He kicked his way through the dirty snow. Everyone he met thought he was crazy in this weather, but he liked walking in Manhattan; there was so much to look at, and he fitted in with his regular long stride because everyone walked fast, and he liked the pulse of the city in his veins and the hum and buzz of electricity. He did like it. Issy would like it too.
That made him groan internally. He knew … he thought he knew … that if he begged her, if he made a big point out of it and insisted and strong-armed the situation – which was not his style at all – she would come. She would. Wouldn’t she? But even if she did, Austin knew she wouldn’t be happy. Couldn’t be. She’d worked so hard, and it was her … her purpose, he supposed. Issy, in the Cupcake Café, her hands covered in flour, her cheeks pink from the heat of the oven; with a pat on the head for every child and a friendly word for every cold and weary London passer-by. It defined her. To stick her in some glass box high-rise apartment in Manhattan whilst he worked ridiculous hours every day …
He would turn them down in a heartbeat.
That much had been running round and round his head. That much he’d decided. Unfortunately, there was something else. Something that made all his good intentions towards Issy hardly count at all.
The letter Issy had grabbed from the hall table as she had left for New York. The letter, with its impersonally typed address and frank. It was slightly crumpled and stained from its trip on the plane and being stuffed in and out of bags. Issy had left it on his side of the bed. She didn’t know, of course, how far things had gone.
Dear Mr Tyler,
We at Carnforth Road School are afraid that the behaviour of your son/ward has become, despite repeated warnings, too much for our school to take on. We are recommending a permanent exclusion. We do not feel Darny’s particular needs are being met by this school …
There was more, much more. Mostly of a legal nature. Austin had skipped that.
There was only one other school in the district, King’s Mount, and it had been terrible and dangerous in Austin’s time and it was still terrible and dangerous now. Parents avoided it like the plague; people moved so their children wouldn’t have to attend it. Fights were regular; it was the dumping ground for children who had nowhere else to go, or a halfway house to borstal, or for those whose parents just didn’t give a toss. It had been on special measures for ever, but they couldn’t shut it as it was absolutely huge, and nobody else wanted the children who went there.
Darny would never survive there. Austin couldn’t possibly afford to send him to another school. Not in London. Even if they’d take him, which with his record was probably a bit tricky. He gulped.
Merv had already handed him a brochure for the middle school his own children went to, assuring him he’d get a place for Darny. It had class sizes of twelve, its own pool, and weekly one-to-one seminars ‘to develop social and creative potential’ and encourage ‘independence and clarity of thought’. Austin had had it half on his mind ever since. Part of Darny’s intransigence was of course just down to his age; it was completely normal and would probably get thrashed out of him at King’s Mount … Austin couldn’t bear it. Darny was small for his age. Small, not very brave, but with a big mouth. He remembered Issy saying in passing that she didn’t like big gangs of schoolchildren in her shop (she let them in, but Pearl did bouncing if they got too rowdy), but felt like making an exception for the poor terrified mites she saw crawling out of King’s Mount, with their pale, scared-looking faces.
Austin sighed. Would he drop everything, this job and everything else, for Issy? Of course. Yes, New York would be fun and an adventure, but he wouldn’t jeopardise their relationship for that. Not if it was just him.
It wasn’t just him. It was him and Darny; had been for a long time.
As soon as Issy saw the outside of the place where they were meeting, she knew, and couldn’t help feeling a bit irritated. This was where Austin had got those other cupcakes. Those enemies … She was curious, she couldn’t help it. The New York City Cupcake Store, read the old-fashioned writing on the window. This was where so many of the great cupcake makers had started in this city … perhaps she’d just had a bad batch. It would be a good thing to try some others out, have a look around and see if she could get any new ideas. She wished she’d thought of this before, actually, rather than following the guidebook and having to try and explain stuff to Darny in the art gallery that she didn’t really understand, then answer his follow-up questions, which she definitely didn’t.
The smell of coffee wafting out into the street – although it had that odd, slightly burned smell that she’d learnt to associate with American coffee shops – calmed her down a little. It felt more like home somehow. She sniffed. Something was odd. She could smell baking for sure, a warm smell that encompassed half the street. And she could see the cakes in the window. But the cakes in the window didn’t chime with the smell, which was much breadier. Something was up.
She peered through the steamed-up window. Austin, to her amazement, was already there. It wasn’t like him to be on time, never mind early. He was inside chatting to someone. They were head to head. Issy blinked. He hadn’t mentioned bringing a friend.
‘Come ON,’ Darny was saying, hopping up and down. ‘It’s FREEZING out here.’
‘OK, OK,’ said Issy, and pushed open the door. The doorbell made an electronic noise. Issy preferred her real bell.
Austin looked up, almost guiltily. The girl he was talking to was, Issy noticed, almost ridiculously pretty, with her perfect teeth and rosy mouth and lovely scattering of freckles. Issy wondered if she was being paranoid, but the girl seemed to shoot an angry look in her direction. Issy was going too far in her harsh judgements of New York and its inhabitants. She needed to calm down and lighten up a little. Everything was going to be better now.
‘Hello,’ she said as cheerily and generously as possible.
Austin smiled. He still felt a bit awkward about this morning, and had a sense that things weren’t turning out quite as amazingly as he had thought they should be in his head.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘New York sucks,’ announced Darny cheerfully, as if it confirmed all his long-held suspicions. ‘It’s freezing and really boring. But the food is good,’ he added, looking at the cupcakes.