‘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!'

‘I can even distress the concrete pot for you.'

‘Oh, James, you're such a star. I've been really worried about the technical side of it. Now I know we can really make this work.’

He smiled slightly. 'I haven't been part of a "we" for ages.’

A breath of sadness touched the atmosphere, and suddenly Bron felt the urge to give him a comforting hug. She knew it would be the wrong thing to do and so said, 'It's not always all it's cracked up to be.’

Then she realised she'd sounded cynical, not comforting, and she wished she had hugged him. He was so lovely! 'What are you cooking for supper?' she said quickly, to change the mood as much as anything.

He blinked. The mood-changing thing had obviously worked. 'Nothing much. An omelette probably. As usual.'

‘Why don't we walk to the pub? I've got nothing much in either,' she said, crossing her fingers that he'd say yes.

‘So you haven't got a date tonight, then?’

For a moment Bron didn't know what he was talking about. 'No, why?'

‘Nothing. It's just you're usually out in the evenings.’

She laughed. He'd noticed – was that a good sign or not? It probably said more about the summer television schedules than it did about his interest in her.

‘Oh, I'm not going on dates. I'm doing people's hair! My older clients – who gather in flocks at each other's houses, quite often – take up my days. But I've got a few working women, or women who have children and want their hair doing when they've got someone to look after the children, who I do in the evenings.'

‘I see. I thought you had a hectic social life.’

Still shocked at his mistake, she said, 'Not at all. I've only just left Roger. I'm conserving my energy.’

Later, when they walked to and from the pub, she was still wondering how he felt about her. They'd had a lovely evening, chatted easily, she'd even laughed at his jokes, but she still had no idea if he saw her as anything more than the girl next door he was giving a helping hand to. He was not only a very attractive man under his scruffy clothes and too-long hair (which he hadn't taken her up on her offer to cut yet) but, despite being quite easygoing, he was also completely inscrutable. And she'd never found it easy to understand men. Perhaps it had been this that had stopped her realising what Roger was really like until too late. She sighed. At least she'd get to see a bit more of James now he'd agreed to help her with the cake.

Having ascertained how, with James's help, she was going to make the structure, Bron knew it was time to begin the trial run. Veronica, the owner of the officially-approved-ofkitchen had a Cash and Carry card and Bron arranged to meet her so she could buy some ingredients. Although in theory she was confident her cake would work, she wanted to give herself lots of time to practise. They met up in the car park of the huge warehouse.

‘Hello, dear!' said Veronica, waving as she locked her car. 'This is such fun!'

‘But you must come here often! You're always making cakes!'

‘But not for celebrities – that's quite different. Oh, and your friend Sarah asked me to make the cake for her sister as we're doing the catering anyway. Apparently the family friend who was going to do it can't, for some reason. I hope you don't mind.'

‘Not at all. Why should I?'

‘I didn't want you to think I was muscling in on your new career as a cake-maker.’

Bron shook her head. 'I promise you, I have more than enough on my plate as it is.'

‘So the freelancing's going well?'

‘Yes, I'm really busy. And I like it much more than I thought I would. I was worried I'd miss working with other people, but going to people's homes is much more fun. I sometimes do whole families. The book work is a bit of a nightmare though, I must say.'

‘Is it?'

‘Well… not really, I suppose, but Roger always dealt with the finances so it's a bit of a learning curve for me doing it.' She'd always rather resented him taking charge all the time but now she realised that could be quite a useful quality sometimes.

‘I'm quite used to book-keeping after making cakes for the WI stall for so long.' Veronica paused. 'Sarah said with things like flour and butter and margarine, which will go into both cakes, we should buy ingredients together. Then I'll work out how much of them went into Lily's cake.’

Bron shook her head. 'And I thought my books were complicated!'

‘I should think it will work out about equal. Your cake is much bigger, but mine will be full of expensive fruit and brandy and stuff.'

‘Whatever you think, Veronica. I'm sure you and Sarah can work it out between you. I just want my cake not to drop to the floor in a heap of crumbs!’

Veronica chuckled. 'We can use my business credit card. Now, have you made a list of what you need?'

‘I think so. This isn't for the final cake, though, only a practice one. I want to make sure I can get the icing to stay on OK. It would be so awful if it dropped off.’

Veronica found a cart that to Bron seemed more suited to shifting planefuls of luggage than packets of flour and sugar.

‘I can't believe we need anything that big,' she said as she followed her friend through the doors into the building. Once through she stopped. 'This place is huge! Like an aircraft hanger.’

Plastic-wrapped blocks of food were stacked from floor to ceiling, only accessible by fork-lift truck. They created tower blocks of tins, packets, bottles – anything that contained food. To Bron it seemed like a combination of the largest DIY store she had ever seen and a cut-price supermarket, where the products were left in their cartons and not displayed.

But it didn't only stock the everyday items on Bron's list. Her cake was destined to look fabulous but the ingredients were simple enough. When she saw what was available in this monster store, a sort of buying rush swept over her and she wanted everything, in mammoth quantities.

‘Oh look! Liquorice pipes by the box! I must get some for my dad for when I next go over.' She put a box on the trolley. 'And it's all so cheap!'