‘No, I don’t think there are—’ I began, then broke off, following the line of her pointing finger, and found she was quite right, there was a tray of gingerbread pigs at one side of the window, with raisin eyes and curly iced tails.
Then something made me look up and my eyes met and locked with those of a man standing behind the window display. My first thought was that he looked like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, since he had the same angular sort of face and he’d tied a black scarf pirate-style over his hair, presumably instead of one of those little white hats bakers usually wear. The second thought was that his eyes were of a very unusual soft, light caramel brown, fringed with long black lashes … and impossible to remove my gaze from …
Then suddenly we both smiled simultaneously and the trance was broken.
Stella had clambered out of her pushchair and now tugged at my hand and asked if she could have a gingerbread pig and when I looked up again a moment later, he’d vanished.
‘Of course you can, darling,’ I told her, so pleased she’d shown an interest in something to eat that I would happily have bought her a hundred gingerbread pigs … and anyway, I wanted to ask the pirate baker a few questions to add to my ‘Cake Diaries’ article.
He was standing behind the counter as if waiting for us, his smile warm. ‘Hello,’ he said, his voice as caramel as his eyes. ‘Has our window display lured you in?’
‘We were admiring the croquembouche,’ I told him. ‘Or at least, I was. I’m afraid Stella only had eyes for the gingerbread pigs.’
‘Piggies with raisin eyes and curly-wurly tails,’ agreed Stella.
‘It’s not everyone who recognises a croquembouche; they’re still a bit of a novelty, especially up here,’ the man said.
‘I’m a cookery writer, specialising in cake – I have a page in Sweet Home magazine and a Sunday supplement,’ I explained. ‘I love cake.’
‘Mummy made me a pink princess cake for my birthday,’ Stella piped up.
Jago’s interpretation of this as some kind of Barbie princess cake was written clear across his expressive face, but instantly dispelled when I said, ‘It was a Swedish prinsesstårta – you know, those domed sponge and confectioner’s cream cakes, with a marzipan covering? It’s my party piece.’
‘Wow! Now it’s my turn to be impressed.’
‘Oh, I’m sure they’re nowhere near as fiddly as the croquembouche, just time-consuming. Yours needs real skill, not only to make the choux buns, but to put it all together.’
As I spoke to him I was increasingly sure that we’d met before, for there was something very familiar about him. He was in his mid-thirties like me, I guessed, with a light olive skin and treacle-dark hair showing under the black bandanna.
‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’ he asked, obviously feeling the same way. ‘Didn’t you come to Gilligan’s Celebration Cakes, when I worked there?’
‘Of course, that’s it. I’ve been racking my brains wondering where I’d seen you before. I did an article about wedding cakes … but I don’t remember seeing the croquembouche.’
‘I think you only wanted to feature the traditional cakes,’ he said. ‘I helped with those as well, but the croquembouche is my speciality. We weren’t introduced, but I’m Jago Tremayne.’
‘That sounds very Cornish?’
‘It is – that’s where my father’s family came from.’
‘I’m Cally – Cally Weston.’
We shook hands across the glass display cabinet and he asked curiously, ‘What’s Cally short for?’
I grinned, because I get that a lot. ‘Nothing. My mother just had a thing about an old TV series called Blake’s 7 and called me after one of the characters. And this is my daughter, Stella.’
‘I’m nearly four and I’m a star,’ Stella told him.
‘You certainly are,’ he agreed.
‘And I want a piggy,’ she added, seeming to feel we’d lost the point of why we were there.
‘Of course.’ Jago lifted out the tray of gingerbread pigs so that Stella could select her own, which was obviously going to involve a lot of deliberation.
‘So … are you visiting the area?’ he asked me. ‘I suppose in your line of work, you need to be London-based.’
‘We did live in London, but we’ve recently moved to live with my mother in Sticklepond, a village a few miles from here. It’s about as far from the bright lights as you can get, so it was quite a surprise to find a specialist shop like this in Ormskirk.’
‘It was my friend’s idea to open it here and I came to help,’ he told me, then added as a slim, fair man appeared from the back room to serve a noisy gaggle of students who’d just come into the shop, ‘that’s David.’
‘Oh – right. I wanted to mention the shop in an article for “The Cake Diaries”, though it probably won’t come out for months – do you think that would be all right? They’ll send a photographer.’
‘I’m sure David will be delighted. All publicity welcome. Look, here’s his business card with his email address on, so you can send him any questions.’
‘Thank you, that’s great,’ I said, pocketing it.
‘I want that pig,’ Stella said, having made her mind up and pointing at the one with the biggest curly icing tail.
‘Please,’ I prompted.
‘Please,’ Stella repeated and Jago put the chosen pig into a little paper bag and gave it to her. She took it straight out again and bit off its nose.
I paid him and he handed me a little silver box with my change. ‘These are a couple of macaroons for your mum to try,’ he explained to Stella. ‘It’s the bait to lure you both back in again.’
‘I don’t think you’ll be able to keep us out anyway,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to come here to the hospital most Thursdays, so this can be our special treat afterwards, can’t it, Stella?’
She nodded, her mouth full of gingerbread.
‘I don’t know why it is, but the head always tastes better than the rest,’ Jago said gravely and Stella nodded again, very seriously.
‘It’s wonderful to see her eating something voluntarily,’ I thought, then realised I’d said it aloud, and Jago was looking sympathetically at me with his soft, light brown eyes.
Of course, I’d often made her gingerbread men, but obviously they didn’t have the magic of the shop-bought pigs.
I drove back to Sticklepond with Stella fast asleep in her seat in the back of the car. In one hand was clutched the limp rear end of the gingerbread pig, saved for Grandma.
It was odd how I’d felt an instant connection with Jago when our eyes met through the shop window, though I supposed that was partly because I’d previously met him, even though I hadn’t remembered at first. And how could I have forgotten those unusual eyes?
He seemed very nice and I think we simply instantly recognised each other as kindred spirits and perhaps were destined to become good friends? That was all I needed from a man these days, all I had the spare time and emotion left over for …
I checked again on my frail sleeping child in the rear-view mirror, turning over in my mind what they’d said to me at the hospital after Stella’s check-up, about the country air soon putting some roses into her cheeks and improving her appetite, searching for any faint crumb of comfort.
When