘You’re going outside?’ he asked, looking confused.

  ‘Just for a minute.’

  ‘But it’ll be freezing out there!’

  ‘I’ll wrap up,’ Darcie called as she ran for the doorway.

  Not a light was on in a single window of Honeybourne, and not a sound could be heard out on the streets; it felt as if the whole world had fallen under the same curse as Sleeping Beauty. Darcie blew into her hands as she walked down the lane, not really sure where she was going or why, but only certain that she had to get away and clear her head. The orange glow of the streetlamps was haloed in the frosty air as the stars, more than she had ever seen in the light-polluted skies of Millrise, winked down at her, vast swathes of glittering dust. At least nobody was up and about yet to witness her distress, because she was quite sure that it showed as much as she felt it. People always told her she wore her heart on her sleeve, but she’d never seen that quality as a liability… At least, not until now.

  She’d barely gone two streets when she heard her name being called, and the pad of soft-soled footsteps on the pavement behind her. She let out a sound that was half strangled cry, half angry growl. Of course Dylan would come out after her. Wasn’t it just like him to be worried? And even if it hadn’t been his doing Millie would have sent him out anyway.

  ‘I know there’s not much in the way of real tough crime around here,’ he said as he caught up, ‘but sometimes I think some of the garden gnomes look a bit sinister, so I’d avoid being out alone in the dark if I were you.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ Darcie said, hoping her terse response would be enough of a hint to leave her alone.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. I just wanted some air.’

  He was silent for a moment, keeping pace, his trainers slapping on the icy channel of tarmac where the previous snows had been cleared from the pavement. ‘Millie’s worried you might be homesick and you daren’t tell us that you want to go back to Millrise.’

  ‘She mentioned that to me. I told her I’m ok.’

  ‘You don’t seem it… If you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘I don’t mind, but you’re wrong. I’m just… tired, that’s all.’

  ‘So you don’t want to leave?’

  God, she didn’t want to leave. And yet she needed to leave, for the sake of her sanity and before she did something unforgivable, something she would never be able to fix, something that might tear his world apart and hers into the bargain. There was no answer she could give to his question, so she didn’t say anything at all.

  ‘It’s almost Christmas,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So… do you want to go home for Christmas? The weather forecast says more snow but if you wanted me to drive you there I’m sure Millie could manage—’

  ‘Please, it’s ok. I don’t want you to drive me and Millie couldn’t manage.’

  ‘Ok,’ he said slowly. ‘Maybe you want to see how it goes for the next few days? We’ll close the bakery for a couple of days over Christmas, and you might feel better and more positive after the rest. If you still feel this way when we reopen, then I’ll take you home. How does that sound? And you needn’t worry about letting Millie and me down, we’re just grateful that you’ve been here for us so far. Nobody would blame you one bit.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Darcie said.

  ‘So, are you coming back inside?’

  She halted on the path and turned to him. ‘Do you mind if I don’t just yet?’

  His look was one of exasperation. ‘It’s five-thirty in the morning! I know I just said we don’t have much crime around here but I’d be happier if you didn’t walk the streets in the dark like this.’

  ‘Five minutes. I promise I’ll be back in and ready for work. I just want to have five minutes alone.’

  ‘You can be alone in the bakery.’

  ‘No, I can’t,’ she snapped. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added. ‘That was uncalled for.’

  He waved away the apology. ‘Don’t worry about it. We all have our moments when we’re not quite ourselves, I know that.’

  ‘Please…’

  He let out a sigh, glancing up and down the deserted road, clearly torn. Finally, he relented. ‘If you’re not back in half an hour, I will send out a search party, and it will be the scarier half of the bakery’s management.’

  Darcie gave him a small smile. ‘Half an hour.’

  He nodded and then turned to walk back the way they had come. Darcie watched him retreat until he was swallowed by the darkness. She took a lungful of frosty air and made a decision. She’d see Christmas out and then she’d go back to Millrise.

  Chapter 4

  Spencer sat at his kitchen table, staring out at the gloomy sky and waiting for dawn to break. His was a smaller, quieter drama, but it troubled him as much as Darcie’s did her. It was good to finally be home, but in many ways it filled him with apprehension, and part of him couldn’t wait to take off again and leave Honeybourne and its painful memories behind. In America he could pretend that he was someone else, and his new life allowed him no time to dwell on what had gone before. Here there was no escape, and the arrival of his parents would only make it all worse.

  He cupped his hands around a coffee mug that was now only lukewarm. He didn’t really want it, but hadn’t known what else to do so early in the morning so had made it anyway. Tori was still sleeping in his bed. That was weird and alien in itself. They had separate apartments in Colorado, and although they often shared a bed, this felt different, like living together, and the feeling was compounded by the fact that they had both been too tired to make love, so had slept wrapped around one another with not a flicker of desire, like a couple who had been together for years. But that was normal, wasn’t it? It was how things were supposed to progress. Surely it was a good thing that their relationship now felt as old and solid as his home?

  Pushing himself up from the table, he went through into the living room and rummaged around in the old sideboard left to the family by his grandma. He pulled out a photo album and sat on the sofa with it.

  Most of the photos in there were over ten years old. Nowadays, photos were taken on phones, tablets and digital cameras, and they felt somehow transient, less real, stored in virtual locations that couldn’t be opened or held or touched. Even the memories themselves didn’t feel solid, like the ones in his hands now. He smiled to himself as he flicked through. There was one of him on the back of an elephant in India aged ten. One on a protest march in London with his mum when he was twelve. She loved a good protest, and had dragged him along to so many things that he could barely remember what most of them were. As a child he had had even less of an idea what they actually meant, but he had always wanted to make her happy and proud, and knew how important these things were to her, so he had always gone. But then he had started to hang around with Dylan, who scoffed at the idea. Spencer had been so desperate to maintain the link to Jasmine that he had dropped all protest activity immediately. His mum had looked sad when he’d first refused to go with her, but she accepted it with quiet dignity, which had been almost more
heart-breaking than if she’d been angry. After she went on the second and third without him, she stopped asking, though sometimes Spencer had wished that she would.

  More photos: of family weddings and christenings, birthday parties, family friends who had come and gone, of school trips and summer fêtes. There he was, standing with his arm wrapped around Jasmine at a fancy dress party, Peter Pan and Wendy, their cheeks pressed together as they hugged and laughed for the camera. He was her best friend, and he had hoped, even assumed, that in time he would become more than that. But that battle had been lost and now Rich was the man who would hold her and keep all her secrets forever.

  His mind went back to Tori, a knife of guilt in his heart, and he slammed the album shut, shoving it back into the cupboard. He loved Tori, didn’t he? He’d proposed to her, was planning a life with her… For God’s sake, she was about to meet his parents.

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  She had reached for him as daylight stole into the bedroom, and his side of the bed was cold and empty. Tori found Spencer asleep on the sofa, a blanket tucked tight under his chin. It made him look boyish and vulnerable, and even as her heart swelled, she recalled snippets of conversations they’d had in the pub the previous night. If there were old feelings to resolve, he wouldn’t hide that from her, would he? He wouldn’t let her say yes to marriage and consider moving thousands of miles to be with him if he wasn’t certain himself, surely? She was filled with a sudden, desperate need for him, the urge to be sure of his love, and she bent to kiss him. He opened his eyes and gave her a bleary smile.

  ‘What are you doing down here?’ she asked. ‘I don’t take up that much room in the bed, do I?’

  He sat up, patting the sofa for her to join him. Wrapping his arms around her he drew her close. ‘I couldn’t sleep, so I came down to get a drink, and I didn’t want to disturb you getting back into bed with my freezing cold feet, so I decided to stay down here.’