Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe Read online

  All around the great tower snow whirled, soundlessly turning the whole of Manhattan into an enormous snow dome. It was heartstoppingly beautiful, one of the loveliest things Austin had ever seen.

  ‘Wow,’ he said, standing so close to the floor-to-ceiling windows he felt as if he could step right out into the sky. ‘My little brother would LOVE it in here. How does anyone get any work done?’

  Carmen smiled. She was used to the bank staff being very sophisticated, and if they were impressed by anything, absolutely refusing to show it. Before she had lost sixty pounds, got her nose fixed and tattooed on her eyebrows, she had been just a normal girl from Oregon, and Manhattan had transfixed her too.

  ‘It is nice, isn’t it?’ she said. Then her bright red lips closed again, and she sat down at the empty desk.

  ‘Now,’ she said. ‘I’m a lawyer, specialising in immigration and employment rights. Mr Ferani wanted to get all of this red tape sorted out as soon as possible, and I’m sure you do too.’

  Austin told himself this was just a bunch of paper-work; not at all irreversible, just some stuff to look at and think about later. Then he realised, looking at the obviously sexy but also obviously very serious Carmen Espito, that these were legal documents she had in front of her. This wasn’t just a little American chit-chat. Obviously they liked things done and they liked them done quickly. And they doubtlessly expected him to jump at the chance.

  As any sane person would, of course. The chance to grab a fabulous job, a whole new life, at his age, well. It was a dream come true. Anyone else, he was sure, would be biting her hand off.

  ‘Can I …’ he asked. ‘Can I take the contracts and stuff back to take a look at, just before we’re all done?’

  Carmen raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Of course, they’re pretty much standard boilerplate,’ she said. ‘If you want to get your lawyer to call me …’

  Austin’s lawyer had been a seventy-five-year-old grandmother who’d advised him to ignore social services when they wanted to come and poke about and ask Darny if he was getting his five a day, to which Austin would always answer yes, having come to the conclusion some time ago that he was just going to have to include potato.

  ‘Uhm, yes, maybe I will,’ he said hastily, trying to sound businesslike. ‘Great. These are great.’

  Carmen handed him several heavy sheaves of documents.

  ‘Just bring them back with your passport.’

  ‘My passport?’ said Austin, feeling slightly panicky. It felt a bit like they were trying to hold him against his will.

  Behind him the door opened with a boom, and Merv Ferani marched in. Today his bow tie was covered in small leaping reindeer, and his waistcoat was red. He looked like a small Jewish Santa Claus.

  ‘How are we going here, Carmen?’ he said. ‘Finishing up?’

  ‘Mr Tyler wants to get his lawyer to look it over,’ she said, swiftly. Merv’s face registered surprise.

  ‘There’s something you’re not happy with?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no, I’m sure … It’s just, you know, I’d … I mean. I kind of do have to talk it over with my little brother.’

  ‘He’s your business analyst, is he?’

  ‘No … no, he lives with me. And my girlfriend,’ he added hastily. ‘I just … I mean, it’s a huge uprooting …’

  ‘To the greatest place on earth!’ said Merv. He was genuinely confused – and he had a right to be, Austin conceded, given that Austin had agreed to come to New York in the first place.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Austin. ‘I realise that.’

  Merv looked out of the ceiling-height windows.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a great idea. We’ll fly ’em out for the weekend. What do you think about that, huh? Let them have a look, realise how great your life here is going to be. Take the kid to some museums and shit, catch a show, eat some real food. I’ll get my PA to sort it out.’

  Austin looked at him, stupefied. Then he remembered he was meant to be this super-cool hip banker from the UK who was completely blasé about this kind of thing happening all the time. He didn’t think he could pull that off.

  ‘Well …’ he said.

  ‘That’s my boy,’ said Merv. ‘I’ll pass you on to Stephanie, you’ll love her.’

  Why did everything have to move so fast? thought Austin, feeling his throat tighten nervously. But then, Issy was going to love it. She was going to love it, wasn’t she?

  Chapter Eight

  Peacekeeper Christmas Spice Cookies

  225g butter, softened

  200g sugar

  235ml treacle

  1 egg

  2 tbsp sour cream

  750g all-purpose flour

  2 tbsp baking powder

  5g baking soda

  1 tsp ground cinnamon

  1 tsp ground ginger pinch salt

  14g chopped walnuts

  145g golden raisins

  145g chopped dates

  In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Add the treacle, egg and sour cream; mix well. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture. Stir in walnuts, raisins and dates. Chill for 2 hours or until easy to handle.

  On a floured surface, roll out dough finely. Cut with a 211/2 inch round cookie cutter. Place on greased baking sheets. Bake at 160°C/gas mark 3 for 12–15 minutes. Cool completely. Allow to be inhaled by hungry cross people.

  Issy was at Darny’s school, and, currently, feeling a complete and utter fraud. Actually, it was awful. She was surrounded by people who all knew each other and were chatting furiously amidst peals of laughter, under fluorescent lighting, the smell of cheap mulled wine failing completely to cover up the undercurrent that was still after all these years so familiar to Issy: sweat, horrific aftershave rendered by the bucketload, trainers, illicit cigarettes and a harder-to-place hormonal fug that made everyone a little louder and more excitable.

  She shouldn’t even be here; she had just been so horrified when Austin had remarked casually that he didn’t normally go to Darny’s end-of-term concerts any more because Darny hated him being there so much and played up and they both got embarrassed.

  ‘I thought watching kids in nativity plays was the good bit about having them,’ she’d said, outraged.

  ‘After the year with the politically motivated capitalist innkeeper being portrayed as the leader of UKIP, and the dope-smoking shepherd? No. We all kept out of it after that,’ Austin had said wearily. ‘Anyway, now he’s at secondary school they don’t do a nativity any more, they do some contemporary stuff.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Darny helpfully. ‘He means contemporary shit.’

  ‘And have you got a part?’

  Darny had shrugged his shoulders, which Issy took to mean yes, I do, and Issy had insisted they were going and both the boys had slumped in a way that made them look less like brothers and more like identical twins.

  ‘You have to encourage young people,’ said Issy, who felt strongly about this after a year of watching increasingly dejected teenagers turn up looking for work with barely literate CVs. None of these kids had a job or any experience and she wished she could do more for them; but the CVs were all full of grandiose claims about empowerment and being an envelope-pushing people person and horrible sub-Apprentice claims that, when she looked at the slouching, embarrassed adolescent in front of her, didn’t seem to be helping anyone. Austin called her Jamie Oliver, but he agreed. Just not when it came to Darny.

  ‘It’ll make things worse,’ he said. ‘Darny doesn’t need an excuse to open his mouth.’

  ‘No, he needs to know when it’s appropriate,’ said Issy. ‘That’s why we need to be there for him.’

  But then, of course, Austin had got called away to the land of women with pin-thin legs and spiky heels and amazing luxury and being cosseted all day long, and it was she who had to pull on as many layers of clothing as she could manage after a long day at the café
and try to catch out Darny as he insisted that they’d been instructed to be all in black as Miss Fleur had convinced them that that would make it more dramatically powerful. Issy had sighed and finally agreed.

  It had been bracingly cold outside, and they’d passed other families rushing towards the main school building on Carnforth Road. Words of merry excitement filled the air, and Issy couldn’t help but feel a momentary pang; everyone was excited about being with their families at Christmas time, and she hadn’t even heard from her bloody mother, while Austin was miles away and Darny was already, before they’d even got to the school gates, disappearing into a vast sea of adolescents, most of whom were impossible to tell apart. Issy supposed it was a true sign of growing older when you couldn’t really tell what young people looked like; individually they just looked young.

  Oh, she missed her Gramps so much. He was good at young people. He liked them, encouraged them. He’d hired lots of apprentices in the bakery, some of them from awful backgrounds, and the vast majority had thrived and done well and gone on to other jobs and lives elsewhere, and for so long they’d received hundreds of Christmas cards every year from happy customers and family friends and … Issy didn’t even open email Christmas cards. She just couldn’t see the point these days.

  Of course everyone else knew where to go, so she played with her phone to make it look like she was very busy and engaged, and followed the general stream towards the gym auditorium. Someone had obviously tried to make it look festive – there were paper streamers hanging from the ceilings – but it couldn’t disguise the fact that this was an inner-city school trying its best, not a posh luxury private school with theatrical societies and fully equipped sound-mixing desks.

  Issy paid a pound for a plastic cup of scorching, slightly bitter mulled wine to give herself something to do, and reminded herself to stay out of the line of sight of any of Darny’s teachers; that was strictly Austin’s department. One of the reasons, she figured, that she and Darny stayed on reasonably friendly terms was that she hadn’t once interfered in his schooling or how he was getting on, even when her fingers itched to do so, and she knew it was the right thing. He had frequent letters home and detentions, and Austin would sigh and beg him to behave, and Darny would put forward very rational arguments as to why he shouldn’t have to, and it would go back and forth until everyone was exhausted and frayed and Issy would retire to the kitchen and whip up some Peacekeeper cookies and hope that one or other of them would grow out of it.

  She didn’t know a soul at the school. She texted Austin quickly. He was just leaving another meeting and texted back, ‘I told you not to go’, which was of course not helpful and made Issy wonder what the emoticon was for mild frustration. She sipped her mulled wine – the second sip was slightly better than the first, on balance – and wondered who to text next. This was danger hour for Helena, who would be trying to settle Chadani into bed, a process that could take several hours. Then her other friends … but it had been so long, and they all (she tried not to count, but they mostly did) had children now, and had moved away, or were travelling all the time, or didn’t really know what to talk to her about once they’d got past cakes. She really needed someone to whom she could say, ‘Isn’t this just total hell?’

  ‘OH MY LORD, isn’t this just TOTAL hell?’ came a strident voice. She glanced up. To her utter surprise, Caroline, in a bright red fitted dress that was almost totally inappropriate for a school concert, but which also still looked slightly amazing, was marching through the serried ranks of other parents, who parted to let her through.

  ‘Darling, thank GOD there’s someone I know here. Everyone else looks COMPLETELY feral.’

  Issy winced and tried to make a ‘she doesn’t really mean it’ face to the rest of the world.

  ‘Sssh,’ she said. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh GOD, well, if that bastard goes through with what he’s threatening, I’m going to have to send Hermia to this hellhole one day and have her mugged for her watch and shoes before she’s even made it through the metal detector.’

  ‘Caroline, can you keep your voice down?’

  Caroline looked mutinous. ‘I was hoping they’d ban me, then the Bastard would have to keep them at their private school like any rational human being. I don’t understand how he can be so evil.’

  ‘I think it’s rather a good school,’ said Issy. ‘It’s integrated, progressive—’

  ‘I don’t want progressive,’ hissed Caroline. ‘I want them hit on the hand with a ruler three times a day and doing cold runs in their underpants. Build a bit of bloody backbone, that’s what this country needs.’

  ‘But doesn’t that turn out bastards like your ex?’ said Issy. The mulled wine must be stronger than she’d thought.

  ‘Well, quite,’ said Caroline. ‘He shafted me before I had the chance to shaft him. If it wasn’t happening to me, I’d probably be quite impressed.’

  A slightly fusty-looking older man was standing on the platform, speaking into a microphone that bent feedback in and out. ‘Can everyone sit down, please?’ he was saying, his tone of voice indicating that he fully expected to repeat that exact sentence several times before anyone actually listened to him. The sole spotlight reflected off his bald head as he bent over to look at his notes.

  ‘Christ,’ said Caroline. ‘Is there anywhere we can get a drink round here?’

  ‘I think he’s asking us to sit down,’ said Issy.

  ‘Well, I can see what you were like at school,’ said Caroline.

  ‘Yeah, likewise,’ said Issy, steering her gently up the aisle and passing over her mulled wine. Caroline tasted it and made a face. Everyone had started shuffling in and Issy couldn’t see a seat anywhere. All eyes were on Caroline in her bright tight dress. Issy was burning up.

  Finally they landed right at the front.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Caroline loudly. ‘I think I’ve seen enough, actually.’ She stared meaningfully at the teacher on stage.

  ‘I will take you out,’ said Issy warningly.

  ‘What?’ said Caroline. ‘We’re paying for this school, I think we deserve to see how it stacks up.’

  ‘Actually it’s a publicly funded school so everyone’s paying for it,’ said Issy. ‘It can kind of do what it likes.’

  Caroline snorted again. ‘Ha, as if Richard pays tax. Right, if he says “Winterval”, I’m out of here.’

  ‘I think Winterval is an urban myth,’ said Issy.

  ‘Like Kwanzaa?’

  ‘No, I think Kwanzaa is a real holiday.’

  ‘Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Carnforth Road School Christmas celebration – happy Christmas, Hanukkah, Winterval or Kwanzaa, whichever you would like.’

  Issy cringed as Caroline gave her a pointed look.

  ‘We have, this year, with the help of our wonderful drama mistress Miss Fleur, put together something of an alternative event for you … The Tale of the Spaceman.’

  There was a flourish of excited applause, as the overhead speakers came on and started with an enormous burst of synth chords. The curtain went up to reveal a perfectly black stage with nothing visible on it except, hanging from the top of it, a torch.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Issy. ‘Is that “A Spaceman Came Travelling”?’ She glanced at Caroline. ‘OK, it is. You win. Let’s go.’

  ‘I LOVE this song,’ said Caroline, suddenly looking fascinated.

  In fact, despite the inevitable silliness – some very painfully sincerely delivered homilies on being an alien sent to earth to discover the terrible fate that it had been left to; a long piece on polar bears dancing that was obviously meant to be very moving but in fact left most of the audience in uncontrollable fits of mirth; a line of girls dressed as sexy penguins which was obviously meant to be funny but was in fact profoundly uncomfortable as row after row of fathers pretended they weren’t secretly figuring out how old they were; and a truly horrible orchestral interlude that wasn’t improved by being right n
ext to the tuba player – on the whole there was a definite effort being made, which made Issy feel proud and Caroline fiddle with her telephone.

  Then it was Darny’s turn. One of the smallest in the lowest year in the school, he stepped forward boldly. Issy was used to thinking of him as a large presence in their lives, as denoted by his enormous smelly trainers and pots of cheap hair gel strewn across their only bathroom, but now he seemed tiny, a small boy amidst the hulking teens and young adults.

  Issy, however, had finally relaxed. Something with a strong environmental message was surely well within Darny’s remit for being on message. She quickly pulled out her phone and took an illegal photo for Austin. They were all supposed to buy the official, non-paedophile photo album afterwards, but she wasn’t sure she could wait that long. And he would have been proud, despite himself, that Darny had such a large speaking role.

  Darny walked confidently towards the podium with the microphone. Issy realised she was nervous for him. She couldn’t bear speaking in public; even welcoming people into the café was hard enough some days. It didn’t seem to bother Darny at all, though. Come on, she found herself thinking. A nice little speech about saving the planet for tomorrow and they’d be home free and ready for another glass of terrible mulled wine. Caroline might even take her for a real drink.

  Darny lifted up his speech as he got to the podium.

  ‘Written on recycled paper,’ he quipped, which got an appreciative laugh from the audience. He paused, then began.

  ‘I wrote a bunch of crap in this essay – which my teacher really liked by the way, so thanks, Miss Hamm – about how to save the rainforest and protect biodiversity for future generations …’