Page 80 of The Cake Fairies
Chapter Thirty-Six
ANNABELLE
“Congratulations. You’ve accomplished your mission early… although I could throw in a couple more token bakes and deposits, so it might be wise to rest only on one half of your laurels. Take a week off in Cornwall and see some more sights without the ties of your apron strings, then head back to London when Nigel gives you the nod. I’ll grant you another couple of days’ respite in The Big Smoke before you make your way back to The Toadstool, where it all began.”
Annabelle tried in vain to quell the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. In one way, thank God for that. In another way, God (or Amber Magnolia) was being most unhelpful. Annabelle was still reeling from Polly’s tragedy. And Annabelle was madder than mad at her youngest male cousin. If all of that were true, then there was surely nothing sadistic that he wouldn’t do, and as much as she was desperate to return to her old life, she was petrified of what he’d attempt next time he bumped into her. Unlike Polly though, no way would she let her fear stop her from going to the police. Somebody had to ensure there was justice.
But here they were in Cornwall, and she was determined to push all of that to the recesses of her mind and relish the frivolity. There were many, even in the modern world, who assumed that the inhabitants of Somerset regularly popped to the UK’s most tropical shores. Not so. And frankly Annabelle felt she could have been abroad! Why, they even grew palm trees here.
With Polly taking herself off for some much-needed ‘me time’ – as was the apparent in-vogue expression – at a nearby spa, and Ivy checking into a hotel at the other end of Penzance, Annabelle was happily parked on a bench drooling at her panoramic view of St. Michael’s Mount. All right, she was also fantasising about a quintessential cup of Jelberts clotted cream Cornish vanilla ice cream, that Ivy was meant to be showing up with any second now. She’d better not be late.
A tap on the shoulder almost had her jump out of her skin as a receptacle of fairy-tale goodness – a Snowdonian peak of purity complete with nobbly chocolate Flake – sailed into her field of vision. Annabelle grabbed it.
“Where’s your iPhone?”
Those were the first words she uttered to Ivy once her taste buds and heart rate had recovered.
“My what?”
“Excuse me?” Vanilla cloyed Annabelle’s throat. “Did I just hear you right?”
Ivy giggled. “I’m messing with you… It’s here – of course it’s here – but I’ve left it in the hotel.”
“You must be beside yourself.”
“Nope. All quite intentional.”
Annabelle dug her little blue spoon into the exquisite depths of what she would call forever more ‘the World’s Best Ice Cream’; ideas for cake creations topped and sandwiched with its heavenly goodness were swirling at the rate of knots through her head.
“Good food, good view, and good friendship,” Ivy continued. “If there’s one thing you and Polly have taught me – in a very tangential way this past year – it’s to live in the moment… all of which is definitely helping me put one foot in front of the other.”
Hopefully staying out of holes.
“I never thought I’d see the day.” Annabelle couldn’t hide her enormous smile.
“So, what now?” Ivy quizzed. “I’m still gutted I didn’t make it down here earlier in July. Those drops you emailed me about sounded awesome! Especially the mock Cornish pasty cake at the Minnack Theatre, the perfect way to watch a bit of opera, even if I truly have zero idea how milk chocolate curls, white chocolate chunks, and candied orange pieces could ever look like the real filling.”
“Will you ever stop changing the subject? First of all, I wantyouto tellmewhat’s on the menu foryou?”
Ivy twitched momentarily and took to stirring the remnants of her treat. “I’m still not sure,” she mumbled tentatively. “I’m surfing through Chinese. I’m sailing through the infamously lightweight subject of Communication and Culture. But I’m drowning in poxy history – well at least the narrow timeline of world events covered by the current A Level syllabus.”
“At least they let you back on the course.”
“True. But Mum pushed me into it in the first place. Somehow, she got it into her head that because I was fascinated with Chinese dynasties at the age of eight, I should study it now.”
So parental pressures really hadn’t eased up over the aeons of time…
“But I’m not that girl anymore. I guess it was easier to live up to the legend; to jet-ski through GCSE history and secure top marks.” Ivy gestured at the seascape. “I was in the top five per cent for the entire country, actually.”
“Blimey, Ivy. Why didn’t you mention any of this before?”
“Because I’m not sure what I want. I’ve got a whole bundle of interests, as it happens… including, recently, cake. Well, then there’s that highly fascinating subject of screen addiction. I’ve been reading a lot of articles on the predicted future effects of that on my generation. That’s another reason I’ve made the decision to simplify my life.”
Goosebumps prickled Annabelle’s arms and she wished Polly could’ve been not so much a fly on the wall as a cat on the bench.
“How can anybody be expected to know their calling at seventeen?”
“Too right.”
That was another reason Annabelle couldn’t wait to get back. She was done with all this choice. If sticking to what they knew and producing one outstandingly toothsome flavour of ice cream worked for Jelberts… Call her old-fashioned, but there was definitely some truth in the maxim ‘too much of a good thing.’
“I can’t let my mother take all the blame. I didn’t exactly help myself,” Ivy continued to pour her heart out. “I should have stood up for my dreams and demanded that year out. No, that’s poorly phrased… asking my mother inanyform is categoricallynotwhat I should have done.I should have told her!I’m the ultimate hypocrite given my Krav Maga bad-assery.” Hey up? Annabelle’s antennae twitched. “It’s always the way with this people pleasing malarkey. Hard to put a stop to it,” Ivy shook her head.
But Annabelle was absorbed in her own thoughts about the future, somewhere in a London gym (followed by a certain Middle Ham village hall, leading her pupils) kitted out in loose combative fight training garb. Maybe they offered intense tuition courses?
