Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery (4 page)

The phone stopped, then instantly started again moments later. Polly swallowed and carried on. This wasn’t a good sign. Unless it was a particularly committed salesperson.

She swung round the balustrade into the very top room, below the lamp itself. The phone had been there when they’d moved in and they hadn’t changed it. Polly rather liked it. It was obviously old coastguard issue, in a bureaucratic grey colour with stubby white buttons, many of which had mysterious functions she didn’t understand. It also had a stern
brring brring
that reminded her of black-and-white war films.

She picked it up.

‘Hello?’

The voice on the other end was quavering but strong.

‘Is that Miss Waterford?’ it demanded formally.

‘Uh, yes.’

‘This is Janet Lange. Gillian Manse’s sister.’

‘Of course,’ said Polly, steadying herself against the sofa, a chill entering her heart. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Only,’ the voice went on, as if it hadn’t heard her, ‘only we’ve had a bit of trouble, you see.’

‘What’s happened?’

Polly looked out of the window at the seagulls circling peacefully, at the tiny crests on some of the waves. Everything was as tranquil and peaceful as it always was.

‘Well, I’m afraid Gillian has… passed on,’ said her sister.

There was a silence.

Even though Mrs Manse had been old, and somewhat irascible, she’d still seemed a very strong figure to Polly. Certainly not somebody who could simply pass away or cease to be: she was solid, formidably so.

‘But there was nothing wrong with her,’ said Polly. She found her hands at her face. ‘Oh dear. Oh dear me.’

‘I did tell her to lose weight,’ said Janet. She had some of her sister’s brusqueness, but Polly could tell it was genuine shock. ‘I told her, I told her, but she was so stubborn! Her doctor told her a million times, and I told her too. You’re too fat, Gillian. You eat too many cakes. That’s what we told her.
Sell
the cakes, don’t eat them. But she would never listen to anyone, never…’ Her voice dissolved in sobs.

‘Was it… was it sudden?’

Polly’s voice appeared to be wobbling of its own accord. Mrs Manse had had such a sad life, working all hours in the bakery after the loss of her only child at sea; a child she had never stopped mourning. She often went out after dark to watch for boats coming in, just in case her boy was on one of them. This had gone on for years and years and years, as her shop got more and more grubby and downtrodden and she retreated further into bitterness and regret.

‘Aye,’ said Janet. ‘Reckon. Heart attack.’

Her voice went quiet.

‘We bickered, you know.’

‘I do know,’ said Polly, who had spent a lot of time listening to Mrs Manse complaining about her new retired life and how annoying her sister was.

‘But I loved her really!’

‘I know,’ said Polly. ‘And she loved you too.’

There was silence on the other end of the line.

‘Well that is so sad,’ said Polly quietly, and she meant it. She hoped that a bit of company, someone to eat with and watch telly with and play bridge with, had made a real difference to Mrs Manse in her retirement.

‘Aye,’ said Janet Lange, sounding as if she’d pulled herself together. She sounded more like her sister again too. ‘It’s a right kerfuffle, though. Wants buried on the island and all sorts. Don’t know how she expects me to manage that.’

‘Well of course we must help,’ said Polly. ‘Let us manage all that.’

Janet sniffed. ‘Aye, well don’t go thinking she’s left you those shops or anything like that. There’ll be nowt in it for you.’

It hadn’t even crossed Polly’s mind.

‘Or,’ said Huckle, ‘it will all work out fine and everything will be totally okay.’

He lounged back on the sofa looking, as usual, so relaxed it was difficult to tell whether he was awake or asleep. Normally Polly found this an endearing and comforting characteristic. It was hard to get anxious or worry too much when you were around Huckle. He always had total confidence that everything was going to be all right, and occasionally it could rub off.

This was not one of those times, though. Polly was pacing anxiously round the lighthouse tower, gazing out at the darkening sea. Neil hopped up and down worriedly.

‘I mean… it’s all the houses… all that space. I mean, Mount Polbearne is trendy now…’

‘Yes, thanks to you,’ said Huckle sleepily.

‘… and you know how nutty house prices are getting. I mean, what if her sister just decided to flog the bakeries off?’

‘And who’s going to buy a house in a village where you can’t get a loaf of sliced white?’

Polly shrugged. ‘Muriel could stock a bit of bread. Honestly, with your American businessman’s hat on, what would you do?’

‘With my American businessman’s hat?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s that like? I mean, is it a massive JR stetson? Does it have a badge on it? Can I have a sheriff’s badge? I think I would like that. Yes, I definitely would.’

‘You’re not being as helpful as perhaps you think you’re being.’

‘An American businessman would have bought this entire place decades ago and turned it into a gift mall; I think you’re all nuts for struggling on. AND he’d have sensibly built a bridge.’

Huckle looked over. It was rarely wise to get Polly started on the bridge, and he wished he hadn’t mentioned it. He wasn’t getting out of this conversation any time soon.

‘Well,’ he said, sighing. ‘Just call Janet back and ask her what’s going to happen. Or ask her at the funeral.’

‘She just told me not to think I’ll be getting any of it,’ said Polly. ‘She sounded scary.’

‘Interesting note of surprise in your voice,’ pointed out Huckle, who’d been at the sharp end of Mrs Manse’s tongue and hadn’t enjoyed it in the slightest.

‘But if she kicks me out… what are we going to do? I mean, I’ve worked and worked to build all this up, and it could just disappear to nothing… I mean, we wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage on this place and we’d have to move and I’d have to… Well I don’t know. Get a job at a pie shop!’

Huckle smiled. ‘Ooh, that’d be great!’

‘I don’t want to get a job at a pie shop!’

‘You could be Reuben’s personal pastry chef,’ said Huckle. Reuben was their extremely rich friend.

‘I’ll stick to the pie shop, thank you.’

‘Look at it this way,’ said Huckle. ‘Human beings are pretty lazy, right? Most of them. They’re not all nutters that get up in the middle of the night like you.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘And she’s an old lady. So what’s more likely? That she’s going to supervise some expensive development pulling out ovens and putting in swanky kitchens to sell a yuppie weekend lifestyle to idiots, and make you homeless, or just leave things as they are and rake in our vast riches?’

Polly smiled. ‘Well when you put it like that…’

‘And you had a contract, right?’

‘No,’ scowled Polly. Then her face softened. ‘Also, this is making me think about stupid, selfish stuff. Rather than thinking about Mrs Manse.’

‘Yes, and all the happy times you spent together.’

‘An old woman who had a very sad life is dead,’ said Polly, still staring out of the window. ‘That is really awful.’

Huckle nodded, then got up and came over to the window. He put his arms around her waist and held her to him and they both gazed out at the moon. He kissed her gently on the neck.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know. It is sad.’

Neil waddled up crossly and stood between their legs in case they’d forgotten him.

‘It is sad,’ Huckle said again. ‘And it would be even sadder if her sister messed with what you’ve done here. But I’m sure she won’t. She’ll realise what a great job you’re doing and let you carry on. I’m sure she will.’

Polly rested her head back on his shoulder and followed the beam of the light above them as it glimmered over and across the waves. She wasn’t sure at all.

 

 

Polly threw herself into organising the funeral, as much as she was able. Janet was not inclined to be helpful: when Polly asked for a list of Gillian’s friends, she merely sniffed and made an unpleasant noise and said Polly would know that better than her, so Polly just told everyone in the village who came in and hoped for the best. She also baked up a storm. Mrs Manse would have liked that, probably.

There was a little graveyard up behind the old church, still consecrated ground, and they received the complicated permissions to bury Gillian there, as she had been born on the island and lived her whole life there. Amazing, really, Polly reflected: to stay within a square mile, to consider travelling to Devon a great adventure. She asked the fishermen if they ever remembered Gillian taking a holiday or going overseas, and they all looked at her strangely. Not a lot of people on Mount Polbearne took holidays.

The following Monday morning was grey and dreary, proper funeral weather.

It was not, Polly thought regretfully, the kind of send-off she would like for herself; nor the magnificent party Reuben had thrown last year for Tarnie’s funeral. It was a small service, in the village meeting hall, presided over by the female vicar from the mainland, of whom Mrs Manse had loudly and publicly disapproved, and the eulogy was short and impersonal.

On the plus side, it was well attended. Everyone from the village was there, from the eldest to a row of squalling babies – there’d been a mini baby boom earlier in the year – who had never even got to be scowled at by Mrs Manse for not having the right change for a bath bun.

All the fishermen, Polly noticed, lined up manfully to pay their respects to someone who, despite her demeanour, had been one of their own.

Muriel, Polly’s friend who ran the little supermarket, shut the shop for an hour and joined them.

‘I’ve never before,’ she whispered to Polly, ‘been to the funeral of someone who only ever shouted at me.’

‘She did shout a lot,’ said Polly. ‘But she was all right really. Well. She was just very, very sad. Which makes this sad.’

She had asked everyone if they wanted to say a few words, and nobody had done particularly – they had all shuffled and looked at the floor. It had really made her miss Tarnie; he would have been perfect for the job, would have done it properly and respectfully, without nerves or fuss. But unfortunately it looked like she was the only person left, after Janet declined to speak about her own sister.

After the ceremonial bit was over, Polly got up and stood at the pulpit, feeling incredibly shaky and nervous. She looked out over the entire town’s population, telling herself crossly that it was just everyone she saw every day, people she knew… Actually, that made it worse. She coughed, and tried to stop her hands from shaking as she unfolded her piece of paper.

‘Gillian Manse was a daughter of Mount Polbearne,’ she started, her voice sounding incredibly quiet in the room. Huckle, standing at the back so that his big head didn’t get in anybody’s way, gave her a massive thumbs-up, which gave her the courage to go on.

‘Um,’ she said, feeling slightly braver. ‘She devoted her life to this town, to feeding it, and to her family…’

Polly spoke about the hundred thousand loaves of bread Mrs Manse must have baked in her lifetime, and about her devotion to her son Jimmy – and when Polly mentioned him, and some of his scampish ways she’d heard about from the fishermen who’d known him as a young boy, there were smiles of recognition in the congregation – as well as mentioning her late husband Alf, who had been well liked in the town. She even risked a joke about Mrs Manse’s fierce reputation, pointing out that it was all in defence of the town where she lived. When she stepped down, delighted to have finished, there was a small round of applause. But of course what meant the most was Huckle holding her close when she joined him and squeezing her hand.

Afterwards, Polly had arranged for Jayden and Flora to appear with fresh sandwiches, little cheese curls, vol au vents and miniature flans, light as air. There was tea and coffee in the urns normally used by the Women’s Institute, and at the last minute Andy, who ran the Red Lion pub and the chip shop, had sidled up sheepishly – he was known as being a tight operator – and said that Mrs Manse had been good to him when he was a lad when she’d caught him stealing a hot cross bun, and could he donate two crates of beer, which perked the fishermen right up. So it wasn’t as grim as Polly had feared it would be.

Mrs Manse’s family were huddled to one side, looking at the townspeople suspiciously. Some of the older ones remembered Janet, who’d left the island when she got married, a very long time ago. She was looking large and stolid in a long black dress that gave her a slightly Victorian air, her hair, unusually long for a woman her age, piled on top of her head.

Her two sons were also there. Polly was surprised. Gillian had never mentioned them, not once. Had it really been so hard for her, Polly wondered sadly, after she had lost her own son, that she could never have her sister’s boys to stay, never pour some of that thwarted love into her nephews? People were so strange sometimes.

They were large, pasty men, soft around the middle, well upholstered, although apart from that they were not very alike. One was wearing a smart suit and was balding; the other had pale messy hair worn long or in dire need of a trim, and bad skin. He looked sullen.

Polly introduced herself, hoping that they would say that her speech about Gillian had been nice. They didn’t.

‘Aye,’ said Janet. ‘Hello.’ She was exactly like her sister, Polly thought. Janet and Gillian: peas in a pod.

‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ said Polly. ‘Especially after you’d just moved in together.’

‘Yes, I’ve got all her stuff cluttering up my place now,’ said Janet ungraciously. ‘Saves cleaning out the flat, I suppose.’

‘Right,’ said Polly. ‘Good.’ She looked at the two men. The older of the pair was busy with his phone. He gave Polly a quick glance, as if checking to see if she was of interest and finding she wasn’t.

‘This is Jeremy,’ said Janet, perking up for the first time. ‘And this is Malcolm.’

‘Hi,’ said Polly.

‘Hi there,’ said Malcolm, looking round. ‘Wow, this place is a bit of a dump. Is there anything to eat?’

‘It’s coming,’ said Polly, flustered and looking around for Flora handing round the food. ‘Did you never come to Mount Polbearne to visit?’

‘Yeah, when we were little,’ said Malcolm. ‘Didn’t think much of it, to be honest. Not much going on round here, is there?’

‘Oh, that’s a… shame,’ said Polly. She tried to catch Flora’s eye; she was meant to be circulating with the sandwiches, but instead she was standing gormlessly at the door and people were swarming around her to help themselves. Polly suspected that the fisher boys would eat everything in two seconds flat. Flora was holding the tray at an angle with one hand and twirling her hair with the other, and didn’t see Polly at all. Not for the first time, Polly wondered if she was really cut out to be a boss.

‘Ridiculous business living on an island,’ sniffed Janet. ‘Honestly, I told her a hundred times to move in with me before…’

Suddenly the tough, weather-beaten face started to crumple, and the teacup she was holding began to slip. Polly caught it and saw, all at once, the vulnerability behind the crabbiness. She put her hand on Janet’s arm.

‘I
told
her,’ said Janet. ‘After Jimmy died. I
told
her. It’s no good shutting yourself away in the back of bloody beyond. She could have picked herself up on the mainland. Got another life. She wasn’t that old. She wasn’t too old.’

Polly looked at Janet’s two sons, but one was still on his phone, and the other one, Malcolm, was staring straight ahead as if this all had nothing to do with him. Tears ran down the old lady’s face, and Polly put an arm round her shoulder.