Meet Me at the Cupcake Café (25 page)

Issy couldn’t keep still. She kept checking her oven, her storage shelves: the huge bags of flour all lined up so neatly, with the boxes of baking soda; baking powder, sugar, then row upon row of flavourings; fresh lemons in a box and the massive fridge filled with cream and big pots of creamy English butter – only the best. Issy had tried to explain the financial element to Austin: that when you chose make-up, some stuff was pretty much the same whatever you bought – an eyeliner pencil, for example, or powder blush – it didn’t matter which brand, so you bought the cheapest. But some items – like foundation or lipstick – really, really showed their quality; it was obvious to anyone. So you had to get the best you could afford. And butter for the cakes and the icing had to come from happy cows, in happy fields with lush green grass. And that, she had announced, was that. Austin hadn’t understood a word of her analogy, but he’d been quite impressed by her fervour. The baking powder on the other hand, she said, she’d get from a Hungarian lime works if it cut her bottom-line outlay, and they were both happy with that. Issy’s store cupboard made her feel secure and orderly, like when she was a little girl and liked to play shop. It gave her a huge sense of satisfaction just to look at everything.

‘Are you always like this or are you making a special effort?’ said Pearl. Issy was bouncing on the spot on her toes.

‘A bit of both?’ said Issy, cautiously. Sometimes she wasn’t quite sure how to take her member of staff.

‘OK, good. Just so as we know what we’re working with. Would you like me to call you boss?’

‘I would
not
like that.’

‘OK.’

Issy smiled. ‘Maybe if we sell a lot, you could call me Princess Isabel.’

Pearl gave her a look, but there was definitely a smile behind it.

At 7.45 a labourer put his head round the door.

‘Do you do teas?’

Pearl smiled and nodded. ‘We certainly do! And our cakes are half-price all week.’

The labourer came in cautiously, wiping his feet ostentatiously on the new Union Jack doormat Issy had bought from her friend with a shop, even though it wasn’t in the budget and was thus extremely naughty.

‘This is a bit posh, innit?’ he said. He frowned. ‘How much is the tea then?’

‘One pound forty,’ said Pearl.

The labourer bit his lip. ‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘Wow.’

‘We’ve got all sorts,’ added Issy helpfully. ‘And you can try a few cake samples.’

The labourer patted his belly regretfully. ‘Nah, the missus will kill me. You couldn’t make me up a bacon sandwich, could you?’

Pearl made the tea – she had noticed that Issy was overexcited and liable to spill things – and without asking added milk and two sugars and handed it over with a smile, sealing the top of the paper container and adding a holder; it was very hot.

‘Ta, love,’ said the man.

‘You sure you don’t want to try some cake?’ said Issy, a tad over-eagerly. The labourer glanced around nervously.

‘It’s all right, I’m sweet enough, love.’ He laughed nervously, then paid and retreated. Pearl rang up the till triumphantly.

‘Our first customer!’ she announced.

Issy smiled. ‘I think I scared him off though.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘What if he’s right? What if we are too posh for round here?’

‘Well, I’m not,’ said Pearl, wiping up a tiny drop of spilt milk on the glass countertop. ‘And nobody wants cake at seven thirty in the morning anyway.’

‘I do,’ said Issy. ‘Everyone will. People eat muffins. Muffins are just an American way of saying, “I eat cake for breakfast.”’

Pearl looked at her for a second. ‘God, you’re right. Well, that explains a lot.’

‘Hmm,’ said Issy.

For the next hour, curious locals wandered by, wondering who was the latest person to take on the blighted site in Pear Tree Court. Some rudely walked up to the windows, pressed their noses against them, stared hard then wandered off again.

‘Well, that’s not very nice,’ said Issy.

‘Iss,’ said Pearl, who’d had a hard enough morning getting up at a quarter to six, then settling Louis in his new playgroup. ‘It’s not your house. They’re not judging you.’

‘How can you say that?’ said Issy, glancing round the empty shop. ‘It’s my heart and soul! They are totally judging me!’

At two minutes to nine, a dark little man with an old-fashioned hat pulled down over his forehead marched past the shopfront. Almost completely past, he stopped suddenly and turned forty-five degrees, staring straight in. He looked right at them, regarded them ominously for several moments, then turned and continued on. Seconds later they heard the rattle of metal shutters opening.

‘It’s the ironmonger!’ hissed Issy excitedly. She’d tried to go and meet her new neighbour before, but the rickety little pots and pans shop that adjoined them to the right seemed to keep very odd hours, and she’d never managed to catch anyone in before. ‘I shall take him a cup of coffee and make friends with him.’

‘I’d be wary,’ said Pearl. ‘You don’t even know why those other businesses shut down. We already know he has a peculiar shop. Maybe he has peculiar habits. Maybe he poisoned them all.’

Issy stared at her.

‘Well, if he offers me something to drink, I’ll just say, “It’s all right, I have a café”,’ she said.

Pearl raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

‘Well, maybe I’ll give it a couple of days,’ said Issy eventually.

At eleven, a tired, worn-down-looking woman came in with a tired, worn-down-looking child. Although both women fussed over the little girl, she didn’t respond, mutely taking the proffered cake sample after shooting a look at her mother, who flapped a hand resignedly.

‘Can I have a small black coffee please?’ said the woman, who took it but turned down the cake samples (Issy was beginning to get paranoid) and counted out the change. She sat herself and the child on the grey sofa, in between the magazines and the newspapers and not far from the books. But the mother didn’t glance at anything. She sipped her coffee slowly as the child sat playing with her fingers, very, very quietly, and the mother stared out of the window. With just the four of them in the space, Pearl and Issy soon found it difficult to talk normally.

‘I’m going to put some music on,’ said Issy. But when she put the new Corinne Bailey Rae disc in her old CD player, now officially donated to the Cupcake Café, and pressed play, and gentle sweet tones filled the space, the woman immediately got up and left, as if the music were an alarm clock or was going to cost her extra. She didn’t say goodbye, or thank you, and neither did the little girl. Issy glanced at Pearl.

‘This is day one,’ said Pearl. ‘And I’m telling you, I do not want to have to nanny you through this, OK? You are a hardheaded businesswoman and that is the end of it.’

But the rain started hammering down, day after day. Pearl’s encouragement got more hollow with every quiet day that passed. Feeling horribly weary, and with Pearl having her day off, Issy was in the shop doing accounts (they were tricky and the figures were terrifying, even though Pearl kept telling her not to worry about it; she couldn’t help it, and it was keeping her awake). She had two customers, which was better than none, she supposed. First of all the woman had come in again with the small child, which had slightly cheered Issy up; obviously she hadn’t been so horrified she’d rushed away, never to darken their doors again. But didn’t she have any friends? Couldn’t she bring them round, with sticky-fingered children who needed a treat before making their way to Clissold Park? But once again the mother had retrieved her small cup of black coffee and perched herself in the corner of the sofa with her silent child, as if waiting outside the headmaster’s office. Issy had smiled nicely and asked her how she was, but the woman’s answer, ‘Fine,’ with a slightly hunted expression, had put her off asking any further questions.

Issy had leafed through all the Saturday papers – she’d thought she’d be rushed off her feet, but instead she was becoming exceptionally well informed about the world – when the welcome sound of the little bell they’d installed above the door rang out prettily. She looked up and smiled in recognition.

Des didn’t know what you were supposed to do with a baby. Jamie wouldn’t stop crying unless he was being walked up and down. It was still chilly out there, and Jamie was only happy being wheeled about or lifted. The doctor had said it was just a touch of colic and Des had said, ‘What’s colic?’ and the doctor had smiled sympathetically and said, ‘Well, it’s the word we use when babies cry for hours every day,’ and Des had been taken aback as well as disappointed. He had hoped the doctor would say, ‘Give him this medicine and he’ll stop immediately and your wife will cheer up.’

Turning back into Albion Road, he hadn’t a clue what to do next – the four walls of their little terraced house were driving him crazy – until he remembered Issy’s café. He might pop in and see how she was doing. Maybe even score a free cup of coffee. Those cakes were quite something too.

‘Hello, Des!’ said Issy eagerly, before registering, one, that Des was probably going to expect a free cup of coffee (which she supposed, grudgingly, he did deserve), and secondly that he was carrying a baby who was screeching his head off. Corinne Bailey Rae frankly could not compete.

‘Oh, look at your …’

Issy was never quite sure what to say to babies. She was at that age now where if she made too much fuss over them everyone assumed she was desperately broody and felt sorry for her, whereas if she wasn’t interested enough she was considered bitter and jealous and also secretly desperate for a baby but not able to show it. It was a minefield.

‘Well, hello, little …’ She looked at Des for guidance. The baby screwed up his face and arched his back in preparation for another howl.

‘Boy … it’s Jamie.’

‘Oh, little Jamie. How sweet. Welcome!’

Jamie took in a great gulp of breath, filling his lungs. Des spotted the warning signs.

‘Uh, can I have a latte please.’

He got his wallet out firmly. He had changed his mind about the free coffee thing; the noise pollution was already bad enough.

‘And a cake,’ prompted Issy.

‘Uh, no …’

‘You’re having a cake,’ said Issy, ‘and that’s the end of it.’

At that, the little girl at the end of the sofa raised her sad-looking face. Issy smiled at her.

‘Excuse me?’ she shouted to the girl’s mother, over the noise of Jamie’s huge wail. ‘Would your little girl like a cake? Free of charge, we’re newly open.’

The woman looked up from her magazine, suspicious immediately.

‘Um, no, it’s all right, no, thank you,’ she said, her Eastern European accent suddenly strongly marked; Issy hadn’t noticed it before.

‘It’s OK!’ hollered Issy. ‘Just this once.’

The little girl, who was wearing a cheap and slightly grubby pink top that looked too thin for the weather, ran up to the counter, her eyes wide. The mother watched her, her eyes slightly less guarded, then held out her hands in a gesture of reluctant agreement.

‘Which would you like?’ said Issy, bending close to the little girl on the other side of the counter.

‘Pink,’ came the breathless voice. Issy put it on a plate and took it to her table ceremoniously while Des’s coffee brewed.