by Jenny Colgan
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.’
‘That’s our job,’ said Keavie, with the simplicity of someone who knew her vocation in life. Issy envied her.
Emboldened, Issy marched back into her flat. It was a wet Saturday night and obviously she didn’t have a date and Graeme hadn’t called, that scuzz, and anyway he often didn’t see her on Saturday nights because he’d be out with the lads or up early for squash, so it hardly mattered, she told herself, nevertheless conscious of how much she missed him. Well, she wasn’t going to call him, that was for sure. He’d tossed her out on the street like garbage. Swallowing heavily, she went into the cosy sitting room to find Helena, who was another dateless wonder but never seemed to mind about it quite so much.
Helena did mind, of course, but didn’t think it was particularly helpful to add to Issy’s woes at this particular point in time. She didn’t like being single at thirty-one any more than Issy did, but she didn’t want to lard on the misery. Issy’s face was tense enough already.
‘I’ve made a decision,’ Issy announced. Helena raised her eyebrows.
‘Go on then.’
‘I think I should go for it. For the café. My gramps thinks it’s a great idea.’
Helena smiled. ‘Well, I could have told you that.’
Helena did think it was a good idea – she had no doubt about Issy’s ability to bake the most delicious cakes, or the skills she’d bring to working with members of the public. She worried a little more about Issy handling the responsibility of her own business, and the paperwork, seeing as she’d rather watch World’s Goriest Operations than open her own Visa bill. This bothered her a little. Still, anything at the moment was better than moping.
‘Just for six months,’ said Issy, taking off her coat and going into the kitchen to make some chocolate-covered popcorn. ‘If it fails, I won’t be bankrupt.’
‘Well, that’s the spirit,’ said Helena. ‘Of course you won’t fail! You’ll be brill!’
Issy looked over at her. ‘But …’
‘What?’
‘It sounds like you want to put a “but” in there.’
‘Then I shan’t,’ said Helena. ‘Let’s open some wine.’
‘Can we call someone?’ said Issy. She had seen so little of her friends recently, and had an inkling she was about to see a lot less. Helena raised her eyebrows.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘There’s Tobes and Trinida, moved to Brighton. Tom and Carla, thinking of moving. Janey, pregnant. Brian and Lana, got the children keeping them in.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Issy, sighing. She remembered when she and Helena and the gang had all met, back at college. Then they were all in and out of each other’s houses, breakfast, lunch, dinners that lasted all night, weekends away. Now everyone was settling down, talking about IKEA and house prices and school fees and having ‘family time’. There wasn’t much popping in any more. She didn’t really like the sense that since they’d all turned thirty, there seemed to be two tracks opening up, like a railway line out of a junction; lines that had been parallel were now drawing inexorably further apart.
‘I shall open the wine anyway,’ said Helena firmly, ‘and we can make fun of the TV. What are you going to call it, by the way?’
‘I don’t know. I thought maybe Grampa Joe’s.’
‘That makes it sound like a hotdog stand.’
‘Do you think?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hmm. The Stoke Newington Bakery?’
‘There is one of those. It’s that little place on Church Street that sells dusty Empire biscuits and jumbo sausage rolls.’
‘Oh.’
‘You’re selling cupcakes, aren’t you?’
‘Definitely,’ said Issy, her eyes shining as the corn started popping in the pot. ‘Large and small. Because, you know, sometimes people don’t want a great big cake, they want something tiny and delicious and delicate that tastes of rose petals, or a little lavender one that just explodes, or a tiny cupcake that tastes like a blueberry muffin and has a huge blueberry inside that bursts, and—’
‘OK, OK,’ said Helena, laughing. ‘I get the picture. Well, why don’t you just call it the Cupcake Café? Then people can say, “Oh, you know, that place with all the cupcakes,” and they’ll say, “I can’t remember what it’s called,” and you can say, “It’s the Cupcake Café” and everyone will say, “Oh, yes, let’s meet there.”’
Issy thought about it. It was simple and a bit obvious, but still, it felt right.
‘I suppose,’ she said. ‘But lots of people don’t even like cupcakes.
How about the Cupcake and Other Things, Some Savoury, Café?’
‘Are you sure you’re cut out for this?’ said Helena, in a teasing voice.
‘I have a head for business and a body for sin,’ said Issy. Then she glanced down at the popcorn on her lap. ‘Unfortunately, the sin appears to be gluttony.’
Des was trying to cope with what was supposedly colic but mostly meant Jamie arching his back and screaming to get away from him. His wife and his mother-in-law had gone to the spa for some ‘me’ time when Issy rang, and at first he found it a little hard to concentrate. Oh yes, the impulsive one who was just wandering past. He hadn’t really expected to hear from her again; he’d thought she was just killing time. Anyway, that other lady had called him too … Damn it! His train of thought was interrupted as Jamie gummed him hard on the thumb. God, he knew babies weren’t capable of being vindictive, but this baby in particular didn’t seem to have got the memo.
‘Oh right. Only that other woman’s come back and made me a firm offer.’
Issy felt an instant let-down. Oh no, surely not. She had a vision of her dream being dashed before it had even begun.
‘I’ve got a few other places I can show you …’
‘No!’ said Issy. ‘It has to be that one! It has to be there!’
It was true, she had fallen in love.
‘Well,’ said Des, sensing a win. ‘She did offer less than what the landlord was asking for.’
‘I’ll make an offer too,’ pleaded Issy. ‘And I’ll be a very good tenant.’
Des jiggled Jamie up and down in front of the window. At last, the baby was giggling. He wasn’t, thought Des, such a bad little chap really.
‘Yes, that’s what the last four people said,’ he replied. ‘And they all shut down within three months.’
‘Well, I’m different,’ said Issy. The baby laughed, and warmed Des’s mood.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let me talk to Mr Barstow.’
Issy hung up, feeling slightly mollified. Helena went into her bedroom and brought out a bag.
‘I was going to save this to give you as a proper gift-wrapped present,’ she said. ‘But I think you might need it now.’
Issy opened it. It was a copy of Running a Small Business for Dummies.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Helena smiled. ‘You need all the help you can get.’
‘I know,’ said Issy. ‘But I’ve already got you.’
Chapter Six
Lemon Getting What You Want Cake
4 oz self-raising flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
4 oz softened butter
4 oz caster sugar
2 large eggs
grated zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon
Icing
2 oz icing sugar
2 tsps water
1 tsp lemon juice
Preheat oven to 325°F/gas mark 3. Grease loaf tin. Sift flour and baking powder, then add all the other ingredients and beat well, or use a hand-held mixer. Spoon into loaf tin.
This is the important bit:
Cook for twenty minutes. This is not quite long enough. The cake should be yellow, not brown, but not damp inside. Salmonella poisoning is rarely useful for getting what you want.
While the cake is still warm, apply icing. The icing should react to the warm cake and separate slightly, oozing into the pores of the cake itself. It should appear almost translucent.
Now, to all intents and purposes, your cake will look like an ugly disaster. When people see your lemon cake they will feel sorry for you. They will sneer at your poor baking skills and take a piece because they feel sorry for you. Then they will taste the soft moist spongy flesh of your cake imbued with lemon icing. Their eyes will pop open with delight. And then, they will do anything you want.
Issy shook her head. Gramps seemed back on form. And actually, this wasn’t such a bad idea. Lull everyone into a false sense of security then hit them with it. Just to show what she was capable of. She’d put some pretty spun-sugar things in as well, of course. She stared at her face in the mirror, trying to convince herself that she was shop management, run-your-own-business material. She could. Surely she could. Helena had to rap on the door.
‘Are you doing pouty face?’ she hollered.
‘No,’ said Issy, remembering Helena’s teasing when it used to take her two hours to get ready for dates out of nerves. ‘Kind of. No. This is worse than a date.’
‘Well, it is a date,’ said Helena. ‘You never know, the landlord might turn out to be cute.’
Issy stuck her head round the door and made a frowny face.
‘Stop it.’
‘What?’
‘Let me get one disastrous area of my life sorted out at a time, OK?’
Helena shrugged. ‘Well, if you don’t like him, pass him over to me.’
In the event, this was clearly not going to be necessary. By the time she headed out to meet Mr Barstow, the landlord of Pear Tree Court, Helena had given her a quick pep talk. She would convince him with her level of organization and research. Or fell him with her secret-weapon Grampa cakes. They should have met near the property, but of course, Issy thought smugly, there were no coffee shops to sit down in, so they met in Des’s office. Des had had a shocking night with Jamie. His wife was refusing to get up any more, so he’d sat with the wee blighter as he howled his guts up, his face a furious red and his little chunky legs contracted up to his chest. Des stroked his hot brow, gave him Calpol and eventually, holding him close, soothed the little lad off to a wriggling, uncomfortable sleep. But he’d had two hours, max. He felt like death in a cup.
The blonde woman was there, looking incredibly sleek and expensive in two-hundred-quid jeans, spiky heels and a ludicrously soft-looking leather jacket. Issy narrowed her eyes. This woman didn’t need to earn a living, surely. She probably spent more than Issy’s old salary on highlights alone.
‘Caroline Hanford,’ she said without smiling, extending a hand. ‘I don’t know why we’re having this meeting, I put my offer in first.’
‘And we’ve had a counter-offer,’ said Des, pouring repulsive sticky black coffee from a push-button machine into three cups, the first of which he gulped down like medicine. ‘And Mr Barstow wanted us all to meet to discuss the offers in more detail.’
‘Didn’t you used to have cafetières in here?’ said Caroline, briskly. She could do with a proper coffee; she hadn’t been sleeping properly. Those homeopathic sleeping pills she’d bought at enormous expense didn’t seem to be working as well as she’d been assured they would. She’d have to go and see Dr Milton again soon. He was expensive too. She grimaced to think of it.
‘Cutbacks,’ muttered Des.
‘Well, anyway, I’ll match the counter-offer,’ said Caroline, hardly bothering to look at Issy. ‘Whatever it is. I’m starting this business off on the right foot.’
A short, bald man marched into the room and grunted at Des.
‘This is Mr Barstow,’ said Des unnecessarily.
Caroline let forth a very toothy grin, impatient for this to be over. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Can I call you Max?’
Mr Barstow grunted, which didn’t seem to indicate an answer one way or the other. Issy didn’t think he looked like a Max at all.
‘I’m here to offer you the best deal I can,’ said Caroline. ‘Thanks so much for agreeing to see me.’
Hang on, Issy wanted to say. Don’t you mean to say ‘see us’? Issy knew if Helena were there she would make some remark about this being business, and tell her to get tough. Instead she just said, ‘Hello,’ then felt cross with herself for not being more assertive. She clasped her favourite cake tin – decorated with a Union Jack – to her side.
Mr Barstow looked at both of them.
‘I’ve got thirty-five properties in this city,’ he said in a strong London accent. ‘Bloody none of them have given me as much trouble as this one. It’s been one damn lady thing after another.’
Issy was taken aback by his bluntness, but Caroline looked totally unfazed. ‘Thirty-five?’ she cooed. ‘Wow, you are successful.’
‘So I don’t just care about the money,’ said Mr Barstow. ‘I care about bloody not having someone move out without warning leaving the back rent unpaid every bloody five minutes, do you understand?’
Both women nodded. Issy fingered her notes. She’d done research into what made a nice café, and how a good bakery could add value to surrounding houses, and hopefully how many cakes they’d sell every day (admittedly, she’d plucked this figure out of thin air, but pasted into a spreadsheet it looked quite good. This way of working had been reasonably successful in property management so she couldn’t imagine things were much different in baking). But before she could speak, Caroline opened up a tiny silver laptop she’d brought with her that Issy hadn’t even noticed.
Before Caroline had got married – to that shit – she’d been a senior marketing executive at a market research firm. She’d been great at her job. Then when the children had come along, it made much more sense to be the perfect corporate wife. She’d poured her energies into her children’s extracurricular activities, volunteering for the school board and running the house like a military operation. Had it stopped him fannying about with that floozy in his press office? No, it bloody had not, she thought grimly, waiting for Powerpoint to load. She’d kept working out, eating healthily, rushed to get her figure back after Achilles and Hermia were born. Had he even noticed? He’d worked all hours, come home too exhausted to do much more than eat and fall asleep in front of Newsnight, and now appeared to be banging some twenty-five-year-old who didn’t have fifteen cat costumes to make for the school play. Not that bitterness was attractive. Caroline bit her lip. She was good at her job. And this was going to be her new job, to get her out of the house a bit.