5

But still it goes in. Might as well. Nothing to lose, and it’s not as if anyone will know the difference. It’s not as if we’ll sell any of it. Maybe it’ll bake okay.

Give off that smell which brings people through the door, even if not to buy bread, and they’ll take a slice of Dundee cake home to enjoy over a cup of tea or a warm Special or a mug of whisky.

It goes in. Ten minutes on 9, open the door a few minute, bring it down to 5, close the door, another 20 minute.

“How long as that had?”

“Has what had?”

“The bread.”

“When did it go in?”

“You fuckin’ put it in.”

“Oh that, yeah…”

“Have you turned it down?”

“Only just gone in.”

“When?”

“Er…”

Open the door and it’s already had too long. Dark brown on top, by time it’s done be next to black. Fucking rank smell ain’t going to bring people in. It’s going to drive people the fuck away.

Good bakeries and chip-shops are hard to pass by.

Time was our bread put hooks in your nose, reeled you fucking in.

You’d see fuckers strolling along, opposite way, nothing further from their minds, then doubling back, crossing the road, peering at the window, over the threshold, up at the counter, slavering chops, pointing at this and that.

I’ll have one of them,

one of those,

what are they?

Two of those...

Gannets. Not today. The fucking yeast was bad. Course it was bad. The fridge is fucked.

Knock it down to 4, shove the Dundee in. Might as well, long bake. Hour and 40. Hot fruitcake will mask the bread stench. Of its own rancid butter too, I bet. The rind is strong.

And the brandy. No whisky. Brandy does the same. Scones.

“Wha’ you doing now?”

“Scones.”

“I’ll give you hand once I’ve finished this.”

Down goes the Tennents.

Chug chug ch-

The Tennents.

There was only one Tennents half an hour ago.

Why am I fucking on Kestrel?

Tennents tins crushed all over his end.

Four, with the one in his hand.

“I thought you said there was only one Tennents.”

“No I never.”

“You said Kestrel or Tennents and when I said Tennents kicked off and said there was 12 Kestrel.”

“There’s not now you’ve had four.”

“How many Tennents is there?”

“Not many.”

“How many?”

“Eight.”

“You’re a cunt mate.”

“Ha ha ha ha ha…”

You fucking cunt. Cherries and sultanas. Margarine. That’ll be off. Self-raising. Egg. Some use milk we’ve always used egg. Shiny tops, a proper crust. And the milk'll be fucking off anyhow. Fridge is fucked.

Fuck knows why the boss brung that cunt in here. Well I know why. Fucking fostered the cunt.

Sent him back when he half burned their house down but Alice shouldn’t have told me that so I never told nobody that. I told my missus that but she never come in here so that made no fucking odds.

Like he fucking owed him something, he’ll be alright, he’s a loudmouth is all, but if he gets a chance he’ll come good. Never did. Never will.

“Where’s them fucking Tennents?”

“I’ll get rubbing this butter up.”

“Get the fuck out of them scones.”

4

“Give us Tennents.”

“Oh fuck off, Kestrel’s shit.”

“They’re both shit, warm.”

“Have Kestrel then.”

“Who the fuck bought Kestrel anyway?”

“They was 12 for ten.”

“Fuckin’ drink ‘em then.”

 “I couldn’t really give a fuck, pal.”

For fuck’s sake. Specials are shit, warm. Coat your gob and whistle like malty paint. Don’t refresh me. Ice cold, it goes, if you chug on.

And I hate malt, the taste and the smell. Always have. Had a brewery at the corner of our street when I was a kid, couldn’t help but pass it on the way anywhere. 

Every morning, before the brewery went under, clouds of thick malt, boiling up through the road.

Sometimes got in the house, with a fair wind. Turned my guts, every time.

Good beer they done, I found out, years later, that red bitter. But good riddance.

“Is there none in the fridge?”

“These was in the fridge.”

“Don’t feel like it.”

“The fridge is fucked.”

“Oh give me the fuckin’ Kestrel…”

Yes, the fridge is fucked. Fucked for weeks. Opened it one day and it was fucked. Like everything else in here, more or less. Only waiting on the ovens to go fucked now and we can turn out the lights.

Nothing new in here. Nothing new since they carried the Gaffer out feet first. Just me and him.

“If the council come round that’s us shut.”

“Fuck! When?”

“When what?”

“Sneaky cunts! How long we got?”

“Until what?”

“They fuckin’ shut us!”

“They ain’t been round.”

“You fuckin’ on about then?”

What am I fucking on about? Wasting my puff on this cunt. Fuck off back to your bread you cunt I’ve a Dundee cake to get going.

“Stick the fuckin’ oven on.”

“It is fuckin’ on…

Soft brown sugar, eggs, sultana, self-raising, butter...

The fridge is fucked. The butter is gone. Rancid. Must be. Mind you it’s been shut all this while. That’ll’ve kept the cool in. Not cold, no but –

No this is rancid. Can’t put rancid butter in fruitcake. Again. Not after that wedding. But them fuckers’d have been on the lash too, so not all the puking would have been down to us.

That dough he’s proving just don’t smell right. Too heavy by half. And of cellars. Should be fresh earth, a little sharpness, a little sweetness. I know that smell better than I know fresh air…

Used to have breakfast once it was all banged out to rest. Pound after pound of it rising, giving off. You could smell it 50 yard in any direction.

Fags and tea in the yard and Alice banged the bacon on and fried up yesterday’s bread and eggs and tomatoes.

Never fry today’s bread, staler the better. Same with toast. Take fresh bread just as it comes to you, unless it’s that gummy shite.

“This fuckin’ dough stinks.”

“I know, fuckin’ horrible.”


“What you put in it?


“Nothing. Yeast didn’t smell right neither.”


“From out the fridge?”


“It had wet dust on it.”


Illustrations by Lee Healey.

3

‘Butterfiles’ she used to call them, when she were little. Last time I seen her. 

“Butterfile cake Daddy!”

She hadn’t much started school.

“How many large white’m I making?”

“I dunno, 20? How many we sell yesterday?”

“Fuck all.”

“Do another 20.”

The shit they put out for Dundee cake these days is a disgrace. Any old bit of fruitcake flogged as Dundee cake, these days. They want fucking necking.

I don’t blame the cunts selling,

everyone has to live, I blame the cunts buying,
who knew the difference once,
and have fuck all to gain from forgetting.

For one, Dundee cake ain’t got fucking cherries in it. Or raisins, for another. Queen Mary didn’t like fucking cherries, they reckon. I seen that on a tea-towel.

Sultanas and orange rind is your fruit, that’s all, not just what you bloody want. You wouldn’t put coffee in a chocolate eclair. 

Dundee cake should be a bit bittersweet not a gobful of sugar. Shot of whisky in it an’ all, the gaffer done, lift it right up, and so did we, but we’ve no whisky about.

“Have we any whisky about?”

“Have we?”

“For the Dundee cake.”

“I’ll have a glass.”

Brandy’ll do. Got to have almonds on top. They’re in for cherries in the old story. See one without almonds and it’s a fruitcake. They’re both fruitcake. But only one’s fucking Dundee cake.

Crunchy almonds on top. Always my favourite. Slice of Dundee cake in my little butty box all the way through school, buttered if it was knocking on. Always one in the tin. A decent keeper.

Mum made a good Dundee cake. It was the gaffer's Dundee cake. She done a little stint here when she first left school, until I come along.

Her gaffer wasn’t our gaffer, her gaffer was my gaffer's dad, right near the end, when he was getting slow.

Same Dundee cake though. It was older than them two an’ all. My gaffer's dad’s dad’s. Marmalade’s the difference. Two tablespoon of darkest coarse cut you can get. Take a bit of sugar out for it.

My gaffer ran the back back then, back when Mum was here, and that’s how I got the Saturday job.

She stuck her head in one Friday and they went through the back. I heard ‘em laughing and talking and when they come out front I was the new tin lad. ‘Be here at 5 tomorrow’...

“Is this fucking salt?”

Cunt waving the fucking caster sugar shaker at me, big letters on it.

“Caster sugar.”

“Where’s the bottle? We’ve no salt.”

“Look in that cupboard.”

“What you put the brandy in there for?”

“Salt. The brandy’s in your fucking hand.”

“This brandy is giving me fucking heartburn.”

He’s purple the cunt.

“Have a can, I am.”

“I’m having a can.”

“What have we?”

“I’ll finish off the brandy...”

Butterfiles…

I wonder what she calls them now?

Butterflies.

She’s 36.

No, seven. It'’s 2016.

“There’s no fuckin’ salt in here.”

“That’s salt. There.”

“Oh aye. Kestrel or Tennents?”

Fucking supers.

“Are they cold?”

“They’re not hot.”

Fucking hate warm supers.

Illustrations by Lee Healey.

2

“First we’ll make the bread.”

“Yeah, then the cakes.”

Pissed up cunt ain’t made a cake you’d want to touch with your foot for 10 years.

Put lard in the Victoria sponge shitfaced yesterday then screamed fucking murder when some woman fetched her slice back. Because she’d fetched it back.

She won’t be fucking back.

“And jam tarts.”

What can go wrong with a jam tart? Sweet pastry and jam, that’s all. Nothing used to go wrong with our jam tarts. People travelled miles for them. People bought them by the dozen and were stuffing them down out the bag before they were out the fucking shop.

Get the pastry right you’re laughing. Butter. Sugar. Flour. Eggs. Pinch of salt. Simple. Sift the flour. Nib the butter. Crumb it. Sugar. Egg. Mix ‘til stiff. Splash of water. Knead it. Fridge for ten minutes. Roll, cut, bake, jam.

Simple. But simple to fuck up. For this cunt anyhow.

The gaffer’s sweet pastry was the best you ever tasted, and like all the tricks and craft his dad and grandad passed to him, he passed it on to us. When and how you add the eggs, that’s the fucking difference.

But this cunt’s hands were always too hot, so he’s fucked before he’s even cracked an egg. Fucked from square one. Butter melts minute he shoves his hands in to get rubbing. Fucked on scones too, same reason. Fucked. Got away with it when we had the machine. But that’s gone fucked an’ all. And then he lost the fucking claw.

So he’s double fucked. And even though my hands are so cold you’d think I was dead we’re fucked. Because I ain’t making all the pastry. Not now we’ve no machine or claw. But I’ll make some jam tarts today. I like a jam tart. I can keep a jam tart down.

“I’ll do the cakes and tarts, you get on with the bread.”

“You get on with the fuckin’ bread. What do you reckon of this brandy? I don’t think it’s the worst. For the price.”

I’d forgot it was brandy is so fucking raw. Took me half a minute to open my right eye after first swig. Slapped the back of my throat and bounced out. I had to swirl and swallow hard.

“It’ll do, I ain’t complaining.”

“Good, got a case. A dozen bottles fifty quid off that fat bastard with the van behind the bus garage. He reckons they was meant for export but the warehouse burned down.”

He tops us off and takes a big yank,
on the bottle on the vertical,
eyes pissing water,
as his apple ups and downs.

A sip’ll do me, but it turns into a glag, and by the time I’m staring at the ceiling through the bottom of the glass it ain’t so bad at all. I’ve had worse. Less than five quid a bottle, what do you want? I wouldn’t go near it at home.

“We should make a batch of them little buns we used to do with the buttercream in ‘em, and the lid chopped in half and stuck in the buttercream in ‘em.”

He means butterfly cakes. Used to be big with the old dears but a pain in the arse and no fucker wants them anymore.

“Butterfly cakes.”

“Buttercream, y’deaf cunt.”

“The butterfly is the bits in the buttercream, they look like wings.”

‘Fuck me they do an’ all! I always wondered what the fuck people was on about…”

Top up and leave the babbling cunt to it. Soon as this glass is gone I’m after a can or something. Gone five and all we’ve done is drink brandy and talk shit. Which isn’t bad, once you get the taste. And four quid-odd…

Am making four cakes. Four different cakes. Half will go in the bin. More. 

A Dundee cake.

A dozen slice, quid a slice, a good big slice, nobody’s complained, it’s a solid cake.

Old people like Dundee cake and old people is about the only people comes in here.

The housewives go to ADLD, the pie-eaters go to Greggs, only the old people come in.

No kids. Ever. Last time we had a kid in threw a banger at that cunt and it got stuck in his hair. Blew him a big bald patch just over his ear and knocked him deaf for a week. Kids don’t want cakes these days, not like we did, not from a craftsman baker.

Times change. I was a kid when I started here, washing tins on a Saturday morning for a few bob, and all I was thinking about was what cakes’d be going spare when Alice turned the sign over, 1pm sharp.

Everyone working got a bit of anything left, but she had a soft spot for me and I’d always get the pick. I had lovely brown hair then and she said I was a Beatle. I should have gone seen her once the gaffer had gone, but this place…

Victoria sponge. Piece of piss, any leftover gets chopped up in the individual trifle bases next day.

Scones are safe, good for two days, cheap and cheerful and mine are nice.

Cold hands. I’m lucky. Melt that butter and you pull waxy scones out the oven. My crumbs are beautiful to see, to run your hand through. Gold and soft. A score of cherry, two score sultana.

And a dozen individual trifles. They ain’t cakes, really, but fuck it. We’ve Victoria sponge from yesterday.

This brandy is okay. At the price. I’ll take one home.

Illustrations by Lee Healey.

1

It's going off in a minute. In a minute. Any minute. Go on you fucker go off and have done.

You noisy fucker. Christ I'm tired. 

Should have got some sleep. Turned out the light. Closed the curtains. When the wine went was when I should have gone. Tired enough then. Could have slept 20 hours and not dreamed. Didn't need the night-cap. Well away. Out on my feet. Shuddering.

But you open the next and then you're in, aren't you? And it is a nice drop of rum. Warming not hot. Sweet not sickly. I'll take it to work. No I won't. Have that cunt neck it down? He can fuck off. 

Middle of the night has been my morning since I was 14 year old. Other people's mornings are my afternoons. Their afternoons my nights. Their evenings still my nights.

So walked this walk through these dead streets, all those years, all on my own, quiet. My steps and a clinking bag.

Everyone's asleep except me. That's how it feels. Bakers. All over the world. Even the postmen are still in their bed, not earning their daily bread. We'll be making the fucking bread mate. And the cakes, such as we do these days…

I see foxes all the time. Used to see a few deer. A stag once, bang in the middle of the road. Staring right into my eyes as I come round the corner, like the fucker had been waiting for me.

All night. Big bastard. It took a step closer and I threw the empty bottle. Gawped for a minute then strolled off, no worries in the world, between the houses, towards the gasometer.

Town's grown since then. Built out every side. Pokey little shitholes where the big fields used to start. If stags still wander in they don't come this far. Be walking the rows and rows of fucking chicken coops, miles over there, waiting for somebody else, not me…

Over the bridge, down the hill, light of the bakery shining through the darkness. Sometimes. Not much now. Cunt never keeps hold of a key for two minutes, so either I get in first or I'm down the hill towards a black window.

Dark today. Light back then, always. Gleaming. Steaming, in the cold. Loud from yards off, the gaffer bashing tins, swearing, laughing, shouting where the fuck you been when you duck in, early, late, bang on time, always the same.

Coat off straight to work, four of us in the back then, sifting, kneading, slicing dough, filling tins, hot and loud, clanging, sweat pissing out of us, thirsty.

The gaffer's wife Alice ran the front,
kept the tea flowing,
kept your whistle wet when the flour was flying,
flour in your eyes, clinging to the air,
the smell of proving bread, baking bread, fresh bread,
every breath was bread.

There he is, the fucking cunt…

Not the same rush now. No rush at all. No shouting and banging, no pissing sweat, no Alice. She went last year. I went the church. He didn't.

There won't be nobody at the door come eight today neither. Not be a line down the pavement down the street come eight. Nattering and smoking fags. 

Same faces every day. All women. Blokes came later, for the pies. Same faces at the front, same faces at the same times, same orders, two large white, three large white, large white flew out. Nobody wanted brown then. Nobody wants it now, fuckers force it down.

Spun up in white paper and down the road still hot.

Everyone got their bread here. Bar lazy cows who wouldn't walk past Crooks in King Street. But their bread was nothing next to ours. 

Gaffer's dad was a baker before him, his dad’s dad a baker before that, same shop, same ovens, a large white coming hand to hand, father to son, this is the way we do it, son. Their bread fed the town for 70 years. More. I had that bread mashed in milk before there was a tooth in my head, my mother always said.

The gaffer was sterile though. So he showed me. And that cunt.

I can taste it now. We don’t make it now. Nobody wants it now.

Comes out £1.50 a loaf if we're going to make a go. You get a fresh sliced in ADLD for half a quid. Bendy, gummy, tastes like shit but does a job. Nobody wants good bread now. Nobody round here, anyway.

We cut a few corners. On the flour and the fat. Quid a loaf we can do. Shift next to fuck all anyway. We’re out on a limb, here. Last shop on a long street and a ten-bob pasty bastard between us and the town centre.

What was the town centre.

“Yeah of course I want a brandy. A large one an’ all, I feel fucking dreadful.”

Illustrations by Lee Healey.