Meet Me at the Cupcake Café (12 page)

‘Sausage sandwich and a cup of tea for a pound fifty. Perfect for round here. All the builders and commuters and council workers and nannies and that. Scone and jam a pound.’

His face had become quite animated.

‘Actually, I was thinking more … a kind of bakery place,’ she said. Des’s face fell.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘One of those poncey joints where they charge two fifty for a cup of coffee.’

‘Well, there’d be delicious cakes,’ said Issy.

‘Yeah, whatever,’ said Des. ‘Actually the other bidder wants to open a café too, just like that.’

Issy thought back to the blonde woman. Hers would be nothing like that! she thought indignantly. Hers would be warm, and inviting, and cosy and indulgent and somewhere to come and enjoy yourself, not somewhere to come and feel like you were atoning for bad behaviour. Hers would be a lovely focal point for the community, not for people to neck raw carrots while typing on their BlackBerries. Yeah. Exactly!

‘I’ll take it!’ she said suddenly. The agent looked at her in surprise.

‘Don’t you want to know how much it is?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Issy, suddenly totally flustered. What on earth was she thinking? She wasn’t qualified to run a business! How could she manage? All she could do was bake cakes and that would never be enough, surely. Although how, a little voice inside her said, how will you ever know unless you try? And wouldn’t you like to be your own boss? And have your lovely cleaned-up, gorgeous local café in this perfect spot? And have people come from far and wide to taste your cupcakes and sit and relax for half an hour, read the paper, buy a gift, enjoy a little bit of peace and quiet? Wouldn’t that be a nice thing to do every day: sweeten people’s lives, give them a smile, feed them? Wasn’t that what she did in her life anyway; didn’t it make sense to take it to the next level? Didn’t it? Now she had this once-in-a-lifetime cash; this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said, confused. ‘I’m jumping way ahead of the gun. Can I just have a brochure?’

‘Hmm,’ said Des. ‘Have you just got divorced by any chance?’

‘I wish,’ said Issy.

She studied the brochure for hours and hours. She downloaded forms from the internet; tried working out some rough costings on the backs of envelopes. She spoke to a small business adviser, and wondered about a cash-and-carry card. Issy felt so excited she couldn’t contain it. She hadn’t felt this alive in years. At the back of her mind, all she could hear was one thing: I could do this. I could really do this. What was stopping her?

The following Saturday, Issy made good use of the slow bus up to Gramps’s home; she worked on some calculations and schedules in her newly purchased notebook, and felt a little rising bubble of excitement. No. She mustn’t. It was a daft idea. Although, after all, when else was she going to have the chance to do something like this? On the other hand, would it be a total disaster? What would make her different from everyone else who had gone into that space and failed miserably?

The Oaks was an austere ex-stately home. The organization had done its best to keep some kind of a homey feel – the baronial hall remained intact. There had been money left over when Gramps had sold his bakeries and Helena had recommended the Oaks as the best of its kind. But still. There were handrails; the industrial cleaning scent; the wing-backed chairs. It was what it was.

Taking Issy up, the plump young nurse called Keavie was as kind as usual, but seemed a little distracted. ‘What’s up?’ asked Issy.

Keavie fidgeted. ‘You should know,’ she said, ‘he’s not having one of his better days.’

Issy’s heart sank. Since he’d arrived at the home, although it had taken him a couple of weeks to settle in, he’d seemed to adjust pretty well. The old ladies fussed round him nicely – there were hardly any men there – and he’d even enjoyed the art therapies. In fact, it was a young intense-looking therapist who’d convinced him to start writing down his recipes for Issy. And Issy was so happy to know he was warm and safe and comfortable and well fed. So to hear those words was chilling. Steeling herself, she popped her head round the door.

Joe was propped up in bed, a cold cup of tea by his side. Never a fat man, his weight, she noticed, had fallen away even further; his skin was beginning to sink and drop off his bones, as if it had somewhere better to be. He had kept his hair, though it looked now like fine white fluff on top of his head, oddly like a baby’s. He was a baby now, thought Issy sadly. Without the joy, the anticipation, the wonder of a baby: just the feeding, the changing; the carrying around. But she loved him still. She kissed him fondly.

‘Hi, Gramps,’ she said, ‘thanks for the recipes.’ She perched at the end of the bed. ‘I love getting them.’

She did. Apart from Christmas cards, no one else had sent her a handwritten letter for about ten years. Email was great, but she did miss being excited by the post. That was probably why people did so much internet shopping, she reckoned. So they had a parcel to look forward to.

Issy looked at her grampa. He’d had a funny turn before, just after he’d moved, and they’d put him on some new medication. He’d seemed to zone out a lot, but the staff had assured her that he could hear her talking, and that it probably helped. At first she’d felt a complete idiot. Then she’d actually found it quite restful – a bit like therapy, she thought, probably. The kind where the therapist doesn’t actually say anything, just nods their head and writes things down.

‘
Anyway
,’ she found herself saying now – almost as if trying it out on her tongue, just to see what it sounded like – ‘I’m thinking of … I’m thinking of doing something new. Of opening a little café. People like little cafés these days. They’re getting sick of the same old chains. Well, that’s what I read in a Sunday magazine.

‘My friends aren’t actually being very helpful. Helena keeps telling me to think about VAT, even though she has absolutely no idea what VAT is. I think she’s trying to be those scary guys off the telly that make fun of your business ideas, because she always says it in a really growly voice, then snorts like this,’ she snorted, ‘when I say I hadn’t thought about VAT, like she’s a total millionaire mogul and I’m just some idiot, not fit to run a business.

‘But all sorts of people run businesses, don’t they, Gramps? Look at you, you did it for years.’

She sighed.

‘So obviously I remembered to ask you all the intelligent questions about it while you were still in a fit position to answer them. Gramps,
why
didn’t I ask you about running a business? I’m such an idiot. Please help me.’

Nothing. Issy sighed again.

‘I mean, our local dry-cleaner has the IQ of a balloon and he runs his own business. It can’t be that hard, can it? Helena reckons he can’t look at himself in the mirror without seeing someone else who wants to pick a fight with him.’

She smiled. ‘He is a terrible dry-cleaner though.

‘But when will I have the chance to do this again? What if I put all the money into my mortgage then don’t find a job for eight months? I may as well … I mean, it will be like nothing ever happened. Or I could go round the world but, you know, I’d still be me when I got back. Except a bit older, with sun damage.

‘Whereas this … I mean, there’s tax and red tape and health and safety and food standards and hygiene practice and fire regulations. It’s doing it the way you want it, subject to an incredibly narrow prescribed range of things that are actually allowed … It’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever thought of, totally doomed to fail, bankrupt me, all of that.’

Issy looked out of the window. It was a cold, clear day; the grounds of the home were beautiful. She saw an old lady, bent over, gardening in a tiny flower bed. She was completely engrossed in what she was doing. A nurse came past, checked she was all right and then went on her way again.

Issy remembered coming home from school – her horrible modern comprehensive full of horrible girls who made fun of her frizzy hair – and making a strawberry tart from scratch, pastry as light as air, and the glaze as fine and sweet as fairies’ breath. Gramps had sat down in silence with a fork and not uttered a word as he savoured every bite, slowly, and she stood at the end of their terraced kitchen, at the tiny back door, hands clasped over the front of her now far too small apron. When he had finished, he had put down his fork carefully, reverently. Then he had looked at her.

‘You, love,’ he had said, deliberately. ‘You are a born baker.’

‘Don’t talk crap,’ her mother had said, who was home that autumn, doing a course to become a yoga teacher that she never finished. ‘Issy’s got brains! She’s going to go to college, get a proper job, not one where she has to get up in the middle of the night for the rest of her life. I want her in a nice office, keeping warm and clean. Not covered head to toe in flour, passed out from exhaustion in a chair every night at six pm.’

Issy barely listened to her mother. But her heart was aflame with her grandfather’s praise, rarely bestowed. In her darker moments, she did wonder sometimes if any man would ever love her as much as her gramps did.

‘I mean, I’ve done so much admin in my life, I’m sure I’ll figure it out … but when I saw Pear Tree Court, I just realized … I could have a shot. I could. I know I could. A chance to bake for people, to make them happy; to give them somewhere lovely to come – I know I could do it. You know how I can never get people to go home after parties?’

It was true, Issy was famously welcoming and a too-good host.

‘I’m going to see if I can get a six-month lease. Not pump all my money into it. Just give it a shot to see if it can take off. Not risk everything.’

Issy felt as if she was trying to talk herself out of it. Suddenly, startling her, her grampa sat up. Issy flinched as his watery blue eyes struggled to focus. She crossed her fingers that he would recognize her.

‘Marian?’ he said at first. Then his face cleared like the sun coming out. ‘Issy? Is that my Issy?’

Issy’s heart lifted with relief.

‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Yes, it’s me.’

‘Did you bring me some cake?’ He leaned over confidentially. ‘This hotel is all right but it has no cake.’

Issy peered into her bag. ‘Of course! Look, I made Battenburg.’

Joe smiled. ‘It’s soft for when I don’t have my teeth.’

‘It is.’

‘So what’s with you, my darling?’ He looked around. ‘I’m here on holiday but it hasn’t been terribly warm. It’s not very warm.’

‘No,’ said Issy. It was boiling in the room. ‘I know. And you’re not on holiday. You live here now.’

Gramps looked around for a long time. Finally, she realized it was sinking in, and his face seemed to fall. She reached over and patted his hand and he took it and changed the subject briskly.

‘Well? What have you been doing? I would like a great-granddaughter, please.’

‘Nothing like that,’ said Issy. She decided to try her idea out loud again. ‘But … but … I’ve been thinking about opening a bakery.’

Her grandfather’s face broke open into a wide grin. He was delighted.

‘Of
course
you are, Isabel!’ he said, wheezing slightly. ‘I just can’t believe it took you all this time!’

Issy smiled. ‘Well, I’ve been very busy.’

‘I suppose,’ said her grampa. ‘Well. I am pleased. I am very pleased. And I can help you. I should send you some recipes.’

‘You do that already,’ said Issy. ‘I’m using them.’

‘Good,’ said her grandfather. ‘That’s good. Make sure you follow them properly.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

‘I’ll come down and help out. Oh yes. I’m fine. Totally fine. Don’t worry about me.’

Issy wished she could say the same about herself. She kissed her gramps goodbye.

‘You always perk him up,’ said Keavie, walking her out of the door.

‘I’ll try and get up more often,’ said Issy.

Keavie sniffed. ‘Compared to most of the old folks in here,’ she said, ‘he’s doing pretty bloody well by you.’

‘He’s a nice chap,’ she added as Issy left. ‘We’ve got fond of him in here. When we can keep him out of the kitchen.’

Issy smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for looking after him.’