Wedding Tiers. Trisha Ashley

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СКАЧАТЬ real Libby under that sophisticated (and sometimes sarcastic) shell.

      ‘Seriously, Libs, you actually got the first flight back in order to view Blessings?’ I asked incredulously, returning the hug. ‘Not that it isn’t good to see you,’ I added hastily.

      She sat down opposite me at the big, scrubbed pine table, her forget-me-not-blue eyes open wide. ‘Of course! I told you that one day I would like to live there, you said so yourself.

      ‘Yes, when we were fifteen, and Tim Rowland-Knowles’s father let the school take our class round the house, as part of a history lesson, Libby!’

      ‘I remember—the teacher took our class photo in the garden afterwards and I had a Princess Diana haircut while you were a New Romantic. I’m not sure which one of us looked worse.’ She shuddered at the memory, but since she looked very pretty in the photo (which I still have) it must have been the thought of my outfit that did it.

      ‘Even then, I didn’t think you meant you intended living in that particular house, Libs, just one like it.’

      ‘Yes, but that was because I never thought that it would come on the market. It was my ideal. And, if I recall, you once said you were going to be a gardener, marry Ben, have two children and live in the country—but just because you never did any of that, it doesn’t mean that I can’t fulfil my dream, does it? As soon as I got your email I contacted the estate agent and then got on the next plane.’

      ‘I am a gardener, Ben and I don’t need to get married to prove our love for each other, and Neatslake is surrounded by countryside,’ I said defensively. I didn’t mention the children, which, as she knows, just never came along…

      Libby, not the most sensitive of flowers, took a minute or two to evaluate what she’d just said, and then apologised. ‘Sorry, Josie. I take it Ben is still refusing to have any investigations done to see why there are no bambini? That man has a stubborn streak a mile wide!’

      I nodded guiltily, because I’m sure Ben would have been horrified to discover that I discussed our private affairs with anyone else. He’d always been a bit jealous of my close friendship with Libs and he tended to say things about her sometimes that made me think that, despite having several weird arty friends from the wrong side of the tracks himself, some of his parents’ snobbery must have rubbed off on him. That had certainly never stopped him accepting her invitations to holiday at her flat in Pisa, or to take us out to dinner at the flagship Cazzini restaurant near Piccadilly, the first one that Joe ever opened.

      ‘But it isn’t just stubbornness,’ I explained, ‘it’s because he’s seen how traumatic the whole IVF cycle thing has been for Mary and Russell, and he doesn’t want to put me through that. Anyway, we have each other. That’s enough.’

      ‘Yes, I can imagine him saying so,’ she commented drily, ‘just like when you moved down to London to live with him when he was doing his MA at the Royal College of Art, and he suddenly started saying neither of you need the outdated trappings of marriage to show your commitment.’

      ‘Yes, that was a bit odd, when we’d talked of marrying before. We did row about it, because Granny had old-fashioned ideas about things and it would have meant so much to her if we had got married, but he wouldn’t change his mind. But then, he does suddenly get ideas in his head and simply won’t change them, no matter what—he always has done. I don’t see why he won’t agree to a few simple tests, though. I mean, it would be good to at least know which of us has the problem, wouldn’t it?’

      ‘Sometimes there is no problem,’ Libby said. ‘It just doesn’t happen. But I agree you ought to explore all the avenues before you give up on the idea.’ She changed the subject. ‘What have you done to the kitchen? It seems to have a split personality. The left-hand wall has gone all high tech, chrome and utility. And isn’t that a second fridge and sink?’

      ‘I suppose it does look a bit strange,’ I agreed, seeing it suddenly with her eyes. Most of it was just as it always had been, with jars of wine bubbling round the old stove, herbs, lavender and strings of onions and dried apple rings hanging from the wooden rack over the kitchen table, bright gingham curtains and braided rug, and crocks and pots of earthenware everywhere. But one wall had been transformed into an ultra-modern and terribly antiseptic kitchen workstation.

      ‘It’s Health and Safety. Even little home cake businesses like mine need to be checked over and meet standards. There are all sorts of rules and regulations! It’s not like the days when I knocked out a few cakes and some jam on the kitchen table and sold them at the WI Markets,’ I said regretfully. ‘Once things took off, it seemed easier to convert part of the kitchen to a sort of production line.’

      ‘So, the bride cake business is booming?’

      I nodded. ‘It really took off last year when I was asked to design a cake for the Pharamond wedding, over at Middlemoss, and there was loads of publicity. It was a bit of a challenge, what with him being a well-known chef and cookery writer and Lizzie a keen cook too. They could easily have made their own, except they couldn’t agree which of them was going to do it.’

      ‘Didn’t she write those Perseverance Cottage Chronicles that you used to love reading, all grow-your-own and recipes?’

      ‘Yes, she still does. It was her books that really inspired me and Ben to try and live as self-sufficiently as possible. The cake was quite easy, three tiers in the form of apple pies.’

      ‘Weird. Why apple pies?’

      ‘I don’t know, except that she and her husband had some long-running feud about who made the best one. The cake featured in the wedding pictures in Lancashire Life, and so did the one I did earlier this year, when Sophy Winter over at Sticklepond married her gardener. That was trickier—one big square cake with knot gardens in the corners, and a circular maze in the middle, with a bust of Shakespeare at the centre. I told you all about the discovery of a link between the family and the Bard, didn’t I? Secret documents in a hidden compartment seeming to infer that the Winters were descended from Shakespeare? It was all a bit Da Vinci code!’

      ‘I could hardly have missed the story! But it seems very unlikely to me and it’s still not proven, is it?’

      ‘No, I expect they’ll be arguing about it for years, but Sophy has built a whole business out of it. They get loads of visitors to the house and garden now.’

      ‘You know her?’

      ‘Yes, we got friendly while working out the design for the cake. She’s really nice, and so is her daughter, Lucy. Which reminds me, how is my lovely goddaughter these days? And where is she?’

      Pia, christened Philippa, is Libby’s daughter by her brief first marriage. Her second husband, Joe Cazzini, adopted the infant and doted on her, despite already having grown-up children and grandchildren of his own, but her relationship with Libby became increasingly stormy once she hit the terrible teens. Libby tended to be a bit strict with her and I expect having a young-looking, beautiful and glamorous mother around becomes a liability rather than an asset at a certain age. You could hardly have called Gloria Martin a good role model for acquiring parenting skills, either, but Libby did her best.

      ‘God knows where she is,’ she said gloomily now. ‘I text her all the time, but if I get a reply, it’s just something like, “AM OK”, which she would say anyway, whether she was or not. I thought you might know—she tells you things she doesn’t tell me, sometimes.’

      ‘No, СКАЧАТЬ