Page 15 of Rachel’s Pudding Pantry

Chapter 7

UNICORNS AND CUPCAKES

Life on the farm was far too busy for Rachel to mope about dwelling on their problems, however big they were. There was lambing to get on with, the small herd of cattle to be fed and mucked out, plus there was the persistent mountain of paperwork to trawl through.

Maisy’s recent question about her missing father was also playing on Rachel’s mind – now she was growing up, how was this affecting her? And thinking of her growing up, there was also a birthday to plan for. Maisy’s special day was approaching fast. Rachel was determined to give her daughter a wonderful birthday, but how did you make a little girl’s party special on a shoestring budget? Rachel sighed. Oh well, she rallied, if anyone could do it, she and Jill could.

It was Saturday of the following week, and the day of Maisy’s birthday.

‘Mumm-ee! Come on, come on. It’s today!’

‘Ah … hi, Maisy …’ Rachel was trying to come to from a foggy haze, with a very excited five-year-old bouncing up and down on her bed.

‘Grandma’s making pancakes too!’

Five-year-old… that was it! ‘Oh fabulous … happy birthday sweetheart.’

Rachel stretched and rubbed her bleary eyes. Last night had seen her up until past midnight as she tried to get the surprise party venue ready after Maisy had gone to bed. So, just as her knees were buckling and her eyelids drooping, the grand finale was that eighteen young children were due to arrive today at 2 p.m. Rachel was getting palpitations just thinking about it.

Down in the farmhouse kitchen, Jill was busy making a breakfast of pancakes for them all as a treat, along with thickly buttered toast and mugs of warming hot chocolate.

‘Good morning, birthday girl,’ she called to Maisy. ‘You’ll need some pancakes to help you grow big and strong, I bet?’

There was a choice of scrumptious pancake fillings all lined up on the side: lemon and sugar, banana and homemade toffee sauce, or chocolate spread. Maisy plumped for the chocolate ones, Rachel for a lemon-sugar closely followed by a toffee-banana. She figured she’d need her energy levels up for the day ahead, after all. Jill sat with them soon afterwards with her own lemon stack, and a well-earned mug of tea.

There were some birthday gifts for Maisy to open – one from Grandma Ruth and a couple of small ones from Rachel and Jill, including a new party frock for today. Their main present was outside ready for Maisy to discover later – they’d been saving hard over the past few weeks, the household expenses being on an extra-tight budget to do so. Jake’s parents, who now lived further south, near to Leeds, had sent something on in the post too, which was kind of them. Typically, there was nothing from Maisy’s dad himself, and no word on his whereabouts or even whether he’d got Rachel’s message about the party today. Rachel tried to push that particular worry to the back of her mind.

Jill had set to work baking and by mid-morning twenty-four cupcakes were neatly lined up on the cooling rack in the kitchen, ready to be iced and decorated with sugar-paper unicorns and hundreds-and-thousands sprinkles. There were also two large Victoria sponge bases she had made, ready for Rachel to sandwich together with jam and buttercream and cover with royal icing. Rachel was then to create the birthday cake bonanza with an arch of rainbow-coloured icing, some edible flowers she was yet to craft and a sprinkling of coloured stars. She had bought the cutest sugar-paste unicorn and a number ‘5’ to then pop on the top.

Rachel’s mind spun as she listed all the things left to do: icing the cake, finishing the decoration of the barn party venue, setting up the bouncy castle and slide … Along with Granny Ruth, she and Jill had been saving for ages to get the new play equipment for the party as Maisy’s main birthday present. They hoped it would be a wise purchase and help entertain the rabble of children at the party, as well as provide hours of fun for Maisy and her friends for the summer months to come.

Rachel began colouring strips of icing with food dyes to make the rainbow arch. She had ready-made stars to sprinkle over and was going to cut out and delicately mould some flower shapes from the left-over coloured icing.

Fifteen minutes later, Jill walked past the kitchen bench where she was working just as she was putting on the finishing touches with the unicorn topper. ‘Wow, that looks great. I’m impressed.’

Rachel had thought the rainbow was a bit skew-whiff, but as she stood back and looked at the finished cake, she could see it wasn’t bad at all – yes, a pretty good effort.

‘Maisy will love it,’ Jill confirmed.

Rachel hoped so; her little girl had already been disappointed this morning, after once again asking if her daddy was going to come to the party. She’d been asking every day this last week, but despite Rachel sending numerous texts, phoning and leaving answerphone messages as well as trying a couple of emails to his last known contact address, Jake hadn’t bothered to respond. Rachel had tried to let Maisy down gently, but she knew that her daughter was still clinging onto the belief that he’d turn up.

Jake hadn’t made it for the last three birthdays, so Rachel didn’t expect to see him at this one. She didn’t actually even know where he was in the country, or if he still was in this country. His parents lived over a hundred miles away too, so they wouldn’t be visiting, though they had sent a gift and always kept in touch with Maisy at birthdays and Christmas and the like. Rachel didn’t think even they knew where their son was most of the time. In some ways, it was easier for Rachel that he did keep his distance so she could get on with raising Maisy her own way. But it was Maisy who was starting to need him now, or at least to need to know who he was. Who he was, was in fact an unreliable, commitment-phobic, selfish tosser. In reality, he might well be a disruptive influence and a disappointment to Maisy, Rachel mused, but maybe that was unfair. Perhaps, by some miracle, he might have grown up a bit himself by now, and of course her daughter did need her dad. She certainly wanted to be like the other kids who had dads around, her little girl having become more aware of his absence since starting school. Well, if he did turn up it would be a bit of a shock and a minor miracle, but only time would tell.

With the birthday cake completed, Rachel needed to crack on with getting the barn ready. She passed Moss in the kitchen, giving him a pat on the head, and headed through to the porch to pull on her wellies.

‘Come on Moss, boy, let’s go and get this party started.’

Rachel headed across the yard and yanked open the two heavy wooden barn doors that shaped into an arch. A sparrow darted out – it must be nesting in there. The morning light filled the space and the honeyed-stone walls glowed. It really was pretty in there. For years it had been hidden in dust and straw, with heaps of old sacks, discarded tools, and a few bags of sheep feed. Yesterday, they’d had a damned good clear-out, moving what was useful to one end of the lambing shed, discarding the rest. The flagstone floor was brushed clean, and the cobwebs and dust dispersed – it had taken some time!

Rachel did a quick count of all the chairs they’d ferried in there. They had nineteen bottoms to seat plus parents – hmm. She took out her mobile phone. She needed a friendly neighbour.

‘Tom?’

‘Hi, Rachel. All okay?’

‘Yes, thanks. I just need a bit of a favour.’

‘Okay, ask away.’