Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe (30 page)

‘Nobody ever looks after me,’ said Issy.

‘Well, that’s just self-pitying bollocks,’ said Helena. ‘And completely unfair given how much time we all gave up to help you open that stupid café in the first place.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Issy. ‘Sorry about that.’

She sighed and drank more wine.

‘I was so happy, though, Leens. I thought I was tired and a bit stressed out and always super-busy and up at the crack of dawn and everything with the café, but … actually, when I think about it, I had everything.’

‘That’s the ludicrous thing about happiness,’ said Helena. ‘You never know you’re going through it at the time.’

Chadani Imelda hit her mother on the leg, rather hard.

‘Apparently these are the happiest days of my life.’

‘Oh yes, we’re in our prime,’ said Issy.

‘I’ll consider myself in my prime when I stop getting spots,’ said Helena.

‘And my heart broken,’ said Issy.

‘And eating fish fingers.’

‘And learn self-control,’ said Issy, pouring them both another glass.

‘Bottoms up!’ said Helena.

‘You haven’t even compared me to some
kid that’s getting its leg chopped off yet, like you used to when you worked in the hospital,’ said Issy.

‘Oh GOD, I am SO HAPPY WITHOUT A JOB AND NO SENSE OF PURPOSE OR DIRECTION IN MY LIFE!’ shouted Helena, startling Chadani, who nonetheless burst out into giggles too.

‘Ha, you girls sound happy,’ said Ashok, opening the door to the sounds of hysterical laughter.

Issy and Helena looked at one another, then burst out laughing again. They only stopped when Issy accidentally burst into tears. Helena swallowed, then realised how drunk she was.

‘Jet lag,’ she tried to explain, but it didn’t come out quite right.

Ashok came over and kissed her. He was slightly perturbed by all the empty bottles, but he hadn’t heard Helena laugh like that in a long time, and Chadani seemed quiet for once, so perhaps on balance it was a pretty good thing.

‘Hello, Issy,’ he said. His face lit up. ‘Did you …’

‘Bring you some cakes? I know, I know, that’s all I’m good for …’

‘ASHOK!’ Helena tried to whisper, but she wasn’t used to the booze and couldn’t keep her voice down. ‘Be sensitive! Issy’s just split up with Austin!’

‘Not officially,’ said Issy.

Ashok picked up Chadani, who had cruised her
way towards him, and gave her a huge cuddle and a kiss.

‘This is not possible,’ he said sternly. ‘You have not split up. You cannot. It is unacceptable to me.’

‘I should have tried saying that,’ said Issy, gulping.

‘So. What was it? Something ridiculous? And small? Did he tell another woman she looked nice? Did he not buy you a thoughtful present for your birthday? Men are not always perfect, you know.’

‘Are you diagnosing our relationship?’ said Issy.

‘Sometimes it is useful to take a dispassionate view,’ said Ashok.

‘Oh, it is definitely dispassionate,’ said Issy. ‘It definitely definitely is that. He has a job in America. I have a job here. He has to move to America to do his amazing job there, otherwise he’ll probably lose the one he has here. I have a quasi-successful business running on a long lease that employs three people but can’t manage without me. What’s the outlook, Doctor?’

‘Well, one of you will have to move,’ said Ashok stubbornly, nuzzling Chadani’s neck. ‘Look at this. This is happiness. You deserve happiness.’

Helena snorted loudly. ‘Happiness and lots and lots of stinky laundry.’

Chadani giggled and squirmed in her father’s arms, and Issy wanted to cry again.

‘Well, I can’t and he can’t,’ she said. ‘This isn’t north and south London. This is real life, with real choices and real consequences, and we both figured the sooner
we faced up to that the better.’

‘There is always a way,’ frowned Ashok.

‘Well, yes,’ said Issy. ‘If I wait five billion years, the tectonic plates will eventually fuse together and I’ll be able to cycle over to his apartment …’

She was off again. Ashok patted her on the shoulder and Helena rushed up with more wine and some tissues.

‘I’ve got a great idea,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a wonderful Christmas, all together. A big party, here.’

‘Here?’ sniffed Issy.

Helena looked innocent. ‘I just thought it would be lovely to get everyone together at Christmas time. Chadani’s aunties could all squeeze in, and you could see if Pearl and Louis want to come, and—’

‘Not everyone would fit in here,’ said Issy.

‘But think how wonderful it would be, all together,’ said Helena. ‘So happy, such a great way to take your mind off everything.’

‘But you don’t have a big enough table!’ said Issy.

‘Oh, so we don’t,’ said Helena. ‘If only we knew of somewhere nearby with great big ovens and loads of tables …’

‘I’m not cooking Christmas lunch for six thousand people,’ said Issy.

‘Just think of how wonderful it would be to be surrounded by the people who care for you and love you,’ said Helena relentlessly.

‘Care for me enough to banish me to the kitchen
for the whole of Christmas Day?’ said Issy.

‘OK,’ said Helena. ‘Was just an idea. What were you planning on doing?’

‘At the moment,’ said Issy. ‘I couldn’t feel less in a goodwill-to-all-men state of mind.’

Pearl was on a half-day the next day, and she felt like she desperately needed it. She left early, rather guiltily ignoring Issy’s red-rimmed eyes, a combination of jet lag, crying and an ill advised nightcap. She needed the time off and could make it back before Louis got out of school.

Doti caught up with her at the bus stop.

‘Well, hello there,’ he said, with his customary twinkle. ‘How are things with you?’

‘Not bad,’ said Pearl. She was pleased, but still a bit cross with him for slavering all over Maya. It had felt insensitive.

‘Christmas shopping?’

‘I might be.’

‘I was just heading into town myself. Maybe I’ll wait for the bus with you.’

‘If you like,’ said Pearl.

‘So, Maya’s worked out well for you? I thought she might.’

‘She is a hard worker,’ agreed Pearl.

‘Have you met Rachida? They’re a lovely couple.’

‘You knew she lived with a
woman?’

‘Of course I did; they’re on my round. Don’t get much past the postman, you know.’

‘Why were you all over her, then?’

Doti looked confused. ‘What do you mean? I really wanted her to get that job, she needed it desperately.’

‘I thought you … I thought you fancied her,’ mumbled Pearl, feeling her face grow hot. Where the hell was that bloody bus?

Doti burst out laughing. ‘A skinny little thing like that? Not likely,’ he said. He looked slyly up at Pearl under his thick black eyelashes. ‘I like something a bit more … womanly,’ he said.

There was a silence.

‘There,’ he said, finally, kicking the heel of his black postman boot against the pavement. ‘I said it.’

Pearl’s heart was fluttering in her chest and she found it hard to get her breath. Her emotions fought with each other inside herself; she had an almost overwhelming desire – and it would be so, so terribly simple – to extend her right hand, just a few centimetres, to meet his left, just there, his large, strong, worker’s hand, holding on fiercely to the uncomfortable bus shelter bench. She gazed at his hand, and then her own, and his eyes followed her gaze.

Then she remembered the sound of a little boy crying, triumphantly, ‘DADDY!’ Ben parading Louis round the sitting room on his shoulders like he was a football trophy or a crown; the two of them playing kung
fu and breaking her mother’s prized horse statuette; Louis laughing, laughing, laughing.

Her knuckles tightened involuntarily, and she froze.

‘I can’t,’ she said, in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘It’s … it’s complicated.’

Doti nodded. ‘Sure is,’ he said.

Then he stood up, just as the 73 rounded the corner.

‘I am actually going into town,’ he said, in a much more conversational tone of voice. ‘I wasn’t just looking for an excuse. So can I still come … just as a friend? As a normal person?’

Pearl smiled at him, touched. ‘You will never be a normal person to me.’

It was fun, in the end. Pearl hadn’t realised it would be; pottering around John Lewis, buying a cheap little horse statuette for her mother to replace the one the boys had broken; and walking up to Primark to buy some underpants with monsters on them so hopefully they would appear to Louis more of a gift and less of a basic necessity. All the way they looked at the beautifully dressed windows of the posh shops, filled with expensive goods, but Pearl, watching the sullen faces of the thin blondes passing in and out of them, wasn’t sure they were having as good a time as she was, and she could barely afford anything. Doti asked her advice on buying make-up for his
grown-up daughter – he and his wife had separated years before, when she had taken a job in a nightclub almost comically unsuited to his hours and ended up having an affair with a bouncer, for which Doti did his very best not to blame her, which Pearl appreciated, even if she thought his ex-wife patently mad. Then he insisted on treating her to coffee at Patisserie Valerie, down on Regent Street, having once overheard her say how much she liked it. Pearl was as touched by the fact that he had remembered as she was by the treat itself.

They walked down past Hamleys, the huge toy shop. As usual, there was an enormous crowd of people, children and adults alike, gathered to see the wonderful window display – this year it was a huge snowy fair-ground scene, with a real rotating wheel and carousel rides for the toys below. Outside a Santa Claus was ringing a bell, and several pirates and princesses were blowing bubbles to attract passers-by.

It was the first time Pearl had felt a pang all afternoon. Right by the main door, under a seasonal coating of white cotton wool, all lit up with fairy lights – there it was. The monster garage, with the monster mechanics and the monster trucks going up and down the special lift. She smiled at it and shook her head.

‘Are you thinking about that for the little man?’ asked Doti.

‘Oh, no, no, he gets far too many treats,’ said Pearl, fiercely and quickly. She was never, ever going to admit
to anyone what she could and couldn’t afford.

Doti stayed in town, and Pearl just made it back in time to hide all the little parcels before the door of the café flew open and Louis ran in.

‘MAMMA! Oh, no.’ He stopped himself. ‘MUM!’

‘You don’t call me Mum,’ said Pearl indignantly. ‘I’m your mamma.’

‘Noooo,’ said Louis, shaking his head crossly. ‘That’s what babies say. I’m not a baby. You’re my mum.’

Behind him Big Louis stood nodding gravely at this sad fact of the world.

‘I don’t want to be Mum. I want to be Mamma. Or Mummy, at a pinch, if you want to sound like those namby-pamby kids you go to school with.’

‘Whatever,’ said Louis.

‘Louis Kmbota McGregor, don’t you ever say whatever to me ever again!’ said Pearl, horrified. Issy looked up and laughed. It was the first thing that had made her smile all day.

Louis looked half terrified, half proud of himself for inducing such a reaction. He glanced at Issy, who beckoned him over.

‘When you say “whatever”,’ she said, ‘you have to make your fingers into a “W”, like this …’

‘Issy, you stop that right now,’ said Pearl in a warning voice. ‘Louis, that is not allowed, do you understand me?’

Issy and Louis made the ‘W’ sign at
each other, then both chortled heartily.

‘Dear Santa Claus,’ said Pearl, writing out an imaginary letter, ‘I am terribly sorry, but Louis Kmbota McGregor has been very badly behaved this year, and—’

‘NOOOOO!’ shrieked Louis in sudden terror, charging over and hurling himself into his mother’s arms, and showering her with kisses. ‘I’m sorry, Mamma. I’m sorry. Sorry, Santa. I’m sorry.’

‘I think I’m coming round to Christmas,’ observed Pearl.

‘I’m not,’ said Issy. ‘I’m closing up early today.’

There was a massive groan from the customers in the café.

‘Shouldn’t you all be out getting stocious drunk for Christmas anyway?’ she asked.

‘The cake is soaking up the stocious drunkness from last night,’ shouted someone from the back, and a few people vehemently agreed.