I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Milly Johnson Page 0,40

company should really look at producing vegan scones that taste as good as the others.’ He cringed inwardly as he remembered dismissing her with a patronising, ‘Yes, thank you, Mary.’ Then a year later, the head of product development had said the same thing and Jack had jumped straight on it, because that boom had already started happening and he’d almost missed the boat.

‘You were saying,’ Luke prompted him.

‘We had to work hard on the recipe though, the road to success was paved with a lot of failed attempts. Firstly they were too dry, then bland, but they still sold quite well. Finally, we thought… er… we thought we should go back to the drawing board and revamp the recipe. Eventually.’ Mary again: ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying but the vegan scones aren’t great, Jack. They taste cheap and dried out. They have to be better. They have to be more moist… and buttery.’ And that time he’d listened.

Because of Mary his output had increased by ten per cent and growing, they’d won a baking industry award and a bounty of positive PR for the ‘Butterly Buttery Vegan Scone’. And he’d given the head of product development the bulk of the credit for it, upped his salary. He’d given Mary a ‘Thanks for your input on the vegan scones’ compliment in passing once. Having time away from the office and to think really was showing him up to be a prize prick.

‘We should talk, I’d be extremely interested in buying some for Plant Boy,’ said Luke. ‘By some, I mean a lot.’

‘Happy to. I’ll give you my business card before we leave and I’ll take yours.’

Luke hunted through the fridge, pulled a tray out, read the packaging label. ‘Ah, nut cutlets from Hollybury Farm, wherever that is.’ Local farm shop, he presumed. Most of the clingfilmed trays on the shelves bore the same brand sticker. ‘These will do nicely for us all. Thank goodness the landlord had plans to cater for us lot as well as you carnivores tomorrow.’

‘You’re a fully-fledged vegetarian yourself then?’ asked Jack.

‘I wasn’t when I started Plant Boy, but I more or less am now. I’ve done a lot of homework and I find the diet suits me for many reasons. I wanted people to have good tasty alternatives to meat so they could make changes that weren’t too painful or going to break their banks. More than half our products are suitable for vegans, and they’re good.’

‘So Bridge was never part of your business then?’

Luke’s features gathered in a semblance of horror. ‘God no. It was bad enough living with each other, never mind working together as well.’

He opened up the freezer to hunt for something to go with the nut cutlets and found inspiration in the second drawer.

‘Ah, frozen pitta breads. That’s sorted then. We’ll have veggie kebabs for lunch. We shall grill these and serve them up with cheese, diced red onion, tomatoes. I’ll rustle up a makeshift tzatziki, says the man who six years ago would have had to consult the internet on how to boil water. Ha.’ He laughed at himself. ‘You can be on chopping duty, Jack. Grab a knife, a cucumber and some garlic.’

Jack let Luke direct him on how much of what to chop.

‘Do you think you and Bridge will eventually find a friendship going forward?’ he asked.

‘No idea.’ Luke shrugged. ‘I’d like to think we could. We’ve done all the fighting we can, there’s nothing left to throw at each other. I even think we enjoyed it in the beginning, all that anger made us forget the hurt.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Now, with the wisdom of hindsight, I realise so many things about our marriage; given time to let the waters settle, I see clearly what being with Bridge brought me.’

‘Like?’ prompted Jack, expecting the answer to be: an ulcer.

‘This rich, calm bloke with his shit together that you see before you grew from the soil of my time with her. I wouldn’t be here now had it not been for Bridge. I see that. And I’ll stretch my neck out and say that she wouldn’t be the shit-together, rich… maybe not calm though, woman she is if it hadn’t been for me. We were each other’s stepping stones to contentment.’

Luke turned on the grill to defrost the pitta breads.

‘Tell me more about Butterly’s. Give me some background. How did you start the business?’

‘Well, actually it was my grandfather who set it up,’ began Jack.