The Sweetest Thing (23 page)

‘Okay,’ she says, and off she goes to pack. Or at least that’s what I think until I overhear her out in the lobby, calling directory enquiries.

‘Georgia, put that phone down right now,’ I say, poking my head around the door, the icing bowl in one hand, piping bag in the other.

‘I thought I’d save you a job.’ I give her a stare, and she switches the handset off. ‘You’re always complaining that you have too much to do. I don’t understand why, when we moved here so you didn’t have to be so busy, Mum, because you’re busier than ever. Now, you’re always doing stuff. And when I ask you to help me find a pony, you’re always baking cakes, or icing them, or shopping for ingredients. And Adam’s got a dog and Sophie’s got chickens. And I haven’t got anything to look after.’

‘I’m sorry, love.’ Georgia is right. In my race to set up my business, I’ve been neglecting her. ‘The problem is that ponies cost money. Money that comes – or will come eventually – from baking cakes.’ I put my arm around her shoulder and give her a squeeze. ‘It will get easier, I promise.’

‘Mum, I wish you and Dad … I wish we were all still together,’ she says wistfully.

I say nothing. There was a time not so long ago when I felt the same, but – my heart lifts a little – well, I must be moving on at last because I can see other possibilities opening up for me, which is probably why I’ve been inspired to create my gingerbread farmers with big smiles and green icing-sugar wellies.

The children are tired after their first week of school. The last thing they need is to travel to London and back to see their father this weekend. I can see that now. What’s more, although I don’t begrudge
them this time at all, I could really do without having the two- to three-hour round trips every fortnight. I still have cakes to bake and ice before the market tomorrow morning. I’d rather have too much on the stall than too little. I don’t want to sell out within half an hour.

‘Georgia, how many times do I have to ask … please will you go and do your packing? Otherwise we’ll be late.’

‘I haven’t licked out the bowl yet, Mum.’

‘Oh, all right. Be quick though.’ I leave her to it and head upstairs to find out how Adam and Sophie are getting on. Sophie is trying to squash as many soft toys as she can into her suitcase. I help her choose two, and make sure she has all the clothes she needs, then check on Adam who’s in his bedroom.

‘Are you ready, love?’ I ask, from the door. I raise one eyebrow when I see the amount of clothing and electrical equipment he has on his bed. ‘I don’t think you need all that for two nights, do you?’

‘I dunno.’ He shrugs.

‘Adam, are you okay?’

‘Yeah,’ he says, frowning.

‘What’s wrong?’ I persist. ‘There’s something wrong. I know there is. Is it school?’

He doesn’t respond.

‘You know, you’re bound to be a little unsettled again now Josh has gone home, but it’ll pass.’ I hate to admit it, but I miss my friends too. ‘You’re lucky – you’ve got a good job with Guy.’

‘I like the cows,’ he says, his expression brightening briefly.

‘It’s good money too.’

‘Mother, stop going on, will you? I know what
you’re doing. You’re trying to get me to say how much I love it here, so you don’t have to feel guilty any more. Well, it’s no use because I hate it. I’m saving all my money from the milking and then, as soon as I hit sixteen, I’m leaving.’

‘Adam, that’s …’ It’s a shock. ‘Say what you just said again?’

‘I’m leaving home.’

‘What about your sisters, and Lucky?’

‘I’ll take Lucky with me.’ The ghost of a smile crosses Adam’s lips. ‘You can hang on to my sisters.’

‘What will you live on? Where will you live?’

‘I’ll find a flat, get a job …’ He glares as I open my mouth to raise the obvious flaws in his plan. ‘I can always go on benefits,’ he adds. ‘Everyone else does.’

‘You won’t be able to afford new iPods, and computers, and clothes.’ Words fail me as I imagine Adam living alone in some tatty bedsit, surviving on cornflakes and Pot Noodles. As for the girls and me … I try to contemplate life without Adam. He was always going to leave home one day, just not so soon.

‘I’ll manage,’ he says. ‘I’m not stupid.’

‘I never said that – I don’t think you’re stupid at all. Oh, I wish you’d come here with a more positive attitude to begin with,’ I say, hurting at the idea that my own son doesn’t want to spend any more time with me than he has to. I’d like to reassure myself that it’s just a phase he’s going through, but he seems deadly serious. ‘I think you should forget about these long-term plans for now and go and enjoy the weekend with your dad.’

‘Don’t tell me what to think! I can think for myself,’ he says angrily. He picks up his laptop from the floor and walks towards his bed, dragging the charger
behind him. I grab it off the floor and hand it to him, but he doesn’t thank me for it.

‘I can give you a hand, if you like …’

Adam turns away, and a chill draught catches me around the ankles, making me shiver. It isn’t the cold, it’s the rejection.

I have a quiet word with David about it when we meet up briefly later in the evening, and the children are transferring their luggage from my car to his. I didn’t bring Lucky this time.

‘Is everything still rosy in the country, Jennie, or are you putting a brave face on it?’ David looks at me with a wry smile. His eyes are dark with exhaustion, his complexion pale as undercooked pastry. He’s dressed in his suit, jacket but no tie, and bears with him the now-alien scent of the city, a faint odour of cold chips and cigarette smoke.

‘I have no complaints.’

‘Well, you would say that to me, wouldn’t you?’

‘Think what you like,’ I say with a shrug. ‘About Adam … I’m worried. He’s got some crazy plan to leave home when he’s sixteen. Perhaps you’ll have a conversation with him, man to man. He won’t listen to me.’

‘When have you ever listened to him?’

‘Don’t go there,’ I say, casting him a warning glance. ‘What’s done is done. I can’t change it. I just hoped you’d give him some extra support. I think he needs it right now.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ David says with a long sigh.

‘Thank you.’ I notice that Alice isn’t with him again. They used to be inseparable and I wonder if the first flush of romance is over. They have been together for
over eighteen months; longer than that for all I’ll ever know.

‘What are you up to this weekend?’ David asks.

‘I’ve got a stall at the Farmers’ Market, so I’ll be working.’

‘Oh?’

‘Oh what?’

‘Hugo made some suggestion that you and this neighbour of yours …’

‘That’s all down to Hugo’s rather vivid imagination.’

‘Yes, he said this chap was a bit of an oik and not your type.’

‘Maybe my taste in men has changed,’ I say, a little miffed that David has the temerity to suggest that he knows exactly what ‘type’ I prefer. No more city boys for me. An image of Guy jumps into my mind. I definitely prefer the outdoorsy type.

When I return home, I continue with my preparations for the stall.

Having done a straw poll of my party guests the other weekend, I was surprised to find that a decent home-made treacle tart was high on their wish lists when it came to buying cakes and pastries. I’ve made several, cooking them in foil containers. I wrap tarts and label them before checking the rest of my list.
G/bread people. Lemon drizzle cakes – need drizzling. Choc-chip muffins – better fresh, leave till last. Choc and raspberry cakes
.

The chocolate and raspberry cakes worked, but I don’t think they are right for my signature cake. They don’t quite say what I’m all about. I don’t mind though. It gives me the opportunity to try out more recipes.

I pack the last of the gingerbread people into boxes,
wash up and wipe down. I’m ready. I thought I’d feel more apprehensive about it than I do, fretting over whether or not my cakes will sell, but Adam’s revelation has put everything else into perspective.

I am in bed by three, and have an hour’s sleep before the cockerel wakes me. Why is that? Why is it that some days I can’t hear him, and others he sounds as if he’s crowing on the pillow beside me? Eventually, I decide to get up and make tea before I start taking my cake boxes and tins out of the larder and stacking them on the worktops. I’m in the larder when there’s a knock on the door.

‘Come on through,’ I call, my heart skipping a beat at the thought of seeing Guy again.

‘Are you ready then, Jennie?’ he says, appearing around the door, fresh-faced and recently showered, his hair still damp and curling slightly at the ends. ‘You don’t want to be too late setting up – the locals like to get in and do their shopping early.’ He pauses. ‘What would you like me to do?’

‘Well, let me see,’ I say cheerfully. It seems rather early in the day for flirting but Guy is definitely in a flirtatious mood, and although I’m out of practice, I’m happy to join in. Friends, or ‘could-be-more-than’ friends, ex-wives and other women … it really doesn’t matter. It’s just a bit of fun.

‘You can carry those boxes out to the car,’ I go on, and Guy helps me pack everything into the boot before I drive into Talyton with him and park temporarily in Market Square, which is crowded with other traders and their vehicles.

‘This is your pitch,’ Guy says, pointing towards the space in front of Petals, the florist, and a couple of metres along from the tethering stone, one of Talyton’s
least impressive landmarks, a roughly hewn block of granite with a rusty iron ring through it, set in one corner of the square. ‘I think it’s okay.’

‘It looks perfect,’ I say, checking how far it is from the tea shop. After what the receptionist at the vet’s said, I don’t want to spend the day feeling that I’m under siege. ‘You don’t think there’ll be any trouble from the owner of the Copper Kettle, do you?’

‘Cheryl? She’ll be too busy serving teas and coffees to worry about Jennie’s Cakes. She’s always run off her feet on market day,’ Guy says, as he helps me unload the trestle table, cash box, price list, banner and cakes, then takes the car round to the Co-op car park. I set up the table which wobbles on the stones.

When Guy returns, he puts up the banner across the table which I’ve dressed with a pink cloth. ‘Jennie’s Cakes’. It looks amazing, and I have a tear in my eye when I arrange the last gingerbread man on the rack at the rear of the display. I slip into an apron, clip my bum-bag around my waist and wait nervously for my first customers – nervously because it’s beginning to dawn on me that I’ve been presumptuous, assuming I will have any. I recall Summer’s toast: ‘To the people of Talyton, let them eat cake’, and I wonder if they will.

‘That,’ Guy says, looking from me to the stall and back, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘looks irresistible.’

‘It is rather gorgeous,’ I say, looking straight at him. ‘Thanks, Guy. Thanks for telling me about the market, and for helping out. I really don’t think I could have done it without you.’

A flush spreads across his cheeks.

‘Can I be your first customer?’ he says, picking up one of the chocolate and raspberry cakes.

‘Yes, but I can’t let you pay for it.’

‘Oh, but I have to, otherwise it doesn’t count …’ Guy pulls a fiver from his pocket and hands it over. I give him change.

‘I could get used to this,’ I say happily.

‘I’ll see you in a couple of hours or so. I’ve got a few bits and pieces to do while I’m in town.’ He grins suddenly. ‘There’s Fifi – I’ll make a quick getaway.’ I watch, amused, as he ducks away behind the stall beside mine, BB’s Honey, as Fifi, in a red and white polka-dot dress and white jacket, hastens towards me.

‘What a lovely display,’ she gushes. ‘I must buy one of your cakes. No …’ She presses her finger to her lips, thinking. ‘I’ll have four of the gingerbread men. Or are they women?’

‘They’re androgynous,’ I say, picking up a paper bag and tongs. ‘I wouldn’t like to upset anyone’s sensitivities by being politically incorrect. Would you like to choose?’

‘No, you decide.’ Once her purchase is in the bag, Fifi starts negotiating the price. ‘How much are they?’

I state the price, showing her the label on the rack.

‘Oh, dear,’ Fifi says. ‘I haven’t got much cash on me today.’

I find this odd since she’s clearly well-heeled.

‘You couldn’t see your way to do an exchange – a voucher to spend in the garden centre, perhaps …?’

‘That’s a bit cheeky, isn’t it?’

‘You can buy so many useful things with a voucher – we don’t merely sell garden equipment and plants. We stock pet food for your dog, for example, Christmas cards virtually all year round, and cook-ware.’ While I stand there, mouth gaping, Fifi goes on sternly, ‘It’s the way we do things around here.’

‘Oh, go on then,’ I say, relenting.

As I’m tucking Fifi’s voucher away, she says a polite goodbye and disappears. I don’t see her again for an hour, by which time I’m inundated with customers. In fact, I’m proud to say that I have a queue of them, and very soon I’m sold out.

I start to tidy up.

‘Hello, Jennie.’ I look up to find Wendy beside me, struggling with six dogs on leads.