Sweet Treats

by Christine Miles

  The woman in the car alongside him at the lights scowled; he looked away, turned the volume up a little louder so that his ears hurt, and pulled away quickly when the light turned green.

  Chapter 58

  c. AD 1545, FRANCE: the famous Parisian surgeon, Ambroise Pare, specialises in filling decayed teeth with cork and lead.

  Miss Clapham sat bolt upright on the leather chair in her lawyer’s office. She had informed her of the bucket incident. Her lawyer had merely walked to the window, straightened her already straight skirt, and gazed for long moments at the street scene several floors below.

  “Anyway,” Miss Clapham said, “how are your investigations going?”

  “The evidence is certainly there to prove your allegations. We have several processes that we can undertake with your permission.”

  The lawyer explained all the options. Miss Clapham did not relax, even for one moment.

  “Thank you,” she said when the lawyer had finished. “I shall go away and think them through thoroughly.”

  She knew exactly what she’d like to do to Laud Mayor, but an inner conscience begged for caution. She’d think on it, but not for too long. Thinking never got anyone very far. And pondering on unpleasantness in the past was the equivalent of taking several large steps backwards.

  The aroma of baking pastries beckoned from the small patisserie at the corner. Miss Clapham stepped inside, head held high, and glanced critically at the pastries on show. A croissant, she decided, warm with a generous dollop of butter on the side.

  The croissant was heated in the microwave. The butter tasted the tiniest bit off. “You can’t beat a good old fire,” Miss Clapham said. “And you can’t beat a pat of homemade butter.”

  *

  Bryn had made an appointment to see his lawyer, and so it was that he drove to his offices, looked once at the velvet box on the passenger seat, hopped out and took the stairs two at a time.

  He knew what he needed to ask, and so he did, with no time spent on pleasantries and vague discussions about the future. He got his answer, confirmed that his address remained the same so the secretary could post him the bill, and left for home, a wry, bemused expression on his face and a solid core of determination in his belly.

  *

  If Nina and Miss Clapham and Bryn had got together and shared their stories, they would have come to an extraordinary conclusion in a short space of time. Instead, Miss Clapham sat in her room and thought about many things, not least about Sweet Treats. Bryn sat in his car, foot firmly to the pedal, and wondered what he should do with the information his lawyer had given him. And Nina, totally oblivious to any local scandal other than the Mayor’s, served three busloads of tourists in an hour and a half.

  *

  When Bryn returned home, he entered Staceys with a determined air. Miss Clapham was not here. Miss Clapham possibly had no idea of the local dramas. Miss Clapham would expect all problems to be resolved in her absence instead of this ridiculous dithering of all concerned, wanting to know where Miss Clapham was and hoping she would come back to save them all.

  I can save our village as well as Miss Clapham can, Bryn said to himself. If I wait for Miss Clapham I may as well go and find another job right now because there surely won’t be one waiting for me after December 1.

  Mrs Potts greeted him from behind the counter. His counter. “You kept the shop open?” he said.

  “I’m helping,” Mrs Potts said. “Poor Nina can’t be everywhere at once.”

  Bryn nodded. Would Mrs Potts stay or would she go? He was well aware Miss Clapham would expect that he create an opportunity for Mrs Potts to stay. He hoped she would simply go home at the end of the day and not come back. He would take her a box of chocolates. There was not enough work for two of them.

  Maudie, back in the café and bursting to tell someone – anyone – about the adventures she’d had while away, listened in gob-smacked wonder to Claudia’s tale. “We can’t keep waiting for Miss Clapham, can we?” she said. “We need to get up and get going. I’ll talk to Bryn and Nina and we’ll work together. Not just talk about stuff, but actually work.”

  “If there’s anything I can do to help,” Claudia began.

  “There’s sure to be something you can do,” Maudie said.

  Nina, in Sweet Treats, had a similar epiphany. Stop asking when Miss Clapham will be back, she told herself. She’ll be back when she’s ready. For now, work as though Sweet Treats is your own business.

  She felt her fear of Laud Mayor slide away, rather a lot like water on the windscreen being swatted away by the wipers. She stood straight and tall. If he walks in that door, Nina said to Queen Victoria, I will expect the same good manners as I expect from all my other customers. If he insults me I will not cower. I, in return, will attempt to treat him like a civilised human being. Surely I can do that.

  John hefted a pot of sugar and milk and butter onto the table, where it joined four other pots waiting to be transformed into delicious sweets. He knelt at the fireside and pushed another log into the embers. He was no good at beating the concoction into some kind of submission, but he was excellently good at heating and stirring without burning the bottom of the pot. Once he got this pot to the right stage, he’d pass it on to Nina and straightaway put the next pot onto the great pothook above the flames.

  “Hard work, but feels good, eh?” Nina said.

  John nodded. “Hard work but it gives me too much time to think.”

  Nina waited. She knew what he meant. She’d had far too much time to think about her own thoughts while stirring the pot.

  “Where do you think Greg is? Does he feel any pain? Do you have any clues what it is like to take your last breaths? Did he panic? Was it like some great monster coming after him?”

  Nina concentrated on beating the fudge. Man, did anyone know how tiring it was to beat a huge pot of hot chocolate? If people knew that sweat ran between her shoulder blades, from her brow, all the way to behind her knees, they would surely look twice at their confectionery.

  “Nina?”

  “You know where Greg is. I told you. I don’t want to think about him right now.”

  “Can you just tell me what it was like in his last moments?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think I can last much longer.”

  “Why?” Nina banged the wooden spoon against the side of the pot. It slipped from her grasp and fell into the gloop. “Why won’t you last much longer? Who said?”

  “Nobody has said,” John said, “but I know because I’m having transfusions more often and they’re not working as well as they used to.”

  “There’ll be a cure soon.”

  “Not soon enough for me.” He hefted a stack of dirty dishes and moved towards the door. “I’ll wash these outside,” he said. “We’ll forget that conversation ever took place.”

  “Wait. I’ll try to describe it.”

  “Later,” John said. “Perhaps later.”

  Chapter 59

  c. AD 1550, PORTUGAL: candied fruit-jelly pastes are cut into portions called marmelada; NORTHERN EUROPE: when monasteries close during the Protestant Reformation, honey production drops.

  Blew that one, Nina muttered. It’s not that I don’t want to talk. It’s that I can’t. I can’t bear to remember Greg’s sick days so close to his birthday and I can’t bear to think about John dying too. She peered through the window, to where John pumped water into a bucket then bent to scrub the dishes in its chill waters.

  Greg had fought his cancer. The doctors had admired his courage, the nurses his pluck. They saw his strength; they saw his weakness. He had reached the end peacefully, as though his poor little body saw no choice but to give in gracefully. She, on the other hand, had willed him to live, to live, to live, until she realised that death would, in fact, be a release from the pain, from the suffering. After that, when they’d both accepted there would be no high school, no graduation ceremonies, no first girlfriends or first jobs, no o
verseas trips, no nothing, then it had been kind of a relief. They had talked about seeing each other again, when Jesus would return and death and suffering were no more.

  It had been a heart-stopping, gut-wrenching time, and Nina had struggled not to fall into a pit of despair as she loved Greg through his dying days. He had looked up at her in a rare moment of lucidity minutes before his death and said, “Mum, you will miss me, won’t you?” and Nina had wiped a tear away and thought, “I miss you already.”

  He had taken his last breath so silently, so peacefully, that Nina had not even realised he’d gone. His head rested against her chest; she had been singing his favourite little-boy song in her cracked voice, doing her best to not cry as she sang. She had pressed him to her bosom, and howled, and a young nurse had come in, carefully closing the door behind her, and awkwardly standing by while Nina clutched Greg to her.

  She had got a grip eventually, packed up her few belongings, wrapped Greg’s even fewer belongings inside his favourite, tattiest t-shirt, accompanied Greg down to the morgue, and stumbled outside to a waiting taxi.

  She thought it might be worse living with the loss than it was to actually be the one to die. But how could she say that without sounding callous? As though the people left behind had a greater need than the one whose life was at an end.

  John, on his return with the dishes freshly scrubbed, saw only her white face and wished he had not raised his questions. He had not meant to hurt her; he had only wanted answers. He changed the subject.

  “There is no way all that sugar will be gone by the weekend,” he said.

  “That’s what I keep saying,” Nina said, “but I am told on good authority that it will be. Even though I’ve only used ten kilos so far.” She screwed up her nose at the remaining bags and John did a quick calculation.

  “There’s only fifty kilos left then,” he said, cheerily. “No sweat. We’ll have it transformed in no time.”

  She scrounged through Mrs Potts’ drawers that evening. It was late, very late. Mrs Potts had wanted to talk. John had wanted to talk. She had found herself talking, and between the three of them, around Mrs Potts’ battered Formica table there had been a sense of family. John had turned in first, claiming exhaustion, and Nina had gathered up a few of Mrs Potts’ art magazines from the bottom drawer before heading off to Sweet Treats.

  “Marilla had some of those,” Mrs Potts said. “She used to keep them in a box beneath her bed.”

  Nina lit the paraffin lantern and made her way to bed. Before she climbed between the sheets, she bent to look beneath the bed. It was hopeless to see anything under there with a feeble light. She’d look again in the morning.

  The magazines were there all right. Stacked neatly in a box, not a speck of dust upon them. Each one had been opened and read. Occasionally a bold stickie note was attached to a page – it was while Nina tied her apron she realised each of the stickies identified an art piece depicting women at work with a man in the background.

  She peered closely at the prints beneath Queen Victoria. All originally oils. All Victorian subjects. All the same theme. She’d check with John about Mrs Potts’ pictures. If they shared a similar theme, then surely she must be onto something.

  Chapter 60

  c. AD 1578, MOROCCO: Ahmed el Mansour starts building el Badii Palace and pays for his construction materials with their weight in sugar.

  The day had started well enough with Claudia looking after the shop, and John with Old Tom helping Nina cook several batches of fudge.

  “Never thought I’d be part of the production line,” Old Tom said. “John measuring. Me stirring. And you beating. I’ll cut the fudge and bag it for you now, will I?”

  “You just want to eat it,” Nina said, laughing.

  “Dead right,” Old Tom said. “The crumbly bits are the best.”

  They worked through the day, like clockwork, producing smooth shiny fudge in an array of flavours. “Greg would love this,” John said.

  Nina, head bent over the pot, testing it one last time for readiness, felt the atmosphere in the old kitchen freeze. The fudge was ready. She heaved it from the pothook, declining John’s help, and avoiding Old Tom’s eyes as she added vanilla essence and proceeded to beat the concoction with the big old wooden spoon.

  “Sorry, Nina,” John said.

  “Shut up,” Nina said. Her voice was very calm, and very quiet. She was going to cry, she just knew it, and she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to remember Greg in the presence of a near-stranger. If she remembered Greg aloud with John, with Old Tom (who would tell Claudia, who would tell Maudie, who would tell Mrs Potts and Bryn all about Greg) agog with the gossip of it all, somehow she felt that Greg would no longer be hers. He would belong to other people, and they would be sorry for her and sad for Greg. She didn’t want to share him. Nor did she want great salty tears dripping into a perfectly good batch of chocolate.

  Over Nina’s head, Old Tom and John exchanged a look. Old Tom wanted to get out, chop down a tree, dig a river, anything other than remain in this room. John shook his head, barely perceptible, but Nina felt it nonetheless. “It’s my story,” she said.

  “Share it,” John said. “He was a special kid, and sharing your memories won’t make your memories less.”

  A tear rolled down Nina’s face. “I can’t,” she said. “And I can’t beat the fudge while you make me cry.” She gave a weak laugh, and a weaker stir, then gave up and took the tissue box John offered.

  “I’ll beat,” John said.

  “I’ll beat when your arm’s tired,” Old Tom said.

  “That would be about now,” John said.

  The two of them laughed uncomfortably, then taking it in turns to beat the fudge, timing themselves to see how long their strength would last.

  “How do you do it?” John said to Nina. “This is hard work.”

  Nina threw the wad of used tissues into the fire. “I think about Greg and I beat that stuff as though it were the leukemia that stole his life,” she said. “I beat and beat, and it makes no difference at all.”

  Nina took over the beating, while Old Tom put more wood, unnecessarily, onto the fire. No one ever knew what to say, Nina thought.

  “Who is Greg?” Old Tom said.

  “My boy,” Nina said. “It would have been his tenth birthday this Sunday. Instead he’s been ten months in the grave.”

  Old Tom was rendered speechless. This child of a woman could surely not be the mother of a ten-year-old boy. He hung the poker carefully on its hook beside the fire, and slipped from the room. “Claudia?” Nina could hear him in the shop. “Claudie, I’ll swap places with you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Claudia wailed. “You have suffered this terrible loss all alone.”

  “Not all alone,” Nina said. “Miss Clapham disappeared on some jaunt across the country, leaving me here, so she gave me something to do. Laud Mayor has wreaked mayhem on the village, and Maudie and Bryn have somehow roped me in to help save it – not that I’m doing anything productive; you swanned in and made me remember there is room for happiness in my life; and the fete has hung over my head and I’ve lost sleep over that instead of losing sleep over Greg. You will agree I have hardly been alone.”

  “Well, I suppose not,” Claudia said. “Will you tell me about Greg? Did you know him, John?”

  Nina resumed the beating and John put another pot of sugary, milky goo over the fire. They talked and Nina cried, and Claudia cried, and then they all laughed. When Maudie put her head through the door, begging someone to look after the café while she ran home to bring in the washing before the rain fell, the three of them looked out the window in surprise. They’d been so involved in their work and their talk they hadn’t noticed the darkening of the sky.

  The rain, when it came, was a deluge. It hammered on the slate roof, and poured through the copper drainpipes. Puddles filled the backyard, and the street’s gutters overflowed up and over the paths.

  “It rains
in this place,” Nina said, incredulous. “It has been perfectly sunny up until now.”

  “We’re called the winterless north, but when it rains it really rains and more often than not we flood so badly we are cut off from the outside world.”

  “You don’t say,” John said. “I need to be back at the hospital in three days for the next round of treatment.”

  “Treatment?” Claudia said. “What are you being treated for?”

  “Ah, nothing,” John said.

  “You made me be honest,” Nina said. “Spill the beans.”