DESSERT
32
Christa helped tie the last of the Christmas ribbon on the fudge packets in Petey’s kitchen. She had been wrapping and cooking all morning but they were happy with the amount they had produced.
‘It will be a bumper market for us,’ said Petey happily. ‘I haven’t had this much to sell in a long time.’
‘And I can’t wait to sell it all for you. Peggy said the last market before Christmas is always so busy.’
Peggy had called in to see them after Christa had texted stating she wouldn’t be at Pudding Hall. Peggy arrived early, before she went to work, to find them already up. Christa had barely slept, and Petey regularly rose with the first birdsong.
‘What do you mean you left?’ Peggy had said.
‘I can’t stay there with Simon,’ Christa replied then started to cry and Peggy tutted at her.
‘That mother of those boys has a thing or to work out,’ she said. ‘You can’t put a man before your children, I will tell you that much.’
Christa had cried again at the thought of the twins.
‘I think maybe I am overreacting. I mean, Marc and I weren’t really anything. We sort of liked each other but I am probably reading too much into it,’ she had told them, but mostly she told herself. ‘It’s probably a rebound crush, the first one you get with a new person when your relationship ends.’
Christa had noticed the glance between Petey and Peggy.
‘I don’t think it’s anything like that,’ Peggy had said. ‘I think there’s something there but it will be you two who have to work out if it’s worth pursuing knowing Avian and Simon will be a part of your lives.’
Christa had groaned and put her head on the table.
‘No thanks,’ she had said and she’d meant it. Nowhere in her future was Simon included, especially not her personal life.
Peggy had gone to work then and Christa and Petey had started to cook.
‘Let’s do a Christmas-themed line for the last market,’ Christa had suggested. They’d worked out what they needed for the ingredients and Christa had popped down to the shops and returned with beautiful Christmas ribbon in different colours.
There was peppermint swirl, cranberry and walnut, almond and cherry, and candy cane fudge.
Christa had bagged them all and tied them off with the pretty ribbons and had printed little cards inside listing the ingredients, using Petey’s state-of-the-art home printer.
‘You are remarkable for your age, Petey, which I know can be taken as a backhanded compliment but I mean it. You still work, you take of yourself, you can manage technology better than me – not that that’s hard but seriously, you’re a catch,’ she said as she put the last bags into a box and wrote the flavour on the side.
Petey laughed. ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, ‘but I am interested in lots of things. I think that’s why I come across as interesting, but I’m just interested,’ he said.
‘What about Peggy?’ she prompted.
He paused. ‘Peggy is a lovely woman, and very smart but I have only ever loved one woman in my life so I’m not sure I know how to love another. We are grand friends though.’
Christa listened. ‘I wonder if your wife would have wanted you to be alone all these years though,’ she said gently.
‘Well I’m not alone now – you’re here. You’re like a lovely daughter to me,’ he said.
The doorbell rang and Petey checked his wristwatch.
‘I’m not expecting anyone. You?’ he asked.
Christa shook her head. ‘Only Peggy knows I’m here,’ she said. ‘Want me to go?’
Petey was already leaving the kitchen so Christa finished tidying up as she heard the door open and she looked up and there was Marc.
‘Hi,’ he said. She felt her knees go and she sat at the table.
