The Secret Life of Lucy Lovecake: A laugh-out-loud romantic baking comedy

by Pippa James

  Ever since I’d seen Dominic standing on the steps of his beautiful house, I’d caught myself thinking about him in my daydreams. Heroic, yet human. Manly, but gentlemanly. I was feeling quite twirly and swoony when Clara came in.

  “You seem to be up in the clouds,” said Clara. “Next thing you’ll be asking me to dance with you.”

  “Yes, I might. It’s all happening!”

  “Do tell!”

  “Do you mind if I go for coffee with Michel at 11am? Would that be okay?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course that’s okay,” she said. “So that’s why you’re glowing!”

  “No, I’m glowing because Dominic has invited me to a dance in his barn!” I said.

  “Right. So you prefer Dominic?”

  “Of course.”

  “Right. If you say so,” smirked Clara.

  We worked solidly until a quarter to eleven, unpacking some new stock and cleaning the windows inside and out.

  “Nearly coffee time,” she said.

  I washed my hands, applied some lipstick, sprayed perfume and brushed my hair.

  “See you very soon!” I said, grabbing my bag and coat.

  “Lucky thing!” said Clara.

  Michel was waiting at the corner.

  I jumped into his fancy car, not completely sure what make it was.

  “Thank you for coming. How long do you have?” he asked.

  “An hour, maximum.”

  “Okay, let’s go to my place for coffee – that way people won’t stare or talk about us.”

  “You really think you’re that famous?”

  He laughed. “That’s what I love about you. You don’t put me on a pedestool.”

  “Pedestal.”

  “See? Nobody else corrects me all the time.”

  “I’m not sure about going to your house . . .”

  “I want you to know that Eve has moved out. I want you to be sure of that. Plus, my mother will be there. She follows me around the world. No wonder I’ve never married!”

  “Yeah, well, okay then. That would be nice. So, I’m going to meet your mother?”

  “Yes, Rose Amiel. A very fine Parisienne lady. She taught me to cook. She taught me to express myself.”

  Hmmn, as you “expressed” yourself at the literary awards.

  I wonder if I’ll like this lady, who clearly hero-worships this dangerous man.

  We drove along to Elsworthy Road, and he went round the back and parked in a private bay in the Elsworthy Mews Lane.

  The house he was renting was amazingly grand, but even so, there was still that country girl in me who couldn’t believe the prices for renting and buying houses in London, when where I come from a castle would be on offer for a fraction of the cost.

  It’s obscene.

  “Follow me,” said Michel.

  As we went into a huge kitchen at the back of the house, he called out to his mother.

  Rose Amiel promptly arrived on the scene, a picture of Parisienne elegance: cashmere wrap-sweater, black wool trousers, fabulous shoes, silver bob, very little make-up.

  “Bonjour!” she said, addressing me directly.

  “Cela est Daisy Delaney, Maman,” Michel told her.

  “Ah! Tu me dis au sujet de son avant!”

  Interesting. So, he’s been talking about me!

  We all sat round the big kitchen table, which was a bit like a massive butcher’s block. The kitchen was quite rough in décor but very functional, and bright, with a vast glass cupola overhead.

  Michel made some fresh coffee, while Rose chatted in fragmented English.

  “Do remind me, are you a student at the cookery school?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” I replied.

  “That is how you met?”

  I looked to Michel.

  “Maman, I told you. We first met when she bumped into me at the party, at the V&A, remember?”

  “Oui, oui. It’s all coming back to me now. He said he had danced the Village People with the cutest girl in London!”

  I blushed, though I was secretly flattered.

  Michel rolled his eyes. “This is why I usually keep her locked up,” he said.

  “I tell him, girls like to have compliments. Why he has to act like a bad boy, I will not never know!”

  “There is no acting required,” said Michel.

  “I’d agree with that,” I muttered under my breath.

  “You want to improve your baking skills?” asked Madame Amiel, addressing me directly.

  “Yes, I am an enthusiastic amateur at present. I need to polish up.”

  “Why?” she asked, looking at me so intensely I almost flinched.

  Oh dear. I am going to have to keep my secrets from them. That I am working on a cookery book, inspired by Michel.

  “I bake for the Prim & Proper café chain – you may have seen the local branch on the high street? I want to be able to do more elaborate cakes. And all the men in my life seem to love cakes too. So far, it’s more or less a wing and a prayer. Do you know what I mean?”

  “That you get by on luck alone?”

  “Yes, more or less!”

  “Thank goodness the cookery school is working well. This boy of mine, he needs some luck,” stated Madame, with her fingers crossed.

  Oh, please don’t confide in me, because I have no choice but to sit here and lie to you!

  42

  Kitty

  But alas, Michel picked up the story. “My book sales are plummeting – in every country except Denmark, for some reason. I don’t know what to do about it. My whole lifestyle is geared to a certain level of earnings, it is really hard to take a hit. I need to stay on track with earnings. My manager is giving me hell. He hates my latest draft. I can’t think of anything I want to write about. I’ve done it all.”

  “Maybe you need a break, or a change?” I suggested. “So much pressure. A new cookery school and a new restaurant. You will have burn-out. Why don’t you travel and get new ideas for recipes from other countries? Relax, take a campervan round Italy?”

  “I’m not Rory fucking Bridges,” he said fiercely.

  Of course. His nemesis. Sore point.

  “Clearly. But it must be tough, having to come up with fresh ideas for books all the time. ”

  His mother stepped in. “He has been talking about getting a ghost writer to do the work on this book. But I have told him – that will be the death of your career. The book will not have his spirit. Am I right, Daisy?”

  “Yes, I think the charm of your books is your voice coming through,” I agreed.

  “And the fact that he knows what he’s talking about. He’s a trained chef. Some of the new style cookbooks are terrible. Nonsense. So frivolous!” tutted Madame.

  Oh, flip! This is awkward. Goodness knows what they’d think of my book.

  I toyed with the idea of coming out with the news about French Fancy – just get it over and done with – but quickly decided to take things back to the topic of Michel’s business woes. I felt emboldened by the cosines of our chat. So, I said, “Why don’t you just adjust your lifestyle? Do you really need to rent such a big house for you and your mother? Surely a flat would do? The car, the trappings, do you need them, Michel?”

  I thought of our humble little farm back in Cork, and my mother’s voice ringing in my ears: Always live within your means, and you’ll sleep at night, Daisy. Are you listening? There are things we need and then things we desire. Our needs must be met, our desires controlled.

  “I don’t even know what I need any more,” said Michel. “I just try to keep doing what I’m doing because Auguste says I must. I’ve been doing these books for fifteen years. I always do a new one every two years. That’s just what I must do. It’s expected.”

  I wondered about Auguste. So quick to palm Michel off onto me at the awards event . . .

  “Does your manager move with the times? How much do you do on social media these days?” I queried.

  “Social media? That�
��s bollocks!”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s the way to go. I mean it, Michel. You have to be on all platforms. People are spending more time online than with traditional books, or even TV.” I sounded like Dominic!

  “Listen to you, you’ve taken in all that nonsense, haven’t you?” said Michel. “Anyway, I don’t know why I’m confiding in you, it’s not as if you have any experience of the book world. I’m sorry to burden you.”

  Madame Amiel listened carefully, then chimed in with, “Michel, you must listen to this girl. She is the new generation.”

  “Mother, I am old-school. That’s what works for me. You just said that the new stuff is nonsense!”

  “But Daisy knows about these ‘platforms’! Don’t be left behind at the station!” Madame Amiel exclaimed.

  “Pah! Tweeting and chattering on endlessly, self-importantly. That’s for Rory Bridges! I am mysterious. A purist. And also such a lazy bastard.”

  I looked at the clock. “Oh my goodness. I should be getting back to work.”

  “I will take you,” said Michel.

  I said goodbye to Madame Amiel.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “Will you come back again soon?”

  “If I’m invited,” I said.

  Michel handed me a parcel as we were leaving.

  “Can I open it now?” I asked.

  “No, later.”

  When we got back to the shop, I sat in the car for a moment and felt as if Michel was going to say something more. But I jumped out onto the pavement before he could.

  Don’t get in any deeper, Daisy. Because a whole web of lies is going to form. Secrets galore surrounding the new book. Easier not to see him than to deceive him.

  “Bye, Michel. Lovely to meet your mother.”

  “Will I see you again?”

  “I’m not sure. See you around,” I said, casually.

  He looked as if women didn’t often play hard to get.

  I opened the parcel in the shop. A perfect little china teapot. A card: “From the klutz who adores you.”

  Oh, don’t do this to me. I don’t want to like you.

  The sweetest thing about Michel chasing me was that in his view I had, literally, nothing. I was not a potential big-author name. I was a shop worker and he liked me like that.

  Clara was itching to hear about Michel, but my phone was ringing. Kitty. Unusual at this time of day.

  “It’s Kitty,” I told her. “Mind if I take this?”

  Clara must have been thinking I was more of a liability than an employee these days, but she smiled warmly and inclined her head towards the phone.

  “I’m sorry, Clara,” I said before answering. “I’ll make the time up, I promise.”

  I accepted the call.

  “Hi. Are you okay, Kitty?” I asked.

  Sobbing at the other end. “No, not really.”

  “What’s happened? Is it Charlie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you tell me? Do you want me to come round?”

  “Could you?”

  “I’ll ask Clara.”

  I laid the phone down.

  “If you need to go to her, that’s fine,” said Clara, waving me out the door. “I’ll let you off as one of your friends from your bakery class – Jessica? – just came in here and spent £500! As long as you’re back for two o’clock. I have an appointment at the bank.”

  Wow, Jessica going for it!

  “Of course. I’ll be as quick as I can,” I said. “Kitty sounds really distraught.”

  * * *

  When I got to Prim & Proper, Kitty was serving, her eyeliner smudging her cheeks.

  I took over for her, and when everyone was happy at all the tables, we spoke in the kitchen.

  “Look at this!” she said, handing me a sheet of paper.

  It was a letter.

  “I found it on the desk. Read it.”

  Prim & Proper Café

  26 High Street,

  Primrose Hill,

  London NW1 6VC

  Oscar’s Tea Rooms

  121 Bond Street

  London

  W1S 8HM

  Dear Ms Valentine

  Reference Request for Tea Room Manager: Kitty Chang

  With regard to your request for a reference for the above named employee, I regret to say that I am unable to recommend her.

  We are trying to terminate her contract ourselves due to her erratic time-keeping and general unprofessional conduct.

  I hope you find a suitable candidate for the role of manager of your tea room.

  Yours sincerely

  Charles Baxter, CEO Prim & Proper

  “Kitty,” I said, disgusted by what I had read. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  “But how?”

  I will find a way.

  43

  Back to Bluebells

  Spring was bursting through the hedgerows when I travelled along the country roads to Bluebells, with scenes from The Hen Weekend playing in my head. It was time for the Starlight Dance. Dominic had offered to collect me at the station but I’d taken a cab to save him time. I sat in the front seat with the driver, Bill, taking in the view.

  I was to arrive early in the afternoon to help set up. There was going to be a live band in the barn, and according to Dominic’s to-do list, sent to me as an e-mail attachment, we had yards of bunting to pin up in there. There were strings of lanterns for the trees along the riverbank, and striped awnings for the food and bar areas. I couldn’t wait to see it all and get started on the job of making it look pretty. And best of all, it was warm, still and sunny.

  I’d brought three possible outfits. Two sundresses (I was wearing one) and one cute top and floral hot pants I’d got from Bygone Eros on the Prim Hill high street.

  What a difference from the previous journey! Cheeky lambs played tig in the lush, green rolling fields, swallows swooped and wheeled in the pale-blue sky overhead, and the hedgerows were dotted with soft-yellow primroses and wild pink roses.

  “So, you’re off to Bluebells or Higgledy-Piggledy?” said Bill.

  “Yes. I suppose I know more about Bluebells. A dance, apparently.”

  “I heard about that. That rock band guy, isn’t it? Does it every year. I’ve never been invited, though,” he complained good-naturedly.

  “Oh, sorry to hear that, Bill! I have no idea how they decide who’s going to be there.”

  “Don’t worry, love. I’m just glad of the extra work. Folks getting drunk means trade for me.”

  “Of course. Well, that’s good then,” I agreed.

  “Does a lot for the community, that Dominic, I must say,” said Bill.

  “Really? What sort of stuff?”

  “Fundraising, fun days at the farm, you know. He’s had a tragic time. Raising the little girl . . . knows what it is to suffer.”

  “Very true. But not everyone turns that sort of thing into a positive. Says a lot for him,” I said.

  “Oh yeah. And, of course, there’s no problem getting local ladies over there. I don’t know about these things myself, but they say he’s the hottest thing since the summer of 1995.”

  “Ha! Being a rock star does him no harm in the temperature test,” I admitted.

  “Well, it’s higher up the thermometer than taxi driver, I’m guessing,” said Bill.

  It turned out he was a farmer’s son, and that the farm didn’t generate enough income for him to see it as a full-time job. We were chatting about the stress of living in a caravan on the hill during lambing season when the sign for Bluebells came into view.

  We turned into the drive, much brighter this time, and I got out of the car near the house. As I paid Bill, Dominic and Minty came outside to greet me.

  “Daisy! How nice to see you!” said Dominic. “You look lovely!”

  “Hi!” I said, adding, “Hello, Minty!”

  She smiled shyly, nestling her head on her father’s shoulder.

  “This little girl is
looking forward to the party too,” said Dominic. “That’s why we’re starting at four, so the kids can all have fun. There will be stalls and games – some of the locals are busy setting that up right now. Only the hardcore will be left after dark.”

  “Sounds great. Just let me know what to do, and I’ll get to work too.”

  “Well, bring your stuff into the house and I’ll show you to your room. Then, a cup of tea? I was thinking you might like to help with the fairy lights and the bunting. Maybe chop some of the salad things?”

  “Sure, sounds great.”

  As we walked up to the house, Minty asked to jump onto his shoulders. Agreeing, Dominic looked across at me, smiling broadly. I gave a smile in return, then focused my attention on the house.

  As if on cue, Tilly appeared at an upper window, looking down on us.

  44

  The Starlight Dance

  The first part of the event was like a sun-kissed scene from an idyllic 1950s fair day – little children and puppy dogs, toffee apples and three-legged races. A jazz band played under an awning in the last of the late afternoon sun. Sausages and burgers sizzled on the barbecue before being jammed into home-baked buns, dripping with sauces, relish and tangy pickles.

  As dusk fell, the band arrived, and we switched on the fairy lights and lanterns, as well as doing a big tidy up, not that anyone had left much in the way of litter. Most people were recyclers by nature and custom.

  I’d hardly seen Dominic in the afternoon, as I’d been so busy helping with the set-up, a stint on the tombola, then a dash indoors to my very comfortable en suite room to shower and change for the evening part. Any time I had seen him, Tilly had been in tow, helping with Minty, a casual hand on Dominic’s arm.