Meet Me at the Cupcake Café Read online

  ‘And downstairs of course,’ said Des.

  Issy had seen the basement on the plans but hadn’t actually been down there yet. She hadn’t told anyone this. She didn’t want to admit that she’d taken on a business without inspecting every corner of it. Everyone would tut at her.

  Tentatively she followed Desmond down the narrow, rickety staircase illuminated by a bare bulb. There was a toilet halfway down, then at the bottom what she had hoped for – a huge space opening out, with clear venting and plenty of room for the industrial oven she now knew she’d need. There were standpipes for plumbing and a good spot for a desk for paperwork. One poky window at the back looked out on to the basement of the next building along; the light wasn’t great, but it would have to do. It would get warm down here too, warm enough to heat the shop. With her perfect, running-to-schedule, high-temperature oven, the kind her grandfather still dreamed of.

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful!’ she exclaimed, turning to Des with her eyes shining.

  Des squinted. It looked like a mucky old cellar to him, but who was he to judge?

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Now, I just have a few things here for you to sign … You must be signing a lot of stuff.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Issy, who had come away with files full from the bank, and was waiting for her trading licence to come through. The shop already had permission for café usage; it was just getting it to be her café that would be the problem, although Austin had said if her application was successful he’d be happy to look over the paperwork.

  When they stumbled back upstairs, the weak afternoon sun had come round to the front of the building and was sending a watery stream of yellow through smeared glass and motes of dust, and lighting up the fireplace. Yes, it was mucky, Issy thought, revived. Yes, it needed work doing. But she could work. She could do it. She would show Graeme, who would be so proud of her, and she would bring Gramps down on opening day – she wasn’t quite sure how she’d manage that but she’d figure something out – and she’d totally impress Helena and all their friends and bring a whole new clientele to the street and get written up in Metro and the Evening Standard as a hidden gem, and people would come, and have coffee, and a delicious cake and be perked up by the lovely little courtyard and the beautiful shop and …

  Des spotted the woman’s face dropping into reverie again.

  ‘OK!’ he said, slightly desperately. ‘Shall we get on? Or I can leave you here if you like, it is yours now.’

  Issy smiled. ‘Oh no, I have lots to do and sort out. I’ll leave with you.’

  He smiled back at her happily.

  ‘How many kilos of coffee are you planning through here anyway?’ he asked casually as Issy got to grips with the locks.

  ‘What?’ said Issy.

  Des grimaced. He’d expected her to at least be au fait with the most basic levels of coffee-shop jargon. The brief moment of hopefulness he’d felt at her excitement with the cellar evaporated. He was going to be showing this place again in three months. Oh well, it was all more commission, he supposed, although Mr Barstow was getting pissed off at him, as if he wasn’t the one who selected the tenants in the first place.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Des, getting out his car keys.

  ‘OK,’ said Issy. ‘Well, you’ll pop in for a cup when we’re open, won’t you?’

  Des thought of his slashed bonus. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘If I can.’

  And he shot off to rescue Jamie from the sharp-taloned clutches of his grandmother.

  Chapter Seven

  Double Chocolate Cupcakes (commercial)

  Makes one morning’s worth.

  2500ml double cream

  4500g good-quality dark chocolate

  50 eggs

  1650g caster sugar

  1500g plain flour

  10 tbsp good-quality cocoa powder

  5 tsp baking powder

  sugar flowers to decorate

  Chocolate sauce

  1000g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

  800ml single cream

  Stir double cream and chocolate in a pan over low heat until smooth. Cool slightly.

  Place eggs and sugar in the bowl of your industrial mixer, and beat on high until pale and doubled in volume. Slowly beat in chocolate mixture.

  Sift in flour, cocoa and baking powder and combine.

  Divide the mixture between cases. Bake for 15–20 minutes at 180°C/gas mark 4 until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool slightly in pans, then remove cakes from cases. Drink a pint of water.

  Meanwhile, for the sauce, place the ingredients in a heatproof bowl over a vat of simmering water (don’t let bowl touch water). Stir until the chocolate has melted. Consider calling ex-boyfriend and old boss and crawling on hands and knees begging till he gives you back your old paperwork job.

  Remove from heat and stir until smooth. Wonder how much weight you’ll lose doing this. Taste delicious mixture. Decide, probably not that much.

  Cool slightly. Serve cakes topped with sauce. Decorate with flowers if using. Collapse in heap, convinced this is never, ever going to work on a daily basis.

  ‘Oh God.’

  Issy was sitting neck-deep in a pile of paperwork. It had not been as easy to deal with the admin as she had hoped. It was, in fact, a big long chore of filling out the same details over and over again. She had hygiene courses to attend, buying trips to make and all of this before she had sorted out the fixtures and fittings. She had received quotes for the catering oven she wanted and it would have swallowed up her entire budget for everything. So she started looking at second-hand, but even that seemed perilously expensive. And the look she had envisaged for the shop – reclaimed-looking tables and chairs, in pale colours of cream and eau de Nil – was proving pricey too; as if she’d do better actually to reclaim old tables and chairs. And she still hadn’t heard from the bank. Why did everything take so long? She couldn’t hire anyone till she had a business account, but it felt like they wanted to wait until she had a business before they would give her an account. It was very frustrating. And that was before you even got to the baking.

  Helena paused outside her door. She knew the last week or so had been stressful for Issy. Every day huge forms had arrived in the post: advertising brochures and government forms and official-looking documents in brown envelopes.

  Helena had had a hard day herself. A child had come in with suspected meningitis, always a horrible experience. They’d saved her life, but she might still lose a foot. Helena made a mental note to check up on her on the ward the next morning. That was often the problem with A&E; you never found out the end of the story. And now here was Issy huffing and puffing about the place rather than just grabbing every day as it happened and getting stuck in. It could be a bit frustrating.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, knocking on the door. ‘How are you doing?’

  Issy was ankle-deep in piles of paper.

  ‘Bugger it,’ she said. ‘I’ve discovered the fatal flaw. I haven’t worked in a shop before.’

  ‘You worked in your grampa’s bakery, didn’t you?’

  ‘I took twenty-one pence for French cakes. On Saturdays. So the customers could pinch my cheeks and say how bonny I was looking, which by the way if you’re not from the North means “fat”. Oh, why didn’t I train to become an accountant?’

  She picked up another piece of a paper.

  ‘Or … or a building surveyor.’

  ‘I knew I should have stolen some valium,’ said Helena. Issy’s mouth twitched a little bit.

  ‘Oh, Helena. I can’t believe I’ve done this on a whim. I need help.’ She looked imploringly at her friend.

  ‘Well, don’t look at me, I’m just off a twelve-hour shift,’ said Helena. ‘And apart from stocking your first aid cupboard and teaching you the Heimlich manoeuvre again, I’m not sure what I can do for you.’

  ‘No,’ said Issy, sighing. ‘And my mate Zac said he’d design the menus for me, but that’s it.’

  ‘We
ll, that’s a start,’ said Helena comfortingly. ‘A first aid box, a menu and some yummy cakes. The rest is just cleaning up.’

  ‘I feel so alone,’ said Issy, who was missing Graeme more than she could admit. The shock of going from seeing him every day to never seeing him at all was one thing. To have a reconciliation, and then to have it all snatched away again … that was hard to process.

  Helena sat down.

  ‘But you’re going to have to get staff, aren’t you? I mean, you’re going to have to pay people sooner or later. Maybe if you recruit someone now they could help you with all this stuff as well as the shop when it’s open. Do you know anyone?’

  Issy thought suddenly of the bright, cheery woman she’d met on the redundancy course.

  ‘You know,’ she said, scrolling down her phone where she and Pearl had politely swapped numbers, never really expecting to use them, ‘there might just be something in this networking thing after all. I think she’s got catering experience.’

  She started to push the number as Helena held up her hand.

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

  Issy glanced nervously at the piles of forms.

  ‘Shouldn’t you wait for the bank to give you the go-ahead – and the overdraft facility?’

  Suddenly, Issy felt she couldn’t wait until morning. She had been filling in forms and talking to government inspectors for three days; she needed to know. The bank was being horribly slow. She took out the card of Mr Austin Tyler and dialled the mobile number. OK, so it was after seven, but bankers worked late hours, didn’t they?

  ‘There’s this chap I thought you might like,’ she said to Helena. ‘He’s got a kid though. But no wedding ring.’

  ‘Oh lovely, married but pretending he isn’t,’ snorted Helena. ‘Just my type. I’ll be in my room, kissing my John Cusack pictures.’

  Austin was bathing Darny, or rather he was attempting the equivalent of holding a squid down in the water while the squid thrashed all of its tentacles to get free. Austin was considering letting the squid go without washing his hair for the ninth night in a row when his phone rang. He retrieved it, granting Darny a temporary victory as he stood up in the bath and started parading up and down it like a soldier, kicking bubbles as he went.

  ‘Stop that,’ he hissed, which made Darny redouble his efforts.

  ‘Hello?’

  Issy heard a strangulated yell from Darny as Austin attempted to make him sit down again.

  ‘Sorry, is this a bad time?’

  ‘Um, just in the bath.’

  ‘Oh, sorry …’

  ‘No, not me … Darny!’

  ‘Soldiers do not sit down to your authority!’ came clearly over the earpiece.

  ‘Ah. You’re bathing a soldier,’ said Issy kindly. She hadn’t thought the child would be so old; Austin seemed about her age. Which wasn’t, she reminded herself, that young any more. ‘Well, that is an important duty.’

  ‘Darny, sit down!’

  ‘You’re not my superior officer!’

  ‘Actually, I think you’ll find that I am … Sorry about this, but who is it?’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ said Issy, embarrassed. ‘It’s Isabel Randall. From the Cupcake Café.’

  She could hear Austin struggle to remember her. It was excruciating.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said finally. ‘Uh. Yes. How can I help you?’

  ‘This is clearly a bad time, I’m so sorry,’ said Issy.

  Normally Austin would have liked to point out sarcastically that yes, 7.30 on a school night was quite a bad time for all sorts of business enquiries, but there was something in Issy’s voice – she was, he could tell, genuinely sorry; she wasn’t just being polite but still trying to demand his attention. He groped around for his glasses, which were steamed up.

  ‘OK, soldier, at ease,’ he said to Darny, handing the boy a camouflage-coloured sponge and escaping out of the bathroom.

  ‘Right, what’s up?’ he said to Issy as cheerfully as he could manage, noticing as he stepped on to the landing that there seemed to be piles of toys and books stacked up all over the house. He wished someone would come and sort it out for him. He knew that it was his responsibility, but he was just so tired all the time. He never seemed to get round to it. And on the weekends, he and Darny liked to hang out downstairs and watch Formula 1. They both felt they’d earned it after a hard week.

  ‘Have you got lots of kids?’ said Issy, genuinely curious.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Austin. Now he really wished she hadn’t called him at home. He had the spiel off pat, but he hated giving it to strangers. ‘Uh, Darny’s my little brother. My … uh, well, we lost our parents, and there’s a big age gap, so, um, it’s just me looking after him. Boys together, you know! We get along pretty well.’

  Issy immediately wished she hadn’t asked. Austin sounded jaunty enough rolling off his spiel; he’d obviously got it down to just a few words. But of course, she couldn’t begin to contemplate the depths of agony beneath the words. There was a silence on the phone.

  ‘Oh,’ Issy said finally, just as Austin said, ‘So,’ to cover the gap. They both gave a little laugh.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Issy. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Austin. ‘Perfectly normal question. Sorry the answer is a bit odd. I used just to say yes, he was my little boy …’

  Austin didn’t know why he was telling her this. It was strange, but there was something warm and friendly about her tone.

  ‘But then I’d get lots of people saying he was so like me, and where was his mum and so on, so it just got more complicated in the end.’

  ‘Maybe you should print it on your business cards,’ said Issy, then bit her tongue in case that was in bad taste.

  ‘Oh, I should,’ said Austin, smiling. ‘Definitely. Austin Tyler, dad-stroke-brother. Stroke animal wrangler.’

  Issy found herself smiling down the phone. ‘I’m sure the bank would be fine with that.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘So anyway,’ she said, getting hold of herself, ‘I know we have to wait for the official letter and everything, but I’ve got the keys now and I’m really anxious to start hiring staff and I’m sure it’s totally confidential and you’re not allowed to tell me so I’ll have interrupted your bath time for nothing so …’

  ‘Are you going to apologize again?’ said Austin, amused.

  ‘Uh … well, yes I was.’

  ‘Come on! What kind of a hard-headed businesswoman are you?’

  Issy smiled. For a banker, he was almost flirtatious.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Could you possibly give me a heads-up as to whether the bank is going to take my account?’

  Of course he knew he wasn’t supposed to, and it wasn’t officially rubber-stamped yet. But she’d caught him at a vulnerable moment, and he could already hear a lot of noise coming from the other side of the door. And he could never resist a nice-sounding girl.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’m absolutely not supposed to tell you this. But seeing as you asked very nicely, I can say that yes, I have recommended that we open an account for your business with our business.’

  Issy jumped up and down and clapped her hands.

  ‘The board just have to take my recommendation.’

  Issy calmed down.

  ‘Oh. Will they do that?’

  ‘Do you doubt me?’

  She smiled down the phone.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Congratulations, Miss Randall. It appears you’re in business.’

  Issy hung up after thanking Austin a million times, and danced around the room, emboldened once more. Austin hung up and looked slightly quizzically at the phone. Was he imagining things, or had he just quite enjoyed taking a business call? That wasn’t like him at all.

  ‘Austin! Austin!!! My infantry thinks it might need to do a pee in the bath!’

  ‘Wait!’

  Pearl was sitting under the blankets with Louis. It was freezing o
utside; freezing. A tiny hint of spring at the end of February had proved to be a cruel chimera. Now a howling gale was blowing, the wind funnelling down the tunnels and blowing across the wide open spaces of the estate, making an unsettling amount of noise. Their last combined electricity/gas bill had been absolutely dreadful, so they were huddling together in front of a plug-in fire. Louis had a temperature – he fell sick so easily. She didn’t know why. He was mildly asthmatic and seemed prey to absolutely every bug that came along. In cheerier moments she suspected it was because he was so convivial and social; he hugged everyone and caught whatever they had. At other times she wondered, deep down, if he ate enough of the right foods, was outdoors in enough fresh air and greenery to build the proper immunities, or if he just spent too long inside, breathing stale air. She’d told her mum not to smoke indoors, and she did her best, but when it was as cold as today, it felt cruel to make her stand on the stoop, exposed to the passing gangs of teenage boys who would shout and holler at anyone standing alone and looking even remotely vulnerable.

  Her phone rang, with a number she didn’t recognize. Pulling Louis’s sweaty brow to her and giving him a swift kiss, she answered it, turning down the volume on the television.

  ‘Hello?’ she said, as cheerily as she could manage.

  ‘Uh, hello,’ came a timid voice on the other end of the phone. ‘I don’t know if you remember me …’

  ‘Patisserie Valerie!’ said Pearl, pleased. ‘Of course I remember you. And that course was so awful, did you go back?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Issy, happy to hear Pearl so glad to hear from her. ‘In fact, though, the course did work. Because it inspired me to go and do something quite different and actually, you know, network. So, uh, this is me. Networking.’