Page 66 of The Cake Fairies
“Great! And I s’pose Muggins here—” Nigel patted his chest to clarify his monicker “—needs to carry the one from the boot then.” He tutted heavily at the hostage-style scene in the back of his limo and made his way to the boot in another unprecedented and quite historic move. “Annabelle, I’m entrusting you with the keys to this fifty-grand pinnacle of my career.” He collected the Christmas Bundt cake with one suited arm and tossed her the keys with the other.
Stacked in ever-decreasing layers, with the aid of some thoroughly decadent copper tins, each shiny mould that had baked the festive treat must have cost Amber Magnolia – or whoever was footing the Blackpool shopping bill – an arm and a leg. Polly hoped Nigel would be gentle. She nudged him toward the queue for the Big Dipper as they entered the theme park, intuition telling her that one of the most traditional rides was the only place for their classical creation.
Its frosting was pure as snow and she could only hope it remained that way, studded with its figurines of reindeer and robins, finished off with sprigs of fondant holly and white chocolate truffle snowballs. Not to forget the miniature presents crafted with sugar paste in the boldest of colours. In many ways, she had to concede that Ivy was probably right: here was a cake that deserved the attention of afternoon tea.
And then she rebelled at the thought, her most recent foray with that high society pastimehaving left a very sour taste in her mouth.
***
The next morning, Ivy still ‘had it about her’, as Kitty Withers often liked to refer to a female in a bad mood. Polly had hardly managed to grab a moment to herself with Annabelle and was none the wiser as to what had brought on last night’s peculiar behaviour. Surely Ivy’s spirits should’ve been unshakeably upbeat, since this was her holiday, and college was out for winter? That said, was her college ever in?
It was late by the time they’d eaten Sandra’s reheated and decidedly bland lamb casserole, in a silence so ghostly Polly had almost been tempted to swipe Annabelle’s phone to call Nigel and ask if she could dine with him at the Premier Inn. Well, one presumed this fantastical home from home of his had a restaurant.
Phones. Now Polly was on the subject, it was like watching Ray taking charge of the black and white TV set’s tuning dial, her awareness refining itself slowly until it reached saturation point. Ivy hadn’t looked at her iPhone once! How cool was that? Maybe they really had helped her change? She nibbled at her toast, the bitter marmalade delivering her thoughts a blow. No, she must have been imagining it, obviously she hadn’t clocked the furtive glances their friend would be giving her screen when nobody was looking. That was all.
As if on cue, Ivy dragged her feet into the kitchen in the ultimate parody of a teenager; shoulders slouched, grouchy expression pasted onto her face, and several invisible but very palpable chips on her shoulder. Polly groaned inwardly at the intrusion into her now coffee-bathed thoughts.
“Good morning.” She decided a chirrup might erase all traces of the surreal memories of last night. “Did you sleep well…?”
Don’t see it, don’t notice it, let it blend in nicely with Sandra and Bill’s avocado green wall tiles and floor lino… and everything in-between the ridiculously extensive Schwartz spice racks that cluttered the room.
“What’s this, then?” Oh no! An impetuous Ivy had lunged at the pine kitchen table and grabbed the red folder. Polly thought she might pass out. “Looks a bit secretive and MI5…” Ivy said, as she flipped open the folder for all of a millisecond. Which would have been enough. Enough for her to have read any snippet of the streams of Amber Magnolia’s frankly farcical consciousness.
“I’ll take that, nothing to see here.” Annabelle had appeared from seemingly nowhere, swiping the folder from Ivy’s hands. Polly let out a gargantuan and very audible sigh of relief, but why had Annabelle said that? Now Polly found herself jamming her palm against her forehead – actually, it was more of a wallop – in delayed reaction to the shock. Annabelle could have just taken it and kept her mouth firmly buttoned!
“I think you’re hiding something from me,” Ivy sing-songed, an accusatory look in her eyes.
“It’s nothing. Just a… list of…” said Polly.
“Our stockists… so top secret and confidential information, which would bore the pants off you. Names and addresses, you know,” Annabelle added.
“Not from where I was standing, it wasn’t.” Ivy tilted her head, hands on hips, awaiting the truth.
Polly couldn’t do this anymore. Not a word of justification would form itself on her tongue. She opened and shut her mouth like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“Let’s pick up where we left off last night, hey, Ivy?” Thankfully Annabellecouldthink of something to say. “There’s something bugging you and it’s got nothing to do with cake.I can tell. And you can tell us what it is.”
But Ivy turned on her heel and fled from the room; the stairs thudding and practically vibrating, such was her fury – and perhaps the need for Bill to call in the team from thatDIY SOSprogramme.
“We’ve been too blasé,” Polly whispered, for all the good that would do. She picked up her chair and stood it on the table, clambered atop it and made to push the folder to the back of the very top of the kitchen unit, hoping the B&B’s owners wouldn’t choose this moment to come back from their morning walk.
“Hang about. What’s on the agenda for today?”
“Another post office. The script was identical to the day before last, and the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before and…”
“Let me guess:the day before that?” Annabelle wilted onto the remaining kitchen chair. “I was wondering how we’re supposed to read the daily challenges with Ivy hanging around for the next few days, but you’ve answered my question.”
“Yep. I guess the Pleasure Beach drop was a one-off and we banked our hopes up in vain that Blackpool might now be the ride it started out as.”
“Folk need festive bolstering when they’re stuck in grumpy queues, fighting creepers and zombies in Minecraft on their phones as they wait to post their Christmas cards and presents,” Annabelle parroted Amber Magnolia’s words aloud with the aid of her hand which had turned itself into a puppet.
And so, with its slightly more upmarket locations ticked off the list, the humdrum hangouts of Blackpool continued. Ivy was civil enough to taste test cake (funny that) although she seemed to have adopted a Jay Rayner level of critique since their London days. Which was more than a tad annoying, as some of these queue-enhancing eats required an early start and Polly didn’t relish the pedantic tweaking of their flavours when they were serving the general public, as opposed to a clutch of six-star hoteliers at The Ritz.
And yet, no matter the monotony of the location, you never got the same mix of morning mailers. Polly didn’t think she would ever grow tired of witnessing the snappy and stressed recalibrate themselves to become the friendliest people on the planet; chatting with those in front and behind them; grinning widely at their unexpected catch – cookies and cream layer cake, piña colada pizazz, and a Hungarian Dobos masterpiece, resplendent with its amber stained-glass sugar shards. There could be no greater job satisfaction in the world than knowing you had given of the heart and soul, putting a much-needed spring in somebody’s step.
Christmas Day had been a strange old affair though; melancholy one moment, euphoric the next. The triad may not have been on the palliest of terms; Ivy’s mood swings further tainting the relationship between cousins – which was mainly Polly’s doing since she just knew that whatever was troubling their friend, Annabelle had been the shoulder she’d opted to cry on and it only served to get her back up. But they’d insisted on paying things forward (although in this case it felt more like backwards), cooking for Sandra and Bill, so for just one day of the year their hosts could put their feet up. It speeded up the festive proceedings beautifully. If only it had stopped Polly thinking of Alex. No doubt he’d have flown back to Copenhagen for a few days to snuggle up with his Scandi siren.
Usually, Polly detested the way those in-between days lingered. At home, Ray and co would hit the cider, throwing up smutty remarks, arm-wrestling on the hot plates, and performing drunken dares in the River Brue on a customary Yuletide makeshift raft. Unfortunately, it never sank. No matter how deeply the framed pictures of the teary French Pierrot clowns adorning her shoebox of a guestroom depressed her, she was cocooned in a relative Shangri-La in Blackpool. By the time they’d baked and snaked their way out of yet another Royal Mail establishment, eaten lunch in virtual silence at one of the cafes flanking the beach, and strolled back to ‘Seaside Sanctuary’ – as Sandra and Bill’s establishment was slightly misleadingly known – she barely had a chance to give the kitsch prints a second glance before she was immersed in the land of Nod.
