The Baker’s Dream

To say my story is one of excitement and adventure would be an understatement. I would much rather ask for your hand in mine and try, to the best of my ability, to ask you to understand.

You see, I grew up just shy of a small town named Canterbury in Kent, south of England. In a small homestead where the only view from my window was this old Pepper tree, my grandfather had planted right as he laid the first brick down. There wasn’t much excitement; rather, there was just a sense of responsibility. I’m not particularly sure of where my father had been. He walked out one day and hadn’t returned after my mother decided to go and find herself. So it was just me, this old man who built the home I now stay in, and my grandmother, who, for better or worse, couldn’t seem to leave her rocking chair.

Things felt rather monotonous; going to school, doing my chores, and helping my grandfather file for his disability allowance were all I ever did in any given day. Every day except for Sundays. On Sundays, things were different. On Sundays, we would embark on an adventure through the cobblestone walkways and past the town’s Cathedral to a nook at the end of the street where my grandfather told me Lanfranc would toss stones against the wall. Now, my grandfather has quite the habit of fibbing around, so let’s just say I sprinkled a hearty grain of salt on that one. Anyways, on Sunday we would visit Monty or Morty, was it? I can’t be particularly sure on account of his ambiguously displaced accent.

Monty was a baker, and by every measure, he baked the best sponge cake I or anyone in the county had ever dreamed of eating. They were moist and delicate with the right amount of firmness, but never sacrificing that oh so tender crumb. On Sundays, we would go to Morty's and pick up a single sponge cake that weighed just shy of a kilo; it was a tradition we had. My grandfather would place a chair next to his damsel, and I would sit on the floor in front of them as we sipped on tea and enjoyed our delicate little treat.

Though this Sunday was a bit different. Monty had left the door to his kitchen open, a sight I hadn’t seen in the 9 years we had been visiting. I thought to myself that maybe, just maybe, it was the universe allotting me my 14th birthday present. A look inside the mystery of the best sponge in all of England. Though all I could see was an oblong door, one that was only wide enough for a stick of butter to pass through and long enough for just about 18 sticks piled upon each other. The latch was unlocked, and all I could see through the minutest crack was a very vibrant green.

I was young, and I couldn’t help myself.

“Mr Monty! What’s behind that door?” I let out with an innocence that I fault myself for.

“Which door, son?” Perplexed but not yet paranoid, he answered.

“That door right there, sir. The one with that rusty old latch.” I pointed through the kitchen door straight to the mysterious crack.

Just like that, he closed the door.

“Nothing, son. It’s absolutely nothing, just this unusual door that I myself wonder why the architects would have placed there.”

I wish I knew then how an adult lies.

“You know, Mr Monty, I wanted to ask you one other thing. It’s for a school project.”

A nod followed.

“I’m supposed to find my purpose by Wednesday.”

Even the old hag with her little paper bag standing in front of us in the queue chuckled.

“I really like to bake. My favourite day is Sunday. When we eat your cake and have a cup of tea. Every Saturday I try to bake one just like yours, and well.” I looked down.

Everyone chuckled again, though this time I felt a small pat on my back.

“It’s my dream, Mr Morty, to be the best baker in the whole wide world. So I wanted to ask you some questions.”

With that, he turned his gaze from his palette knife and stared straight into my freakishly small eyes.

“Are you serious about this? Baking isn’t an easy task.” He added.

“Yes! It’s all I want. Every moment of every day, all I want is to make the best pastries ever.” I spoke with such vigour back then.

He looked down at my grandfather, hunched right in front of me.

“Is the kid serious?” He asked.

To that, my grandfather cracked a smile, “he is.”

“Okay. Come back next Sunday, I’ll teach you a thing or two if it’s okay with your folks.”

Suffice to say, this wasn’t a negotiation I let happen. For the next 3 years, I spent every Sunday learning the right technique to sift flour, the correct temperature to beat butter and how folding is a different method of incorporation than mixing. However, no matter what I learnt, and no matter how much I practised, my cakes just lacked that extra bit of oomph that Mr Monty’s had.

Time passed, and I turned 17.

“Are you still interested in becoming the best?” He asked.

“More than ever.”

“You might never be as good as you want.” He replied.

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Just like that, he turned the rusty latch.

“You’re old enough now. So this is a choice I’ll offer you, just as it was offered to me.”

I remember the way my eyes wandered in confusion as I looked at him, and at myself in the reflection of the cold metal counter.

“There’s a secret to my recipe. Just know that if I share it with you, then there is no turning back. You will have the baker’s dream, and all that it costs me is a price you will have to pay.”

I remember the time so well; the clock felt like it had paused at 4:44 in the morning.

“I accept. Whatever the cost.” Such foolhardy words had never left my mouth before, and should never have been uttered in the first place. What does whatever the cost even mean? I couldn’t imagine the depths of the word ‘whatever’.

He pulled the latch open and placed his fingers inside them, wiggling around until we heard a click. A larger door opened.

“Let’s go.” He reached his hand for mine, the wrinkles on his hands emphasised by the flour perpetually powdered along them.

On this Sunday, we walked in.

The first step I took left my boot submerged in soft soil, my first gaze towards the green pastures, and the first scent of fresh manure. All of which pulled my senses away from the cold metal of the bakery into divine nature.

“This is where I get my butter from, and as you know, the butter is what makes even the most decadent more decadent.” He uttered, placing his hand on my shoulder.

“We use the same butter.”

“We don’t pay the same price, so we don’t have the same price.”

A man began to walk towards us, his fingers tightly grasping a bucket in each hand.

“It all starts with the milk”

We watched him turn towards a small shack as he almost reached us. Pouring the milk into large wooden barrels. He began to churn.

“It’ll take him quite some time. Let’s go to him.” Mr Monty said after he had already taken the first step.

Though the man was close, the pasture felt endless as we walked towards the shack.

Mr Monty reached towards the man not for a handshake, but a hug, embracing him tenderly.

“Montgomery, this is my friend. He, too, wishes to be the best baker.”

Just like that, the smile from the warm embrace folded into a subtle and shameful part of his lips. Montgomery turned away and went back to his barrels. His head down, staring into the milk sloshing around and thicker in texture.

“Does he not like me, Mr Monty?”

“No, it’s not that at all. It’s just that you’re the first person to visit him.”

There was an eeriness to Montgomery, but there was a certain comfort I felt with him. His eyes were the same subtle blue, his lips thin and his buckteeth. He so closely resembled my mentor; how could I feel anything but comfortable?

“Come, child, it’s time I tell you my story. My baker’s dream.” Mr Monty said as he carried on walking towards a large oak tree split in half and fallen into the pasture.

We sat side by side as we watched Montgomery continue to churn.

“About some odd 30 years ago, I, too, had a dream. My mother baked the most wonderful shortbread biscuits; they were just sensational. Though no matter how excellent they were, they just never sold.” He paused. “So I went over to the Cathedral, into the crypts and wrote down a wish. I wish my mother’s biscuits would start to sell, and just like that, every day after she managed to sell the odd dozen.”

“Okay.”

“So naturally, I went back to the crypt and wrote another wish, that I wish to be the best baker this world has ever seen. After all I had learnt from my mother, I knew I had the skills; I just needed the opportunity. Though nothing changed even after a couple of months, my cakes still lacked that oomph I was searching for.”

“Yeah, that part I understand, sir.”

He smiled.

“Until one day this woman came to me, and she asked if I was willing to sacrifice greatly to achieve my dreams. Oh, kid, I told her straight into her dark eyes, this isn’t a mere dream, it’s my purpose. It’s all I want. It’s all I know. There is nothing but this.” He breathed in deeply, “To that she smiled and said nothing more, just offered me her hand. I grasped it, thinking that opportunity lies conjured betwixt those 5 fingers.”

He stopped speaking for a moment and just peered around.

“One moment, I held her hand, and the next I was here. Right here, sitting on this oak tree. There was me and there was this little kid who couldn’t have been older than 11. That little kid was already carrying pales of milk and churning butter like no one else.”

“Mr Montgomery?” I asked.

“A resident Sherlock, we’ve got ourselves, huh?” Though there was no hearty chuckle this time.

“What then? Mr Monty.”

“Well, kid, then I took the butter from the kids’ hands and proceeded out the door.” His gaze shifted to mine, “It’s easy to get lost in the pastures. Don’t look too long.”

Even then, I felt the warning to its fullest.

“It’s good that I had the chance to look back before I had this conversation with you. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you it all in its basal truth had I not had all this time.”

I shook my head.

“As soon as I walked through the door, I had this urge to bake, and did I bake. I baked pastries I’d never even known how to, and every single one of them had that feeling I had been searching for every day since my 20th birthday. Ever since the day I wished to be the best baker.”

I reached for his leg, “It sounds like a dream come true, Mr Monty.”

“It felt that way, for months at an end. I became obsessed, never leaving the shop, only returning here to take the next batch of butter every Sunday at exactly this time. The trick with obsession, though, is that everything else ceases to matter. To put it bluntly, my girlfriend and I separated; we had been together since we were your age. I felt nothing. My mother passed shortly after, and yet again I felt nothing. The day of her funeral, I stood at the counter baking. I never formed any meaningful relationships because I felt so disconnected with anything other than the kitchen. I was the Victorian sponge, plain and simple. Nothing but my craft, and with absolutely no desire to be anything but my craft. Sometimes I would stay at the pastures a couple of hours extra just to watch Montgomery frolicking around, playing by himself. The joy he felt, I could not feel. But it helped to watch.”

He took my hand off his thigh.

“It’s your turn now. You wish to be the best, you wish to be obsessed?”

“I do.”

He reached his hand out, and I grasped it.

The next moment I found myself sitting on a dead poplar tree in a meadow that expanded every distance my eyes could see. In front of me was a small shack in which a young boy was creaming milk into butter. In front of him was a door, the same door Mr Monty had in his shop.

I never saw Mr Monty again. I was in the same shop, and he was nowhere to be found.

“Monty! Could you stop wandering off and pack me up a sponge?” An old man with a young boy by his side uttered.

On Sundays, I think back.

The End.