Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe (35 page)

‘Heh,’ said Issy.

‘Now, look away,’ said Helena. ‘I need to wrap your present.’

‘Oh,
don’t be daft,’ said Issy.

‘I mean it! Look away, or you’re not getting it.’

Grumbling, Issy went and stood in the doorway. Chadani Imelda now had pants on her head. Ashok was growling at her and pretending to be a bear. Issy watched them, smiling. It was a nice sight. Ashok realised she was watching and looked up at her. He stopped growling.

‘You could have had this,’ he said, seriously.

Issy felt herself stiffen.

‘You two. You were very silly.’

‘Ashok, STOP THAT THIS INSTANT!’ came a voice from the sitting room that brooked no argument.

‘I just want Isabel to be happy. Do you not want Isabel to be happy? You want her off renting new flats and opening new shops instead of saying well, Isabel, it was nice when you were happy because your friends were also happy so everyone was happy.’

‘I’m warning you,’ came the voice again.

Issy choked up. ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she said. ‘I’m not the one who left.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘I’ll be fine.’

Ashok gathered Chadani into his arms and nuzzled her soft olive cheek.

‘I want you to be better than fine, Isabel.’

Helena stomped through.

‘BED. Bed bed bed. For everyone.’

‘HAPPY CWISMAS! HAPPY CWISMAS EVERYBODY!’

Louis kissed his mother and grandmother hard.

‘It’s five thirty,’ said Pearl. ‘Go back to sleep.’

‘SANNA CLAUS DID COME.’

Louis was pointing excitedly to the stocking under the little stubby tree they reused every year, and which was covered in his creations. Pearl had kept back his large gift till they got to the café; there was nowhere to hide it where they lived. But he had his little things, all wrapped.

‘Can you go
back to sleep?’ she asked groggily. She felt bone-tired still, and the flat was freezing. She didn’t keep the heating on overnight and there’d been a really cold snap.

‘NOOO.’ Louis shook his head vehemently to show how much he really couldn’t. Pearl couldn’t begin to imagine how you could get a four-year-old to go back to sleep on Christmas morning.

‘All right then,’ she said. ‘Do you want to open your stocking really quietly …’

‘I’m cold, Mamma.’

‘… really quietly in the bed?’

Louis clambered in happily beside her, and proceeded to very noisily unwrap the cheaply sellotaped gifts Pearl had put together late the previous evening.

‘MAMMA! A TOOFBRUSH!’ he cried out in delight. ‘AN I GOT AN ORANGE! AND SOME CHOCOLATES! AND SOCKS! Oh, socks,’ he said in a slightly more normal tone.

‘Yes, but they’re monster garage socks,’ said Pearl.

Louis’ eyes darted round the room. There was not – could not be – a parcel big enough to be a monster garage. He tried to look nonchalant.

‘I doan care about monster garage,’ he said quietly.

Pearl was suddenly wide awake, pulsing with adrenalin. She’d sneaked the monster garage in after the shop was closed; rushing down to Argos with Issy’s cheque only just deposited, heart in her mouth, clammy with excitement. She knew she
had to put some of that money to one side, keep the power key charged and for the inevitable rises in her transport costs which were due in January. Really she ought, she realised as she fought her way through the freezing winds, to buy herself a new winter coat. This one was so thin … and she’d love some of those cosy-looking sheepskin boots girls seemed to wear these days. But no. She was going to make this one purchase. This one day.

‘Do you have a monster garage?’ she said, bursting into the shop, wild-eyed. She’d been panicked all day that there would be none left; the most successful toy of the year. There had been a piece in the paper about a fight breaking out in a large toy shop over the last one; apparently they were changing hands on eBay for hundreds of pounds. But she had to try. She had to.

A silence had fallen over the shop, and Pearl registered that it had started to sleet outside and had soaked through her thin coat, then remembered that you didn’t ask for what you wanted in Argos, you filled in a piece of paper. Everyone was looking at her. Then the nice girl had smiled. ‘You are totally in luck,’ she said. ‘Our last delivery got delayed. It’s only just arrived, far too late for most people. I’ve had people swearing at me for a week for one of these.’

She paused, dramatically.

‘But yes, we have one.’

As Pearl filled in the order slip with shaking hands, she heard people all
round her on their phones – ‘They’ve got them! They’ve got monster garages’ – and starting to rush their orders in. People began to fill the store, drawn by the news.

‘Whoops,’ said the girl as Pearl took hold of the large, brightly coloured box. ‘Looks like you’ve caused a stampede.’

Pearl had bought a sheet of terribly expensive, unutterably wasteful silver wrapping paper too, and made up the parcel reverently with a giant red bow, then hidden it under the oven until the next day.

She was nearly back home when her phone rang.

‘Pearl,’ Caroline was saying. ‘I need some of that money back.’

‘Well,’ said Pearl, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. ‘Remember, Santa knows you go to the Cupcake Café. I think he might have stopped there. Remember, they have a real chimney.’

‘OH YES,’ said Louis, brightening up immediately. He dived back into his stocking and came up with a packet of stickers.

‘STICKERS!’

‘Can you be a bit quieter?’

‘Can you tell Santa I didn’t really mean it when I said I din care bout monster garage?’

‘I’m sure Santa knows that already.’

‘Like Baby Jesus.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Thank you
for the pwesents, Baby Jesus.’

Pearl decided to let that one roll. With a slight groaning noise, she pushed herself off the bed and went to light the Calor gas heater and make a cup of coffee. It was going to be a long day.

Caroline woke alone in the emperor-sized bed with its pristine Egyptian cotton sheets and numerous rolls, cushions, pillows and bits and bobs (less of a bed, more of a haven for the real me, she liked to think). At first she felt a stab of pain at waking up alone on Christmas morning.

Then she remembered the previous day. Outside, all had been sleet and freezing wind. Nonetheless, violin lessons and rugby were still on – many parents felt it wasn’t ideal to give children holidays, as it made them slack. Hermia and Achilles had got up obediently enough and were just getting dressed when Caroline appeared in their bedrooms.

‘Well,’ she announced, still wearing her long Japanese robe. ‘I have decided.’

The children looked at her.

‘It is disgusting weather outside. Who wants to stay in all day and not get changed out of their pyjamas?’

The children had roared their approval. So Caroline had turned the heating up (normally she felt a hot house was terribly
common and bad for the skin) and they had watched
Mary Poppins
, then played snakes and ladders, then Achilles had had a nap (overscheduled and at a demanding school, he was almost constantly tired, which explained, Caroline realised, why he whined all the time and why Louis almost never did. Caroline had put it down to Louis getting everything he wanted. She was beginning to suspect this might not be the case), and she and Hermia went upstairs and Caroline let her try on all her make-up and clothes and looked at her in the mirror and realised how her beautiful little girl would, any minute now, be turning into a beautiful adolescent (if she could improve her posture, she couldn’t help thinking), and that she would need to be armed for that.

Then she had ordered in noodles for supper and cracked open a box of chocolates afterwards, and they had sat round the tree and Caroline had had a glass of champagne and let them both taste it, then they had opened their gifts.

Unlike last year, Caroline wasn’t trying to make a point this year. She wasn’t trying to hurt Richard by throwing in his face how well she knew the children, or how they were her kids first, or how much of his money she could spend on them. She’d simply thought about them, and got them what she thought they would like, regardless of whether it would clutter up her minimalist space, or whether she thought it would interfere with them getting into good universities.

So Hermia
had a Nintendo with a fashion design program on it, and some fashion dolls, and Achilles had a Scalextric, which she even had the time and energy to sit down and piece together with him; and because the children were both getting so much of her attention, she noticed, they didn’t bicker and snarl at one another.

This seems remarkably easy, thought Caroline. Perhaps I should write a book on the subject and become an international guru, like that woman in France. Then she looked around the sitting room, which was now an utterly disgusting mess, and burped those noodles she really oughtn’t to have eaten, and wondered if Perdita would mind coming in on Christmas Day, and realised perhaps she couldn’t be a parenting guru.

But she could do her best.

Richard arrived in the evening, expecting the usual litany of bitter complaints and sullen children and shining resentment, all fermented in the immaculate house whose mortgage he kept up and whose cleaning he paid for.