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Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
The News Building
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in four e-serial parts in 2020
Copyright © Cressida McLaughlin 2020
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020.
Cover illustration © May Van Millingen
Cressida McLaughlin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008333478
Ebook Edition © 2020 ISBN: 9780008333508
Version: 2020-03-18
Dedication
To the BookCampers
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part One: All You Knead Is Love
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Part Two: Beauty and the Yeast
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Part Three: My Tart Will Go On
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Part Four: Muffin Compares To You
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Cressida McLaughlin
About the Publisher
Chapter One
Delilah Forest crested the ridge of the hill, looked down at the picture-postcard village of Porthgolow, its beach alive with colour and movement that cut through the sombreness of the grey day, and decided that fate had brought her here.
Her old Volvo made a noise that she was sure wasn’t healthy, so she lifted her foot off the brake pedal and sped up, hoping she was about to receive a welcome as warm as the pillar-box hue of her cousin Charlie’s bus.
The Cornish Cream Tea Bus. She had laughed when her mum, Tabitha, had told her about it. ‘You’ll never guess what Charlie’s gone and done, Lila,’ she’d said, one day last spring. ‘Started up some café on Hal’s old wreck of a bus. Down in Cornwall, of all places! You should go and see her,’ she had finished decisively, before sauntering off into the colourful kitchen of her North London flat.
Delilah hadn’t come down to see her then, even though she and Charlie got on. Charlie was a couple of years older than her, and – as her mum continually reminded her – wiser, and they bounced off each other well. But Delilah had been busy at the time, with her own catering career. She pushed away a flicker of regret as she drove down the hill and into the village.
Despite it being the end of February and the sky a solid wall of cloud, the beach car park was close to full. The seafront was pretty and quaint, with a bed and breakfast, convenience store with hanging baskets sporting clouds of white snowdrops and pastel-hued hyacinths, and Victorian-style streetlights. Lila wasn’t sure where Charlie lived, so she squeezed her estate car into a space in the corner of the car park, brushed her hands down her ripped jeans, and checked her reflection in the mirror.
She practised her widest, warmest smile, then sighed. The bus café had worked out, she now knew from Aunt Bonnie. Charlie was happy – successful, and in love, too, by all accounts – so would she be delighted to see her, however unannounced her visit was? Or would Lila find herself on the road back to London before the day was out?
She wondered, again, why firstly she had allowed her mum to talk her into this trip, and secondly why she had headed off without warning Charlie first. Was it because, as Lila suspected, Charlie would not welcome her with open arms, and Tabitha knew that as well as she did? But then a living, breathing cousin was harder to turn away than the thought of one.
Lila opened the car door. The wind was icy, the closeness to the sea adding an extra bite, and she shivered and dug around on the back seat for a cardigan. She found one; grey, woven through with silver thread, the holes in the wool and the wide sleeves making it more like a fishing net than a garment for warding off the cold. Still, it would add some warmth. As she tugged it on, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She felt a jolt of hope, but when she checked it was a message from her mum, asking if she’d arrived safely. She replied quickly, then shoved her phone in her handbag, alongside a packet of coffee beans that she hadn’t had the heart to remove.
Car locked, Lila turned in the direction of the beach and let her senses take everything in. Her nose instantly took the lead: the smells emanating from the trucks, vans and marquees were heady and intoxicating. She picked up spices, caramelized sugar, the richness of frying meat and, of course, the distinctive aroma of coffee. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since a limp sandwich and a latte at a service station on the M3. She licked her lips in anticipation, and climbed over the metal rail of the car park onto the sand.
She was soon lost amongst the crowd, surrounded by laughter and voices and movement. The hairs prickled on her arms and a smile tugged at her lips. She had spent far too much time in her tiny flat recently: it felt good to be among people again. She heard the roar of an engine and watched as a yellow inflatable speedboat left the jetty behind, waterproof-clad people on board, seemingly unafraid of the wind-chill factor.
‘The best burger van in Cornwall is just beyond the sushi truck,’ said a voice at her shoulder. ‘They have a Porthgolow burger, which I helped create. It’s the most delicious thing in the whole market.’
Lila turned, discovering the voice belonged to a boy who might be nudging towards his teenage years but was almost as tall as her. He had blond hair and intelligent eyes, and was giving her an unselfconscious grin.
‘Is it now?’ she said. ‘I am pretty hungry. Where’s the best place for coffee?’
‘You’ve got the coffee van,’ he replied, pointing to a minute silver Citroën van that was dwarfed by most of the other food trucks. ‘They do three different types of roast, and have twelve flavoured syrups. Or you can go on Charlie’s bus. She does great coffee, and cream teas, and has a daily cake special that always sells out. But if you go there, you can’t forget about Benji’s Burgers. He’ll never forgive me if I lose him customers.’
‘He won’t?’ Lila folded her arms over her chest. ‘That sounds pretty harsh.’
The boy rolled his eyes. ‘It’s an expression, isn’t it? I don’t mean it literally.’
‘Recently, when people have told me they’ll never forgive me, I’ve believed them,’ she confided. She turned away from him, Charlie’s bus visible above the other vehicles a couple of rows away, but the boy wasn’t finished.
‘Oh, really?’ he asked. ‘Why’s that, then? What have you done?’
‘It’s a very long and boring story, and I’m sure you don’t want to hear it.’
‘I’m Jonah.’ The boy held out his hand. ‘My mum and dad run SeaKing Safaris from the jetty.’
Surprised, Lila paused for a moment before shaking. ‘I’m Delilah, but everyone calls me Lila. You know Charlie well?’
He nodded. ‘We’re great friends. I help out on the bus sometimes, when Benji doesn’t need me.’
‘You’re in demand.’ She couldn’t help smiling. ‘Fancy taking me to see Charlie and her bus?’
‘I’m not surprised that’s where you want to go,’ Jonah said. ‘Everyone’s heard about the Cornish Cream Tea Bus. It’s the most famous bus in Cornwall! And it’s not just a café – it’s so much more than that.’
‘Excellent,’ Lila murmured. Her mum had assured her that this break would be exactly what she needed, but if she was just going to be reminded of all Charlie’s successes, putting into even sharper focus how much Lila had messed up, it wasn’t likely to be the balm she’d been led to believe. ‘Charlie and I go way back,’ she said to Jonah.
‘Oh?’ His eyebrows rose towards his hairline. ‘Come on, then.’
Lila followed him as he picked a path between food vans and people. The aromas of spice and salt wafted past on a wind that tugged at her hair, her cardigan scant protection against its icy chill.
They stopped in front of the gleaming bus, and through the window Lila saw people sitting at tables, an expensive coffee machine, huge muffins bursting with blueberries and, with a flash of red hair and even redder apron, her cousin, laughing and smiling and handing someone what looked like an old-fashioned bus ticket.
‘Are you just going to peer through the window, or are you coming in?’ Jonah said.
‘You’re very direct, for a boy.’ Lila watched him bristle at her words, and laughed. ‘I’m joking. I was having a look before I went on board, that’s all.’
‘Have you and Charlie had an argument?’ Jonah asked, his irritation replaced by curiosity. ‘In fact, you never said how you knew her. You’re not enemies, are you? I haven’t led you right to her? Is she the person who’s never going to forgive you?’ He looked horrified, as if he’d just realized he’d committed a crime against humanity.
Lila pushed her second wave of laughter back down. ‘Nope. We’re cousins. Besides, if I was looking to carry out some kind of vendetta, it’s not like she’d be hard to miss, would she? Even without you, I would have been able to track her down. The bus does have a reputation, after all.’
Jonah nodded, his expression thoughtful. ‘I can tell, Lila, that you’re going to be a bit of a handful.’
This time she couldn’t hold back her laughter. But as she followed the boy on board the double decker and waited to see Charlie’s reaction, Lila had to admit that this young man had his finger on the pulse. He wasn’t the first person who’d said that about her.
The Cornish Cream Tea Bus was beautiful, Lila had to concede as she stepped on board. Cosy but not too twee, fairy lights dancing a path round the top of the windows, the mugs and crockery all matching, the coffee machine gleaming from the kitchen area at the front of the vehicle. Charlie was deep in conversation with a couple sitting at one of the tables, and Lila could hear the excited chatter of children on the upper deck. She watched her cousin for a moment, recalling the last time she had seen her: it had been in Cheltenham, almost exactly a year ago, at Hal’s funeral. She had only met Charlie’s uncle Hal a couple of times at wider family gatherings – her mum and Charlie’s mum were sisters, and she hadn’t had much contact with Charlie’s dad’s side of the family – but she had known how close they were.
Then, Charlie had clearly been working hard to hold it together. Smiling and circulating with plates of perfect mini sandwiches and delicate cakes, greeting everyone with more warmth and graciousness than Lila could have mustered, had she been in the same situation. Their conversation then had been short and heartfelt, not like previous family gatherings where they had found a spare bottle of wine and sneaked away to a corner of whatever function room Bonnie and Tabitha had chosen, and tried to put the world to rights.
Lila felt a swell of affection for Charlie as she watched her joking and laughing and scribbling something on her jotter pad. Now, it was obvious that she was flourishing. Her pale skin was as close to tanned as it was possible to get, and her smile was wide and unaffected. Lila had thought that running a café on a bus would be hard work, but it was clear that it was exactly where her cousin needed to be.
She hovered in the doorway, suddenly nervous, and waited for Charlie to notice her.
Jonah cleared his throat. Lila batted a hand at him. ‘Shush, I don’t want to—’
‘Charlie,’ the boy said loudly, cutting over the chatter, ‘someone’s here to see you.’
Lila would have pushed Jonah back onto the sand, except that it was too late now and her introduction had been made. Charlie looked up, confusion turning to comprehension.
‘Delilah?’ she screeched. ‘Oh my God, you’re here!’ She rushed forwards and embraced her. She was several inches taller than Lila, and Lila found herself pressed into her cousin’s neck and getting a heady waft of perfume. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’
‘I wanted it to be a surprise,’ Lila said brightly. For a moment she had thought that her mum might have called ahead and smoothed things over, but that would have been too easy.
‘How long are you on holiday for? Where are you staying?’ Charlie pushed Lila away from her and looked her up and down. ‘Jonah, this is my cousin Delilah.’
‘I know,’ Jonah said casually. ‘I brought her here.’ As if he’d orchestrated the whole thing, rather than simply accosting her on the beach.
‘I could have found my own way,’ Lila said defensively. How could Charlie be friends with someone so young and precocious? The exchange had also confirmed that her mum hadn’t passed on Lila’s latest news to Bonnie, who would, in turn, have passed it to Charlie. ‘I’m not sure how long,’ she said, in answer to Charlie’s first question. ‘Mum suggested it, thought that a bit of a breather from London, a bit of sea air, would do me good. She said you’d been doing so well down here – according to Aunt B, anyway – and that I could learn a thing or two.’
Charlie nodded, her eyes narrowing, and Lila silently cursed her for being so perceptive. But now, in the middle of a crowded café bus, which Charlie was presumably supposed to be running, was not the time to spill all her secrets. ‘So you’ve nowhere booked?’ Charlie asked.
‘I thought I’d find somewhere fairly easily, seaside village in February and all that. I noticed there’s a B&B right on the seafront.’
‘You can stay with me,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ve got a spare room, and it’s only had Mum and Dad in it so far. I’d love to make more use of it.’
‘I wouldn’t be cramping your style?’ Lila thought of this gorgeous boyfriend that Charlie was supposed to have, and wondered how thin the walls were.
‘Not at all,’ Charlie said. ‘It’ll be lovely to have you here for a couple of weeks. You remember Juliette, and Lawrence?’
Lila nodded. She’d found Charlie’s best friend a bit quiet on the few occasions she’d met her, but there wasn’t anything wrong with that. She tried not to linger on Charlie’s assumption that she was only planning on staying a couple of weeks. She might well be crawling up the cliff face with boredom after one.
‘There’s so much to show you, so many people to introduce you to,’ Charlie continued, her voice rising with excitement. A bell sounded – a ‘ding, ding’, as if someone wanted to get off at the next stop – and Charlie looked around, but all the people at the downstairs tables seemed happy enough. ‘I need to nip upstairs. Jonah, have you got time to show Lila round the food market?’
‘It’s OK – I’ll have a wander by myself.’
‘I’m due to help Benji in ten minutes.’
They spoke at the same time, and Charlie laughed. ‘You’re sure?’ she said to Lila. ‘Juliette’s going to take over in a bit so I can have a break. Do you want to take Marmite with you? He’d love a walk.’
‘Marmite?’ Lila frowned, and then remembered Charlie’s puppy. She’d told her about him at Hal’s funeral, and Lila remembered thinking that she wished she’d sneaked him to it in her handbag, to cheer everyone up. Of course funerals were all about celebrating a life – he would have wanted us to wear bright colours; he would have wanted us to laugh and think only of the good times, blah blah blah – but they were always such sombre occasions, even if the guests tried to hold back their tears. All those false, thin-lipped smiles would have turned to genuine laughter if there had been a naughty, adorable puppy chasing down a few sausage rolls. Now, the puppy must be fully-grown.
Lila followed Charlie to the front of the bus, where a small, scruffy, tan and black dog sat on the driver’s seat, looking up at her quizzically, one ear folded over. Her heart melted instantly. ‘Oh my God, Charlie!’
‘Don’t let his looks deceive you, he’s a total terror. This cuteness is all for show.’ She waggled her finger and Marmite licked it. Lila laughed.
‘I would love to take him for a walk,’ she breathed, and found her arms full of warm, wriggling, soft-smelling dog. ‘Aaah, Marmite. Hello, little bruiser.’
It was Charlie’s turn to laugh. ‘He’s not much of a bruiser, compared to Jasper. But Jasper is as soft as a teddy bear and, unlike Marmite, well behaved.’
‘Jasper?’ Lila looked around, expecting another fur-baby to emerge from under the driver’s seat.
‘Jasper is Daniel’s dog,’ Charlie explained. ‘He’s a German shepherd, and I think he’s given my Yorkipoo a bit of a size complex.’
‘Ah, Daniel.’ There was no mistaking the indulgent look on Charlie’s face. Daniel was the new man. ‘I’m really looking forward to meeting him, too.’ She fluttered her heavily mascara’d lashes, and Charlie grinned.
‘You will. Very soon. That’s settled, then. Come back in half an hour and we can have a catch-up, then I’ll give you the keys to the house so you can let yourself in and get sorted.’
‘I really appreciate this, Charlie. Thank you.’ She felt an unexpected swell of emotion and swallowed the lump in her throat. She was so relieved to have a warm welcome, even if Charlie wasn’t yet in possession of all the facts. Lila wanted to hold on to it, to delay telling her about her most recent calamity.
‘Will you never learn?’ her mum had asked her, exasperation sharpening her tone. The implication being that, at twenty-six years of age, she really should be getting the hang of being a grown-up by now. Lila had wanted to tell her it wasn’t as easy as that, that it was as if the adult setting had been missing when they made her, and she couldn’t turn it on, however hard she tried.
‘You all right, Lila?’ Charlie asked, concern denting her pretty face.
‘I’m fine!’ Lila said perkily. ‘It’s so lovely to be here. I can’t wait to hear all about you and your bus, and explore the village. It’s beautiful.’
‘It’s a really special place,’ Charlie said with feeling. ‘I’m sure in a couple of days you’ll be as captivated by it as I am.’
Lila smiled and nodded back. It was far away from London, and that alone made it special.
She left Charlie on the bus and stepped back into the cold, Marmite as keen to investigate the sounds and smells around them as she was. She knew she would have to tell Charlie everything, but for now she was going to let Porthgolow and its food market distract her. Life was too short to spend time wallowing, and it wasn’t as if she could do anything about what had happened – as she’d already been told, she’d done more than enough. Lila had no option but to move on.
Chapter Two
Lila drove the gold Volvo slowly up the hill, Marmite on the front passenger seat, a vegetarian burrito on the dashboard, just out of reach of his snuffling nose. She couldn’t deny that Charlie’s food market was vibrant, with a much younger feel than she had expected. She had been imagining something old and staid, a few pensioners picking up bread and wonky homemade cakes, and a burger van where the patties were more grease than meat. But this was fresh and fun, full of all kinds of flavours and people. A few had looked at her curiously, as if visitors to the market quickly became regulars and she stood out as a newcomer, but maybe it was just that she was with Marmite who, if Charlie was an integral part of this place, must also be well known.
She checked the road-signs as she drove, looking for Coral Terrace, Charlie’s keyring tinkling in the cup holder. Their catch-up had been brief, the flow of conversation constantly interrupted as Charlie introduced Lila to the vendors, and she took the offered samples, said ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘wonderful’, as they told her about their businesses.
She had warmed immediately to Hugh, who sold his local ale close to the pub which, Lila found out, was also his. The Seven Stars looked welcoming, and she wondered if there were ever lock-ins. A proper lock-in in a traditional pub had been on her bucket list since she’d discovered the joys of beer. But her lack of conversation with Charlie was weighing on her; she hadn’t even indicated that she might want to stay longer than a fortnight, and the thought of going into her cousin’s home without laying all her cards on the table somehow seemed like a betrayal.
The houses were like rows of teeth; close together, slightly higgledy-piggledy as they followed the shape of the cliff they were built on. Charlie’s Yorkipoo yipped and pressed his front paws against the window, peering out. When she found the road she was looking for, Lila turned the car into it and parked in the first available space. Charlie had told her the parking was tight, so she wasn’t going to be picky.
She got out and pulled her zebra-print wheelie case out of the boot, put her burrito and keys in her handbag, and lifted Marmite off the passenger seat. She brought his face close to hers, and he licked her chin and buried his nose into her neck. Lila wondered whether, when she went back to London, she might get her own dog – if she could find a job that would allow her to work from home, or at least be flexible so she could look after one.
‘You’re not kidnapping Marmite, are you?’
Lila turned and found a very attractive man staring at her. Broad shoulders, dark hair, brown eyes dancing with amusement. ‘No, I … Charlie asked me to bring him with me, to her house.’