by Jenny Colgan
Huckle ran downstairs.
‘Bosey,’ he said. ‘Bosey, please.’
But Dubose had gone.
It had been a long day. Polly and Huckle sat in silence, Huckle trying to contain his anger.
‘He always does this,’ he said at last. ‘Rushes out when the going gets tough.’
Polly was kneeling by the tea box, looking at a snoozing Neil.
‘Will he come back?’
Huckle shook his head.
‘I don’t know. Maybe he’ll go home. He must be needed at home.’ He yawned. ‘Oh God, what a crappy day. Come on, let’s go to bed.’
Polly took a longing look at Neil.
‘No,’ said Huckle. ‘He’s not getting in the bed. That is where I absolutely draw the line. Bed is for you and me. In fact, that is the only thing that might take our minds off everything right now.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Polly, shaking her head. There was a pause.
‘Ah,’ said Huckle. ‘A challenge.’
He drew her closer to him, and pulled down her T-shirt, gently kissing the top of her freckled shoulder. Polly opened her mouth to say something, but he shushed her.
‘Come and look at the sunset. Forget everything else. I am going to do things to you, and they are going to take a long time, because you are sad and have had a terrible day, and I am sad and have had a terrible day, but fortunately there are two things in my favour: one, shock makes people slightly horny, it’s a well-known fact. And two, I am an extremely patient man and I have nowhere to go and nothing else to do but make you happy.’
Chapter Ten
‘Did you feel that it helped?’
‘Sleeping with an American who was only passing through, and breaking up the one friendship I’d made since I arrived?’
Pause.
‘Well, I’ve had better evenings.’
‘Do you think you can be a little gentler on yourself?’
‘I’m not sure I deserve to be.’
Polly woke the following morning feeling much more optimistic. By the time she and Huckle had fallen into a contented, exhausted sleep, it still hadn’t been that late, and she had, of course, no bakery to wake for and slept all the way to eight o’clock, which in her terms was the equivalent of about noon.
The sun was shining straight through the bedroom window, glistening across the waves, which were bouncing merrily. One or two thready clouds danced across the turquoise sky, but otherwise it was a perfect, perfect day. She threw open the funny little curved window and took in great breaths of fresh salty air.
She turned round. Huckle was still fast asleep, his huge arms flung out across the tiny bed. A ray of sunlight landed on his hair, brightening it to gold, and caught the fine curls on his chest. He was quite, quite beautiful, and it did her heart good just to look at him for a little while. She loved him so much it scared her sometimes: scared her into worrying that one day things would change and she wouldn’t love him, or he wouldn’t love her, or some other catastrophe.
That wouldn’t happen to them, she vowed. Yes, it was going to be tough – really tough. But she’d had tough times before and come through them, hadn’t she? He was there for her. It would be fine. It would be all right.
She padded upstairs. To her intense joy, Neil was up on his feet. He was waddling about, tentatively but independently, and eeped happily to see her. She mixed him up some tuna with his antibiotics, and examined his stitches, but they were clean and dry, she was delighted to see.
‘Well you are a sight for sore eyes,’ she said, kissing his head. Then, not knowing quite what to do with herself when she didn’t have huge batches of loaves to make up, she pottered around the sitting room, tidying up the plates and glasses she hadn’t had time to put away last night before… She smiled at the memory.
She switched on the coffee machine. There was some cheese bread left over from yesterday: she would toast it for Huckle. She didn’t really feel like baking today. Or ever again, she thought glumly. Huckle had declared the night before that they would take the day off and have a wonderful time and go up and have lunch at Reuben’s, but she didn’t really feel like it. Also, she was slightly terrified that she might have a couple of glasses of wine, then Reuben would offer to buy her the bakery or hire a hitman or something, and she wouldn’t be able to resist. Plus she needed to nurse Neil. But Huckle had been very persistent.
Huckle lumbered into view, completely naked and yawning. She watched with pleasure as he stumbled round the room, hair sticking up in a thatch.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘if we have to move to a normal house, you won’t be able to just march past the windows in the scuddy like that.’
Huckle rubbed his eyes.
‘Free country,’ he snuffled. ‘Give me some of that cawfee.’
Polly handed him a cup.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, smiling his sleepy grin.
‘A bit better,’ said Polly. ‘Well, I’m not having a massive meltdown. Have you heard from Dubose?’
Huckle shook his head.
‘He probably stayed at Selina’s last night and is catching the tide this morning.’
‘You really don’t think we’ll see him again?’
‘We will,’ said Huckle. ‘The next time. There’s always a next time. He’d forever getting himself into scrapes.’
‘Well, he’s missed the cheddar bread,’ said Polly, handing him a plate of toast.
‘I see that,’ said Huckle, tearing into it. ‘God, this is amazing. Hey. I was thinking.’
‘What?’
‘Would you like your birthday present early?’
‘It isn’t my birthday for four months.’
‘Four months early or eight months late, it’s all the same. I just thought you might need cheering up. I got it for you and I can’t wait to give it to you.’
It gave Polly a warm feeling inside to think that he’d been planning that far ahead. They hadn’t been together very long.
Huckle took out a box and smiled, and she smiled back.
‘Won’t I be sad when I don’t get a present on my real birthday?’
‘I think you’ll be okay, I have a terrible memory for this kind of thing. Don’t mention it again, and I’ll forget I ever gave it to you.’
Tentatively she put her hand out and opened the box.
Inside was a charm bracelet, pre-loaded with charms. It was exquisite. A sterling silver chain with a P, an H, an N, a lighthouse, a loaf of bread, a motorbike and a puffin. She gasped.
‘You got me a puffin charm? How on earth did you find that?’
‘It was pretty tricky,’ said Huckle. ‘Mostly involving googling the words “puffin”, “bracelet”, and “charm”. Was good he didn’t die yesterday, though. That would have pretty much ruined it.’
Polly fastened it on carefully.
‘It’s gorgeous,’ she said. ‘I absolutely love it.’ She did. It was perfect. ‘Also, can I pawn it?’
Huckle didn’t catch on at once that she was only joking, then he did and held her to him for a long time. He wished as he did so that he could shower her with gifts; that he could buy her beautiful things every day, not just cheap charms. He loved making her happy so much.
‘You seem better,’ he said tentatively. She nodded vigorously. Then she grimaced.
‘I was thinking,’ she said, ‘that not phoning Jayden, and going into the shop with sick on me, might on some level be construed as… possibly my fault.’
‘Mmmm,’ said Huckle non-committally. ‘I mean, it doesn’t stop that guy being a total jerk.’
‘TOTAL jerk,’ said Polly. ‘I couldn’t have worked with him.’
‘It would only have been a matter of time,’ said Huckle.
‘I mean, the spew probably didn’t help…’
‘Probably not.’
Huckle held her face.
‘You look so much better than yesterday.’
‘I feel a lot better than yesterday.’
‘Have you come up with a Perfect Polly Plan?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Okay then, shall we just go and get drunk at Reuben’s?’
‘That’s as far as I’d got.’
They packed an overnight bag, anticipating a long lunch, and put plenty of straw in Neil’s box to keep him cosy and warm. He was so much better already, it lifted Polly’s heart to see it, and she tried to put all the awful stuff to the back of her mind.
It was an absolutely beautiful day, the roads still quiet, tiny clouds scudding across the sky, and the heavy smells of early-season flowers descending from the hedgerows. Cows were munching buttercups in the meadows, the new grass growing fresh and pale green on the hillside, the huge yellow fields of rape glowing in the morning light. Early wild briar roses cascaded from hedges; lavender banked the untrimmed roads. It was impossible that the heart could not be lifted and cheered by the fresh air and the scented lanes and byways of central Cornwall.
‘Don’t mention any of this to Reuben,’ Polly had told Huckle before they set out. ‘I don’t want him trying to buy me out of trouble.’
‘Roger,’ said Huckle, vowing to ignore this completely. Anything that would help Polly he would do, and he wasn’t too proud to take the cash, even if she was. Plus he knew she’d have one glass of wine and tell everybody anyway, so he wasn’t terribly worried about his culpability.
Reuben owned a house above a beach on the north coast of Cornwall, where the best surfing was. He also owned the beach. It was quite the most spectacular place Polly had ever visited. He had a large bar and professional kitchen down there, and a beach café for himself and his friends, of whom he had hundreds, all beautiful, all talented, mostly transient. When it came to actual real friends, he had Kerensa, Polly and Huckle. Which was still, as Huckle pointed out, not bad going.
The surf was quiet this morning, but there were still a couple of men out in the far distance hitting the waves. Kerensa had mostly banned the girls who came down from London to stand around looking like they were in a swimsuit commercial and make cow eyes at Reuben even though Reuben had never given them a second glance anyway – not before, and certainly not now. He could be a bit annoying, but you couldn’t fault his devotion to his wife.
Reuben was already tinkering around the kitchen barking orders to a sous chef, who was looking at a lobster tank.
‘Ooh,’ said Polly. There was a large silver half-shell bucket sitting in the shade, filled with champagne, pink and white. ‘You know, I think I will do my best to forget my worries.’
‘Okay, well try not to forget absolutely everything.’ Reuben was a notoriously generous host.
‘Where’s that guy who thinks he understands grain subsidies?’
‘Long story,’ said Huckle, ‘I think I’ll let Poll tell it.’
Huckle kissed her as he held his hand out for her to dismount from the sidecar, an act it was absolutely impossible to accomplish with grace. They picked up Neil, looking for somewhere nice and sunny to put him down for a restorative snooze, and grabbed their bathing costumes. It would be a bit nippy, but Reuben had installed heated towel rails in the little beach hut changing rooms, with personalised robes, so you ran out of the sea all chilly and wrapped yourself up in the fluffiest, cosiest bathrobes you could imagine, until you were warmed enough by the sun to take them off again.
Kerensa came down to meet them, nut brown from the sun, teeth standard-issue rich-person white these days, eyebrows arched expensively. As she got closer, Polly noticed that her teeth weren’t smiling, they were gritted.
‘How are you?’ said Polly. ‘I am so glad to see you, I have had the worst —’
‘Awful,’ said Kerensa.
Polly looked up, startled. This conversation seemed to be the wrong way round.
‘Yay!’ said Reuben. ‘I’m making lobster salad, and lobster Thermidor. Basically, if you’re a lobster, you don’t want to be within five miles of us today. Except you do totally want to be within five miles of us, because I am only serving the best sustainable local lobster, because that is the kind of brilliant guy I am. Also, everything is fucked.’
Polly and Huckle looked at each other. Polly gave Neil his antibiotics on the last piece of cheese toast and tucked him up in a little yellow blanket under a tree.
‘Seriously, where did you get the blanket?’ said Huckle.
‘Muriel gave it to me as a present,’ said Polly. ‘It was her baby’s.’
Huckle shook his head. ‘All right.’
‘What’s wrong with Neil?’ said Kerensa. ‘Did someone tell him he wasn’t a person?’
Reuben busied himself opening the champagne.
‘Pink first,’ he announced.
‘No, he just… he had an accident,’ said Polly, taking a glass. ‘Can I explain later? It’s a bit emotionally exhausting. Anyway, I think we should make a toast.’
‘Happy un-birthday!’ chorused everyone, and Polly showed off her bracelet for Kerensa and Reuben to admire.
Kerensa looked at Reuben, then he brought out a bag from behind the champagne bucket.
‘What?’ said Polly.
‘Well, Reuben got you a birthday present too.’
‘It’s not my birthday!’
‘I told him not to,’ said Kerensa. ‘I am staking my claim here and now and saying that I have a separate gift for you. That you can have IN SEPTEMBER.’
Polly looked inside the bag. It was pale blue, from Tiffany’s.
‘He’s such a show-off,’ hissed Kerensa. ‘I am totally embarrassed by him and everything he stands for.’
‘But the shame turns you on, totally, a little bit,’ said Reuben.
Polly had never seen a real Tiffany’s box before, although she recognised the iconic wrapping, of course.
‘My goodness,’ she said. There was a bag tied with a ribbon, then a box done up with the same dark blue ribbon. Inside there was another, smaller blue velvet bag with a drawstring, and inside that something wrapped in tissue. Polly was laughing now. ‘This is like pass the parcel,’ she said. ‘I ought to be handing it round.’
She opened it, and gasped.
This charm bracelet was solid platinum. Apart from that, it was absolutely identical in every single way to the one Huckle had given her.
‘Reuben, you PUTZ!’ said Huckle. ‘Man, what is WRONG with you? Why did I even tell you? This was my big thing! You knew this was a big deal for me.’
Polly just stared at it, completely confused.
‘It was a great big deal,’ said Reuben, nodding happily. ‘Huckle buying you a really nice present. I figure you like Huckle’s one – and who isn’t going to like it, it’s a great idea – so I reckon you like mine too. And you know, one day you wanna wear silver, one day you wanna wear platinum, right? So you got the option. Just like one day girls wear blue things, one day they wear black things.’
‘Thank you for summing up the history of fashion so well,’ said Kerensa.
‘One day you have your lovely bracelet from Huck, next day lovely and much more expensive bracelet from your friends Reuben and Kerensa. I am basically a genius.’
‘You doof!’ Huck was saying. ‘You knew this was a totally special thing for me!’
‘I told him it was a stupid idea,’ said Kerensa.
‘Hey, man,’ Reuben looked the closest he could to wounded, which on his perpetually cheerful, entirely freckled face wasn’t very. ‘I just thought you had such a good idea, man. For once in your life. So sue me.’
Polly came over and kissed him on the cheek.
‘I love it,’ she said. ‘You were right about how much I’d love it. And having two is absolutely brilliant. So it was a genius idea, thank you very, very, very much.’
‘Seriously, you like it?’ said Kerensa. Polly kissed her too.
‘I love it. But give me my other present as well, on my real birthday.’
‘I suppose it can be back-up for when you lose the first one,’ conceded Huck.
‘I’m not going to lose the first one!’ said Polly. ‘All I’m losing this year is jobs.’
She told them the whole story, to sympathetic noises from Kerensa. Somehow, telling it whilst sitting outside in the sunshine, wearing two beautiful bracelets, one on each wrist, with Huckle and her friends there, Neil happily asleep and recovering, the sun on her back and a second glass of pink champagne in her hand, it didn’t feel quite so bad. Until she got to the end.