Little Beach Street Bakery Read online

  Just before lunch, though, she knew she had to get back.

  She kissed him lightly on the cheek and he drew her in for a hug.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I needed a friend. Can you keep it to yourself?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘Can you keep it to yourself that I accidentally slept with a married guy even though absolutely everybody within a hundred-mile radius knows already?’

  They shook on it.

  Even with Huckle’s revelations, it still counted as the nicest evening she’d had in a long time, and she had a spring in her step as she walked. Huckle had offered to take her on the bike, but she’d turned him down; she could do with clearing her head, and it was a lovely day.

  She had finally made a friend, a proper friend, not some bad fisherman who wanted to lure her to his naughty island. As she thought that, a smile crossed her lips. Just a little one. Really, as Huckle had shown her, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, was it? To let herself be slightly misled by someone. She should chalk it up to trial and error. At least she’d broken her duck. And if everyone in the village thought she was a terrible slag, well, they should try going out in Plymouth on a Saturday night.

  It had been a daft thing to do, but it wasn’t worth beating herself up about for ever. Life went on.

  As she walked – she’d decided to take the coastal route rather than the country roads, which meant striking out across open moorland – she felt the wind building up. Gently at first, but more and more insistently as she went on. Great black and grey clouds, heavy and portentous-looking – the first for weeks – appeared as if out of nowhere, blotting out first a portion, then half, then the whole of the sky. Polly started to move faster as the rain arrived, and then to run, but eventually she stopped and gave in to the inevitable: she was going to get drenched, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She held her hands up and let the rain course down her body. It was warm, but quite refreshing, a bit like standing in a shower. Hangover completely gone, she was suddenly aware of feeling incredibly free, more alive than she had felt in a long time.

  ‘ARRR!’ she shouted loudly, open to the elements, all alone on top of a hill. A part of her was aware that she was being a bit crazy. Another part felt like giving voice to it. It was kind of mad, but nobody could see her up here, and it felt so good too, to get out all the frustrations of the last few months – oh Lord, years.

  ‘RAAAA!’ she roared at the sky. ‘AARRRGH!’ She spun in circles under the huge heavy drops.

  ‘Feeling better?’ observed a quiet voice.

  It was Huckle, standing right behind her with a huge black umbrella.

  ‘JESUS!’ said Polly, jumping out of her skin. ‘Where the HELL did you spring from?’

  ‘Er, sorry,’ said Huckle. ‘I just saw the rain coming on and thought you might need some shelter. I didn’t know you were re-enacting Wuthering Heights up here.’

  Polly was furiously embarrassed.

  ‘Go away,’ she said. ‘You’re like a creepy stalker.’

  ‘Oh come on. I thought it was cute,’ he said.

  ‘SHUT UP,’ said Polly warningly. Her face felt suffused with red.

  ‘Well, would you like the umbrella?’

  Water was getting in her eyes, running down her cheeks, soaking her to the skin. Huckle, slowly at first, then more determinedly, passed the umbrella across. Of course, as he did so, the rain got to him too, and in no time at all, he was nearly as drenched as she was. The huge black brolly hovered uselessly between them, Polly refusing to take it, Huckle refusing to stop offering it to her. Suddenly a great gust of wind snatched it, lifting it high above them over the moor, where it danced and tossed on the air.

  Huckle and Polly glanced at each other wordlessly, then both of them dived off after it. Polly’s wet hair slapped against her forehead and her shoes squelched as she charged along, feeling as tossed and thrown about by the weather as the umbrella itself, in the heart of the storm. Huckle, his long legs striding fast and far beyond her, his arms wide open to the water and the gusting air, had his head thrown back and was laughing at the craziness of it all. They leapt and threw themselves at the brolly, which always managed to tear itself away from them again, until finally they cornered it when its spokes got caught in a tree. Huckle lifted Polly up without difficulty. Polly grabbed the umbrella and waved it about triumphantly as Huckle gently placed her back on the ground with her treasure. She turned to him, watching the raindrops roll off his long eyelashes, which were surprisingly dark for such a fair-haired man, his blue eyes crinkling, his hair slicked back against his leonine head. She stood for a second in his arms, and suddenly thought it would be the easiest thing in the world to reach up and…

  No. No, she couldn’t. She’d just been through this entire exact thing. Had she or had she not just been yelling about her liberation?

  ‘Actually,’ she found herself saying, realising how much colder it was getting all of a sudden, and that her teeth were beginning to chatter. ‘Actually you know I think I will take that brolly after all.’

  Huckle bent down in a courtly way.

  ‘Ma’am, may I walk you home?’

  ‘No,’ said Polly, ‘You’ll miss the tide back.’ And she turned and marched happily back towards Polbearne.

  Huckle stood and watched her go. Then he swept back his mass of hair out of his eyes, and strode back the other way, towards the cottage.

  Chapter Twenty

  Polly had never known a nicer bath. She lit the stove, to make the little apartment all toasty and heat up the boiler; then, while that worked itself up, she made up the dough for the morning, with the most immense cup of tea she could muster. She used up all the hot water in the tank by filling the bath to the brim, throwing in the very last of the posh smellies she’d got for her birthday the previous year – she remembered that birthday: they had all gone out to some fancy new restaurant that charged a fortune for tiny cubes of vegetables, and she’d been so nervous about their credit card, even though her friends, led by Kerensa, had insisted on paying for her share – until the entire flat was warm, steamy and scented.

  Even though it was only early afternoon, it felt like night-time in the middle of winter; there were no daytrippers today. Polly couldn’t believe the speed with which the weather had asserted itself, blowing in across the sea in a tearing rage. Thunder rumbled ominously and lightning rent the roiling sky, occasionally coinciding with the lighthouse beam, which had been switched on early that day. Polly soaked for a long time, reading her book, until she was warm again from the inside out, then put on her oldest, softest cotton pyjamas and woollen socks, and propped herself up at the window to look out at the storm.

  Suddenly, to her horror, she saw Tarnie’s Land Rover appearing and the boys getting out. They looked miserable, defeated, their shoulders slumped. They couldn’t possibly be going out in this, she thought. They couldn’t be.

  Without thinking, she pulled on her old mackintosh and ran downstairs and out into the worsening wind.

  ‘You can’t!’ she howled, crying out to make herself heard above the storm. ‘You can’t be going out in this.’

  Tarnie looked at her, and she remembered she was furious with him. His piercing blue eyes were sorrowful.

  ‘Aye, Polly, hello,’ he muttered, casting his eyes to the ground.

  ‘Also,’ said Polly.

  ‘Aye, reckon,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m sorry, you know.’

  ‘It was so cruel,’ she said, suddenly forgetting the weather, but still shouting. She’d managed to avoid him so successfully, but here she was right in front of him. ‘So cruel, you know. You took advantage of me.’

  ‘I know,’ said Tarnie, blushing furiously red and shaking his head. ‘I shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘My whole life had come crashing down and you made it worse. Why?’

  Tarnie looked up then, and his eyes were very blue and clear against the crashing grey sea.

  ‘Because I thought you w
ere so lovely,’ he said gently.

  The wind went out of Polly’s sails completely.

  ‘Well… That’s STILL BAD.’

  ‘I know,’ said Tarnie. ‘I’m sorry. It was an awful thing. Me and the missus had been going through some hard times and I was… I was very lonely.’ That word again.

  ‘Well you shouldn’t have taken it out on me,’ Polly said severely.

  ‘No.’

  Tarnie scratched the back of his neck. The other fishermen were looking on. It was hard to keep things quiet in a village.

  ‘Can we be friends?’ he ventured finally. ‘Please? Like I should have kept it?’

  Polly waited a second.

  ‘Well, all right,’ she said.

  Tarnie put his hand out awkwardly and Polly took it.

  ‘Kiss!’ shouted Jayden, but Kendall instantly stuck his hand in front of his mate’s mouth.

  ‘Well now,’ said Polly. ‘I don’t have anything for you to eat today.’

  ‘Reckon that’s all right,’ said Tarnie.

  Another peal of thunder shook the purple sky.

  ‘You guys are amazing,’ said Polly admiringly.

  ‘I hate this job,’ said Jayden.

  ‘Must you go out in this?’ said Polly, looking up, horrified. ‘It’s awful out there.’

  ‘Seen worse,’ said Tarnie. ‘Damn it all.’

  Polly looked at him. ‘It was very naughty to send Jayden to buy your bread.’

  ‘I know,’ said Tarnie. ‘But come on. I have to live without you; I don’t think I could bear to live without your sandwiches too.’

  ‘Are you going to be good from now on?’ she said.

  Tarnie nodded furiously. Then he took a book out of his back pocket: her Alice in Wonderland.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I really did enjoy it.’

  ‘Good,’ said Polly, slipping it inside her mac. Big globules of rain were falling on them. ‘I still can’t believe you’re going out in this.’

  ‘It’s just weather,’ said Archie, loading up. ‘Just the wind and the rain.’

  ‘Well, be careful out there.’

  ‘She’s a stout little ship, she’ll outrun it,’ said Tarnie.

  ‘Aye, and so’s your wife,’ shouted Kendall, and the boys guffawed. Tarnie ignored them, and cursed roundly, and Polly backed away.

  She watched them clamber into their yellow oilskins, clipping their nets and checking the winch. Suddenly their huge yellow sou’westers made a lot of sense. Inside the tiny galley, someone had already set tea to brew.

  ‘Godspeed,’ she said, under her breath, then she turned and left, back up to where her bathwater was still waiting (she’d kept it to wash some clothes in) which was thankfully still hot.

  Polly couldn’t concentrate on anything that evening, thinking of the little fleet bobbing out on the ocean, the boats so tiny under such a furious sky. Maybe the fish were easier to catch when the waters were swirling and bouncing like this; maybe they couldn’t sleep either. She tried to phone Kerensa and then her mum for comfort and a chat, but she couldn’t get any reception at all – the storm must be interfering with the masts – and she finally gave up.

  She’d expected to be awakened at the usual early hour – she rarely needed to set her alarm – by the boats coming back and the fishmongers’ vans rattling up the cobbles. That night, however, her sleep had been disturbed, by crashing thunder and heavy seas. At one point she’d woken up completely knotted in her blankets, unable to breathe, convinced she was on the point of drowning; she could feel the ocean pulling her down, the boat collapsing above her, everything disintegrating into heavier shades of blue and black, the panic and the twisting. She was drenched in sweat, her heart thudding in her chest, her eyes wide open. The storm was still raging around the house, and she jumped suddenly as something hit the window. To her horror, she realised it was a wave, thrown with incredible force right over the harbour wall, across the street and up to the first floor of the building, as if a huge being had simply picked up a handful of water and hurled it at her full force. The noise was tremendous.

  When she’d finally calmed down, she fell back into a calmer sleep, filled with the heavy scent of bees and a quiet buzzing. And when she awoke, it was indeed to her phone buzzing with messages from the intermittent signal, and the great clouds clearing away, the storm blowing itself out. She jumped up in panic, realising immediately that she had slept in, that it was late.

  She grabbed her phone: 7.30. Damn, damn, DAMN. The first loaves should have been in two hours ago; she had to open up in half an hour. There wasn’t even time to make coffee; she had to move, and fast. She pulled on a top and jeans, and galloped downstairs, where she turned the ovens up as high as they could go, heated the wood-burner up (she kept it smouldering all night, otherwise it would take too long to heat in the morning) and hammered out her loaves on their racks without her usual care or finesse. There would not be much choice today.

  She finally had them all in and was starting on the rolls when she glanced out of the front window and noticed that there were a lot of people out there. At first she thought they were waiting for her to open up, but they were facing away from the bakery, all of them peering out to sea. Nobody was speaking, nor really moving, except to occasionally mutter something into their telephones, or stare at them as if they had some kind of an answer.

  ‘ALL HANDS!’ she heard.

  She turned the ‘Closed’ sign to ‘Open’, pinging the door as she pulled back the lock and opening it on to vicious grey skies and heavy clouds. No wonder she had slept in; the sun had not come up at all.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked Patrick, who was standing there with his three dogs, out for their morning constitutional. But when she followed his gaze, she realised. There was nothing in the harbour. No boats at all, apart from the dinghies belonging to the weekend potterers and the old lags.

  ‘The fleet,’ she said in shock, and Patrick nodded as she put her hand out to steady herself. ‘Oh my God, where’s the fleet?’

  ‘We’re waiting to find out, Pol,’ said one of her older regulars. ‘They say they’ve got one or two up Looe way, managed to beach themselves in the night.’

  He looked at the sky, still grey, the wind still pulling at the trees, the rain still plopping down.

  ‘I reckon they can head back now.’

  Polly’s heart was in her mouth.

  ‘Oh God, but Tarnie said he’d get ahead of the storm. He said.’

  Patrick touched her arm reassuringly.

  ‘I’m sure he did. I’m sure he’s washed up, having a big English breakfast somewhere.’

  ‘Phone him,’ said Polly sharply, but Pat shook his head.

  ‘The phone masts are down,’ he said. ‘Last night was a doozy. No one can get through to anyone.’

  Polly’s hand went to her mouth. She turned towards the end of the harbour wall closest to the causeway.

  ‘ALL HANDS!’ she heard a man’s voice shout once again in the distance. Several figures were charging along, pulling on yellow oilskins, heading for the white RNLI shelter. Then they were bringing the bright orange boat on its runners straight down into the freezing water with a splash and jumping on board.

  ‘Why didn’t they go out before?’ Polly asked crossly. ‘Why are they only going out now?’

  Patrick turned to her seriously.

  ‘They’ve been out three times,’ he said. ‘This is the fourth search today. When they run out of fuel or can’t go any further, they come back.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Polly. ‘Oh God. I’m sorry. And they haven’t found them?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Patrick, grimly.

  ‘One of the village teenagers came tearing up shouting, ‘There’s a wreck! There’s a wreck over on Darkpoint Bay! A big ’un, too!’

  Patrick stiffened. ‘Oh no. That’ll bring folks out in force.’

  ‘One of the fishing boats?’ said Polly in horror.

  ‘Neh, a great big cargo ship! Full
of stuff an’ all!’

  Several of the young men who had up until now been looking tired from their stint on the lifeboat suddenly appeared a lot more awake.

  ‘The police will be down,’ warned Patrick. ‘You loot it and you know where you’ll end up.’

  Following the others blindly, Polly walked across the causeway and over the top of the headland. At first, she couldn’t work out the scale of what she was witnessing. It was as if a skyscraper had fallen sideways on to the land. Part beached, but part submerged too, it was the largest thing she had ever seen. It must have been more than two hundred metres end to end, and looked hideously unnatural lying there: a gigantic supertanker loaded with crates, which were now floating about on the surf.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Patrick sharply. ‘Oh God, please let there not be oil.’

  ‘What about the crew?’ said Polly anxiously. She narrowed her eyes and could just about make out six or seven tiny, frantically waving figures sitting on the front end of the prow.

  ‘We’ll get the doc out,’ said Patrick. ‘But meanwhile…’

  Polly looked at him. ‘Can I help? I don’t think I can just hang about.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Patrick. ‘Oh Christ. If there’s oil…’

  Polly could barely take it in as they scrambled down the cliffside with the other villagers. Muriel was there from the shop.

  ‘Oh my, those poor men,’ she said. She looked around. ‘They used to do this on purpose, you know,’ she told Polly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Wreckers, you know? They used to show a light to lure ships ashore. Then kill the sailors and take the swag off the boats. Was a huge living round here.’

  ‘You are kidding?’ said Polly. ‘No wonder everyone looks so nervous.’

  The real problem, they saw as they reached the beach, would be getting the men off. The closer they came, the more immense the structure appeared. Sure enough, a helicopter from the nearby air-sea rescue base could soon be heard flip-flipping its way over the coastline. The lifeboat was bobbing round the bottom of the ship: it must have looked like the side of a vast cliff from down there.