Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery

by Jenny Colgan

  ‘Also, I’m renting out the upstairs flat again.’ Malcolm sniffed. ‘It’s ridiculous it’s been sitting empty all this time. So you may have to be quieter in the mornings.’

  ‘We can’t,’ said Polly. ‘That’s when we start business for the day. You’ll have to find a tenant who doesn’t mind.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ said Malcolm.

  ‘You’ll lose money if you make us open later,’ Polly said, which seemed to have a slightly calming effect. ‘A lot of money. Most people want to buy bread first thing in the morning.’

  There was another burst of feminine laughter from the front of the shop.

  ‘Does he just stand around chatting all day?’ asked Malcolm, nodding his head towards Jayden.

  ‘No,’ said Polly. ‘He works really hard, and it’s good for repeat business that the customers like him so much.’

  Malcolm and Polly looked at one another for a moment. Polly knew she was being scrutinised, and she hated it, absolutely hated it: the implied criticism in his words, the suggestion that she was being at best profligate with her stock, and at worst criminal. It was all going much, much worse than she’d imagined.

  ‘Well, like I say, there’s going to be some changes,’ said Malcolm. ‘I’ll be having a look at the books and letting you know.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Polly, relieved that he was at least leaving. ‘Would you like to take anything for lunch? And we can go and look at the other bakery if you like.’

  Malcolm shook his head. ‘I’ve seen enough,’ he said, obviously revelling in sounding like a bit of a hard man. He waddled back into the shop and headed for the door. Polly’s gaze followed him, and her heart sank.

  Not now, she thought. Not now.

  Neil was standing outside the door, hopping from foot to foot in a manner that he had learned generally got people’s attention, waiting for someone to let him in. Polly groaned internally. Couldn’t Huckle have shut him in the house for once? Well obviously he couldn’t; she couldn’t either. One, it was cruel, and two, he would go and revenge-poo in her shoes. But still, now, of all times. A billion puffins in the world who were flock animals, she thought crossly, and she got the one with a mind of his own.

  Old Mrs Hackett was making her slow way up the harbour, pulling a shopping trolley. She came in every day about this time for half a loaf of brown, because she lived alone and liked a tin of vegetable soup and toast for her supper, so every morning Polly sold her half a loaf of bread at half price and threw the rest away. She had no doubt Malcolm wouldn’t approve of this strategy either.

  Malcolm had got halfway to the door, trying to look dignified, but was obviously fighting a losing battle with himself. He turned back.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I will take two… I mean four of those doughnuts. And that little loaf with the bits in it. And a slice of that stuff with the cheese. I mean two slices. I just need to do… quality control.’

  Jayden wrapped them all up efficiently, without a word.

  ‘And two buns.’

  Polly’s heart sank. The Little Beach Street Bakery made the same amount of money every day, more or less, because they stayed open until they’d sold all their stock, then they shut. If you wanted something specific, you knew you had to come early. But if Malcolm was simply taking it all away, they were going to lose quite a bit of money. And she had absolutely no doubt he would have something to say about it if their takings were noticeably down, without necessarily connecting it to him walking out with his pockets overflowing with doughnuts.

  Mrs Hackett was at the door now.

  ‘Hello there, Neil me lover,’ Polly heard her say from behind the heavy glass. She’d have to open the door for her too, she knew. Mrs Hackett had arthritis in her hands and wasn’t as strong as she’d once been. But she was a lovely old woman who’d taught at the school when it had still been open and was known by everyone in town. Meanwhile, Malcolm was juggling the packages Jayden was giving him one on top of the other.

  With a sigh, and a warning look at her puffin, Polly pushed open the door.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Hackett,’ she said. She tried to be quick, but you couldn’t hurry Mrs Hackett, who in any case was pulling her trolley over the cobblestones and also wearing a floppy hat that would get stuck if Polly didn’t open the door a bit wider.

  Neil eeped loudly and jubilantly and hopped into the shop, to a chorus of hellos from everybody there. Malcolm watched, clearly incredulous.

  ‘What’s this bird doing in here?’ he said. ‘We’ve already had a dog in, and dogs aren’t allowed in food shops, I’d have expected you to know that, Pauline.’

  ‘I do know that,’ said Polly, who didn’t want to tell him that he’d got her name wrong. ‘It was just Pen. He’s so old, it’s hard for him to stand outside.’

  ‘But BIRDS! You can’t have birds flying about a shop! What next, a bunch of seagulls coming in? It’s disgusting. Out! Shoo! Shoo!’

  There was a sharp intake of breath from one of the old ladies. Nobody ever talked to Neil like that. Polly felt awful but she didn’t say anything. It was horribly disloyal, but maybe Neil would hop back out of the shop instead of getting them shut down for health and safety and losing her her livelihood for ever.

  He regarded the newcomer with his black eyes, then – and if he hadn’t been a bird, Polly would have sworn he’d done it on purpose – he hopped up on to Polly’s shoulder and tilted his head so that he was nuzzling her ear.

  ‘Get down, Neil,’ Polly murmured, but to no avail. He was making happy little eeps. One of the old ladies gave him a piece of her bun, which he bit into happily, his beak scattering crumbs across the floor.

  Malcolm had gone absolutely puce.

  ‘This is your bird?’ he said. ‘You can’t have a bird in here! You can’t… you can’t…’

  ‘He doesn’t come to work with me,’ mumbled Polly. Malcolm did kind of have a point: she shouldn’t have Neil in the bakery, but nobody ever seemed to mind. ‘I think he was just… passing.’

  Malcolm stood back, shaking his head, as if he’d never seen anything so disgusting in his entire life.

  ‘I think you have to decide whether you want to run a food preparation service or a bird sanctuary,’ he said. ‘And decide soon.’

  Still balancing his parcels, he marched crossly out of the shop.

  ‘He seems nice,’ ventured one of the old ladies.

  ‘Mabel, he’s horrible,’ said Mrs Hoskings.

  ‘Really?’ said Mabel. ‘Ah, I’m wearing my peepers, not my lookers.’ She fumbled with her spectacles. ‘Still, nice to have a bit of new young blood around the place, hmm?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ said Polly, putting Neil out through the door crossly. He checked to make sure she wasn’t kidding, then waddled across the road to pester the fishermen for scraps.

  ‘And fly, you lazy bird!’ Polly shouted at him, but yelling at Neil certainly wasn’t going to make her feel any better.

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Mabel, packing away her sausage rolls in her capacious handbag. ‘Last time we had some new young blood around the place, you snaffled it up. Leave some for the rest of us this time, would you?’

  Polly gave a half-hearted grin.

  ‘You,’ she said, ‘are welcome to him.’

  Polly didn’t head back for a quick break that morning after the early rush: she was too anxious and keyed up about Malcolm’s visit.

  She tried to put a spin on the meeting whereby it hadn’t gone too badly, but she could tell that it had. She imagined him marching back to Janet with a long list of her sins, announcing that the bakery had to be closed down immediately. As usual thinking up good things to say long after the moment had passed, she wished she’d pointed out to Malcolm that actually her predecessor had kept costs down and made everything as cheap as possible, and it had led to the closure of the Little Beach Street Bakery and the near collapse of the old Polbearne bakery, because everyone just went to the mainland to get their
nice bread and avoided the horrible cheap stuff at all costs. She vowed to say this to him. Definitely. Next time she saw him…

  The rest of the day passed in a blur of the usual cheery people, many of them asking why she looked so gloomy – which is absolutely the last thing to say to someone who looks gloomy and is always unlikely to improve matters – until she was quite fed up. They sold the last cream horn, and Polly stomped outside with a cup of coffee on her own.

  It was still cold and windy; the sun had not burned through the cloud as it sometimes did, and not many people were about. It was much easier on days like this, Polly thought, to remember Mount Polbearne as it had been when she had first arrived: shuttered, closed down, tatty everywhere, in stark contrast to the slightly social-climbing aspirations of grandeur it had now.

  It was nice this way too, though. Bleak. Choppy. The tide was in, the waves right up to the harbour wall. One or two people were braving the windy high street, though it could hardly be called that, consisting as it did of the chippy and pub at the bottom end, Muriel’s shop, the post office, a gift shop of mysterious means, the vet/doctor’s and a tiny ironmonger’s, which wasn’t much more than a hole in the wall. Otherwise, apart from a couple of lonely dog-walkers almost out of view, and the ever-circling gulls, Polly had the harbour to herself. She pulled her big jumper down over her hands and warmed them around her coffee mug, which, inevitably, had a puffin on it. Huckle had got into the habit of buying her anything he ever came across with a puffin on it, so she now had puffin pyjamas, tea towels, oven gloves and all sorts of nonsense. At first she’d told him to stop, it was tacky, but she’d got used to it now. Plus all the pictures round the house were company for Neil as an only puffin.

  She stared out at the choppy grey water, then back at the mainland. The causeway was covered over and Mount Polbearne was isolated, a great island citadel standing all alone. For once, it suited her mood. She understood now why people became so protective of their turf, why they feared incomers. Mount Polbearne had had its own way of life for hundreds of years. It suited them just fine. They didn’t need some mainlander coming in and telling them more efficient ways to get their daily bread. At that precise moment, Polly chose to ignore the fact that she had been born and raised in Plymouth.

  A car was standing in the island car park. She squinted at it; it seemed vaguely familiar. Whoever it was, they had only just got ahead of the water, and might have to stay a while. She looked at the two figures leaning against the car. A portly young man, and a slender young woman. Not local, but not strangers either. She tried not to stare as they made their way carefully up the harbour walk, bent against the wind, the spray in their faces. She recognised the local estate agent, Lance. He’d gone to work in another office, she’d heard. Well, he must be back. But who was that with him?

  Lance saw her and came up to her.

  ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘Have you got a couple of buns for us? We’re starving. Traffic out of Looe was bloody terrible, then we had to go like stink not to miss the tide. My car’s got so much salt damage it’s basically held together by rust.’

  Polly smiled. ‘It’s nice to see you again, Lance.’

  Lance looked over his large stomach to stare at his shoes.

  ‘Yeah, well. After I lost them SO much money on that bloody lighthouse.’

  Polly tried to hide her smirk, but couldn’t. At one stage there had been a plan to build a bridge from Mount Polbearne to the mainland and Lance had confidently expected to make a fortune selling properties on the island, particularly the lighthouse. In the end, the council had listened to the islanders and voted against the bridge, after which Polly had promptly managed to pick up the lighthouse for a song. Lance had not forgiven her.

  ‘They sent me off to the north! Bloody Derbyshire!’

  ‘I’ve heard it’s beautiful up there.’

  ‘I’ll tell you this: it snows all the bloody time.’

  Polly smiled again. ‘But you’re back.’

  ‘Yeah, no one else wanted this beat… I mean…’

  The woman he was with had been standing looking the other way, staring out to sea, but now she turned round, and at once Polly realised she knew her. She could only gasp.

  ‘Selina.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘So, you’ve decided to go back?’

  ‘Well I can’t seem to go forwards.’

  ‘What are you hoping to find there?’

  ‘I’m hoping to understand.’

  ‘And what if you can’t understand?’

  Selina twisted her wedding ring round and round her finger.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Polly was completely shocked to see Tarnie’s wife. Or rather, of course, his widow. She had only met Selina twice before, once in Polbearne, and once at the funeral. Since then she hadn’t seen her at all, had heard she’d gone back to her parents and hadn’t been the least bit surprised that she hadn’t wanted to see hide nor hair of Mount Polbearne again.

  ‘Hi,’ said Selina, but she clearly didn’t really remember Polly. Well why would she? thought Polly. She was only the woman who’d secretly slept with her husband (she hadn’t realised Tarnie was married; he didn’t wear a ring) then met her briefly just after her husband had died at sea.

  ‘Hi,’ said Polly. ‘Um, I run the bakery.’

  ‘Right,’ said Selina without interest.

  ‘It’s the best bakery in the south-west,’ said Lance. ‘And I should know. I’ve tried them all.’

  He patted his stomach cheerfully.

  ‘Can you get us a couple of fruit slices? And a loaf of that olive bread to take away? I love that stuff.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Polly, indicating Jayden mopping up inside. ‘We’re done for the day. We’re shut.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not shut to me,’ said Lance. ‘I let you steal a lighthouse off me.’

  Polly smiled. ‘I know that. But when we’re out of food, we’re out of food.’

  Lance looked crestfallen. Polly thought of the little olive loaf she’d been keeping back for Huckle’s supper.

  ‘Oh all right then,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Funny you should ask,’ grunted Lance. ‘Selina…’ He struggled for her surname for a second.

  ‘Tarnforth,’ said Polly, without thinking. Selina gave her a surprised look.

  ‘Uh, aye,’ said Lance. ‘Selina’s looking at the flat above your bakery.’

  Polly made them all a cup of tea – it really was getting chilly outside, nothing like the lovely weekend – and rustled up the olive loaf, which she served with the incredibly expensive French salted butter she got sent over occasionally as a very special treat. Poor old Huckle would have to make do with the chippy.

  She tried to keep her tone light.

  ‘So, you’re thinking of moving here?’ she said.

  Selina was still pretty, but very thin and drawn, and there were hollows under her eyes. She nodded.

  ‘My parents thought I should have a fresh start, you know? Well, lots of people did. So I moved away, got a new job, gave up teaching – not much use when you’re bursting into tears in front of your class every ten minutes. They were very generous with compassionate leave, but there came a point when even they were just like “Come on.”’

  Polly tutted sympathetically. It must be bloody awful to have something so bad happen to you, then everyone whispering about it all the time afterwards.

  ‘And I was SO sick of being the tragic widow of the town. Everywhere I went, everyone lowered their voices and put on their best, kind, speaking-to-an-idiot-child tone and tilted their heads and were so, so nice to me.’ She grimaced. ‘Drove me nuts.’

  ‘So you moved somewhere new?’

  ‘Yup,’ said Selina. ‘Went up to Manchester. Great town.’

  ‘You liked it?’

  Selina gave Lance a look that suggested he should be somewhere else. Being a terrible estate agent but a pretty decent human being, Lance took the hi
nt and took out his smartphone and started fiddling with it.

  Selina shrugged. ‘Went out a lot. Hung out with people too young for me. Who didn’t know anything about me. Did the city thing. Casual sex, you know.’

  Lance was still looking at his phone, but his ears went bright pink.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Polly, pouring more tea. ‘Did it help?’

  ‘Not as much as you’d think,’ said Selina, frowning. ‘And I had my doubts from the outset, to be honest.’