Meet Me at the Cupcake Café

Phil looked around and sucked his teeth a lot.

‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘They’re a nightmare, these old buildings. Ain’t it listed?’

‘No!’ said Issy, delighted to be asked a question she could actually answer. ‘Well, I mean, yes, the outside is, grade II, but the interior is all right as long as we don’t pull down any walls or put anything up or brick up the fireplace, as if we would.’

‘Well, your problem here is we’ll have to thread the wiring through the walls, then there’ll be a lot of replastering to do, and that’s before you even look at the flooring.’

‘What’s wrong with the flooring?’

There were simple wooden boards on the floor, and Issy had been planning just to clean them up and leave them.

‘Nah, you can’t do that, see,’ said Phil. Issy didn’t see at all. She started to feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. It was awkward being in the presence of people who knew so much more than she did about something that concerned her. She had the sinking sensation that it was a feeling she would get to know well.

Phil was proposing something complicated about lifting the skirting and putting in heating and wiring underneath then basically rebuilding the walls from the bottom up. Issy was looking at him helplessly, feeling out of her depth and nodding slightly, wishing as she did so that her accent wasn’t quite so posh. Andreas was groping in his pocket for his cigarettes. Phil took out a camera and a notepad and started to jot down measurements, until Pearl, standing in the shadows, couldn’t take it for one more single second.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. Everyone turned to look at her quizzically. ‘You’re a good builder, right?’ she said to Phil, who looked slightly wounded.

‘I can do anything,’ he said proudly. ‘Jack of all trades, me.’

‘That’s great,’ said Pearl. ‘We’re glad to have you aboard. But I’m afraid we can only pay you for the work that Miss Randall mentioned before. No floorboards, no skirting, no plastering. Just get the units in, get this place squared up – and you know what I mean – and you’ll get paid straight away, no messing. Do one iota more of stuff you aren’t asked for, or overcharge us – and you’re the fifth quote we’ve had in – and I’m sorry, but there simply won’t be the money to pay you. Do you know what I mean?’

Pearl fixed Phil with a beady eye. He smiled nervously, then cleared his throat. He’d known a few Pearls growing up at school, and he had them to thank for being in a trade now, instead of prison like half of his mates.

‘Absolutely. Totally. Not a problem.’

He turned back to Issy, who was speechless but happy.

‘We’ll sort this place out for you, love.’

‘Great!’ said Issy. ‘Uh, want some upside-down cake? Seeing as you’re going to be turning this place upside down?’

‘You were brilliant,’ said Issy, as they headed up towards the bus stop, each with one of Louis’s hands in theirs. He was swinging as he went, insisting on more with a count of ‘Won-doo-free!’

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Pearl. ‘You’ve just got to ask for what you want, he wasn’t going to bite you. He’s in a selling job too.’

‘I know,’ said Issy. ‘The time for being timid really isn’t now, is it?’

‘Not if you want to make it,’ said Pearl thoughtfully. Issy looked back at the building. She’d just agreed to put a sizeable chunk of all the money she’d ever had in her entire life, and possibly more money than she’d ever see again, into this thing. Pearl was right. She was beginning to suspect that Pearl might be right about a lot of things.

They reached the bus stop. Issy turned to Pearl.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘I am going to ask for what I want. I want you. To come and work for me. We’ll figure Louis out between us. He’ll be going to nursery soon anyway, won’t he?’

Pearl nodded.

‘Well, couldn’t he go to a nursery near the shop? There’s loads in Stokey. Come up and sit in the shop while we get opened up and the cakes go in, then pop him up to nursery and come back. He won’t be far, and you can spend your lunch hour with him. What do you reckon?’

Pearl thought about it from all the angles. There was no reason Louis couldn’t do a state nursery programme up here; she felt a bit guilty for even thinking it, but it might not be a bad thing for him to mix with people who weren’t all on the estate. Show him a bit of life. It could work. She’d talk to her Restart officer.

‘Hmm,’ said Pearl.

‘Is that a good hmm or a bad hmm?’ asked Issy excitedly.

There was a long pause.

‘Well, let’s give it a shot,’ said Pearl. And the two women very formally shook hands.

Chapter Nine

After that, everything moved at double speed. Despite Issy assuming that all the official papers would take months, insurance, licensing and tax registration were all returned signed and sealed much more promptly than she’d expected. Phil and Andreas, buoyed, she believed, by daily influxes of cake and chivvying from Pearl, were doing a fantastic job; the new units, ordered online, had arrived and fitted perfectly; they had painted the walls a soft shade of greige (grey and beige), and she had ordered retro 1950s aprons for Pearl and herself. Pearl sewed on her own extension ties. Issy was adoring her new industrial mixer, and couldn’t resist trying out more and more esoteric recipes with it. Helena had called a halt at liquorice and Maltesers.

Over the following weeks, the boys did a lovely job. Several days of hands-and-knees scrubbing by Issy and Pearl, aided occasionally by a grumbling Helena, had sorted out the cellar, while the boys had hammered and drilled and sung along to Cheryl Cole songs on the radio and utterly transformed the place. Whereas before a bare bulb had swung from the ceiling, now there were gently inset halogen lights that made everything gleam softly. Tables and chairs in off-white shades had a gentle patina that made them look old (even though, as they had assured the crusty fire officer, they weren’t, and they were painted with flame-retardant paint); the wooden floor was polished to a high shine, and the display cases were of sparkling glass to show off the cakes, with cake stands ready to go on each table. The coffee machine, a second-hand Rancilio Classe 6, which everyone assured them was absolutely the best on the market, fizzed happily away in a corner. (Alas, it was a curious shade of orange, but not everything had to tastefully match.) Issy had lined the mantel over the fireplace with books for people to read (not too many, grumbled Pearl, we don’t want tramps staying all day), and smart wooden poles would hold the day’s newspapers.