The Bookshop on the Corner (36 page)

Excerpt from
Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery

“S
TOP IT,
” Polly said in a warning voice. “It's not funny.” Neil ignored her and continued to beat on the little high window with his beak until she could be persuaded to go over and give him a snack.

He was outside the lighthouse they had moved into the previous month, all three of them together, Polly, Neil the puffin, and Huckle, Polly's American boyfriend, who had parked his motorbike and sidecar at the bottom of the tower. It was their only mode of transport.

The lighthouse hadn't been lived in for a long time, not since the lamps were electrified in the late seventies. It had four floors and a circular staircase that ran around the sides, thus making it, as Huckle had pointed out more than once, the single draftiest place in human history. They were both getting very fit running up and down it. One floor held the heavy machinery that had once turned the workings, which couldn't be removed. On the top floor, just below the light itself, was their sitting room, which had views right across the bay and, on the other side, back toward Mount Polbearne, the tidal island where they lived and worked, with its causeway to the mainland that covered and uncovered itself with the tides. From these windows you could see the little Beach Street Bakery, the ruined shop that Polly had revitalized when she had moved to the village just over two years ago, getting over a failed business and a failed relationship back on the mainland. She hadn't originally expected to do much in Mount Polbearne except sit and lick her wounds until she was ready to head back into the fray again, back to working a corporate lifestyle; hadn't for a moment thought that in the tumbledown flat above the shop she would come back to life by practicing her favorite hobby—baking bread—and that this would turn into a career when she reopened the old closed-down bakery. It wasn't the most lucrative of careers, and the hours were long, but the setting was so wonderful, and her work so appreciated, by both the townspeople and the tourists, that she had found something much more satisfying than money:


she had found what she was meant to be doing with her life. Well, most of the time she thought that. Sometimes she looked around at the very basic kitchen she had installed (her old flat in Plymouth had sold, and she'd managed to get the lighthouse at a knockdown price mostly, as Lance the estate agent had pointed out, because only an absolutely crazy person could possibly want to live in a drafty, inaccessible tower with a punishing light shining out of it) and wondered if she'd ever manage to fix the window frames, the window frames being number one on a list of about four thousand things that urgently needed doing. Huckle had offered to buy the place with her, but she had resisted. She had worked too hard to be independent. Once before she had shared everything, been entirely enmeshed financially with someone. It had not worked out, and she was in no mood to repeat the experience.

Right now, she wanted to sit in her eyrie of a sitting room at the very top of the house, drink tea, eat a cheese twist, and simply relax and enjoy the view: the sea, ever changing; clouds scudding past so close she could touch them; the little fishing boats bobbing out across the water in faded greens and browns, their winches and nets heavy behind them, looking tiny and fragile against the vast expanse of the sea. She just needed five minutes' peace and quiet before heading down to the bakery to relieve her colleague Jayden for the lunchtime shift. Neil, the little puffin who had crashed into her life one night in a storm and remained there ever since, did not agree. He found the activity of flying outside, high up, and still being able to see her through the window utterly amazing, and liked to do it again and again, sometimes taking off to fly all the way around the lighthouse and come back in the other side, sometimes pecking at the glass because Huckle thought it was funny to feed him tidbits out of the window even though Polly had told him not to.

Polly put down her book and moved over to the window, struck as she never ceased to be—she wondered if she would ever grow tired of it—by the amazing cast of the sun silvering in and out behind the clouds over the waves, the gentle cawk of the seagulls, and the whistling wind, which could turn thunderous on winter days. She still couldn't quite believe she lived here. She opened the old-fashioned, single-glazed window with its heavy latch.

“Come in then,” she said, but Neil fluttered excitedly and tried to peck in between her fingers in case she had a tasty treat for him.

“No!” she said. “You are a fat puffin and no mistake. Come inside and stop tapping.”

Neil thought this was a brilliant game and shot off around the lighthouse once more to show her what he could do. When he landed back on the windowsill, his big black eyes were expectant. “Oh for goodness' sake,” said Polly, then—and she would never have done this if Huckle had been there—she leaned over and gave him a scrap of the cheese twist, which the little bird wolfed down happily, pecking up the few remaining crumbs. He pecked so hard he ended up hopping backward and slipping off the window ledge.

“Neil!” shouted Polly, then felt a complete idiot as he flapped his wings and fluttered back up to window level. “You are scaring the life out of me,” she said. “Come in or go out, not both.”

Neil chose to come in. He landed on the floor, then waddled across the room, inspecting the rough-hewn wooden floor carefully just in case there were any crumbs
that Polly had missed. “Right,” said Polly. “I'm going back to work. Behave yourself.” She took a glance around the sitting room, making sure she had everything. Once you got to the bottom of the lighthouse, you very much didn't want to find you'd forgotten something and have to go all the way back up again. Huckle wanted them to get a fireman's pole, but Polly was highly resistant. The little round room didn't contain much furniture apart from her absolutely lovely old posh sofa that she'd brought with her from Plymouth, and that had had to be completely unscrewed and taken apart to get it up the stairs. It had taken most of the day, but it was worth it, Polly thought. On the floor below was a bedroom with a tiny bathroom hollowed out next to it; then came the machinery floor, then the ground floor with its basic kitchen, a bathroom, and another sitting room. There was also a separate low building, an ugly pebble-dashed flat-roofed space with a couple of rooms, but they didn't quite know what to do with that. A little garden led down through the rocks; Huckle was going to take a shot at it, although he wasn't confident they'd manage to grow much more than mussels and seaweed. Someone had put little rows of seashells following the steps down from the lighthouse and across to the main path, and they made a pretty sight as Polly jumped down onto the cobbles, around the harbor wall, and into Mount Polbearne proper.

It wasn't far, but at high tide and on stormy days you could get pretty wet going from one to the other as the waves smashed over the top of the seawall and the spray filled the air with salt. Today, however, was breezy but clear, a few small clouds scudding past the high lighthouse windows, a hint of sun threatening to come out but never quite managing it. The tide was out, which meant the road to the mainland was open, its brown cobbles glistening with water, and the fresh scent of the sea was heavy on the passing wind.

The little town of Mount Polbearne was perched impractically on the slope of the island, with everything leading up higgledy-piggledy to the ruined roofless church at the very top of the village.

The roads were cobbled and steep and winding; it was possible to bring your car into the town, but not advisable. Most people used the mainland parking lot and walked the few hundred yards. Some of the fishermen ran a taxi boat for anyone who got really stuck, but the majority of the locals knew the ebbing and flowing of the tides as well as they did the rhythm of the sunrise and sunset and adjusted their plans accordingly. And life was simpler here on the island. It couldn't not be, when there was no such thing as Wi-Fi here (several people had suggested to Polly that she get it put in, but the telephone company had politely explained that they'd need to run an underwater cable and it would cost about £100,000 and would she like to contribute, so that had rather put the kibosh on that), or Internet shopping, or nightclubs or hen parties or airport flight paths or free newspapers.

Instead there were the rows of little gray stone houses, meandering ever upward, some with flashy new glass extensions and roof terraces and balconies made out of wire, courtesy of intrepid second-homers who came for the weekend and put up with much ribbing and overcharging from the locals. There was the old pub, the Red Lion, which was based around an old courtyard, and still had tie-up rings and troughs for the horses from long ago. There was Andy's fish-and-chip shop, with its picture of a huge fish


and all the fishermen lined up grinning cheerily, which did the best herring and the freshest, crispiest chips—with extra bits—that would burn your fingers, then sting them with salt and vinegar. He sold Fanta and Tizer and dandelion and burdock, and it was a short hop over the cobbled Beach Street to sit and eat on the harbor wall, watching the water and fending off the seagulls.

There was Muriel's minimart, which sold absolutely everything, and Patrick the vet, who shared his consulting office with a young GP called Callie, who only came in twice a week; and the old bakery that used to be run by Mrs. Manse, who had been Polly's landlady when she first arrived in Mount Polbearne and had made her life incredibly difficult by refusing to let her bake any bread. Now she had retired and lived with her equally bad-tempered sister in Truro, leaving Polly free to run her own bakery as she wished.

The last place on the quay was a flashy new restaurant, too expensive for the original dwellers, but very popular with visitors. It specialized in the fresh fish the men unloaded from their boats every morning. At this early hour nets were being mended, catches being tallied up, and a couple of the fishermen waved to Polly as she went past, asking what flavor of michette (a type of small loaf very popular with the workingmen) she was making that day. Then they all shouted a hello to Neil, who, Polly realized crossly, was following her to work again. It wasn't good for him to come to the bakery: customers gave him too many tidbits, and despite the fact that her kitchen was utterly spotless—thanks to Jayden, her assistant—if a health inspector ever came past and caught so much as a whiff of seabird, she'd be in trouble. The fact that nobody could possibly arrive on Mount Polbearne without absolutely everybody noticing was not, she had told Jayden sternly, the point. It had been almost a year since the great storm, a massive hooley that had blown up from nearly nowhere, wrecked the fleet, and cost the loss of Cornelius “Tarnie” Tarnforth, captain of the
Trochilus,
and, briefly, Polly's lover. The day had not yet come when Polly could walk along the stretch of boats without remembering him. It had taken the town a long time to heal.

Polly dinged the bell of the Little Beach Street Bakery, with its pretty pale gray facade—painted by her ex, Chris—and its lovely italic writing:
Proprietor, Ms. P. Waterford.
She rarely looked at that without feeling a wave of pride. There was a small queue of people already waiting, and Jayden was dishing up the warm morning loaves. Today there was a choice of bread, and the heavy sourdough that was a harder sell but that made, in Polly's opinion, wonderful toast.

“Hey!” said Jayden. “Yes, everything came up very nicely. Except, uh, the chorizo michette. I had to . . . um, I had to . . . It was overbaked.”

Polly looked at him sternly.

“Was it really, Jayden?”

She pulled off her coat and hung it on a hook, then went around the other side of the counter to get scrubbed up. Looking back, she saw Neil waiting patiently outside the door, occasionally hopping from foot to foot. He would do this until a customer came and let him in, which they always did. Not for the first time, she wondered about the availability of puffin obedience classes.

“Yes,” said Jayden, his round cheeks going suspiciously pink. The customers waited
patiently, scanning the heavy old-fashioned glass cabinets to choose their cream buns for later. Polly raised an eyebrow.

“They were really good,” said Jayden in a low voice. “I'm sorry. I tried to only eat one.”

The problem was, Jayden was a wonderful member of the staff. Prompt, polite, kind, efficient, and he cleaned like a demon; years working on the fishing boats had made him precise and immaculate. He wasn't at all handsome, but he was very sweet and charming, and everybody liked him.

He was also incredibly grateful not to be out with the fleet anymore, which he had hated. He loved having an indoor job with regular hours. He was honest with the money and nice with the customers (at least the local customers; he was getting slightly better with the new residents and vacationers, with whom he was either brusque or tongue-tied). But he did have a terrible, terrible habit of chomping on the stock.

“It's not like I don't know you're doing it,” said Polly, indicating his belly, growing ever stouter underneath his gray apron.

“I know. I'm sorry.”

He really was sorry too, his face bright pink. He had grown a mustache last year for Movember, and everyone said it suited him—it rather did—so he had kept it, and now he flushed to the tips of it.

“I don't mind you eating a bit,” said Polly. “But you know, that was meat. It's expensive.”

Despite the mustache, Jayden looked about seven years old as he stared at the floor.

“You're not being cross with that nice young man,” said Mrs. Corning, the reverend's widow. “He's a blessing, so he is.” The other ladies in the queue agreed. For some of them, Polly suspected, having a flirt and a chat with Jayden was the highlight of their days.

“He's a very hungry blessing,” grumbled Polly.