The Cosy Little Cupcake Van: A deliciously feel-good romance

by Annette Hannah

  The thought of next time made her heart flutter a little but then she realised she didn’t have to put any pressure on herself. She wasn’t creating elaborate masterpieces like she used to; she was just taking it one cupcake at a time.

  ‘Yes of course I will.’

  She and Jackson took photos of their creations and some fun ones posing with them. It had been enjoyable and she’d coped; maybe things were going to be okay after all.

  Chapter 7

  The first few seconds of wakefulness each morning were like a blank new page for Camilla, full of hope and joy of what the day would bring. But then that was quickly overshadowed by reality, the stab of pain in her heart from losing her mum followed by the stomach churning caused by the completely unjust situation that tormented her.

  The darkness would start in her mind and cloud her judgement, then gradually seep into the rest of her body until her limbs felt heavy, as though swimming through thick, sticky mud that tainted everything around her. But then these last few weeks she had been taking yoga classes and learning about meditation. She now knew that the best thing she could do was to relax and clear her mind, and a healthy mind meant a healthy body.

  She had found an online guide to meditation that she was really happy with. The lady called Orla had such a relaxing voice; it was like the aural equivalent of melted chocolate and it appeared to be working. After the ten-minute session, her body had relaxed so much she almost felt like she was part of the mattress. She was cosy but thinking happy thoughts helped her to jump out of bed with renewed vigour. The last few months had made it so hard to tear herself away from sleep and back into the real world; it had been too painful. Now she had come to accept that there are some things in life that we have no control over and we need to know when is the right time to walk away from it before it consumes us entirely. The loss of her mum would obviously stay with her forever, but she needed to distance herself from the loss of the house.

  ‘It’s only bricks and mortar at the end of the day,’ Auntie Edie had said many a time. ‘If you get those thoughts about that obnoxious bastard popping into your head then I want you to imagine yourself with my old broom sweeping them back out again. Shooing him out until he falls on his arse – because I promise you that’s what’s going to happen.’

  With a smile on her face she attended to the offending thoughts as per Auntie Edie’s advice, put the kettle on for her morning coffee, switched on the radio and began to dance around to some eighties tunes, which always cheered her up. She only had one more week left working at the Signal Box Café as the staff member she was covering for was back from leave. She had loved her time there. The difficulty she faced now would be finding another job, but she felt able to do that; she didn’t feel she was at rock bottom anymore. The old Camilla was back. She’d taken several hard knocks, but she’d survived and was getting stronger every day, thanks to her close friends to whom she would always be grateful.

  The other thing she was looking forward to was Jackson coming home from school as she had promised to show him how to make figures out of icing, which she could do before her shift started. She headed over to work a couple of hours earlier as Lucy had invited her for coffee, so she had plenty of time to get ready leisurely and then do a little shopping for some essentials. She bought red and black food colouring for Spider-Man and blue and green for Batman and the Hulk respectively. She would need to take her special toolkit, which had all of her cake-decorating tools in.

  She arrived at the Signal Box Café at the same time as Lucy and as the door whooshed open they were greeted by the delicious aroma of Signal Box Scouse, which was a speciality of the house made by Lucy using her beloved nana’s secret recipe.

  ‘Ah that smell is making my stomach growl at me. It’s delicious,’ said Camilla. ‘By the way, Auntie Edie was thrilled to see scouse on the menu. Her husband Albert was from Liverpool and loved a bit of scouse.’

  ‘Oh yes, she told me when we were waiting for you. She took some home with her. What a lovely funny lady she is. Have you had lunch? Because you can have some if not,’ replied Lucy pushing through the door to the kitchen and putting the kettle on.

  ‘Oh no really I couldn’t. I’ve started filling out again since I’ve been working here, what with Carrie’s cooked breakfasts and the delicious meals you send me home with. I’ll soon be the size of a house. Besides it might put us off eating these.’ She extracted two large chocolate eclairs from a white box and went to the cupboard to put them on Signal Box Café plates.

  Lucy’s eyes widened and she licked her lips as she stirred the coffees. ‘Ooh I can resist anything but cake – especially one of your cakes. I really miss your cupcake kisses, you know.’

  Camilla followed Lucy into the dining room and they sat at their favourite booth with their coffees and cream cakes.

  ‘Yes, the cupcake kisses were very popular and because they were half the size of the traditional cupcakes, I could market them as half the calories.’ She laughed and bit into her eclair. ‘You know no matter how long I’ve been baking for I could never ever get the hang of this choux pastry. That’s why it’s always a treat for me to buy an eclair.’

  ‘The thing is, Camilla, I’m not the only one who’s been missing your cakes. Everybody has and I’m getting so many requests for you from people who are getting married.’

  Camilla’s tummy flipped over and back again and the eclair almost got stuck in her throat. She took a sip of coffee to help it on its way.

  Lucy looked concerned and tried to reassure her.

  ‘I’m not talking about immediately and there would be nothing you couldn’t handle. If I’m honest the other cake makers are fantastic but you are the best. Your cakes are outstanding.’

  Camilla wiped her mouth and hands on a napkin and picked up her coffee. ‘I don’t know, Lucy. I think I need a bit more time.’

  ‘That’s fine – you can take all the time in the world but in the meantime, I have a proposition for you. I would like you to supply the Signal Box Café with cupcakes. We are constantly being asked whether we have something sweet for after the meals we serve and they would be simple and lovely.’

  ‘It’s a great idea, Lucy, and I could probably cope with doing them, but the thing is I have nowhere to bake them. I couldn’t ask Carrie because her kitchen is far too busy for me to be pottering around in.’

  ‘That’s no problem. You can bake them here. In the middle of the day you would have about five hours of total peace and quiet and if you do ever get round to making the bigger cakes again then you can use this place for that as well.’

  Lucy’s eyes sparkled and Camilla thought about how much fun it had been baking with Jackson. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t mind? I would have to pay you to contribute towards bills et cetera.’ Her mind began whirring with ideas.

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. Our little wedding planner family needs to stick together and you’re my number-one cake maker. Everyone misses you.’

  Camilla smiled. ‘It’s a deal.’ And she chinked coffee cups with Lucy just as Jackson burst through the whooshing door and ran straight into the kitchen to wash his hands.

  ‘I’m ready, Camilla,’ he shouted before arranging all of his superheroes on the counter ready for her to show him how to sculpt figurines.

  ‘Ah, I’ve just remembered, Camilla,’ Lucy whispered, ‘and please say no if you’d rather not but Jackson was wondering if you would mind him filming you both whilst you make the icing figures as part of his school project?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. What would it entail? Who would see it?’

  ‘I imagine it would just be his teacher and maybe the headmistress or whoever is judging it. But honestly if you’d rather not it’s fine.’

  She thought about it for a second, looked at Jackson’s excited face and agreed. ‘I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm, but—’ she held a finger up to Lucy before she got too excited ‘—first I need to do my lippy. I won’t be a tick.’ She pulled out he
r lipstick and a hand mirror from her bag, freshened up her lips and smoothed a couple of strands of hair that had strayed from the confines of her hair clamp.

  Jackson punched the air with a resounding ‘Yes,’ when he heard Camilla agree and began to position Lucy’s phone on the counter in front of them, using Blu Tack and a couple of books to balance it. ‘I’ve got a remote control to switch it on and off and we’ll probably have to stop a few times so I can zoom in if that’s okay?’ he said, his face serious as he concentrated.

  ‘That’s absolutely fine with me but just before we start shall we put on our Signal Box aprons and prepare everything we need? So it’s all ready to grab quickly while you’re filming.’

  ‘That’s a great idea. Mum, can you help us unwrap the packets?’ he shouted into the café.

  ‘What’s the magic word?’ asked Lucy as she swept through the swing doors carrying her empty cup.

  ‘Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease,’ he replied with his impish grin.

  Lucy ruffled his hair on the way past, put the cup in the sink and washed her hands before she helped tear open the packets of icing and colourings.

  ‘So, what is this project you’re doing for school, Jacks?’ asked Camilla as she opened her cake-decorating toolkit for the first time in ages.

  ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘we have to choose a role model who we really admire and work together, showing teamwork and the ability to follow instructions.’

  Camilla’s hand flew to her heart and she mouthed, ‘Aw how cute,’ to Lucy who mouthed back: ‘I know.’ She thought it best not to overly fuss Jackson as he was at that age, but she wanted to squeeze him so much.

  ‘Wow I’m so touched. Thank you, Jackson. I’m very honoured that you chose me.’

  ‘That’s okay. I think we’re ready to go now. Action!’ He pressed the remote and nodded to Camilla, rolling his finger round to let her know they were filming. Lucy darted out of the way and blew a kiss.

  ‘Hi my name is Jackson and my role model is Camilla err Cupcake and today we are going to show you how to make figurines like these—’ he scooped up his toy figures and held them up to the camera ‘—out of this.’ He held up a lump of icing and let it splat onto the counter. ‘Okay, Camilla, over to you. Let’s start with Spider-Man.’

  Camilla had not expected Jackson to go into full on TV presenter mode and looked like a startled deer for a couple of seconds until Jackson nudged her with his elbow. ‘Hi, everyone, Camilla here.’ She reeled off the list of ingredients they needed while Jackson pointed to each one. ‘So first we need to dust our washed and dried hands with icing sugar so that the icing doesn’t stick too much.’ She held the box above Jackson’s hands and began to shake it. As the fine dusting sprinkled down, he caught as much as he could and clapped his hands rather too enthusiastically, which caused a cloud of it to coat Camilla’s face and Jackson’s hair. His eyes met hers and they giggled, which relaxed them both.

  Camilla soon forgot about the camera and felt very much at home in the warm ambience of the café as her nimble figures did what they had been doing for many years – bringing sugar paste to life in the form of people, animals, vehicles and buildings – and it came as naturally to her as breathing did. Jackson still needed lots of practice, but he was extremely happy with his sculpted superheroes, having to focus on him had kept unwanted thoughts at bay and she hadn’t needed Auntie Edie’s broom once. As they cleaned up together, he thanked her for taking part.

  ‘It was my absolute pleasure; I hope you get good marks on your project and thank you again for choosing me.’

  ‘Thank you for helping,’ he replied as he carefully placed his icing figurines in the box she had given him. ‘Last year I chose Dom and he was funny too; we went fishing and Dom only caught a tiddler, but I caught a massive one.’

  Camilla laughed.

  ‘Who’s your role model?’ he asked.

  ‘Ooh now that’s a question.’ She stopped wiping the worktop to ponder. ‘I would say it was probably my Auntie Edie because she’s always been there for me.’

  ‘Is she your real auntie? Because I’ve got one real Auntie Abbie – that’s Dad’s sister. And Auntie Rosie from the boat café, she just called herself Auntie Rosie when we met her but she’s really Mum’s friend.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the same for me. Auntie Edie was my mum’s friend. Have you ever heard the expression: “Friends are the family we choose for ourselves”?’

  Jackson repeated what she’d said, and his face lit up when the meaning clicked. ‘Ah I get it now. I didn’t realise we could choose our own family because I was wondering whether I could call you auntie. My mum hasn’t got any sisters but if I could choose one for her then it would be you.’

  His eyes darted up to her and she smiled. ‘Come here, you.’ And she pulled him in tight. ‘I would be honoured to be your auntie. Thank you for asking me. I’ve never had a nephew before, and I think you’re absolutely amazing.’ She kissed his forehead and he went back to filling his box.

  ‘Right that’s the last one.’ He carefully placed the lid on the box and made his way to the door. ‘Bye, Auntie Camilla,’ he said through his trademark cheeky smile.

  ‘Bye, Jackson, see you again soon.’ She watched from the door as he skipped back off to Railway Cottage. A wave of warmth swept over her. Losing her mum, her only relative, had made her feel as though she were lost at sea, adrift without a lifeline, her feet swept from under her. But the words of a ten-year-old boy and the actions of her friends were keeping her afloat and gradually building the ground beneath her so that she would soon have a solid base to stand on. All she needed now was an anchor to keep her grounded.

  The next day Camilla came into work earlier again but this time to create her first batch of cupcakes for the Signal Box Café. Lucy had ordered twelve each of chocolate, coconut, vanilla and strawberry to start with but she anticipated that they would fly off the shelves as soon as the customers got word that Camilla Cupcake was back in action. Lucy had another request for her from a bride-to-be,

  ‘No please don’t look so anxious, it’s still just cupcakes. This bride would like some exotic ones for her hen do and for her groom’s stag do.’

  Camilla giggled. ‘What do you mean exotic exactly?’

  ‘Erm, I think the word I’m looking for is erotic but that sounds far too kinky.’ She laughed. ‘You know the usual stuff: willies on the girls ones and boobies on the boys.’

  Camilla laughed too. ‘Well I can’t say I’ve ever made them out of icing before but I suppose I can give it a go. Better make sure Jackson isn’t around when I’m making those ones and I definitely don’t want to be filmed.’

  ‘Oh, can you imagine that?’ Lucy giggled. ‘And what if Jackson took the wrong one into school.’

  Camilla shrieked with laughter too. It felt like the good old days. Her heart felt warmed. She pulled out her notebook and made a note of the date. She did a rough sketch of a willie and held it up to Lucy. ‘Like this you mean?’ Lucy hadn’t expected to see that and snorted as they laughed till they cried.

  ‘Also—’ she nibbled on the lid of the pen ‘—because I haven’t got a car anymore I suppose people will have to collect. I hope that doesn’t make it more awkward.’

  ‘I’m sure it won’t be a problem. We can always work something out. If I’m free I can drop them off for you.’

  ‘You’re an amazing friend, Lucy. I’m so lucky to have you.’ She squeezed her hand.

  ‘And I’m even luckier to have you too,’ replied Lucy.

  Chapter 8

  The next day Camilla was on her way back to the Signal Box Café after popping out for more icing sugar when she heard a familiar voice.

  ‘Hi, Camilla, how are you?’ asked Ron, his elbow sticking out of the window of his van.

  ‘I’m good thanks, Ron. How are you?’

  ‘All good with my lot,’ he replied. ‘Anyway I was hoping I’d bump into you again. I’ve been thinking about your predicament and
I hate the thought of you losing your little car so I thought you could pop over to the dealership. I’m sure we could find a little runaround over there for you. I mean I got one in the other day. It might not be as good as your one but it will do the job.’

  ‘Oh, I would love to but…well it’s a bit embarrassing but I can’t afford it at the moment. Thanks for thinking of me though.’ Camilla smiled and went to walk away to try and preserve her dignity.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t understand. I mean you can use it free of charge – you know until you get back on your feet again.’

  Camilla didn’t know what she’d expected him to say but it hadn’t been that. She looked away and back at him again. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well there’s no point in me having all these cars sitting on my forecourt waiting to be sold when you could be whizzing about in one, delivering your lovely cakes.’

  ‘Oh, I see, but no thank you. I couldn’t possibly put you to so much trouble.’

  ‘It’s no trouble at all, my dear. I’m sure you’ve heard the expression one good turn deserves another. I insist that you come and at least have a look. Why not pop in tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be there till six. If you don’t fancy anything then we can just have a cup of tea. What harm can it do?’

  Camilla’s heart melted at the hopeful look in his cheerful face. She couldn’t possibly turn him down.

  ‘That’s really very kind of you, Ron. Okay I’ll come and have a look,’ she said to appease him but had no intention of borrowing one of his cars. What if she bumped it accidentally? She’d feel terrible. Ron was such good company that she decided a cup of tea wouldn’t do any harm.

  ‘And Camilla, I didn’t want to say anything in front of the boy but I just wanted to say I’m sorry about your mum, I saw you on the telly. You should have won by the way, your cake was magnificent but then I’m sure that was the last thing on your mind.’