by Karen Clarke
‘So, you have a brother?’ I might as well play along. It was either that, or hyperventilating, which I’d seen happen to Mum a couple of times when she’d tried to leave the house and had to shallow-breathe into a paper bag. ‘Younger or older than you?’
‘Older by two years. His name’s Hugo, he’s much better looking than me, and is a brilliant dad to my four-year-old nephew, Charlie.’ He swung round to the oven and pretended to peer inside, then nodded at me to carry on.
Trying not to picture a brother better looking than Nathan, I attempted to mimic Alice’s warm but plummy voice. ‘So, did you always want to work in real estate?’
‘Absolutely not.’ He exaggeratedly dusted his hands on my apron. It was too small for his frame, ending mid-thigh and straining across his chest. ‘Walsh Property Agents belongs to my brother, actually. I’m just helping out while he recovers from a badly broken leg, as well as helping around the house while his wife’s in Hong Kong on a business trip.’
‘I did not know that,’ I said. ‘What do you normally do?’ I was genuinely curious, having already decided he didn’t fit my idea of a typical property agent, based on my previous experience of buying a house with Sam.
‘Normally, I move around a lot, living off my inheritance.’ He pretended to crack eggs into the bowl, and to shake some flour on top. ‘Selling property’s a lot harder than I thought, and a hell of a lot less interesting – apart from the historical element of the buildings.’
‘You’re joking.’ I bit off a tiny laugh of surprise. ‘About the inheritance?’
‘’Fraid not.’ He gave me a steady look. ‘My brother and I inherited a lot of money from our grandparents. They raised us, after our parents died when we were kids.’
I couldn’t hide my shock. ‘That’s awful,’ I said. ‘How did they die, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Plane crash.’ Nathan picked up a bowl of chopped hazelnuts and put it down again. ‘Light aircraft, actually. My father had just got his pilot’s licence and took the plane up, despite bad weather warnings.’
‘God, I’m so sorry.’
Nathan twirled the whisk like a cowboy’s gun and pretended to holster it. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said evenly. ‘I have good memories of them, and our grandparents were great. Plenty of aunts and uncles and cousins. Not saying we wouldn’t rather have had our parents back, but there was plenty of love.’
The way he said it didn’t invite sympathy, but I knew it couldn’t have been that easy. And then to lose his grandparents…
‘My dad was killed in a car accident,’ I said, rushing on when his brow furrowed. ‘I mean, it’s not the same because I didn’t know him, except that he was called Mike, he was Irish, and met my mum at a bar in London on his brother’s stag night where they fell madly in love.’
‘Romantic.’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘He was due to marry someone else, but he came back to see Mum a few times – she was living in London with friends and working at the British Library – and he was apparently going to call things off with his girlfriend, but never made it home.’
‘That must have been really tough for your mum,’ Nathan said quietly. ‘Gone before they had a chance to be a proper couple.’
‘He might not have stuck around,’ I said, examining my nails. I kept them short and free of varnish, and wondered whether they looked too plain. ‘He’d already cheated on his fiancée.’
‘But he hadn’t met your mum when he agreed to marry her,’ said Nathan. ‘He must not have known what true love was.’
I shot him a look. ‘You’re a romantic.’ He smiled, but didn’t comment. ‘Anyway, Mum didn’t know she was pregnant with me until a couple of months later. She was back home at my grandparents’ in Plymouth by then.’ I hadn’t told this story for ages. Hadn’t needed to, because everyone close to me knew, and it was an old story anyway and one I rarely thought about. ‘Anyway, back to you, Mr Walsh. You were saying that you’re filthy rich.’
‘Not really.’ He grinned, and resumed his pretend whisking while I settled on the wooden stool Mr Moseley had sat on every morning at ten o’clock to drink his cup of brick-coloured tea. ‘Hugo used his money to invest in some property and set up the agency, and is doing really well. I… gave away a lot of mine.’ I wanted to ask who to and why, but Nathan carried on talking, while pretending to chop an apple I’d brought in case I needed a snack. ‘I kept enough cash to get myself to Asia, then moved around a lot from there. I don’t normally stay in one place for very long.’
‘No dependants, then?’
I wished I hadn’t asked, but the words were out before I could stop them.
He pushed the apple aside. ‘There was someone, but it turned out she had a partner back home, so that was that.’
There was something about the way he said it – a tightening around the mouth – that hinted at possible heartbreak. Deciding not to push it, I smoothed the skirt of my dress and, in my best Alice Denby voice, said, ‘Did you work, while you were… moving around?’
‘Of course.’ His smile returned. ‘Mostly bar work, and I wrote travel pieces for magazines and newspapers, which suited my lifestyle. I love finding new places off the beaten track. A bit like this programme, in fact.’
‘Ever thought of moving into presenting?’ The real Alice Denby stepped through the open door, followed by a burly cameraman with more beard than hair. She gave Nathan an appraising look. ‘You’d be a hit with our female audience.’
‘Sexist,’ muttered the cameraman, smiling at me.
‘Not my cup of tea.’ Nathan came out from behind the counter, peeling my apron over his head. ‘But, thanks for the compliment,’ he added graciously.
Alice turned to me with a merry twinkle in her eyes. ‘Hi, Meg. This must be your fiancé,’ she said. ‘You’re one lucky lady.’
Briefly meeting Nathan’s amused gaze, I said, ‘I’m afraid not,’ then, realising how it sounded, added, ‘Not afraid, obviously. My fiancé – he’s called Sam, I think I wrote that on the questionnaire – he couldn’t make it today, so Nathan… he, er, he’s—’
‘—overseeing the sale of the bakery, and an interested spectator,’ he broke in. ‘Nathan Walsh.’
‘And getting stuck into some baking by the look of things.’ A flirty smile lifted Alice’s sun-kissed cheeks. ‘I like a man who’s good in the kitchen, it’s the reason I married my husband.’
‘Oh, I’m terrible at baking.’ Nathan moved easily past to pluck his jacket off the back of the door. ‘I do a mean stir-fry though.’
‘Too hot for that at the moment.’ Pretending to swoon, Alice flapped the hem of the marshmallow-pink cotton top she was wearing with her white linen trousers and Roman-style sandals. Next to her, I felt overdone in my dress and open-toed wedges. I didn’t usually wear make-up while baking, but Alice had advised I put some on to avoid looking washed out, and I hoped I didn’t have lipstick on my teeth.
She came over and rested her hands on my shoulders. ‘You’re not nervous, are you?’
‘A bit,’ I admitted, wiping damp palms down my dress. ‘Quite a lot, actually.’
‘You’ll be fine, don’t worry.’ After a final reassuring squeeze, Alice wriggled onto the stool I’d just vacated, indicating to the cameraman that she was ready to start. ‘We’ve only ever had one person faint, but that was because of the heat blasting from the kiln where she fired her jugs.’
I bit my bottom lip and glanced at the heated oven, which had ramped up the temperature in the kitchen to Caribbean levels. I should have planned a no-bake cheesecake, or a summer pudding, not a complicated cake I’d only made once before. It didn’t help that the cameraman had plugged in some lighting equipment, which would make things even hotter. What if I keeled over halfway through?
‘Don’t worry, it’s just one light, and if any perspiration breaks through we’ll pause to mop it up.’ Alice had switched effortlessly into professional mode. After whipping an iPad from her outsize l
eather bag she started swiping. ‘Just getting your details up.’ She slid on a pair of cats-eye glasses, and raised neat eyebrows at Nathan lounging in the doorway, his jacket hooked over one shoulder. ‘Can we have the room, please?’
‘Of course.’ He nodded politely. ‘You’ll be great,’ he said to me, his face relaxing into a smile that made my pulse speed up. ‘Remember what I said.’
The urge to beg him to stay – or take me away – was suddenly overwhelming, but before I could speak again, he’d vanished.
Chapter Seven
‘If you just start baking like you normally would, we’ll chat as you go,’ said Alice.
‘O-OK.’ Gripping the edge of the table, I stared at my ingredients as if I’d never seen them before. Egg whites, egg whites. I was supposed to do something with them, but couldn’t for the life of me remember what.
‘And try not to look directly at the camera when you’re talking, unless I ask you to.’
‘S-sorry?’ I seemed to have developed a stutter.
‘If I say, “Could you tell the viewers at home what ingredients they’ll need to make your…”’ she glanced at her iPad, ‘“chocolate-meringue-brownie cake”, which sounds delicious by the way, then look at the lens as if talking to the people at home.’
‘Righty-ho.’ I reached too quickly for a baking tin, and sent it crashing to the floor. The blush that had been hovering finally burst through to my cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Please don’t worry, Meg, we’ll edit out stuff like that.’
‘I’ve already made the chocolate sponges.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Alice. ‘Go through the motions of making them anyway, and we’ll cut to the pre-made ones, as if you’ve just brought them out of the oven.’
As I stooped to retrieve the tin, fighting the temptation to roll beneath the counter and curl up in a ball, I muttered to myself, ‘Remember why you’re doing this.’
Determined to hold onto the thought, and to not think of all the people who would be watching later at home, I straightened to see Alice turn her beaming face to the camera.
‘So, here we are, in the kitchen of the Old Bakery at Seashell Cove, to meet our gifted guest of the week, Meg Larson.’
Gifted made it sound as if I had second sight, or could work out complicated sums in my head, not knock up a decent sponge. ‘Hi.’ I willed my smile not to wobble as knots of anxiety clustered in my stomach.
‘The Old Bakery, a feature of the village for decades, sadly closed to the public earlier this year when the owner died, but star baker Meg is hoping a buyer will come forward and allow her to keep doing the job she loved so much, as well as keep this cherished building for the purpose it was intended.’ I wanted to hug Alice for putting it so succinctly and sounding so compassionate. ‘So, Meg, this is where you bake the fabulous cakes I’ve heard so much about?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Why hadn’t I rehearsed some snappy answers? ‘In this very kitchen.’ I imagined Sam saying, Don’t give up the day job, Meggle.
‘I’ve had the pleasure of trying one of your cakes, and have to say it was the most delicious thing I’ve eaten in ages. And I eat a lot.’
She made it sound feasible, despite her slender frame.
‘That’s so kind of you.’ I pressed my hands flat on the table to still their trembling. I tried to remember Nathan’s advice but my mind felt stuffed with fluff.
‘Where did you learn to bake, Meg?’
I recognised this as her opening gambit, and froze.
‘Meg?’
‘Would it be OK to put my apron on?’ I seized it from the end of the counter, where Nathan had draped it before he left. ‘Only, I feel more like myself when I wear it. I’ve always worn one, right from when I used to help my granny in her kitchen. I suppose it reminds me of her, and puts me in the right frame of mind, and of course it’ll protect my dress, which is hand-wash only. I didn’t realise when I ordered it. It’s from Topshop.’ I was wittering, which I tended to do when nervous.
‘Of course you can.’ Alice had adopted a bedtime-story tone. ‘Whatever makes you feel comfortable, Meg.’ I yanked it over my head and fastened it securely. The red light on the camera was flashing, and I assumed that meant it was recording. ‘Go on, whenever you’re ready.’
I released a shaky breath, feeling as if dry leaves were stuck in my throat. ‘I suppose it’s like a comfort blanket, the apron, I mean.’ Tugging the mixing bowl forward, I tipped in the sugar I’d measured out earlier and felt slightly more in control. ‘My mum had a battle on her hands, trying to get it off me so she could wash it. The comfort blanket, I mean. It was pretty grubby most of the time, disgusting, actually, but – as my granny pointed out – it didn’t do me any harm. At least, I don’t think it did.’
Alice joined in when I laughed – probably out of pity. ‘So… you and your mum lived with your grandmother until you were seven years old?’
‘That’s right.’ I added the softened butter to the sugar, cracked in two eggs, and started beating the mixture. I preferred the bowl and spoon method to the food processor, finding the action soothing – as well as good for my upper arms. ‘Granny was my mother’s mum, I didn’t know my father.’ I sieved flour into the bowl and began gently folding it in. ‘I might have a set of grandparents somewhere, for all I know, but I’ve never met them. My dad was from Ireland, so they’re probably over there.’ Aware I’d just told the story to Nathan, I quickly moved on. ‘My grandmother made cakes for all her friends’ birthdays, and I used to help and I suppose it took off from there, really. We were very close,’ I concluded. ‘All of us, I mean, my mum too.’
I picked up the bowl of broken chocolate, which was already melting in the heat, and carried it to the stove. ‘It’s not like I minded not having a dad,’ I continued, as if I was still talking to Nathan. ‘I mean, they say you don’t miss what you’ve never had, and I had plenty of role models. Not my granddad, he died when I was two, but my friends had nice dads, so it didn’t matter that my mum never married, or even had a boyfriend that I knew of.’ I stirred the chocolate as it melted fully, looking awkwardly in Alice’s direction over my shoulder. ‘Not unless she sneaked them in when I was asleep. No, I’m kidding. She said my dad was The One, and was happy it just being the two of us after that. Not in a creepy way, she didn’t smother me or anything, but she was focused on giving me a happy childhood like she’d had. Her best friend got her a job at the library when we moved to Salcombe, part-time so she could be at home with me as much as possible.’
My words were speeding up, along with my stirring. ‘She worked there full-time later on and loved it, but I’d just started college when the library closed and she lost her job, and it was hard to find another one, so I had to leave and start working to help pay the bills at home, which was fine, it was in a bakery actually, not this one, but I loved it. Then Mum became agoraphobic and stopped going out.’ Shut up, Meg. ‘In fact, she’s still not very good at going out, but she’s working again, that’s the great thing about the internet. She did some online courses and now looks after the accounts for Good Life, you know, the health food store in Kingsbridge?’ Why the hell was I talking so much about Mum? They’d have to leave all of that out.
I scraped the melted chocolate into the batter, then shared the mixture between two cake tins and placed them in the oven for show. My face felt broiled, and my hair had come loose, but I daren’t fiddle about with it in case it came tumbling down.
‘You’re getting married next January,’ stated Alice, as I returned to the counter and tried to remember what I had to do next. ‘Why a winter wedding?’
I smiled in her general direction, and my top lip stuck to my teeth. ‘I always fancied getting married while it was snowing outside.’ Whisk the egg whites for the meringue. ‘That was when I was a teenager,’ I said, switching on the food processor. It would take too long to whip the egg whites into peaks by hand. ‘Obviously now I realise the chances of it snowing on the act
ual day are practically non-existent, but the venue’s booked, so it’s too late to change the date.’
There was a miniscule pause. ‘Will it be a traditional white wedding?’
‘I used to think that’s what I wanted, but now I’m not sure.’ Oops. Focusing on baking was giving my mouth free range to say what it liked. ‘I definitely won’t be wearing a white dress.’
‘I doubt many of us want the same things now that we did as teenagers.’ There was a reassuring trace of laughter in Alice’s voice. ‘At sixteen, I wanted to marry a footballer when I grew up, and have my own beauty salon.’
‘Actually, the career part of my dream hasn’t changed much.’ Thank god, I was getting to the point. I added caster sugar to the glossy white mountain of egg whites in the bowl and added a handful of chopped hazelnuts. ‘I always wanted to run a bakery, and have been lucky enough to work in this lovely old building for six years, but—’
‘And you supply cakes to the local café?’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘They’ve been really successful, which is why I’d love the opportunity to—’
‘Be your own boss, of course,’ finished Alice, as if she was now trying to hurry me along. ‘And I’m sure when our viewers see your super cake, the orders will come flooding in.’
The timer I’d set pinged and I removed my sponges from the oven, even though they weren’t ready, then brought the ones I’d made earlier to the counter, awkwardly flopping them onto the cooling rack. Pretending to bake was much harder than the real thing.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Alice. ‘We’ll edit it to look smooth.’
‘About the cake orders flooding in.’ I picked up a spatula and put it down again. ‘That’s not really the direction I’m hoping—’
‘Can you do ones in the shape of a football pitch, or a guitar?’ Alice chuckled. ‘My husband had one that looked like a Tardis for his fortieth. He’s a big Dr Who fan.’
‘I don’t do much creative cake decoration, I find it a bit fiddly.’ I could feel the conversation veering in the wrong direction. ‘I prefer to keep my cakes simple. For instance, this one will be filled with whipped cream and fresh strawberries, and the meringue topping sprinkled with pistachios.’ I mimed a sprinkling action while cocking my head in a Nigella-ish fashion. ‘Now, I need to get my meringue in the oven while the sponge is, er, cooling.’