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 we got home and Stella, revived, had gone to present Grandma with the soggy gingerbread pig’s bottom, I put Toto in the car for five minutes to hoover up the crumbs: dogs have a multitude of uses.
When Cally and Stella left the shop, Jago had the strange feeling that they’d taken all the May sunshine with them.
He’d liked everything about Cally: her no-nonsense manner, her pretty face with wide-apart harebell-blue eyes, the disarming sprinkle of freckles across her nose and her dishevelled, silky, pale gold curls.
‘Pretty woman,’ David said, since he’d finished serving the customers and there was a temporary lull. Then he added hastily, ‘Not as in the film Pretty Woman, of course. I’m not insinuating she’s a hooker.’
‘I should think not! And she is pretty, though she’s obviously under a lot of strain. I think it must be about the little girl, because she mentioned she would be having regular hospital check-ups and she looks as if a puff of wind would blow her away.’
‘Poor little thing,’ David said kindly, but somewhat absently, arranging a fresh batch of macaroons into neat rows of pink, red and green. Then he looked up curiously at his friend and grinned.
‘You found out a lot in a short space of time.’
‘She’s on the same wavelength as us, that’s all – and anyway, we’ve both seen her before at Gilligan’s, don’t you remember? She’s Cally Weston, a cookery writer, and she was researching an article about traditional wedding cakes.’
‘Really? No, I can’t say I do remember that, but of course I’ve seen her articles,’ he said, though his friend obviously had remembered her. Since this was the first hint of real interest in another woman Jago had shown since his fiancée ran off to Dubai to be with that sports car salesman she’d had a fling with, he thought it was a healthy sign.
‘She wants to write you and the Happy Macaroon up in her “Cake Diaries” page in the Sunday supplement, so I gave her your card so she can email you questions,’ Jago said. ‘The paper will probably send a photographer.’
‘Great, I’m all for free publicity,’ David said enthusiastically. ‘I like her even more!’
