Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery (7 page)

Right in front of the glass, staring in at her, was the large man with the messily cut hair from Gillian Manse’s funeral: Malcolm, of course. She didn’t know why, but she hadn’t expected him till later, and even though she’d lain awake worrying about it, once she’d got into the everyday rhythm of work that morning, she had completely stopped thinking about him. She’d certainly not expected him to be standing sinisterly, peering in through her door window.

Once she’d jumped back a little, she calmed down and managed to plaster her smile back on, and unlocked the heavy glass door that had been replaced after Neil had rolled through the old glass and into her life one stormy night two years ago.

‘Hello!’ she said, as jauntily as she was able. ‘I wasn’t expecting you!’

Malcolm stared crossly at his watch.

‘I know. God, it’s SO early. How on earth do people get up at this time?’

Polly didn’t want to point out to him that she’d been at work for three hours already.

‘Would you like a coffee?’

‘Yes. Three sugars,’ said Malcolm brusquely. He marched into the shop. Like last time, he was dressed like an unmade bed, a creased shirt half hanging out of a crushed old pair of chinos. He hadn’t done up the bottom button, so a portion of soft, squishy tummy was plainly visible over the top of his trousers.

‘Are you married?’ asked Polly politely.

Malcolm sniffed. ‘Not going to get caught like that, no chance,’ he said, derisively. ‘Ha, won’t get me tied down. Not a chance.’

The fishermen trudged in, looking bone weary.

‘Good morning!’ said Jayden. This was the absolute high point of his day. ‘Cold out there? Freezing, I’ll bet. Pretty tough, huh? Catch much, or were they too fast for you? Cor, wouldn’t like to be in your shoes.’

‘Shut up, Jayden,’ they all said, as they did every morning, and Polly set the coffee machine to work yet again.

‘Are you licensed to sell this?’ grunted Malcolm.

‘Uh, hmm,’ said Polly, suddenly wishing she was a bit better prepared. ‘Not exactly, but Mrs Manse —’

‘Whatever Mrs Manse did and didn’t tolerate,’ said Malcolm, raising his unpleasantly nasal voice, ‘and however much advantage you took of her good nature, she’s not here now. Things are going to change around here, right?’

The fishermen looked at Malcolm, who compared to them seemed incredibly soft and lily-handed. Archie glanced at Polly with concern, but she didn’t catch his eye.

Jayden was scooping pastries into a bag and didn’t seem to notice the awkward undercurrents in the little shop, for which Polly was grateful. She was slightly worried that if she went to take the money, her hand might tremble a little bit.

 

 

The boys had departed, as well as Patrick and his old dog Pen, who still trotted faithfully across the lighthouse rocks every day, even though his limbs were arthritic. Polly always kept a bit of leftover bun for him. She normally didn’t allow animals in the shop, but Pen was different. Malcolm was leaning nonchalantly on the glass window at the front, watching her beadily with his arms folded. His eyes were very pale, almost colourless, and his skin was doughy. He looked like he spent a lot of time indoors.

‘What are you interested in looking at first?’ asked Polly carefully.

Malcolm picked up one of the largest loaves, an unsliced white – not everyone liked it sliced. The big slicer in the back clattered away early in the morning, then they left it up to individuals. Polly watched him, wondering what he was going to do with it. To her amazement, he brought up the other large, soft-looking paw and pulled a great chunk off the top, just ripped into it, then put it into his maw before she could offer him butter or anything else. He chewed slowly and contemplatively, crumbs falling on to his already messy shirt. Jayden busied himself with washing up the tins whilst Polly simply waited.

She made herself smile again.

‘Well?’

Malcolm shrugged, his mouth still full.

‘Hmm, yeah, well.’

He put the rest of the loaf back on top of the counter, spreading crumbs everywhere, but not before ripping off another bit and sticking it into his masticating mouth.

‘Back,’ he grunted, and indicated the ovens at the rear of the bakery.

Polly led him through.

‘So, this is where the magic happens!’ she said, still trying to sound light and unconcerned. Malcolm took out a pen and pad and started jotting things down. He inspected the flour she used – 00 grade; the salt. He looked at the sourdough yeast she had growing in the fridge; the milk, and the many bags and boxes of produce – local, almost all of it, from round and about: herbs and fruit and nuts and honey – and everything else she used to flavour and differentiate her various types of bread.

‘What’s all this rubbish?’ he said. ‘You’re not running a bloody restaurant.’

‘Yes, but we make different types of bread,’ explained Polly carefully. ‘All sorts of flavours. As well as pies, sometimes, and flatbread and things. Different savouries and a few sweets, so it takes a lot of ingredients. Flora does most of the sweets in the other shop.’

Indeed, Flora’s way with a cream horn was one of her main weapons against her ever losing her job. She had an astonishingly light hand with pastry, and a neatness of touch Polly envied massively.

‘Well, as a businessman,’ said Malcolm, which he’d offered absolutely no evidence of, but Polly wasn’t in any position to query his credentials, ‘this all seems a total mess and incredibly inefficient and wasteful.’

Polly tried to keep her voice calm.

‘It seems to work all right with the customers.’

Malcolm sniffed. ‘What, those brain-dead yokels? Yeah, they’ll take any old crap. But I don’t want to be… I don’t want my mum to be cheated out of what these shops are worth.’

‘I would never do that,’ said Polly.

‘Yeah, well…’ He picked up a pot of fleur de sel.

‘I mean, what’s this? Salt?’

‘Uh, yeah. Most bread has a little salt, and there are bagels, which have a little more, and —’

‘Is this the cheapest you can buy? It’s not even ground.’

‘I know,’ said Polly timidly. ‘But it’s the best you can get. It’s got a real fullness of flavour and a delicate… It’s not too salty.’

‘Not too salty?’ sneered Malcolm. ‘You’re buying expensive salt that isn’t too salty?’

He marked something in his little book.

‘And this flour. Why are you buying Italian flour?’

‘It’s the best,’ said Polly again, feeling more and more worried. Jayden was in the shop, chatting to the early-morning customers and making the old ladies laugh. She had, she realised now, over-confidently expected that Malcolm would pop in, have a cup of coffee and a bun, say, ‘Wow, this place is fantastic, keep up the good work,’ and that would be that.

‘Yes, but punters don’t notice, do they?’

‘I think they do.’

‘No,’ said Malcolm. ‘I don’t think so. If I’m hungry, I’ll just buy a pasty in a motorway service station. I don’t care if it’s got poncey flour in it, or super salt that they magic out of not too salty land. I just want something to eat.’

Polly stared at the floor.

‘I’ve got all the accounts,’ said Malcolm, obviously thinking he was sounding really tough. ‘I’m going to be going through them with a fine-tooth comb. This place is barely scraping a living, and I want to know why.’

‘Because we’re a low-cost, high-volume business in a seasonal location with year-round fixed costs,’ Polly could have told him, had he looked like the listening type. Which he didn’t. You didn’t run a bakery for the money – well, maybe if you had a high-end cupcake shop in London or something, she imagined. Otherwise, you only did it because you loved it; because it was a good, solid way to make a good honest living, whatever this guy seemed to be implying. It certainly wouldn’t make you rich.

‘Also, I’m renting out the upstairs flat again.’ Malcolm sniffed. ‘It’s ridiculous it’s been sitting empty all this time. So you may have to be quieter in the mornings.’

‘We can’t,’ said Polly. ‘That’s when we start business for the day. You’ll have to find a tenant who doesn’t mind.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ said Malcolm.

‘You’ll lose money if you make us open later,’ Polly said, which seemed to have a slightly calming effect. ‘A lot of money. Most people want to buy bread first thing in the morning.’

There was another burst of feminine laughter from the front of the shop.

‘Does he just stand around chatting all day?’ asked Malcolm, nodding his head towards Jayden.

‘No,’ said Polly. ‘He works really hard, and it’s good for repeat business that the customers like him so much.’

Malcolm and Polly looked at one another for a moment. Polly knew she was being scrutinised, and she hated it, absolutely hated it: the implied criticism in his words, the suggestion that she was being at best profligate with her stock, and at worst criminal. It was all going much, much worse than she’d imagined.

‘Well, like I say, there’s going to be some changes,’ said Malcolm. ‘I’ll be having a look at the books and letting you know.’

‘Okay,’ said Polly, relieved that he was at least leaving. ‘Would you like to take anything for lunch? And we can go and look at the other bakery if you like.’

Malcolm shook his head. ‘I’ve seen enough,’ he said, obviously revelling in sounding like a bit of a hard man. He waddled back into the shop and headed for the door. Polly’s gaze followed him, and her heart sank.

Not now, she thought. Not now.

Neil was standing outside the door, hopping from foot to foot in a manner that he had learned generally got people’s attention, waiting for someone to let him in. Polly groaned internally. Couldn’t Huckle have shut him in the house for once? Well obviously he couldn’t; she couldn’t either. One, it was cruel, and two, he would go and revenge-poo in her shoes. But still, now, of all times. A billion puffins in the world who were flock animals, she thought crossly, and she got the one with a mind of his own.

Old Mrs Hackett was making her slow way up the harbour, pulling a shopping trolley. She came in every day about this time for half a loaf of brown, because she lived alone and liked a tin of vegetable soup and toast for her supper, so every morning Polly sold her half a loaf of bread at half price and threw the rest away. She had no doubt Malcolm wouldn’t approve of this strategy either.

Malcolm had got halfway to the door, trying to look dignified, but was obviously fighting a losing battle with himself. He turned back.

‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I will take two… I mean four of those doughnuts. And that little loaf with the bits in it. And a slice of that stuff with the cheese. I mean two slices. I just need to do… quality control.’

Jayden wrapped them all up efficiently, without a word.

‘And two buns.’

Polly’s heart sank. The Little Beach Street Bakery made the same amount of money every day, more or less, because they stayed open until they’d sold all their stock, then they shut. If you wanted something specific, you knew you had to come early. But if Malcolm was simply taking it all away, they were going to lose quite a bit of money. And she had absolutely no doubt he would have something to say about it if their takings were noticeably down, without necessarily connecting it to him walking out with his pockets overflowing with doughnuts.

Mrs Hackett was at the door now.

‘Hello there, Neil me lover,’ Polly heard her say from behind the heavy glass. She’d have to open the door for her too, she knew. Mrs Hackett had arthritis in her hands and wasn’t as strong as she’d once been. But she was a lovely old woman who’d taught at the school when it had still been open and was known by everyone in town. Meanwhile, Malcolm was juggling the packages Jayden was giving him one on top of the other.

With a sigh, and a warning look at her puffin, Polly pushed open the door.

‘Hello, Mrs Hackett,’ she said. She tried to be quick, but you couldn’t hurry Mrs Hackett, who in any case was pulling her trolley over the cobblestones and also wearing a floppy hat that would get stuck if Polly didn’t open the door a bit wider.

Neil eeped loudly and jubilantly and hopped into the shop, to a chorus of hellos from everybody there. Malcolm watched, clearly incredulous.

‘What’s this bird doing in here?’ he said. ‘We’ve already had a dog in, and dogs aren’t allowed in food shops, I’d have expected you to know that, Pauline.’

‘I do know that,’ said Polly, who didn’t want to tell him that he’d got her name wrong. ‘It was just Pen. He’s so old, it’s hard for him to stand outside.’

‘But BIRDS! You can’t have birds flying about a shop! What next, a bunch of seagulls coming in? It’s disgusting. Out! Shoo! Shoo!’

There was a sharp intake of breath from one of the old ladies. Nobody ever talked to Neil like that. Polly felt awful but she didn’t say anything. It was horribly disloyal, but maybe Neil would hop back out of the shop instead of getting them shut down for health and safety and losing her her livelihood for ever.

He regarded the newcomer with his black eyes, then – and if he hadn’t been a bird, Polly would have sworn he’d done it on purpose – he hopped up on to Polly’s shoulder and tilted his head so that he was nuzzling her ear.