CHAPTER ELEVEN
Barker’s Dozen
The sun snuck out from behind a bank of slow meandering clouds.
Rachel hugged herself as clomps of fresh goosebumps sprouted along her bare arms. The scant rays of sunlight cast brooding shadows across the lake and the boat that cut a swathe through its placid waters.
With a lump in her throat, she waved back at Suzy and the lone figure standing amongst the ponies and whispered, ‘See you soon, George.’
Serendipity squeaked pitifully at Suzy as the boat steamed onwards towards the horizon. Heavy footsteps drew nearer, which spooked the squirrel, so it scampered away and vanished into the thick undergrowth.
Lorraine sighed and stood impatiently beside Rachel. ‘C’mon, let’s get going. I promised your father we would meet him straight after work – and it’s now almost five o’clock,’ she urged. ‘It’s been some time, but I think I can remember the shortcut to the bakery.’
✽✽✽
Rachel brushed the brambles aside and breathed a sigh of relief as they left the thicket far behind. Apart from a couple of ladders down her black tights, her mother appeared relatively unscathed after their longwinded trek through the prickly undergrowth.
Rachel, however, hadn’t been so fortunate: her mother peered down at her dishevelled state and couldn’t help but smirk as she delved into her handbag and brought out a hairbrush. Brushing the tangles out of her hair, she followed her mother through a pleasant sunlit glen.
By the time they had reached the first signs of civilisation, her blunt hairstyle was, for the most part, free from foliage and creepy-crawlies.
They climbed over a wobbly stile, and as they cut across a couple of fallow fields of churned earth and wiggling worms, they heard rumbling of traffic nearby and saw the plumes of smoke on the horizon.
They stood by the kerbside, searching for somewhere safe to cross, but they couldn’t see much of anything through the persistent peasouper of smelly smoke that swirled all around them.
‘We’ll just have to cross here,’ said Lorraine exasperatedly.
Rachel kept close to her mother as they stepped off the kerb and into the foggy road. Much to her surprise, her mother played chicken with surprising agility as they dodged car after speeding car.
On a whim, the wind suddenly changed direction.
Peering through the dispersing shroud of choking smoke, Rachel recognised her father’s place of work: the massive bakery dominated the horizon. Its glory days well past its sell-by-date, Barker’s Bakery stood crumbling before her. Jutting out of the bakery’s buckling roof, thirteen scorched red-bricked chimneys belched out a torrent of acrid smoke.
The bakery looks condemned, thought Rachel darkly, as huge chunks of concrete had fallen off the walls; and in amongst the scraggy cracks, moss and lichen had etched a home deep within the exposed brickwork.
Suspended above the bakery’s front entrance, a vast glowing cupcake hadn’t rocked at all because its gimbals had long since worn away.
The company logo fizzled. As the gaudy neon cupcake burst back and forth into life, Rachel felt slightly out of sorts, as she couldn’t take her eyes off the mesmerising light show as it led a merry dance.
Lorraine appeared ill at ease and checked the time on her wristwatch. ‘We’re running late,’ she snapped, bringing her daughter out of her daze.
‘Make way – coming through, coming through!’ commanded a voice that wouldn’t take no for an answer – unless you wanted to eat dirt.
Rachel and Lorraine leapt back into the gutter in shock.
Humming a little ditty, the ponytailed cyclist sped along the footpath at great speed. Whisked away by a brief gust of wind, the stench of pungent aftershave departed along with the madcap cyclist.
Oblivious to the startled pedestrians diving for cover, the cyclist’s speedy journey finally came to a shuddering halt; he ripped his crash helmet off his perspiring head and dismounted in double-quick time.
He wasted no time chaining his cycle to the fence and vanished into the bakery (ignoring the outraged dog owner whose pink poodle had been scared half out of its wits, as he had accidentally run over its paw).
Now in a seething foul mood, Rachel climbed out of the gutter, shook the sludge off her shoes and followed her mother down the garden path…
Right outside the bakery’s front entrance, an enormous crowd had gathered. You could have heard a pin drop, but all of a sudden, the crowd craned their necks towards the reception’s revolving door.
A brown briefcase catapulted out from the door, jettisoning a fluffy-ended pink unicorn pencil, a few pens, a sharpener and a battered brass fob watch. The briefcase landed hard, spilling the rest of its contents onto the weathered pavement. Ten cardboard boxes followed, and the baying crowd cheered as every one of them landed in the company’s shrubbery.
A breathless shout sounded out – wheezing like a punctured bellow.
Rachel couldn’t believe her eyes: her father’s squished face appeared behind the revolving door’s sweat-smeared glass.
Paul splayed his hands, determined he wasn’t leaving the company premises by brute force – or any other means!
Behind him, a skinny security guard shouted, ‘NOW, MR COOK, BE REASONABLE – YOU’VE HAD YOUR MARCHING ORDERS.’
‘GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME – YOU OAF!’ Paul shrieked, his mauve face turning a nasty shade of plum purple.
To Rachel’s right, and with some difficulty, a wheezing uniformed man squeezed through the emergency exit: the lardy security guard lumbered over towards the fracas but hurried footsteps, and a strangled yell made him stop and look at the head of the mushrooming crowd.
Swaggering to the front of the onlookers, a lanky woman came to a stop and waddling right behind her, a heavyset woman elbowed the slowcoaches who weren’t quick enough to get out of her way.
‘GO GET HIM, TIGER,’ the lanky woman shouted out of the crowd.
‘SHOW HIM WHO’S BOSS, LOVE,’ the heavyset woman bellowed with oodles of encouragement, blowing a romantic kiss at the lardy guard who blushed profusely as another blubbery kiss came his way.
Egged on by the woman’s enthusiastic praise and the swelling crowd, the lardy security guard rolled up his white sleeves and grubby cuffs and joined his exhausted colleague who appeared pegged out by the exertion.
Lorraine strode towards the reception’s door. ‘WHAT ON EARTH’S GOING ON?’ she demanded, glaring down at them through the slight gap. ‘Take your grubby hands off my husband,’ she added threateningly.
The security guards rebuffed her and smirked openly.
Rachel joined her mother. By the bakery entrance, her father ranted and raved. He was putting up a brave fight as the security guards tried to bundle him out of the door. ‘I have rights, you know – I’ll have you all up in court – you see if I don’t. Now, touch a hair on my head and I’ll –’ Paul began, but he fell silent and said no more.
The security guards sniggered.
Paul’s chubby fingers refused to let go of the doorframe. His baldpate glistened with dripping sweat as his nostrils snorted and flared even more. He mumbled something incoherent, but the sopping wet toupee in his mouth made it quite impossible for him to make any sense.
Lorraine’s eyes blazed with seething rage. Scowling at the security guards, she managed to whip her husband’s hairpiece out of his mouth.
Paul looked like a fish out of the water as he gasped for fresh air. ‘It’s – it’s all b-been a terrible m-mixup, my dear,’ he spluttered, spitting the remaining false hairs out of his mouth.
‘I’ll handle this, Paul,’ Lorraine snapped, wedging herself in the door.
Like a scolded puppy, Paul seemed crestfallen at her sudden outburst.
‘Look, Miss – it’s got nuffink to do wit you,’ puffed the lardy security guard, choking his quarry with an overzealous headlock as his skinny colleague took a well-deserved break slouching on an old rickety bench.
‘It’s Mrs,’ retorted Lorraine scathingly.
‘Yeah, lady – mind yer own business and let us do our jobs,’ added the skinny security guard with unexpected bravado. ‘We’re the best, you see – trained professionals – top of our trade – the crème de la crème.’
Lorraine shoved the revolving door and stepped right through it.
The lardy security guard spun like a wooden top and careered into his skinny colleague. Paul tried to make a break for it, but the skinny security guard tripped him up, and the lardy security guard fell on top him –
The security guards squealed like pigs!
With an earlobe in each thumb and forefinger, Lorraine twisted the security guards’ ears, hissing menacingly into their lugholes, saying, ‘I said – take your grubby hands off my husband.’
The security guards’ agony intensified.
Moments later, Paul dropped unceremoniously onto the floor. He tried to get up and back onto his feet, but he hadn’t realised that one of his legs had gone to sleep, and he flopped about like a dizzy ragdoll.
The security guards cowered and licked their wounds.
Lorraine eased Paul onto his good leg and helped him through the revolving door. Rachel rushed to her father’s side, and they held him up until his drowsy leg had woken up.
‘I’m all right now,’ he told them gratefully. ‘I just need to move about a bit – that’s all,’ he added firmly, but he let out a cry of alarm as he slipped on a discarded egg and cress sandwich and spun on the spot until he fell into the flossy flowerbeds, scattering the donsy of garden gnomes.
The crowd went wild and roared with laughter.
Rachel and Lorraine pulled him off the ground, dragged him through a bed of pretty pansies and set him down on the nearest park bench.
They had barely sat Paul down when the revolving door spun, and a man stepped out. The crowd’s clamorous cheering died down, and they shuffled nervously on their feet with their heads held down.
With the air of superiority, the middle-aged man adjusted his garish tie and glared contemptibly at the security guards who lurked nearby.
Rachel’s eyes narrowed to slits: she recognised the madcap cyclist from his snowy grey ponytail and scrawny face.
‘Well, are you two on your tea break?’ he asked the security guards scathingly. They looked blankly at one another and shook their heads. ‘Good – then I suggest you escort Mr Cook from the company premises.’
‘Yes, Mr Lovejoy – right away –’ the skinny security guard began, but he let out a whimpering noise and hid behind his colossal colleague as Lorraine bolted off the bench with a thunderous look on her face.
With a few swift strides, Lorraine had come within an inch of Mr Lovejoy’s immaculate shoes. He eyed her with mild indifference (almost amusement) and caressed his starch-white goatee beard.
‘What’s my husband doing out here with his belongings?’ spat Lorraine venomously, the scent from his aftershave forcing her to step back a bit.
With a supercilious smile, Mr Lovejoy clasped his hands behind his back and wriggled his caterpillar eyebrows as he thought about his reply.
‘Well?’ Lorraine snapped.
‘Mr Cook has been dismissed from the bakery,’ he said at last. ‘Your husband was caught red-handed stealing property from the company.’
‘I DID NO SUCH THING!’ Paul roared from the bench.
‘I have an eyewitness,’ Mr Lovejoy informed him, and his well-manicured fingers beckoned to someone in the crowd. The crowd parted, and a young boy stepped forward. The pencil-thin teenager mooched towards them. ‘Ah, Mrs Cook, I do believe you’ve met my son, Colin?’
Lorraine glared at the boy. ‘Yes, I’ve had that misfortune,’ she replied sarcastically, studying his son’s acne-ridden face and stupid wide grin.
‘My son saw the theft taking place –’ Mr Lovejoy began.
‘– LIAR – LIAR!’ Paul protested, rubbing his legs as he struggled to get up off the bench, but his balance hadn’t quite returned. ‘I CAUGHT YOUR SON STEALING FROM THE –’
‘How dare you imply my son’s a thief,’ a woman’s disgruntled voice called out in anger. A short dumpy woman pushed her way out of the crowd and joined Colin, who smirked back at his mollycoddling mother.
Rachel and Lorraine stared daggers at the bespectacled woman.
‘My son wouldn’t dream of stealing anything,’ she added angelically, her glassy bulbous eyes misting up at the mere thought her son was a thief – petty or otherwise.
Colin’s acne blushed.
‘Too right, my petal,’ added Mr Lovejoy with pride. ‘Colin’s a credit to his family,’ he added parentally, placing his arm around the boy’s scrawny shoulder. ‘And as there’s a new opening in the company – I’d like to make an important announcement.’
With all his strength he could muster, Paul leapt off the bench and hobbled over towards Mr Lovejoy, spouting, ‘Let me at him – let me at him,’ but he held back because Lorraine had given him one of her looks.
‘I’ll take care of him,’ Rachel mouthed to her mother, helping her father back towards the bench, not once taking her eyes off Mr Lovejoy, who had just cleared his leathery-skinned throat and wiped his hooked nose with an immaculate starched handkerchief.
My Lovejoy addressed the hushed crowd: ‘The road has been long and hard. We’ve had our ups and downs – but I would like to thank all of you for the tireless effort you’ve put into this company. Remember, Barker’s Bakery wouldn’t be here today if it weren't for you – my loyal staff.
Regrettably, a once valued member of staff has let us all down. I bear no malice towards that individual and wish him the best of luck for the future. They say, “When one door closes, another door opens” and how true those words are today. Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to someone who is very dear to me. Would you please give him a very warm welcome and show your appreciation for Mr Colin Lovejoy, your newly appointed Bun and Pastry Manager.’
The crowd erupted with tumultuous applaud; they rushed forward and patted the spotty smug-faced boy on the back, and one of them yelled, ‘Congratulations, Colin – well deserved – the best man for the job.’
Rachel scowled, seethed and simmered in silence.
Paul lurched forward and tottered slowly over towards Lorraine, who glowered at Mr Lovejoy and the toady crowd. He wrapped his arm around her waist and said stiffly, ‘I’ll get another job – you’ll see.’
Rachel joined her parents.
With a weak smile, Lorraine placed Paul’s rumpled toupee back on top of his head. The rambunctious crowd whooped as they hoisted Colin Lovejoy aloft and sang, ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow…’
Heavy footsteps clomped down the pavement and knuckles cracked.
Paul gulped and squeezed Lorraine’s waist even tighter, as the gruff security guards had gained more than an ounce of courage and marched purposely towards him with grim determination and very sore ears.