Wish Upon a Star. Trisha Ashley

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       Chapter 8: The Happy Macaroon

      On Thursday morning it was Stella’s first check-up at Ormskirk Hospital and although she is amazingly stoical about these things, I could gauge how stressed she was by the rate of the thumb-sucking.

      But actually, when we got there it was not too bad. She was seen very quickly by a friendly consultant who was already up to speed on her condition and the projected operation in America.

      She was quite pleased with Stella, but said she’d like to see her gain more weight – and so would I, though of course not too much, since that would also add strain to her heart and other organs … it’s a fine balance.

      Afterwards, since Thursday was a market day, I drove into town and parked, so we could have a walk around. It was an ancient market and very good, though the part selling fruit, eggs, cheese and foodstuffs had vanished a few years back, which was a pity.

      Ormskirk now had a huge and increasing student population, since the university on the edge seemed to be expanding like a mushroom every night, but it did give the place a new buzz.

      I knew Stella was tired, but she still insisted on getting out of her buggy as soon as we’d got to the top of the hill from the car park. Ma had given her some money to buy a treat with, which I suspect was going to become a habit, and she’d also asked us to get her a new tube of yellow ochre oil paint from the art shop up a side street, so we went and did that first. Stella spent most of her money in there on a new watercolour paint box and a Hello Kitty pencil case, which reminded her of the mummy cat from one of her toy families.

      After that we had a look in the bookshop and I was pleased to see they had both my cookbooks, though I didn’t tell them who I was since, as usual, I looked like a bagwoman down on her luck and I didn’t think they’d believe me. Then Stella climbed back into her buggy and we went to find the macaroon shop.

      It was called the Happy Macaroon, according to the smart deep red and gold signboard and about fifteen different colours of macaroons were on display in the window, laid out in trays like so many rows of giant gaming counters. It looked upmarket and expensive, like a smart London shop in one of the arcades where I’d occasionally pressed my nose to the glass and stared at the culinary perfection within. I did much the same now: if Ma hadn’t already told me about the place, I’d have thought I was imagining it.

      On one side of the window was a large cone with pink and white macaroons stuck all over it, the sort of thing I’ve seen before at parties. On the other, to my amazement, was a tall pyramid of caramel-dipped choux buns, the wonderful French wedding cake called the croquembouche or pièce montée. Of course, like the macaroon pyramid, it was a model, but they were both very realistic.

      ‘Cakes,’ Stella said, admiring the macaroons.

      ‘They’re special macaroon biscuits really, darling, like the ones I made the other day.’

      ‘I didn’t like those,’ she said, my own little food critic. ‘These look prettier.’

      She had a point: the colours were certainly a lot brighter. ‘See that big pyramid of buns?’ I said, pointing to the croquembouche. ‘It’s a French wedding cake.’

      ‘And there are gingerbread piggies.’

      ‘No, I don’t think there are—’ I began, then broke off, following the line of her pointing finger, and found she was quite right, there was a tray of gingerbread pigs at one side of the window, with raisin eyes and curly iced tails.

      Then something made me look up and my eyes met and locked with those of a man standing behind the window display. My first thought was that he looked like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, since he had the same angular sort of face and he’d tied a black scarf pirate-style over his hair, presumably instead of one of those little white hats bakers usually wear. The second thought was that his eyes were of a very unusual soft, light caramel brown, fringed with long black lashes … and impossible to remove my gaze from …

      Then suddenly we both smiled simultaneously and the trance was broken.

      Stella had clambered out of her pushchair and now tugged at my hand and asked if she could have a gingerbread pig and when I looked up again a moment later, he’d vanished.

      ‘Of course you can, darling,’ I told her, so pleased she’d shown an interest in something to eat that I would happily have bought her a hundred gingerbread pigs … and anyway, I wanted to ask the pirate baker a few questions to add to my ‘Cake Diaries’ article.

      He was standing behind the counter as if waiting for us, his smile warm. ‘Hello,’ he said, his voice as caramel as his eyes. ‘Has our window display lured you in?’

      ‘We were admiring the croquembouche,’ I told him. ‘Or at least, I was. I’m afraid Stella only had eyes for the gingerbread pigs.’

      ‘Piggies with raisin eyes and curly-wurly tails,’ agreed Stella.

      ‘It’s not everyone who recognises a croquembouche; they’re still a bit of a novelty, especially up here,’ the man said.

      ‘I’m a cookery writer, specialising in cake – I have a page in Sweet Home magazine and a Sunday supplement,’ I explained. ‘I love cake.’

      ‘Mummy made me a pink princess cake for my birthday,’ Stella piped up.

      Jago’s interpretation of this as some kind of Barbie princess cake was written clear across his expressive face, but instantly dispelled when I said, ‘It was a Swedish prinsesstårta – you know, those domed sponge and confectioner’s cream cakes, with a marzipan covering? It’s my party piece.’

      ‘Wow! Now it’s my turn to be impressed.’

      ‘Oh, I’m sure they’re nowhere near as fiddly as the croquembouche, just time-consuming. Yours needs real skill, not only to make the choux buns, but to put it all together.’

      As I spoke to him I was increasingly sure that we’d met before, for there was something very familiar about him. He was in his mid-thirties like me, I guessed, with a light olive skin and treacle-dark hair showing under the black bandanna.

      ‘We’ve СКАЧАТЬ