Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe (8 page)

Pearl looked at Issy. ‘You’re doing this on purpose,’ she said.

‘I am not,’ said Issy. ‘It needs time to sit.’

Everyone who had walked through the door had raised their noses and sniffed appreciatively and smiled.

‘You know, you can buy this smell in a scented candle,’ said Caroline. ‘It’s only fifty pounds.’

The others looked at her.

‘Fifty pounds for a candle?’ said Pearl. ‘My church sells them for thirty pence.’

‘Well, they’re for gifts.’

‘People give candles
as gifts?’

‘Smart people do,’ said Caroline.

‘Smart people give gifts that say, here, take this, I think your house smells really terrible and you need this stinky candle to make it better?’

‘Hush, you two,’ said Issy, putting on the noisy coffee machine to stop them bickering. She glanced over at the fireplace, where she had hung a small red stocking for Louis. Pearl followed her gaze.

‘Are you
smuggling in
Christmas decorations?’

‘No,’ said Issy hastily. ‘It’s just leftover laundry.’

‘That is the most Christmassy smell I’ve ever come across,’ said the young customer Caroline was serving. The child next to her shot her a wide-eyed, beaming glance.

‘SANTY IS COMING,’ she said.

‘Ssh,’ said Issy. ‘I know, but don’t tell everyone.’

The child smiled with her mouth closed, as if they shared a secret. Pearl rolled her eyes.

‘Fine. Fine. Drape the place in tinsel that will gather dust and make a total mess for me to clean up and start those stupid Christmas songs until if I have to listen to “Stop the Cavalry” one more time I’ll want to punch something. Do you want me to wear a Santa hat for five weeks? Maybe I’ll tie some bells round my waist and I can jingle solidly for a month and a half. Will that suit you?’

‘Pearl!’ said
Issy. ‘It’s just a bit of fun.’

‘I’m having all-white decorations this year,’ mused Caroline. ‘Hand-made by the Inuit. They don’t sparkle or light up, but they’re sustainable. The children complain, but I explain to them how a stylish Christmas is a better Christmas.’

Issy was watching Pearl closely. She didn’t normally take offence.

‘Seriously, are you all right?’ said Issy. She was worried she’d been too wrapped up in her worries about Austin to notice that Pearl was feeling the pressure of her own.

‘I’ll be fine,’ said Pearl, looking shamefaced. ‘Sorry. It’s just, it happens so fast and there’s so much to do …’

Issy nodded. ‘But it will be lovely, won’t it? Louis is at just the right age for it.’

‘But it’s expensive,’ said Pearl. ‘Getting him all those toys.’

‘Louis is the least demanding child I’ve ever met,’ said Issy. ‘He isn’t going to demand toys.’

‘Benjamin keeps going on about him getting a new garage and everything he sees on TV and football kit and stuff,’ said Pearl. ‘But I don’t even …’

Issy looked at her. ‘Pearl McGregor, you are the most sensible woman I’ve ever met in my life. I can’t believe you’re talking like this. Craig the builder asked Louis who his favourite football team was last week and he said Rainbow United.’

Pearl let out a smile.

‘He means Brazil.’

‘He doesn’t know what
he means! He’s four! Don’t worry about it!
And
,’ added Issy as an inspired incentive, ‘the more Christmassy and lovely we do things, the more we’re going to sell so the bigger bonus you can have. Hmm?’

Pearl shrugged.

‘I still think people forget why we celebrate this time of year.’

‘Would you like me to make a gingerbread nativity?’ asked Issy, assuming that Pearl would laugh off the suggestion. It was a fiddly job and would take absolutely ages.

Instead Pearl said, ‘I think that would be lovely. Could we put it in the window?’

Caroline wasn’t looking forward to Christmas either. It was Richard, her ex-husband’s turn to have the children. Well, she had told everyone, that was just fine by her. She was going to spend the day pampering, using her day spa bathroom and detoxing early, avoiding all that awful bloat everyone got at Christmas time.

She knew she was being miserable – and so snappy and sarcastic – and she was aware that Pearl and Issy were about the only two people on earth who could put up with her at the moment, but she didn’t seem to be able to help it. Richard had originally left her for a woman at work, but now he’d apparently moved on, and she couldn’t for the life of her find out where he was staying or who he was with. He was only contacting her through lawyers. Had he met someone else? Was he going to fall in love and have thousands of babies with another woman and spend Hermia and Achilles’ inheritance? And the house cost a lot to run,
and
City bonuses were way down, everybody knew that. It was getting impossible to live in London.

Deep down the fear gnawed
away at her, and she took it out on almost anyone. Pearl and Issy understood and tried their hardest to be good about it. Pearl had said out loud several times that putting up with Caroline was going to guarantee her place in heaven. Issy liked to think in her dreamier moments that if she and Austin had daughters, this was what the teenage years would be like.

‘How’s that hot boyfriend of yours doing in New York?’ Caroline asked her as they handled the lunchtime rush together – Pearl had let Issy change the sandwich order to include turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce, and they were flying off the shelves as fast as they could load them.

‘He’s fine,’ said Issy, in a tone of voice that Pearl and Caroline realised immediately meant anything but.

‘Oh well, you know New York,’ said Caroline in a superior tone.

‘No, I don’t,’ said Issy. ‘Not at all really. I’ve never been.’

‘You’ve
never been?’

‘Neither have I,’ said Pearl. ‘And I haven’t injected poison in my face either. Isn’t it amazing what people haven’t done?’

Caroline ignored her. ‘Oh well, it is full of the most incredible-looking women, really beautiful, and all totally desperate for a man. What they’ll do for a tall, handsome banker with an English accent … they’ll be all over him like vultures.’

Issy looked shocked.

‘Is this something you know for a fact?’ asked Pearl heavily. ‘Or is it just something you’ve made up from watching television programmes?’

‘Oh no, darlings, I’ve been there. The women there make
me
feel ugly.’ Caroline let out a tinkly laugh that was presumably meant to sound self-deprecating and charming but failed utterly.

‘He’s coming home soon,’ said Issy.

‘I wouldn’t count on that,’ said Caroline. ‘They’ll snap him up in no time.’

This didn’t improve Issy’s mood in the slightest, even when the latest batch of Christmas cake in the big industrial oven started to perfume the entire street and brought over a crowd of scaffolders from across the road. They were from Ukraine, and could normally only ever spare the money to share a cake. Somehow, every single member of staff, without telling the others, always managed to slip them an extra bit of something.

Austin couldn’t
deny that this was proving an eyeopener.

Merv Ferani, vice president of Kingall Lowestein, one of the largest Wall Street banks still standing, was manoeuvring him through the tables of the oak-panelled dining room, following the shapely form of the most beautiful waitress Austin had ever seen. Well, maybe she wasn’t a waitress. She had been standing at the front desk, checking names off on a list and being very rude to the people in front of her, but when Merv had marched in – he was very short, very fat and wore flamboyant bow ties – she had come over all smiles and gushing and eyed Austin up in a very forward way he found completely unnerving. He wasn’t used to very beautiful people being nice to him. He was used to quite normal-looking people asking him to please take his son off the bus.

They threaded their way through the tables, all of which were filled with affluent-looking people: men in expensive suits with pointed shoes; beautiful women, sometimes with much older, much less beautiful men. Merv stopped often to shake hands, exchange witticisms Austin didn’t understand and clasp people on the shoulder. To one or two he introduced Austin – ‘he’s just come over from London’ – and they would nod and ask if he knew so-and-so at Goldman Sachs or someone at Barclays and he’d have to shake his head and try not to blurt
out that he was in charge of small business loans at a very small branch on Stoke Newington High Street.

Finally they reached their table. Two more waiters came dashing up to pull out their seats and pour them some water. Merv glanced in passing at the heavy embossed menu, then tossed it to one side.

‘Ah, what the hell. It’s getting towards that time of year. I love Christmas food. Let’s see if they do anything Christmassy. And a bottle of claret, the 2007 if they have it. Same for you?’

He cocked an eyebrow at Austin, whose stomach still thought it was night-time and was therefore more than happy to oblige. He did wonder, though, what would have happened if he’d asked for a green salad. He’d certainly have failed a test in some way.

The dinner plates were the size of heads. Austin wondered how much he was going to have to eat.

‘So, Austin,’ said Merv, starting in on the bread basket. Austin supposed that when you hit a certain level of wealth and success, you were just allowed to eat however you wanted. Manners were for little people.

It had happened very suddenly the previous afternoon. Austin had been in the offices of KL, feeling rather anxious about everything. The place was full of sharp-looking young men who must have been about his age but looked rather more groomed, worked out, somehow smooth;
perfectly shaved with weirdly shiny skin and buffed fingernails, in expensive suits and shined shoes. (The only time Austin had ever been in a gym had been to pick Darny up from Scouts, and that had only lasted till Darny insisted that it was against his human rights to be sent to a quasi-paramilitary organisation.) And that was before you even got to the women. The women in New York were the most terrifying specimens Austin had ever seen. They didn’t even seem vaguely on the same planet as everyone else. They had incredibly muscular legs that ended in really sharp stiletto heels, and pointy elbows and pointy faces and they moved fast, like giant insects. They were beautiful, of course, Austin couldn’t deny that. They just seemed somehow other-worldly. Still, they had all looked over at him when he came in and had been very friendly. Austin wasn’t used to being scrutinised by women who looked like they could be models when they were finished with their banking careers. It was unnerving.