Frankie Pearson stood next to Brenda Jones listening to her give an account of the first few weeks of trading and how his staff had coped. He knew from his takings that things could be better and, unbeknown to Brenda, he was already thinking that the shop could run without her being there and save him money.
‘You know, Mr Pearson, if you don’t mind me saying, a lot of the customers, ordinary everyday folk are coming in and just not buying anything. Your pastries are too fancy for them and they just can’t afford the price.’ Brenda then noticed the look upon Frankie’s face and quickly added, ‘They are worth every penny but perhaps the folk of Leeds are not quite ready for them.’
‘I thank you for your comments, Mrs Jones, I too have heard a voice or two saying that my creations are a little too expensive for the common man’s pocket,’ Frankie replied. ‘However, there are plenty of other everyday bakeries that they can go to for a less specialised fare. If they have any taste buds at all they will shop here before wasting their hard-earned money on tasteless bread and days-old scones.’ Frankie knew he sounded defensive but the patisserie was his new baby and he knew with time it would grow with popularity.
‘You know, I’ve heard the bakery on York Street mentioned a lot as customers have gone out of the door,’ Brenda pointed out. ‘All the ones who don’t buy anything seem to plan to visit there after coming to us. I don’t know what it is like, I don’t tend to walk the backstreets of Leeds. I come here to work and then return by train to Harrogate. Leeds’ backstreets are not for the faint-hearted, I have heard.’ Brenda Jones looked down her nose and her facial expression made her views of the less salubrious streets of Leeds obvious to her employer even if her words hadn’t.
‘York Street…’ mused Frankie. ‘Now, that pretty slip of a girl who came in with her sister runs a bakery in York Street if I remember rightly. Her young sister told me when they came to buy a cake. In fact, she wanted to know how I made the choux pastry but I ignored the question and told her that I had work to return to. It’s perhaps as well as I did; her sister could have been serious opposition then. Like a fool, I felt sorry for her when she was looking through the window and gave her a free slice of St. Honoré cake and then she returned and bought what she did.’
‘Well, she, it seems, is your opposition,’ Brenda replied. ‘Even Norah and Marie have heard about her baking skills. I heard them talking about her the other day. Their mothers both buy from off her – you’d think that they would support you, Mr Pearson. They spend plenty of time giggling and carrying on when you brush past them with the baking,’ she added with a sardonic note in her voice.
Frankie was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘I think now I’ve finished the main baking, I’ll pay this bakery on York Street a visit. Just to see what opposition she really is.’
Brenda’s face showed her disgust at the thought of her employer walking in streets she considered filled with vermin of all kinds, human and otherwise. ‘Very well, Mr Pearson, if you think that’s wise,’ she replied. ‘I’m sure that she can never give you any problem. Your patisserie is far superior to any other bakery that I know.’
‘Perhaps that’s the problem,’ Frankie said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe we are a little too posh for a lot of people. Anyway, we will see. I’ll be back in about an hour. I am sure you will manage without me.’
Frankie stepped out onto the busy high street and made for York Street. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to do when he got to the bakery that he’d heard was booming. Perhaps he’d just watch and see what custom she really did have for a while, then perhaps enter the shop and ask to see the girl who had taken his fancy long before he knew that she could bake. He felt conflicted: he was excited at seeing the girl who he had found attractive on both their meetings, but at the same time he was worried that her business was affecting his.
There was a queue of four people outside Ted Lund’s bakery as Frankie leaned against a terraced house wall across from the shop. He watched people come and go, and all seemed to be happy as they left, after buying what they wanted and passing the time of the day with whoever was serving on behind the shop’s counter. Her clientele was definitely not as well-to-do as his, Frankie thought, just as he had expected. He saw women in shawls and clogs on their feet leave the shop, some with children at their sides, others sending their young children to shop for them. What this lass lacked in wealth she had in numbers, he thought, as he listened to the banter between neighbours and customers.
‘Are you waiting to go in? Or are you just thinking about it?’ asked an elderly woman who had just come out of the shop. Her basket was full of bread and other baking that had taken her fancy. ‘It is the best bakery for miles around at the moment. Everyone is hoping that Ted Lund never returns, else it will go back to his rubbish. Meg is such a grand lass, she works so hard. He’ll hardly be paying her anything for all the hours she’s putting in and he’ll not know what he’s got in her.’
‘I’m going to pay her a visit when the queue has died down,’ Frankie replied. ‘Do you say her name is Meg?’
‘Aye, Meg Fairfax – she’s a local lass. I’d get going; look there’s only Mrs Birbeck in the queue now and she’ll not want a lot. Go while she’s quiet,’ the old woman prompted, leaving him to disappear into one of the terraces that lined both sides of the street.
Frankie saw Meg tidying the shelves within the shop as her last shopper left. He took a deep breath, not knowing what he was exactly going to say to her now he knew just how popular she was.
He raised his hat as he entered the shop. ‘Good morning, my dear. I thought I would visit you for a change. I keep hearing about this bakery and I took it upon myself to look at it with my own eyes.’ He smiled as she turned from tidying her batch of newly baked bread and caught her breath.
Meg felt the colour rise to her cheeks both at the sight of Frankie standing on the other side of the counter and at the thought of him visiting her scruffy bakery in the backstreets.
She looked bashfully at Frankie. ‘Good morning, thank you for coming,’ she said finally. ‘I’m afraid, as I said, it is not a patch on your bakery. For a start we still have the original coal and wood ovens, not like your gas ones. And as you can see, the bakery’s setting is not exactly salubrious.’
‘You know that I have gas ovens, how so?’ Frankie asked as he looked around at the shelves stacked with scones, teacakes, sponges and bread.
‘I’m friends with Daisy Truelove,’ Meg explained. ‘Her brother John works in the planning office and he told me – only because he knew I had started to work here and it just came up in conversation.’
‘Ah, that John, yes he was impressed but I think he is impressed with anything that he thinks is progress,’ Frankie replied wryly. ‘Sometimes progress is not a good thing; sometimes the old ways are the best. For instance, just look at the baking you have done here – it looks truly delicious.
‘I think perhaps it is time I introduced myself. My name is Pearson, Frankie Pearson, and I am just as much in awe of your bakery as you are of mine. Do you do all this on your own?’
Meg felt her heart miss a beat as she replied. ‘I’m Meg, Meg Fairfax, and yes I bake all this and run the shop, just until the owner Ted Lund returns… and then I will have to see what he wants to do.’ Her eyes looked straight into his and she felt her stomach churn.
‘Everyone tells me good things about the bakery on York Street, so I thought that it was time to come and see what exactly you did. I did not put two and two together originally that it was you but when I realized, that made me all the more determined to give you a visit. I’m glad that I did now. The bakery is beautiful, the smell is wonderful, and just look at your bread – you put mine to shame.’
‘Oh no, really mine is just simple baking, yours is an art. Your pastries are delicious. If only I was half as good, I’d be happy!’
‘Well, Meg, may I take four of your scones, they look delicious,’ Frankie said. ‘I will treat my staff for their lunch, it will make a change for them.’ He saw the worry on Meg’s face as she chose the best four scones from the shelf for him to take back with him. ‘They all look wonderful, ma cherie,’ he said as she placed them in a paper bag and passed them across to him. ‘How much do I owe you?’
‘You gave me a slice of your cake so I should not charge you at all for them,’ Meg said, ‘but this is not my bakery, so I will have to ask for tuppence if you don’t mind.’
‘Honest as well as a good baker. I hope this Ted Lund knows just what he has got in you. Here take my money and don’t worry about it, my dear.’
Meg took the money and smiled and said, ‘Can I ask why you called me Ma Sherry especially now you know my name is Meg?’
Frankie gave a little laugh. ‘It is a French expression. It is part of my French upbringing, as well as my slight accent. I just automatically say it when I see a beautiful woman. It means “my dear”, and is a term of endearment – but if you do not wish for me to call you it, I won’t. From now on I’ll call you Meg, now I know your true name.’
Meg could feel her cheeks ablaze as she looked at Frankie. Had he just called her beautiful? ‘No, no, it is fine, I was just curious. I’m afraid I don’t know French, my education was limited,’ Meg said feeling stupid.
‘Not when it comes to baking though, with that I can tell you excel,’ Frankie said hastily, not wanting in any way to offend her. ‘I wonder – and please say no, if you prefer not to – would you like to visit my bakery? I can show you the new ovens and the rooms that I hope to soon be turning into tea rooms. I could also show you how to make the choux pastry that you showed an interest in, if you wish.’
Meg was silent and he hastily added, ‘I promise I’ll behave if that is what you are worrying about.’
He hunched his shoulders and waited for a reply. He knew now that his bakery and that of Ted Lund’s were like chalk and cheese with completely different cuisine. Giving Meg his recipe for choux buns would not hurt his business. Choux pastries would not sell in these backstreets. But he also knew that he could make use of Meg Fairfax if she ever left Ted Lund and besides she was a beautiful young woman that he recognized he was slightly smitten with.
‘Oh, I don’t know, your shop is always that busy,’ Meg said eventually. ‘What would your staff think?’ She tried not to let it show how much she really wanted to go, not so much to see the ovens but to see how choux pastry was made.
‘They can think what they like,’ Frankie said. ‘If it’s them you are worried about, why don’t you visit one evening when the shop is closed? Perhaps that would work better for both of us?’
‘Yes, that would be better. I nurse my mother when I am at home, she’s rather ill at the moment, but my sister will be with her of an evening.’
‘The outspoken one! Although she stuck up for you like a sister should.’ Frankie laughed again but became serious. ‘I’m sorry that your mother is ill – nothing too serious I hope?’
He saw the sadness come into Meg’s eyes.
‘I’m afraid it is. It’s the wasting sickness. I don’t think we will have her for much longer,’ Meg replied and had to take a deep breath to maintain her composure.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Then it will do you good to come and forget your worries for an evening. How about Saturday evening? All my staff go home early and it will be Sunday the following morning, a day for us both to relax.’ As he waited for her reply, Frankie thought how beautiful Meg was despite her worn-out clothes and the tatty surroundings of the unloved bakery.
Meg looked bashful. ‘I don’t know, we would be alone… but I would like to.’
‘I promise I will be the perfect gentleman. I will leave the door open so you may leave at any time,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Besides, it would not do my reputation any good at all if I were to do anything. You could soon ruin my business if word got round that I behaved like that. Do come, I want to share my dreams with someone who understands the love of baking.’
It was that which made up Meg’s mind. ‘Then I’ll come. What time?’ Meg asked as he turned to the door. Customers were waiting outside to be served but no one had wanted to interrupt Meg and this fancy-looking gentleman.
‘Six o’clock, Meg, I’ll be waiting,’ Frankie said as he walked out of the door.
Meg’s next customer had a grin on her face as she entered. ‘Oh Meg, have you gone and got yourself a fella? He sounds foreign to me. You can’t trust foreigners, you know, I’d be careful.’
‘I think I can trust this one, Mrs Bailey, he seems a good man,’ Meg said, unable to contain her excitement about her meeting on Saturday evening.
‘Aye well, they all seem to be good men, until you marry ’em and then you find out what they are really like,’ Mrs Bailey said dourly, but Meg just smiled and passed her the bread she always asked for.