The Bakery

She isn’t there anymore, the old Bakery. The timber frame was painted black, the panelled walls the faded cream of spilt milk. Layers and layers of ancient paint held the daub together. Maybe it was more paint than anything else. It used to smell sweet. As thought the scent of fresh bread had been baked into the walls. Loaves, cobs, buns and pastries crafted and sold for centuries before the Bakery became a house, a home. Now it’s gone, I can only smell the acrid tinge of smoke and taste it on the back of my tongue.

My Aunt moved to the coast, for the health benefits of sea air. I always thought it sounded like something from a victorian novel, which is odd for a child. But then I was a strange child. I loved old fashioned stories and fairy tales. We were sent to the old Bakery every summer so that we could spend time with our cousin and give our parents a break. There was a lot of us, too many, my Dad said. I always thought that perhaps we didn’t need my younger brother. I would have traded him for my cousin, a puppy or even a rabbit given the chance. Only a black rabbit though, one with soft, inky fur. I would have accepted any puppy and my cousin, the only other girl in the family was like a fairy, enchanting. We fell under her spell.

She feels much better since we moved, my Aunt smiled.

My brothers were large, and loud and rough; all of them. Even the youngest. My cousin was soft, pale and spoke quietly, every word picked out with care. We spent our mornings roaming through the garden and afternoons under blankets, reading, talking, dreaming beside the fireplace. Flames licked over the piled logs and I would sweat. Bright summer sun baked the ground beyond the window, the grass faded to brown and cracks broke across the garden. I’d hear the boys yelling outside, chasing a football or kicking it against the wall. It was good to be separate from them, to be a girl and do quieter things. I felt like a fine lady, who was learning appropriate skills. I was Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennett or a Princess from a long folk-tale I hadn’t invented yet. The football thumped against the window and plaster dust fell from the ceiling, like fairy dust.

Stop hitting the ball against the house!

The stairs creaked. Iron bolts slammed through the wooden slats, pinning them to the wall. Determined that they wouldn’t fall, no matter how many times we thundered up them. The bathroom pipes were rusty, screeching when the taps turned on. We would traipse back from the beach, trailing sandy and drag buckets of hot water upstairs. The cast iron tub was chipped. I could slide my nail beneath the grey enamel. I would pick away at the surface searching for the speckled metal beneath. The windows didn’t fit so the draft slipped in. The fire was always burning, heat kissing the safety guard. The kitchen was a short rectangle with an empty oven at the far end. The oven door was left open, always. As though it was still waiting for the bakers to return one day.  If I stood on a chair, I could lean all the way in. I could turn and look up through the chimney, which was crooked with all the blackened bricks in wonky places, at the blue sky above. It felt like I was looking up at a different world, one just beyond my reach.

Get your head out of the oven!

There was a tree-house in the garden and a stream I called a moat. A rope swung hung down from the heavy branches, coarse rope threads wound together. A painted plank of wood knotted on for a seat. If you kicked off from the bank hard enough, you could swing across over the trickling water. I lost my wellies as they flew to the other side and landed in the mud. Lost beyond the borders of the Bakery in the neighbour’s garden. My cousin sat in a deckchair, wrapped in a heavy coat with the sun dancing in her hair. She would laugh, watching me scrambling up the side. Covered in mud and slipping back down again, just as I reached the top.

Don’t touch the water, rats pee in it!

I loved that house. I loved the way the walls bent, as though they were old women trying to hold each other up. I loved the layers of dust that covered the surfaces, and the secret rooms we weren’t allowed to enter; the staircase to the loft that was too dangerous to climb. Cobwebs filled the cracks in the walls, nails poked up through the floorboards. We slept, piled on the floor beside my cousins’ bed. The sound of snoring only broken by the click and whirr of her dialysis machine.

It’s important that she gets her rest.

One summer, my cousin was ill. More than usual. It had been a long, dark winter. The walls of the old Bakery were damp. The wood was rotting, crumbling away. The stream was a river, rushing by the front door. We visited for a day, but we didn’t stay. The fire roared, as though the heat could keep her sickness away. The tree house collapsed, one plank swung from the trunk squeaking with every touch of wind. The platform was scattered across the lawn, some parts broken up for firewood.

We’re looking forward to the weather changing.

In the end, it was fire that burnt away the damp and the cold. A piece of charcoal rolled out through the guard and caught on the carpet. Black smoke curled twisted through the room and filled it. The wooden floors and the ancient gathered dust were just dry enough to burn. It was a blaze that consumed the bakery. I can’t remember how long we spent on the curb, watching flames break through the window and curl around the walls. Ash fell like snow from the sky and turned all the dying grass grey. All we could do was watch. 

I don’t know what we’re going to do.

The old Bakery isn’t here anymore.  I can stand on the same curb and stared, but I can’t see the crooked chimney or the tumbling walls. I still imagine that I can smell smoke, but I can’t see the river, the tree’s or the windows that rattled in their frames. There are new houses on a new estate. There are children playing in neat little back gardens. The swings are made of plastic and attached to metal frames. Three houses and a bungalow, have replaced my fairy tale realm.

My brothers stand beside me. My cousin has gone.

The old Bakery isn’t here anymore, but our memories remain.