Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe (5 page)

It was just, it had been such a hard year. Not for her – the shop was doing well, and Issy had been more than kind, making her a manager, paying her as much as she was able, as well as being flexible for Louis’ sake. Pearl had even, for the first time in her life, been able to put a bit by; to begin, possibly, to think about a future; moving closer to the shop and Louis’ school and away from the estate. Not that it was a bad estate, she thought loyally. Not the worst, by any means. But to move into a little place that wasn’t exactly like everyone else’s, where she could decorate how she wanted and have an extra room for her mum. That would be nice. That would be very nice indeed. And it had looked, briefly, like it might be possible.

That was before the economic downturn had taken its terrible toll on Benjamin.

If Pearl had had a Facebook page – which she didn’t, as she didn’t have an internet connection – her heart status with Benjamin would have been ‘it’s complicated’. Ben was absolutely gorgeous, and they’d dated and she’d got pregnant, and whilst obviously she wouldn’t swap Louis for the world – he was the best thing that had ever happened to her – nonetheless, Ben had never lived with them and came and went in their lives far more than she would have liked. The problem was that Louis
absolutely worshipped him; thought his tall, handsome, muscular dad was a superhero, swooping in on the family from time to time in between top-secret missions. And Pearl couldn’t bear to burst his happy bubble; his cries of joy when Ben came round, and it felt, for a while, like they were a proper family. So she was stuck. She couldn’t move on. It wasn’t fair to Louis. Things had been starting to get better for Ben too, the work coming in more steadily … until the last six months.

The building site jobs had dried up, just like that. He’d got some work up at the Olympics park, but it felt like every contractor in the whole of Europe had bowled up there, and the competition was fierce. Elsewhere, there wasn’t much either. People were putting off moving or building extensions or finishing renovations or expanding their premises till they found out how the cards would fall; whether they would lose their jobs, or have their hours cut or see their incomes fall; whether their pensions would flatline and their savings would become worthless against inflation. Pearl struggled with the one bedroom; sometimes, she thought, looking out at the rain, she had no idea how people managed to heat larger properties at all. Keeping her power key charged up was a job in itself.

It wasn’t Benjamin’s fault, it really wasn’t. He was looking for work, trying everything, but there just wasn’t anything for him, and he’d had a few problems with the benefit office in the past, so he got the absolute
bare legal minimum.

She knew him so well. He was easily led, but he was a proud man. A hard worker when he had work, but if he didn’t … Well. He had a lot of friends who dabbled in things she didn’t want Louis’ daddy anywhere near.

So she’d been helping him out, here and there, and more and more, and she didn’t know where it would end. Benjamin hated taking the money too, hated having to ask and beg like a dog from a woman. Which meant that their rare nights out, the odd meal, the odd staying over – it killed her to admit it, but he was still the best-looking man she had ever seen in her life – became less frequent. It was no fun taking your woman out to dinner when she had to pick up the tab.

Pearl was really feeling the pinch. But oh, Benjamin was so good with their boy. He played with Louis for hours, was genuinely impressed by his daubings and scrawlings from school; would kick a ball round the waste ground or discuss diggers and cranes till the cows came home. Pearl would starve before she deprived her son of that.

It wasn’t going to come to that. But Christmas was going to be tight, that was all, and she hated being reminded of that fact in every decorated window and expectant-looking face.

Helena picked up Chadani Imelda and gave a grim smile of satisfaction that denoted the size of her achievement. Even though Chadani had hollered unwaveringly, she was now dressed in frilly knickers, a frilled shirt, a ballet skirt and a pompom coat, plus lacy tights with small pompoms at the back, baby-pink Ugg boots with tiny stars and a pink pompom hat with long dangling ribbons. Her fierce red hair clashed outlandishly with all the pink, but Chadani was a girl, Helena thought determinedly, and therefore needed to be identified as such.

‘Don’t you look
pretty?’ she cooed.

Chadani gave her mother a ferocious look and tugged mutinously at the hat. To no avail; Helena had already tied it up for safe keeping. A one-year-old’s hands were no match for the strapping power of a registered accident and emergency nurse. And she was still a nurse, she kept telling everyone. She was going back to it. Just as soon as she found the right person or nursery to take care of Chadani Imelda. So far, there had not been one to meet her standards.

Issy at first had thought Helena must be joking about being overprotective. Helena herself was so strong and confident and independent; how could it even be possible? And it might have taken Helena herself by surprise. Nonetheless, from the first squalling breath Chadani Imelda had taken, sunk deep into Helena’s remarkable bosom, after a quick and utterly straightforward labour Issy felt would do nothing to help Helena’s empathetic skills with the sick – she had marched into hospital under her own steam and popped the baby out in under ninety minutes without even an aspirin – Helena’s entire life had become the Chadani Project.

Ashok’s adoring family,
once they’d got over the shock of him fathering a child out of wedlock to a rather staggering and distinctly larger-than-life redhead, did nothing to deflect Helena from Operation C. Ashok was the youngest of six, four of them female, all of them noisy (one of the reasons why he had been totally unworried about taking on a strong woman), and all of them very keen to kick in with help, advice and gifts for the new baby, their own children grown up.

So Chadani never left the house without a couple of extra layers just in case, or an extra feeding bottle here and there so she didn’t go hungry; every toy in the catalogue now subsumed Issy’s old flat, which Helena and Ashok had bought. Once small and cosy, it was now small, cosy and completely hidden under vast amounts of plastic, drying babygros and a large sign on the wall that said ‘Princess’.

Issy had narrowed her eyes at that.

‘She’ll have high self-esteem,’ Helena had insisted. ‘I don’t want anyone pushing her around.’

‘No one pushes you around,’ pointed out Issy. ‘I’m sure she’ll inherit that from you anyway.’

‘You can’t be too sure,’ said Helena, leaving Issy to clear a space on her own old red velvet sofa, now piled high with very small designer knitwear.

‘Helena, this says “dry clean only”,’ said Issy sternly. ‘Now, I may not be a parent, but …’

Helena looked slightly shamefaced. ‘I know, I know. But she does look so amazing in it. I’m surprised no one has stolen her, I really am.’

Issy made a nodding face,
like she often did around Chadani Imelda. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a lovely baby – she was, of course; the daughter of her dearest friend. But she was very noisy and squally and demanding, and Issy did sometimes feel that she would be more comfortable out of all those clothes; and perhaps if she didn’t have Helena, Ashok and at least four other relatives jumping to attention every time she squeaked, she might do a little better.

‘So,’ said Helena, importantly. ‘Let me know what you think. Here are the outfits I was planning for Christmas Day. Look at this little reindeer hat, isn’t it
darling
? To die for.’

Chadani picked up the corner of the reindeer antlers and started biting it, angrily.

‘Then I thought red velvet for church.’

‘Since when do you go to church?’

‘I think everyone at church might like to see a lovely baby at Christmas time. That’s the whole point,’ said Helena.

‘Well, yes, the baby Jesus, symbol of light and hope for the world. Not just a random baby …’ Helena’s face stiffened. ‘Even though she’s obviously a very, very special baby. And she’s a year old now anyway. Does she still qualify as a baby?’

Chadani had cruised over to the television and was pulling Baby Einstein DVDs out of the rack and throwing them on the floor. Helena was completely ignoring it.

‘Of course!’

‘And Ashok’s a
Sikh,’ Issy added, unnecessarily.

‘We’ll go to temple for Diwali as well,’ said Helena. ‘Now for that you need to
really
dress up.’

Issy smiled. She wanted to open a bottle of wine, but remembered that she couldn’t because Helena wasn’t drinking because she was still breastfeeding on demand, and at this rate looked likely to be doing so till about 2025.

‘So anyway,’ said Helena, ‘Chadani is …’ and she launched into a list of Chadani Imelda’s latest accomplishments, which may or may not have included ‘scatter all the Baby Einstein DVDs’.

Suddenly Issy had slightly lost the urge to confide in her friend. Normally they could chat about anything, but since Chadani had arrived, Issy had felt them drifting apart in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Helena had met a load of new, pushy mums through North London Mummy Connexshins, which she presided over by virtue of having the most natural birth and breastfeeding the longest, and their endless, stupefying discussions about baby-led weaning and sleeping through the night left Issy completely cold. Even when she tried to join in by bringing up Darny’s latest misadventures (all the children had to be either perfect or awful, it seemed, there was no middle way; likewise, when you’d given birth you had to have either hardly noticed, or nearly died and required fifteen pints of emergency blood transfusions), Helena had looked at her patronisingly and said it would be different when she had her own. Starting a conversation about missing her boyfriend seemed a bit …

‘I miss Austin,’ said
Issy, suddenly. She was going to at least give it a shot. ‘In New York. I wish he was hating it.’

Helena looked at her. ‘Ashok’s on call,’ she said. ‘I’ve been getting up four times every single night, then he comes in and wants me to keep the baby quiet all day. In this tiny, crappy apartment! I ask you.’

Issy loved the flat, and still felt very proprietorial about it.

‘Oh dear,’ she said tentatively, then ventured, feeling cut off from her own feeble complaint, ‘Should Chadani still be waking up at night?’