Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery (9 page)

‘This really is a dump, right?’ Selina was saying, looking distastefully at the kitchen. Polly felt slightly offended. Okay, it was a dump, but it had been
her
dump. ‘Does it get cold in the winter?’

‘The bakery heats it up?’ said Lance hopefully.

Selina looked confused.

‘But we’ve just been in the bakery, and it’s freezing up here,’ she said.

‘Yeah, but we’re shut now,’ said Polly. ‘It’s probably really warm at… five a.m.’

Selina sighed, then went and looked out of the window again. Her face grew thoughtful. It was a look Polly recognised.

‘It’s a lovely view,’ said Polly. ‘It’s very restful.’

Selina frowned at the lighthouse.

‘Does that thing light up?’

‘It’s a lighthouse,’ said Polly.

‘Does it shine in here?’

‘You see, I never thought to ask that question before I moved in,’ said Polly. ‘But you can buy really good blackout blinds these days.’

Selina looked at the lighthouse again.

‘Do you really live there?’

‘Yup,’ said Polly.

‘By yourself?’

‘No… with my boyfriend,’ said Polly. ‘And my… my pet.’

Selina’s face dropped.

‘You’re so lucky,’ she said.

Polly didn’t know what to say. She knew she was.

‘Are pets allowed here?’ Selina said to Lance.

‘Um, dunno.’ He looked at his papers. ‘No snakes.’

‘Do I look like I keep snakes?’

‘Nobody looks like they keep snakes,’ said Lance wisely. ‘But you find the buggers all over the place. Take it from an estate agent. Worst bit of my job.’

‘The worst bit of your job is
all the snakes
?’ said Polly.

‘Yes,’ said Lance stoutly.

‘I would not have guessed that.’

‘Me neither,’ said Selina. ‘Anyway, no. It’s a cat.’

‘Snakes with fur,’ said Lance, sniffing, then remembered he was meant to be showing a flat. ‘And also, wonderful. I love them.’

‘He’s beautiful,’ said Selina.

‘It’s nice to have a pet,’ said Polly, stopping herself when she realised she was about to add ‘when you’re all alone’.

‘What have you got?’ said Selina. ‘We could have a play date.’

‘I’ve… it’s a bird,’ said Polly. There was no point in explaining Neil to people who didn’t already know. They either thought she was a total weirdo, or cruel, or a cruel weirdo.

‘Oh. Like a canary?’

‘A bit like a canary,’ lied Polly.

‘Although I do think it’s cruel to keep birds in cages.’

‘Oh no, this one is totally free-range,’ said Polly. ‘So probably no play dates.’

‘Oh, Lucas is very gentle,’ said Selina.

‘So you’re taking it?’ interjected Lance cheerfully. If the client was already booking social occasions, the deal was probably in the bag.

Selina glanced back at the flat and sighed, then looked ahead at the horizon.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I guess I am.’

‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’

Kerensa was getting dressed in Polly’s bedroom. Polly was trying not to send covetous glances via the mirror at Kerensa’s patently very expensive matching underwear. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn matching underwear. Come to think of it, Huckle had also mentioned mildly in passing that if it wasn’t too much to ask, could she possibly stick to the traditional number of holes in her underpants, i.e., three.

‘Are you eyeing me up?’ said Kerensa, expertly applying layers of serum, moisturiser, primer, CC cream and bronzer in the manner of somebody painting a house. ‘Only, I’m totally married.’

Her enormous engagement ring caught the light of the evening sun.

‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘It’s been a really tough secret to carry around all this time. But I feel like I’m there now. Actually, no, I just like your posh bra.’

Kerensa smiled. ‘I know. I spend a lot of time with not much on…’

‘Can we not go into this again?’

Kerensa glanced at where Polly was sitting on the bed, haphazardly trying to paint her nails.

‘How do you guys sleep on such a tiny bed?’

Kerensa’s bed was bigger than king-size. It was in fact called emperor-size. It was basically about four beds stuck together, in Polly’s opinion. The sheets were changed every single day. This would have horrified Polly if she hadn’t been so desperately envious. There wasn’t much of Kerensa’s life that she was envious of – she was too busy to travel, she couldn’t imagine wanting to kiss Reuben, she didn’t really have a lot of interest in handbags, and there was nowhere she’d rather live than the lighthouse.

But the bed was really very, very nice.

In the lighthouse, by way of contrast, they hadn’t been able to get a full double mattress up the stairs, never mind a bedstead, and there wasn’t a flat wall to stand it against anyway. They could have conceded defeat and moved into the little dank room at the bottom of the tower, but Polly was having none of that. So instead they slept upstairs in a three-quarter-sized double bed. Huckle’s feet stuck straight out the bottom, like he was in ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. Kerensa thought it was appalling. Polly didn’t know how Kerensa could find Reuben so far away in their acres and acres of white linen. She herself vanished inside Huckle every evening, curled up underneath his arm, a tangle of limbs until it was impossible to know where one of them ended and the other began, their hearts beating in unison, their breathing slowing together. On the rare nights when he was away from home, she had found herself propped up in front of the window, looking out to sea again, completely unable to sleep without him. Even though she wouldn’t mind a proper bed, Polly knew she would never again sleep as soundly as she did on those nights in their tiny rolled-together space.

‘We manage,’ she said defiantly.

‘I suppose you’re so knackered from running up and down those ridiculous stairs…’

‘You’re right,’ said Polly. ‘If only I was wealthy, I could hire someone to carry me up on their shoulders.’

Kerensa grinned. ‘Or put a lift in.’

‘If you put a lift in,’ pointed out Polly, ‘there’d be nothing left but lift.’

Kerensa pulled on a pair of tights, brand new, an expensive make, straight from the packet. She never wore her tights twice. Polly couldn’t get her head around that fact.

‘You’re making best friends with the widow of the guy you banged. Are you
sure
this is a good idea?’

‘It’s just a night out,’ said Polly, glancing at her watch. ‘It seemed mean to go out with everyone and not invite her. I remember what it was like when I first moved here and didn’t know anyone.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kerensa. ‘You had to go out and shag the first married fisherman you saw.’

Polly gave her a look.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Kerensa. ‘Isn’t it better this way? Better out than in? So I don’t accidentally sploof it up after my third glass of wine?’

‘No,’ said Polly. ‘Seriously, I don’t want it mentioned at all. It’s embarrassing to me, and it could be devastating to her. She’s in a bad state. This could make things worse.’

‘Or maybe the truth would help?’

‘Sometimes the truth helps,’ said Polly. ‘Other times it makes everything a million times worse, especially when the other person isn’t there to shout at. I thought he was single, remember? If he’d even bothered to mention her, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near him. It was all his fault. So why make her feel worse? Plus, she needs friends right now, and I think we can be that.’

‘Well, as long as you manage not to sleep with her brother or anything… Where’s the Huck?’

‘At a honey conference in Devon, would you believe,’ said Polly. ‘It’s like three hundred apiarists. They all get together to discuss floral patenting and hive conservation and drink mead. But Dubose is coming.’

‘He’s cute,’ said Kerensa.

‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘He’s slightly less cute when he leaves his laundry all over the stairs and spends a lot of time complaining that there’s not much to do here.’

‘There
isn’t
much to do here.’

‘See, I get enough of it from you. I don’t need it from anyone else.’

‘Okay,’ said Kerensa. ‘Tell me about Huckle’s conference. Tell me they get dressed up.’

‘Well, there’s a dinner…’

‘No, I mean tell me they get dressed up as bees.’

‘They do not get dressed up as bees.’

‘That is so disappointing.’

‘Well,’ said Polly, ‘I
might
have bought Huckle a black and yellow striped sweater.’

‘No way!’ said Kerensa, grinning. ‘Are you making him wear it?’

‘Are you joking? He fills this house head to toe with puffin shiz. I need to get my revenge somehow.’

‘Ha,’ said Kerensa. ‘Do you think they listen to a lot of old Police songs?’

‘“Don’t Buzz So Close to Me”?’

‘“Da Bee Bee Bee, Da Ba Ba Ba”.’

The two girls burst out laughing.

‘Okay, we’re obviously pissed already,’ said Kerensa, looking at her glass. ‘I think we need to go out before we’re too pissed to get down the stairs. Down is harder than up when you’re pissed.’

‘I know, like horses.’

‘What do you mean, like horses?’

‘Horses can walk upstairs but not down. If you find a horse at the top of a lighthouse, it’s really terrible news.’

‘I do not know how I functioned in the world without knowing that.’

Kerensa slid a long-sleeved, very plain but clearly insanely expensive dress over her head.

‘Cor, that looks like it was made for you,’ said Polly cheerfully.

‘Um, yes,’ said Kerensa. ‘That’s because it was.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously,’ said Kerensa. ‘Someone stuck a pin in me at the fitting and Reuben threatened to sue them.’

‘Your life is weird now,’ said Polly.

‘You’re the one whose most pressing future purchase is a FIREMAN’S POLE.’

 

 

Dubose joined them as they left the lighthouse. He was wearing a pale grey shirt that Polly knew for a fact was Huckle’s, but she didn’t mention it.

The air was warm and stiller than it had been recently as they walked companionably down across the rocks, Kerensa as usual in ridiculous shoes. Neil came fluttering up from the rock pool he’d been splashing in – his outdoor swimming pool, as Huckle called it. Kerensa bent down.

‘Hey, small bird,’ she said. Neil eeped at her. Kerensa was not his favourite. She never carried snacks and she didn’t like getting bird footprints on her expensive clothes.

‘You know, I saw a million puffins coming down here today. And do you know what they were doing? They were playing with their mates, right? Flocking and shagging and making noise and bouncing about all over the place. Have you got no mates? You haven’t got any mates, have you?’

Kerensa straightened up.

‘Your bird’s weird. You need to sort him out with some friends or a girlfriend or something.’

Polly stiffened.

‘He seems perfectly happy to me.’

Neil hopped towards her feet and rubbed his head affectionately on her tights. His beak caught and he accidentally started a ladder in one of them. Kerensa rolled her eyes, but Polly just scratched him behind the ears, which he loved.

‘I’m just saying. He’s not a baby any more. Shouldn’t he be out and about more?’

‘Yeah,’ said Dubose. ‘That bird needs to get laid.’

‘Well I’m not stopping him,’ said Polly in an injured tone. She got very defensive about Neil. ‘If he wants to meet a lady puffin, he can do that whenever he likes.’

‘How’s he going to meet one if you don’t take him to any flocking areas?’ said Kerensa. ‘Do they have Tinder for puffins? They could call it Flounder. Heh heh heh.’

Polly sighed. She did wonder sometimes, in her heart of hearts, if she should have been stricter about taking Neil back to the sanctuary, once he’d escaped and come back to them. She did worry about thwarting his natural development by making him so dependent on them – he couldn’t hunt if his life depended on it, could barely fly and even by puffin standards had a distinctly rounded tummy. Plus if this new guy Malcolm was going to be absolutely determined that birds wouldn’t be allowed in the shop…

‘Did you just come down from your castle tonight to give me grief?’ she said to Kerensa.

‘Always,’ said Kerensa. ‘Did you come down from your tower tonight to give me a drink? Because I have to say, I’m feeling rather thirsty.’

‘Partaay!’ said Dubose.

The Red Lion was already buzzing when they got there. It wasn’t the holiday season yet, but early and unexpected sunshine had meant extra day trippers, which meant happy workers, so nearly every table in the cobbled courtyard was full.

Andy had a band playing, a bunch of fishermen from down the coast at Looe. There was a fiddler, an accordion player wearing a flat cap, a singer and a percussionist.

‘Fuck me, it’s the Mumfords,’ said Kerensa gloomily, but Polly enjoyed listening to the traditional shanties on a starry spring night within sight and sound of the sea. They did ‘Sir Patric Spens’ and ‘The Poorest Company’ while Kerensa went to the bar. She started shouting before she even got there, until the scared-looking bartender remembered her from last time and went to the back of the fridge where he kept her secret stock of decent Chablis, as opposed to the warm horse piss that made up their wine list the rest of the time.

Polly went over and said hi to the Polbearne fishermen, including Jayden but not Archie, who had obviously gone home to his long-suffering wife and family, something for which she was extremely grateful.

‘How are things?’ she said.

‘Oh,’ said Sten, the tall Scandinavian. ‘New quotas are coming. The boat needs expensive work. The price of fish goes up and nobody wants it any more.’

‘But apart from that, fine?’ said Polly. The others nodded.

Patrick the vet was at the next table.

‘Hey,’ said Polly, smiling. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

Patrick looked at his whisky and soda with some apprehension. ‘Is this one of those ones where you pretend you’re asking about an animal the same size and weight as you but then it turns out it is you and you didn’t want to call the doctor?’

The doctor was based on the mainland and only came to the island once a week or so, grumbling madly about access all the time, whereas Patrick lived here and often found himself approached for human advice. He couldn’t blame them, but he was terrified of accidentally giving advice that led to serious problems, so it wasn’t his favourite part of the job. He was semi-retired in any case, only saw the local animals from time to time.

‘Um, no,’ said Polly. ‘Does that happen a lot?’

Patrick shrugged. ‘It’s been known. What is it? It’s not that bird of yours, is it?’

Patrick had a fondness for Neil. The little puffin had tickled his fancy, even though he thought it was wrong of Polly to keep him as a pet.

‘I think he’s having social problems,’ began Polly. Patrick raised his eyebrows.

‘Actually, I’m not really a bird psychologist…’

‘He doesn’t have any bird friends. The seagulls are just big bullies, and the other puffins… I think they’re laughing at him.’