A Springtime Affair

by Katie Fforde

  ‘Of course! I’d be happy to. What sort of cake do you think he’d like? Sponge? Fruit? Chocolate?’

  ‘Actually what he’d really love is one in the shape of a glider. It’s his hobby, you know.’

  This was a bit of a shock. ‘I’d been thinking of a nice chocolate sponge with his name on it in white buttercream? Perhaps some candles?’

  ‘Yes, a glider made out of chocolate sponge would be brilliant! Thank you so much, Gilly. I knew I could rely on you.’

  Gilly’s murmured appreciation of Daphne’s faith was a bit half-hearted.

  ‘It’s going to be a surprise party, you know,’ Daphne went on.

  ‘Oh!’ Gilly’s protective instincts broke through her desire to seem helpful and supportive at all times. ‘Are you sure he’d like that? I mean, not everyone has the temperament for a surprise party.’ She’d been to a couple when the person was obviously not at all happy to have their friends jump out from behind bushes when they were unprepared and not wearing their make-up. ‘William is quite … sensitive?’ That wasn’t the right word; it made him sound like a poet. ‘I mean, he’s got a quiet personality. There’s nothing of the showman about him.’

  ‘It’ll be fine! Don’t you worry. He’ll be delighted. You just get that cake made.’

  ‘You haven’t given me a date?’

  ‘Oh, sorry! Tuesday next week OK for you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gilly faintly.

  ‘And I’m arranging a minibus to pick everyone up so no one has to worry about drinking and driving.’

  Although she hadn’t said as much, Gilly sensed that Daphne felt it was a bit silly to worry about drinking and driving.

  ‘Great!’ Maybe she could get the cake to the venue beforehand. Otherwise she’d be stuck in the back of a minibus with the cake on her knees. If it hadn’t had to be a glider she could have put the cake in the special container she’d bought from a party years ago and had used at least twice. As it was, it would be more complicated.

  ‘So I’ll be back with all the details soon,’ said Daphne. ‘Lovely to chat to you! Byeee!’

  Although her response to Daphne’s glider cake suggestion hadn’t been one of overwhelming joy, Gilly was a little excited at the prospect. She immediately put ‘glider cakes’ into her search engine and had a look. When her children were small she used to make amazing cakes in the shapes of pirate ships, ski slopes and mice and they’d always loved them. She really liked William so did he deserve anything less than a cake in the shape of a glider?

  She considered ringing Daphne to find out roughly how many the cake was going to have to feed but decided Daphne would probably say something vague and unhelpful. No, she was going to go this alone and make William the best cake he’d ever had. Although going on what Daphne had said about him never having had a party, maybe he’d never had a cake, either? In which case it was bound to be the best one!

  After ordering a couple of enormous cake tins from the internet, she made a list for the cash and carry. She added food colouring to the list of normal cake ingredients. And then she sat down and thought about her gliding experience. What had been so magical had been seeing the landscape from above, in the silence, as if one was a bird. Maybe it would be better to recreate the landscape in cake, from a bird’s-eye view, and add the glider later?

  She looked online again and saw that other cake makers had had this idea. But instead of sitting the glider on the cake, she would suspend it over the cake, from the corner. Yes! She was happy. She’d work out the engineering later.

  She rang Helena. ‘Hi, darling, I know you’re busy but I’m going shopping. Is there anything particular you’d like or shall I just get what I think you need?’

  ‘Oh, Mum! You read my mind! Jago has done all the housekeeping lately and it would be wonderful if I contributed something. I’ll pay you back.’

  ‘We’ll discuss payment later. Shall I drop it round to you? Or will you pick it up?’

  ‘I’ll wait until Jago goes out and then pop over. It’ll be nice to have a break and some company.

  But it wasn’t until a few days after Gilly had rung that Helena finally got over to see her. She knew her mother would have put everything in the fridge and possibly made a lasagne or something as well. With garlic bread. She was also looking forward to a long hot bath in her mother’s bathroom, with her mother’s bath products. Washing arrangements in Jago’s house were still a bit primitive.

  Although she had kept up her rate of work since the Springtime Show, she was beginning to lose hope that she’d have enough work to fill a stall respectably at the World of Wool. She had a good reputation as a weaver which meant all sorts of people would go to that event just to see what she was doing these days. There’d be fellow weavers, teachers, potential customers and just friends – she had to have enough good work or she might as well phone in sick. This was not something that self-employed artists could ever do! Jago had suggested wall hangings but she found herself completely lacking in inspiration. She wanted to display work she believed in, even if it was different from what she usually did.

  She came into her old home through the back door to see her mother frowning at something on the kitchen table. Ulysses, the cat, was shut in his cat basket. As he quite often slept in there through choice this wasn’t actually cruel but this time the door was closed. This was unusual. She went over to the kitchen table on which was an enormous cake.

  ‘Mum? What is this? And what is it supposed to be?’

  ‘Can’t you tell? I’ve had to shut Uly up in case his hairs got in it.’ Her mother sounded tired and disappointed.

  Helena looked at the cake a bit more carefully. ‘Oh! I get it now! It’s a landscape, from above. And you’ve put in all the fields and hedges and the river. And the mountains. It’s amazing! It’s just like when we were little and you made us such brilliant cakes. I love your hedgerows made out of chocolate flakes. I don’t like those shop-made cakes that are all smooth and professional but you know they won’t taste nice.’

  ‘I’m not a big fondant-icing fan either,’ said Gilly, looking more relaxed now.

  ‘Look!’ said Helena. ‘There’s a little caravan. Do you remember the caravan cake you made me for my Sylvanian Families? And a duck pond! With little ducklings!’

  ‘I did get a bit carried away, I must admit. Once I’d started I couldn’t stop adding detail.’

  ‘You are so talented! You should enter Bake Off.’

  ‘It’s only a cake! Now, find yourself a towel in the airing cupboard and have your bath. I’ll make you an omelette when you come down.’

  ‘A Mummy-omelette! Yes please. Jago’s out or I’d have brought him round for one, too.’

  ‘Has he gone anywhere nice?’ asked Gilly.

  ‘Just a meeting, I think. He didn’t seem overjoyed to be going.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Gilly. ‘You go and have your bath then. I’ll see how you’re doing before I start cooking.’

  Helena gave her mother a hug before going upstairs.

  She turned on the taps and went to hunt for a towel in the walk-in airing cupboard. She wanted to find a non-B & B towel so her mother wouldn’t have to wash it immediately when something right at the back on the bottom shelf drew her attention. It was a Harrods carrier bag and seeing it brought back a flood of memories. She pulled it out and saw that yes, it did still contain what she thought it did. Several old fleeces, dyed in eye-popping colours, rolled together in a felted mass. She’d forgotten about them but now she remembered the day she’d dyed them, thinking she was going to spin and then weave them. And here they were, in her mother’s airing cupboard, as vibrant as they were when they went in.

  She got in the bath and lay there, as always her thoughts becoming more creative as the hot water did its work. She thought of her mother’s cake – in theory it was a crazy idea but actually, it was lovely. Why didn’t she make a wall hanging of a landscape from above? She could use the fleece. She could do another as a cross section
of a piece of land, like a piece of cake. (She realised it had been ages since she’d had a good bit of cake!) And the cross section, starting from the bottom up, could show all the strata and layers of the earth ending with a hedge and possibly sky and clouds as the top layer. Once she’d worked out a pattern it should be quick to do. Fleece was lovely and fat! It would take up lots of space.

  When she went downstairs later wearing her mother’s dressing gown and smelling of her bath products she was excited.

  The kitchen was no longer taken up by cake and a sulky Ulysses now sat in front of the range cooker, the end of his tail flicking with resentment.

  ‘Mum – I’ve had a brilliant idea! I want to borrow your idea of a landscape from above. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful wall hanging? And then I thought I’d do a cross section of the earth too. Just a slice, obviously. Once I’ve worked out what I need to do it’ll be quite quick to make, I think.’

  ‘Oh?’ Gilly held the bread knife over the loaf, waiting for Helena to explain further.

  ‘I found that bag of fleeces I dyed when I was in college. They were in the airing cupboard. Not only are they amazingly bright colours, fleece is really fat—’

  ‘—and so will take up lots of lovely space? Darling, it sounds brilliant. Now, omelette coming up. Why don’t you stay the night and then you can have wine with it.’

  ‘And we can watch property porn on telly? I’ve been working so hard I’ve hardly had any time off. That would be lovely! I’ll just text Jago to tell him not to expect me home.’

  It was only after Helena had left following a proper B & B breakfast that she remembered she hadn’t asked her mother whom she was making the cake for. ‘I’m going to be a better daughter when this show is over,’ she said out loud.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  It was the day of William’s surprise party and Gilly was pleased. Everything had gone to plan. The cake looked perfect and she had arranged to deliver it early. All the clothes she planned to wear were clean and none of them needed mending. Even her hair had gone right when she’d washed it the previous day – never a given. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

  As Gilly felt that complacency was never a good thing she used her day wisely. She made a shepherd’s pie for Helena and Jago (she thought of them as a couple although she was now convinced he was gay) and dusted all the bedrooms. She didn’t make up the beds with fresh linen as she was expecting her help, a young woman saving to go travelling, in the morning and it was so much quicker with two. Also, she had to keep reminding herself, the minibus was due to arrive at six thirty, which was quite early. You really couldn’t be late for a surprise party, she knew; you had to be there before the surprisee arrived.

  It was just before six, when Gilly had had a change of mind about what jewellery she should wear and was in her bedroom inspecting her collection, when the doorbell rang.

  Thinking it was a bit bloody early and that she would ask the bus to wait and that her current jewellery would have to do, she opened the door.

  Instead of a minibus driver there was an anxious-looking couple in their late seventies. Her heart sank.

  ‘Can I help?’ she asked, just in case by some wonderful chance they were simply lost, or their car had broken down.

  ‘We’ve got here!’ said the woman, who seemed near tears. ‘There was a time when I thought we never would. We are booked in here for tonight, aren’t we?’

  Gilly sighed. ‘Well, I don’t think you are, but never mind. I’ve got room.’

  It took ages to get them settled and then, because they were too tired to go anywhere else, she made them omelettes and settled them in the guest sitting room with the heater and the television on. Ulysses, recognising a couple of cat lovers, had settled on the woman’s lap. The minibus had been and gone and now she had to drive to the party as fast as she could and hope she got there before William did.

  As no one was hiding when she arrived and the function room was full of people, she realised she was too late. She went straight to the kitchen to find someone in charge.

  The cake had been put on the trolley used for wedding cakes; it was being treated with the respect Gilly felt it deserved. It really was a very good cake. And once she had suspended a model glider over the landscape she was entirely satisfied.

  ‘That is an epic cake,’ said the venue manager. ‘The detail on it is amazing. We’ve been admiring it all day. If you fancied becoming a professional we would be happy to recommend you to clients.’

  ‘I think I’m happier with an amateur status, thank you,’ said Gilly. But she was really thrilled at his reaction.

  ‘There you are!’ said Daphne, bustling up in a vision of crushed silk in a bright olive colour that exactly matched the huge glass beads round her neck. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I am so sorry, Daphne. Some people turned up on the wrong day and I couldn’t turn them away.’ She was about to add that they were quite elderly but then realised they were probably the same age as Daphne.

  ‘Oh dear. Poor you. How awkward. And of course you can never turn anyone away. But you have made the most magnificent cake I have ever seen! I can’t decide what my favourite bit is. I think it’s the tiny swans swimming on the river.’ Daphne looked at the cake again. ‘And you’ve added a glider! Much more sophisticated than making one out of cake. I don’t know what I was thinking of when I suggested that.’

  ‘I did lots of those sorts of cake for my children when they were little but felt you couldn’t recreate the lightness of gliding, the flying sensation, if the wings were made with Victoria sponge.’

  Daphne cackled with laughter. ‘Excellent! You sound like an artist! Oh, you’re wearing odd earrings. Is that a thing or is it a mistake?’

  ‘Definitely a thing,’ said Gilly, her hands flying to her ears to check what she was wearing in them. ‘It’s my artistic rebel streak.’

  She wondered if the earrings were different enough from each other to look as if she’d done it on purpose. While she wasn’t opposed to people wearing odd earrings, it had to look on purpose and not just an accident. Hers were definitely an accident. Still, most people wouldn’t notice, she was sure.

  ‘Right,’ said Daphne, ‘we’ll do the cake. Some of the people here need to rush off.’

  As they followed the cake, being pushed on its trolley by the hotel manager, Gilly asked, ‘So how did you find out who to invite?’

  ‘I got William’s mother to find his address book, which she did and posted to me. I must say it did seem a little bit old but it was all I had to go on so I just invited everyone in it.’

  ‘So his bank manager might be here?’ asked Gilly, laughing in spite of trying not to.

  ‘If his bank manager loves William enough to come then he’s welcome,’ said Daphne. ‘Now, here we are!’

  Feeling chastened, Gilly moved backwards so she was at the rear of the crowd which was now gathering round the cake. Daphne found William, took hold of his wrist and brought him forward.

  Gilly studied him for signs of stress, of being utterly miserable, but he seemed to have risen to the occasion quite well. He always dressed fairly formally so although he might have had to remove his tie to look party-ready, he did look very nice. Very nice indeed, Gilly thought, and realised she was probably biased. She couldn’t help wondering what ruse Daphne had come up with to make him come to the hotel.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Daphne, ‘we are all gathered together to wish this young man a very happy birthday. But before we all make a hideous noise singing one of the dullest tunes in history, I think William would like to make a short speech.’

  William looked around him easily, not rushing to speak but acknowledging his guests with a smile. ‘I think when my aunt said I would like to make a speech, she really means she thinks I ought to make one. While I’m not one for speeches normally I am very glad of the opportunity to thank you all so much for coming. It is really great to have this chance to catch up with old friends – people I hav
en’t seen for far too long.’

  There were cheers and comments that indicated how fond his guests were of William and then there was the obligatory song.

  Then Daphne bustled forward again. While she clearly adored William she didn’t really like being out of the limelight. ‘Now we’ve got that out of the way, I’d like to draw your attention to this wonderful cake! I think you should all have a good look at it before it’s cut.’

  It seemed to Gilly, who was suddenly overcome with nerves, that everyone with a phone took a picture of the cake. All she wanted was for William to like it, and maybe to say so. Then she could have a quick drink and slip away.

  She reckoned without Daphne.

  ‘Now,’ Daphne said, brandishing a large knife she had got from somewhere, ‘while this isn’t a wedding’ – pause for laughter – ‘it is an occasion and this magnificent cake, which I think is a work of art, recognises that. And I’d like to introduce you to the wonderful woman who made it. Gilly!’

  Gilly’s hand was taken and she was dragged to stand in front of the cake next to William. She gave him an apologetic look and received a very amused one in return.

  ‘Right!’ said Daphne. ‘Cut the cake!’

  The cry was taken up. ‘Cut the cake, cut the cake!’

  Someone a bit more officious than the other guests came up with a proper camera and insisted on posing Gilly and William, both pairs of hands on the knife, looking at the camera before the first slice was cut.

  ‘I am so sorry about this,’ said William out of the corner of his mouth. ‘This is desperately embarrassing for you.’

  ‘I didn’t realise Daphne had organised a photographer.’ Gilly was talking out of the side of her mouth too.

  ‘Put your arm round her, William!’ called the photographer.

  ‘That isn’t an official photographer,’ he muttered. ‘I rather think he was in the gliding club at university. Haven’t seen him for about twenty years.’

  ‘But he came,’ said Gilly, remembering what Daphne had said.