The Sweetest Thing (37 page)

‘There’s a lot going on here at the moment,’ I say.

‘Yes, I realise that. Georgia refuses to leave Bracken and Adam’s torn because he wants to help Guy make cider and watch the tar-barrel procession. Sophie says she doesn’t want to come either because she’s been invited to a Hallowe’en party, along with her whole class at school.’

‘I’m sorry they aren’t keen,’ I say, ‘but I’ve told them they have to spend the weekend with you.’ David and I have a legal agreement over access but I can’t
reorganise the children’s social lives. Sometimes I feel like piggy-in-the-middle.

‘I’ve been thinking – if they’re really desperate to want to do all these other things, then I’m happy for them to miss this weekend. It’s a one-off though. And soon they’ll be living full-time with me and Alice anyway, so I think it’s only fair.’

‘David, that’s very good of you,’ I say, pleased by this concession of his. ‘They’ll miss you, of course, but maybe you and Alice would like to come down for the day, if you want to see them?’

‘Alice has planned to choose her dress this weekend – she’d rather hoped that the girls would help her.’

‘Oh, I wondered when you were going to get around to the subject of your impending nuptials.’

‘I didn’t want you to think I was rubbing your nose in it.’

‘In what, exactly?’

‘Well, I’ve heard that things haven’t worked out between you and the oik.’

‘For goodness’ sake, David …’

‘Adam keeps me up to speed,’ he cuts in. ‘Anyway, if you wouldn’t mind letting the kids know? I’d better get on – I’ve managed to get a booking at a rather exclusive little restaurant and I don’t want to miss it. I’ll let you know if Alice and I should decide to join you on Sunday.’

To my relief, they decide against paying us a visit, and on the Saturday morning I’m in the kitchen, enjoying the warmth of the Aga while looking out of the window at the pale sky and the frost that adorns the grass. I whizz up some feather cake as an excuse to remain where I am, and borrow Adam’s laptop so I can continue Googling for that special signature recipe for
Jennie’s Cakes because I haven’t found it yet and not for want of choice. I dismiss the exotic combination of courgette and lime, after Guy’s opinion on the chocolate and beetroot. Everyone loves chocolate fudge cake, but you can buy it anywhere. It isn’t exactly unique.

I give up looking when the feather cake’s ready to ice. I’ve made double quantities of light, buttery sponge in shallow brownie tins, then turned them out on to a rack. I ice them with pure white icing sprinkled with desiccated coconut. I’ll cut them into squares when the icing’s set, I think before cutting myself a corner – to test, you understand. It’s one of my favourites, ultra-sweet.

In fact, this morning, it goes a long way to putting me in a cheerful mood.

There’s a knocking at the window at the front. It’s Adam in his beanie hat. I gesture to him to come round the back, but he keeps knocking.

‘What do you want?’

He mouths something back, but I can’t tell what he’s saying, so I have to open the window, letting the chill air inside.

‘You should have come round the back,’ I say lightly.

‘We’re about to get started on the apples. You’ve never seen so many,’ he says, his cheeks flushed. ‘Aren’t you coming, Mum?’

‘I don’t think so …’ I feel awkward. We might have fooled Adam with our ‘just friends’ routine, but I can’t fool myself. I am not and never can remain just friends with Guy. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

‘You have to,’ Adam says. ‘Guy says we need all hands on deck.’

‘Oh, all right.’ I have to admit, I’m curious. ‘Have you got your coats, everyone?’ Adam’s in clean overalls – he must have changed – and looks to be verging on the obese with the number of layers he’s wearing underneath. I turn to the girls. Sophie’s in her pink padded jacket with her ear muffs on, and Georgia’s in jeans and a jumper.

‘Aren’t you coming too?’ I ask her.

‘I’m going to stay here,’ she says. ‘Bracken’s due a haynet in half an hour.’

‘I’m sure you could pop back.’

‘I haven’t mucked out yet.’ Georgia smiles. ‘I don’t need to know how to make cider. I’m not going to be a farmer. I’m going to be a vet like Alex.’

‘Well, shout if you need us,’ I say. ‘A vet, did you say? That’ll save on the bills.’

Cider-making is a messy business, I discover. Guy has one end of his modern outbuildings set aside for the process so I was expecting up-to-date equipment, but when we go inside, there’s a mix of old and new. It’s also absolutely freezing.

‘Hi, Jennie.’ He greets me with one of his slow smiles, and my heart twists with pain because nothing’s changed. I still feel the same way about him. I still get that melting sensation in my chest and weakening of the knees when I see him.

‘Jennie, did you hear me?’ he asks. ‘I said, what do you think?’

‘I really don’t know,’ I say with a sigh. Then, realising he’s talking about the cider, ‘It’s all a bit primitive,’ I go on, looking at the mountain of apples lying on a scattering of straw.

‘What did you expect? Stainless-steel vats?’ Guy grins. ‘We do it the traditional way at Uphill Farm – it’s
what gives our scrumpy its unique flavour. That’s why it’s the best in the West.’ He pauses. ‘Unfortunately as you can see, I’ve had to replace some of the old wooden barrels with food-grade plastic tanks. I’ve also had to replace the old “scratcher”, that crushes the apples before you can put them through the press, with a rather expensive new crusher.’ He turns to Adam. ‘Shall we make a start? So, what did we decide?’

‘Sophie is on loading the apples into the buckets, Mum on feeding the hopper on the crusher, you on the press and me supervising.’ Adam’s grinning.

‘You mean, you on the press and me supervising,’ Guy chuckles, swipes Adam’s hat and pulls it over his own head. ‘I’m the gaffer. Let’s go.’

It’s hard labour and Sophie soon decides she’s so bored she has to go back to the house to see Georgia, which means that I have to load the apples into buckets and take them to the crusher. I drop them, bucket-load after bucket-load, into the hopper while Adam turns the hand wheel. The blades cut the apples into small pieces that are then crushed by the rollers, the pulp falling into a bigger bucket underneath. Within half an hour, sweat is dripping from Adam’s brow and he’s stripped down to a T-shirt.

‘Shall I take a turn?’ I ask.

‘I’ll do it,’ he says, grimacing, and I smile to myself when I notice him glancing at his rippling arm muscles.

‘Are you all right there?’ Guy asks. He’s been fiddling with the press, but now he walks over and stands right beside me, looking at the results of our work. ‘That’s great. Keep going. No, stop for a minute. I’ll show you how the press works.’ He takes the bucket of pulp and carries it over to the Heath
Robinson contraption nearby. ‘This is a rack and cloth press, the original from Uphill – I mean, Jennie’s Folly. I’ve modified it as we’ve gone along. What you have to do is tip the pommy – that’s another name for the pulp, pomace or pommy – on to this piece of sacking here.’

Guy tips a layer of pulp on to the hessian which lies across a square wooden frame raised above a plastic trough, then he folds the hessian over the pulp. ‘Then you take another sheet of hessian, like so,’ he says, ‘and put that on top, pour on more pulp, and keep on layering it up until the frame’s filled up.’ He looks at me, eyes flashing with humour. ‘This’ll take me a while, so you can keep on with the crushing.’

Eventually, Guy shows us how to rack the press down on to the layers of hessian and pommy, and how the juice trickles out into the plastic trough.

‘What happens next?’ I ask.

‘The pressed pommy’s fed to the cows. The juice goes into a barrel to ferment for several weeks, then I’ll put the bungs in and leave it to mature for a few months.’

‘I’m impressed,’ I say. ‘Don’t you have to add yeast, like you do with bread?’

‘No, there are wild yeasts on the apple skins. That’s why we don’t wash the apples first.’

I don’t know about the cider, but Guy’s proximity has put me in a ferment. Tiny bubbles of desire expand and pop inside my belly, subside for a while, then bubble up again. I try to suppress them.

‘Are you all right, Jennie?’ The sound of his voice brings me back to the present. ‘Would you like a break?’

‘Not yet. Although there is freshly baked feather cake …’ I look up at him across a bucket of pommy and
our eyes connect. I feel myself swaying. Guy catches my arm.

‘I’m feeling a bit wobbly,’ I say.

‘It’s cold working out here. Let’s go inside and warm up.’

‘Your place or mine?’ I mumble, not so faint that I can’t joke about it.

‘Yours, of course.’

I link my arm through his, and we walk back to the house. I’m acutely aware that Adam is staring at us, a frown on his face.

‘Your mother and I are friends, Adam,’ Guy calls back. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘Loud and clear,’ Adam says, walking with us. ‘So long as there’s no snogging.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Guy says firmly and, although he’s doing the right thing, I wish his tone didn’t sound so resolute.

We sit chatting over coffee and cake, Adam wandering off to watch some television briefly before we go back to continue crushing and pressing.

‘Are you still looking for your special cake?’ Guy says, flicking through the notes I’ve made during the past few weeks.

‘Yes, I can’t quite find what I want. I need something unusual but not too far out.’

‘You mean, no beetroot.’

I smile. ‘No beetroot. No courgette. No, I’ve been through all the versions of chocolate cake that I can find, because most people like chocolate, but none of them are right. I’d like something with a local connection, if possible.’

‘How about a cider cake?’ Guy says. ‘My mother used to make it – with our cider, of course.’

‘Now, that sounds promising.’

‘I’m pretty sure the recipe’s in one of her files back at the farmhouse – I stuck them on top of the units when I realised she wasn’t coming back. I’ll dig them out for you.’

‘Do you think she’d mind me using it?’

‘She won’t know,’ Guy says gruffly.

‘I think she should,’ I say. ‘If I use it, I’d like to acknowledge her input. I don’t mind asking her.’

‘I’ll ask her, of course, but she won’t know what I’m talking about. She won’t remember that she used to bake the best cider cake in the county. She doesn’t even remember who I am.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ I fight my instinct to give him a hug.

‘The other day, she called me Oliver,’ he goes on quietly. ‘She thinks that I’m my brother, and the irony is that he never visits. She hasn’t seen him in over a year.’

‘That must be very …’ I try to find the right word.

Guy finds it for me. ‘Painful,’ he says. ‘It’s like being kicked in the teeth.’

We sit in silence for a while.

‘More cake or coffee?’ I ask him eventually.

‘You don’t have to ask,’ he says, sounding more cheerful, and I push the plate with the last piece towards him. ‘What about Adam?’

‘He’s had four already. He doesn’t need any more.’ I get up and put the empty plate on the worktop. ‘I can hardly keep up with him, the amount he eats.’

‘It must be pretty tough, looking after three kids on your own,’ Guy says. ‘I don’t know how you do it.’

‘It can be, but I wouldn’t be without them. I won’t be without them.’ I swallow past the constriction in my throat. ‘I’ll fight David all the way. I’ll never give up.’ I
dab a tear from the corner of my ear. My skin stings. ‘My children are the most important people in my life. I love them so much.’

‘Sometimes I feel like I’ve missed out,’ Guy goes on thoughtfully.

‘It isn’t too late for you,’ I say. ‘I told you before, men are lucky. They can father children until they’re in their seventies.’

‘You’re right. Never say never, and all that.’

‘The chances are that when you meet someone special, she’ll be younger than you and perfectly able to have your children.’

A fresh silence falls between us.

I rest my elbows on the table, my hands clasped in front of me as I try to interpret what Guy’s saying. Is he confirming, in a roundabout way, that he’s given up on waiting for me because he’s still hoping to have children one day? An irrational sensation of grief grips my heart at the thought that my biological clock is running down, and – yes, I’m jumping way ahead here – I’m too old to commit to Guy even if that’s what we both want because that would mean denying him his desire to become a dad.

He slides his chair back and stands up. I make to stand up too.

‘You stay there, Jennie. Come out later when you’re feeling better – you’re looking pale.’

‘And interesting?’

‘That goes without saying. I’ll find that recipe for you – it probably won’t be until Monday because it’s going to be a long day, and tonight’s the tar barrels.’

‘Are you going then?’ I ask.

‘As the elder son of one of Talyton’s longstanding landowners, I have the honour of being a barrel roller.’

‘Really?’ Adam’s mentioned before that the residents of Talyton St George set wooden barrels, lined with coal tar, straw and paper, alight, and run around town with them. ‘Isn’t it dangerous?’