Meet Me at the Cupcake Café (46 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Helena’s Secret Doughnuts

Buy real ginger. It looks like a knobby root thing. You can ask someone if you can’t figure it out. Not that fruiterer who always asks you if you want any melons. He’s disgusting. Right, now, nick one of those medicine-measuring thingies from work. I know they’re the only ones you can figure out as long as it’s in centilitres or whatever. So do it from that. OK, now grate it.

Stop looking in the mirror on the extractor fan. You’re gorgeous, and if you don’t keep stirring the mix, it’s going to set solid and you’ll get ginger biscuits.

OK, here it is. And the answer is, lime curd. Mrs Darlington’s, from Penrith. You’d never have guessed in a bazillion years.

900g plain flour plus additional for dusting

4 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

1½ tsp salt

1½ tsp grated ginger

400g sugar

2 oz crystallized ginger, coarsely chopped 

500g well-shaken buttermilk

60g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

2 large eggs

1 tbsp vegetable oil

45cl lime curd

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and ¾ teaspoon grated ginger in a large bowl. Whisk together 300g sugar and remaining ¾ teaspoon grated ginger in a shallow bowl. Pulse remaining 100g sugar with crystallized ginger in a food processor until ginger is finely chopped. Transfer this to a bowl and whisk in buttermilk, butter and eggs until smooth. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and stir until a dough forms (dough will be sticky). Turn out dough on to a well-floured surface and knead gently just until it comes together, 10 to 12 times, then form into a ball. Lightly dust work surface and dough with flour, then roll out dough into a 13-inch round (about
¹
/
₃
inch thick) with a floured rolling pin. Cut out rounds with a floured cutter and transfer to a lighly floured baking sheet. Gather scraps and reroll, then cut out additional rounds. (Reroll only once.) Heat oil in a wide heavy pot until a splash would result in third-degree burns. Working in batches of seven or eight, carefully add rounds, one at a time, to oil and fry, turning over once, until golden brown, one and a half to two minutes in total per batch. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Cool slightly, then dredge in ginger sugar. Gently slice doughnuts in half and spoon lime curd on the bottom half; top with the second half of the doughnut. Serve three or so to a plate, garnished with slices of crystallized ginger.

‘Well, that took you five blooming seconds,’ said Helena.

‘Stop it,’ said Issy, looking to Pearl for back-up.

‘Yeah,’ said Pearl. ‘More like four.’

‘They don’t respect you if you go running back,’ said Caroline. ‘I haven’t spoken to the Bastard in months.’

‘How’s that working out?’ said Pearl.

‘Fine, thank you, Pearl,’ sniffed Caroline loudly. ‘Ectually, the children see more of him now than they did when we were still together. One Saturday afternoon a fortnight. I’m sure he hates it, he’s taken them to the zoo three times. Good.’

‘Well, nice to know what I’ve got to look forward to,’ said Issy, who’d been expecting people to be slightly more positive about the fact that she had a boyfriend again.

‘What about that gorgeous man from the bank?’ said Helena.

‘That is strictly professional,’ said Issy, lying. But Austin had disappeared at the speed of light. She knew he didn’t want a relationship, and he had Darny. It was stupid to fantasize about things she couldn’t have, like dreaming about a pop star. Whereas having Graeme come back to her …

‘Plus, I have my eye on him,’ said Caroline.

‘What for, fostering?’ said Helena.

‘Sorry, do you work here?’ said Caroline. ‘I only hang about because I get paid.’

‘Well, I think it’s kind of amazing he’s realized he was wrong and come crawling back,’ said Issy. ‘No? Nobody?’

The other women looked at each other.

‘Well, if you’re happy,’ said Pearl, encouragingly. ‘He is nice, that man from the bank though.’

‘Shut up about the man from the bank,’ said Issy. ‘Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. But I’ve just … it’s been so lonely. Even with all of you guys, I know. But setting everything up and sorting everything out myself and then going home alone because Helena’s smooching up a doctor …’

‘Who adores me,’ added Helena. ‘… and now he’s back, and he wants to make a real go of it, and that’s all I ever wanted.’

There was a pause.

‘Five seconds though,’ said Helena. Issy stuck her tongue out at her. She knew what she was doing. Didn’t she?

Issy sat up, hugging her knees, several days later as Graeme got ready for an early morning squash match. ‘What’s with you, Iss?’ he said, smiling. She still couldn’t believe how handsome he looked: his chiselled chest, with a light sprinkling of dark hair; his broad shoulders and white-toothed smile. He winked at her staring. Ever since she’d come back with him that night he’d been like a different person: romantic, thoughtful, always asking her questions about the bakery and Pear Tree Court and how she liked it there.

But still, a bit of her was cross with herself. She wasn’t at his beck and call. She didn’t run back to him just because he happened to be around. She hadn’t even rung Helena, who had texted eleven times to ask if she would a) come back, b) get in touch, or c) let Helena have her room. Issy hated to think that all he had to do was wiggle his eyebrows and she would jump into bed.

But she had missed it so much. She’d missed the human touch, the companionship; going home to someone at the end of the day. She had got so lonely she’d nearly made a complete fool of herself in front of her banking adviser, for goodness’ sake. It was embarrassing. She went pink just thinking about it. She had risked turning into a crazy spinster. And when she saw how happy Helena and Ashok were, or Zac and Noriko, or Paul and John or any of her friends, all coupled up, all cheery (or so they seemed) at her party – well, why couldn’t she have a bit of that? She wished they could see her now, all loved up and sweet, like in a toothpaste advert. Graeme, she mused dreamily, would probably get a job in a toothpaste advert.

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Just wish we didn’t have to get up today.’

Graeme leaned over and kissed Issy on her lightly freckled nose. It all seemed to be going well. He was delighted she’d come back to him, if not that surprised. He was about to unleash the next stage in the campaign. By the time he came to getting her to give up the bakery, he was going to have a very grateful girlfriend indeed. And a lot of money, and more prestige at the firm. No wonder he was so cheerful.

‘I have a question for you,’ he said.

Issy smiled cheerfully. ‘Oh yes?’

‘Um … Well. Um.’ Issy looked up. Graeme was being uncharacteristically reticent. He was not, as a rule, one of life’s hemmers and hawers.

Graeme was putting it on, of course. He thought a show of shyness might go down well.

‘Well, I was thinking,’ he continued. ‘I mean, we seem to be getting on all right, don’t we?’

‘For the last five days, I suppose, yes,’ said Issy.

‘I was going to say, I really like having you here,’ said Graeme.

‘And I like being here,’ said Issy, a curious sensation – a mixture of happiness and nerves – stealing over her as she tried to fathom what he was getting at.

‘Well, I was going to say … and I’ve never asked anyone this before …’

‘Yes?’

‘Would you like to move in with me?’

Issy stared at Graeme in shock. Then she felt shocked that she was shocked. After all, it was absolutely everything she’d ever imagined. Everything she’d ever dreamed about – living with the man of her dreams, in his lovely flat, sharing his life, cooking, hanging out, chilling on the weekend, planning their future – here it was. She blinked.

‘
What
did you say?’ she asked again. This didn’t feel right. She should be ecstatic, bouncing with happiness. Why was her heart not leaping and pounding with joy? She was thirty-two years old and she loved Graeme, goddamnit, of course she did. Of course she did. And when she looked at him, his face was so excited; nervous too. She could see, as she very rarely could, what he must have looked like as a little boy.

Then she saw on his face again a slight puzzlement, as if he’d been expecting her (as indeed he was) to throw herself into his arms with sheer delight.

‘Um, I said,’ said Graeme, now stuttering slightly for real as he hadn’t got the anticipated reaction. ‘I said, would you like to come and live here? You could, I don’t know, sell the flat or rent it out or whatever …’

Issy realized she hadn’t even considered that. Her lovely flat! With its pink kitchen! OK, she didn’t spend much time there nowadays, but still. All the happy times she’d had with Helena; all the cosy evenings; the baking experiments that succeeded or otherwise; the times she’d spent poring over her relationship with Graeme and every tiny sign he gave out – she felt another pang, realizing that she’d missed doing exactly the same in return over Helena and Ashok, she’d been so immersed in the café – the pizza nights, the large bottle of pennies in the hallway that at one point Issy had thought she was going to have to break open in order to pay the Cupcake Café’s buildings insurance … all of those things. Gone for ever.

‘… or we could have a trial period …’

Graeme hadn’t been expecting this. He’d been expecting wild gratitude; excited plans; he’d anticipated having to tell her to slow down and stop measuring for curtains; not to think too much about marriage just yet; then being the joyful recipient of grateful sex, before explaining how he was also going to make her rich and release her from the shackles of her tiny shop, for which he was also expecting grateful sex. This look of consternation and air of distraction weren’t all what he had planned. He decided to play the hurt card.

‘Sorry,’ he said, making his eyes droopy and sad-looking. ‘Sorry, but … I might be wrong but I thought this was getting quite serious.’

Issy couldn’t bear to see him – her Graeme – looking sad. What was the matter with her? This was ridiculous. Here was Graeme, whom she loved; whom she’d dreamed of for so long; her heart-throb; her crush. He was offering her everything on a plate and here she was, being stupid and churlish; who on earth did she think she was? Issy rushed to his side and clung to him.

‘Sorry!’ she said. ‘Sorry! I was just – I was just so surprised I didn’t know what to think!’