Meet Me at the Cupcake Café (22 page)

‘Oh,’ she said. She glanced at Louis, who was making tracks in the dust with his cars. ‘Oh, but couldn’t you bring him in? He’s no trouble. Just a couple of days a week or something?’

Pearl’s heart leapt. Around here – playing safely out in the courtyard … warm and safe and not in front of the TV … Well, no. It was stupid.

‘I think health and safety might have something to say about that,’ she said, smiling to show Issy how sorry she was.

‘No, but … we wouldn’t tell them!’ said Issy.

‘Do you think that’s the way to start a business?’ said Pearl. ‘Lying to health and safety? And don’t even get me started on—’

‘Fire officers. Yes, so I heard,’ said Issy. ‘Terrifying hell fiends.’

She glanced at the shop.

‘I mean, the ovens will be downstairs … more out of the way. I’ve decided just to keep the coffee machine up here.’

‘With superheated steam,’ said Pearl sweetly.

Issy smiled. ‘Oh Pearl, I could really do with you.’

At that moment there was a commotion outside the shop. Two men in dirty overalls had wandered up and were finishing off cigarettes and giving them enquiring glances.

‘Oh shit, the builders are early,’ said Issy. She was quite nervous about this; she had no room in her budget to employ an architect or bring in a professional shopfitter so she had to trust that she could explain what she wanted sufficiently clearly. She hadn’t been entirely convinced of her ability to do so when she’d called a firm in a whirl of positive activity the day before. Pearl raised her eyebrows.

‘Don’t go,’ pleaded Issy. ‘Let’s have another chat anyway, afterwards.’

Pearl folded her arms and stood back as Issy opened the door to the builders. She caught them eyeing her up in a not entirely encouraging way as they introduced themselves as Phil and Andreas. Phil did most of the talking as Issy took them through, trying to explain what she was after – all the old shelving units stripped out, the whole place rewired, the counter moved and opened up, fridges and display cabinets put in, but not to touch the windows or the fireplace; shelving and a storage fridge for downstairs too. As she listed it, it seemed like an awful lot. Now they had their loan, and she had her redundancy payment too of course, but it was a lot of money to put into something before it had even opened.

Phil looked around and sucked his teeth a lot.

‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘They’re a nightmare, these old buildings. Ain’t it listed?’

‘No!’ said Issy, delighted to be asked a question she could actually answer. ‘Well, I mean, yes, the outside is, grade II, but the interior is all right as long as we don’t pull down any walls or put anything up or brick up the fireplace, as if we would.’

‘Well, your problem here is we’ll have to thread the wiring through the walls, then there’ll be a lot of replastering to do, and that’s before you even look at the flooring.’

‘What’s wrong with the flooring?’

There were simple wooden boards on the floor, and Issy had been planning just to clean them up and leave them.

‘Nah, you can’t do that, see,’ said Phil. Issy didn’t see at all. She started to feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. It was awkward being in the presence of people who knew so much more than she did about something that concerned her. She had the sinking sensation that it was a feeling she would get to know well.

Phil was proposing something complicated about lifting the skirting and putting in heating and wiring underneath then basically rebuilding the walls from the bottom up. Issy was looking at him helplessly, feeling out of her depth and nodding slightly, wishing as she did so that her accent wasn’t quite so posh. Andreas was groping in his pocket for his cigarettes. Phil took out a camera and a notepad and started to jot down measurements, until Pearl, standing in the shadows, couldn’t take it for one more single second.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. Everyone turned to look at her quizzically. ‘You’re a good builder, right?’ she said to Phil, who looked slightly wounded.

‘I can do anything,’ he said proudly. ‘Jack of all trades, me.’

‘That’s great,’ said Pearl. ‘We’re glad to have you aboard. But I’m afraid we can only pay you for the work that Miss Randall mentioned before. No floorboards, no skirting, no plastering. Just get the units in, get this place squared up – and you know what I mean – and you’ll get paid straight away, no messing. Do one iota more of stuff you aren’t asked for, or overcharge us – and you’re the fifth quote we’ve had in – and I’m sorry, but there simply won’t be the money to pay you. Do you know what I mean?’

Pearl fixed Phil with a beady eye. He smiled nervously, then cleared his throat. He’d known a few Pearls growing up at school, and he had them to thank for being in a trade now, instead of prison like half of his mates.

‘Absolutely. Totally. Not a problem.’

He turned back to Issy, who was speechless but happy.

‘We’ll sort this place out for you, love.’

‘Great!’ said Issy. ‘Uh, want some upside-down cake? Seeing as you’re going to be turning this place upside down?’

‘You were brilliant,’ said Issy, as they headed up towards the bus stop, each with one of Louis’s hands in theirs. He was swinging as he went, insisting on more with a count of ‘
Won-doo-free!
’

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Pearl. ‘You’ve just got to ask for what you want, he wasn’t going to bite you. He’s in a selling job too.’

‘I know,’ said Issy. ‘The time for being timid really isn’t now, is it?’

‘Not if you want to make it,’ said Pearl thoughtfully. Issy looked back at the building. She’d just agreed to put a sizeable chunk of all the money she’d ever had in her entire life, and possibly more money than she’d ever see again, into this thing. Pearl was right. She was beginning to suspect that Pearl might be right about a lot of things.

They reached the bus stop. Issy turned to Pearl.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘I am going to ask for what I want. I want you. To come and work for me. We’ll figure Louis out between us. He’ll be going to nursery soon anyway, won’t he?’

Pearl nodded.

‘Well, couldn’t he go to a nursery near the shop? There’s loads in Stokey. Come up and sit in the shop while we get opened up and the cakes go in, then pop him up to nursery and come back. He won’t be far, and you can spend your lunch hour with him. What do you reckon?’

Pearl thought about it from all the angles. There was no reason Louis couldn’t do a state nursery programme up here; she felt a bit guilty for even thinking it, but it might not be a bad thing for him to mix with people who weren’t all on the estate. Show him a bit of life. It could work. She’d talk to her Restart officer.

‘Hmm,’ said Pearl.

‘Is that a good hmm or a bad hmm?’ asked Issy excitedly.

There was a long pause.

‘Well, let’s give it a shot,’ said Pearl. And the two women very formally shook hands.

Chapter Nine

After that, everything moved at double speed. Despite Issy assuming that all the official papers would take months, insurance, licensing and tax registration were all returned signed and sealed much more promptly than she’d expected. Phil and Andreas, buoyed, she believed, by daily influxes of cake and chivvying from Pearl, were doing a fantastic job; the new units, ordered online, had arrived and fitted perfectly; they had painted the walls a soft shade of greige (grey and beige), and she had ordered retro 1950s aprons for Pearl and herself. Pearl sewed on her own extension ties. Issy was adoring her new industrial mixer, and couldn’t resist trying out more and more esoteric recipes with it. Helena had called a halt at liquorice and Maltesers.

Over the following weeks, the boys did a lovely job. Several days of hands-and-knees scrubbing by Issy and Pearl, aided occasionally by a grumbling Helena, had sorted out the cellar, while the boys had hammered and drilled and sung along to Cheryl Cole songs on the radio and utterly transformed the place. Whereas before a bare bulb had swung from the ceiling, now there were gently inset halogen lights that made everything gleam softly. Tables and chairs in off-white shades had a gentle patina that made them look old (even though, as they had assured the crusty fire officer, they weren’t, and they were painted with flame-retardant paint); the wooden floor was polished to a high shine, and the display cases were of sparkling glass to show off the cakes, with cake stands ready to go on each table. The coffee machine, a second-hand Rancilio Classe 6, which everyone assured them was absolutely the best on the market, fizzed happily away in a corner. (Alas, it was a curious shade of orange, but not everything had to tastefully match.) Issy had lined the mantel over the fireplace with books for people to read (not too many, grumbled Pearl, we don’t want tramps staying all day), and smart wooden poles would hold the day’s newspapers.

The crockery they had bought in a huge job lot in the IKEA sale, a collection of duck egg, teal and eau de Nil bowls, espresso cups and plates that were so cheap they could afford to lose a few here and there to small hands or sticky fingers; and downstairs in the storeroom were industrial bags of flour, and huge catering tubs of butter, all ready for the mixer.

But most of all, for Issy, it was the feel of the place: the aroma of cinnamon being liberally sprinkled on delectable, melting soft and yielding brownies that demanded to be scoffed within seconds of coming out of the oven (and Louis often obliged); the heavenly violet scent of the sauce for the blueberry cheesecake. The day they tasted jams for the Victoria sponge, Issy invited all of her friends. Toby and Trinida had come up from Brighton, and Paul and John who’d just got married, and even though a few had had to decline, being busy with new babies or house moves or in-laws or any of the million and one crazy things that being in your thirties seemed to entail, lots of people had turned up anyway, and they had all ended up sticky and giggling and slightly sick, and decided Bonne Maman raspberry was simply the only way forward, until they could afford to make their own. It had taken a while to get all the stickiness off the wall tiles, but it was so much fun they’d decided to have a proper opening party, to test everything out and say thank you to everyone who’d helped so much so far.