When she returned her grabber to Barbara, glassy-eyed and exhausted by Simon’s pontificating– not to mention his awkward attempts at flirtation– she’d caught Sam looking at her. Smirking, he’d flicked his eyes towards her companion and chuckled as he dropped two bags of rubbish into the back of Dave’s truck, which would shortly be headed to the tip. Somewhere beneath the drone of the postman’s lecture on the Battle of Stalingrad, Amy had heard the angry rush of blood beating against her eardrums.
She hadn’t seen Sam since, but she’d continued nursing her annoyance anyway. No doubt he’d turn up at the bake sale this morning to continue his ‘I’m just a regular guy’ routine, Amy thought, as she hefted a folding trestle table into position and swathed it in one of the brightly coloured gingham cloths Barbara had provided.
The table was one of eight, now arranged in lines on either side of Old Rowton high street. The cobbles beneath them made for a lack of stability that necessitated much padding of the haphazard gaps between the ground and the ends of their flimsy metal legs.
In spite of her grandmother’s encouragement, Amy hadn’t bothered trying to make anything for the event. ‘It would be daylight robbery to make anyone pay for anythingIcook,’ she had insisted, ‘even in the name of a good cause.’
Grace, on the other hand, had managed to produce two batches of oat and raisin cookies, a gigantic tray of white chocolate blondies and a Victoria sponge– aided and abetted by Amy, who was chiefly responsible for several periods of intense whisking, bending to put in and remove things from the oven and three huge piles of washing-up.
Amy set out her wares on several of her grandmother’s oldest china serving plates– pretty but worn platters that she’d deliberately mismatched for a worn-in, vintage look. She arranged some soft pink peonies in old glassware, too– beautiful blooms cut just this morning from a massive plant in Grace’s back garden. Amy placed them alongside the baked goods as a final finishing touch, then stood back to admire her stall.
In a departure from her usual ‘cocktail parties and avocado toast’ content, she even snapped a picture and uploaded it to Instagram with the caption:Saturday fun where I come from. Before posting, and even though she knew it was mawkish, she added a heart emoji– as if to confirm to anyone who might come across the image that her pleasure in dressing the table was sincere. Somewhat to Amy’s own surprise, it had been.
A moment later, she felt a presence behind her and immediately knew that the shadow falling across hers belonged to Sam.
‘All your own work?’ he asked.
Amy snorted and turned to face him. ‘Only the styling. I’ve never made a cake or a biscuit in my life.’
Sam was standing next to Meg. The little girl from the litter pick was with them again, dressed in dungaree shorts and a rainbow-striped T-shirt. There were large square plasters on both her knees, and they’d become slightly grubby at the edges– as if to indicate that no amount of cuts or scrapes could stop her from pursuing her next adventure. The sight made Amy smile and catch her eye.
The girl smiled back brightly, and Amy noticed she had dimples in exactly the same position as Sam’s. Shemustbe related to the Ainsworths, somehow … Then it hit Amy that she was being incredibly,unforgivablystupid.
Could it be that this girl was Sam’s child? She looked more than enough like him for that to be a very real possibility. What’s more, the presence of a daughter would certainly explain why he wasn’t tearing up the streets of Chelsea every night or playing the venture capital game in Silicon Valley. But if he was a father, who was the little girl’s mother? And was he married? Divorced? Still romantically involved with whoever he’d cared for enough to procreate with?
The questions buzzed around in Amy’s brain. She felt a throb of some awful feeling that seemed part anger, part agony as she turned her gaze on Sam, searching for clues that he might have what Hugh would call a ‘significant other’. She cringed inwardly at the clumsiness of the phrase, as well as her interest in the private life of a man she didn’t evenlike. There was no ring on Sam’s left hand.
He was holding a stack of three cake boxes– the professional-looking kind with shallow trays and tall, clear plastic lids you could see through. He caught Amy’s eyes as they lingered on his grip on the top box, which contained twenty-four home-made Viennese whirls.
‘Before you say anything, Amy, no Rowton Hall staff were involved in the production of these tasty treats. It’s all our own work. Mostly Meg’s.’
‘I— Er. I didn’t imply otherwise,’ Amy stuttered, grateful for this opportunity to pass off her gawking as standard-issue snark.
‘I could hear you thinking it.’
‘Rubbish.’
In truth, she had been halfway to forming some witty quip that would have suggested a professional hand in their efforts– at the very least in the biscuit piping, which appeared flawless. However, she thought it best to maintain a wounded silence now.
Meg took the little girl by the hand and they hurried over, taking the cake boxes with them. Barbara was waving at them to set up on a vacant table, on the opposite side of the street a few metres away. ‘Good luck with the sale,’ Sam said as he made to go after his sister.
‘Luck?’ Amy asked, wrinkling her nose. ‘It’s selling goodies for the WI, not climbing Everest.’
‘Has nobody mentioned there’s a competitive element to all this?’ Sam asked, his eyes all innocence but a wicked smile threatening to take over his face from the bottom up.
‘Since when?’ Amy huffed.
‘Since always.’
‘Gran and Barbara didn’t say anything.’
‘They probably forgot. It’s one of those things everyone here just knows: whoever raises the most from their bake sale stall wins dinner for two at the Oak– donated by Jed, of course, rather than paid for out of the day’s profits.’
Amy emitted a noise that was supposed to be dismissive, but instead made her sound as though she was experiencing breathing difficulties. ‘I can live without a free dinner,’ she said, rolling her eyes at him. ‘And surelyYour Lordshiphas the usual five-course meal awaiting him this evening. Why would you need pub grub?’
‘I think we both know thatneedingthe dinner’s not the point,’ Sam said confidentially. ‘It’s the winning that counts. Or at least, it always used to be.’ He grinned meaningfully, showing off his mouthful of annoyingly straight white teeth, and Amy fought the urge to punch him.
Back at college, she’d made beating him in exams and routine tests her focus in English lessons– an obsession she hadn’t bothered to keep secret. Even though they were consistently on course to achieve the same overall grade, she’d wanted to know that Sam’s twelve years of expensive private education hadn’t made him better than her at reading books or writing essays. She had also wantedhimto know that.
