Meet Me at the Cupcake Café Page 23

  ‘Yes please!’ said Issy.

  The three of them sat by the river, watching the boats go by and the great wheel of the London Eye overhead, and were still enjoying each other’s company, so much so in fact that Issy hardly noticed the time. When Darny finally came off the high climbing frame and grabbed Issy’s hand with his sticky paw as they left the park, she didn’t mind a bit – was pleased in fact (Austin was stupefied) – and they decided as a special treat to take a cab back to Stoke Newington, whereupon Darny, having attempted to press all the buttons, curled up in the back and fell asleep on Issy’s shoulder. When Austin glanced over two minutes later as the cab trudged slowly through the traffic, he saw Issy, too, fast asleep, her black curls tangled with Darny’s spikes, her cheeks pink. He stared at her all the way home.

  Issy couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep in the cab. OK, she’d had no rest the night before, but still. Had she dribbled? Had she snored? Oh God, horrific. Austin had just smiled politely and said goodbye … Oh God, that meant she must have then, because surely otherwise … wouldn’t he have asked for another date? Although that wasn’t a date, was it? Was it? No. Yes. No. She thought again of the moment when he’d held her hand. She couldn’t believe how much she’d wanted him to go on holding it. Putting her key in the door, Issy moaned. Helena would know what to do.

  She caught sight of herself in the filigree mirror that hung in the tiny hallway, over the flower-sprigged retro wallpaper she was so proud of. She hadn’t realized till then that she must have had that big white streak of wedding-cake flour in her hair all day.

  ‘Helena?! Lena! I need you,’ she bawled, stalking into the sitting room and marching over to the fridge, where she knew they had a couple of bottles of rosé left over from something. Then she stopped, and turned round. There on the sofa, sure enough, was Helena. And beside her on the sofa, someone she thought she recognized. They were in the exact positions of people who’d suddenly jumped apart in an effort to look completely innocent of any wrongdoing.

  ‘Oh!’ she said.

  ‘Hello!’ said Helena. Issy looked at her carefully. Could she … ? She couldn’t possibly. Could she be blushing?

  Ashok was pleased. Meeting Helena’s friends was definitely a good step forward. He jumped up immediately.

  ‘Hello, Isabel. How lovely to see you again,’ he said politely, shaking her hand. ‘I’m—’

  ‘Ashok. Yes, I know,’ she said. He was much handsomer than she’d remembered, out of his rookie-looking short white coat. Over the top of his head she waggled her eyebrows furiously at Helena, who was pretending to ignore her.

  ‘So what is it you need to ask me?’ said Helena, trying to change the subject.

  ‘Um, not to worry,’ said Issy, moving over to the fridge. ‘Who’d like some wine?’

  ‘Your gramps called,’ said Helena, when they were all ensconced in the sitting room. Ashok made for very easy company, Issy noted, pouring wine and adding comments when needed.

  ‘Oh, lovely,’ said Issy. ‘What’s he up to? Apart from, um, lying in bed.’

  ‘He wanted to know if you got his cream of soda scone recipe.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Issy. She had got it. But the thing was, she’d got it four times, all copied out in the same wavering hand. She’d forgotten about that.

  ‘And,’ said Helena, ‘he didn’t recognize me on the phone.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Issy.

  ‘He knows me quite well,’ said Helena.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I don’t have to tell you what that means.’

  ‘No,’ said Issy quietly. ‘He seemed fine yesterday.’

  ‘It can ebb and flow,’ said Helena. ‘You know that.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Ashok. ‘The same thing happened to my grandfather.’

  ‘Did he get all better?’asked Issy. ‘And then everything went back to how it used to be and it was fine again, just like when you were little?’

  ‘Um … not exactly,’ said Ashok, and he offered her a little more wine, but Issy suddenly found herself overwhelmed with tiredness. She bade goodnight to them both and stumbled off to bed.

  ‘I’m calling the home,’ said Issy, after a long, luxurious lie-in the next morning.

  ‘Good,’ said Helena. ‘What was it you wanted to ask me before?’

  ‘Ooh,’ said Issy. ‘Well.’ And she told her about her day with Austin. Helena’s smile got wider and wider.

  ‘Stop that,’ said Issy. ‘That’s exactly the look Pearl gets every time his name comes up in conversation. You two are totally in cahoots.’

  ‘He’s an attractive man …’ said Helena.

  ‘Whom I owe lots and lots of money,’ said Issy. ‘I’m sure it’s not right.’

  ‘Well, you haven’t done anything,’ said Helena.

  ‘Nooo …’

  ‘Apart from the dribble.’

  ‘I didn’t dribble.’

  ‘Let’s hope he looooves dribble.’

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Well, at least he’s seen you at your dribbliest. It can only get better from now on in.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Helena grinned. ‘I reckon he’s going to phone you.’

  Issy felt her heart beat a bit faster. Even just talking about him was the most … well, it felt nice.

  ‘Do you think?’

  ‘Even if it’s just to bill you for the dry-cleaning.’

  Austin did phone. First thing Tuesday morning.

  But it wasn’t the kind of phone call he really wanted to make. It wasn’t the kind he liked making to anyone. The fact that he had to make it to Issy really made him think that, once and for all, and however sweet she might be and however interesting he found her and however pretty she looked, these kinds of things were pointless and he couldn’t mix business with pleasure, and that was that. Which was incredibly annoying, given that he was still going to have to call her. And it didn’t help that Darny kept mooning around the place, asking when he could see her again.

  Well, it had to be done. He sighed, then picked up the phone.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘Hello!’ came the warm tones immediately. She sounded really pleased to hear from him. ‘Hello! Is that Austin? How nice to hear from you! How’s Darny? Can you tell him I have been looking for fish cake-shapes to make fishy cakes but apparently nobody likes fishy cakes and I can’t find any. Well, they like fishcakes, you know what I mean, but not … anyway, do you think dinosaurs would do and …’ Issy was aware she was babbling.

  ‘Um, fine, he’s fine. Um, look, Issy …’

  Her heart sank. That tone of voice was one she recognized. In that instant she knew that whatever she thought might have happened on Saturday was not really on the agenda; that he’d reconsidered, if he’d ever considered it in the first place. OK. OK. She took a deep breath and pulled herself together, putting down her spatula and pushing her hair away from her face. She was surprised just how acute her disappointment was: she’d thought she was still getting over a broken heart, but this felt much more painful than thoughts of her old boss.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, in a clipped way.

  Austin felt cross with himself, stupid. Why couldn’t he just say, look, would you like to meet for, you know, a drink? Somewhere nice. Late at night. Where nobody had to get up in the morning and be at work for 7am, and no one still wet the bed if they’d been watching Doctor Who and needed his bunkbed changing at peculiar hours; somewhere they could have a glass of wine, and maybe a bit of a laugh, and a dance and then afterwards … God. He felt like smacking himself on the head. Concentrate.

  ‘Look,’ he managed. He was going to keep this short and terse, make absolutely sure he didn’t say anything inappropriate. ‘I’ve had Mrs Prescott on the phone …’

  ‘And?’

  Issy was ready for good news. Earnings were marching steadily upwards, and she fully expected Caroline to make a huge difference; when she wasn’t bursting into tears or tut-tutting over the butt
er order, she was already proving herself an icon of efficiency.

  ‘She says there’s a … she says she needs to send out an invoice and you won’t let her.’

  ‘Well, I’ve explained it totally to Mrs Prescott,’ said Issy stiffly. ‘I was doing a wedding favour to a friend.’

  ‘She says there was no mention of this at all. She found there was an unaccounted-for amount of ingredients missing that would add up to about four hundred cakes …’

  ‘God, she’s good,’ said Issy. ‘Four hundred and ten, actually. In case some got squashed.’

  ‘That’s not funny, Issy! That’s a week’s profit for you!’

  ‘But it was a wedding gift! To a friend!’

  ‘Well, the invoice should still have gone through, even at a heavy discount. You have to charge for raw materials.’

  ‘Not for a gift,’ said Issy stubbornly. How dare he take her out and be all soft and mooshy on Saturday, then three days later phone her up and think he could give her a bollocking. He was just as bad as Graeme.

  Austin was exasperated.

  ‘Issy! You can’t run a business this way! You just can’t! Don’t you understand? You can’t just shut up the shop unannounced, and you can’t go giving stock away like that! Apple don’t hand out free iPods, and exactly the same principle applies to you. Exactly.’

  ‘But we’re loads busier these days,’ said Issy.

  ‘Yes, but you’ve taken on more staff and you’re paying overtime,’ said Austin. ‘It doesn’t matter if you have a million people a day, if you don’t take in more cash than you spend you’re going to the wall, and that’s the end of it. You didn’t even open on Saturday.’

  That was a step too far and they both knew it.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Issy. ‘Obviously on Saturday I made a mistake.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ said Austin.

  ‘I think you did,’ said Issy.

  There was a pause. Then Issy said, ‘You know, my grandfather … My grandfather ran three bakeries at one point. He supplied huge amounts of bread in Manchester. He was a success, and he knew everyone. Of course all his money’s gone now … Nursing homes, you know. Getting good care is expensive.’

  ‘I do know, yes,’ said Austin, and Issy heard the simple pain in his voice, but didn’t want to feel sympathetic.

  ‘Anyway, he was famous when I was growing up; everyone got their bread from him. And if they were sick or couldn’t make the bill that week, he’d help them out, or if a hungry child was passing by, he’d always have a cake for them, or a sickly mum, or an old soldier. Everyone knew him. And he was a huge success. And that’s what I want to do.’

  ‘And I think that’s wonderful,’ said Austin. ‘He sounds like a wonderful man.’

  ‘He is,’ said Issy fervently.

  ‘And that’s how businesses worked for hundreds of years – then the big boys came in and built huge shops, not in town, and made everything loads cheaper and invented central distribution and however much everyone liked the little shops and knew the people, they all went to the big shops. That’s just what happened.’

  Issy stayed silent. She knew that was true. The local stores had nearly all gone by the time Gramps retired; the city centre was almost deserted. People didn’t want a chat with their bread any more, not if it cost them a few pence extra a loaf.

  ‘So if you’re going to offer personal service, and a small shop with all the overheads involved in single-service marketing, you do, I’m afraid, have to fight a bit harder than your grandfather did.’

  ‘Nobody fights harder than him,’ said Issy defiantly.

  ‘Well, that’s good. I’m glad you’ve inherited his spirit. But please, please, Issy. Apply it to the modern age.’

  ‘Thank you for the business advice,’ said Issy.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said Austin.

  And they hung up, both upset, both frustrated, at opposite ends of Stoke Newington.

  Telling herself she had been foolish to think that anything might have happened over the weekend, Issy took Austin’s words to heart. She submerged herself in the business; paid her bills on time, kept on top of the paperwork; used Caroline’s new hours to organize and streamline everything. She was even at risk of wringing a smile out of Mrs Prescott. She was in early to bake cupcakes – the standard favourites, orange and lemon, double chocolate and strawberry and vanilla, plus a constantly rotating menu of new recipes to keep the regulars coming back for more. Most of these were tested on Doti the postman, whose visits were almost getting embarrassing for everyone except Pearl, who smiled at him and teased him no more nor less than she did everyone else who crossed her path.

  Caroline and Pearl were continuing to clash.

  ‘I must do those windows,’ Caroline murmured to Issy on her way out one day.

  Pearl rolled her eyes. ‘Well, I’ll do them.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Caroline. ‘I’ll come in on my day off.’

  So of course the windows got washed by Pearl, immediately.

  ‘I think we’d better tell Issy there’s too much cinnamon in the cinnamon rolls, don’t you?’ Caroline would say chummily. ‘I’ll do it of course.’

  So Pearl was always left feeling like the junior partner. One day, when Pearl was alone in the shop, Kate marched in with the twins.

  ‘I’m here for the order.’

  Seraphina was wearing a pink ballet tutu. Jane was wearing blue dungarees. Pearl tried to focus on what Kate was saying, but she was distracted by the sight of Seraphina holding open the tutu waistband and Jane attempting to climb inside, while simultaneously pushing a dungaree strap over Seraphina’s little shoulder.

  ‘What’s that?’ she said, pleasantly.

  ‘For the cakes with messages. Caroline said it was a brilliant concept and she’d get you right on it.’

  ‘Did she?’ said Pearl. Kate was saved from a classic Pearl snort by the two little girls suddenly falling over.

  ‘Seraphina! Jane! What are you doing?’

  The girls were all tangled up in each other’s clothing and were rolling around the floor in hysterics.

  ‘We not Jane an Sufine! We Sufijane!’

  They dissolved in giggles again, cuddling one another, the two blonde heads identical.

  ‘Get up,’ shouted Kate. ‘Or it’ll be the naughty step for you, Seraphina, and the naughty corner for you, Jane.’

  The two girls slowly disentangled themselves, heads hanging.

  ‘Honestly,’ said Kate, shaking her head at Pearl.

  ‘They’re adorable,’ said Pearl, missing Louis. She couldn’t believe how much you could miss someone you were going to see in a few hours. Sometimes after he was asleep she had to go and look at him at night because she couldn’t wait to see him in the morning.

  ‘Humph,’ said Kate. ‘So, can you do it?’

  ‘Do what?’ said Pearl, hating the idea of Caroline subcontracting on her behalf.

  ‘I want letters piped on the cakes.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Pearl. It would be time-consuming but they’d be able to charge a premium, she supposed. Would it be worth her while?

  ‘I’d want it professional standard,’ said Kate. ‘None of this local amateur nonsense.’

  And would it be worth having to do it to Kate’s standards?

  ‘Can we have cake, Mummy?’ Seraphina was asking sweetly. ‘We’ll share.’

  ‘We like to share,’ shouted Jane.

  ‘No, darlings, this is all junk,’ said Kate absent-mindedly. Pearl sighed. Kate took a quick phone call while Pearl stood there, cursing Caroline and all her friends, then Kate turned off her phone.

  ‘All right,’ she said briskly. ‘I want lemon cupcakes, orange icing, and “H-A-P-P-Y-B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y-E-V-A-N-G-E-L-I-N-A-4-T-O-D-A-Y”.’

  Pearl wrote it down. ‘I think we can manage,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ said Kate. ‘I hope Caroline was right about you.’

  Pearl privately thought she was not.

/>   ‘Goodbye, twins!’ She waved.

  ‘Buh bye!’ called the twins in one voice.

  ‘Actually it’s Seraph—’

  But Pearl had already disappeared downstairs to give the good news to Issy.

  They both worked late to finish, and Helena popped in for a chat and a catch-up, and they teased her unmercifully about Ashok and she refused to answer any questions, turning them round by asking Pearl repeatedly about Ben, but she ably deflected them by complaining to Issy about Caroline, when Issy was absolutely not in the mood to listen. But Helena and Pearl gradually fell silent, just watching Issy at work. It was so instinctive, what she did – she didn’t measure or weigh anything out, simply tossed, almost unthinkingly, the ingredients into a bowl, a fine, careless toss to the arm as she spun the mixture, spooning it up in the blink of an eye, twenty-four perfect measures into the baking tins she’d greased without looking at them; spinning the sugared icing then whipping it on and shaping it with a knife, every one perfect and delicious, a miniature work of art, even before she started the delicate piping of each individual letter. Helena and Pearl exchanged glances.

  ‘That is quite cool,’ said Helena finally.

  Issy, engrossed in what she was doing, looked up, surprised. ‘But I do this every day,’ she said. ‘It’s like you stitching up someone’s glassed arm.’

  ‘I am good at that,’ confirmed Helena. ‘But it doesn’t look quite so delicious at the end.’

  The cakes, laid out in a row, were stunning. Issy was going to pop them in on her way home.

  ‘They are better than that lady deserves,’ said Pearl crossly.

  ‘Behave yourself,’ said Issy, sticking out her tongue.

  Dashing in one morning to get the temperamental coffee machine warmed up before what was rapidly becoming the morning rush, Pearl realized she hadn’t even opened yesterday’s post. ‘Won! Doo! Free! Hup!’ Plonking Louis on one of the high stools they’d recently got to line the mantelpiece and give people somewhere extra to sit when they were busy, she passed him a pain au chocolat and opened up the letter from the nursery. Then she stared at it in disbelief.