The baking courses had proved to be a huge success. The Nortonstall café had a large, well-equipped kitchen and Alys had limited the class size to six, to make sure that everyone got their full share of attention. She’d advertised them in the café from mid-November, planning to run just one a week, and they had been slow to fill up at first. But the hanging of the Christmas decorations seemed to spur everyone into thinking about Christmas and by closing time on the first of December, the classes were all full and the length of the waiting list persuaded Alys that she needed to run an additional class each week.
It was too late in the year to make Christmas cakes, but the students learnt how to make mince pies with shortcrust pastry, spiced ginger biscuits and chocolate truffles. The other customers in the café were intrigued by the laughter and the delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen and, encouraged by Dee and Sandy, inevitably ended up peering around the door then popping in to say hello to friends and neighbours who were taking the classes.
‘It was like a party in there this morning,’ Alys said, flopping into a chair in the café in a quiet moment after the lunchtime rush had died away. ‘I couldn’t get them to focus at all. It’s only mid-December and everyone’s over-excited already!’
‘We did wonder whether you were passing round the Christmas sherry,’ Dee said. ‘They sounded like they had the best time, though. And they all looked pretty happy when they came out with their boxes of goodies to take home.’
Alys had wondered whether there were enough hours in the day for her to run the classes as well as bake cakes and biscuits for the café, so she had been delighted when Dee had proved to be a more-than-able baker. With a grown-up family, she had not only accumulated plenty of experience over the years but she had time on her hands and was happy to put in the extra hours over the festive period. She shared the baking with Alys who, once she had sampled Dee’s mince pies, also got her to come in to class and run the shortcrust pastry lesson, much to the delight of everyone who knew her.
Moira couldn’t have been more pleased with the way that both businesses were going in the run-up to Christmas. ‘I can’t believe how well you’ve done,’ she said to Alys when she called in to The Cake Company Café after doing some Christmas shopping one afternoon in late December. ‘Not just to get the place open in time for Christmas but to turn it into such a popular spot already. All the regulars in Northwaite have been here at least once, you know.’
‘It’s been lovely to see them,’ Alys said. ‘And a couple have been on the courses, too.’ She sipped her tea and took a forkful of the clementine cake that Moira had brought into the café with her, a new recipe that she was thinking of introducing in the New Year. ‘Mmm. This is delicious. It’s so nice to taste something fresh and citrusy after all the Christmas flavours.’ She lowered her voice for the last few words, wary of her customers overhearing her. They were all still enjoying the cinnamon, nutmeg and spices of the season but Alys’s palate was already jaded.
‘Well, I’d better be getting back.’ Moira gathered up her shopping bags. ‘Flo will be wanting to close up and head home. I just wanted to make sure that you are still going to come to Northwaite for Christmas?’
‘You bet,’ Alys said. ‘I can’t wait.’ Christmas was a beacon of light for her, something to look forward to at the end of the following week. ‘Just as long as we don’t have to cook anything. And I can put my feet up and do nothing but eat and watch old movies for a couple of days.’
‘Tom’s going to cook,’ Moira said. ‘He says we don’t need to lift a finger.’ Tom, a delightful man of Moira’s age, had turned out to be the reason for her increasingly frequent trips to jazz evenings in Nortonstall. Leaving him to do the cooking sounded good to Alys but Moira referred to Tom in such an easy way, a smile playing on her lips as she did so, that it gave Alys a small pang. She was absolutely delighted for them both but suddenly aware of how wrapped up she had been in the business for over three months now. Every day began at six in the morning and finished at around ten in the evening, when she could no longer keep her eyes open. Baking, serving customers and dealing with paperwork seemed to fill all those hours and she couldn’t remember the last time that she had had a proper conversation with anyone, or at least one that didn’t revolve around cake in some form or another. Even so, she wouldn’t have missed a moment. It was the busiest, and most fulfilling, of times.
She waved her aunt off, then got to wondering what on earth she could buy Moira and Tom for Christmas. A couple of nice bottles of wine for Tom, maybe some cook’s ingredients, too, and a book for Moira, a nice fat novel perhaps. She should get something for Dee and Sandy, too; a great part of the café’s success was due to them, their energy and their rapport with the customers. She put a memo into her phone, knowing that she would never remember otherwise, with so much still to fit in before the holiday arrived. Her mother and father were heading abroad so a card would have to do for them, and she’d long ago given up on buying presents for her brothers. She’d send something to Hannah, of course, but thankfully there was no need to agonise over what to buy for Tim this year.
Her thoughts strayed from Tim to Rob. She’d barely seen him since Hannah’s visit in September. She wondered what he was up to and why she hadn’t seen him around. She should have asked Moira if he was still buying his coffee in the café every day. At one point, it had seemed as though there might be something between them but now that didn’t seem likely. It looked as though neither of them had felt the inclination to get in touch with the other. There hadn’t been a moment to reflect on her personal life but, now that she did so, she felt a sense of loss. She was looking forward to Christmas because it would give her the chance to take a break, but would it feel odd, lonely even, she wondered, spending it with a new and happy couple?
Any further thoughts along these lines were suspended by the arrival of the carol singers who, with thirty minutes to spare before their scheduled performance in front of the town’s Christmas tree, bundled into the café to buy hot chocolate to warm themselves up.
‘It’s too cold to stand outside and wait,’ one of them explained. ‘And the café looked so pretty, all lit up, that we had to come in.’
Alys handed round mince pies and refused to take payment for the hot chocolate, earning her a rousing recital of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ before they all headed back out into the street again. Dee, Sandy and Alys took it in turns to wrap up and step outside to listen to a carol or two around the tree. Carols were always uplifting, Alys reflected, and everyone looked so happy standing around the tree and singing. The little children especially looked enchanting, muffled up against the cold and clinging onto a parent’s hand as they listened, wide-eyed, entranced by the sparkling lights on the tree. Alys had tears in her eyes but she brushed them away as she came back into the café.
‘It’s so cold!’ she declared. ‘Do you think we’ll have a white Christmas?’
‘No, it’s too cold!’ Sandy and Dee replied at the same time, then burst out laughing.
‘I’m going to prepare the kitchen for tomorrow’s class if you want to clear up and get away a bit early,’ Alys said, surveying the empty café. ‘Everyone is listening to the carols, then my guess is, they’ll head home.’
‘They’ll be going to the pub for mulled wine,’ Dee said. ‘At any rate, that’s where I’m going. Sandy? Alys? Do you want to join me?’
Sandy shook her head, saying that she’d promised to babysit for her sister’s children and couldn’t turn up smelling of alcohol. Alys was tempted and almost agreed, then the thought of the preparation she needed to do before the next day’s class stopped her. ‘Sorry.’ She sighed. ‘Not today. But I’ll make sure we have a Christmas drink together before the big day arrives.’