Meet Me at the Cupcake Café (50 page)

‘
I likes everyone
,’ announced the guard lion from underneath the table.

‘That’s my problem,’ said Pearl, taking the empty cups back inside.

Any day now, thought Issy. Any day now she was going to stop feeling like a guest in someone else’s home. She would be able to stop tiptoeing everywhere, terrified of making a mess. She hadn’t realized Graeme’s commitment to minimalism was so … so absolute.

Yes, the flat was lovely, but it was all hard edges. The sofas were uncomfortable, the television/Blu-ray/stereo combo fiendishly difficult to work; the oven was a tiny concealed afterthought in an off-plan hi-tech bachelor pad, obviously not intended for people to cook in, although the instant boiling water tap was nice, after the first few agonizing blisters. It was more the habits: getting into the habit of taking off her shoes; never putting anything down, not even a coat, not even for a second. Of having no magazines lying around; of lining up the remote control; of trying to find a tiny space for a chest of drawers to take her clothes, as Graeme’s were all hung up, still wreathed in their plastic wrappers from the dry-cleaner’s. His bathroom cabinet was full of every sort of product imaginable, for skin, for hair; all of it immaculate.

The cleaner scuttled in twice a week and scrubbed down absolutely everything, and if Issy happened to be around when she did so, she didn’t dare touch anything afterwards. Toast had become a happy memory – too many crumbs on the shiny glass surfaces of the kitchen – and they were eating a lot of easy-to-clear stir-fry, even though Issy chafed a little in a kitchen that bothered with a boiling water tap, a wok flame and a wine fridge, but not a proper bloody oven to bake anything in. Would it ever really feel like home?

Graeme, on the other hand, was already feeling he could get used to this. As long as he gave her a bit of a sharp look whenever she left stuff on the floor – why were women always so messy? Why did they need bags to keep all their stuff in? He’d given her a chest of drawers but he’d noticed her shampoos and hair serums – inferior brands, he reckoned, waste of money most of them – creeping into his black-tiled bathroom. He would have to have a word about that.

Apart from that, it was nice to have someone there at the end of the day – she finished so much earlier than he did. It was nice to have someone ask him how his day had been, to produce a home-cooked dinner rather than the Marks & Spencer ready meals he usually lived off; to pour him a glass of wine and listen to the litany of his day. It was really good actually; he was surprised he hadn’t thought of it before. She’d asked him whether she could bring her books over and he’d had to say no; he didn’t have bookshelves, it would spoil the layout of the double-height sitting room, and he absolutely didn’t want her kitsch cooking gear in here. But she didn’t seem to mind that. All of that was fine.

But there was something else playing on his mind. The London office were gung-ho for him to go full steam ahead on this Pear Tree Court idea now. They saw it as a move from just letting offices to actually selling lifestyles, and if it went well, he could see a seriously major future for himself in lifestyle development. It was big-time stuff.

But now it was becoming clear to him that actually, like a total nut job, she really liked running this stupid little shop, getting up at sparrow’s fart and being treated like a skivvy all the time. The more they sold and the harder she had to work, the happier she seemed to be. And the money was still total rubbish. Surely she’d see sense when he explained it …

Graeme scowled to himself and turned again to make sure the smooth planes of his face had the perfect shave. Twisting to see his reflection from all angles, he was pleased. But he wasn’t 100 per cent sure this Issy situation would resolve itself quite as easily as he’d believed.

As the summer progressed, the shop showed no signs of slowing down; quite the opposite, in fact. Issy made a mental note for next year to think about stocking some proper home-made organic ice creams; they would have gone down a treat. Perhaps they could have a barrow outside for people wandering past. Maybe Felipe could staff it, and play his violin in quiet times. More forms, of course, for the council, to run an outdoor food concession, but she sent them in anyway. It was amazing, she thought, how the paperwork, which had once seemed so daunting, was now so easy to handle. She realized, with a start, that – apart from the night when Graeme had turned up and she was with Austin (which she had decided to deal with by never thinking about it or going to the bank ever again – well, obviously she’d have to go in at some point, they were paying back their loan, but until it was absolutely essential Pearl could do it) – she was blushing less too. What a funny side effect of baking for a living.

Coming in from a quick break in the park (complete with ice cream), she could hear Pearl and Caroline squabbling. Uhoh. They’d seemed to be on pretty good terms recently; Pearl was mostly cheerful, and Caroline had taken to wearing tiny vest tops that on someone twenty years younger would have looked cute but on Caroline emphasized her jutting collarbones and Madonna-like arms. Issy was aware that the builders made rude comments about her and Pearl together, but ignored them. Pearl anyway was looking miles better; simply coming to a job every day instead of staying indoors had meant she’d dropped a couple of dress sizes and now, to Issy’s eyes, looked very much the size she was born to be, perfectly in proportion in every way.

‘We’ll have his aunties round, and everyone will bring a bottle, and that will do,’ Pearl was saying stubbornly.

‘A
bottle
? To a child’s third birthday party? No, it
won’t
do,’ Caroline was saying. ‘He needs a proper party like everybody else.’

Pearl bit her lip. Louis, eventually, due to his unstinting good nature, and the mothers’ desire to look inclusive and non-prejudiced, had started to receive a party invitation or two, but Pearl had looked at them and worriedly turned them down. They all seemed to be held in really expensive places like the zoo, or the Natural History Museum, and she just wasn’t sure she could afford them yet. Now the shop was doing better, Issy had increased her wages (against Mrs Prescott’s advice, she knew), but Pearl was using the money to pay off catalogues for stuff she really needed – a proper bed for Louis, new sheets and towels, not buying expensive gifts and going to expensive parties. She didn’t know that the child’s parents were paying for the party-goers’ entrance to these places; it would have shocked her even more if she had. She’d managed to distract Louis, but he was getting older now; there would come a stage when he’d begin to understand, and realize he was different, and she didn’t want it to come sooner than it had to.

And anyway, when he started school in a year or so, he wouldn’t be different any more. Pearl shuddered sometimes when she thought about the primary school nearest the estate. The council were doing their best but it was still graffiti-strewn, with high gates covered in barbed wire, and since the change in government it had got markedly worse. Her friends around the place spoke of bullying and disaffected teachers, but grudgingly admitted the school tried hard. Pearl wasn’t sure trying hard was good enough for Louis. She might find the nursery awkward, but there was absolutely no doubt that he was flourishing; he could count to twenty, solve jigsaw puzzles, sing songs that weren’t just commercial jingles and ride a tricycle, and he wanted more library books than she could keep up with. She sometimes had the creeping horrors of him going to school and getting all of that intimidated out of him. On the other hand, she didn’t want to breed some kind of sissy boy who had themed birthday parties and posh friends and would get the crap ripped out of him for that too.

‘It will be a proper party,’ she said. On top of all that, she didn’t like Caroline being right about anything. ‘There’ll be plenty of presents.’

‘Why don’t you have his friends round?’ persisted Caroline in that annoyingly blinkered way of hers. ‘Just invite ten or so.’

Pearl tried to imagine ten Harrys and Liddies and Alices and Arthurs clambering up and down her mother’s bed settee and failed.

‘What’s this?’ asked Issy cheerfully, coming back with Graeme’s dry-cleaning. It obviously made more sense if she took care of it, even if he was travelling by car.

‘We’re planning Louis’s birthday party,’ said Caroline brightly.

Pearl shot her a look. ‘Maybe.’

‘Well, I’ll ask him if he wants a proper party,’ said Caroline.

Pearl looked at Issy with desperation in her face. Suddenly Issy had an idea.

‘I’ve been thinking about this for a while,’ she said. ‘You know how quiet we are on Saturdays? I was thinking about shutting then, but Mrs Prescott will kill us and then Austin will kill us too, etc. So, one thing I thought we might do is have … cupcake-themed birthday parties. Mostly for little girls, of course. But the idea is that the kids come and they have to bake and decorate their own cakes, and we have little aprons and mixing bowls for them, and we charge for the hire of the place. It could be quite a nice little money-spinner. And good for kids, no one learns to bake any more.’

Issy didn’t know how much she sounded like her grandad when she said that.

‘That is brilliant,’ said Caroline. ‘I shall tell my gals immediately and insist that they do it. And we can serve the grown-ups tea. Although,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘I personally have never got through one of those wretched children’s parties without a strong drink or two. It’s the noise, you see.’

‘We’re not getting a licence,’ said Pearl. ‘I promised my pastor.’

‘No, no, of course not,’ said Caroline, still looking regretful.

‘You can do what the Prince of Wales does and bring a hip flask,’ said Issy. ‘So, Pearl, we could have Louis and his friends as a test case to see if it’s going to work. Take some sweet photos of them all covered in flour, use them as publicity, that kind of thing.’

‘So it will be just like every working day, except more so,’ said Pearl.

‘Oh Christ, all children’s birthdays are like that,’ said Caroline. ‘Hell on wheels!’

Graeme tried to feel as confident as he knew he looked – he’d checked himself out in the mirror of the BMW just before he stepped out of the car, ignoring a passing child who jeered at him as he did so. Nonetheless, although normally he felt like a tiger at meetings, aggressive and confident that he would be the top man, today he was nervous. Undoubtedly, nervous. It was getting ridiculous. He was Graeme Denton. He didn’t get silly about a girl, ever. He still hadn’t told Issy his plan, But every day Kalinga Deniki wanted to know his progress, were pushing for planning applications and the green light. They had already had preliminary surveyor’s reports and now he was meeting with Mr Barstow, the landlord for most of Pear Tree Court.

Mr Barstow didn’t bother with the formalities when he walked in. He extended his small plump hand and grunted. Graeme nodded, ordering his new assistant, Dermot, to start up the Powerpoint. Dermot, nine years younger, a total squit who dressed like a spiv and kept trying to get on to all of Graeme’s projects, reminded Graeme of himself when he started out. Graeme began his presentation, talking about how a bulk buyout of both occupied and vacant space would be a great thing for Barstow, at some bulk discount to KD. By the third graph, Mr Barstow’s eyes were glazing over. He waved his hands at them.