Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe

by Jenny Colgan

  ‘So you’ll come back full of amazing New York know-how and everyone will have to bend and scrape before you and they’ll make you king of the bank.’

  ‘I don’t think they have kings. Maybe they do. I haven’t climbed up to those esteemed heights yet. I want a gigantic crown if they do.’

  ‘And one of those pole things. For whacking.’

  ‘Is that what those are for?’

  ‘I don’t know what the point is of being a king if you can’t do whacking,’ pointed out Issy.

  ‘You’re right about everything,’ said Austin. ‘I will also ask for fake ermine.’

  She had gently pinged his nose.

  ‘What a wise and gracious king you are. Look at me!’ she said. ‘I can’t believe I’m balling socks for you. I feel like I’m sending you to boarding school.’

  ‘Ooh, will you be my very firm matron?’ said Austin teasingly.

  ‘Are you obsessed with whacking today, or what? Have I just had to wait all this time for your disgusting perv side to come out?’

  ‘You started it, perv-o.’

  She had driven him to the airport. ‘And then you’ll come back and it’ll be nearly Christmas!’

  Austin smiled. ‘Do you really not mind doing it the same way as last year? Truly?’

  ‘Truly?’ said Issy. ‘Truly, last year was the best Christmas I’ve ever had.’

  And she had meant it. The first time Issy’s mother had left – or the first time she remembered clearly, without it getting muddled in her head – she was seven, and writing out a letter to Santa, being very careful with the spelling.

  Her mother had glanced over her shoulder. She was going through one of her rougher patches, which usually corresponded with a lot of complaining about the Manchester weather and the dark evenings and the sodding leaves. Joe, Issy’s grampa, and Issy had exchanged looks as Marian paced up and down like a tiger in a cage, then stopped to look at Issy’s list.

  ‘My own piper? Why would you want a piper? We’re not even Scottish.’

  ‘No,’ explained Issy patiently. Her mother had no interest in baking and relatively little in food, unless it was mung beans, or tofu – neither of which were readily available in 1980s Manchester – or some other fad she’d read about in one of the badly mimeographed pamphlets about alterative lifestyles she subscribed to.

  ‘An icing piper. Gramps won’t let me use his.’

  ‘It’s too big and you kept ripping it,’ grumbled Grampa Joe, then winked at Issy to show that he wasn’t really cross. ‘That butterscotch icing you made was pretty good, though, my girl.’

  Issy beamed with pride.

  Marian glanced downwards. ‘My Little Pony oven gloves … My darling, I don’t think they do those.’

  ‘They should,’ said Issy.

  ‘Pink mixing bowl … Girl’s World … what’s that?’

  ‘It’s a doll’s head. You put make-up on it.’ Issy had heard the other girls in her class talking about it. That was what they were all getting. She hadn’t heard anyone wanting a mixing bowl. So she’d decided she’d better join in with them.

  ‘You put make-up on a plastic head?’ said Marian, who had perfect skin and had never worn make-up in her life. ‘For what, to make her look like a tramp?’

  Issy shook her head, blushing a bit.

  ‘Women don’t need make-up,’ said Marian. ‘That’s just to please men. You are perfectly fine as you are, do you understand? It’s what’s in here that counts.’ She rapped Issy sharply on the temple. ‘God, this bloody country. Imagine selling make-up to small children.’

  ‘I don’t see too much harm in it,’ said Grampa Joe mildly. ‘At least it’s a toy. The others are all work tools.’

  ‘Oh Lord, it’s so much stuff,’ said Marian. ‘The commercialisation of Christmas is disgusting. It drives me mad. Everyone stuffing themselves and making themselves ill and trying to pretend they’ve got these perfect bloody nuclear families when everybody knows it’s all a total lie and we’re living under the Thatcher jackboot and the bomb could go off at any moment …’

  Grampa Joe shot her a warning look. Issy got very upset when Marian started talking about the bomb, or made noises about taking her to Greenham Common, or forced her to wear her CND badge to school. Then he went on calmly buttering the bread they were having with their turnip soup. (Marian insisted on very plain vegetables; Grampa Joe provided sugar and carbohydrates. It was a balanced diet, if you included both extremes.)

  Issy didn’t bother sending the letter after all, didn’t even sign her name, which at that point had a big love-heart above the ‘I’ because all her friends did the same.

  Two days later Marian had gone, leaving behind a letter.

  Darling, I need some sun on my face or I can’t breathe. I wanted to take you with me, but Joe says you need schooling more than you need sunshine. Given that I left school at fourteen I can’t really see the point myself but best do what he says for now. Have a very lovely Christmas my darling and I will see you soon.

  Next to the card was a brand-new, unwrapped, shiny-boxed Girl’s World.

  Issy became aware, later in life, that it must have cost her mother something to buy it – something more than money – but it didn’t feel like that at the time. Despite her grandad’s efforts to interest her in it, she left the box unopened in the corner of her bedroom, unplayed with.

  They both woke early on Christmas morning, Joe from long habit, Issy from excitement of a kind, although she was aware that other children she knew would be waking up with their mummies and probably their daddies too. It broke Joe’s heart to see how she tried so hard not to mind, and as she unwrapped her new mixing bowl, and her lovely little whisk, all child-sized, and the tiniest patty pans he could find, and they made pancakes together before walking to church on Christmas morning, saying hello to their many friends and neighbours, it broke his heart all over again to see that some of her truly didn’t mind; that even as a small child she was already used to being let down by the person who ought to be there for her the most.

  She’d looked up at him, eyes shining as she flipped over a pancake.

  ‘Merry Christmas, my darling,’ he had said, kissing her gently on the head. ‘Merry Christmas.’

  Austin had his own reasons for hating Christmas. He’d never really bothered since that first one after their parents died, when a tiny Darny hadn’t cried, hadn’t yelled, hadn’t moaned, had simply sat in silence, staring bewildered at the ridiculous number of presents from everyone he had ever met cluttering up the corner of the room. He hadn’t wanted to open a single one. Austin hadn’t blamed him. In the end, they’d unplugged the phone from the wall (after Austin had turned down endless invites, everyone rang to coo pitying noises at them, and it was unbearable) and gone back to bed to watch Transformers on the computer whilst eating crisps. Somehow, watching ludicrous gigantic machine robots smashing lumps out of everything was as close to their mood as they could get, and they’d done something similar every year since.

  But last year, he and Issy had been so new together, so wrapped up in one another, and it had been thrilling. He’d thought for ever about what presents to get her, and she had been utterly delighted: a going-out dress from her favourite little Stoke Newington vintage shop, and a fancy pair of shoes that she couldn’t walk in. Oddly, it wasn’t the fact that he’d bought them so much as what they represented: nights out, and fun, which could be hard to come by when you were working all hours.

  ‘I thought you’d get me a pinny,’ she’d said, trying on the blue dress, which made her eyes a vivid bluey-green and fitted her perfectly. ‘Or a mixer or something. Everyone else always does! If I get one more cupcake jar, I’m going to start selling them on the side.’

  And in the bottom of the bag, bought with his bonus – he had been the only person in the entire bank to get a bonus that year, he seemed to recall – a small, but immaculately cut, pair of diamond earrings. Her eyes had gone all big and wide and she had been com
pletely unable to speak.

  She had worn them every single day since.

  And they had spoiled Darny horribly with games (Austin) and books (Issy), and watched telly in their pyjamas and had smoked salmon and champagne at eleven, and the weather was too disgusting outside for anyone to mention a walk, and Issy had cooked an amazing lunch … Issy had … she had made it all right again. She had made it fun; made it their own Christmas. She hadn’t tried to gussy it up, or push them into party games or silly hats or church or long walks, like the aunties would have done. She understood and respected entirely their right to watch Transformers all day in their pyjamas and had sweetly been there with them whilst they did so.

  ‘I can’t wait till Christmas,’ said Austin at the airport. ‘But I wish you were coming to New York.’

  ‘One day,’ said Issy, who longed to visit more than almost anything. ‘Go and be clever and impressive and wow them all, and then come straight back home to us.’

  And now here he was in the middle of Manhattan, Darny back in London with Issy. A year ago, the idea of leaving his headstrong, hyper-intelligent, super-cunning eleven-year-old brother with anyone other than an armed response team and a team of vets with tranquilliser guns would have seemed utter madness. Darny had bounced from school to school and run rings around his elder brother since their parents’ death in an accident. Austin had immediately given up his college course and taken a banking job in order to keep a roof over their heads and prevent his brother being taken away by social services, or any number of well-meaning aunties. Darny had not repaid this by being particularly grateful.

  Yet somehow, after being frankly abominable to all Austin’s other girlfriends – girls who had cooed over Darny and gone all mushy-eyed at tall, handsome Austin, which made Darny want to vomit – he had really taken to Issy. Indeed, the fact that Darny had liked her so much had been one of the first things that had attracted Austin to her in the first place – along with her large eyes, generous mouth and easy laugh. Now when he thought of them together in the little house that had been, frankly, a bit of a midden when it was just the two boys together, but that under Issy’s auspices had become cosy and welcoming, he got the sudden urge to ring her. He was on his way to a meeting and, not trusting himself to make his way around the subway system, had decided to walk. He checked his watch: 11 a.m. That meant 4 p.m. in London. Worth a shot.

  ‘Hey.’

  “Hey,’ said Issy, struggling up the stairs with five kilo bags of finest milled Ethiopian blend. People were queuing for their afternoon pick-me-ups, or their post-school treats, but she was still delighted to hear from him. ‘Wassup?’

  ‘Are you stuffing plum pudding in your gob, by any chance?’ teased Austin. ‘You want to watch for wastage.’

  ‘I am not,’ said Issy, outraged, letting the coffee drop on the counter. ‘Yes, hello, can I help you?’

  ‘Do you have any Christmas cake?’

  Issy arched her eyebrows at Pearl. ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘Apparently the little baby Jesus starts to cry if we start celebrating ten seconds before the official beginning of Advent.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Don’t disrespect my beliefs,’ sniffed Pearl.

  ‘So, anyway, here I am, hanging on the unbelievably expensive mobile phone from New York,’ said Austin.

  ‘Sorry, my love,’ said Issy as the customer pointed, slightly disappointed, to a cherry-topped cupcake instead. They wouldn’t be, Issy thought, when they got to the glacé cherries hidden inside. ‘How is it?’

  ‘Oh, it’s amazing!’ said Austin. ‘I mean, just fantastic. The lights everywhere, and they’re skating down at the Rockefeller Center … that’s this huge building with an ice rink outside it, and it’s full of skaters and they’re really good, and there’s music playing around the street corners, and Central Park is all lit up with these amazing lights, and you can take a horse and cart ride through it with a blanket and mistletoe and … well, it’s just fantastic and amazing and wow.’

  ‘Ooh, really. Bugger. Argh, I wish I was there so much. Stop having such a good time without me!’

  A thought struck her.

  ‘Is it super-brilliant? Are they all being dead nice to you? They’re not going to offer you a job, are they?’

  She felt a sudden clutch of panic in her breast that he was going to up sticks and move away, an idea that would make her best friend Helena stop breastfeeding for ninety seconds and snort that that was ridiculous, which was all right for Helena, who was sitting there with Ashok dashing about trying to fulfil her every need, constantly glowing with the joy of winning such a magnificent prize as H, with her wild long red hair and triumphant bosom; her way of sweeping through life felling lesser mortals as she went. Issy just wasn’t that confident a personality.

  ‘Nah,’ said Austin. ‘They’re just showing me round, swapping ideas, blah blah.’

  He thought it was best not to mention to Issy that someone in the back office had asked him if it was true they were shutting half the London branches. There was more spurious gossip in banking than there was in the Cupcake Café Stitch ’n’ Bitch, and that was saying something.

  Issy tried to stop her mind from racing overtime. What if they wanted him? What would she do about the café? She couldn’t leave it. She couldn’t just leave and dump everything she’d worked so hard for. But if Austin was in love with amazing, fantastic New York, and she was in love with Austin … well. It was a pickle. No. She was being stupid.

  She thought back to their parting at the airport. It had been rather a thrill – Heathrow had no compunction about when Christmas started, and had decorated its huge high-ceilinged terminal with long hangings of purple tinsel and gigantic silver trees.

  ‘This is like that film,’ she’d whispered to Austin, who was looking rather dashing in a smart green scarf she’d bought him.

  ‘It isn’t,’ Austin had said. ‘All the children in that film are cute.’

  Darny was standing to one side and scowling. His hair stuck up in exactly the same place as his big brother’s.

  ‘Don’t do that thing. It’s disgusting.’

  ‘What, this thing?’ Austin had said, nuzzling Issy’s neck till she squealed.

  ‘Yes, that thing,’ said Darny. ‘It’s having a terrible effect on my development. I am basically scarred for life.’

  Austin glanced at Issy. ‘Worth it, though,’ he said, and she had grinned with happiness. She’d watched his tall figure disappear into the crowds at passport control, turning at the last moment to give them a cheery wave before he disappeared. She wanted to shout it to the world: ‘That’s my man! Over there! That’s him! He’s mine! He loves me and everything!’

  She’d turned to Darny. ‘Just you and me for a week,’ she said cheerily. It had been unorthodox, falling in love with a man who already had someone else in his life, but she and Darny rubbed along pretty well.

  ‘I’m very sad,’ said Darny, not sounding or looking in the least perturbed. ‘Can you buy me a muffin?’

  ‘I am far,’ said Issy, ‘too fond of you to let you eat airport muffins. Come on home, I’ll make you something.’

  ‘Can I use the mixer?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Issy. Then, after a pause, ‘You mean to make cakes, right?’

  Darny tutted.

  Somehow, Issy supposed, she’d expected Austin to be desperate to get back home. Anyway, in New York they were all shouty and fast-paced and yelled ‘buy buy sell sell’ all day, didn’t they? That wouldn’t suit Austin at all, she was sure of it. He was so laid-back. He would check a few things out, meet some people, then they’d all go along as before. They’d threatened to send him overseas a year ago, but with the economy being how it was, it hadn’t transpired, and that was just fine by Issy. So she was a little put out to hear him so cheerful.

  ‘That sounds great,’ she said, a tad unenthusiastically. ‘London looks amazing too. Everywhere is all dolled up with lights and d
ecorations and windows. Well, everywhere except for here.’

  Pearl coughed, unabashed.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Austin. ‘Oh, but wow, you have to see it. The skyscrapers put special red lights in their windows, and there’s snow on the streets … it’s just magical.’

  Issy picked up a stack of chocolate-stained plates and cups that had just landed on the countertop next to her.

  ‘Magical,’ she said.

  Austin frowned after hanging up the phone. Issy hadn’t been quite her normal ebullient self. He supposed it was hard when there was a time difference. Everyone was at sixes and sevens with one another. He’d have to call again later anyway, to talk to Darny, even though Darny was entering adolescence and was thus quite likely either to answer every question with a grunt or, even worse, an invisible shrug, or to start castigating his brother for being in the finance industry and therefore, as far as Darny was concerned, responsible for bringing about the end of the world, massive apocalyptic catastrophe and general evil. Austin deeply regretted letting him read The Hunger Games.

  Explaining that Austin’s job was necessary to put the enormous amount of food Darny got through on the table and buy him new trainers for his gigantic boat-like feet didn’t seem to cut him any slack whatsoever. Darny only muttered about how come Issy managed to buy Fairtrade coffee, which somehow made her one of the nice capitalists. Issy would wink at Austin and try and explain to Darny that she couldn’t have opened the shop without Austin’s help, whereupon Darny would end the conversation by tutting loudly and slouching off, his thin shoulders hunched. It was going to be, Austin sometimes thought, a tricky next seven years.

  The café bell rang and in rushed Louis, Pearl’s four-year-old, with his best friend, Big Louis. Big Louis was substantially smaller than Louis but had been at the school first, and there was another Louis, smaller than both of them, so that was how it worked. Louis had explained this in painstaking detail to Pearl one night, and it had taken him almost the entire length of the number 73 bus trip to do so.