‘Wait, when did you say your birthday was again?’
‘Tomorrow’ he replied.
Eek. I had put Alun’s 90th birthday in my calendar and forgotten to create a timed reminder to gather considered ingredients for a splendid cake. Now I only had the evening to create something special enough to say ‘I really love you, dear neighbour’. It was certainly a case for Celia’s emergency chocolate cake, which relies on remarkably few ingredients and a touch of imagination to get it going. First though, a foreword on Alun, who you will notice has crept into all of my published posts. Certain characters are going to crop up again and again, and you should probably know a bit more about them, especially since this one just reached his ninth decade.
You’ll already know a bit about Alun if you’ve read my last two posts, but the best example I can give to illustrate his character is one rainy but bright May day last year when he found me in the village taking pictures of a bright pink peony bejewelled with raindrops.
He crept up beside me and recited proudly:
“If, of thy mortal goods, thou art bereft, And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one & from the dole,
Buy Hyacinths to feed the soul”
And that’s the core of what Alun and I share, I think. The value of beauty, noticing it in the smallest of details, and sharing it with others. Love is in paying attention. If he hears me leave the building, he will rush to the window and wave me off in a kind of joyous dance. My grandma and I used to do this, and I must remember to tell him at some point how this small act can completely change my day and makes my heart burst simultaneously with the sadness of missing my grandma, and the absolute joy of finding that part of her spirit is alive and well in my neighbour.
I sneaked a picture of him that day (below), so that I can always reach for that feeling if and when I need to in the years to come when we’ve moved on from this place. Maybe Alun will exit stage right, and another will walk in from the left. I’ve long found that honorary grandfathers appear in my life, perhaps because I didn't know my own that well, though I’ll tell you about them another day.
Back to Alun’s emergency chocolate cake. I have the recipe written in Celia’s beautiful hand from the 1940s but, actually, you can find the same one on the BBC website under ‘Easy Chocolate Fudge Cake’. I like to use this recipe as a base and then customise with whatever I have to hand. Alun lived a long while in Hong Kong and has a penchant for dark oolong teas, so I ground plenty of Phoenix Dan Cong into a powder and stirred it into the mix. This particular tea has notes of apricot, orchid and quince, so really added a subtle fruitiness and tea-richness to the sponge. I decided upon three layers, so that it was nice and deep but not over the top, and baked late into the night. In the morning, I slathered the sponge with a chocolate icing, and left some on the landing for my other neighbour Jennifer who has been locked in with covid. A sweet gesture maybe, though also a way to stop myself from licking the bowl for breakfast. I like to decorate chocolate cakes with rosebuds and petals because they really stand out, as well as shavings of dark chocolate. Et voila, the cake was ready. I headed off down the stairs to catch the birthday boy as he was leaving to unlock the church.
His eyes bulged as he regarded the huge cake before him, caught off guard by my eager approach so early in the morning. As it dawned upon him that it was for him, a huge smile emerged on his face and we exchanged a big hug. One of his daughter’s visiting from Australia came out to see what all the commotion was, and we settled into an easy conversation in the hallway as Alun nipped off to run his errands. It was arranged that I would pop by the following evening for wine and the verdict for the cake was delivered later that day: so tasty that no one said a word for a good few minutes, apparently. Of course, I petitioned for two slices to be returned (one for me, one for Jennifer) and it was indeed delicious. You can’t really go wrong with this one.
Moreso than the pleasure of the cake though, this week I discovered that not only do I have a kindred spirit in Alun, but I really enjoyed meeting his daughters. We seemed to speak a similar language, and one invitation for wine led to a couple. If only they were staying longer. A recommendation to watch My Fair Lady was made and I could see how they knew I’d like it when Audrey Hepburn is presented with a bunch of leafy celery, which she hugs as she’s carted off through Covent Garden, the chorus coming together to sing ‘Wouldn’t it be loverly?’ and echo ‘Loverly’.
As I left the flat this morning, I looked back up at the window to see not one, but three ‘loverly’ faces waving back at me in a joyous dance. Perhaps that’s why Celia had to write the recipe down for her emergency chocolate cake? I think she knew as well as I and Alun do that things like cake aren’t just about delight, they’re about the soul, too.