Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery Read Online Free PDF Page B

soon.
    ‘Well,’ he said, sighing. ‘Just call Janet back and ask her what’s going to happen. Or ask her at the funeral.’
    ‘She just told me not to think I’ll be getting any of it,’ said Polly. ‘She sounded scary.’
    ‘Interesting note of surprise in your voice,’ pointed out Huckle, who’d been at the sharp end of Mrs Manse’s tongue and hadn’t enjoyed it in the slightest.
    ‘But if she kicks me out… what are we going to do? I mean, I’ve worked and worked to build all this up, and it could just disappear to nothing… I mean, we wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage on this place and we’d have to move and I’d have to… Well I don’t know. Get a job at a pie shop!’
    Huckle smiled. ‘Ooh, that’d be great!’
    ‘I don’t want to get a job at a pie shop!’
    ‘You could be Reuben’s personal pastry chef,’ said Huckle. Reuben was their extremely rich friend.
    ‘I’ll stick to the pie shop, thank you.’
    ‘Look at it this way,’ said Huckle. ‘Human beings are pretty lazy, right? Most of them. They’re not all nutters that get up in the middle of the night like you.’
    ‘What’s your point?’
    ‘And she’s an old lady. So what’s more likely? That she’s going to supervise some expensive development pulling out ovens and putting in swanky kitchens to sell a yuppie weekend lifestyle to idiots, and make you homeless, or just leave things as they are and rake in our vast riches?’
    Polly smiled. ‘Well when you put it like that…’
    ‘And you had a contract, right?’
    ‘No,’ scowled Polly. Then her face softened. ‘Also, this is making me think about stupid, selfish stuff. Rather than thinking about Mrs Manse.’
    ‘Yes, and all the happy times you spent together.’
    ‘An old woman who had a very sad life is dead,’ said Polly, still staring out of the window. ‘That is really awful.’
    Huckle nodded, then got up and came over to the window. He put his arms around her waist and held her to him and they both gazed out at the moon. He kissed her gently on the neck.
    ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know. It is sad.’
    Neil waddled up crossly and stood between their legs in case they’d forgotten him.
    ‘It is sad,’ Huckle said again. ‘And it would be even sadder if her sister messed with what you’ve done here. But I’m sure she won’t. She’ll realise what a great job you’re doing and let you carry on. I’m sure she will.’
    Polly rested her head back on his shoulder and followed the beam of the light above them as it glimmered over and across the waves. She wasn’t sure at all.
     

     
    Polly threw herself into organising the funeral, as much as she was able. Janet was not inclined to be helpful: when Polly asked for a list of Gillian’s friends, she merely sniffed and made an unpleasant noise and said Polly would know that better than her, so Polly just told everyone in the village who came in and hoped for the best. She also baked up a storm. Mrs Manse would have liked that, probably.
    There was a little graveyard up behind the old church, still consecrated ground, and they received the complicated permissions to bury Gillian there, as she had been born on the island and lived her whole life there. Amazing, really, Polly reflected: to stay within a square mile, to consider travelling to Devon a great adventure. She asked the fishermen if they ever remembered Gillian taking a holiday or going overseas, and they all looked at her strangely. Not a lot of people on Mount Polbearne took holidays.
    The following Monday morning was grey and dreary, proper funeral weather.
    It was not, Polly thought regretfully, the kind of send-off she would like for herself; nor the magnificent party Reuben had thrown last year for Tarnie’s funeral. It was a small service, in the village meeting hall, presided over by the female vicar from the mainland, of whom Mrs Manse had loudly and publicly disapproved, and the eulogy was short and impersonal.
    On the plus side,