Meet Me at the Cupcake Café

by Jenny Colgan

  ‘I’m here to get my stuff,’ she announced loudly. After the hubbub of the day, the flat was deathly quiet. Graeme clutched at his glass. Even now, Issy realized inside, she was waiting for a sign … for something that would show he had been fond of her, that what they’d had had meant something, that she had pleased him. Something more than just being that girl from the office who happened to be handy. Someone to use, to get what he wanted.

  ‘Whatever,’ said Graeme, not looking at her.

  Issy packed up her bits and pieces into a small suitcase. There wasn’t much. Graeme didn’t move a muscle the entire time. Then she marched into the kitchen, which she’d stocked up with supplies. She took 250g of flour, five eggs, an entire tin of treacle and a small sachet of hundreds and thousands, and whipped them up with a wooden spoon.

  Then she brought the whole lot into the living room and, with a practised flick of the wrist, poured it all over Graeme’s head.

  Her flat felt different. Issy couldn’t put her finger on it. It was the sense not just of someone new living there that she’d had for a couple of weeks – Ashok was interesting, serious and entirely charming – but of a shifting dynamic. They had piles of estate agents’ details and a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

  It felt like the entire world was moving on, except for Issy. And she felt less comfortable striding into her pink kitchen and collapsing on the huge squishy settee – like a stranger in her own home. Which was ridiculous, she knew. But more than anything else it was the shame of her first, her only experiment in cohabitation ending so quickly and so badly.

  Helena knew that pointing out Graeme had always been a wrong’un wasn’t particularly useful but being there probably was, so she did her best to do that instead, even if she tended to fall asleep every five minutes.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked, ever practical. Issy sat, staring unseeingly at the television.

  ‘Well, I’m going to open up on Monday morning … After that, I’m not so sure.’

  ‘You’ve done it once,’ said Helena. ‘You can do it again.’

  ‘I’m just so tired,’ said Issy. ‘So tired.’

  Helena put her to bed, where Issy thought she wouldn’t be able to get to sleep at all. In fact, she slept halfway through Sunday. The sun pricking through her curtains made her feel a tiny bit more optimistic. Just a little bit.

  ‘I can try and get a baking job,’ she said. ‘The problem is, the hours are even worse than what I have now, and there’s a million brilliant patissiers in London, and—’

  ‘Hush,’ said Helena.

  ‘Maybe everyone else was right all along,’ said Issy. ‘Maybe I should have become a chiropodist.’

  On Monday morning, she picked up an envelope off the mat. Yes, there it was. A notice to quit once her lease was up, from Mr Barstow. Tied with white cord to lamp posts around the court were plastic laminates with the outlines of the planning application. Issy could hardly bear to give them a second glance. She started off the day’s baking on autopilot, making her first cup of coffee; going through the motions of normality in the hopes that it would quell her rising panic. It would be fine. She’d find something. She’d speak to Des, he’d know. In her confusion, she called him before realizing it was still only just after seven in the morning. He answered immediately.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ said Issy.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Des. ‘Teeth. I’ve been up for hours.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Issy. ‘Have you called a dentist?’

  ‘Um, Jamie’s teeth. More.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Issy shook her head. ‘Um …’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Des instantly. ‘I’m sorry. Did you call me up to yell at me?’

  ‘What about?’ said Issy.

  ‘About we might have to handle the apartment sales. Sorry. It wasn’t my decision, it’s just …’

  Issy hadn’t even thought about this, she was only calling to ask about vacant properties. But of course.

  ‘… business,’ she said dully.

  ‘Yes,’ said Des. ‘I thought you knew.’

  ‘No,’ said Issy, dully. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Des, and it sounded like he truly meant it. ‘Are you looking for another property? Would you like me to ring round a few people? I’ll ring round everyone, OK? Try and find something just right for you, OK? It’s the least I can do. It’s just, often these speculative things don’t come to anything … I didn’t want to freak you out unnecessarily. I really am sorry.’

  Jamie started to wail down the phone.

  ‘Jamie is sorry too.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Issy. ‘You can stop apologizing now, it wasn’t your fault. And yes, if you see anything … yes please.’

  ‘OK,’ said Des. ‘OK. Sorry. Right. Yes.’

  He was still apologizing as Issy hung up the phone.

  Pearl was looking gloomy. ‘Cheer up,’ said Caroline. ‘Something will come along.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Pearl. Ben hadn’t returned for two days. He’d been out with his friends, and one thing had led to another and he was having a good time, and he didn’t see what the big deal was, Louis was going to have loads of birthdays and he’d bought him a present (in fact a huge racing-car track that wouldn’t fit in the apartment). Pearl had heard him out then closed the door in his face.

  ‘I can’t believe he would miss his kid’s birthday,’ she explained to Caroline, who harrumphed.

  ‘That’s nothing,’ she said. ‘My ex didn’t make a single birthday, carol concert, school play, sports day … not a single one. “Working”,’ she sniffed. ‘My bum.’

  ‘Well, exactly,’ said Pearl.

  ‘That’s why he’s your ex.’

  ‘That’s not why he’s my ex,’ said Caroline. ‘None of the dads here do that stuff. They’re too busy working to pay for the big swanky houses. None of the kids knows what their dad looks like. I dumped him for sleeping with that gruesome tart. Showed he had absolutely the worst taste imaginable. Ha, if you dumped a man for neglecting his children …’

  The door pinged. It was the builder, the one who’d brought his son to Louis’s party.

  ‘Cheer up, love,’ he said, his traditional greeting.

  Caroline gave him an appraising look, up and down, noting his nicely honed pecs, cheeky grin and clear lack of a wedding ring.

  ‘You do cheer me up,’ she said, and leaned right over the front counter, which would have exposed her cleavage, had she had any. ‘Bit of cheering up once a day … I do like it.’

  ‘Posh birds,’ said the builder under his breath, then smiled happily. ‘Give us a bit of froth, love.’

  Pearl rolled her eyes.

  But on reflection, there had been lots of nannies and some dressed-up mummies at the party, and Austin of course, but no dads, not really. She sighed.

  ‘Has he embarrassingly slept with any of your friends?’ asked Caroline, when the builder had left with a wink and a telephone number.

  ‘Not yet,’ admitted Pearl. ‘Well, there you go,’ said Caroline. ‘I wouldn’t give up on him right away.’ She brandished a letter. ‘You won’t believe what I got this morning.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘From his lawyers. Apparently if I could have guaranteed my employment here, he’d have kept me in the house, local enough not to need a nanny to pick up the kids.’ Caroline shook her head. ‘But now I’m back to square one. No job, but I’ve proved I can work, so I have to. So I’ll have to move. God. No wonder I need a bit of flirting in my life.’

  She sighed.

  ‘Hmm,’ growled Pearl, going back to her sheets of paper.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Issy asked her, coming up the stairs.

  ‘I’m writing to the planning commission of course.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Issy.

  ‘Don’t you think that’s a good idea?’

  ‘Unlikely. Plus, I know Kalinga Deniki. They never move with this kind of t
hing unless they know they’ve already got it in the bag.’

  ‘OK, well, do nothing then,’ said Pearl, going back to writing. It was the quiet part of the morning, after the morning rush but before the mid-morning mummies.

  Issy stared out of the window some more and heaved a sigh.

  ‘And stop that sighing, it’s doing my head in.’

  ‘OK, as opposed to you snorting every five minutes?’

  ‘I do not snort.’

  Issy raised her eyebrows, but took her coffee cup and went out into the courtyard, regarding the shop critically. Since the warm weather had arrived, they’d done some upgrading. Now they had a pink-and-white-striped awning, which looked fresh and pretty in the sunlight, and matched Gramps’s tables and chairs. In the sunshine, the shade of the awning looked incredibly inviting, the keyring glinted in the sun, and the plants Pearl had set either side of the door only added to the effect. She blinked away tears. She couldn’t cry any more. But neither could she imagine creating her little oasis anywhere else; this was her corner of the world; her little kingdom. And it would be closed up again, and chopped to bits, and turned into some naff garage for stupid overpriced executive apartments …

  Issy meandered up to the ironmonger’s shop. What was he doing about all this? Had they got rid of him too, or would he somehow escape the bullet? She didn’t even know if Mr Barstow was his landlord.

  The metal grille was still closed, at 10am. Issy screwed up her face and tried to peer through. What was in there? There were little holes in the grille, although the bright sunshine stopped her from seeing much. She kept focusing in. As her eyes adjusted, she started to make out shadowy shapes on the other side of the glass. Suddenly a pale shape moved.

  Issy let out a yelp and jumped back from the grille. With a deafening noise, it began to open automatically. Someone must be inside – someone, presumably, whom she’d already seen. She swallowed hard.

  After the grille was wound up fully, the door was opened from within, out towards her. The ironmonger was there. Wearing pyjamas. Issy was struck dumb. It took her a second to collect herself.

  ‘You … you live here?’ she said in amazement. Chester nodded his head in that formal way of his. He bade her enter.

  For the first time, Issy went into the shop. And what she saw took her aback completely. At the front were pots and pans, mops and screwdrivers. But in the back of the shop was an exquisite Persian carpet, and laid out on it, a carved wooden Balinese double bed; a small bedside table piled high with books and a Tiffany lamp; a large mirrored armoire. Issy blinked twice.

  ‘Oh my,’ she said, then again, ‘You … you live here.’

  Chester looked embarrassed. ‘Um, yes. Yes I do. Normally I have a little curtain to hang during the day … or I shut the shop whenever it looks like anyone is coming in to buy something. Coffee?’

  Through the back Issy saw a small, immaculate galley kitchen. An expensive Gaggia coffee pot was bubbling away on top of the stove. It smelled wonderful.

  ‘Um, yes,’ said Issy, although she had already had far too much caffeine that morning. But this little Aladdin’s cave felt completely unreal. The man directed her to a floral-upholstered armchair.

  ‘Please, sit down. You’ve made my life very difficult, you know.’

  Issy shook her head. ‘But I’ve been passing by this alleyway for years, and this shop has always been here.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the man. ‘Oh yes. I’ve been here for twenty-nine years.’

  ‘You’ve lived here for twenty-nine years?’

  ‘Nobody’s ever bothered me before,’ said the man. ‘That’s the beauty of London.’

  As he spoke, Issy noticed his accent again.

  ‘No one knows your business. I like it like that. Until you came of course. In and out, leaving me cakes, wanting to ask me things. And customers! You’re the first person ever to bring people into the alley.’

  ‘And now …’

  ‘Now we have to go, yes.’ The man looked at the notice to quit in his hand. ‘Ah, it would have happened eventually. How’s your gramps?’

  ‘Actually, I was going to go and ask him.’

  ‘Oh good, is he up to having a conversation?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Issy. ‘But it makes me feel better. I know that’s selfish.’

  Chester shook his head. ‘It’s not, you know.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Issy. ‘I brought the developers here. I didn’t mean to, but I did.’

  Chester shook his head.

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ he said. ‘Stoke Newington … you know, it used to be considered half a day’s ride from London. A lovely village, nice and far out of town. And even when I arrived, it was always a bit raffish and run down, but you could do what you wanted here. Have things your way. Be a bit different, a little off the beaten track.’

  Chester served up the coffee with cream in two exquisitely tiny china cups and saucers.

  ‘But things get sanitized; gentrified. Especially places with character, like round here. There’s not much of old London left really.’

  Issy cast her eyes down.

  ‘Don’t be sad, girl. There’s lots good about new London too. You’ll go places, look at you.’

  ‘I don’t know where though.’

  ‘Hmm, that makes two of us.’

  ‘Hang on, are you squatting?’ said Issy. ‘Can’t you just claim residency?’

  ‘No,’ said Chester. ‘I think I have a lease … somewhere.’

  They sat there sipping their coffee.

  ‘There must be something I can do,’ said Issy.

  ‘Can’t stop progress,’ said Chester, setting down his coffee spoon with a light tinkle. ‘Believe me, I should know.’

  Austin was early for once. And smartly dressed, or as smart as he could manage while not letting Darny get a glimpse of where he kept the iron. He ran his hands through his thick hair nervously. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. He could risk everything. And for what? Some stupid business that would probably move anyway. Some girl who wouldn’t look at him.

  Janet was there of course, bright and efficient as ever. She’d been at the birthday party too, and she knew what was on his schedule. She glanced at him.

  ‘It’s horrible,’ she said, with unusual ferocity. ‘It’s horrible what that man wants to do.’

  Austin looked at her.

  ‘To that nice girl and that lovely shop and to turn it into more featureless rubbish for more stupid executives, it’s horrible. That’s all I want to say.’

  Austin’s mouth twitched.

  ‘Thank you, Janet. That’s helpful.’

  ‘And you look nice.’

  ‘You’re not my mum, Janet.’

  ‘You should call that girl.’

  ‘I’m not going to call her,’ said Austin. Issy wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole now, and he supposed, with a sigh, that she had good reason.

  ‘You should.’

  Austin reflected on it, drinking the coffee Janet had gone all the way down to the Cupcake Café to get for him. It was cold, but he fancied he could still smell the sweet essence of Issy clinging to it somewhere. Checking no one could see into his office, he inhaled it deeply, and very briefly closed his eyes.

  Janet knocked.

  ‘He’s here,’ she said, then led Graeme in with an uncustomary frostiness of manner.

  Graeme didn’t notice. He just wanted to get this over and done with. Stupid local micro-financing, he hated local banking and piddling mortgage snarl-ups more than any other part of his business.

  Fine. Well, he needed to rubber-stamp this money, call Mr Boekhoorn and get the hell out of it. Maybe take a holiday. A lads’ holiday, that’s what he needed. His mates hadn’t been very sympathetic when he told them he was single again. In fact a lot of them seemed to be settling down and getting all boring and cosy with their girlfriends. Well, fuck that. He needed somewhere with cocktails and girls in bikinis who could respect a guy in business. />
  ‘Hey,’ he said, scowling, as he shook Austin’s hand.

  ‘Hi,’ said Austin.

  ‘Shall we keep this short?’ said Graeme. ‘You hold the existing mortgages on the extant properties, and we need to combine them so you can give me a new rate on the amalgamated loan. Let’s see what you can do, shall we?’

  He scanned through the documents quickly. Austin sat back and took a big sigh. Well, here went absolutely nothing. It would probably ruin his career if his bosses took a proper look at it. It shouldn’t really matter to him one way or another whether his corner of the world got more and more corporate and homogeneous and white-bread. But it did. It did. He liked Darny having lots of different friends, not just ones called Felix. He liked being able to buy cupcakes – or falafel, or hummus, or mithai or bagels – whenever he felt like it. He liked the mixture of hookah cafés, and African hair-product shops, and wooden toy emporiums and diesel fumes that made up his neck of the woods. He didn’t want to be taken over by the stuffed shirts, the quick bucks, the Graemes of this world.

  And, more than anything, he couldn’t get out of his head the image of Issy’s face, sparkling and flushed and joyous in the fairy lights. When he’d thought she was one of them, out for herself and anything she could get, it had upset him so much. Now he knew that she felt the same as him, that she believed in the same things he did … now he had finally realized that mixing business with pleasure was exactly what he wanted to do, he found it was all too late.

  Ah, fuck it, thought Austin to himself. There was one thing he could do for her. He leaned over his desk.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Denton,’ he said, trying not to sound too pompous. ‘We have a local community investment guidance programme’ (they did, although no one from the bank ever read it), ‘and I’m afraid your scheme goes against that. I’m afraid we won’t be able to unbundle the mortgages.’