Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe

by Jenny Colgan

  Darny thumped through to the kitchen as soon as he got in from homework club. As he marched through the door, Issy jumped; he sounded like a grown man already, even though he was only eleven. And of course he’d had his own set of keys since he was six years old.

  ‘Hey,’ he shouted. Normally he swung straight past her up the stairs to his bedroom to play on his Xbox – unless, of course, she was making something good to eat.

  The house Austin and Darny had inherited from their parents was a rather pretty red-brick terrace, with a large knocked-through downstairs sitting room and a back kitchen, and upstairs three little bedrooms. There was a patch of garden out the back which was in no way large enough to play football, rugby, handball, volleyball or Robin Hood, not that it had stopped the boys trying over the years. Five years of just two chaps there, one small and one overworked and dreamy, had left the place in a very unpleasant state, even though they had a despondent cleaner. Issy was, gradually, trying to do up bits of it: a coat of paint here; a new flagstone floor there. The bones of the house were reasserting themselves, though Issy had kept intact a little square of the skirting board that had a long procession of racing cars drawn on in indelible ink in the hand of a five-year-old.

  ‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ she’d asked Austin.

  ‘Well, I rather liked it,’ he’d said mildly. ‘He’s good at drawing; look, he’s got all the wheels in the right positions and everything.’

  Issy looked and decided it was sweet. She cleaned up the rest of the paintwork and kept the cars. The rest she was trying to make over.

  She couldn’t help it. She never felt she needed to see a therapist to confirm that it was because of her insecure childhood – her mother a restless spirit; her father a traveller she’d never known. The only constant in her life had been her beloved Grampa Joe, whose bakery had always been a warm and cosy haven for her. Ever since then, she’d tried to reproduce that cosy, comfortable feeling wherever she went.

  Pre-Austin, Helena had said once that she was a people-pleaser. Issy had asked what was wrong with that exactly, and Helena had pointed out that all her boyfriends had been really horrible users. But Issy could never march through life like Helena did, doing what she felt like doing and damning the consequences. Meeting Austin, who liked the fact that she liked to please him … well, the boys had complained at first about the house – who really needed curtains anyway, Darny had said; they were just bourgeois (a word he clearly had no concept of the meaning of), about shame and a fake privacy the state didn’t even let you have – but Issy had persisted, and gradually, as the windows were cleaned, and a new kitchen table brought in (they let Darny keep the old one, covered in ink spills and old glue and that part where they’d played the knife-throwing game that time, as a desk upstairs) with a comfortable wall bench covered in cushions, and all Issy’s kitchen appliances, which she bought like other women bought shoes; lamps in the corner of the room rather than bare bulbs (Austin had complained he couldn’t see a thing until Issy had told him it was romantic and would make romantic things happen, which changed his outlook somewhat), and even cushions (which were constantly being secreted upstairs for Darny to use as target practice), the house was beginning to look really rather cosy. More like a home, Issy had pointed out, like normal people had, and not a holding pen for delinquent zebras.

  Austin might have grumbled cheerfully – because, on the whole, it was expected of him, and also because it was exactly what all his interfering aunts had been saying for years, that the place needed a woman’s touch. In the past there had been plenty of women who’d promised to supply that and tried to inveigle their way in. Austin and Darny had even had a name for them: the Awws, because of the concerned expression they got on their faces and the way they said ‘awww’ when they looked at Darny like he was an abandoned puppy. Austin hated it when someone said ‘awww’. It meant that Darny was about to do or say something unspeakable.

  But somehow with Issy it was different. Issy didn’t say ‘awww’. She listened. And she made them both feel that coming home to somewhere cosy and warm every evening might actually be rather pleasant, even if it did require them to start making their own beds and remembering to put the rubbish out and eating with cutlery and having fruit and stuff. Yes, there were more soft furnishings and bits and bobs about, but that was just the price you paid, Austin reckoned, for all the lovely stuff too; for something that felt not a million miles away from happiness.

  Darny took off his winter jacket and rucksack, scattering school books, hats, scarves, Moshi Monster cards and random small pieces of plastic everywhere.

  ‘Hello Darny,’ said Issy. He padded through into the kitchen.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he said. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘You’re always starving,’ said Issy. ‘You can’t eat this, though.’

  He gazed into the huge pans. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Oh, this is the easy bit. Just marinating the fruit.’

  Darny took a sniff of the bottle she was applying liberally to the mix. ‘Phew. What’s that?’

  ‘It’s brandy.’

  ‘Can I—’

  ‘Nope,’ said Issy without hesitating.

  ‘Come on, just a taste. In France they let the kids drink wine with their meals.’

  ‘And they eat horses and have mistresses. When we decide to be French, Darny, I’ll be sure to let you know.’

  Darny scowled. ‘What is there to eat, then?’

  ‘Have a couple of bananas, and I made you some fruit toast,’ said Issy. ‘And there’s a lasagne in the oven.’

  ‘Fruit toast? I can’t believe you run a cake shop and all I get is fruit toast.’

  ‘Well, learn to bake your own cakes then.’

  ‘Yeah, not likely,’ said Darny. ‘That’s for girls.’

  ‘Scared?’ said Issy.

  ‘No!’

  ‘My grandfather baked hundreds of cream horns a day till he was seventy years old.’

  Darny snorted.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Cream horns. It’s rude.’

  Issy thought about it for a while. ‘It is a bit rude,’ she allowed eventually. ‘Men make wonderful bakers, though. Or they can do.’

  Darny had already scarfed the fruit toast and was peeling a banana. He glanced at the phone.

  ‘I’m expecting him,’ said Issy. ‘Any minute.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Darny instantly. ‘He’s probably in stupid meetings anyway.’

  He looked out of the back French windows that led on to the dark patio. He could see their reflections in the glass. The house looked cosy and warm. He wouldn’t admit it, but he did like having Issy there. It was nice. Not that she was … she wasn’t his mum or anything like that. That would totally NEVER happen. But compared with the drippy women Austin had brought home over the years, she was probably all right he supposed. And now she was here, well, it was almost like they had a nice house like his friends did, and everything was kind of all right when it really hadn’t been all right for a really long time. So why was his stupid brother in stupid America?

  ‘You know the schools in America, right?’ he asked, faux-casually, trying to steal some raisins from the mixing bowl. Issy smacked his hand lightly with the wooden spoon.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. Issy had, in fact, never been to America, which made it a bit difficult to calm Darny’s fears.

  ‘Do they have … do they have a LOT of guns at school and things?’ he asked, finally.

  ‘No,’ said Issy, wishing she could be more sure. ‘I’m sure they don’t. Absolutely not.’

  Darny’s mouth curled in contempt. ‘And do they sing all the time?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Issy. ‘I just don’t know.’

  The phone rang.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Austin. ‘The meeting ran on. They wanted me to meet a few more people and pop into their board meeting …’

  ‘Wow,’ said Issy. ‘They’re obviously impressed b
y you.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Austin. ‘I think they just like hearing me talk.’

  ‘Don’t be modest,’ said Issy, cheerful, but with a slight wobble in her voice. ‘Of course they love you. Why wouldn’t they love you? You’re amazing.’

  Austin heard the emotional tone in her voice and cursed internally. He hadn’t wanted to think, hadn’t wanted to even consider, what it meant if he was offered a job here – and it seemed to be shaping up to be more than that. Not just a job; a real career; an amazing opportunity. Given the state of banking at the moment, he was lucky to have a job at all, never mind a career that was going places. And the idea of making some real money for once, instead of just bobbing along … Issy had the café, of course, but it was hardly a big earner, and it would be nice for the two of them to do some lovely things … take a nice holiday … maybe even … well. He didn’t want to think about the next step. That was a bit too far in the future. But still. It would make sense, he told himself firmly. For whatever lay ahead. It would make sense to have a nest egg, to have a cushion beneath them. To be secure. Together.

  ‘Well, they have been very nice …’ he conceded. ‘How’s Darny doing at school?’

  Issy didn’t want to say that she’d seen him in the playground in the company of a teacher being marched quickly to the gate. She tried not to get too involved in the school, even though she worried about Darny, the smallest kid in the year, and the only one without even one parent, almost as much as Austin did.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Making Christmas cake. It smells amazing!’

  ‘It smells foul,’ said Darny down the speaker phone. ‘And she won’t let me taste it.’

  ‘Because you said it smells foul,’ said Issy, unarguably. ‘And it’s about twenty per cent proof, so you can’t have it anyway.’

  ‘Austin would let me have it.’

  ‘No I wouldn’t,’ came the voice down the phone.

  ‘When we have proportional representation,’ said Darny, ‘I’ll have more of a say around here.’

  ‘If you get on to teen voting rights, I’m hanging up,’ warned Austin.

  ‘No, don’t …’ said Issy.

  There was a silence as Darny gave the phone a rude gesture, then, muttering darkly about how things would change around here when teens got the vote, he grabbed a bunch of bananas and disappeared upstairs.

  ‘Has he gone?’ said Austin eventually.

  ‘Yup,’ said Issy. ‘He seems in a pretty good mood tonight, actually. Maybe school wasn’t as bad as all that.’

  ‘Oh good,’ said Austin. ‘Thanks, Issy. I didn’t really think puberty was going to kick in till a bit later.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not too bad yet,’ said Issy. ‘He’s still talking to us. I think that goes altogether soon. Although his trainers …’

  ‘I know,’ said Austin, wrinkling his nose. ‘I’d kind of stopped noticing the smell before you came along.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Issy. There was another pause. This wasn’t like them at all. Normally there was no end to the conversation. He would tell her what was up at the bank; she would mention funny clients or whatever it was Pearl and Caroline had had their latest fight about.

  But what she was doing was the same as always. For him, life seemed to be becoming very different.

  Issy racked her brains to try and think of something to talk to him about, but came up short – compared to New York, her day had been the usual: talking to sugar suppliers and trying to convince Pearl to let her hang some tinsel. And the rest of the time … well, she couldn’t say this, because it felt like it would be unfair on him, that she was blaming him for being away, or turning into one of those awful clingy women she didn’t want to be, always moaning at their other halves. So she couldn’t tell him that pretty much all she’d been thinking of, all that was filling her head, was how much she missed him and wanted him home and how much she was dreading him uprooting their lives just as, for the first time in years, she felt she was coming into safe harbour.

  So she didn’t say anything at all.

  ‘So what’s up?’ said Austin, confused. Getting Issy to talk was rarely a problem. Getting her to not talk when the cricket was on was usually far trickier.

  ‘Oh, nothing really. Same old.’

  Issy felt her face grow hot as the silence drew out between them. Austin, however, was waiting to cross a four-lane highway without being entirely sure of which way the traffic was coming, and was blind to minor emotional nuance. He thought she was cross with him for leaving Darny with her.

  ‘Look, Aunt Jessica said she’d be happy to take Darny …’

  ‘What?’ said Issy, exasperated. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me and Darny. He’s fine. Don’t worry about us.’

  ‘I’m not worried,’ said Austin, as a yellow taxi cab honked loudly at him for having the temerity to pause before crossing the road. ‘I was just saying. You know. It’s an option.’

  ‘I’m coming home every night after a full day’s work and managing to check his homework and make his supper. I think it’s fine. I don’t think I need options, do you?’

  ‘No, no, you’re doing brilliantly.’

  Austin wondered just when this conversation had started to drift out of his grasp so badly.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to …’

  His phone was beeping. Another call was coming in.

  ‘Listen, I have to go,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you later.’

  ‘I’ll be in bed,’ said Issy, sounding more huffy than she meant to. ‘We can speak tomorrow.’

  ‘OK … all right.’

  Issy felt alarmingly frustrated when she hung up the phone. They hadn’t managed to talk at all, not about anything proper, and she’d no idea what he was up to or how it was going, apart from the definite sense she’d got from talking to him that he was having a really good time.

  She told herself she was being stupid; this was a big fuss about nothing. She was getting all wound up for no reason. Her last boyfriend had been very emotionally distant, and had treated her like dirt, so she was finding her new relationship sometimes very difficult to manage. With Graeme, she couldn’t say anything at all or he would coldly close up; she knew Austin was very very different, but wasn’t sure exactly how far she could go. Men – no, not just men, everybody – shied away from neediness. She didn’t want to look needy. She wanted to be warm, casual, breezy, reminding him that they were building a loving home, not defensive and shrewlike.

  Issy sighed and looked back down at the fruit she was mixing.

  ‘No,’ she said, feeling a bit self-conscious and daft. ‘You can’t have negative thoughts when you’re making the Christmas cake. It’s unlucky. DARNY!’ she hollered up the stairs. ‘Do you want to come and drop twenty pees in the cake mix?’

  ‘Can it be two-pound coins?’

  ‘NO!’

  Austin sighed. He didn’t want to worry Issy, but sometimes it was easy to do. He’d been called in just before he left. Kirsty Dubose, the primary headmistress, had always been very soft on Darny in the past, knowing his background. Plus, unbeknown to Austin, she had had the most enormous crush on him. Mrs Baedeker, Darny’s new head at secondary, had absolutely no such qualms. And Darny’s behaviour really was appalling.

  ‘We’re looking at what you might call a last-chance situation,’ Mrs Baedeker had barked at Austin, who sometimes found it difficult in school situations to remember he was meant to be a grown-up.

  ‘For answering back?’ protested Austin.

  ‘For persistent class-disrupting insubordination,’ Mrs Baedeker said.

  Austin’s lips had twitched.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ she added. ‘It’s stopping others from learning. And let me tell you this. Darny Tyler might be clever and sharp and well-read and all the rest of it, and he may well turn out noisy and fine and all right.’ She hit the desk with her palm to make her point. ‘B
ut there are a lot of kids at this school who don’t have what Darny’s got, and do need good teaching and organised lessons and proper discipline, and he’s stopping that process from happening and it’s not right and not welcome in my school.’

  That had shut Austin up very quickly indeed. He’d put Mrs Baedeker’s argument forcibly to Darny that evening, and Darny had argued back, equally forcibly, that formal examinations were a total waste of everybody’s time so it hardly mattered either way, that those kids kept trying to set him on fire at playtime so it was righteous vengeance, and surely critical thinking was an important part of education. Issy had hidden in the kitchen and made a smoked haddock quiche. But Austin found it hard to worry about Issy and Darny at the same time, and his thoughts at that moment were with his brother, even as Issy was thinking endlessly of him.

  Chapter Four

  Perfect Christmas Cake

  I make no apologies for this, wrote Issy in her recipe book for the extra staff she liked to think she would employ one day. It was a tradition her grampa had started, and she was determined to continue with it; she had kept all his hand-written recipes and her friends had bound them for her into a book. She never, ever let herself think about perhaps one day having a daughter to pass it on to. That would never do. And anyway, she thought, if she did have a daughter, she’d probably be just like Marian and only eat mung beans and run off travelling and send mysterious postcards and interrupt crackly Skype conversations with long, involved stories about people Issy didn’t know. Regardless.

  Most recipes I tend to tweak and move around to suit what I like, in the hope that my customers will like them too. I’m not fond of anything too fiddly, or overly fancy, and if I’m looking at American recipes I know they’ll probably be too sweet for British people, while French recipes probably won’t be sweet enough. So all of that is fine, but this is different. This is one of those occasions where a recipe has been written that can’t be bettered. Some people may do fancy things with whole oranges or surprises or various bits of malarkey, but this, as it stands, is one of the best, most reliable recipes ever written. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never baked before in your life. You can make a wonderful, wonderful Christmas cake, and it’s by St Delia Smith.