Meet Me at the Cupcake Café (58 page)

She was so convinced he would be having a wonderful time in a cocktail bar, pulling a blonde right at that very minute, that Issy wasn’t at all expecting to see Graeme when she entered the dimly lit hallway. In fact, she nearly missed him. He was sitting in his fake Le Corbusier armchair, in his dressing gown – Issy hadn’t known he owned a dressing gown – glass in hand, staring out of the window at the minimalist courtyard garden nobody ever visited. He started when she entered, but didn’t turn his head. Issy stood there. Her heart was thumping painfully.

‘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 thing 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.