All That She Can See(19)

‘All right, all right.’ Cherry laughed. ‘I’ve got just the thing for you, but it’s in the kitchen. I’ll be back in a minute.’ She ducked into the back where she’d lined up trays and trays of cakes, muffins, biscuits and cookies, each containing a different feeling.

‘Obsessiveness… obsessiveness,’ Cherry muttered to herself. She turned to the book that was full of her own special and secret recipes, and flipped through the alphabetical pages until she got to the Os. ‘Obedience, Obnoxiousness, ah, Obsessiveness. I knew I’d treated this before.’



Contentment Cake: To keep the customer calm and at peace with what they’ve already got, no matter the amount or size.

Tastes like: Tea and mandarins

Indifference Icing: To try to balance their overly keen interest.

Tastes like: Marmite



Cherry always made a note of how every emotion tasted on her tongue, even though she never knew if it tasted the same to other people or if that taste was unique to her. Did contentment taste like tea and mandarins because those were the things that made her feel most content? Did indifference taste like Marmite because she was seemingly the only person in the world who didn’t love it or hate it? She doubted that she’d ever know how things tasted to those she helped. Her hands worked quickly, cutting a generous slice of Contentment Cake and expertly squeezing out the blue icing from its piping bag into the shape of a crystal ball.

‘Voila!’ Cherry said as she walked back into the bakery with the plate held proudly in front of her. She presented it to Sally with a flourish.

‘This looks delicious! A little bit of friendly advice though, m’love; you may want to serve your customers a bit quicker or this queue will get even longer!’ Sally gestured behind her and Cherry looked around, noticing for the first time that there were seven other elderly customers shuffling about.

‘Amazing what a quick text can do, isn’t it?’ Sally held up her phone and gave Cherry a cheeky smile. Cherry forgot herself for a moment and pushed herself up and across the counter to plant a giant kiss on Sally’s cheek.

‘Oh! You’re quite a funny one.’ Sally gasped in surprise but she laughed good-naturedly too. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? You’ve got customers!’

‘Right, then!’ Cherry called out to the people waiting. ‘Come on up and tell me a little bit about yourselves!’

Cherry didn’t charge anyone for their cakes but she did place a donation jar on the counter which seemed to fill up at a considerable rate. By late afternoon every table was full, coats were falling off the stand and her stock of baked goods was over halfway gone. Cherry smiled at the background noise of people talking, forks tinkling against plates and teacups clattering. She closed her eyes for just a moment, enjoying the buzz and finally feeling at home for the first time since she’d arrived in Plymouth.

‘You haven’t got a slice of that marble cake left, have you?’ said a feeble voice, breaking Cherry out of her reverie. She opened her eyes and saw two familiar faces in the doorway. One she was pleased to see, and the other, she may not have wanted to see at all but was pleased to see it was smaller at least.

‘Of course, Margie! Come on in!’

Margie excitedly bounded into the shop but her Meddlum, her own Loneliness, sat outside with the rest of them. Cherry noticed that a second Meddlum, a tiny one about the size of a Chihuahua that Cherry recognised as Anxiety, was clinging to Margie’s Loneliness. Cherry realised then that Margie had probably always had Anxiety but because of how neatly it had moulded itself to her Loneliness, it had been camouflaged when she had met Margie for the first time all those weeks ago.

‘Pyjamas?’ Margie asked, pointing at Cherry’s gold number.

‘Yup. I… er… never wear anything else,’ Cherry said.

‘You look lovely,’ Margie said kindly.

‘Why don’t you have a seat and then we can chat? I won’t be a moment.’ Cherry popped into the kitchen and cut Margie a slice of ‘Me, Myself and Everyone Else’ Marble Cake. It was the treatment she would have eaten herself were she able to reap the benefits of her own abilities. She added three Tranquillity-soaked cherries on top and dusted them with Hope-infused edible golden glitter. When Cherry returned with the cake, Margie was still standing in the same place, her coat tugged even tighter around her shoulders.

‘Would you… like to take it away?’ Cherry said, not able to keep the edge of disappointment out of her voice.

Maggie hesitated and then nodded. ‘Could I?’ She looked nervously at the busy tables and Cherry understood immediately.

‘Of course, Margie. Anything.’ Cherry boxed up the cake and its trimmings and Margie dropped three pound coins in the donations jar. With a timid smile, she quickly left but not before Anxiety gave Cherry the finger through the window. Cherry had only looked away for a moment when —

‘WHAT is your PROBLEM?!’

Cherry looked up and saw the same man she’d bumped into on the day she’d gone to The Barbican. Frustration, Cynicism and Mischief were right behind him. She ran to the doorway.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked Margie, who nodded, her eyes welling up. She quickly backed away and scuttled off down the street before Cherry could say anything else.

The man spun round to face Cherry. ‘What’s it got to do with you, Miss Full-Of-Hope-And-Wonder?’ he snapped. Cherry couldn’t hold back the shocked laugh that spluttered out of her mouth.