Sunrise By the Sea by Jenny Colgan

Chapter Fifty

The weather cleared up in the afternoon and as well as her hard-won moving outside, Marisa couldn’t bear sitting in, listening to the piano lessons next door, each one an agony. His patient growl; the clumping repetition of the students’ slow lines. All of it was painful to Marisa and she pulled on her coat and did what she said she’d do: she managed to go down to see Polly.

It was nearly the end of the day for Polly who was waiting on the children returning and hadn’t really been expecting Marisa back, considering she wasn’t well, and hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up.

The new door had arrived, conveyed with great fanfare by Reuben, and of course she had been very grateful; she was very grateful, but she couldn’t possibly say now how much they were still in trouble.

Marisa kept close to the walls of the houses again, remembering to do her breathing – although thinking about meals didn’t help as it led her back to the previous evening – as she headed down the hill.

People smiled and nodded at her and she did her best to return them. Here and there were houses still open and drying out, and there was a large collection of ruined furniture down on the docks waiting for the refuse boat that was coming to take it away.

Still, Mount Polbearne made a pretty sight in the watery sunshine. The houses were being repainted already, many of which had long needed it, and there was a faint smell of fresh whitewash in the air. Now the day had cleared there were lots of people out on the street, calling to one another, borrowing tools and sharing biscuits. Obviously what had happened had been terrible but there was a definite sense of everyone coming together. Andy had even restrung the fairy lights above his beer garden in defiance of the storm, lending a promise of lovely light evenings ahead. It was nice to see them. I could sit in a beer garden, thought Marisa defiantly. She could. Could she?

The bakery was winding down, almost empty. Polly smiled and waved to see her; Jayden had already gone for the day.

‘Hey!’ she said.

‘Hello,’ said Marisa. ‘I came to talk about . . . well. Things I was thinking of for the bakery.’

She started unpacking the rucksack she’d prepared that afternoon. Polly beamed.

‘I wasn’t sure you weren’t just chewing the fat. Are you serious?’

Marisa held up her apron.

‘I am completely serious. You have a hot food licence, right?’

‘Surely do, class one,’ said Polly proudly.

‘Okay. Well. Want to fire them up?’

They turned the closed sign round on the bakery and cleared a workspace through the back, as well as whacking the ovens up to five hundred degrees. It got very hot inside the bakery very quickly.

‘Phew,’ said Marisa. ‘This will dry you out.’

‘I know,’ said Polly. ‘Reuben bought us some super-duper triple-glazed door which he thinks is brilliant but it doesn’t let any draughts in. Also, it’s too heavy for my old ladies. It’s going to kill someone. Or, more likely, their dog.’

Marisa winced. ‘Ah.’

She unpacked the huge jar of fresh tomato sauce that had been simmering on the stove for hours.

‘Oh my God,’ said Polly as she opened it. ‘That smells like heaven! What’s in it?’

‘Not much,’ said Marisa. ‘Good tomatoes, lots of garlic, onions, olive oil, salt, a bay leaf and a lot of thyme.’ She thought for a second. ‘And really, the bay leaf is mostly for luck.’

Polly dipped a spoon in and tasted it.

‘Oh my God, that’s amazing!’

‘Thyme is the best bit.’

‘It’s so rich!’

‘A good sauce and a good base . . . but that doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have a good oven,’ said Marisa. ‘And boy do you have good ovens.’

The twins came cantering round the back, home from school.

‘What did you learn today?’ said Polly.

‘Health and Well-being!’ recited Daisy.

‘Mummy, do you SMOKE?’ said Avery, looking panicky.

‘Have you ever seen me smoke?’ said Polly, confused. Daisy came up to her and took her hand gently and with an air of very mature concern.

‘Do you smoke, Mummy?’

‘Of course I don’t smoke!’

‘Because if you smoke you will die.’

‘TODAY,’ said Avery, his face looking frightened.

‘And it will kill us also!’ said Daisy, hers grave.

Polly knelt down.

‘I don’t smoke,’ she said. ‘And even if I did, I wouldn’t die today.’

‘YOU! WILL! DIE!’

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘You promise?’ said Daisy, her face a mask of despair. ‘Never ever?’

‘I think if I haven’t started now I’m probably all right,’ said Polly. Marisa thought back to Alexei’s little cigarillos with a fond smile that quickly turned into a wince.

‘Promise,’ said Daisy and Polly took them both in her arms and hugged them and promised faithfully never to smoke and they bounced off to play with the new door with an Empire biscuit each while Polly watched them go.

‘I think that’s the easiest win I’ve ever had,’ she mused. ‘Good old Health and Well-being.’

‘Well, it will be until we have our fag break,’ said Marisa and Polly stared at her for a couple of seconds, then smiled.

‘Well,’ she said.

‘I know,’ said Marisa. ‘Oh my God, I made a joke. Not a very funny joke,’ she added.

‘I know, but . . . I mean, that’s a good sign, isn’t it? I mean, I’m not an expert . . .’

Marisa held up her hands. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

Polly smiled. ‘You are. DON’T GO NEAR THE OVENS!’ she shouted in at the children as if this wasn’t something that hadn’t been drummed into them since they were nine months old.

‘DON’T SMOKE!’ came the rejoinder.

‘Are we going to do that thing where you throw the dough up and down?’ asked Polly back in the kitchen when they were aproned up with gloves on, and Marisa was throwing about her good flour with abandon on the shiny worktops.

‘Yes,’ said Marisa. ‘Gets good air bubbles in.’

Together they twisted and threw up the dough and chatted and laughed until the twins came to the door curious as to who was having such a good time; and while it felt incredible to Marisa to laugh again, she didn’t realise that Polly felt the same way. She had worried so much for so long and it was really good to get back to what she was used to: throwing dough and getting her hands covered in flour and chatting nonsense. It was just so normal and it felt such an age since she’d been able to be normal. Even when she and Huckle did their best to keep it light, it didn’t always feel like it when there were school shoes to buy and electricity bills to pay and lighthouse inspections to arrange. This was more how it used to be, when she was starting out and had nothing to lose.

They dressed up the twins in their little mini aprons and let them toss their own dough, then Marisa showed them how to spread the sauce round and round, not missing the crust, and let them go wild with the toppings – not much; a good chorizo, some very finely sliced peppers that would be only singed in the oven; fine, silvery anchovies – Avery slipped one in his mouth thinking it was chewing gum and was shortly to be found performatively retching over the large industrial sink while Daisy told him off – and perfect juicy olives.

She wouldn’t, however, let them loose on the fine silky mozzarella; it was too precious and expensive. She sliced it super fine and spread it over the fine hand-stretched bases.

‘Okay,’ said Marisa, sprinkling on herbs, ‘now, put an olive on top.’

‘They look like grapes but Avery they are NOT GRAPES,’ said Daisy, anxious to avoid a rerun of the anchovy fiasco, but Avery had learned his lesson.

Marisa frowned. ‘Oh, you should try an olive,’ she said. ‘They are good things to like.’

Daisy and Avery looked at her suspiciously.

‘Or maybe,’ she said with a smile. ‘Wait for the pizza?’

‘Pizza! Pizza!’

‘How long in the oven?’ said Polly.

‘Three minutes, tops,’ said Marisa, grabbing the long-handled bread server. ‘Wear your oven gloves; it should be absolutely blistering.’

The children backed towards the shop door as the oven was opened and the high-pitched roaring came out. Polly had never had the ovens so hot before; it was a furnace in there.

‘Okay,’ said Marisa, lining up plates behind her and bringing through the tray of uncooked pizzas. ‘Are we ready?’

And, lithely, she tossed first one then another into the fiery envelope of the furnace, which immediately roared even higher as slick drops of the olive oil in the dough plopped into the flames.

‘Wow,’ said Daisy.

‘This,’ observed Avery to himself, ‘is a very dangerous day.’

Marisa fed in the bottom two, then deftly turned the top ones again. Dragging one towards her, she turned it, then the other, remembering the thrill of watching the pizza man in Imperia do it just this way, then being allowed to help. Italians didn’t pretend to love children in their restaurants; they genuinely did. Although, in retrospect, no way was she going to let the children here help.

‘Okay,’ she said a couple of minutes later. ‘Stand back!’

And she flipped the first two pizzas onto the plates where they just about landed in the right spot.

‘Don’t touch,’ warned Marisa, but Polly already had a friendly hold on the little ones.

The smell in the bakery, though, was a rival to the early mornings, when the warm scent of fresh bread permeated the entire street and made people walk towards the shop like zombies. This was a different smell but equally beguiling and the children began to edge forwards, even with Polly clinging to their collars.

Marisa took a cutter and tore apart some slices and handed them round, blowing for the little ones. After much waving and jumping up and down, eventually it was cool enough to take a bite.

‘Oh my God,’ said Polly after a moment’s reverent silence. ‘Oh my God. I’m going to have to throw out all my clothes and just wear a Muumuu. For the rest of my life. And I don’t even care. Reuben will have to widen all the doors.’

Marisa smiled.

The dough was crispy on the bottom, with air bubbles black and twisted, and the inside deliciously chewy. The sauce was a perfect balance of sweet and sharp, fresh and savoury and delectable on the tongue. The slightly golden-tinged mozzarella had melted with a brown crust on the top of it.

It was the kind of pizza you dream about finding but never do; or if you’re lucky, you’ll be in a small Italian village, late at night, down a twisting cobbled side street and you swear you will find it again but you never do, and you never forget it.

Polly couldn’t help herself.

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘We’re going to be rich.’

‘Yay!’ said Daisy and Avery, their faces smeared with sauce.