Authors: Trisha Ashley
‘He is so kind. Chloe Lyon said the vicar had some ideas and was coming to see me again to discuss them,’ I said. ‘She’s the vicar’s wife, did I say? It’s very odd, because her grandfather is a self-professed warlock and runs the Museum of Witchcraft.’
‘Really? It seems a rather odd village altogether,’ Celia said. She’d usually come over to visit me when I’d been up here staying with Ma, and so had got to know it a bit.
‘It is – but in a good way. Everyone has been very nice to me, considering how Ma has always kept to herself, though that seems to have been an Almond family habit, so I expect they’re used to it.’
‘From what you’ve told me, the Almonds all sounded a bit
Cold Comfort Farm
,’ she said frankly.
‘Yes, and I think they had their own version of “something nasty in the woodshed” too, that they didn’t talk about, but no one will tell me what it is. Mind you, it must have been so long ago that not many people know what it was, anyway.’
‘Martha seems to be getting about a bit more than she used to, though, from the sound of it,’ Celia said.
I considered it. ‘She is a bit, though even now she rarely goes into the village for shopping. However, she does like the bookshop, Marked Pages, and she’ll go in the Spar if she’s run out of anything vital, like tea or whisky. You know, I have to buy huge amounts of granulated sugar when I do the supermarket shop, because when Hal is here, he brews up endless mugs of sweet tea for them both.’
‘Is that the gardener you mentioned, who seemed to be here a lot?’
‘Yes, he’s a bit of a fixture now. He’s really the under-gardener up at Winter’s End, so he’s moonlighting when he does Ma’s garden.’
‘Maybe it’s a romance?’
‘Well … he’s not bad-looking, I suppose, in a morose older Indiana Jones sort of way, and he’s pretty fit,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Ma doesn’t seem to mind having him around either. He comes and goes, and hangs out in the new shed she had put up behind the studio … But no, I haven’t really seen any sign of romance, and when I sort of prodded her about him, she said they were just good friends.’
‘Then that’s probably all they are,’ Celia said, and went back to the vital matter of the fundraising. ‘Did you see there have been a few more donations to the site? Nothing big, though.’
‘Apart from you and Will, I don’t think anyone else is fundraising at the moment. Certainly no one we knew in London.’
‘Well, you know what it’s like with that crowd: they’ll be on to the latest trendy charitable cause, preferably something involving a fashion show or a party,’ she said.
‘You were the only real friend I made down there.’
‘And vice versa. Well, except for Will, of course.’
‘He’s not so much a friend as a soul mate.’
She gave a happy sigh. ‘I know, I was so lucky to meet him and I love living in Southport. The Crafty Celia classes in the coach house gallery are going really well, and of course Will has his studio and gallery upstairs and customers can use the outside staircase, so it’s all worked out really well. If I’m not in the coach house I’m in the attic workshops in the house, so there’s always one of us around for the dogs and cats, too.’
‘That Mother and Toddler group I went to on Monday have promised to hold a jumble sale in June.’
‘Oh, yes, you said on the phone – and I want to hear all about this Jago you kept mentioning, too. Jago is a weird name. Very
Poldark
.’
‘
Poldark
?’
‘Some novels set in Cornwall I read years ago: I think there was a TV series too.’
‘He
is
Cornish by descent – his surname’s Tremayne. But his parents are both academics and he was mainly brought up in Oxford.’
‘He sounds really nice – you obviously clicked straight away.’
‘I do feel like I’ve always known him,’ I admitted, ‘but not in a romantic way, just a friendly one, and I’m sure that’s how he sees me, too. I mean, I really haven’t got enough time or spare emotion to invest in a romance until Stella has had her operation and is on the road to recovery.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Jago was jilted and I’m sure he isn’t over his ex yet: we have that in common too.’
‘Except that you were totally over your ex ages ago,’ she said.
‘Jago’s ex rang him up out of the blue the other day and I think she wants him back. I hope she doesn’t succeed, but it’s quite selfish of me because I love being able to talk cake with him and I’m sure she’d persuade him to go back to London.’
‘Let’s hope she doesn’t manage it, then,’ Celia said, and then we got out the notebooks and discussed plane tickets and Googled budget hotels in Boston. We’d need a room for a few days before Stella went in for her operation, but once she was in hospital, I didn’t suppose I would be anywhere except by her bedside for a lot of the time …
We found one through the hospital’s helpful website eventually, situated nearby, which looked the best option.
‘Ma is going to go with us, which is good, but I feel I’d really like a trained nurse on the plane with us too, just in case …’
‘I’m sure Stella would be fine,’ Celia said. ‘Didn’t your consultant say that if there is no radical decline in her condition by autumn, the journey shouldn’t be a problem?’
‘Yes, but even so …’ I said stubbornly, and then sighed. ‘I suppose it’s out of the question anyway, because it would be extra expense.’
‘Perhaps we’d better just concentrate on raising the twenty thousand for the moment, and see what suggestions the vicar makes,’ she said. ‘If he comes up with some brilliant ones, we can see about finding a nurse to go out with you then. Meanwhile I’ll get Will on to sorting out the flights and hotel reservations because they really need to be booked soon.’
‘I know,’ I said. I’d been putting it off, though I’m not sure why. The operation was booked, after all, and I’d go through hell and high water to get Stella there.
Chorley cakes look a little like a flat, thin Eccles cake, but are less sweet and simpler to make, basically consisting of a layer of currants spread between two thin rounds of plain shortcrust pastry. Traditionally they were eaten buttered on top and with a slice of Crumbly Lancashire cheese on the side.
Cally Weston: ‘Tea & Cake’
You know, I could be mining this seam for ever, it’s so fruitful (pun intended). It was great being able to bounce ideas off Jago by way of texts, calls and emails, too, but as Thursday approached I found myself looking forward to actually
seeing
him again.
Stella was, too, and after the hospital check-up, when they were quite pleased with her and said she’d put on a tiny bit more weight, it was a toss-up which of us was the most eager to go to the Happy Macaroon. So we were quite disappointed to find only David in the shop when we arrived, serving a customer.
But then I caught sight of a tray of iced gingerbread stars on the glass counter, with a sign saying that all proceeds from their sale would go to the Stella’s Stars fund, to send a local little girl to America for a life-saving operation!
‘They’re Jago’s idea,’ David explained when his customer had left and Stella had wandered off to the other glass counter to show the gingerbread pigs to the mummy penguin she’d brought with her.
‘A pound each and all the money goes into the Stella’s Stars box here. We’ve already sold over a hundred and they’re going like hot cakes. Or maybe that should be hot biscuits,’ he added with a grin.
‘That’s
so
amazing of you both,’ I said gratefully, so moved by this act of kindness that tears came to my eyes.
‘Jago’s an amazingly nice guy, with a heart soft as butter. He was really broken up when his fiancée dumped him, though actually, we all thought she was poison anyway,’ he confided. ‘None of his friends want to see him hurt like that again,’ he added, which I took to be a friendly warning.
‘Yes, he told me about his fiancée, and since mine dumped me, too, we have that in common. I hope we’ll become good friends, because that’s all I have time for when my time is so taken up with getting Stella well again.’
‘Right …’ David said thoughtfully. ‘Then I hope
your
ex isn’t trying to weasel back into your life, because it looks like Aimee’s not letting Jago go that easily.’
‘He
did
mention she’d been back in contact,’ I said. I’d really have loved to have pumped David for all the details, but I didn’t want to seem nosy … even if I was. And anyway, at that moment Stella spotted Jago coming in from the back room, carrying a tray of green macaroons.
She let out a squeal of delight. ‘Jago!’ she cried, as if she’d known him for ever, and his thin, dark face, which had worn an abstracted and slightly sad look, suddenly lit up in a grin.
‘She practically dragged me in here so she could get a gingerbread pig,’ I told him, even though there hadn’t been any need to drag me. ‘And I can’t thank you enough for raising money with the gingerbread stars. Stella, look – Jago’s selling these stars to raise money to get your heart mended in America.’
Stella looked at them, then up at Jago and nodded. ‘I’m going in a big plane and when I come back, I’ll be all better.’
‘That will be great, won’t it?’ he said encouragingly. ‘And it’ll be exciting going in a plane to America.’
‘Yes, but I have to go into
hospital
again when I get there,’ Stella said gloomily. Then she perked up. ‘But Mummy says when I get back it’ll be nearly Christmas and Santa might bring me a big pink castle and a riverboat and a tree house and maybe even a hotel!’
Jago blinked. ‘I’m sure he’ll do his best.’
‘The pink castle is the Barbie one she saw at the playgroup,’ I explained. ‘But the rest are for those little animal toys she collects. I made the mistake of showing her the range on the internet and her Santa list suddenly grew by several feet.’
‘Here’s Mummy Penguin,’ Stella said, waving the toy at him. ‘Say hello to Mummy Penguin.’
‘Hello, Mummy Penguin, I’m very pleased to meet you,’ he said gravely.
‘Me too,’ David said. ‘It’s not every day you meet a penguin. Look, Jago, it’s gone quiet,’ he added ‘Why don’t you all go for a coffee next door and see if you can think of any more good fundraising ideas? I can ring if it suddenly gets busy again.’
‘Good idea, and I can snatch a quick lunch before things hot up again,’ Jago agreed, then said slightly diffidently to me, ‘That is, if you and Stella have time to join me?’
‘That would be lovely.’
‘Gingerbread piggy,’ Stella said pointedly.
‘Of course! Here we are: you choose one. I don’t suppose the café will mind if you eat it while your mum and I have a cup of coffee.’ Jago held the tray within reach. ‘I have lunch there every day; I must have regular customer status by now.’
It was busy in the café, as always, which I suppose showed how good the food was. But we found a table, next to one occupied by three very elderly ladies who all smiled at Stella and commented on how pretty she was.
‘I’m nearly four and I can read books,’ she told them gravely, though the first was a lie since she’s only three and a half. She eyed the enormous cream meringues in front of them and added, impressed, ‘Are you going to eat all that?’
When they said they were, she was so taken by her new admirers that she decided to join them, climbing onto the empty chair at the table and putting her gingerbread pig down on a clean plate.
I was going to remove her, until they assured me they were delighted, so I left them to it. She was hauling Mummy Penguin out of her pocket ready for introductions, but if she started asking them difficult questions, like whether they minded being really old and if they would die soon, I would whisk her away.
Jago glanced at Stella. ‘How did the hospital visit go?’
‘Quite well. She’s put on another tiny bit of weight so they said unless there were any problems, she could next go in a fortnight.’
‘That’s great!’
‘We’ll probably still come into Ormskirk next Thursday anyway, though, because it seems to be becoming a habit and we both like a mooch round the market.’
We drank our coffee and chatted and I asked him, ‘How did you get into baking? Didn’t you tell me your parents were academics and your brother is some kind of biochemist?’
‘Yes … they thought I was a bit of a dunce at school and I never quite fitted in – my brother was so clever, but my parents didn’t understand me at all. My granny – the Cornish one – came to live with us when I was five and I spent most of my time in the kitchen with her. I’m sure that’s how I came to love cooking, and especially cake making, so much.’
‘You don’t seem at all stupid to me!’
‘It turned out I was dyslexic,’ he explained. ‘I don’t know why no one thought of testing me for it sooner, but once they did and I got some help, I learned to cope with it. Though my spelling is a bit random and anything longer than a recipe can take me a while to get through. But I do. How did you get into the cookery journalism?’
‘A bit like you. I wasn’t academic or arty, and although Ma loved me, she was never very maternal and her painting engrossed her. “Ma” isn’t even a version of “Mum” – she always called herself Martha, and Ma was all I could get my tongue around when I was tiny. Dad adored Ma, but he was clever and remote, so not very good with children. So I had foreign au pair girls, and the last one, Anna, was a really keen cook and taught me all kinds of things. I came to the cookery writing through journalism, though.’
‘We have such a lot in common,’ he said. ‘Baffled parents, early cookery influences and jilting fiancés.’
I laughed and agreed. ‘And cake, don’t forget! We’ve turned out all right in the end, haven’t we?’
‘Or we’re heading that way, at least,’ he said.
‘Does the dyslexia still make things really difficult?’
‘It’s OK now that I’ve found ways to manage it, though when I have my own business I’ll have to get some help with the paperwork, I expect. But my dyslexia is a minor hurdle compared to what Stella’s been going through.’
‘Did I tell you how grateful I am about the gingerbread stars?’
‘About a million times – it’s getting embarrassing,’ he said with a grin.