Meet Me at the Cupcake Café (17 page)

She pulled a white shirt closer. Shirts never seemed to fit properly. Sensing someone behind her, she turned round. It was Helena, holding two cups of tea.

‘Don’t knock,’ said Issy. ‘It’s only my flat.’

‘Do you want tea?’ said Helena, ignoring her.

‘No,’ said Issy. ‘I want you to stop wandering into my room uninvited.’

‘Well, sounds like last night was romantic.’

Issy sighed. ‘Shut up.’

‘Oh God, that bad. I’m sorry, love.’

It was hard to stay angry at Helena for long.

‘It was fine,’ said Issy, taking the tea. ‘Fine. I don’t want to see him again anyway.’

‘OK.’

‘I know I’ve said that before.’

‘OK.’

‘But this time I mean it.’

‘Fine.’

‘I am fine.’

‘Good.’

‘Good.’

Helena looked at her.

‘Are you going to wear that for your meeting?’

‘I have a business now. I have to look the part.’

‘But that’s not your part. You’re a baker now, a professional, not someone who carries a folder about while checking Facebook every five minutes.’

‘That’s not what my old job was, actually.’

‘Yeah, well, whatever.’

Helena reached into her cupboard and pulled out a lightly sprigged dress and a pastel cardigan.

‘Here, try these on.’

Issy looked down. Her head felt too full to concentrate.

‘You don’t think it’s a bit … twee?’

‘Darling, you’re running a cupcake bakery. I think you have to make your peace with twee. And anyway, no I don’t. I think it looks pretty and approachable and it suits you, which is more than you can say for porno-secretary.’

‘This suit isn’t …’

Actually, thought Issy, glancing in the mirror, perhaps it was time to get rid of this suit. Dump that stupid office once and for all. And that stupid man … She tried to keep her thoughts away from that particular track, and got changed.

In the new outfit, she did look nicer – younger and fresher. It made her smile.

‘There you go,’ said Helena. ‘Now you look the part.’

Issy glanced at Helena, who was wearing a deep green square-cut-neckline ruched top.

‘What part are you dressing for?’

Helena pouted. ‘Flame-haired Renaissance goddess, of course. As usual. You know that.’

Issy was nervous going to the bank, extremely so. She’d explained this was just a preliminary chat and they’d said fine, but still it felt a bit like having to go in and explain away her overdraft, just as she had done in college. Graeme liked to check his statements every month and call them up the second he found something he disagreed with. She didn’t feel like doing that very often.

‘Um, hi,’ she almost whispered, as she entered the beige-carpeted hush of the bank. It smelled of cleaning products and money. At that moment she would have preferred the armour of her grey pinstripe.

‘Can I speak to Mr …’ she checked her notes, ‘Mr Tyler.’

The young girl behind the desk smiled distractedly and leaned forward into her telephone, buzzing her through. Being on the other side of the security barrier was a little disconcerting; open-plan desks were scattered around, with people peering at computer screens. Issy glanced about her, just in case there was any gold visible.

She didn’t see anyone who looked like a Mr Tyler, so she sat down nervously, picking up and replacing a magazine about the bank, too anxious to read anything, letting her fingers fiddle with the pages and hoping she wouldn’t have too long to wait.

Austin Tyler sat in the head teacher’s office, feeling like he was in some kind of déjà vu. It was exactly the same room he used to sit in, kicking his scuffed Start Rite shoes against the chair when he was getting told off for running through the bushes, or fighting with Duncan MacGuire. There was a new headmistress – quite a young woman, who said, ‘Call me Kirsty,’ when he’d much rather call her Miss Dubose, and perched on the front of her desk instead of sitting imperiously behind it like Mr Stroan used to do. Austin, frankly, preferred the old way; at least you knew where you stood. He glanced sideways at Darny and sighed. Darny was staring at the floor crossly, with a glint in his eye that said whatever was coming, he wasn’t listening. At ten years old, Darny was smart, determined and absolutely convinced that anyone ever telling him what to do was in severe breach of his human rights.

‘What is it this time?’ asked Austin. He was going to be late for work again, he knew it. He ran a hand through the thick, unruly reddish-brown hair that was flopping over his forehead. Time for another haircut too, he noticed. As if he could possibly find the time.

‘Well,’ started the headmistress, ‘obviously we’re all aware of Darny’s special circumstances.’

Austin raised his eyebrows and turned to Darny, whose hair was more auburn than Austin’s but stuck up at the front in a very similar fashion, and whose eyes were also grey.

‘Well, yes, but Darny’s special circumstances were six years ago, weren’t they, Darny? You can’t keep on using it as an excuse for ever. Especially not for …’

‘Using bows and arrows on the reception class.’

‘Quite,’ said Austin, looking disapprovingly at Darny, who stared even more fiercely at the floor. ‘Do you have anything to say for yourself?’ he asked the boy.

‘My loyalty is not to you, Sheriff.’

Kirsty looked up at the tall, curly-haired man in the slightly dishevelled suit and wished she were somewhere else. She wished they were both somewhere else. A bar perhaps. She thought, not for the first time, that this job was totally useless for meeting men. Everyone in primary teaching was female, and it was considered very much ‘not on’ to chat up the dads.

But Austin Tyler of course wasn’t exactly a dad … Would that make it OK?

Everyone at the school knew the tragic story. As far as Kirsty was concerned, it only made rangy Austin, with the horn-rimmed specs he kept taking off and putting back on again when he was distracted, even more attractive. Six years ago, when Austin had been a postgraduate student in marine biology at Leeds, his parents and his baby brother (the result of a silver wedding celebration that had given them all the shock of their lives) were involved in a horrible car accident after a lorry tried to do a U-turn on a busy road. The four-year-old in his car seat had been fine, but the front of the car had been completely crushed.

Despite being knocked sideways by grief, Austin had immediately given up his studies – a job where you had to travel the world being patently unmanageable – come home, fought off well-meaning distant aunties and social services, taken a mundane job in a bank, and was raising his baby brother as well as he could (which wasn’t always, Kirsty noted privately, as well as he could be doing it if, say, the child had a strong maternal influence in his life …). Now thirty-one, Austin had such a strong bond with Darny that although many women had tried to get in between them, no one had quite managed it. Kirsty did wonder if Darny had scared them off. Or maybe Austin hadn’t yet reached the right woman. She just wished the only chance she had to see him was not when she had to talk to him about Darny’s behaviour.

Still, she made sure she always handled these meetings herself, rather than letting the perfectly competent Mrs Khan do it, even though it wasn’t strictly necessary. It was the best she could do at the moment.

‘So would you say …’ said Kirsty, ‘that Darny is getting enough of a feminine influence at home?’

Austin ran his hands through his hair again. Why could he never remember to get a haircut? he wondered to himself. I do love longer hair on a man, thought Kirsty.

‘Well, he has about nine million well-meaning female relations,’ he said, biting his lip when he thought of the scorn Darny had for other people coming into the house (which, it had to be said, wasn’t always at its tidiest. They did have a cleaner, but she refused to pick up after them, which was really what they needed before the true cleaning could begin). ‘But no one more permanent, no.’

Kirsty raised her eyebrows in what was meant to be a flirtatious manner, but which Austin immediately took to be disapproval. He was always conscious of being scrutinized when he was with Darny, and sensitive about it. Darny wasn’t an angel but Austin did the best he could, and was sure that elsewhere the boy would be doing a lot worse.

‘We do all right, Darny and I,’ he insisted. Darny, although still staring at the floor, reached out a hand and squeezed Austin’s tightly.

‘I didn’t mean to … I just meant, Mr Tyler … Austin. We can’t have violence at this school. We really can’t.’

‘But we want to stay at this school,’ said Austin. ‘We grew up here! This is our area! We don’t want to have to move and go to another school.’

Austin tried not to feel a bit panicked as he felt Darny’s skinny fingers grip his long ones, but holding on to their parents’ home, and his old school, and the area they’d always lived in, around Stoke Newington – well, it hadn’t been easy to pay the mortgage, but it had felt so important to give their lives a sense of continuity, not to take Darny’s home away as well as everything else he’d ever known. Staying here meant they were within a community of friends and neighbours who made sure they never went without a hot meal if they needed one, or a sleepover for Darny if Austin had to work late. He loved the area passionately.

Kirsty moved to calm him.

‘No one is saying anything about moving schools. We’re just saying … no more bows and arrows.’

Darny shook his head violently.

‘Are you agreeing with me, Darny? No more bows and arrows?’

‘No more bows and arrows,’ repeated Darny, still refusing to take his eyes off the floor.

‘And?’ said Austin.

‘And, sorry,’ said Darny, finally looking up. ‘Do I have to go and say sorry to the reception kids?’

‘Yes please,’ said Austin. Kirsty smiled at him gratefully. She was almost pretty, thought Austin abstractly. For a teacher.

Janet, Austin’s assistant, met him at the door of the bank.

‘You’re late,’ she said, handing him his coffee (white, three sugars – having to grow up very quickly in some areas had left Austin lagging a little behind in others).

‘I know, I know, I’m sorry.’

‘Darny trouble again?’

Austin winced.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, patting him on the shoulder and picking some lint off it at the same time. ‘They all go through the same phases.’

‘With bows and arrows?’

Janet rolled her eyes. ‘Consider yourself lucky. Mine went for firecrackers.’

Feeling slightly cheered by this, Austin glanced at his notes: someone looking for a café loan. In this market, very unlikely, and the terms were going to be punishing. Everyone thought the banks made harsh decisions, but actually lending to small businesses was a thankless task. More than half of them would never make it. Trying to spot which half was his job. He turned the corner into a small waiting area.

‘Hello,’ he said, smiling at the nervous-looking woman with the pink cheeks and tied-back, unruly black hair sitting fiddling with a magazine. ‘Are you my ten o’clock?’