The Little Wedding Shop by the Sea

Right now Sera’s on her knees, working her way around a bride in a gorgeous lace sweetheart-neckline dress with a very full skirt. And while Sera’s sorting out the final length of the exceedingly long hem and train, I’m handing her the pins, and making sure the bride doesn’t pass out by chatting to her. We’ve been going half an hour, and Sera’s nearly back to where she began when Jess appears.

‘Almost done? Not too stiff from standing, I hope?’ Jess beams at the bride, then turns to me. ‘Poppy, I’ll take over here, Immie’s come for a quick word. I sent her up to your attic.’

Knowing Immie has a soft spot for cake, I don’t hang around. I make a dash for the stairs and reach the kitchen just in time.

‘Cupcakes, my favourite.’ Immie’s leaning over the table, drooling.

‘Hands off!’ I whisk the cakes across to the work surface, counting the pastel coloured tops waiting for final decoration. I heave a sigh of relief when I see they’re still all there. ‘Put the kettle on, there’s a new chocolate mocha cake I’d love you to test.’ Hopefully this will more than make up for the disappearing cupcakes. ‘You can have some with your tea.’

‘Sounds like a deal.’ Immie squeezes behind the table, heading for the sink.

I take it this is a social call, although Immie normally prefers to socialise over beer rather than tea.

‘And while I finish icing these cakes …’ Cath Kidston themed, in blues and pinks, with polka dots, bunting and roses, in case you’re wondering. There’s a three tier wedding cake to match the cupcakes, and they’re being collected later, which is why I’m pushing on now. ‘… you can tell me what I’m going to do about Rafe.’

Immie frowns. ‘Rafe? What’s the matter with Rafe?’ Something tells me she’s faking the surprise.

‘Where shall I begin?’ I pick up my icing pipe and a cupcake, and begin to add white polka dots to the duck egg blue buttercream topping I spread earlier. ‘He hates weddings, he doesn’t smile, and he doesn’t like cake, which is the worst thing I’ve ever heard. If he’s not snapping, he’s totally disinterested.’ I’m ticking the points off on my fingers as I go. ‘He walks away when I’m talking to him. And although he objects to my crumbs on his desk, his tidy obsession doesn’t extend to the rubbish he leaves on my desk.’ I spent the whole of yesterday battling with Rafe’s towers of papers. ‘There has to be some way to bring him into line. I’ll never make it through to October if I can’t bribe him with sugar.’

I break off to get Immie’s cake. As I open the tin and cut a huge wedge, her eyes light up.

‘You’re a woman with wiles.’ She wiggles her eyebrows at me. ‘I’m sure you’ll find some other way to manage Rafe. Playing the damsel in distress in a ditch didn’t do you any harm did it? I mean it landed you the job. You’re the heroine who came out from under the hedge and saved Cate’s wedding. It almost has a Cinderella ring to it’

If that’s what she thinks, I’ll let her carry on. If I tell her saving the wedding was all down to her being intimidating, it might go to her head.

‘Count my feminine powers out of this one.’ I put a pink sugar rose in the centre of the cupcake, and move on to the next. ‘If I have to resort to persuasion with Rafe, I’ll be using savoury flans not sex. I’d rather flash a broccoli and tomato quiche than my assets any day.’

Immie chortles as she drops tea bags into the cups. ‘And cooking isn’t feminine manipulation?’ She gives a burst of her throaty laugh, watching as I arrange pea sized icing circles onto a cupcake covered in bright pink buttercream.

‘So what are you doing in town then?’ I’m concentrating on the bunting string of icing I’m piping across the next cupcake.

‘I’ve been clearing Carrie’s cottage all day. I came into town to post her the stuff she left.’

‘What?’ My icing string wiggles to an abrupt halt as my head jerks up. ‘Are you sure she wants you to do that?’

‘If I had Agent Provocateur undies, I’d want them sent on. Especially the thongs with rubies on.’

I’m impressed that Immie, with her throwaway attitude to men, even knows what Agent Provocateur is.

‘I’d have thought she left her things here so she had an excuse to come back?’ It slips out before I can stop it.

A slow smile spreads across Immie’s face. ‘And are you speaking for yourself here Pops, or for Carrie? You still haven’t picked your things up from Brett’s, have you?’

This is typical Immie. She’s always reading the subtext. As for Brett and I, we’re well and truly over, whatever she’s implying.

‘Sorry but you’re wrong there, Mrs Freud.’ I move things on. ‘Actually I wish someone would send me my stuff.’ I say that in the hope it’ll shut her up, although in reality I’m not sure I even want it any more. ‘No wonder Rafe’s grumpy though, if Carrie dumped him.’

Immie’s voice rises in surprise. ‘Carrie and Rafe were never an item, what made you think that?’

I shrug. ‘Maybe the way Rafe has smoke coming out of his ears whenever she’s mentioned?’ Although now I come to think of it, I seem to have that effect on him too.

Immie gives an eye roll. ‘Carrie was Rafe’s mum’s latest attempt at matchmaking. Carrie planned to make herself indispensable doing weddings, and grab herself some landed gentry into the bargain.’

‘Rafe is landed gentry?’ I’ve temporarily stopped picking up icing triangles for my cupcake bunting.

‘He’s not short of a few acres. That was good enough for Carrie.’

‘You don’t sound as if you like her much?’

‘I know Rafe’s a grumpy bugger.’ Immie gave a rueful grin. ‘But taking an all-round view, I reckon he deserved better.’

I’m trying to work out if this is Immie ‘seeing things as they truly are’, or if, underneath her gruffness, she’s hiding a soft spot for her boss.

‘I’m not sure which he hated most,’ she says, ‘bridal parties processing all over his best grazing fields, or Carrie with her Knightsbridge ideas and her red lipstick.’

I try to sound neutral. ‘It’s no fun having a meddling mother when you’re his age, even if she does choose you women with jewels on their knickers.’

‘His mum was only trying to help,’ Immie goes on. ‘Rafe used to live with a nice girl called Helen, but she dumped him and married his best friend.’

‘That’s tough.’ At least I got cheated on, then did the dumping, although when you’ve sunk to ranking getting left, it’s pretty sad.

‘It was years ago, she left because Rafe refused to get married. It’s time he manned up and moved on.’ Immie gives the tea bags a last vigorous dunking and pushes a mug towards me.

Given the tea is the colour of tar, I go back to my bunting instead. Picking up some triangles, I line them up along my icing line.

‘Which reminds me …’ Immie grins at me over her mug. ‘Rafe said he’ll throw in a cottage as part of your employment package.’

The shock of that makes me push my last flag into completely the wrong place. If I splodge this cupcake any more I’ll have to give it to Immie.

‘I told you he would.’ Ignoring my reaction, she takes another bite of cake. She’s enjoying a free tenancy in one of Rafe’s cottages down in the village. And she’s determined I should do the same.

I sigh, pick up two more cupcakes and pop a sugar rose on each of them. Then I go back to dots.

‘Thanks, but I really don’t want a cottage.’ Jess came to my rescue by offering me the flat above the shop when I left Brett. My attic may be little more than a cupboard, but I pick up a lot of orders by being on the spot at Brides by the Sea. What’s more, I’m finally beginning to feel settled. ‘Even if it’s bigger than here, who’d want a cottage in the middle of nowhere, tied to a temporary job?’

‘Whatever.’ Her disgusted sniff suggests she disagrees. ‘Anyway Rafe said tomorrow’s good for the grand tour.’

‘What?’ I look up blankly from the spots I’m arranging.

Immie laughs. ‘Keep up Mrs. The tour of the farm he’s supposed to give you – the wedding area, the cows, remember?’

Cows. My favourite. Not. ‘Couldn’t you show me round instead?’ It’s a plea.

She shakes her head. ‘Rafe’s adamant. He said be there for two, and wrap up warm.’

Another afternoon with the world’s most joyless farmer and I might just lose the will to live. ‘I’m not going to get out of this?’

‘No point trying.’ She laughs. ‘But the good news is this mocha cake is delicious. Is there any more?’