Wish Upon a Star

by Trisha Ashley

  Stella announced that she was going to show the chocolate angel to her Sylvanian Families and vanished off back into her bedroom.

  ‘Transylvanian?’ Raffy asked, looking mildly surprised.

  ‘No, Sylvanian. They’re collectable toys, little fuzzy animals.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ He passed on an invite from Chloe to take Stella to her Mother and Toddler group, which met on Monday mornings up at the old vicarage.

  ‘If she’s well enough, it would be nice to go and meet other local mothers and children,’ I said, ‘though so far I’ve tended to avoid that kind of thing in case coughs and colds are going round.’

  ‘I’ll ask Chloe to warn you if there are,’ he promised. ‘But if not, I should give it a try and if Stella finds it too tiring, you needn’t stay long.’

  ‘You’re right, and it would get us out of Ma’s way for a bit too … Though actually, she doesn’t seem to mind Stella hanging around her, because in many ways they’re kindred spirits. Ma’s already said that she’d much prefer to keep an eye on Stella while I go into Ormskirk on Saturdays and do the big weekly supermarket shop than do it herself.’

  ‘Let me think about fundraising for the rest of the money, and I’ll get back to you with some ideas as soon as I can,’ Raffy said, getting up and shrugging into a long black leather coat. ‘We need an organised push to raise it quickly, but it will come,’ he assured me, and with a smile left me feeling hopeful, comforted and cheered.

  When I got back after seeing him out, the last two macaroons had vanished from the plate and Toto and Moses were lying innocently before the stove.

  ‘You have crumbs in your whiskers,’ I told them coldly, before going to see what Stella was up to.

  Chapter 8: The Happy Macaroon

  On Thursday morning it was Stella’s first check-up at Ormskirk Hospital and although she is amazingly stoical about these things, I could gauge how stressed she was by the rate of the thumb-sucking.

  But actually, when we got there it was not too bad. She was seen very quickly by a friendly consultant who was already up to speed on her condition and the projected operation in America.

  She was quite pleased with Stella, but said she’d like to see her gain more weight – and so would I, though of course not too much, since that would also add strain to her heart and other organs … it’s a fine balance.

  Afterwards, since Thursday was a market day, I drove into town and parked, so we could have a walk around. It was an ancient market and very good, though the part selling fruit, eggs, cheese and foodstuffs had vanished a few years back, which was a pity.

  Ormskirk now had a huge and increasing student population, since the university on the edge seemed to be expanding like a mushroom every night, but it did give the place a new buzz.

  I knew Stella was tired, but she still insisted on getting out of her buggy as soon as we’d got to the top of the hill from the car park. Ma had given her some money to buy a treat with, which I suspect was going to become a habit, and she’d also asked us to get her a new tube of yellow ochre oil paint from the art shop up a side street, so we went and did that first. Stella spent most of her money in there on a new watercolour paint box and a Hello Kitty pencil case, which reminded her of the mummy cat from one of her toy families.

  After that we had a look in the bookshop and I was pleased to see they had both my cookbooks, though I didn’t tell them who I was since, as usual, I looked like a bagwoman down on her luck and I didn’t think they’d believe me. Then Stella climbed back into her buggy and we went to find the macaroon shop.

  It was called the Happy Macaroon, according to the smart deep red and gold signboard and about fifteen different colours of macaroons were on display in the window, laid out in trays like so many rows of giant gaming counters. It looked upmarket and expensive, like a smart London shop in one of the arcades where I’d occasionally pressed my nose to the glass and stared at the culinary perfection within. I did much the same now: if Ma hadn’t already told me about the place, I’d have thought I was imagining it.

  On one side of the window was a large cone with pink and white macaroons stuck all over it, the sort of thing I’ve seen before at parties. On the other, to my amazement, was a tall pyramid of caramel-dipped choux buns, the wonderful French wedding cake called the croquembouche or pièce montée. Of course, like the macaroon pyramid, it was a model, but they were both very realistic.

  ‘Cakes,’ Stella said, admiring the macaroons.

  ‘They’re special macaroon biscuits really, darling, like the ones I made the other day.’

  ‘I didn’t like those,’ she said, my own little food critic. ‘These look prettier.’

  She had a point: the colours were certainly a lot brighter. ‘See that big pyramid of buns?’ I said, pointing to the croquembouche. ‘It’s a French wedding cake.’

  ‘And there are gingerbread piggies.’

  ‘No, I don’t think there are—’ I began, then broke off, following the line of her pointing finger, and found she was quite right, there was a tray of gingerbread pigs at one side of the window, with raisin eyes and curly iced tails.

  Then something made me look up and my eyes met and locked with those of a man standing behind the window display. My first thought was that he looked like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, since he had the same angular sort of face and he’d tied a black scarf pirate-style over his hair, presumably instead of one of those little white hats bakers usually wear. The second thought was that his eyes were of a very unusual soft, light caramel brown, fringed with long black lashes … and impossible to remove my gaze from …

  Then suddenly we both smiled simultaneously and the trance was broken.

  Stella had clambered out of her pushchair and now tugged at my hand and asked if she could have a gingerbread pig and when I looked up again a moment later, he’d vanished.

  ‘Of course you can, darling,’ I told her, so pleased she’d shown an interest in something to eat that I would happily have bought her a hundred gingerbread pigs … and anyway, I wanted to ask the pirate baker a few questions to add to my ‘Cake Diaries’ article.

  He was standing behind the counter as if waiting for us, his smile warm. ‘Hello,’ he said, his voice as caramel as his eyes. ‘Has our window display lured you in?’

  ‘We were admiring the croquembouche,’ I told him. ‘Or at least, I was. I’m afraid Stella only had eyes for the gingerbread pigs.’

  ‘Piggies with raisin eyes and curly-wurly tails,’ agreed Stella.

  ‘It’s not everyone who recognises a croquembouche; they’re still a bit of a novelty, especially up here,’ the man said.

  ‘I’m a cookery writer, specialising in cake – I have a page in Sweet Home magazine and a Sunday supplement,’ I explained. ‘I love cake.’

  ‘Mummy made me a pink princess cake for my birthday,’ Stella piped up.

  Jago’s interpretation of this as some kind of Barbie princess cake was written clear across his expressive face, but instantly dispelled when I said, ‘It was a Swedish prinsesstårta – you know, those domed sponge and confectioner’s cream cakes, with a marzipan covering? It’s my party piece.’

  ‘Wow! Now it’s my turn to be impressed.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure they’re nowhere near as fiddly as the croquembouche, just time-consuming. Yours needs real skill, not only to make the choux buns, but to put it all together.’

  As I spoke to him I was increasingly sure that we’d met before, for there was something very familiar about him. He was in his mid-thirties like me, I guessed, with a light olive skin and treacle-dark hair showing under the black bandanna.

  ‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’ he asked, obviously feeling the same way. ‘Didn’t you come to Gilligan’s Celebration Cakes, when I worked there?’

  ‘Of course, that’s it. I’ve been racking my brains wondering where I’d seen you before. I did an article about wedding cakes … but I don’t remember seeing the croquembouche.’
r />   ‘I think you only wanted to feature the traditional cakes,’ he said. ‘I helped with those as well, but the croquembouche is my speciality. We weren’t introduced, but I’m Jago Tremayne.’

  ‘That sounds very Cornish?’

  ‘It is – that’s where my father’s family came from.’

  ‘I’m Cally – Cally Weston.’

  We shook hands across the glass display cabinet and he asked curiously, ‘What’s Cally short for?’

  I grinned, because I get that a lot. ‘Nothing. My mother just had a thing about an old TV series called Blake’s 7 and called me after one of the characters. And this is my daughter, Stella.’

  ‘I’m nearly four and I’m a star,’ Stella told him.

  ‘You certainly are,’ he agreed.

  ‘And I want a piggy,’ she added, seeming to feel we’d lost the point of why we were there.

  ‘Of course.’ Jago lifted out the tray of gingerbread pigs so that Stella could select her own, which was obviously going to involve a lot of deliberation.

  ‘So … are you visiting the area?’ he asked me. ‘I suppose in your line of work, you need to be London-based.’

  ‘We did live in London, but we’ve recently moved to live with my mother in Sticklepond, a village a few miles from here. It’s about as far from the bright lights as you can get, so it was quite a surprise to find a specialist shop like this in Ormskirk.’

  ‘It was my friend’s idea to open it here and I came to help,’ he told me, then added as a slim, fair man appeared from the back room to serve a noisy gaggle of students who’d just come into the shop, ‘that’s David.’

  ‘Oh – right. I wanted to mention the shop in an article for “The Cake Diaries”, though it probably won’t come out for months – do you think that would be all right? They’ll send a photographer.’

  ‘I’m sure David will be delighted. All publicity welcome. Look, here’s his business card with his email address on, so you can send him any questions.’

  ‘Thank you, that’s great,’ I said, pocketing it.

  ‘I want that pig,’ Stella said, having made her mind up and pointing at the one with the biggest curly icing tail.

  ‘Please,’ I prompted.

  ‘Please,’ Stella repeated and Jago put the chosen pig into a little paper bag and gave it to her. She took it straight out again and bit off its nose.

  I paid him and he handed me a little silver box with my change. ‘These are a couple of macaroons for your mum to try,’ he explained to Stella. ‘It’s the bait to lure you both back in again.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to keep us out anyway,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to come here to the hospital most Thursdays, so this can be our special treat afterwards, can’t it, Stella?’

  She nodded, her mouth full of gingerbread.

  ‘I don’t know why it is, but the head always tastes better than the rest,’ Jago said gravely and Stella nodded again, very seriously.

  ‘It’s wonderful to see her eating something voluntarily,’ I thought, then realised I’d said it aloud, and Jago was looking sympathetically at me with his soft, light brown eyes.

  Of course, I’d often made her gingerbread men, but obviously they didn’t have the magic of the shop-bought pigs.

  I drove back to Sticklepond with Stella fast asleep in her seat in the back of the car. In one hand was clutched the limp rear end of the gingerbread pig, saved for Grandma.

  It was odd how I’d felt an instant connection with Jago when our eyes met through the shop window, though I supposed that was partly because I’d previously met him, even though I hadn’t remembered at first. And how could I have forgotten those unusual eyes?

  He seemed very nice and I think we simply instantly recognised each other as kindred spirits and perhaps were destined to become good friends? That was all I needed from a man these days, all I had the spare time and emotion left over for …

  I checked again on my frail sleeping child in the rear-view mirror, turning over in my mind what they’d said to me at the hospital after Stella’s check-up, about the country air soon putting some roses into her cheeks and improving her appetite, searching for any faint crumb of comfort.

  When we got home and Stella, revived, had gone to present Grandma with the soggy gingerbread pig’s bottom, I put Toto in the car for five minutes to hoover up the crumbs: dogs have a multitude of uses.

  Jago

  When Cally and Stella left the shop, Jago had the strange feeling that they’d taken all the May sunshine with them.

  He’d liked everything about Cally: her no-nonsense manner, her pretty face with wide-apart harebell-blue eyes, the disarming sprinkle of freckles across her nose and her dishevelled, silky, pale gold curls.

  ‘Pretty woman,’ David said, since he’d finished serving the customers and there was a temporary lull. Then he added hastily, ‘Not as in the film Pretty Woman, of course. I’m not insinuating she’s a hooker.’

  ‘I should think not! And she is pretty, though she’s obviously under a lot of strain. I think it must be about the little girl, because she mentioned she would be having regular hospital check-ups and she looks as if a puff of wind would blow her away.’

  ‘Poor little thing,’ David said kindly, but somewhat absently, arranging a fresh batch of macaroons into neat rows of pink, red and green. Then he looked up curiously at his friend and grinned.

  ‘You found out a lot in a short space of time.’

  ‘She’s on the same wavelength as us, that’s all – and anyway, we’ve both seen her before at Gilligan’s, don’t you remember? She’s Cally Weston, a cookery writer, and she was researching an article about traditional wedding cakes.’

  ‘Really? No, I can’t say I do remember that, but of course I’ve seen her articles,’ he said, though his friend obviously had remembered her. Since this was the first hint of real interest in another woman Jago had shown since his fiancée ran off to Dubai to be with that sports car salesman she’d had a fling with, he thought it was a healthy sign.

  ‘She wants to write you and the Happy Macaroon up in her “Cake Diaries” page in the Sunday supplement, so I gave her your card so she can email you questions,’ Jago said. ‘The paper will probably send a photographer.’

  ‘Great, I’m all for free publicity,’ David said enthusiastically. ‘I like her even more!’

  Chapter 9: The Blue Dog

  I went back into Ormskirk on the Saturday morning to do the big supermarket shop while Ma minded Stella … or perhaps that was the other way round? Anyway, they intended going to the studio to paint and Hal had promised to come over later with an old wasp’s nest as big as a football to show her, so it looked like being a red-letter day.

  I only hoped Ma would remember the sandwiches I’d left them for lunch and not just share endless cups of sweet tea and biscuits with Stella. I wanted her to have more energy, but not a permanent sugar high!

  Somehow I found my steps taking me past the Happy Macaroon, but this time Jago Tremayne wasn’t looking out of the window, probably because it was so busy in the shop that the queue came right out of the door.

  For the first time I noticed a sign for the Blue Dog Café next door to it and went up a steep, narrow flight of stairs into a busy room humming with conversation and the rattle of cutlery. It was obviously very popular and after I’d looked about fruitlessly for a vacant table I was just about to give up and go away again when suddenly I spotted Jago Tremayne sitting at a table in the far corner. He looked up and waved, smiling warmly, and I looked round to see if someone else had followed me up: but no, he was waving at me, so I made my way across.

  ‘I just spotted you – do please join me,’ he said, nudging out the chair next to his. Then he looked at me diffidently. ‘I mean – you do remember me, don’t you? It’s Jago, from the bakery next door.’

  ‘Of course I remember you, and it’s very kind of you to let me share your table. I was just about to give up and go away again.’

&nb
sp; I sat down and he handed me the menu. ‘It’s all cold food apart from the soup of the day, but they do a great beef sandwich with horseradish sauce.’

  ‘Sounds good to me – I’ll have that,’ I said, as the waitress came to take my order, ‘and a large Americano with some cold milk.’

  I felt guilty spending any money on myself like this, when it might go into Stella’s fund, but Celia had made me promise to be nicer to myself after I told her I’d been taking a flask of coffee out with me everywhere to save money. She said treating myself to coffee and a bun once in a blue moon might mean the difference to my staying sane or completely losing it, so it would be worthwhile in the long run. She was probably right, but it still felt a bit guilt-inducing.

  ‘Stella not with you today?’ Jago asked.

  ‘No, I’ve left her at home with my mother and come in to do the big supermarket shop on my own. She tires easily, but she hates sitting in the trolley and I can’t carry her and push it at the same time. Ma would rather keep an eye on her than shop, but she’s an artist, so when she’s wrapped up in her work she tends to be a bit forgetful …’

  ‘I’m sure Stella will be all right,’ he said reassuringly. ‘She seems like a child who’ll say if she wants anything.’

  ‘Oh, yes, she can be a real bossy boots – and she was certainly determined to get one of those gingerbread pigs, wasn’t she? And she ate most of it. I offered to make her some, but no, she says yours are special, so I suppose I’d better take one back with me today.’

  ‘I’ll send you the recipe, if you give me your email address?’ he suggested.

  ‘I’d love the recipe, but I don’t think even then I can compete with the lure of yours.’

  ‘I’ve left David in charge of the shop while I have my lunch,’ Jago said. ‘It’s really busy on Saturdays, but his fiancée, Sarah, comes for the weekends to help out. In fact, I tend to feel a bit of a spare part and I’ll feel even more so when Sarah gives up her job and moves into the flat over the shop with us permanently.’