Bakery
Bakery
ELLEN DROVE SLOWLY, LOOKING FOR A PARKING space. In the twenty years since she’d spent her last night in the family home with Joan, there had been a lot of changes in the town. Unfamiliar shopfronts, new pedestrianised streets, a roundabout she didn’t remember, a one-way system that had almost caused her to drive towards oncoming cars.
But the shop she was heading for, Flannery’s Bakery, was still there. She’d been delighted to find it in the phone book when the idea had occurred to her. Still family run, the man on the other end of the phone had told her, the next generation in charge now.
‘A coffee cake,’ she’d said, ‘for a ninetieth birthday,’ and she’d given him the message to write on top.
Her father’s favourite cake. It had come back to her out of the blue, when she’d been wondering what to do for his ninetieth. Every birthday without fail, her mother had got him a cake from Flannery’s, always coffee – and now Ellen was back to do the same.
The bakery might be still there, but it had changed too. It was bigger, having expanded into the premises next door – a sports shop before, she thought – and a seating area had been introduced. Half a dozen little wrought-iron tables and chairs, people sitting and chatting.
Ellen gave her name, and the young man behind the counter produced the cake. Happy 90th birthday Dad , she’d put, even though his granddaughter Juliet was coming for the party too. No matter – the cake was from Ellen, and he was her dad.
She paid and turned to go, stepping aside to allow a woman in a pink coat to enter the shop. The woman thanked her and came in – and then stopped.
‘Ellen?’
Ellen looked at her, and felt a shock of recognition. For a second she couldn’t move, the cake box between them.
‘It’s Ellen, isn’t it?’ Claire asked, but she knew it was Ellen. They would always know one another.
She hadn’t aged well. Her face was lean and hollowed out, the skin puckered and leathery from too much sun. Her hair, which Ellen had always envied, was bleached and dry, its gloss gone. Her spark, her bloom was missing.
‘Long time no see,’ she said, a tentative smile on her face as she moved aside to allow someone else into the shop. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine.’ Ellen’s mouth was stiff. Of all people to bump into.
‘Would you let me buy you a coffee?’ Claire asked, gesturing towards an empty table.
‘No, thank you.’ Ellen made to pass her, and Claire put a hand on her arm.
‘Ellen, please, don’t be like this.’
She bit off a sharp retort. The anger was still there after all this time, just waiting to rear up. ‘I need to go.’
‘Let me walk with you then, just for a little while.’
She made no response to this. Claire held the door open and followed her out. They moved along the path, Ellen staring straight ahead.
‘You’re not back living here?’ Claire asked.
‘No.’
‘How’s your aunt?’
‘She died.’
‘Oh . . . sorry.’ Claire pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, reaching in again for a lighter. ‘I hear you’ve had books published. Well done.’ She gave a little laugh that had a chesty rattle in it. ‘You were always the smart one.’
She wouldn’t have read them. She’d never been a reader.
‘The girls are well?’
‘They are.’
The cards to Juliet had petered out eventually, and Ellen had been relieved. Maybe, she thought now, that decision had been made when her affair with Leo had ended. No more obligations to his daughters.
They got to the car. Ellen opened the passenger door and sat the cake box on the seat. She turned to face Claire.
‘You and Leo didn’t last,’ she said. Calmly, not in anger.
Claire exhaled smoke with another rattling laugh. ‘We didn’t. Good enough for me.’
At forty-five, I didn’t know who I wanted .
Ellen studied her. ‘Was it you?’ she asked. ‘Did you make the first move?’
For a second, Claire made no reply, holding eye contact. ‘It was mutual,’ she said then. There was lipstick on one of her front teeth. ‘I was the forbidden fruit, and he was . . . well, he was forbidden too, I suppose.’
No sorry. No trace of apology in her voice. There was something wrong with her, Ellen thought. It was more than just self-centredness; it was a coldness, a lack of sensitivity. She truly seemed to have no regrets.
‘You told me he wasn’t your type,’ Ellen persisted. ‘You said you liked them more rough and ready, but that he was perfect for me.’
Claire nodded. ‘And I meant it at the time. But . . .’ She trailed off, one shoulder lifting, and again Ellen saw that it meant nothing that she’d done the damage she’d done.
‘You told me once you’d met a man you could see yourself settling down with, but he was taken. Did you mean Leo?’
‘Yes. I fancied him for years before anything happened.’
Ellen thought about that. She thought about the kind of person who’d get a kick out of telling a friend, however cryptically, that she wanted the man the friend loved. She remembered Claire laughing, right after she’d said it. Your face , she’d said. I’m joking , she’d said.
‘Are you still in London?’
‘Not for a long time. I sold the deli. I live in Spain now.’
‘Alone?’
She shook her head. Of course she wasn’t alone. ‘With Simon. He’s English, good-looking. We own a bar in Malaga – well, I do.’
‘Are you married?’
‘No.’ She lifted an arm to rake fingers through her hair, and her coat sleeve rode up to expose a series of small dark bruises on her wrist. The kind of bruises, Ellen thought, a gripping hand might leave behind.
Claire drew hard on her cigarette before flicking what was left of it onto the path. ‘His mother can’t stand me,’ she said, expelling smoke with the words, grinding the butt into the cement. ‘Cow.’
Ellen was aware of a creeping sense of pity. She’d had her chance with Leo, and she’d failed to hang on to him. Her looks were gone, and it seemed like her Englishman might be abusing her. Her life hadn’t turned out well.
‘I have to go,’ Ellen said, moving around to the driver’s side.
Claire regarded her over the car. ‘Are you happy?’ she asked – and for a moment, Ellen thought she saw the old Claire, or the Claire she thought she’d known. The daredevil, the ally, the friend she’d have done anything for.
And then the moment passed.
‘That’s none of your business,’ she said, and got in, and drove away without a backward glance. Four miles out of the town she pulled into a lay-by and cried, hardly knowing what the tears were for.