Katie Fforde - Wedding Season

He probably wasn't avoiding her. It could just be that they were never home at the same time. He went off to work with Brodie early in the morning, and in the evenings Bron was often out doing hair. Word was getting around that she was available for after-hours hairdressing and she was really busy. She was enjoying it too, she reflected. Had she known how much freelance work she could get, she would have left the salon ages ago, if she hadn't been so under Roger's controlling thumb.

But this evening she had arranged to be free. She would be ready to shoot out of her house the moment he arrived home, be it on his bicycle or in the car. She really did need his help. She would lure him into her house with cold lager or hot tea, depending on the weather, and ask about tools. He was bound to have some, or at least access to them. She heard his car pull up and almost fell over herself getting down the stairs and out of the front door.

‘James!' she called.

He turned suddenly. 'Bron! Are you all right?’

Bron realised her call must have sounded a bit panic-stricken. Why had her usual social skills deserted her? She didn't want him to think she was desperate or had designs on him – well, not really. 'I'm fine, but I did want to ask you a favour. Would you like to come in and have a drink or something? Tea? Lager? Elderflower pressé?'

‘Cool. I'll just go in and shower. After all that rain the garden has gone mad and I'm stinking.’

James arrived on her doorstep smelling of shower gel. His hair, which she still longed to trim, was damp.

‘Lager?' she asked. 'It's after six and you've had a long day.'

‘Yes please.' He grinned and took the can. 'I don't need a glass.'

‘Shall we go and sit outside? Now the weather's cleared up it's nice to make the most of the garden.' Bron picked up a bowl of crisps she had ready and brought her elderflower drink with her.

An old bench near a rickety table had been set at the end of the garden, designed to catch the last of the sunshine. Bron set down the crisps and her drink.

‘I'm just going inside to get something.' She came back with a large lined pad on which she had made her plans. 'It's this cake. I think I mentioned it to you. Now I've got to actually make the wretched thing.'

‘Wretched?'

‘Well, not really. I'm just not convinced I can make it work. I need a really strong pole stuck into a base that won't fall over, whatever happens.'

‘It's a topiary tree, isn't it? So a flower pot filled with concrete with the pole stuck in it would work.'

‘Where would I get a steel pole? Or would wood be strong enough?’

James considered. 'I think steel would be best really. Pity, because wooden mop stick is easy to get hold of. But it should be possible to get a steel pole too. Would a length of scaffold be too thick?’

Bron considered. 'Maybe not, as long as the cake on top was big enough so it looked in proportion. And scaffold would be hollow, easier to stick things into it.'

‘Show me the design again.' James took the pad and examined her drawings in silence for a while. 'So you need metal discs to support the cake. Where will you get those?'

‘Well, if I was using a broomstick, I could buy loose bottom quiche tins. You can get them in most sizes. But I'm not sure they'd come in a big enough size to look right with a length of scaffold.' She wrinkled her nose. 'It's not easy being an artist in cake. Hair is much easier.’

He laughed. 'Don't worry. There must be a solution; we just have to find it. How many discs do you think you'll need?'

‘I think about six should do it. I suppose if we used metal I could make a fruit cake, which could be useful.'

‘I haven't heard cake being described as useful before, but I suppose there's a first time for everything.’

Bron inclined her head. 'A fruit cake on a camping trip is very useful indeed, but in this instance it means I could start baking now. Fruit would be much more expensive, of course, but I don't suppose Carrie would care.' She frowned again. 'At least I don't have to make Lily's cake as well.'

‘Lily? Who's Lily?'

‘Oh, Sarah's mad younger sister. She's great fun but a bit scatty and she wants to have a very traditional wedding costing half nothing. My friend Elsa is adapting a wedding dress from a charity shop for her; I've found some caterers who'll do the food for cost and the church flowers are being done by the previous wedding. Her aunt is making the cake. Sarah's having to be really ingenious to get it all sorted.'

‘No wonder,' he said, with one eyebrow raised.

Bron laughed. 'Sarah would probably like it if Carrie had a fruit cake then we could bulk-buy ingredients. Maybe we could still do that. I could give the fruit and stuff to Sarah so that their Auntie Dot or whoever it is can make it. What do you think?’

He allowed these details to go straight over his head without consideration. 'I have no idea.’

Bron sighed, aware she was asking his opinion just because he was a man. It was a bad habit she'd picked up from being with Roger and she must break it!

‘So,' James went on, 'tell me how you get the cake -whichever kind you decide on – on to the discs and the pole?'

‘I'll cut each section of cake in half and fit it round the pole, on top of discs. Then, when I've got a rough sphere I'll ice it so it's completely spherical.'

‘You'll need lots of cake. And icing.'

‘Definitely, and I thought, as it's for Carrie, a little crystal in the centre of each flower. Look.' She drew his attention to the drawing of the four-petal flowers that were going to cover the sphere. 'Very bling, don't you think?'

‘Won't they crack people's teeth?' said James.

Bron laughed. 'No! Only the inside of the cake will be served.'

‘In which case – very bling indeed.'

‘So, being a gardener,' she said, 'could you find me a nice concrete pot? I'd paint it to make it look old if I had time, but I really don't think I have.'

‘What's going to happen to it afterwards?’

Bron shrugged. 'I don't know. I'm going to do a series of polystyrene ones as well.'

‘Why on earth would you make polystyrene cakes? This woman's not on some weird diet, is she?'

‘No!' Bron laughed. 'It's because we want two rows of them, leading up to the larger, real cake. Apparently the venue has got the ideal place for it, and it'll look really fab. I couldn't possibly make nine cakes and they wouldn't all get eaten.'

‘I see.'

‘Although there will be lots of extra cake. This one's for show, really.'

‘So how many people are coming to the wedding?'

‘I'm not sure. I don't think even Sarah knows. Carrie keeps changing her mind. I'm making the big cake for fifty, and enough cake for another hundred. It's all very last minute for such a big wedding.' She realised she shouldn't have mentioned Carrie's name as it was still supposed to be confidential, but then she realised that James didn't read Celeb, so probably wouldn't have recognised the name even if she'd said it in full. 'You don't know any blacksmiths, do you?'

‘No, but I know a half-decent welder. He'd fix the discs to the pole for you.’

Bron had to stop herself clapping her hands like an overexcited schoolgirl. 'Brilliant! Who's that?'

‘Me. I was at art college before I did IT, before I became a gardener. Believe it or not, we did welding.’

Bron marvelled again at how different James was to Roger. Roger might have wanted to be in charge all the time but he wasn't the most practical or helpful of men.

‘Oh, that would be marvellous! Can you find the bits?'

‘You mean the pole and the discs? I could get some made out of sheet metal if you give me the dimensions.'

‘That's fantastic!'