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‘Oh no, Jess, have I forgotten an appointment?’ I said, with the first prickles of panic.
‘No. He hasn’t got an appointment,’ Jess said, still grinning.
‘Why are you being weird?’ I asked him, trying not to laugh at his ridiculous expression. ‘Where is he then?’
I followed Jess as he walked from the bakery through the short corridor and out into the area behind the shop counter.
‘He’s over there, waiting for you to show up to work,’ Jesse said, looking out front.
I looked out through one of the windows over to the café across the street, glancing at the bistro tables outside for anyone I recognised. There were a couple of women in coats and shades enjoying the morning, but other than that no one. I was still watching when two business types, a man and woman, left the café together, followed by another sharply dressed guy in suit and shades. As he turned to check the road before crossing, I recognised the strong line of his jaw, passed down from one generation to the next.
‘How was your weekend, Holly?’ Jesse asked as it dawned on me who was heading this way.
I watched Ciaran Argyll draw closer as I tried to figure out what he was doing here.
‘There must have been a problem with the cake,’ I thought aloud, readying myself for what might be. ‘I bet the old bugger wants to make a complaint because I didn’t compliment him on his wedding tackle.’
‘Wedding tackle? What did you get up to this weekend, Hol?’
‘Nothing,’ I answered, still pondering.
The door set the bell tingling and Ciaran Argyll walked assuredly into my shop. Jesse stopped munching on his bagel.
‘Morning. Again,’ Argyll said, nodding at Jess standing over me. I got a gentle nod. ‘Hello.’
‘All right, mate, enjoy your wait with the golden girls?’ Jesse asked.
‘Actually, the coffee was surprisingly good,’ Mr Argyll said, taking his sunglasses off. He didn’t look so melancholy today; his smile was more relaxed than I’d remembered it. ‘But you were right, they did take care of me.’ He laughed, flashing a glimpse of perfect white teeth. I’d bet he was used to being taken care of.
‘Ah, they love a gent over there don’t they, Hol? Hol stopped buying lunch from the café when she realised the old girls give better service to the fellas than the women. It’s sexist isn’t it, Hol?’ It sounded silly when I heard it that way, but yes, I was boycotting the place.
I flashed a full smile of my own at Jess.
‘I’ll just go and finish my brekkie then. See you, mate …’ he said, leaving for the back, ‘nice Vanquish.’
Argyll turned to check the car sat outside the shop and nodded to himself.
‘What can I do for you, Mr Argyll?’ I asked, noting his cologne again. His hand dipped into the inside pocket of his jacket as he approached the counter between us.
‘You left in a hurry Friday, understandably. You forgot this. I thought we at least owed you the courtesy of returning it,’ he said softly, pulling open a folded sheet of paper and handing it to me. I recognised the information immediately.
Two times ten-inch vanilla testicles gored with stiletto, deliver to Fergal Argyll, Hawkeswood Manor Friday 20th September 8.30 p.m. EXACTLY.
‘Can I sign it for you? My father was a touch worse for wear over the weekend or I’d have asked him.’
He’d brought the delivery note all this way?
‘No, that’s OK. It’s not important really,’ I said, realising too late that the delivery note had travelled some thirty miles back to the shop with this man. ‘But thank you for returning it.’
His eyes were an intense brown, narrowing slightly as he tilted his head to watch me. He was a very attractive man, too good looking all for just one person. My attention was snagged by the light flooding into the shop catching on the edges of his choppy hair, sending brown to blond in places. There was a hint of neatly cropped stubble I hadn’t noticed on Friday.
I couldn’t explain it, but I felt the beginnings of warmth creeping over my neck. Was I so out of practice interacting with the opposite sex that I blushed like a naive schoolgirl around them? How excruciatingly embarrassing.
‘Are you sure?’ he pressed, those eyes that didn’t belong with the tones in his hair still watching me closely. ‘My stepmother can be quite the pedant when it comes to paperwork. And my father’s anatomy.’
Oh dear, we were back onto Fergal’s testicles. Yep. Definitely had a pink neck.
‘Um, not really, she didn’t hang around long,’ I said, trying to get off the subject of the vivacious Mr Argyll senior and any conversation that might lead me onto it.
‘I believe Elsa offered you an additional sum for proof of delivery to Fergal in person?’
‘She did. But it wasn’t compulsory,’ I answered
‘Then you’re out of pocket?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing again. ‘Let me take care of that, it’s not your fault my father was misbehaving. You shouldn’t get into any trouble for it.’ He pulled a chequebook from the same inner pocket, laying it alongside his sunglasses on the counter.
‘Would five hundred cover it?’ he asked, clicking the cap of his pen. ‘I understand you were offered double the cost of the cake if you procured the signature? The cake was two-thirty, right? Consider the difference by way of an apology. Fergal can get … excited, sometimes,’ he said as his pen scratched against the chequebook.
‘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 wide trays of cupcakes through the narrow doorway into the shop could be tricky, but that wasn’t the reason I nearly dropped the entire batch.
‘I forgot my sunglasses,’ Ciaran Argyll said, standing there watching me. The flush was back with a vengeance, raging up my neck and instantly taking up residence in my cheeks.
Why is he standing here? The door didn’t go!
‘Er …’ I stammered, realising to my horror that I hadn’t actually seen him leave. Panic started rising as I ran through the conversation he might have just heard. The harder I tried, the less I could think of anything to say, so I settled for trying to cover my shell-shock with something resembling a smile. I thought I’d already experienced the embarrassment of blushing in Ciaran Argyll’s presence, but this was an excruciating new level.
He carefully avoided looking at me; I was sure he was fighting a smile. ‘Actually, I have an event coming up. I was wondering what your thoughts might be on providing a cake?’ Please don’t let him have heard, please don’t let him have heard!
‘Umm, yes. We can do that.’ I swallowed. ‘When for?’ I asked, trying to salvage some sort of composure.
‘October twenty-sixth,’ he said. ‘It’s a Saturday.’
As I slid the tray of cupcakes under the adjacent serving counter I could feel the beginnings of perspiration over the back of my neck. I didn’t sweat. Clammy hands said I did.
The diary I’d been looking for was sat by the phone, on the side next to the till. In its place, for a change. I flicked through to the following month, hoping to find a week too full to take on another Argyll job.
‘I know it’s short notice,’ he said, also looking at the open diary as I checked over the bookings we had for that week. They were more than thin on the ground. Friday the twenty-fifth had been encircled in bright green biro though, Martha’s due date! scrawled inside. Other than that, it would mostly be a week of passing trade. He surveyed the days, largely blank on the page and watched me carefully.
‘Sure. What were you looking for?’ I asked, admitting defeat.
‘Well, the event is themed, so would that be a good place to start?’ he asked, cocking his head slightly again. He cut a relaxed figure, but I wasn’t there yet. I could still feel the burn in my cheeks.
