‘How do you kn—?’
‘Toby’s an old friend of mine. He helped me find you. Do you know there’s no address on your delivery sheet?’ he said, pausing to look at me again.
‘The delivery sheets are just for our records …’ I shrugged. ‘Toby?’
‘Elsa’s driver. He paid you for the cake. So shall we say five hundred then?’ Ciaran asked, waiting to scribble a final figure. These people, it was obscene how they threw their money around.
‘Really, there’s no need. It was all paid for.’
He looked up at me from where he’d leaned in towards the oak surface Charlie had waxed five times before achieving the shade I liked. His left hand was flat against the wood as he stood poised over his chequebook. He didn’t have worker’s hands like his father. They looked softer than mine, with impeccably clean fingernails. No wedding band either, but then I didn’t wear mine. The icing was always getting stuck underneath it so I wore it instead on a chain around my neck, alongside Charlie’s.
‘That’s very gracious of you,’ he said, ‘but don’t you think you should run it past your boss first? Money’s money after all.’ I knew I was younger than the average for setting up on my own, but it always irked me when someone thought I was the run-around girl. OK, so I was still doing a lot of running around, just not for anyone else. I’d done those jobs all through college, and university. I may not have been sat on an empire, but I’d still earned my place on my own hillock.
‘Is your boss around?’ he pressed.
Martha had filled me in on what had been written of the Argylls. Of Ciaran’s fast living while his father footed the bill.
‘Yes,’ I returned. ‘And that’s very gracious of you, but don’t you think you should run it past your boss first?’
Something in his face changed and I sensed that I’d hit a nerve. The chequebook slipped back into his pocket. For him, the son of a rich pest, it must have been like re-holstering his weapon.
The smile was back again but I’d already seen the genuine version. This one was for show.
‘So this is your business?’ he asked, moving over to the glass display shelves nearest the counter.
‘Sure is,’ I answered, knowing that I’d offended him.
I watched him as he looked over our array of summer designs. ‘And these are all real?’ he asked, perambulating around the perimeter of the room.
‘They’re dummies,’ I said, watching him move as though wandering an art gallery. ‘We call them dummy cakes. They have a polystyrene core, and then we ice and decorate them for the displays.’
‘So then they’re just for show?’ he said, stopping and looking back to me.
‘Just for show,’ I said.
He continued on his way over to the first window and crouched to look through the streets of the gingerbread village there.
‘Did you make this?’ he asked, not taking his attention from the miniature street scene. The intricately piped clock tower, and railway complete with train carriages and station house was the one thing that drew the interest of every boy, young and old, dragged in here by their mums, daughters and wives. Ciaran Argyll seemed no exception.
‘Jesse and I, it’s kind of a two man job. One sticks, while the other holds in place.’
He stood then, hovering by the door, as though unsure if he were leaving or not. ‘You’re very talented.’ He had one hand on the brass handle. He eyes were strikingly dark, even from here.
‘Thank you,’ I said, the warmth building again. I wished that I hadn’t offended him. ‘And thanks for the sheet, I appreciate you bringing it back.’ I smiled as he pulled the door open. The bells jingled again.
‘Bye,’ he said softly.
‘Bye,’ I said, turning for the bakery.
Stepping out through the back I heard the bells ring out again before the door clicked shut behind him. Jesse was hovering next to another batch of ninety-six cupcakes, which were waiting to be frosted. ‘If you’ve finished playing with Handsome, you’ve got some catching up to do,’ he teased.
‘I was not playing with anybody.’ I pouted.
‘But you don’t deny that he’s one handsome sucka.’
‘Did you just say handsome sucka? Is that the lingo these days, Jess?’
‘Call it what you like, did you see the man’s motor?’
‘No, Jess, I didn’t see his car. What is it with you and shiny things? You’re like a magpie,’ I teased, loading up another nozzled bag with buttercream.
‘There’s nothing wrong with appreciating the finer things in life, Hol, and that dude has got some fine things. His suit was sharp too, nice cut.’ I had noticed the suit. ‘So … who is he?’
‘Are these ginger or treacle,’ I asked, squeezing the lemon frosting to the end of the bag before twisting the top securely.
‘Ginger and whisky. Well? Who’s James Bond?’
I started to pipe a tangy lemony swirl onto a sticky ginger cupcake.
‘Last Monday, the cake with the heel … well that was cake man’s son.’
‘Yeah? Well, he seemed a bit more chilled than the old girl was.’
‘I don’t think it was him the cake depicted, Jess. His dad wasn’t so calm.’
‘So what, was she James Bond’s mum?’
‘Stepmum. She wasn’t there when I met his dad,’ I said, piping the next row of cakes.
‘And what was Dad like? Loaded I bet. Women like that don’t marry outside their class.’
I stopped swirling and tried to think of the word I’d use to describe Fergal Argyll, a man very clearly in a class completely of his own.
‘He was … lively. But harmless enough, I think,’ I said.
‘So what was junior doing here? Was there a problem with his old man’s ‘taters?’
I felt a smile appear as I remembered how close I’d come to seeing the real thing. Yikes.
‘I’m not sure really, I think he came to smooth over any rucks.’
‘What kind of rucks?’
‘The kind people with money are used to making go away with a chequebook.’ I finished the last row of gingers and set what was left in the piping bag down on the worktop. ‘I’m running out of room, I’m going start getting these under the counters.’
‘I keep telling you, we need two more stainless workbenches, at least.’
‘After the oven, Jess, new oven takes priority over workbenches.’
‘So when are we getting the new oven?’ he called after me.
‘Soon! When we can afford to order it!’
I picked up the tray of cupcakes I’d just finished and carried them towards the shop. Before I reached the last doorway out of the bakery I called back to Jess.
‘You are right though, Jess … he is one hell of a handsome sucka.’ I was only playing, but it was nice to remind Jesse that even I could appreciate the finer looking things in life. Just because I wasn’t hungry didn’t mean I’d forgotten how good food tasted.
Manoeuvring