Page 32 of The Custard Tart Cafe by the Sea
Tiago smiles.
“Pastéis de nataare ancient. Magically so in my opinion. They were first sold back in the 1830s in Lisbon but the pastries are believed to have been baked way before that. It’s believed they came about by chance. Egg whites were actually mainly used to starch clothes in those days but the monastery would often have an excess. The monks and nuns would use them up by baking them. That’s why you’ll find little hatches built into the walls of monasteries in many parts of the world. They made sweet pastries out of the leftover egg whites, and served and sold them out of the hatches to passersby, to help with the upkeep of the monastery.”
I know the monasteries-making-sweet-treats part of this tale and normally I would challenge this level of mansplaining in a heartbeat, but this evening I choose to keep quiet, sensing there is some alchemy to come.
“Knowing the great secret of thepastel de natarecipe, the nun on the run from Lisbon– the one I just mentioned– decided she couldn’t possibly take it to her grave. To cut a very long story short, my ancestors took her in when she fled to the south. They ran a small bakery back then– exactly where Grannie’s is today. They mainly sold bread in those days, as other ingredients were thin on the ground, but they had a spare room and big hearts, so they gave the nun refuge when nobody else could or would. As a mark of her gratitude, and because she believed that religion kept too many useful secrets from the masses, she spilled the beans and shared what we believe to be the originalpastel de natarecipe with them.”
“Honestly?So those tarts from earlier derive fromthereal deal recipe?”
My heart races. This is so exciting. Like uncovering hidden treasure.
“Honestly, that’s the story that’s been handed down to a select few members of our family. You are the only outsider I have ever told.” He lifts his hand and lets it hover above mine on the bench, then thinks better of it and takes it away. If I didn’t know where I stood earlier, I am clueless now. “This is why I’m so fiercely protective of ourpastéis. Not because I’m a bastard. But because these are not cakes to muck about with, as if you are some kind of Heston Blumenthal having a laugh. This is our history. Our culture. Do you get it now?”
And just like that he’s walloped me in the solar plexus. All over again.
“Oh I get it,” my fiery side kicks in, the rest of our conversation and my sympathy towards Tiago rapidly evaporating. “But anyone would think that I had stolen your actual family recipe, and set fire to it!”
I stand up. I can’t be going round in circles with this man all night. No matter how much I fancy him and detect more than a hint of the feeling being mutual. No matter how devastating his backstory. He has no right to make a metaphoricalWANTEDposter out of me. I’m just a regular girl with a dream who worked hard to achieve it. For crying out loud, Elsa has told him as much and given her blessing for me to go about my business without being hassled by her grandson, without being hassled by anyone. Isn’t that how our conversation here on the benches started, with the ‘so that’s me told’ line?
“I’m sorry for everything that’s happened to you but I will not stop making custard tarts with exciting fillings in them. And that’s the end of the conversation. Me doing so has zero effect on your grandparents’ business. It’s that simple but you are too stubborn to see it, and there’s nothing I can do to change that, so I’m going home… well, to my accommodation in São Brás. Enjoy the rest of your holiday.”
I turn to go, and Tiago makes no move to follow me, seemingly entranced by the river. That only makes me more furious. I want this to turn into a romantic scene in a will-they-won’t-they movie, because I’ve totally earnt it in my humble opinion. What an afternoon!
Alas, Tiago is evidently not going to repent and sweep me off my feet with a passionate kiss, set against the backdrop of the now-apricot sunset, so I march forward towards the taxi rank. Typically, it is all out of cabs when I get there, the last one pulling off just as I approach. Great. Now what?
I turn round, steeling myself to walk past Tiago’s sorry form on the bench, so I can get back to the square, because I have no idea where else to go. Gut instinct had better be right. There has to be another taxi stand along this stretch of road, or closer to the centre. Damn it. Of course, he sees me walking past and turns, half-minded to stand, I can tell by the angle of his body, his legs looking poised to spring to action. He’s got to be kidding. He will be getting no apology. I’m perfectly in the right to storm off. I quicken my pace and turn left, hoping my body language leaves him welded to the bench, But a taxi stand never materialises. The deeper I walk and the more twists and turns I take, the narrower the streets become until there is nothing but identical terraced houses, the occasional male-dominated taverna and dimming light. Yes, it gets dark late here in June, and yes, according to Kelly’s guidebook, Tavira’s crime rates are very low– but this particular street is decidedly shady. The tourists and locals wandering around earlier are nowhere to be seen, and this part of town is beginning to feel deserted and menacing.
I know I am lost, and the last thing I want to do isappearlost. But I take another wrong turn and find myself retracing my footsteps down the street where that group of men with the wandering eyes is swigging beer at an outside table. Walking past once as a lone female was bad enough. Of course it shouldn’t be that way, but I’m taking chances in a pair of short shorts that leave little to the perverted imagination. Why is it that certain garments are acceptable in the day but not at night? I’m not even wearing heels, for goodness sake. And frankly, so what if I were?
Now I can hear footsteps behind me and they seem to be getting closer and closer. I should have begged my friends to take me back with them earlier. Correction, I shouldn’t have had to beg! They should have had more common sense than to leave me with a strange man. This is a disaster. I pull out my phone so I can pretend to be in a loud conversation with my nonexistent boyfriend. Meanwhile, the steps get louder. Do I continue to walk fast and hope for the best? Maybe I can channel some of my teenage relay sprint technique, now that it really would make a life-changing difference? Or do I start to view those males in the bar as my guardian angels in disguise, and do a U-turn in this narrow part of the street, running back to them? Hang on a minute… What if my pursuer is one of them?
Everything happens in slow motion after that…
*A black taxi with a turquoise roof whizzes past, almost clipping me.
*I trip over a huge cobble, landing right in the middle of the road in a disoriented heap.
*The phone flies out of my hand and soars into the air, then lands and smashes into hundreds of pieces.
*The man from the bar (heck, I was right) makes a decisive move at me, his leery smile intent.
*I see my life flash before my eyes.
*Tiago lunges at the man from the bar, hovering over him with a raised fist and a face like thunder.
*I let out a delayed reaction scream. And then another scream. And then another. Front doors fly open and a crowd quickly gathers.
“You were following me too? You absolute idiot. You’re as bad as him!” I scream at the world’s most annoying man.
“I needed to know you were safe, but I thought you’d run off if you saw me,” Tiago shouts back “I… shit, Willow, speaking of running, we really need to get out of here—”
A voluptuous powerhouse of a woman has removed a rather frightening-looking stiletto heel and is running for me.At me.The look on her face suggests she has put two and two together and come up with eighteen. But I have categorically not been up to anything with her husband/boyfriend/lover! Bleugh, and in his dreams. Can this day get any worse?
Tiago grabs my hand and we sprint for our lives. Up and down streets, in and out of alleyways, and what feels like round and round in circles. Finally he slows us down to a jog.
“Of all the roads you could have chosen to end up on,” he breaks the silence.
“You what?” I yell at him, withdrawing my hand from his iron-tight grip.
