The Sweetest Thing (38 page)

‘That’s the thrill of it.’ Guy grins. ‘Thanks for the cake.’

I help out with the cider-making for a couple more hours, and by the evening I’m feeling much better, which is lucky because there’s no way Adam is going to miss the tar barrels, an annual Talytonian tradition.

‘Guy says you have to walk into town,’ Adam says when we’re getting ready. ‘You can’t park anywhere near it – people travel for miles to see this. We’ll have to hurry up though. They light the bonfire on the Green at six.’

Once we’ve fought our way through the busy streets, to the edge of Market Square, we find ourselves standing in a crowd three people deep. In the glow of a streetlight, our breath condenses like puffs of smoke. I rearrange my scarf around my neck and pull my hat down around my ears. It’s colder than ever. Although Devon, part of a peninsula that’s warmed by the Gulf Stream, is supposed to have something approaching a sub-tropical climate, it’s been unusually cool for this time of year, and the long-term forecast is for little change.

‘I can’t see anything, Mummy,’ Sophie says, tugging at my coat.

‘I can’t either,’ says Georgia.

‘Same here,’ grumbles Adam.

‘We’ll have to make sure we all stick together,’ I say. ‘If I lose any of you, I don’t think I’ll ever find you again.’

Sophie’s gloved hand slips into mine and gives it a squeeze.

I begin to wish we hadn’t come, but it soon livens up, and I have to say that I can’t believe what I’m seeing. A flood of people burst out of one of the side roads, filling the centre of the square, shouting and cheering. I can smell burning tar, beer and burgers. In the middle of them, if I stand on tiptoe, I can just make out smoke and flickering orange flames, apparently emerging from a man’s back. As the crowd shifts around, forcing us back, I realise that the man – a young one – is carrying a flaming tar barrel on his shoulders.

‘Guy said he was a barrel roller,’ I say, nudging Adam. ‘Does he have to carry one of those?’

‘Oh, yes,’ says Adam. ‘They started off rolling the barrels, then someone thought it would be more fun to carry them. They’ve been doing it for years.’

I’m not sure I can bear to watch.

‘When does Guy carry his barrel?’

‘At ten o’clock,’ Adam says.

‘That’s ages away,’ says Georgia.

‘I know. Let’s go down to the river and watch the bonfire for a while. We might be able to get something to eat.’

Under a clear night sky, we stand on the Green, eating burgers and watching fireworks, hissing rockets taking off in sequence then exploding with loud bangs, spreading showers of spangling stars that slowly fall and fade out across the sky: a metaphor perhaps for my relationship with Guy.

We return to the square later, struggling back through the crowds, and ending up in a better position to see the next barrel.

‘This feels like Christmas shopping in Oxford Street,’
I observe, ‘exciting but stressful, and not an experience to repeat in a hurry.’

‘There’s Guy!’ shouts Adam as another flood of people swirls into the square. He’s bowed under the weight of the burning barrel, which I can see, as he moves nearer to us, is padded with hessian.

‘Guy!’ I call out, and he glances in our direction and grimaces. I can see the sinews in his neck as he strains to support the barrel. He’s covered in soot and sweat, and I see holes in his top from the falling embers as he passes close by.

I’d hoped to catch up with him afterwards, perhaps to stroll back towards Jennie’s Folly with him, but we lose sight of him pretty quickly.

‘He’ll be going for a drink at the pub,’ says Adam, as if he’s reading my mind.

‘Have you seen anyone you know?’ I ask.

‘I think I saw Will and Jack from school.’

‘I saw one of my friends,’ says Sophie. ‘She was on her daddy’s shoulders. I wish my daddy was here. I miss him sooo much.’

‘You could have gone to stay with him this weekend, but you said you preferred to go to the party.’

‘I said I couldn’t decide, and you made me choose the party.’

‘I did nothing of the sort,’ I argue, but Sophie is tired and overwrought.

‘You did, Mummy,’ she whines back, ‘and I don’t think that was fair on poor Daddy because now he isn’t going to see me until next week.’

‘It is a shame, but that’s what we decided. That’s what you said you wanted, Sophie,’ I say, feeling unappreciated – something I’ve had to learn to accept as a single parent. ‘Let’s go home.’

When we get back, there’s no sign of Lucky. Adam finds him under his bed, quivering with fear.

‘He’s been sick.’

‘That’s all we need. What’s wrong with him?’

‘I think he must be scared of fireworks.’

‘Great.’ I clear it up, then retire to bed. I can’t sleep … Lucky can’t settle, wandering up and down the corridor outside the bedrooms, whining every now and again. Adam’s mobile rings in the middle of the night – I recognise his ringtone – and then there are voices from the drive. I slide out of bed, wrapped in my duvet, and stand to one side of my window – I don’t often bother to draw the curtains any more – and peer outside. I can make out four figures: two male, two female. One of them is Guy and he has his arm around one of the females. I think they’re laughing. Envy and sadness well up in me. I sink down on to the window-seat and sit there for a long time. Who is she? What did I expect, that Guy was some kind of monk? Why does it matter?

‘Where are you going?’ I ask Adam when I catch him going out before dawn the following morning.

‘I said I’d help Guy with the milking.’ Adam’s eating what looks like a piece of flapjack for breakfast. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

‘Not really … I’m not sure he’ll be up yet though.’

‘He’s never late for the cows. He says the ladies don’t like to be kept waiting.’

‘I think he might have company.’

Adam raises one eyebrow. ‘And?’

‘He might not appreciate you turning up.’

Adam pulls his mobile out of the pocket of his jeans and presses a couple of buttons, then shows me the screen. ‘Message from Guy received fifteen minutes ago. He was afraid I was going to oversleep.’

‘All right,’ I say, itching to ask him to find out who Guy’s friends are. ‘I’ll see you later.’

After milking, Guy turns up at the kitchen window, waving a file of some kind – I notice with regret that he doesn’t let himself in any more, unless he’s with Adam.

I beckon him to join me and he turns up in the kitchen, looking none the worse after the night before. He’s wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a gilet and chinos, and bears the familiar, aphrodisiac scent of aftershave and cow, with extra notes of burned oak.

‘I brought you this. I thought you’d be interested. The recipe for cider cake’s in there, but there are lots of others.’ He hands me a faded yellow ring-binder. ‘Open it.’

I place it on the kitchen table.

‘I don’t know why but it seems like prying,’ I say, opening it to the first page.

‘I think Mum would be pleased that someone was using them.’

Uphill Cider Cake. It’s handwritten neatly in italic print. The ingredients listed include cider, nutmeg and apple brandy, and there are detailed instructions for baking it.

‘What do you think?’ he asks.

‘It looks like just what I’ve been searching for – I hope I can do it justice.’

‘I’m sure you can.’

‘Thanks, Guy.’ I pause. ‘I hope you haven’t had to leave your friends so you can come here.’

His brow furrows.

‘The people you had with you last night … I heard you rolling home last night, barrel roller.

‘Did we wake you? I’m sorry.’

‘I couldn’t sleep. Too much excitement, I expect.’

‘I hope you enjoyed it – it’s one of the highlights of the year here.’

‘You’d better get back,’ I say, ‘to your friends.’ I can hear my voice trail off. I’m making a mess of this, aren’t I?

‘You mean Ruthie and Co? I left them to sort themselves out. They had pretty sore heads this morning, but then they always do after the tar barrels.’

‘What about you?’

‘I had a couple of pints afterwards, nothing before. Alcohol and flaming barrels don’t mix. I’m pretty careful.’

‘You’re mad,’ I say gently.

He looks at me quizzically.

‘Jennie, can you tell me what’s going on here?’ He lowers his voice. ‘Between you and me? Forgive me, but I think we need to clear the air.’

I take a deep breath, then let it out slowly as he goes on, ‘I’m getting mixed signals. It might be me, of course, reading things wrong. I know we agreed to cool it for a while, but I didn’t mean for you to freeze me out completely.’

‘Is that how it feels?’

‘I understand that you’re worried about the children being taken away from you to live with their dad, but—’

‘How can you possibly understand when you haven’t got any children?’ I interrupt. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say quickly, catching the shadow of regret that darkens his eyes. ‘I don’t think you should wait for me. Go out and find someone your own age.’

‘But I don’t want anyone else,’ he says, frowning. ‘And you aren’t that much older than me.’

I close the file on the table, leave my hand on top of it, and watch as Guy places his hand on mine, interlinking our fingers. His skin is rough, his nails dark with grime, but I don’t care. I love everything about him.

I want him, all of him, but I can’t have him because I have to put my family first and sacrifice this chance of happiness. I try to console myself with the thought that, if I let him go, Guy will be free to find someone else, someone younger who can give him kids of his own. He’s great with children. He’ll make a fantastic dad. If I let him go … I’m not sure that I can.

I invite Guy, along with the children after school, to the cake-tasting a couple of days later. It took me that long to source the apple brandy that the recipe calls for – I found it eventually in a tiny farm shop on the way into Talymouth.

‘Here it is,’ I say, placing the cake on a plate on the table. ‘Uphill Cider Cake.’

‘It looks a bit plain, Mummy,’ says Sophie. ‘Aren’t you going to decorate it if it’s going to be your special cake?’

It’s true – it does look rather nondescript, a round cake with a golden-brown crust on the outside, which gives it a rustic appearance.

‘I wondered about dusting it with icing sugar, or brown sugar maybe, but I decided to leave it as it is and serve it with either clotted cream, or a small portion of apple, or both,’ I explain.

‘Mother used to dish it up with clotted cream,’ Guy says.

‘It’s lucky I’ve got some then.’ I smile, aware of the
way he keeps giving me meaningful glances, as if he’d like to eat me up, and my spirits soar. I take a knife and cut through the cake, removing a substantial slice. The texture is perfect: moist but light. I cut four more slices, while Adam takes the cream from the fridge and the stewed apple from the larder.

‘Shouldn’t we have two pieces each?’ Georgia says.

‘Three, if we’re to try every permutation,’ says Guy.

‘Four, if you include trying it on its own,’ says Adam.

‘You can come back for more,’ I say. ‘There’s another one in the oven.’

‘That was rather premature – what if we don’t like it?’ says Adam.

‘I’ll give it to the chickens.’ I hand out plates, forks and spoons, and pass the apple and cream around the table. ‘Okay, everyone, what do you think of it?’

‘Would you like us to give you a full report, or is “Mmm, that’s scrummy” enough?’ Adam says, when he’s halfway through his first slice.

‘It’s great, Jennie.’ Guy looks at me, his expression tinged with sadness. ‘Just the way Mum made it. It takes me right back …’

Georgia and Sophie enjoy it too. It is delicious and distinctive, sweet and spicy, with nutmeg and an underlying hint of apple.

‘What do you think?’ I ask. ‘Shall we vote?’

The outcome is unanimous – Uphill Cider Cake becomes the signature product for Jennie’s Cakes, and I make plans to sell it at the next Farmers’ Market, and see if I can persuade any of the local outlets, including the farm shop, to stock it.

Later, when I’m sitting in front of the fire in the
drawing room, working out a fair price for a cider cake, I rest my notebook and pen on the floor, sit back and take stock. I’ve not had the bill from the solicitor yet, and I’ve still got that vet’s bill to pay, but Alex has offered me terms, monthly payments over the next six months, and it wasn’t money wasted because Bracken is getting better.

I’ve certainly done my penance, caring for her while she convalesces. She’s getting really grumpy now, desperate to escape the confines of her stable and get out to the paddock. Alex has told us to buy her a weigh tape so we can monitor her progress, and suggested that I lead her out for ten minutes twice a day for a mouthful of grass.

‘Lead her out on the bridle,’ he said, ‘and be careful. She’ll be a bit silly to begin with.’