Meet Me at the Cupcake Café Read online

  ‘It won’t be for ever,’ he said. But he couldn’t deny the slight relief he felt when she stepped out of the car.

  Issy stumbled through the puddles. It was hosing it down so hard that only a few minutes’ walking up Britton Street were enough to render her as completely soaked as if she’d never had a lift at all. She ducked into the ladies’ loos on the ground floor, which were cutting-edge (so guests could never figure out how to turn on the taps or flush the loos) and usually empty. A few blasts of the hand dryer were all she could muster for her hair. Oh great, it was going to look like a complete frizzathon.

  When Issy took the time and properly blowdried her hair and used lots of expensive products, it made beautiful shiny ringlets that fell in tinkly twists round her neck. When she didn’t, which was most days, she ran a huge risk of frizz, especially in the wet. She looked at herself and sighed. Her hair looked like she’d knitted it. The cold wind had put some colour in her cheeks – Issy hated her propensity for blushing at everything but this wasn’t too bad – and her green eyes, fringed with lots of black mascara, were fine, but the hair was undoubtedly a disaster. She scrabbled around in her bag for a clip or hairband but came up empty-handed except for a red elastic band dropped by the postman. That would have to do. It didn’t quite go with her floral print dress and tight black cardie, worn with thick black tights and black boots, but it would have to do.

  Slightly late, she said good morning to Jim, the doorman, and hopped the lift up to the second floor, which was accounts and admin. The salesmen and the developers had the floor above, but the atrium was made of solid glass, which meant it was always easy to see who was around and about. Up at her desk she nodded to her workmates, then realized with a start that she was late for the 9.30 meeting she was meant to be minuting; the meeting where Graeme would talk about the results of the board meeting to staff lower down the chain. She cursed under her breath. Why couldn’t Graeme at least have mentioned it to remind her? Crossly, she grabbed her laptop and ran for the stairs.

  In the meeting room, the senior sales team were already seated round the glass table, trading banter with one another. They glanced up uninterestedly when she walked in, muttering apologies. Graeme looked furious. Well, it was his fault, thought Issy mutinously. If he hadn’t left her to wade through a flood she’d have made it on time.

  ‘Late night?’ sniggered Billy Fanshawe, one of the youngest, cockiest salesmen, who thought he was irresistible to women. It was annoying how often his sheer persuasive belief in this proved it to be true.

  Issy smiled without showing her teeth at him and sat down without grabbing a coffee, even though she desperately wanted one. She sat next to Callie Mehta, the only senior woman at Kalinga Deniki. She was director of Human Resources, and looked, as ever, immaculately groomed and unperturbed.

  ‘Right,’ said Graeme, clearing his throat. ‘Now we’re all finally here, I think we can start.’

  Issy felt her face beam red. She didn’t expect Graeme to give her any special favours at work, of course she didn’t, but she didn’t want him thinking he could pick on her either. Fortunately nobody else noticed.

  ‘I spoke to the partners yesterday,’ said Graeme. KD was a Dutch international conglomerate with branches in most major cities in the world. Some partners were London-based but spent most of their time on aeroplanes, scoping out properties. They were elusive, and very powerful. Everyone sat up and listened attentively.

  ‘As you know, it’s been a bad year here …’

  ‘Not for me,’ said Billy with the self-satisfied look of a man who’d just bought his first Porsche. Issy decided not to minute that.

  ‘And we’ve been hit hard in the US and the Middle East. The rest of Europe is holding up, as is the Far East, but even so …’

  Graeme had everyone’s attention now.

  ‘It doesn’t look like we can continue as we are. There are going to have to be … cutbacks.’

  Beside Issy, Callie Mehta nodded. She must have known already, thought Issy, with a sudden beat of alarm inside her. And if she knew, that meant ‘cutbacks’ would be staff cutbacks. And staff cutbacks meant … redundancies.

  She felt a coldness grip at her heart. It wouldn’t be her, would it? But then, it certainly wouldn’t be the Billys of the operation, they were too important. And accounts, well, you couldn’t do without accounts, and …

  Issy found her mind racing ahead of her.

  ‘Now this will be strictly confidential. I don’t want these minutes circulated,’ said Graeme, looking at her pointedly. ‘But I think it’s fair to say they’re looking for a staff reduction of round about five per cent.’

  Panicking, Issy did the figures in her head. If they had two hundred staff, that was ten redundancies. It didn’t sound like a lot, but where did you trim the fat? The new press assistant could go, probably, but would the salesmen have to get rid of their PAs? Or would there be fewer salesmen? No, that didn’t make sense, fewer salesmen and the same amount of admin support was a stupid business model. She realized Graeme was still talking.

  ‘… but I think we can show them we can do better than that, aim for seven, even eight per cent. Show Rotterdam that KD is a twenty-first-century lean, mean business machine.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Billy.

  ‘All right,’ said somebody else.

  But if it was her … how would she pay the mortgage? How would she live? She was thirty-one years old but she didn’t really have any savings; it had taken her years to pay off her student loan and then she’d wanted to enjoy London … She thought with regret of all the meals out, all the nights in cocktail bars and splurge trips to Topshop. Why didn’t she have more put by? Why? She couldn’t go to Florida to live with her mum, she couldn’t. Where would she go? What would she do? Issy suddenly thought she was going to cry.

  ‘Are you getting this down, Issy?’ Graeme snapped at her, as Callie started discussing packages and exit strategies. She looked up at him, almost unaware of where she was. Suddenly she realized he was looking back at her like she was a total stranger.

  Chapter Three

  Issy hadn’t had enough cakes left over from the bus queue for the office the day before, and anyway she would have felt hypocritical handing them out in a jaunty fashion after what she’d overheard in the meeting. However, the entire team had gathered round, demanding a treat after the break, and were horrified.

  ‘You are why Ah come to work,’ François, the young ad designer, had said. ‘You bake like aha, the patissiers of Toulon. C’est vrai.’

  Issy had blushed bright red at the compliment, and searched among the recipes her grandfather posted to her for something new to try. And although she felt slightly sneaky doing it, she wore her smartest, most businesslike navy dress with the swingy hem, and a neat jacket. Just to look like a professional.

  It wasn’t raining quite so hard today, but a chill wind still cut through the bus queue. Linda, concerned about Issy’s anxious expression – she was developing a little furrow between her eyebrows, Linda had noticed – wanted to suggest a cream, but didn’t dare. Instead she found herself babbling about how haberdashery had never been so busy – something to do with everyone taking on a huge dose of austerity and starting to knit their own jumpers – but she could tell Issy was barely listening. She was staring at a very sleek blonde woman being shown the outside of the little shop by a man she vaguely recognized as one of the many local estate agents she’d met when she bought her flat.

  The woman was talking loudly, and Issy edged a little closer to hear what she was saying. Her professional curiosity was piqued.

  ‘This area doesn’t know what it needs!’ the woman was saying. She had a loud, carrying voice. ‘There’s too much fried chicken and not enough organic produce. Do you know,’ she said earnestly to the estate agent, who was nodding happily and agreeing with everything she said, ‘that Britain eats more sugar per head than any country in the world except America and Tonga?’

  ‘Tong
a, huh?’ said the estate agent. Issy clasped the large Tupperware carton of cupcakes closer to her chest, in case the woman turned her laser gaze on her.

  ‘I don’t consider myself to be a mere foodie,’ said the woman. ‘I consider myself to be more of a prophet, yah? Spreading the message. That wholegrain, raw cooking is the only way forward.’

  Raw cooking? thought Issy.

  ‘Now, I thought we’d put the cooker over here.’ The woman was pointing bossily through the window into the far corner. ‘We’ll hardly be using it.’

  ‘Oh yes, that would be perfect,’ said the estate agent.

  No it wouldn’t, thought Issy instantly. You’d want to be near the window for good venting, so people could get a look at what you were doing and you could keep an eye on the shop. That far corner was a terrible place for the oven, you’d have your back to everything the entire time. No, if you wanted to cook for people, you needed to do it somewhere you could be seen, to welcome people in cheerfully with a smile, and …

  Lost in her reverie, she barely noticed the bus arriving, just as the lady said, ‘Now, talking about money, Desmond …’

  How much money? wondered Issy idly, climbing in the back door of the bus, as Linda wittered on about cross-stitch.

  The mirrored glass of the office exterior walls looked blue-grey and cold in the chilly morning light. Issy remembered that her new year’s resolution had been to walk up the two flights of stairs every day but groaned as she decided that actually if you were carrying large items (like twenty-nine cupcakes in a big Tupperware) then you were allowed to take the lift.

  As she entered the administration floor, clicking her entry pass (with the wildly unflattering photograph laminated on to it for evermore) to go through the wide glass doors, she sensed a strange quietness in the air. Tess, the receptionist, had said a quick hello, but hadn’t engaged her beyond that – normally she was full of gossip about office antics. Ever since she’d started seeing Graeme, Issy had stayed away from office nights out, just in case she had a couple of glasses of wine too many and accidentally spilled the beans. She didn’t think anyone suspected anything. Sometimes she wasn’t sure they’d actually believe it. Graeme was so handsome and such a go-getter. Issy was pretty but she wasn’t a patch on Tess, for instance, who wore tiny miniskirts but still managed to look beautiful and sweet rather than tarty, probably because she was twenty-two; or Ophy, who was six foot tall and stalked the hallways like a princess rather than a junior payroll clerk. Still, that didn’t matter, Issy told herself. Graeme had picked her and that was all there was to it. She still remembered them stumbling outside the Rotterdam hotel to get away from the others – they’d both pretended they smoked, even though neither of them did – and giggling their heads off. The sweet anticipation before that first kiss; the way the black sweep of his long eyelashes made a shadow on top of his high cheekbones; his sharp, tangy Hugo Boss aftershave. She’d lived a long time on the romance of that first evening.

  And nobody would ever believe it, but it was true: they were definitely dating. He was definitely her boyfriend. And there he was, standing at the far end of the open-plan office, just in front of the conference room, with a serious look on his face, clearly the cause of the silence over the twenty-eight desks.

  Issy put the cupcakes down with a thud. Her heart thudded likewise.

  ‘I’m sorry about this,’ Graeme said, when everyone was in. He had thought about his approach for a long time; he didn’t want to be one of those weasel bosses who don’t tell anyone what’s going on and let people find out from rumours and gossip. He wanted to show his bosses he could make the tough choices, and he wanted his staff to see that he could be straight with them. They still wouldn’t be happy, but at least he could be straight.

  ‘You don’t need me to tell you what things are like,’ said Graeme, trying to sound reasonable. ‘You’re seeing it yourselves; in accounts, in sales, in turnover. You guys deal with the bread and butter; the nuts and bolts, the figures and projections. You know the harsh realities of business life. Which means that although what I have to say is difficult, I know you’ll understand it, and I know you won’t think it’s unfair.’

  You could have heard a pin drop in the office. Issy swallowed loudly. In one sense it was good that Graeme was coming right out and telling everyone. There was nothing worse than being in an office where senior staff wouldn’t tell anyone anything and everyone lived in a climate of suspicion and fear. For a bunch of estate agents, they were being remarkably honest and upfront.

  But still, she’d thought they might wait. Just a little. Mull it over, see if things picked up in the next month or so, or wait till spring. Or take a partners’ vote or … With a sinking heart, Issy realized these decisions had probably been made, at some level, months ago; in Rotterdam, or Hamburg, or Seoul. This was just the implementation. The little people stage.

  ‘There isn’t a nice way to do this,’ said Graeme. ‘You’ll all get an email in the next half-hour to let you know if you’re staying or going. And then we’re going to be as generous to you and as reasonable as we possibly can. I’ll see those of you who aren’t going to be staying with us in the boardroom at eleven.’ He glanced at his Montblanc watch.

  Issy had a sudden image of Callie, the head of Human Resources, poised with her finger over the ‘send’ button on her computer like a runner at the starting line.

  ‘Again,’ said Graeme, ‘I’m sorry.’

  He retreated into the boardroom. Through the slatted venetian blinds, Issy could see him, his handsome head bent towards his laptop.

  Instantly there was a flurry of panicky noise. Everyone charged up their computers as quickly as they could, pressing the refresh button on their email programmes once a second; all muttering to themselves. This wasn’t the nineties, or the zeros, when you could bounce from one job to another in two days: a friend of Issy’s had once picked up two redundancy cheques in eighteen months. The number of jobs out there, the number of businesses out there – it all seemed to be shrinking and shrinking. For every vacancy there were more and more applicants, and that was if you could even find a vacancy; not to mention the millions of school leavers and graduates joining the market every month … Issy told herself not to panic, but it was too late. She was already halfway through one of her cupcakes, crumbs carelessly scattering the keyboard. She must breathe. Breathe. Two nights ago she and Graeme had been under his navy blue Ralph Lauren duvet, safe and comfortable in a world of their own. Nothing was going to happen. Nothing. Next to her, François was typing furiously.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Updating my CV,’ he said. ‘This place is feeneeshed.’

  Issy swallowed and picked up another cake. Just as she did so, she heard a ping.

  Dear Miss Issy Randall

  We are sorry to inform you that due to a

  downturn in economic progress and with no

  improvement in our forecasts for the growth of

  commercial property uptake in the City of London

  this year, the directors of Kalinga Deniki CP

  are making redundant the post of Office Manager

  Grade 4 London Office, with immediate effect.

  Please go to Conference Room C at 11am to

  discuss your ongoing options with your line

  manager Graeme Denton.

  Yours sincerely

  Jaap Van de Bier

  Human Resources, Kalinga Deniki

  ‘It was,’ as Issy said later, ‘the way they had obviously created some kind of macro to drop all the details in. Nobody could even be bothered to write a personal message. Everyone got the same note, all over the world. So you were like losing your job and your whole life, but they put less thought into it than that thing you get to remind you to go for a dental check-up.’ She thought about it. ‘And I need a dental check-up.’

  ‘Well, it’s free now you’re unemployed,’ Helena had said, kindly.

  The open-plan of
fice was the cruellest way of working ever invented, thought Issy suddenly. Because clearly everyone was on show all the time and had been making a point of looking happy and jolly and fine, when obviously the company wasn’t happy and jolly and fine and maybe if a few more people had been in offices with doors they could have broken down and wept and then maybe done something about fixing it rather than pretending everything was absolutely fine until twenty-five per cent of the staff had to be let go. All around the office came gasps, or cheers; someone punched the air and shouted, ‘Yes!’ before glancing around in a panic and whispering, ‘Sorry, sorry … it’s just my mother’s in a care home and …’ before tailing off awkwardly. Someone burst into tears.

  ‘Well fick me,’ said François, and stopped updating his CV. Issy was frozen. She just stared at the screen, resisting the temptation to refresh it one last time, as if that could possibly bring a different result. It wasn’t just the job – well it was, of course, the job; to lose your job was the most upsetting, depressing thing ever. But to know that Graeme … to realize that he had had sex with her, let her cook him dinner, all the time knowing … knowing that this was going to happen. What … what was he thinking? What was he thinking?

  Without pausing to think – if she had, she’d almost certainly have let her natural timidity stop her – Issy jumped out of her seat and approached the boardroom. Fuck waiting till eleven o’clock. She wanted to know about this now. She almost knocked on the door but instead boldly walked straight in. Graeme glanced up at her, not entirely surprised. But she’d understand his position, surely.