by Jenny Colgan
The doorbell tinkled. Issy was meeting a sugar rep that morning and was going to be in a little later, so Caroline was opening up.
‘Buens deez, Caline!’ shouted Louis, who had been learning how to say hello in different languages at nursery and thought that that was splendid.
‘Good morning, Louis,’ enunciated Caroline carefully, who thought Louis’s diction was absolutely dreadful and that she was the only person who could save him from a life of sounding lower class. She wished Pearl would be a teensy bit more grateful, not that she could see past that enormous south London chip she had on her shoulder. ‘Good morning, Pearl.’
Pearl didn’t utter a peep. Well, that was just great, thought Caroline, who was, nonetheless, used to girl-on-girl spats ever since she’d been sent to the terribly fraught and highly competitive girls’ school she planned on one day making Hermia sit the exams for. She had learned pretty much everything she needed to know about falling out with other women at that school. She could hold a sulk like nobody’s business, so this wasn’t going to worry her. She had a divorce going on, for crying out loud. Nobody cared about her.
But when she turned to hang up her Aquascutum raincoat, she noticed that Pearl wasn’t wearing her customary look of slightly hangdog suspicion. That in fact Pearl was holding a letter in her hand, staring into the middle distance – and she was crying.
Caroline felt the same instinct within her as when one of her dogs got sick. She crossed the room instantly.
‘Darling, what is it? What’s the matter?’
‘Mamma?’ said Louis in alarm. He couldn’t get down from the high stool on his own (the benefits being, once up there, he couldn’t get his fingers in anything either). ‘Mamma? Booboo?’
With some effort, Pearl pulled herself together. In an only slightly shaky voice she said, ‘Oh no, darling. Mamma doesn’t have a booboo.’
Caroline touched her lightly on the shoulder, but Pearl, hands trembling, could only give the letter to Caroline as she crossed in front of the counter to pick up Louis.
‘Come here, baby,’ she said, cradling his face into her wide shoulder so he couldn’t see her eyes. ‘There we go,’ she crooned. ‘Everything’s fine.’
‘Me not go nursery,’ said Louis decisively. ‘Me stay Mamma.’
Caroline glanced at the letter. It was formally marked North East London Strategic Health Authority.
Dear Mrs McGregor,
Your son Louis Kmbota McGregor has recently undertaken a medical test at Stoke Newington Little Teds Nursery, 13 Osbaldeston road, London N16. The results of this test show that for his age and height, Louis falls into the Overweight to Obese category.
Even from very early days, a child who is overweight or obese can suffer serious damage to their health and fitness in later life. It can cause heart disease, cancer, fertility problems, sleeping disorders, depression and early mortality. Taking a few simple steps to improve your child’s diet and exercise programme can be all that is needed to ensure that your child Louis Kmbota will grow and live to his full potential. We have arranged for you an appointment with Neda Mahet, nutritionist counsellor at the Stoke Newington Practice, on 15 June …
Caroline put it down.
‘This letter is absolutely disgusting,’ she announced, her nose twitching. ‘They’re all horrible bossyboots nanny-state socialist interfering cruel bloody left-wing idiots.’
Pearl blinked at her. Caroline couldn’t have said a better thing to cheer her up. ‘But … it’s their official letter.’
‘And it’s officially a total disgrace. How dare they? Look at your adorable boy. Well, yes, he is too plump but you know that anyway. It’s none of their business. Would you like me to rip it up for you?’
Pearl looked at Caroline with something close to amazement.
‘But it’s official!’
Caroline shrugged. ‘So what? We pay taxes. The fewer nosy busybodies they employ to do this kind of thing, the better for everyone. Shall I?’
Shocked and feeling naughty, Pearl nodded. Normally, anything official she paid very close attention to. In her world, you did what those letters said or bad things happened. They cut your benefit. They reassigned where you lived, and you just had to go, even if it was somewhere awful. They came and pawed at your children and if you didn’t like it, they could even, she was sure, take your children away. They asked you how much you drank and how much you smoked and how many hours you worked and where was the baby’s father, and if you got the answer wrong, even a tiny bit, then you weren’t going to be buying shoes in the foreseeable future. Seeing Caroline rip up the letter like it was nothing – something stupid to be ignored – worked a surprising change in her. She was still cross at Caroline for not having to care about this stuff. But she felt oddly liberated too.
‘Thank you,’ she said to Caroline quietly, with a hesitant admiration.
‘You know,’ said Caroline, daintily sweeping up the scraps, ‘you don’t look like you’re the kind of person who would let anyone push you about.’
Pearl sat Louis back up on the high chair. Was he plump? He had round little baby cheeks and an adorable pot belly, and a high little round bottom and chunky kissable thighs and fat pudgy fingers. How could he be fat? He was perfect.
‘You’re gorgeous,’ she said, looking at him. Louis nodded. His mum told him this a lot and he knew how to respond in a way that normally got him a sweetie.
‘Louis is gojuss,’ he said, grinning merrily and showing all his teeth. ‘Yis! Louis is gojuss! Now sweeties.’
And he put out his chubby hand and made a beckoning gesture.
‘Mm,’ he added for emphasis, just in case anyone had missed the reference, licking his lips and rubbing his tummy. ‘Louis does do like sweeties.’
Caroline was rarely demonstrative even with her own children – in fact, had she stopped to think about it she would probably have categorized her mood with them as mostly peevish – but she moved towards Louis on the chair, who eyed her warily. He was universally benevolent, but this woman never gave him sweeties, he knew that much.
Caroline prodded him in his fat tummy and he giggled and wriggled obligingly.
‘You are gorgeous, Louis,’ she said. ‘But you shouldn’t have that.’
‘It’s just a baby tummy,’ protested Pearl strongly.
‘No, it has rolls,’ said Caroline, whose contemplation and understanding of human body fat in all its permutations bordered on the maniacal. ‘That’s not right. And I never see him without a cake in his paws.’
‘Well, he’s a growing boy,’ said Pearl defensively. ‘He’s got to eat.’
‘He does,’ said Caroline thoughtfully. ‘It all depends on what.’
A tap at the door alerted them to their first customers – the labourers who were working on Kate’s house on Albion Road. Now Kate directly blamed the work’s slow progress and tardy completion on Caroline selling them coffee and cakes all day and encouraging them to hang about chatting rather than getting on with the job and taking five minutes of their own time to throw down a home-made cheese sandwich underneath the roof slats. Her annoyance was making Stitch ’n’ Bitch increasingly uncomfortable.
As they handled the morning rush, and Louis sat cheerfully greeting the regulars, who found it hard to pass him without tweaking his sticky cheeks or rubbing his soft shorn head, Pearl kept sneaking glances at him in the faded antique mirror that hung over the room. Sure enough, there was old Mrs Hanowitz, who liked a huge mug of hot chocolate and a proper kaffeeklatsch, scratching his roly tum as if he were a dog – then she popped the marshmallow from the top of her chocolate into his mouth. And Fingus the plumber, with the huge belly and builder’s bum spilling out of the side of his white dungarees: he high-fived his little mate, and asked as he did every day if Louis had brought his spanner yet, seeing as he was going to be his apprentice. Issy didn’t help matters by running in from her early meeting to get started on the baking, but not without going up to Louis for her morning
cuddle and announcing loudly, ‘Good morning, my little chub-chubs.’ Pearl’s brow furrowed. Was this what he was? Everyone’s plump pet? He wasn’t a pet. He was a person, with the same rights as everyone else.
Caroline caught her looking, and bit her lip. Well, quite right, she didn’t want her child to end up the same way as her, did she? And Pearl’s distress had given her an idea …
‘Well, maybe she’s right,’ said Ben, lounging against the kitchen counter. ‘I dunno. He looks all right to me.’
‘And me,’ said Pearl. Ben had ‘popped in’ on his way home, even though he was working in Stratford, which was right across the other side of town. Pearl pretended that he was just passing, Ben pretended he didn’t really want to stay the night (although Pearl’s cooking was worth it on its own. It was odd, Pearl had found. When she wasn’t working, she couldn’t really be bothered with cooking and they’d lived off chicken and fish fingers. Now, even though she was tired when she got home, she quite liked sticking Louis on the counter and putting a meal together. She was a good cook, after all), and Louis nearly expired with happiness.
The little boy bumbled past them entirely covered in a blanket.
‘Hey, Louis,’ said his dad.
‘I not Louis. I turtle,’ came a muffled voice. Ben raised his eyebrows.
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Pearl. ‘He’s been a turtle all day.’
Ben put down his cup of tea and raised his voice.
‘Any turtles around here who would like to go outside and play some football?’
‘Yaaayyyy,’ said the turtle, getting up without taking off his blanket and bumping his head on the cooker. ‘Ouch.’
Pearl looked at her mother in amazement as Ben led his boy outside.
‘Don’t think it,’ said her mother. ‘He comes for a bit then he goes again. Don’t let the boy get too fond.’
It might be too late for that, Pearl found herself thinking.
Bran and Carrot Cupcake Surprise
1½ cups wholewheat pastry flour
½ tsp baking soda
2¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¾ cup oat or wheat bran
egg replacement for 2 eggs
1 cup rennet
½ cup brown rice syrup
¼ cup apple sauce
¼ cup safflower oil
1½ cups grated carrot
4–6 ounces crushed dates
½ cup raisins
½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans
‘I just wanted to try out something new,’ said Caroline, trying to look suitably humble and helpful the next morning when she turned up with a Tupperware box. ‘It’s nothing really, I just tossed them together.’
‘What the hell is brown rice syrup when it’s at home?’ said Pearl, glancing down the recipe. ‘Safflower oil?’
‘They’re perfectly easy to source,’ lied Caroline.
‘Don’t call it “surprise’’,’ said Issy over her shoulder. ‘Every child knows that “surprise” means hidden vegetables. Call it “white sugar chocolate toffee delight’’.’
‘It’s simple, wholesome fare,’ said Caroline, trying to make a Jamie Oliver face. In fact, it had taken her five hours slaving over her Neff faux-aged pale cream country kitchen table and much cursing to get the mixture right and make the cupcakes stick together. How did Issy make it look so damn easy, throwing ingredients together to produce cakes that tasted light as air and melted in the mouth? Well, of course she was using evil refined ingredients that would send her to an early grave. But as she’d mixed and reworked them, Caroline had had an image in her head – of her wholesome treats outselling the sugary rubbish and becoming famous; eclipsing the Cupcake Café with Caroline’s Fresh Cooking; converting children all over the world to the benefits of a healthier, slenderer lifestyle … She wouldn’t be the part-time member of staff then, no siree …
Pearl and Issy looked at one another, their hands wavering by their mouths.
‘Well?’ said Caroline, still half-demented from lack of sleep. Her cleaner was going to have a lot of scrubbing to do that morning. ‘Give one to Louis.’
‘Iss please!’
Pearl put her hand down. ‘Yes, in a minute.’
Issy fought an urgent desire to scrape the bits of raw carrot off her tongue. And what was that custardy aftertaste that hinted at broccoli?
‘Here, little man.’ Caroline took the box over to him.
‘Um, he’s not hungry,’ said Pearl desperately. ‘I’m trying to cut down, you know.’
But Louis had already cheerfully stuck his fat little paw in the box.
‘Ta, Caline.’
‘Thank you,’ said Caroline, unable to help herself. ‘Don’t say ta, say thank you.’
‘I don’t think he’ll be saying either in a minute,’ muttered Pearl to Issy, who was surreptitiously slurping coffee and rolling it round her mouth to try to remove the taste. Pearl had simply scarfed some of Issy’s brand new batch of Victoria sponge cupcakes to change the taste and Issy didn’t blame her for a second. Caroline fixed her eyes on Louis expectantly.
‘This is much nicer than your normal silly old cakes, darling,’ she said insistently. Louis bit into the cupcake-shaped object confidently enough, but gradually, as he started to chew, his face took on a confused, upset expression, like a dog chewing a plastic newspaper.
‘There we go, darling,’ she said encouragingly. ‘Yummy, huh.’
Louis signalled his mother with his eyes desperately, then simply, as if it wasn’t connected to him in any way, let the lower half of his jaw drop open so that the contents of his mouth started to fall out and crumble to the floor.
‘Louis!’ shrieked Pearl, dashing over to him. ‘Stop doing that immediately.’
‘Yucky, Mummy! Yucky! Bleargh bleargh bleargh!’
Louis began frantically shoving his hand over his tongue to scrape off any remaining pieces of the cake.
‘Yug, Mummy! Yug, Caline! Yug!’ he cried accusingly, as Pearl gave him a drink of milk to calm him down and Issy fetched the dustpan and brush. Caroline stood there with a pinkish blush at the top of her very high cheekbones.
‘Well,’ she said, when Louis was quite himself again, ‘obviously his palate has been completely ruined by junk.’
‘Hmm,’ said Pearl crossly.
‘Caline,’ said Louis seriously, leaning over to make his point. ‘Bad cake, Caline.’
‘No, yummy cake, Louis,’ said Caroline tightly.
‘No, Caline,’ said Louis. Issy hastily got in the middle before it turned into a genuine argument between a forty-year-old and a two-year-old.
‘It is,’ she said, ‘a brilliant idea, Caroline. Absolutely great.’
Caroline eyed her beadily. ‘Well, I still own copyright on the recipe.’
‘Um, well …’ said Issy. ‘But obviously, well, yes. Of course. We could call them Caroline’s cupcakes, would that work?’
Caroline was reluctant to hand over the rest of the cakes (Issy didn’t want her sneaking them to a customer; she trusted Caroline absolutely with money, stock and hours but didn’t trust her one iota in terms of thinking she knew best when it came to their clients’ tastes) but Issy insisted she needed them for an experiment, and, well, it was true that they hadn’t stuck together as well as Caroline had hoped. Rennet wasn’t quite as good for making delicious firm cakes as the all-natural cookbook had assured her it would be. Issy wasn’t even sure the cakes would be all right for the compost she’d started handing over to the Hackney City Farm, but subtly got rid of them anyway.
And there were two good effects immediately: Caroline was absolutely right about one thing. There was a market for ‘healthy’ cupcakes.
‘Caroline’s cupcakes’, as amended by Issy, little apple sauce, raisin and cranberry muffins in tiny baking cases with fire engines or pink umbrellas on them, were an instant hit with mothers who were anxious to avoid their children getting stuck into icing once a day, and Issy faithfully added a ki
lo of carrots to their stock order every week then took some home each night. Caroline genuinely believed they had gone into the recipe. Helena and Ashok, who appeared to have practically moved in (Helena explained that the doctor’s single-person digs left a lot to be desired and would leave a lot to be desired even if one were a dog, ferret or rat), ate a lot of soup. But Issy never did find a use for the rennet.
The second good result was that Louis became entirely suspicious of every cupcake in the shop and refused to eat a second breakfast there. It did him no harm at all, and with Caroline working more hours and Louis skipping to the bus stop with his mum every day, his second weigh-in went without a hitch. Which didn’t matter to Pearl and Caroline, who cheerfully tore up the health authority’s letter regardless.
Three weeks later, Pearl came in to find Caroline bent over the counter, stock still.
‘What’s up?’
Caroline couldn’t answer. She was stiff as a board.
‘What’s the matter, sweetheart?’
‘I’m … I’m fine,’ stuttered Caroline.
Pearl gently but firmly turned her round.
‘What’s happened?’
Caroline’s usually immaculately made-up face was tearstained and tragic, mascara pouring down.
‘What is it?’ said Pearl, who was familiar with how the pain, sometimes, of losing your man could come in and hit you at the most unexpected moments, even when you hadn’t thought of him in days. Like she’d gone past Clapham Common on a bus and remembered a picnic they’d had there, when she was just pregnant with Louis and enjoying looking pregnant, rather than just big, although her boobies had grown utterly gigantic (Ben had liked that). They had sat in the park and eaten chicken as Ben talked about what his future son would do and what he’d grow up to be, and she’d looked at the blue sky above and felt as safe and happy as she could ever remember. She never went to the common now.