The Cake Maker's Wish, page 19
Clarence went on soothingly, ‘By tomorrow, or the next day, it will be forgotten. All anyone will want to talk about is the wedding and Stoneden’s role in it.’
‘I still feel bad, though,’ Olivia said, and saw Juliet bite her lip.
‘Everything will be okay,’ Clarence said. ‘As I said, I’ll explain what’s happened to Ryan and he’ll make sure nothing false is printed. We can move forward from here with a clean slate.’
‘Thank you,’ Olivia said, relief washing over her. ‘I don’t want to build a reputation on lies.’
‘But we do need to play this carefully,’ Juliet cautioned. ‘We can’t do anything that will endanger the project. Remember, Clarence, we’re still in the trial phase. There are those who would like to shut us down. Even the smallest scandal will play into their hands.’
Clarence put a conciliatory hand on her shoulder. ‘Trust me. No one knows that better than I do,’ he said, replacing his scarf as he led the way out the door. Juliet followed, and Olivia breathed a sigh of relief.
20
Clarence nosed his car into Madeline’s driveway, the wheels bumping over the uneven ground. His day was tightly scheduled, beginning with the visit to Olivia’s shop to discuss the misunderstanding about the cake. Last night’s announcement from Yoden had also prompted him to renew his efforts to win over some of the project’s known antagonists, such as Fern and Georgio, and Guy and Roger. He planned on catching Mrs Wilson at church tomorrow. He didn’t really believe that any of them was capable of pulling off some sort of dreadful stunt – they all seemed more like paper warriors than genuine activists – yet the small but persistent incidents against the shops in the main street that had preceded last night’s announcement troubled him. Was the wedding likely to exacerbate tensions, or ease them? After all, with the world’s attention on Stoneden, what better time could there be to try to derail the project?
First up this this morning, however, he wanted to make a call of a more personal nature, to get some things off his chest.
He turned off the engine and put on his cap. ‘I won’t be long,’ he said to Stuart, curled up on his rug on the passenger seat. The dog looked up at him expectantly, in case Clarence changed his mind about taking him inside with him. He patted the Airedale’s head. ‘Wish me luck.’
He knocked on the door, then flicked a flake of dark green paint from his knuckle, listening to the rustle of wind high in the treetops. The door scraped away from its frame and Madeline stood there in her overalls and plaits, her style unchanged in fifty years. He smiled broadly. ‘Good morning, Madeline! Whatever you’re cooking in there smells delicious.’
‘Silverside,’ she said, unsmiling. ‘I flavour it myself with vinegar, salt, sugar, cloves and bay leaves. None of that pre-packaged, chemical-pumped rubbish here.’
‘Very wise.’ He maintained his grin. ‘Well, then, would you mind if I came inside? I was hoping we might have a little chat.’
‘Now’s not a good time,’ she said. A tiny tabby cat appeared at her feet, peeked at Clarence, then stepped back again out of view.
‘I only need a few minutes,’ he persisted, with his most disarming smile. He had things to say that should have been said long ago.
‘No.’
‘I see.’ He felt his smile falter. ‘Have you heard about the wedding?’ he asked suddenly, hoping to break through her resistance with some happy news.
‘What wedding?’
‘Two very big-name actors, Ying and Oden—’
‘Never heard of them.’ Her eyes narrowed.
‘—well, it’s the greatest good fortune for Stoneden. They’re very eco-conscious, globally aware, grassroots-activist types who believe in supporting the local economy and all that, I think you’d like them, and they’ve decided to get married here in our tiny village! They’re so impressed with the efforts we’ve been making to restore Stoneden to what it was back when the likes of you and I were youngsters. When we knew everyone’s name. When we knew where our milk came from . . .’
‘Mine comes from Grayson’s cows.’
‘. . . When we could all support each other at times of illness, or bereavement . . .’
‘Stop right there,’ she said, holding up her weathered hand. ‘Bereavement?’ She shook her head slowly, incredulously. ‘You of all people dare to stand here and talk to me of bereavement?’
Clarence swallowed, feeling the colour bleed from his cheeks.
‘Because of you and your hip-swaggering charm, my brother’s life was ruined, just like that.’ She snapped her fingers in the air.
‘And now that Burton is in the home, I should be free to sell this house, to help pay for his care and also give me some freedom in the last mobile years of my life. But you’ve gone and ruined that, too.’
‘But this is the point, Madeline,’ Clarence said, trying to regain some footing. ‘This is the beauty of the Renaissance Project. It’s because of people like you – no, it’s for people like you – that we want to return the village to the way it was. We want to recreate a resident-led community of people who care for each other, where people have the option to stay in their own home because they know they will be safe and looked after.’
‘Bullshit,’ she spat, making him flinch. ‘Who were you looking out for the night of that dance? Not me, not Burton and not your precious Ellie, either.’
She said the word precious with such venom it made him flinch.
‘You were looking out for yourself, and no one else.’ She paused, her chest rising and falling with anger, her jaw muscles working. ‘This was my time,’ she said, grinding out the words slowly and quietly. ‘And you stole it from me.’
Clarence opened his mouth, desperate to make it all right. ‘I’m sorry, Madeline, I truly am.’ He wanted to say so much more, about what a good man Burton was, had always been, about what a champion she’d been all these years since, about his foolishness in his youth, the wisdom garnered in hindsight, the things he wished he could change.
But he didn’t get the chance to say any of that because Madeline slammed the door in his face.
Madeline moved on shaking legs to the couch and sat down, feeling the fury coursing through her veins, blinking away tears with an impatient growl. She wasn’t one for tears. It was just that Clarence had arrived unannounced and she hadn’t been ready for him.
The cat jumped onto her lap and settled immediately. Madeline threaded her fingers through her fur and the cat began to purr loudly. She had an incredibly loud purr for such a tiny thing. The cat had, apparently, moved in, fully possessing every room in the house with her napping spots, claw-sharpening stations and precision knowledge of when the fridge door was about to open. Surprising herself, Madeline realised she didn’t mind at all. In fact, she absolutely loved her. She hadn’t allowed herself to love a cat since she was six years old and found a kitten crying on the banks of the Fahn one cold spring morning, tucked it into her jacket and brought it home. But her father had tied it in a sack and tossed it back into the river while Madeline cried and begged and screamed, watching helplessly as the bag sank below the surface.
Now, Madeline folded herself over the little cat in her lap and broke into sobs, grieving for the kitten she hadn’t been able to save, grieving for her own young self who’d been scolded for being ‘too soft’. This sudden surge of long-buried pain confused her. How could she feel such grief over something that had happened so many years ago? She let the tears flow.
Then she sniffed and wiped at her eyes, looking down at the purring bundle in her lap. There was only one thing for it and that was to love this little cat with everything she had. Madeline had decades’ worth of unspent love to share. Why shouldn’t this abandoned kitten be the beneficiary?
Firstly, she needed a name. ‘What would you like to be called?’ she asked softly. The cat pushed her head into Madeline’s hand and rolled over, exposing her white chest, reaching her white-tipped paws into the air. ‘You might have come from humble beginnings but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a fancy name. There are no rules.’ She ran through options in her head until she remembered, with an almost physical blow, the name she’d once thought of giving a daughter.
She stroked the cat’s ears. ‘What do you think of Eirlys?’ Eirlys was a Welsh name meaning ‘snowdrop’, and it had enchanted Madeline the first time she read it in one of her childhood books. It had sounded like pure magic.
The cat reached out and grabbed Madeline’s hand and buried her face in her palm, purring even louder.
‘Eirlys it is, then.’
Madeline sat there for a long time, not wanting to move the cat, enjoying their closeness, feeling her heart awash with the unfamiliar sensation of unbridled love.
It also gave her plenty of time to sit and stare at the thing she’d not wanted Clarence to see, the reason she wouldn’t let him in.
Helge arrived on Sunday night, having had Regine and Elias for the weekend before returning them to Birgit and jumping on a plane to England, excited to be there when Darcy woke the next morning, though his prime motivation was to be here to take Olivia on a date on the one day of the week that he could: Monday. Darcy was in bed, though it had been a struggle getting him to sleep. He was counting down the time till he could see his pappa again, cranky that he had to go to school tomorrow, but somewhat consoled that Helge was staying till the wee hours on Tuesday morning, when he would catch an early flight back to Oslo and go straight to work. He would start late, but fortunately, his job had a fair amount of flexible time available to him.
‘Hi,’ Olivia said, grinning like a fool in the open doorway. The sight of him in jeans and a sheepskin coat made her heart beat faster.
‘Hi.’ He smiled down at her, a little crookedly, and she had to take a deep breath not to throw herself into his arms.
‘Have you eaten?’ she asked, closing the door behind him and leading him through to the lounge room.
He shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the back of a dining chair. He was wearing a bone-coloured long-sleeved knit top, and she could see the outline of his pecs.
‘I ate on the plane.’ He made no effort to take his eyes from hers.
Oh boy. If she listened to her primal urges right now, they’d be naked in the next ninety seconds. She grasped the back of the nearest chair to steady herself. He stepped towards her, lifted his hand and ran his knuckle gently down her cheek. She closed her eyes and covered his wrist with her fingers, feeling the warmth of his skin, and he huffed a little, a haughty breath of pleasure at her reaction to his touch.
‘Scrabble,’ she whispered, opening her eyes.
He tilted his head questioningly, and dropped his hand from her face. She kept hold of his wrist, then slid her hand down to his so they could thread their fingers together.
‘Would you like to play Scrabble?’ she said, her voice strengthening.
He eyed the stack of games in the corner of the bookcase behind her. ‘In English or Norvegian?’
She laughed. ‘How about both? I’ll play in English and you can play in Norwegian.’
He grinned at her. ‘You’re on.’
Somehow she managed to get through the evening without giving in to her physical desires. Once again she’d set up a bed for him in the lounge room, and this was where Darcy found him the next morning, racing downstairs and landing on his chest, making Helge oomph as a knee landed painfully in his ribs. They played together and then wolfed down the pancakes Olivia made for them, until it was time for Darcy to go to school. He asked if Helge could walk him there so he could meet Miss Finch.
Olivia kissed Darcy goodbye and smiled, warm all over, at the sight of her little boy holding his father’s hand as they walked down the hill to school. For a moment, she thought she might cry. She pulled herself together, and headed for the shower so she would be ready to go out on her first proper date with Helge in eight years.
Helge opened the passenger door of her van for her, and she slid into the seat, her blood humming with excited anticipation. He’d asked if he could chauffeur her today, and she’d readily agreed. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked, as he clicked in his seatbelt.
‘Ve are starting at Stow-on-the-Vold.’
‘Lovely. I haven’t been there yet.’ The car swooped down the hill and round the bend, heading along the river, and she spotted Grayson on the opposite footpath, carrying a load of milk into Lance’s store. He looked up, recognising her car, lifted his chin and smiled. She waved to him, but his smile faltered when he realised she wasn’t driving. She felt bad, though she wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t doing anything wrong.
‘Who is that?’ Helge asked, turning onto the bridge over the river. There was a note in his voice that suggested jealousy, or suspicion.
‘That’s Grayson,’ she said. ‘He’s the local dairyman and makes a delivery to the shop each morning.’ She noted that she felt defensive of Grayson, or perhaps her friendship with him. ‘He’s lovely,’ she added. Helge didn’t respond.
Stow-on-the-Wold in Gloucestershire was a market town, the highest of all the Cotswolds villages, positioned at the junction of several major roads, which had led to its rich trading history. It was full of commanding stone buildings with shingled roofs and dormer windows, and long terraces of shops with the odd spot of colour – a bright blue door, a flower basket at an entrance. Olivia and Helge walked all over, then stopped to rest their feet and lift their energy with a coffee in Jaffé & Neale Bookshop and Cafe, breathing in the lovely smell of new books. They skipped the perfumery – though it was impossible to avoid the scents that wafted out the door as they passed – but stopped at the cheese shop, where they tasted more than was probably polite but made up for it with bags laden with cheeses from France, Italy and Switzerland as well as local cheesemakers. They ogled the jars of brightly coloured lollies in the Cotswold Sweet Company; Helge bought her a bag of milk-chocolate champagne truffles and she bought a fancy jar for him to fill with sweets of his own choosing, which included a significant amount of liquorice dynamites filled with creamy aniseed, something she personally detested but which made Helge grin like a little boy. They left the shop carrying their bags in one hand, and their free hands knitted together, the warmth between them shielding her from the cold day. It was a glorious morning.
They’d planned to drop in to a number of art galleries and she was touched that Helge remembered how much she loved art, but hunger had crept up suddenly. They took their bags back to the car then headed to The Porch House for lunch. They found a cosy corner in the atmospheric old pub and ordered a ploughman’s lunch each, feasting on pie, sausage roll, quiche, pickles, cheese, ham and pints of beer.
‘This is so yummy,’ Olivia said, licking balsamic dressing off her fingers, grinning at Helge. Their knees were touching and neither of them was making any move to change that. He gazed into her eyes a moment, then slowly, so slowly, he leant in towards her. She moved to meet him, their lips locking together for the first time in eight years, for the first time since that tearful, heartbreaking farewell at the airport, Darcy in her belly, tying them together forever. Now, his lips felt even better than she remembered, soft and full. He tasted of salty ham and yeasty beer. She moved her leg up, wrapping her calf around the outside of his. For a moment, she forgot to breathe.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he murmured, pulling slowly away to drop small kisses on her jaw.
‘Me too,’ she whispered. She hadn’t realised just how much she missed him until this moment. When she’d first seen him here in England, it had been all about Darcy, building her son’s relationship with his father. But this was all about them, and what they might be in the future. Her pulse was racing. His hands were on her back, pulling her towards him. She’d been so right to come to England, so right to take this chance to be closer to Helge. Now that he and Birgit were separated, a surprising new opportunity had opened up for them.
‘Let’s go home,’ she whispered, running her fingers through the small curls at the base of his hairline.
He groaned and peeled himself away, muttering something in Norwegian and pulling her to her feet. They headed for the car as fast as they could, their arms wrapped around each other.
It was a half-hour’s drive home, and they held hands for most of it, Helge untangling his fingers from hers if he had to take a sharp corner. He talked to her the whole time, about Norway and the blinding sun as it bounced off snow-capped peaks and ski fields, about the particular beauty of rivers formed by melted glacial ice, about the Nordland train, which crossed the Arctic Circle, the scent of pine needles, and the gentle sunlight that filtered through forests in summertime. His words flowed over her like poetry, inducing feelings and sensations, while her mind was preoccupied with thoughts of what they were going home to do, calculating how much time they had before Darcy needed to be picked up from school, wondering if her bedroom was a mess, and whether Helge had condoms, because she knew she didn’t, because she hadn’t needed any in such a long time.
They stumbled entwined into the cottage, kicking the door shut behind them, his arms around her back, her hands around his neck. She walked backwards, letting him guide her towards the staircase. In passing, he flung his jacket onto the couch; her jacket dropped to the ground. His hands ran up under her shirt to her ribs, making her gasp. He smiled against her lips.
‘You are so beautiful.’
At the staircase, she spun around and charged up the yelping wooden treads, pulling his hand. Together, they ducked under the lintel to her bedroom, smiling at each other in wonder. His eyes were focused on her face, her lips, her shoulders. It was exhilarating, his body so familiar and totally new at the same time.
‘Have you . . . I haven’t . . .’ Between kisses, she tried to raise the issue of protection.
‘I came to date you,’ he said, dropping kisses along her shoulder.
‘What does that mean?’ she mumbled, lifting his shirt to reveal his toned abs and contoured muscles. ‘You’re gorgeous,’ she said, admiring the expanse of golden skin. Words were beginning to fail her. ‘Condom?’
