‘I kind of yelled at him.’ She looked at Etna and pulled a face. ‘After everything you just told me, I feel terrible. It was probably the first time he’d sat down for a break all day.’
Etna swished away her concern. ‘He’s got a thick enough skin; he won’t take it to heart.’ She watched Jade for a split second until she said, ‘Come on, let’s see this cake.’
Jade opened up the box to a reception of gasps and congratulations. They all loved it and were more than impressed with her work, no matter whether there was a piece missing out of the cake or not.
‘It’s artistic,’ Lois observed, regarding the gap where the snaffled slice had been.
‘That’s exactly what Celeste told me before she took charge and neatened it up.’
Etna chuckled. ‘Patricia had to request Linc to please present the cake in the tea rooms a little more delicately. He was cutting off great hunks of sponge and dumping them on the plates, no care taken. I guess that’s what happens when one minute you’re working on a renovation and the next you’re leaping in to serve delicate food.’
Now Jade felt even more guilty and as Lois and Etna chatted away about the cake, the sponge, the way it was decorated, the intricacy of the flower petals, Barney whispered to her, ‘Etna has been driving that poor boy crazy.’
‘Linc?’
‘She’s been calling him and texting him constantly to check things are running smoothly. Some people are house-proud, Etna is tea-room-proud. I reckon he was doing fine when she was sleeping on those painkillers, but since she became more with it, she’s been non-stop. I suspect she’s done the same to Patricia. We thought we’d have her here with us for a while and let everything settle, and she’s good company for two oldies.’
Over a slice of cake each they talked more about the wedding and how the barn was going to be decorated for the big event.
‘We’re hoping for a gloriously sunny day so we can throw open the barn doors,’ Lois told them, ‘but if it’s not, the inside will be just as beautiful with all the usual twinkly lights wound around posts and beams and strung across the tops of the walls. We’ll have a string quartet followed by a livelier band, there’ll be white linen hanging from the rafters to create the perfect cloud effect, and we’re having plenty of fresh flowers.’
‘We’ve already put in an order with the florist,’ Barney confirmed. ‘I’m told Valerie was delighted to hear we were ordering so many.’
‘There’ll be flowers on every table, every upturned barrel,’ Lois cut in. ‘And all the chairs will have big white bows at their backs. We still want hay bales dotted around too, just like when the Wedding Dress Ball runs every year.’ She put a hand to Barney’s shoulder, the significance of the annual event not lost with the preparations for the wedding. The ball was an event Barney had started to raise funds for the charity White Clover, which supported families after the death of a child. Barney and Lois had been estranged for years following a painful history and the loss of their baby son, Harry, and with the event such a fixture for the village, it had seemed the perfect venue and occasion to get remarried. The arrangements would honour what had gone before, the significance of the event would acknowledge what they’d had and lost and the future they’d solidified by coming together once again.
‘We usually have a guestbook, so we’ll do that again and keep it with all the others.’ Barney tipped his head towards the bookcase that housed what looked like photograph albums standing in a row, each of their spines with a different year on it to represent the ball that had run that particular summer. ‘Looking back over the years is a special thing to do, you know.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Jade smiled.
‘It’s going to be wonderful,’ Etna beamed. ‘And this foot had better be one hundred per cent, as I’ll be dancing, just like every other year.’
‘Good for you,’ said Lois before she thanked Jade yet again for bringing the cake over today. ‘I feel spoiled already and I know – not that I needed any reassurance – that the guests are in for a real treat. I love being in the kitchen and cooking, but making fancy flowers that I could easily confuse with the real thing seems nigh on impossible to me. You have a great deal of talent.’
‘You should see Nancy the demonstrator’s work,’ Jade replied. ‘She assured me I’ll be just as good with practice. But I’m thrilled you love the cake as it is.’
‘Despite the chunk missing,’ Etna grinned. Jade had a feeling she’d love it if Jade mentioned Linc’s name again. She hadn’t missed the look his auntie had given her, as though she was wondering if there might be something brewing between the pair.
Jade picked up her car keys. ‘I’d better be off. I’m going to see Valerie and the baby.’ Valerie worked in the florist set back from The Street on a side street beyond the pub and she’d had a baby two months ago. She’d been a wreck for the first six weeks. Her husband was back at work and doing long hours but her parents had been with her for the past fortnight and, as she’d told Jade, she now had her head straight and was ready for more visitors.
‘How are they doing?’ Barney piled the empty plates together and put them into the sink for washing. ‘She looked like any new mother would when I saw her last – elated, strung out, happy but exhausted. We missed her when we went into the florist, and I hear she was disappointed that maternity leave means she won’t be involved with the flowers for the wedding.’
‘When I spoke to her yesterday she said she felt human so fingers crossed that’s still the case by the time I get over there,’ smiled Jade.
‘Give her our best,’ said Lois, already making Etna another cup of tea even though she’d taken long enough to finish the first. Perhaps between Lois and Barney they were determined to keep Etna so busy she didn’t have a chance to even think about the tea rooms and get onto Linc. ‘And take the rest of the cake, we’ve had our treat. I want to save myself for the real thing now.’
‘I was going to leave it for you. Are you sure?’
‘Of course.’ She took the tea over to the table and sat with Etna.
‘I’m sure Linc would love some more,’ said Etna, watching Jade as she closed the box. ‘It’s a fine cake.’
‘Talking of cake, I hear your lemon drizzle was a hit with Kenneth the other day,’ said Lois. ‘I saw him in The Street and he wouldn’t stop going on about it.’
If Jade hadn’t been watching Etna so closely she might have missed the glimmer of embarrassment masked quickly by her sharing of her recipe secrets rather than any focus on the man who perhaps wanted to tend to a lot more than his allotment.
Jade left them to it. Her temper had faded, they’d all loved the cake despite its missing piece, and she happily made her way over to Valerie’s.
But her contentment dimmed the moment she stepped inside Valerie’s home and the scene of domesticity greeted her – the steriliser steaming away, the freshly laundered Babygros in a pile on the arm of the sofa, the spongy wipe-clean change mat leaning against the sideboard – it reminded Jade that she might be successful in her work life and getting better all the time, making a real go of the business she ran with her sister, but her personal life was light years behind and only she could remedy that. If only it was as simple as taking a course, brushing up on skills and spreading the word.
