Wish Upon a Star

‘I felt much the same,’ I admitted, and our eyes met and held, just like the first time … His wrinkled up around the edges as he smiled.

‘We do have so much in common, don’t we? Broken hearts, a love of cake …’

‘I don’t suppose you also love watching rom com films?’ I asked, laughing.

‘I certainly do! Love Actually is my all-time favourite and I’ve put it on so many times that David has hidden the DVD.’

‘That’s my favourite too … or maybe it’s Pride and Prejudice.’

‘Or Mamma Mia! Oh, and While You Were Sleeping.’

‘Yes! In fact, I like anything with Sandra Bullock in, but that is one of her best.’

We discussed rom coms for a few minutes and then I said, ‘Do you think we were separated at birth, or simply knew each other in a previous existence?’

‘I don’t know, but I’ll settle for knowing you in this one.’

‘Me too, and I certainly need a friend – especially one who understands that Stella’s needs must come first right now, and that I can’t think beyond getting her to the USA for the operation,’ I said directly and honestly, just in case he was thinking about anything in the romantic line. Though actually, given the weight thing and that I’d stopped bothering much with makeup and what I was wearing, I should be so lucky even if he wasn’t clearly still carrying a torch for his beautiful ex.

‘I not only understand that, but I’ll help you,’ he offered. ‘In fact, I’d give you the money if I thought you’d take it, but already I know you well enough to be sure you’d turn me down.’

‘Quite right, I would, because that’s the money you need to buy your own premises, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but I could always rent for a while, or get a small mortgage.’

‘No you couldn’t. But thank you for the offer … And don’t try doing it anonymously through the site, because I’ll guess it’s you,’ I warned him, then paused. ‘The vicar said I should trust in God to provide and go ahead and book the tickets and the hotel and everything, so I’m going to take his advice, even if finding the rest of the money does give me sleepless nights.’

‘The vicar was right,’ he said encouragingly. ‘It is a lot of money to raise in a small amount of time, but it’s not impossible, by any means.’

His mobile rang just then and when he finished the call he said it was David sarcastically asking if he planned on going back to the shop that day.

‘I’ll have to go. He and Sarah want to have their lunch too, and the shop’s still busy.’

We exchanged mobile numbers and email addresses, and then I went back with him to the shop to buy a gingerbread pig for Stella, though he refused to charge me for it. I only hope he isn’t as generous to all his customers or he won’t be making much of a profit …

Driving home from Ormskirk, I thought how amazingly easily I’d opened up like that to a man I’d only just met. But then, we had so much in common and he was so sweet and sympathetic that he’d instantly felt like an old friend. We were comfortable together.

I liked his thin, mobile face and the way it reflected every passing emotion, something he probably wasn’t aware of, his unusual light brown eyes and the way his dark hair, released from the pirate scarf, was just a little too long and trying to curl around his ears …

When I got home Ma and Stella were in the garden – Ma sketching and Stella sitting in her blue plastic clam-shell sandpit, carefully arranging a pattern of bits of sand-washed glass that we’d picked up on Southport beach into an intricate pattern. Toto wagged his tail but didn’t get up from under the lavender bush.

The May sun was quite warm, but there was still a bit of a chilly breeze, so I was glad to see that Stella was wearing her little purple corduroy coat. She must have put it on herself, because only one of the big buttons was fastened and it was in the wrong hole.

Ma’s ample derrière rested on her ancient and ingenious fold-up sketching stool, which incorporated an easel in front, and she had obviously been working for some time, for oil pastel and charcoal sketches of Stella littered the grass around her. Toto and Moses featured in some of them, though I don’t think Moses was feeling very co-operative since I could see the tip of his tail from underneath one sheet of paper, where he must have decided to go to sleep.

‘Mummy!’ Stella exclaimed, and Ma looked up.

‘Had a nice time?’ she asked.

‘Yes, and I’m sorry I was a bit longer than I expected,’ I said guiltily. ‘I did the shopping and got the flake white paint and the linseed oil, and I’ve brought you a vanilla slice from Greggs and a gingerbread pig for Stella from the Happy Macaroon.’

‘Lovely …’ Ma said absently, adding a touch or two to the sketch in front of her.

‘I had a sandwich in a café and shared the table with Jago from the Happy Macaroon – remember I told you about him? He makes croquembouches and we’d met before, when I went to Gilligan’s Celebration Cakes where he used to work.’

Now I was closer I could see that Ma’s current sketch was of Stella, who seemed to have sprouted little white feathered cherub wings, as had Toto, and even Moses the cat, and were all three whirling about among a lot of clouds.

Ma finished edging the bottom of the picture with giant foxglove spikes and started to collect her stuff together. ‘Yes … I remember,’ she said vaguely. ‘I expect it was nice to meet an old friend.’

‘Hardly that, because I only saw him that once very briefly in London, but I got to know him a bit today while we were chatting and he’s such a nice man.’

Stella looked up and asked, ‘Can I have my gingerbread piggy now, Mummy?’

‘Did you eat the little dinosaur sandwiches I left you for lunch?’

She shook her head. ‘We haven’t had lunch, have we, Grandma?’

‘Haven’t we?’ Ma looked surprised, but when I checked the fridge the sandwiches were untouched under their cling film, as were the two little dishes of chocolate mousse.

I went back outside. ‘Come on in, Stella, and eat a sandwich, and then you can have your gingerbread pig. Ma, do you want your sandwiches out here, or are you coming in?’

‘I’ll be in in a minute. I’ll just take everything back up to the studio and fix the charcoal drawings.’

Stella got out of the sandpit and I closed the lid in case Moses took it into his head that it would make a super cat litter tray, and we went in the house holding hands. Ma wandered off up to the studio and I knew she would forget to come back, so I took her lunch up there after we’d had ours, along with the vanilla slice. There was a steaming mug of tea next to her, so Hal must have been around somewhere.

‘I should have got another cake for Hal, shouldn’t I?’ I said. ‘Does he like vanilla slices?’

‘I don’t know. He likes Nice biscuits, garibaldi, gingernuts and fig rolls, though,’ she said, taking a big bite out of a ham sandwich. ‘I’m ravenous,’ she added, sounding surprised.

‘Well, it’s after two. Stella’s eaten a dinosaur sandwich and she started on the gingerbread pig, but got too sleepy, so she’s gone for a nap. I expect she’ll eat the rest when she wakes up. Her appetite really seems to be picking up since we moved here.’

‘There’s magic in the air in Sticklepond,’ Ma said.

Jago

David’s eyebrows had gone up when Jago and Cally walked into the Happy Macaroon together chatting comfortably like old friends, and Jago knew he’d be in for a bit of merciless teasing later, when the shop was quieter.

He was right, too, because David told him he was glad to see his broken heart was on the way to being mended.

‘Don’t be stupid, Cally’s just really nice and we’re interested in similar things, but mostly we’ve been talking about her little girl. She was born with a very serious heart condition and Cally’s trying to raise money to send her to America for an operation in autumn.’

‘Oh, poor little thing,’ Sarah said.

‘She’s set up a charitable website, called Stella’s Stars. I’m going to have a look at it later.’

‘Well, I hope you’re not going to give them all your lottery winnings, Jago,’ David said forthrightly, because he knew his friend’s soft heart. Being bullied at school because of his dyslexia, and being always in the shadow of his older and academically gifted brother, had dented Jago’s self-confidence, so that he always felt for the underdog.

‘She’s already raised the bulk of it by selling her flat in London, so she only needs about another twenty thousand … and I did offer,’ he confessed, ‘but she turned me down, because she knew by then I’d only just won enough to set myself up in my own business. She told me not to try anonymously donating it either, because she’d guess it was me and give it back.’

‘She’s certainly got your measure in a short space of time,’ Sarah said admiringly. ‘I like the sound of her.’

‘Yes, and she’s much more your type than Aimee ever was,’ David agreed. ‘I can’t imagine why she ever agreed to marry you. Unless it’s like Sarah says, that it was just to pay her dad back for getting engaged to his PA.’

‘Oh, once she was the wrong side of forty she probably found good-looking straight single men willing to settle down were thin on the ground. I expect panic had set in by the time Jago proposed and that was part of it too,’ Sarah said airily.

‘I keep telling you, she’s younger than me,’ Jago protested.

‘No way: you only had to look at her knees.’

‘Her knees?’

‘Baggy, saggy knees.’

‘She has the longest legs in the world …’ Jago sighed reminiscently. ‘I can’t say I noticed her knees. And gee, thanks for the confidence boost, by the way.’

Still, it was true that he hadn’t been able to believe his luck when the tall, elegant, beautiful, sophisticated Aimee had accepted his proposal … which actually he would never have had the courage to make if she hadn’t prompted him into it.

‘You’re a good-looking guy, don’t get me wrong,’ Sarah said kindly, ‘but you had absolutely nothing in common.’

‘I know,’ he said humbly.

‘All that late night partying followed by the early starts for work ran you ragged and made your friends worry about you,’ David said.

‘And while we’re speaking of the devil who wore Prada,’ Sarah said, ‘you had a phone call when you were out. She’s back.’

‘Who’s back?’ Jago demanded, startled.

‘Aimee.’

‘Aimee? Aimee’s back in the UK?’

‘Yes, she’s been back a while, but she’s only just tracked you down. I expect she heard about our winnings,’ David said drily.

‘Her new stepmother uses the salon and she told me weeks ago that Aimee was back. She’s pregnant, too, because she didn’t want to have her hair coloured, in case it harmed the baby.’

‘Aimee’s pregnant?’ Jago exclaimed.

‘No, you idiot, it’s her new young stepmother who’s pregnant.’

‘Right …’ He looked at his friends. ‘You both knew all this time she was back and didn’t tell me?’

‘You said you were over her and wanted a fresh new start in a different part of the country,’ Sarah pointed out. ‘Anyway, she’s bad news.’

‘Yes, we didn’t want her messing you around again,’ David said.

‘I think I’m old enough to decide for myself,’ Jago said with dignity. ‘And of course I’m over her … Anyway, I expect she just wants to get back in touch to be friends.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Sarah said acerbically, but Jago wasn’t listening. He’d thought he was over her, and his friends were probably right that breaking up had been a good idea, but still … knowing she was back unsettled him.

‘Did she leave a number? Or did you give her my mobile number?’

‘Neither, because we were a bit busy at the time. You were having an extended lunch, if you recall?’

‘Oh, yes … Did she say anything else?’

‘Something about things not working out with that bloke she chased off after to Dubai, so I expect she’s been dumped and now you’ve won all that money you’re a much more interesting prospect.’

‘You’re such a cynic,’ Jago said. ‘But I can’t believe you didn’t even get her number.’

‘She said she’d ring you again and why the interest? Didn’t you just tell us you were over her?’

‘I am over her,’ Jago insisted, though he suspected that a few embers of his love still smouldered deep in his heart and might just reignite at the sight of her.

In the late afternoon, just as they were clearing up the shop ready to close, the phone in the back room rang and Sarah stuck her head in the door and said it was for Jago.

He went past her into the back room and returned ten minutes later looking sheepish.

David and Sarah exchanged glances.

‘Don’t tell me,’ David said, ‘it was Aimee again. She really doesn’t let the grass grow under her feet, does she? So, what happened to the new life with what’s-his-face in Dubai?’

‘She said she knew it was a mistake almost the minute she got there and Dubai was a tricky place if you weren’t married – and he certainly didn’t want to get married. And she missed me.’

‘Not enough to look for you as soon as she got back,’ Sarah put in.

‘She didn’t know I’d left London and it took her a while to track me down,’ Jago explained.

‘Your post is being forwarded on, and anyone at Gilligan’s could have given her your new mobile number as well as the one for this place,’ David said.

‘Yes, someone at Gilligan’s did give her our number eventually, but they were a bit reluctant.’

‘Considering that after she took off we all ate your wedding cake and commiserated with you, it’s hardly surprising,’ David said drily. ‘And she could have asked Sarah in the salon.’

‘She did come in, but I expect she’d forgotten about me,’ Sarah said mendaciously, crossing the fingers of both hands behind her back.

‘I think she was nervous about contacting me in case I was still mad at her, but it’s like I told you: she just wanted to say she was sorry about what happened and she hoped we could be friends now she was back.’

‘I’ll bet she did,’ Sarah said. ‘I suppose whoever she spoke to at Gilligan’s told her you’d won the lottery?’

‘No, not until I mentioned it, so it was a complete surprise to her – she’d wondered what we were doing up here. I explained about helping you set up the Happy Macaroon and then that I was going to start my own wedding croquembouche business.’

David flipped the closed sign over on the door and lowered the window blind.

‘And how did she take that?’ he asked, turning.

‘She thought it was a great idea and she’d love to meet up with me to hear all about my plans. Only that won’t be for a while, because she can’t leave town at the moment and I haven’t got time to go down there.’

‘Thank heaven for small mercies,’ muttered Sarah, starting to cash up the till.

‘I’m not stupid enough to fall for her twice over,’ Jago said with dignity. But still, it had shaken him to hear her soft, contrite and honeyed voice.

‘Good, because she’s like Julia Roberts in that Runaway Bride film and she’d just keep dumping you for a better option,’ Sarah said frankly.

‘That’s a bit harsh,’ he said, wincing, but her words dispelled a little of the enchantment that Aimee had managed to cast over him again.

‘We’re only saying these things because we’re your friends and we don’t want you to go through the whole thing twice,’ David said.

‘I know.’ Jago sighed, and then smiled wryly. ‘Maybe I’ve watched too many romantic comedy films where it’s all turned out right in the end.’

‘It will turn out right in the end,’ Sarah assured him. ‘Only not with Aimee Calthrop. She belongs in an entirely different kind of film.’

Luckily she didn’t say exactly which kind, but mention of romantic films had made Jago remember his earlier conversation with Cally and gave his thoughts a different direction.

‘You know I was telling you about Cally trying to raise money to take her little girl to America for that life-saving operation? Well, I’ve just had an idea for how we could help …’

Chapter 10: Sweet Perfection

Later, while Stella was still asleep, having gone down for her nap so late, and I was doing a little research on the history of madeleines (I thought I might get a long piece for my ‘Diaries’ page, as well as a quick and easy recipe for ‘Tea & Cake’ out of it), my phone buzzed and it was Jago.

‘We’ve just closed the shop, so I’ve emailed you the madeleine recipe I mentioned.’

‘Oh, great – thanks,’ I said gratefully. ‘Funnily enough, I was just doing a bit of research into them.’

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you?’

‘No, not at all. My mother’s working in her studio and Stella’s still asleep, so I thought I’d make a start. She was so tired she only managed to take one bite out of the gingerbread pig, but she’s still holding it.’

‘It’s strange how many children love gingerbread,’ he commented, then added, ‘I just got my third wedding croquembouche order.’

‘Oh, well done!’

‘They want it to be flanked by two of David’s white and pink macaroon pyramids too, so expense no object.’

‘I can imagine how good that would look at a wedding reception. You know, I think your croquembouche business is going to be a huge success.’

‘I hope you’re right, but maybe it will because, David’s has taken off so well, and macaroons are another expensive luxury.’

‘People are prepared to pay for a special cake for a wedding,’ I assured him. Then I added tentatively, ‘Are you all right? Only you sound a bit … I don’t know – stressed?’

‘Knocked for six, more like,’ he confessed ruefully. ‘Aimee, my ex, just rang me at the bakery. Things didn’t work out with the other bloke and she’s back. In fact, she’s been home for a while and my friends knew and didn’t tell me.’

‘I suppose they were just trying to protect you,’ I suggested.

‘So they said, but they needn’t have bothered because she only wanted to say sorry and to be friends.’

‘Right,’ I said, though I thought I detected a hint of uncertainty in his voice. ‘Well, that’ll be lovely then, won’t it?’ I added, with a brisk cheerfulness I didn’t feel, because my heart had suddenly sunk like an undercooked sponge at the possibility that he might be snatched back to London by the horrible-sounding but glamorous Aimee when I’d only just got to know him.

When Stella was in bed that night, and Ma off in the garden room watching old Agatha Christie films, I made some madeleines to Jago’s genuine French recipe, which were delicious, and then started to write the articles.

The ‘Tea & Cake’ one was quick and easy.

Here’s a simple recipe for madeleines, those wonderful little buttery French biscuits, usually baked in deep shell-shaped moulds. Perfect with coffee at elevenses, but a lovely treat at any time …

But the other one took time, and I finally finished around midnight, when even Toto and Moses had gone to bed, both in the same basket. They seemed to have buried the hatchet and while I’d been typing at the kitchen table I’d seen Moses give Toto a very thorough washing, especially around the ears.

I’m not sure that Toto exactly appreciated it, going by the long-suffering expression on his furry face, but it’s surprising what you’ll put up with from your friends.

The house had long been silent except for the clicking of my fingers on the keyboard and the ticking of the clock, and although I offered to let Toto into the garden, he didn’t even bother opening both eyes. Mind you, I caught him crawling through the cat flap earlier in the day, so if he has cracked that, then he can let himself in and out whenever he wants to.

I looked in on Stella on my way to bed and she was fast asleep, hugging Bun. His plush is a bit worn and I’d sewn my mobile phone number onto the sole of one foot, after we once left him behind on a park bench and had to dash back to find him, luckily still there.

Stella looked angelic, a sleeping cherub, dimly illuminated by the faint light from her nightlight, which was one of those porcelain ones like a toadstool with a little mouse family inside. She had added one or two of her fuzzy toy mice to the scenario too, I noticed.

I looked down at her, so small and delicate that she reminded me of those old stories of fairy children exchanged with ordinary ones at birth – but if she had been, they weren’t having her back.

The next day Hal popped round to stretch a canvas for Ma. It seemed like a very un-gardener-like thing to be doing.

‘Hal spends a lot of time here, doesn’t he?’ I said tentatively to Ma later.

‘I suppose he does, but it’s evenings and weekends, mostly. Some of the Winter’s End gardeners work Saturdays overtime, especially when the place is open to the public, but Hal says he’d rather take things a bit easier at his time of life.’

‘What about his family?’

‘He’s a widower and his daughter married a New Zealander, so he’s only seen the grandchildren twice in eight years, when they came over here. He won’t fly, he’s scared. I’ve told him he should go on one of these courses to get over it.’

‘That’s a coincidence: Jago’s parents moved to New Zealand when they took early retirement – his older brother lives there. He didn’t say a lot about them, though. It’s a small world.’

‘It is if you fly, as I keep telling Hal.’

‘He keeps your garden this side of total jungle,’ I said.

‘He does that, and I don’t mind him about: he doesn’t fuss me.’

This didn’t sound to me as if there was any big romance going on there, just an odd friendship of opposites. Jago and I, on the other hand, were clearly destined to be friends because we were so very similar … unless Awful Aimee lured him back to London again, of course.

I texted him that the madeleine recipe came out perfectly, and to thank him again, but he replied not to mention it because he always loved to talk cake.

Aimee

Aimee Calthrop pondered her phone call to Jago, and the surprising comfort it had given her to hear his soft, mellow voice. I could get him back, if I wanted him, she told herself.

In retrospect, it had been such a big mistake to dump a handsome, kind man who adored her … But then, he’d earned peanuts at Gilligan’s and seemed to have no aspirations to do anything other than bake cakes.

Cold feet had set in, which was part of the reason she’d run off to Dubai just before the wedding. But Vann Hamden had seemed a lot less enthusiastic about her arrival when he met her at the airport than he’d been during their brief affair in London, and positively blanched when she tried to kiss him.

They didn’t do that kind of thing in public over there, he’d explained, and immorality was a big no-no, so he was too afraid it would affect his business to step out of line.

Dubai had to be the most boring place on earth: no one seemed interested in having her organise their parties for them and, in any case, she wasn’t part of the fashionable in-crowd there. She couldn’t even shop, because Daddy, who’d liked Jago, had been so cross with her that he’d stopped her allowance. So she spent her days drinking too much (privately; that was also frowned on) and sunbathing none too wisely, between Vann’s visits, and when he said things weren’t working out too well and suggested he buy her a plane ticket home, she accepted the offer.

The whole fiasco was really Daddy’s fault. It was his sudden decision to marry his young PA that had made her nudge Jago into proposing in the first place. And now her place had been taken by a new baby girl for Daddy to dote on just as he’d once doted on her …

He refused to reinstate her allowance, too, saying that since she was in her forties it was time she was earning a proper living, which was another nasty shock, because she’d been totally in denial about her age for so long that she’d forgotten what it really was. So what with that and the realisation that she was never going to oust the two new contenders for her father’s affections (and wallet), she’d plunged into a bit of a panic.