by Lizzie Lane
‘Then you have to ignore him—’
‘No,’ Ruby said abruptly. ‘I’m not sure I’m strong enough.’
Mary shrugged her shoulders. ‘What then?’ There was a furtive look in Ruby’s eyes. Mary guessed there was something on her mind.
Ruby took a deep breath because she was about to ask her sister to do something dishonest. She’d been thinking it over all night.
‘Mary, I want to win this baking competition. I want to go to Bristol and then London. I need to win that prize. I need you to let me put my name to the apple loaf. I want to win. I want to leave Oldland Common.’
Mary stared at her in disbelief. She, too, wanted to win this prize. She’d won in other years, but this year was special. The prize money would certainly help them out as a family, but more than that, this year it wouldn’t be just the judgement of the local area, it would be nationwide – if she won this round.
‘What about your apple pie? You stand a good chance. Your pastry is always better than mine.’
There was an intense look in Ruby’s eyes. ‘I want more than one chance to win. I want to get away, Mary, and besides – like you said – plenty of women in the village make apple pies, but they don’t bake bread to the Sweets’ standard.’
It was true. Some of the village women did bake their own bread, but Mary and Ruby had the advantage of tried and tested family recipes and a very hot bread oven.
Mary sat down on the bed and slid her feet out of her shoes. The apple bread had come out of the oven perfectly baked. The smell was heavenly, the crust golden brown, the underside firm but not tough. She’d tapped it with her fist and been pleased with the sound it made. The loaf of apple bread had a good chance of winning the speciality category.
‘I had plans for that prize money,’ she said while kneading the ache out of her toes.
The prize money this year was a definite plus. It had come as a great surprise to everyone when they were told that the local competition would be part of a nationwide search for the Best of British Baking. The winner of this round would win the right to go through to the next which would be held at the Victoria Rooms in Bristol. The winner of that round would then go on to the finals in London. Travel and hotel accommodation was included, plus two pounds for the winner of the regional event in Bristol and twenty pounds for the ultimate prize in London.
Ruby knew she was asking a lot, but this might be her only way to get away from here and she desperately wanted to put Gareth and the village behind her. Perhaps her present mood would pass in time, but for now there was nothing more important.
‘I want to go to Bristol. I think I might also like to go to London, but I don’t want to come back.’
Mary stared at the bedroom window. Her sister was asking her to forgo her chances of winning and take her place, entering the apple loaf as her own. Her first inclination was to turn her down flat. She wanted to win and have the chance to go to Bristol and London herself – or did she?
She looked at her sister, a mirror image of herself except for the mole on her cheek which was roughly the size of a sixpence. Not that it could usually be easily seen; her hairstyle saw to that.
‘You’re asking me to give up quite a lot. You do realise that?’
Ruby nodded.
Mary considered what her sister was asking her. Would she really be giving up so very much? On the one hand, Ruby asking to enter the bread as her own made her angry. Her sister was being selfish. Or was she? Gareth was not a nice man. Why hadn’t Ruby been able to see that when Mary had seen it so clearly? Perhaps because there wasn’t much choice in the village?
Thinking that Ruby might not have been telling her the truth about a possible pregnancy, she repeated the question. ‘Are you sure you’re not in trouble?’
Ruby’s expression turned angry. ‘Mary, I’ve already told you! I am not pregnant! Honestly, Mary, I’m not. I just need to get away.’
Mary thought about what this would mean. The recipe and loaf she’d given such thought and time to would not be entered in her name. But she wanted it confirmed, she wanted her sister to voice exactly what she did want.
‘You think my apple loaf will win and you want to enter it in your name. Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ said Ruby, her arms folded beneath her generous breasts, her chin nodding avidly. ‘You’re as good as Dad; he says so himself.’
‘And you really want to leave?’
‘That’s what I’m telling you. I want to go. I’ll make no bones about it, Mary, I was tempted by Gareth and I do want a sweetheart, but I’m not a tart.’ Ruby pulled a face. ‘I’m still a virgin.’
Mary raised her eyebrows. ‘Is that so bad?’
Ruby pouted and tossed her head. ‘I want to live a bit before I settle down.’
Mary was even more surprised. ‘You mean …?’
‘Why not? At least if I get a bit of experience, I won’t be taken in so easily the next time I get involved with a bloke. So? What’s it to be?’
‘I’ll have to think about it.’
‘Please,’ Ruby implored.
Silently Mary shook her head and backed away, suddenly desperate to breathe the fresh air outside the bakery, to see a patch of sky as she thought things through. ‘I don’t know. Let me think about it.’
Even after coming in from her short sojourn in the garden, she still hadn’t made her mind up. It was her apple loaf. Could she bear to let her sister take the glory – if it won, that is?
She thought further about it as she took two mugs of tea to her father and her brother who were engaged in placing the second batch of bread into the oven. Her apple loaf was out cooling with the first batch of bread.
‘It’s a winner. I’m certain it is,’ said her father, his face red with the heat from the oven.
‘And our dad is always right,’ Charlie added cheerfully, his cheeks just as red as those of his father.
Mary set down their tea on the table in front of them together with a plate of almond-and-coconut-flavoured biscuits. ‘Well, that’s three of you think so, but it’s the judges’ opinion that matters.’
‘Let’s hope they know something about bread,’ grunted Stan Sweet. ‘None of them women who know how to throw a pie or a Victoria sponge together know anything about bread. I hope they’ve got proper bakers doing the judging.’
Stan Sweet was right to be concerned. In past years the baking had been restricted to fruit cakes, Victoria sponges and iced fancy cakes. Bakers were coming from miles around to enter their best and most imaginative breads. This year there were three classes in the bread alone: best batch-baked bread, best plaited and the third category was for a speciality loaf that is made from an unusual combination of ingredients.
Mary felt her father’s eyes on her. ‘I hope you gets what you deserves, me girl,’ he said softly, wiping his floury hands in his apron and laying them on her shoulders. There was affection in his face, gentleness in the touch of his hands.
‘Dad,’ she said, shaking her head and smiling up at him. ‘What are you on about?’
‘About winning,’ added Charlie, leaning back as he opened the oven door to check the loaves.
Stan Sweet frowned. He loved his children to the extent that he’d made sacrifices with his own life on their behalf. He’d never remarried after his wife died and said he never would.
‘I wish you well, love, but I can’t say I’m keen on you going down to Bristol, winning that, and running away to London. When you’ve tasted the big city, you might not want to come back.’
Mary beamed her biggest smile at him. ‘Of course I will,’ she said. She loved the village, loved her family and could never envisage ever leaving, not forever anyway. ‘I love baking bread. I love cooking and I’ve never wanted to do anything else. Besides, I can’t possibly leave my old dad to himself can I?’
She realised she was speaking the absolute truth. Being away from the bakery for any length of time made her feel anxious.
Stan gave a b
ig boisterous laugh that made his shoulders shake. As he did so he saw Mary’s resemblance to his wife. Both twins were very alike and very much like their mother.
‘That’s not the point,’ he said, the light of knowledge and ultimate abandonment alternating in his heart and in his eyes. ‘It’s not the city itself; it’s what you might find there. Your mother found me here, and even though she was brought up in Bristol, she left city life behind and came here to be with me. That’s what I’m thinking about you. You might find somebody that really bowls you over. When it comes to you like that, you’re left with no choice. That’s the way it is. Shame, because you’re a natural baker. Better even than your brother here and soon …’
His brow became more creased with frown lines as he contemplated Charlie’s future. Unlike the girls Charlie would not have a choice. He was bound to be called up sooner or later and there was little his father could do about it.
Deep in thought, Charlie was drawing lines through a film of flour with the toe of his boot, both hands tucked behind the bib of his white apron.
‘I want to go, Dad. If war comes, I want a bit of adventure before I die.’ His manner was subdued, his voice calm and serious.
Stan Sweet sighed. He knew it would happen. All he prayed for was that if war did come Charlie wouldn’t be called away too soon. He knew about war. He’d fought at the Somme. It had been a mind-numbing experience, the sort of thing nightmares are made of. He still had those nightmares.
‘I have to say that I wish there were a way to avoid it, but have to admit it isn’t likely. They’ll force the issue and take you, especially as I’ve got two daughters to help me. But I have to say, son, here and now, that the army is no picnic.’
‘I’m not going into the army. I’m going to join the navy. The merchant navy, I think. There’s plenty of merchant ships coming and going in and out of Bristol. Now that’s not too far, is it?’
Mary saw fear enter her father’s eyes before he blinked it away. ‘I suppose not. I’ll be worried about you, but you’re a man now, and if this war does happen, well, a young man wants to do his bit. At least you won’t be stuck in a muddy trench taking pot shots across no-man’s-land.’
CHAPTER FOUR
The sky over the village fete was a patchwork of blue sky and fluffy white clouds. A slight breeze stirred ladies’ skirts and cooled the sweat of the men, some with their shirt sleeves rolled up as they swung a hammer in order to ring a bell at the top of a mast and win a prize.
There was a tombola, a coconut shy and a dog show for Jack Russell rat catchers, hare-coursing lurchers and sheepdogs; the latters’ owners were required to bring their own sheep in order to demonstrate their dog’s superior skills.
Slap bang in the middle of the fete stood a couple of marquees. In one the produce of Oldland Common Horticultural Society was being judged. The keen gardeners were competing for no less than ten silver cups, everything from flower arranging, the biggest marrow and best Harvest Festival basket.
The marquee where the regional heat of the best bread-baking competition was being held was next door to that of the horticultural society. It was fuller than in past years, the air heady with excitement and the warm, yeasty smell of freshly made bread.
A long table had been placed at one end of the baking tent on a raised platform. There were three chairs placed behind it and the loaves entered for the competition arranged so they could be judged in their respective groups.
A big man with a booming voice announced that the judging would now commence.
‘Ladies and gentlemen! It is my pleasure, indeed my very great privilege …’
Anyone who had dared to carry on talking was pointed at with a finger as thick as a sausage, the knuckles almost as hairy as the thick dark eyebrows that frowned in their direction.
‘Madam! Please!’
It was mostly the women who continued to talk but after one look from the man nicknamed Bullhorn, real name Jeremy Wilkes, they dropped the hands they had been talking behind and faced forward.
Like a ringmaster in the circus, ‘Bullhorn’ made a big show of being in charge and of introducing the judges – as if they were lions or performing seals, thought Mary, who was standing with her sister and father about three rows back from the front of the crowd.
The judges were all from London, two master bakers with round bodies and plump facial features, plus a top chef with black oily hair and a drooping moustache. A nerve flickered beneath his right eye so it seemed as though he were continually winking and his face was almost as greasy as his hair.
Bullhorn went into action.
‘And now!’ Just in case he didn’t have their attention … ‘First, the split tin loaves will be judged.’
Most of the entries for the bread section were not from the village. Mary spotted a number of strangers in the crowd. One in particular caught her eye. He saw her looking, turned his head and met her gaze. He winked.
Blushing profusely, she turned to face the front. She told herself that she wasn’t interested in handsome young men who winked at her. She was interested in the baking competition, and that was all. All the same, she glanced that way again. This time he was facing the front and not looking at her. She was only slightly disappointed. He was not the reason she was here. She was here to see what was going on.
Each loaf was looked at, then smelt, then upended and tapped on the bottom by all three distinguished personages. Once that was done, they put their heads together, backs and bums to the crowds. The crowd began to murmur.
Bullhorn ran his beady eyes over them, but made no move to hush them up. The judges were in conference. The crowd had free rein until they’d finished conferring.
The whole village plus the supporters of the other competitors, some of whom had come from quite a distance, were gathered as tightly as sardines in a can. Necks craned for a better view. Children were perched on parents’ shoulders and some young men had purloined a few wooden crates from the beer tents to stand on.
Following the initial inspections, a slice was cut from each loaf and then cut in three so each judge could savour a piece. None of them added butter. Their jaws moved; their eyes glazed over.
Mary and Ruby were standing side by side watching the event. Charlie had been spotted by Miriam Powell and had promptly headed for the beer tent, wishing Mary good luck before leaving. Mary had said nothing to anyone about the favour Ruby had asked her. After all, both the apple loaf and the pie had been entered by a Miss Sweet. Either of them could claim the prize with impunity.
The judges still had their heads together.
Stan Sweet, having cast a beady eye over the entries for each category, didn’t exactly trust people from the big city to know what a good country loaf should taste like.
‘All done with machines that don’t need a master baker to knock it into shape,’ he grunted.
The honest truth was that he too had mechanical help in his bakery, but he didn’t approve of making big batches. ‘Too many to keep an eye on,’ he sniffed before turning his attention to the number of entrants for the speciality loaf.
‘Only six entered,’ he whispered to his daughter, his face shining with excitement. ‘You’re definitely in with a chance, my girl.’
Mary exchanged a furtive look with her sister, one that said, ‘Perhaps we should have told him.’
Ruby gave a slight shake of her head.
‘All we have to do is win,’ Mary whispered.
The apple loaf was a favourite of hers; something moist and fruity, good to have at tea time with butter and jam, or even by itself.
‘I’ll always be grateful for this, Mary. Always,’ said Ruby.
‘You’d better be,’ growled her sister. ‘But let’s not count our chickens yet. The competition looks pretty good.’
Ruby had to admit she was right. The three of them had taken a look at the other loaves they were up against. One of the loaves was entitled Sunlight Blush, the dough stated to have been mixed with to
matoes that had been dried in the sun plus a hint of garlic. ‘Not very British,’ their father had grumbled. ‘The British don’t like garlic. It’ll never catch on.’
Two of the loaves favoured sultanas and nuts. The other two were as dark as fruit cakes and when cut had the distinct smell of alcohol, probably brandy but just as likely to be whisky.
Mary couldn’t help being pragmatic about their chances. ‘Oh well. Either you’re going to Bristol and perhaps then to London or we don’t win at all; then we both stay at home.’
‘I can’t stay at home. It would be just too unbearable,’ Ruby said, once their father was out of earshot. ‘You know how people gossip.’
Mary gave her sister’s hand a tight squeeze. ‘I know.’ Then, after a pause. ‘I will miss you.’
‘I’ll miss you too.’
After a good deal of deliberation, the judges made their decision, which was given in writing to the man with the foghorn voice.
Bullhorn stepped up on to the rostrum, his voice ringing out loud and clear.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, the first winner has been decided and will be announced once the other categories have been judged and decisions made,’ he bellowed.
There was a humming of outraged conversation, a shaking of heads by people impatient to know the results.
‘Oh, lord,’ whispered Ruby, her breasts rising tightly against the bodice of her favourite blue and rose-pink dress. It was the same dress she’d worn on her last meeting with Gareth Stead. ‘One more category before the apple loaf gets judged.’
The same procedure for the split tin was used for the plaited bread, although because of its nature – beautifully twisted seams plaited like golden hair – inspecting the plaits took longer than smelling and tasting. Bullhorn explained the judges were looking for ingenuous presentation as well as smell and texture. ‘A presentation of plaits and twists likely to bring a sparkle to the eyes of John Barleycorn himself!’
There were a few titters, though some of the professional bakers thought the master of ceremonies should take his job more seriously. A bit of grumbling resumed.