The Little Bakery on Rosemary Lane

by Ellen Berry

  In the hall mirror she glimpsed herself in the terrible ensemble, her face devoid of make-up and not even treated to its usual skincare routine as, in her haste to pack, she had left her Creme de la Mer sitting on her dressing table at home. She peered more closely, pushing her hair back from her forehead to confirm that, yes, the Botox she’d had six months ago had now worn off. As she’d suspected at the time, a ‘teeny shot’ would only open the floodgates to her wanting more, like a child being told she could take just one chocolate finger at a party spread. ‘A gateway treatment,’ Amanda had remarked dryly, batting off Roxanne’s protestations that she had only succumbed when she had happened to meet Sebastian, a renowned practitioner in media circles who was famous for his non-frozen ‘Botox-lite’ approach. The deciding factor was that he had offered the entire staff free treatments in exchange for a small mention in the magazine.

  Anyway, the vertical crease between Roxanne’s brows had returned – but never mind that now. It was still raining. Amazingly, while the anorak possessed many seemingly pointless dangly cords with plastic toggles, it did not seem to have a hood.

  In the hallway, she rummaged through a wicker basket stuffed with all manner of outdoor accessories: hats, gloves, scarves, goggles, balaclavas, a couple of snoods (were snoods still a thing around here?) and, ah, here was a thing Roxanne hadn’t seen since her youth: one of those transparent plastic rain hoods you wore like a headscarf, the kind that folds up really tiny. She had assumed such items had simply ceased to exist, without anyone noticing their decline – like video rental shops. But, no, here it was – perhaps the last one in existence.

  Oh, stuff it, Roxanne decided, opening up the rain hood, plonking it over her head and tying the strings under her chin. No one was going to see her and even if they did, at least she wouldn’t be told off for wearing the wrong clothing.

  She clipped on Stanley’s lead. As if coaxing a child to the dentist’s, she led the reluctant terrier downstairs, pausing to wave through the glass panel in the side door to the shop. Della looked up, registered Roxanne’s unlikely headwear and laughed.

  Roxanne stepped into the shop. Low music was playing – she recognised the Ella Fitzgerald track as one of Isabelle’s favourites – and Della was still creasing up.

  ‘Look at you! What would your workmates say now?’

  She grinned and touched the plastic hat. ‘I know. I’ve only been here twenty-four hours and this has happened. Yours, I take it?’

  Della chuckled. ‘A customer left it and I stuffed it in the basket just in case I’d ever be so desperate as to need one. But so far, that hasn’t happened.’ Her gaze dropped to Stanley. ‘He looks keen to go out.’

  ‘I know. He’s obviously holding a grudge, like you said.’ Roxanne patted his wiry fur. ‘C’mon, little man. You’re a dog. This is supposed to be the highlight of your day.’

  Off they set, with Roxanne gently tugging a still-reluctant Stanley along beside her. They made their way along Rosemary Lane, past the gift shop with spindly white trees hand-painted on its window, and the small art gallery, a selection of delicate silver jewellery arranged in the window display, its walls adorned with watercolour paintings of village scenes. Burley Bridge really had prettied itself up.

  When she came to the bakery, Roxanne paused and glimpsed her reflection in the glass door. If her aim today had been to look quite deranged, then she had pulled it off remarkably well. Just a few minutes ago she had been momentarily perturbed by the vertical crease between her brows when, in fact, perhaps she should have been more concerned about looking like a crazy person pretending to be the queen. She looked beyond her reflection, into the shop, where Michael was setting out something on the glass-topped counter. He glanced up, registering her presence and gave her a bemused look and a wave. Roxanne waved back quickly and strode onwards, keen to escape to the hills before anyone else spotted her.

  Now she was ‘properly’ dressed, the rain was less of a problem than the fact that Stanley clearly didn’t want to be out at all. Time and time again, he refused to continue without a gentle tug. It reminded Roxanne of being out on Hampstead Heath with Amanda and her girls, when they were small and seemingly allergic to walking, requiring the two women to offer shoulder rides. However, Roxanne was not prepared to carry Stanley; this was supposed to be his daily exercise.

  Heading up to the hills now, she let him off his lead, hoping that would improve his mood. He stopped and sniffed a clump of dandelions. For Roxanne, who was used to pelting about everywhere, this was tortuous.

  Someone was striding towards her; a girl in a black beanie hat, with tracksuit bottoms tucked into mud-splattered navy blue wellies and a red waterproof jacket hugging her tiny frame. A small rucksack hung low on her back and a rather dishevelled dog, its fur a mix of greys and browns, was trotting happily ahead of her. The dog bounded towards Roxanne and jumped up at her.

  ‘Down, Bob!’ the girl yelled. She grimaced at Roxanne. ‘Sorry. He’s muddied your jacket. He can be a bit too friendly sometimes.’

  ‘Oh, it’s okay,’ Roxanne said. ‘I wish Stanley was as keen to be out as he is. I swear, he’s in a huff because he got soaked yesterday.’ She looked at the girl and laughed. ‘Am I being mad? Do dogs really have huffs? I don’t really know how they operate. He’s not mine …’

  The girl grinned. ‘I know Stanley. My dad goes to Della’s bookshop all the time. We own the bakery.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve met your dad. I’m Roxanne …’

  ‘I’m Elsa. Nice to meet you.’

  Roxanne smiled as Elsa bobbed down to make a fuss of Stanley. From her jacket pocket, she produced a small brown seed-covered object; it looked like the kind of snack Serena often picked at her desk – the sort that was sweetened with dates instead of sugar and could never, to Roxanne’s mind, come anywhere near the pleasure of a proper biscuit.

  ‘C’mon, Stanley. Look – Bob’s here. We can all go for a walk together.’ Elsa held out her hand and Stanley wolfed the snack. ‘Good boy! Is that better? Are you going to stop sulking now?’ Miraculously, Stanley started to trot ahead, with Bob pottering alongside him.

  Roxanne glanced at her new companion. She was used to being around teenage girls; many of the models she worked with were only eighteen or nineteen years old. Yet they were knowing and worldly and seemed so much older than their years. It struck Roxanne how unaffected Elsa was; a delightfully normal sixteen-year-old who loved to walk her dog. Perhaps Roxanne had lost touch with what non-model girls were like.

  Stanley turned and ran back to Elsa, jumping up and nudging his nose at the jacket pocket where her snacks were apparently stored. She gave him another as they made their way further up the hill.

  ‘So, what are you doing in Burley?’ Elsa asked.

  ‘I’m Della’s sister. I’m sort of having a break from work and I thought I’d come up and help her out for a while.’

  ‘Oh, Della’s mentioned you,’ Elsa said with a smile. ‘You work on a magazine, don’t you?’ She slipped the rucksack off her back and pulled out a camera case.

  ‘Yes, that’s right – it’s called YourStyle. Have you seen it?’

  ‘Yeah, ’course I have!’ Elsa pulled a Nikon camera out of the case, looped its strap around her neck, and stuffed the case back into her rucksack. ‘What d’you do there?’

  ‘I’m the fashion director. I put together all the fashion pages, set up and direct all the shoots, that sort of thing …’ At least, that’s what I used to do, Roxanne thought wryly.

  ‘What an amazing job!’

  Roxanne smiled. She thought so, too, until recently. ‘So, what about you? Are you still at school?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Elsa gave her a rueful look. ‘Well, not today, obviously. I am sick – honest.’

  She chuckled. ‘You’re just having a walk for medicinal purposes. I’m sure that’s what a doctor would recommend.’

  Elsa grinned and called for Bob, who had disappeared into a patch of woodland and leapt out immediately
at the sound of her voice. She took a series of pictures as he darted about.

  ‘You like photographing Bob?’

  ‘Yeah – it’s mad, though. I have hundreds of shots of him already but he’s a pretty good subject.’ She paused. ‘I like taking pictures of nature as well. It’s great for that around here.’

  Roxanne nodded. ‘You like living here?’

  Was it okay to ask? she wondered, as soon as the words had left her mouth. After all, it had been Elsa’s mother’s idea to set up a bakery in the village, and now she was living with another man.

  ‘Yeah, I do. Jude moans about it. He’s my big brother – says it’s boring here. And Dad finds it hard, you know, with the long hours and running the shop …’ She stopped, as if unsure how much information to share.

  ‘I imagine you’re a huge help, though?’

  Elsa shrugged again and thrust her hands into the pockets of her tracksuit bottoms. ‘I try to be but I’m not really into baking, to be honest. Biscuits are fine, dog treats are easy, but bread and cakes …’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve had too many disasters.’

  Roxanne chuckled as the girl stopped and took some shots of the dramatic scoop of the valley below. ‘I know that feeling,’ she said. Then, because she couldn’t resist, Roxanne told Elsa about her brandy snaps disaster and resulting visit from the fire services.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Elsa laughed. ‘I haven’t done anything like that, but I do leave most of the baking to Dad. I tend to do the background stuff, the cleaning and washing up, the packaging – I’m the sort of making-things-look-good person. He doesn’t have a clue about any of that.’

  ‘What kind of things d’you do?’ Roxanne asked, catching her breath now from the exertion of climbing the hill. Already, her thigh muscles were protesting. Still, that was good, she decided; with daily vigorous walks she would return to London a newly-honed version of herself. She looked forward to Sean’s reaction.

  ‘I planned the whole look of the bakery,’ Elsa explained. ‘I mean, Dad’s great, he really is. It was meant to be his and Mum’s joint thing – their business together – and, uh, when that didn’t work out he’s just had to get on with it and learn to make the most amazing breads.’ She paused. ‘So I chose the colours and designed all the labels and packaging, and the main shop sign outside …’

  ‘You painted that?’ Roxanne gasped.

  ‘No, we got a proper sign painter but I drew it out first. The shop was awfully quiet when we first opened so I designed flyers to put all around the village, and I made Dad put out baskets of samples of breads and cakes for people to try …’

  ‘What brilliant ideas,’ Roxanne exclaimed, genuinely impressed.

  Elsa shrugged. ‘Well, it’s helped, I think. Things are a little bit better.’

  Roxanne looked at her. From Elsa’s tone of voice, she deduced that perhaps business wasn’t quite as healthy as she would like. ‘The baked dog treats were my idea too,’ Elsa added with a note of pride.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah – they’re easy to make and need a low heat, so I make them once the morning bake’s finished and the oven’s still warm. I’m trying to persuade Dad to have a basket of them on the counter. I mean, virtually everyone has a dog around here, don’t they? But he’s not convinced they’d sell …’

  ‘You’re very enterprising,’ Roxanne remarked, hoping that hadn’t sounded patronising. ‘Honestly – I’m so impressed.’

  Elsa smiled broadly. She had a fresh, pretty face and clear blue eyes edged by dark lashes, like her father’s.

  ‘Well, I just do what I can and occasionally he lets me have a day off school. Actually,’ she added quickly, clearly worried about making her father sound irresponsible, ‘I think he gets worn out with me asking, so sometimes he just gives in – like today.’ Roxanne caught Elsa glancing at her rain hat. ‘Erm, I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but that’s not the kind of thing I’d have thought a fashion director would wear.’

  Roxanne laughed. ‘Della gave me such a hard time for getting soaked yesterday, I thought I might as well go the whole hog.’

  ‘Suits you, though,’ Elsa added with a snigger.

  ‘I think so too,’ Roxanne replied. ‘I should put them in the magazine, try to start a trend. Actually, I’m supposed to be doing a blog for my magazine about style in the country and I haven’t even thought about what I’m going to write.’

  Elsa beamed, her lovely bright smile reaching her eyes. ‘With that hat, you’ve got your look right there.’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking. You wouldn’t take a couple of pictures of me looking like an idiot, would you?’

  ‘D’you mean they’ll be published in the magazine?’ Elsa exclaimed.

  ‘Yes – at least, in the digital edition. They’ll be much better quality on your camera than anything I could do on my phone …’

  ‘Sure,’ she replied. ‘Mum bought me this camera before she, uh …’ She tailed off. Clearly, recent family events still hurt. While Roxanne could never claim to know how it felt to be a mother, she couldn’t imagine falling for anyone so hard that it would cause her to walk out on her own children.

  ‘It looks really professional,’ Roxanne offered.

  Elsa nodded. ‘I’m finding my way around it, getting used to all the settings. I’m thinking of doing a photography course so it’ll be good practice for me.’

  And that’s how a forty-seven-year-old fashion director ended up being photographed pulling a range of expressions, from horror to mock delight, all caught on camera by a sixteen-year-old girl whom she had only met half an hour ago. Elsa took dozens of shots, and then suggested that Roxanne cavort about without the rain hat: ‘So we can focus on the waterproof trousers – will they be right for your blog?’

  ‘They’ll be perfect,’ Roxanne enthused. ‘I think I know what I’m going to do now. I’ll make it an anti-style blog and send myself up. It’ll be a “terrified London fashion person having to brave the elements in the Yorkshire countryside” kind of thing. Does that make sense?’

  Elsa laughed. ‘I think so. Magazines can be too serious sometimes. I mean it’s only fashion …’ She caught herself. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘No, you’re absolutely right. It is only fashion and it’s good to have a break from all of that.’ An image flashed into her mind of a recent shoot; the model couldn’t stop crying, due to boyfriend problems – models were always having boyfriend problems. Ever the calming influence, Roxanne had spent the entire shoot placating the exasperated photographer, and dispensing hugs and relationship advice to the girl (like she was any kind of expert on matters of the heart).

  ‘I’ll dig out all my sister’s wet weather gear,’ Roxanne added. ‘She has plenty more.’

  ‘And I’m happy to do all your photos. I can take time off school.’

  ‘Ah, no. Out of school hours only. I don’t want to upset your dad.’

  Elsa tutted and smiled, apparently realising there was no point in arguing. They took yet more photos, and Elsa made a note of Roxanne’s email address on her phone, with a promise to send her the pictures as soon as she had selected the best. How bizarre this seemed, Roxanne reflected as they made their way back to the village – yet how comfortable too. Back home, she hung out with a seventy-five-year-old lady, so why not befriend a sixteen-year-old girl here in Burley Bridge? Did age really matter at all?

  The sky was bright blue now, the air fresh and invigorating after so much rain. As the dogs scampered ahead, Roxanne inhaled deeply, took in the sweeping beauty all around her and felt her spirits soar.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After the walk and impromptu shoot with Elsa, Roxanne had made the bold decision to transfer her clothes from her suitcase into the wardrobe and chest of drawers in Della’s spare room. Unwittingly, she had been holding back from making such a commitment – in the way that Sean had so far not left so much as a pair of boxers at her place, lest it might be interpreted as signifying that he might w
ish to move their relationship on a notch. However, after the day’s successes she had been filled with a new sense of optimism and contentment.

  And now, on her third day here, Roxanne was tackling a little light sprucing in the bookshop – under Della’s watchful eye, as if she needed close supervision in order to operate a feather duster.

  Behind the heavy plastic curtain that divided the shop from the new room next door, the whir of an electric screwdriver indicated that shelving was being fitted. Although the mellow music and aroma of freshly brewed coffee were helping to retain the bookshop mood, Della clearly felt the need to apologise to her customers. ‘This’ll all be over soon,’ she reassured a woman who was buying an entire series of 1950s housekeeping manuals – ‘A must for every new wife!’ read the text on the cover. Books like this made Roxanne smile and marvel at the fact that, not so very long ago, the image of idyllic domestic life involved an immaculately-coiffed woman in a pinny presenting dinner to her husband on his return from work. Yet, although outmoded, such cookbooks still possessed a certain charm, and many were beautiful in their own right.

  As the morning progressed, Roxanne began to fully understand why the shop was such a success. It was a little oasis, a haven in which you could browse and potter undisturbed. However, lots of bookshops offered that. What this one could do was transport you back to simpler times: an era of kitchens filled with the aroma of home-baked scones, and dining rooms alive with the laughter and clinking glasses of convivial dinner parties. Della had decided – wisely, Roxanne thought – not to have customer Wi-Fi. Step inside, and it was as if the modern world had simply ceased to exist. Even the cash till was a fully-working antique model in polished wood.

  ‘I hope this new extension won’t alter the character of the shop,’ remarked an elderly man as he perused the world cuisine section.