The young families moved away to other places with schools and sports fields; the young people moved away to find work, and the older people struggled on or followed their offspring to the cities and towns. Family, after all, were meant to stay together.
If Laud Mayor would only pay his bill, they’d be in the black. A little bit.
So much for a degree, he mumbled as his eyes rested on the bold red number at the bottom of the page. So much for a life, even. He exhaled loudly.
Maudie, sitting at the table with a splodge of superglue on a throw-away plate in hand exhaled loudly too.
“When I’m good at this,” she said, nodding towards her drying attempt at a nuts-and-bolts cyclist, “I will make one especially for the public toilets.”
Bryn bent to look at her work. “You’re getting better,” he said. “Listen, I’ve made a hash of introducing myself to the new girl.”
Maudie could not bring herself to meet Bryn’s eyes. “I did too,” she said. “At least I think I did. I told her about Oliver Cromwell and Colonial Pride.”
A heavy silence fell over the room. It was Bryn who spoke. “It’s the only interesting fact you know about sweets,” he said.
Maudie nodded. “I told her Miss Clapham would expect her to know all kinds of trivia about sweets.”
“From the beginning of time, I suppose,” Bryn said.
Maudie fell silent. Her craftwork seemed contrived now that she thought about her treatment of Nina. She knew what it felt like to be new; she should have been kinder, more generous.
“We’ve probably wrecked our chances of survival,” Bryn said. “We’ll have to move away, find work somewhere else. Unless you can manage to make friends with her.”
“I’ll go now,” Maudie said. “The sun mustn’t go down on our anger. It will be a new day tomorrow.” And she was gone.
Chapter 11
c. 1000BC, GREECE: small fruits, flowers, seeds, and plant stems are candied with honey or with syrup made from figs or dates; EGYPT: because rodents have strong teeth, some toothache sufferers place live mice on their gums to relieve pain.
Nina stirred the soup in her bowl slowly. If Nellie Potts in her tatty, stretched cardigan and sagging dress would just leave the room for the shortest moment, she could throw the whole lot down the drain. Who ever thought of making soup from Brussels sprouts?
Mrs Potts at that moment heaved herself to her feet and shambled to the front room. She peered through the net curtains. “We have a visitor.”
There came a knock at the door, which Mrs Potts answered, and shortly she returned to the table followed by Maudie wearing an impossibly purple skirt.
“I’m a bit thick some days,” Maudie said, and Mrs Potts’ eyebrows rose nearly right off the top of her head.
“Some days?” she said, but Maudie ignored her.
“I need to be your friend,” Maudie said.
“Why?”
“You don’t want to be friends?”
Nina pushed the one Brussels sprout in the briny soup around the bowl, then looked to Mrs Potts for support. Mrs Potts concentrated hard on her dinner, wiping her soup bowl with a crust of burnt toast, and smacking her lips.
“What is that?” Maudie said.
“Soup. Brussel sprout soup,” Mrs Potts snapped. “Sprouts from the garden. Good for the brain. You should have some.”
Maudie missed the intended slight. She launched instead into a lengthy and honest description of her presence. “Bryn says I’ve got to be your friend.”
“What?”
“You’ve met him. He came to your shop today.”
“I know he did.”
“Bryn says I’ve got to be your friend ‘cos if you can’t be friends with him, then you’ve got to be friends with me because it’s the only way this place will survive.” The words tripped over Maudie’s tongue, dropping into the silence like potatoes into a bucket.
“What?”
“Survive. You know. Not go under.”
“What’s it to do with me?”
Here, Maudie paused. Clearly she hadn’t expected to be interrogated. Her eyes lit up. “Miss Clapham’s gone.”
“Unfortunately.” Nina didn’t enlighten her audience who Miss Clapham’s absence was unfortunate to.
“And you’re here.”
“Possibly unfortunate too.”
“And so we’ve got to work together, and nobody can be better than another, and if you’re to be a city snob then Bryn doesn’t want to know about it. You can be the biggest snob in the world after we’ve dealt with Laud Mayor.” Maudie paused for breath, and Nina took her chance.
“Here,” she said. “Have the soup. You’ll like it. As Mrs Potts said, it will do wonders for your brain. Perhaps it will enhance your social skills too.”
“What did I do wrong?” Maudie wailed to the hapless Mrs Potts as she sniffed suspiciously at the soup. “You can’t call this soup! It’s more like a poison.”
“Off with you,” Mrs Potts said. “You’ve wreaked enough havoc.”
“Me?” Maudie said. “But I came over to be friends with Nina.”
Mrs Potts held the door open. “Out. And don’t come back until you connect your mouth with your brain. Assuming you’ve got one, of course.”
Maudie pointed to her mouth. “I’ve got one,” she said. “Can’t you see it?”
Chapter 12
c. 700BC, ITALY: Etruscans carve dentures from ox teeth, set in gold bands.
The kindling had not been cut fine enough. She was forced to chip at the sides with a butter knife to create little curls that might catch alight easily. The flint was impossible. How could anyone drop a spark into the right spot? The chimney, when the fire finally lit, refused to draw. Opening every window and both doors made not one iota of difference to the smoke-filled room. Miss Clapham entered the room resplendent in Victorian clothing with little Greg’s hand firmly in hers.
The cat wailed beneath the window again that night, and Nina awoke with a hammering heart and a wet face. The clock chimed – one, two, three, four.
Stifling her sobs, Nina threw back the blankets. She blew her nose, and gathered up her towel and toiletries. She’d have a shower and make an early start at Sweet Treats. She would not let nightmares rule her life.
She opened the bedroom door, and jumped. Mrs Potts stood there, nightcap pulled down to her brows, her ears sticking out.
“No showers before 6am,” Mrs Potts said. “Those’re the rules.” She padded to her own room then looked back at Nina. “No showers, I say.”
Nina nodded. She slipped into the bathroom, locked the door, jammed the wicker basket against it, and turned the shower taps on full. Her mother would be ashamed of her; she was ashamed of herself. She’d blame the Brussels sprouts for her rudeness.
*
There were no matches. After scrounging in drawers and cupboards, behind curtains, even upstairs, she realised the smooth piece of metal on the mantel was flint. She groaned aloud. How did you strike a flint?
It was Old Tom who rescued her. She knew it was Old Tom the moment he put his head around the back door.
“I’ll get that going for you,” he barked, and Nina watched carefully as he worked a spark from the flint. He stayed until the fire burned steadily. “I’ll be back in a bit – haul your water, chop some wood and the like. You’ll be wanting to make the coconut ice first,” he said.
Nina nodded. She wanted to ask would he do those things every morning but she didn’t want to give him a chance to back out of any helpful arrangements he might have made with Miss Clapham.
“About five squares will do it,” Old Tom said. He ducked his head through the door, then turned back as if he’d just remembered. “If you’re to stay here, I’ll bring Marilla’s dog to you after lunch,” Old Tom said.
“Dog?”
Old Tom glared beneath his shaggy eyebrows. “I said a dog, didn’t I? Not an elephant, not a chimpanzee. I slipped in and took him from the back yard yesterday
afternoon while you were sorting things out. You’re all settled now. He may as well come back.”
“But I’m not all settled,” Nina protested. “I’m staying at Nellie Potts’ place.”
Old Tom shrugged. “I can’t keep him,” he said. “He’d be alone all day” And he shambled down the back steps, around the side of the shop and away. Nina ran to the front window. Where was Old Tom’s house? How could she make him keep the dog – she could only picture an Alsatian – until Miss Clapham returned? Mrs Potts would never allow a dog on her property, and he could hardly be left in the shop overnight.
Nina pressed her hands to her temple. This whole thing was ridiculous. Was Miss Clapham playing a trick? Was John taking the mickey? Was there a hidden camera somewhere in this place recording her incompetence for other people’s entertainment?
“Anybody in?”
Maudie held a tray on which were two steaming mugs and a great lump of butter. From a bag slung over her shoulder she hauled two bottles of milk. “I am sorry about last night,” she said. “As well as being your friend, I meant to say you need to put the cream cans out at the end of the day.”
Nina stared at Maudie, confused.
“Miss Clapham always puts the cream can out,” Maudie explained. “I could see with my own two eyes that you didn’t do it. I put two and two together, and figured today you wouldn’t be able to make any sweets at all. You need cream or milk or butter for all your cooking, you know.”
Actually, Nina didn’t know. She hadn’t studied the recipes all that closely.
“The locals will be laughing behind their hands. So I’ve come to save you.” Maudie emptied her arms onto the table, dropping the butter to the floor and tipping one of the hot drinks over.
Nina grabbed it.
“Lucky it has a lid,” Maudie said. She picked up the butter and turned it in her hands. “Nothing a good wash won’t fix. The water’s clean?” And she dumped the butter without ceremony into a bucket of water. “What’s more,” Maudie said, “the locals will be curious about you. What kind of person doesn’t do as Miss Clapham would, they will be wondering?” She paused a moment, as though thinking about the answer to her own question. “She might be formidable, but we all love her.”
Nina nodded. “I need to keep things exactly as Miss Clapham would have?” she said.
“To begin with,” Maudie said. “Except for maybe the butter.”
“She made her own butter?”
“That’s what I said, love. Be grateful you don’t need to milk the cow.”
Nina swallowed a groan. “Do you have time to sit down?”
“I do, but you don’t,” Maudie said, reaching out to feel the warmth of the fire. “This thing is not nearly hot enough. I’ll add a bit of wood.
“When it’s settled, we’ll add coal,” she continued. “I think Miss Clapham uses half-wood, half-coal to get the temperature exactly right.”
Nina watched Maudie feed the wood into the flames. The words washed over her. She had no idea what Maudie was describing. She only hoped she looked more intelligent than she felt.
“Look, sit down yourself,” Maudie said. “We’ll have a cuppa and then I’ll help you.”
“I’m going to close the shop,” Nina said suddenly. “I have no idea what I’m doing, and I don’t know when Miss Clapham will be back. She’d understand.”
Maudie looked dubious. “I don’t think she’d understand at all,” she said, finally. “I think she’d feel very let down. And Bryn and me, it would destroy our business. Tourists stop here for two reasons – the first is your sweet shop; the second is the public toilets down the way. Then they feel like a coffee and remember they forgot the tent pegs so they zip into Staceys and buy the pegs along with a magazine or newspaper, plus an ice cream for the kids, then decide to eat because it will save another stop on the long journey to wherever they’re going.
“You’d make a lot of people very angry indeed if you just left that closed sign hanging on the door.”
Nina raised a hand to stop Maudie’s diatribe, but Maudie ploughed on.
“Anyway, we’ve got the fete in three weeks, and a fete wouldn’t be a fete without homemade sweets. You’ve got to be here.”
“Anyone could sell a few boiled lollies,” Nina said.
“Toffee apples, fudge, coconut ice, marshmallow, even spice biscuits if you have time,” Maudie said. She put her hand on Nina’s arm and looked into her eyes. “You can’t abandon us. We’re going to raise enough money to pay the rates for the campground.”
“But it’s closed.”
“Only because the Council hiked the rates. We need it to be open. There was not one empty shop while the campground lived. Anyway, there’s no more time for chitchat. I’ll show you how to make fudge.”
“And coconut ice,” Nina said. “I promised Old Tom.”
Maudie showed Nina how to make fudge, and when it lay, shiny and perfect, in the big tray on the wooden table, she cut it into pieces just the same size that Miss Clapham would have done.
Maudie looked at her watch. “Got to run,” she said. “Claudia will wonder where I am. She’ll laugh her head off when I tell her about your cream cans.”
Chapter 13
c. 500BC, IRAN: Persians nibble on spices mixed with crystals made from sugarcane.
Nina flicked through Miss Clapham’s recipes. Coconut ice looked a lot simpler than fudge. She’d make a batch so as to surprise Maudie and please Old Tom. But – and here she drew a thick line in her mind’s eye - no matter what people expected of her, she would not do everything the way Miss Clapham did. She would not put the cream can out because she wouldn’t be making butter. She wouldn’t even buy cream from Staceys. She would march in there, with her head held high, and she would buy butter already made. Nobody would know the difference, and anyway, if they wanted fudge, it was the only way they would get it.
To add emphasis to her words, Nina took the butter churn and heaved it onto the highest shelf. Its wooden innards rattled gently. “Out of sight, out of mind,” she muttered as she covered the churn with a cloth.
Chapter 14
c. 400BC, IRAQ: villagers dry dates in the sun so they last longer and taste sweeter.
Claudia, Nina thought, was the only normal person in the entire place. Claudia had called into Sweet Treats on her way to work (before she’d had a chance to be accosted by Maudie), leaned comfortably against the workbench, and perused Miss Clapham’s recipe book.
“She’s never just left before,” Claudia said. “And she’s certainly never given anyone an opportunity to look at her recipes. She’s off doing something urgent.”
Then she’d snapped the book shut, blinked as though she’d forgotten Miss Clapham even existed, and exclaimed, “Now look at you, a child barely out of school, having to work in this ancient old kitchen with not a spark of electricity. You will need help.”
And she implored Nina to accept the help of Old Tom all day, every day if need be. “Old Tom,” Claudia explained, “is helpful in many ways, and is quite used to performing as a dapper gentleman when the tour buses stopped for refreshments. He’s at home now, sitting with his elbows on the table, pen in one hand, tea in the other, muttering about today’s crossword in the paper. He could be doing that exact same thing here, in addition to stirring whatever is in the pot every few minutes.”
Nina looked at Claudia dubiously. She had thought Old Tom to be a lifesaver earlier. Would he be just as helpful if he was to stay at Sweet Treats all day? Or was she about to land herself an incontinent, pre-senile gentleman who needed to be babysat?
Claudia had laughed. “You are afraid I am dumping my old husband on you,” she said. “We call him Old Tom, but he’s not even 60. He became Old Tom the day our Young Tom was born.”
The clock had chimed, and Claudia had dashed across the road to help Maudie in the café. Nina thought it could well be a case of Maudie slowing Claudia but she closed her mind to further thought about the happenings ove
r the road, and studied the recipe for coconut ice. She hated recipes that didn’t give quantities. How much cochineal was she meant to put in anyway? A teaspoon? Two?
The first batch turned out bold pink. A mother with her little girl took one look and turned away in horror. “Far too much colouring,” she had said, urgently, as though a poison was filling the shop. “You’ll make the children hyperactive. Just think!”
Sweet Treats Page 3