The Cosy Little Cupcake Van: A deliciously feel-good romance

by Annette Hannah

  ‘So now we’ve got a chance to breathe what happened to your car?’ asked Lucy as she plonked the coffee cups down.

  ‘Well it’s embarrassing really but it’s been repossessed for non-payment. They had emailed me a few times, but I was kind of turning a blind eye to it.’

  ‘Oh, I wish you’d said. I could have helped you out.’

  ‘That’s really kind of you but it’s my problem and I need to deal with it. I’ve been fighting to get my mum’s house back but the legal fees are crippling, I had to use all my savings to pay them a lump sum up front after them saying I stood a good chance of winning. But after so many letters, various searches and a few meetings with them the money has dwindled away. It’s cost thousands and I’ve got nowhere. I really don’t know what to do.’ She swiped away an errant tear, determined not to shed any more than she had already. ‘The other thing is I’ve only got a couple of days left on the lease of the flat, as I thought I would have been moving back home to Mum’s by now.’

  ‘But how can her husband have the house when your mum left it all to you?’

  ‘Because he’s underhanded. He tricked me into thinking he was sorting everything out for me, but he actually destroyed my mum’s will and I’ve since found out he transferred the house into his own name. I wish she’d never met him.’ Camilla went quiet as she expertly wrapped the icing around the cake.

  ‘He sounds like a right scumbag,’ said Lucy, her face curled in disgust. ‘Excuse me, I won’t be a minute.’ She grabbed her bag and left the kitchen.

  Camilla hardly noticed she’d gone as she concentrated on placing the tiny pearls in the crosses of the quilted icing.

  ‘Right that’s sorted, then.’ Lucy burst back into the kitchen and tore a sheet of paper from her notebook. ‘Dom has made an appointment for you with a solicitor tomorrow.’

  Camilla went to object, but Lucy held her hand up.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s free of charge. He said to email any documentation you have to him and that this guy is the best in the business. I’m not going to lie; he doesn’t think there’s anything you can do without a will, but at least he will tell you the truth and you won’t get ripped off anymore.’

  Camilla managed a weak smile; maybe tomorrow would be a better day. Lucy joined her and they worked together on the cake.

  In less than an hour their creation stood resplendent on the cake stand surrounded by a colour burst of fresh flowers. Camilla’s heart had stopped pounding.

  ‘Oh, Lucy, dare I say that looks even better than before. Thank you so much for your help. I’ve never made a cake so quickly. My hands are still shaking. I’m finished though – I really can’t take the stress at the moment. I’m looking for a new job.’

  ‘I think it will be such a shame to lose you from our little wedding business family but ultimately you have to do what’s right for you, and we are always here waiting for you if you ever change your mind.’

  ‘That looks just like a photo from a wedding magazine,’ said one of the caterers as they walked past it.

  Camilla smiled as her eyes met Lucy’s. Her mind was made up though.

  Chapter 2

  Just when Camilla thought things couldn’t get any worse, fate threw another rotten egg into the mixing bowl of her life.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Lockley, I only wish we could give you better news. But without your mother’s will then I’m afraid legally the house belongs to her surviving husband – whilst morally wrong, from what you’ve told me. Without any proof that he destroyed the will, he’s well within his legal rights to have sold it.’

  She looked at the portly solicitor. Camilla’s mouth was moving but no words were coming out. She cleared her throat and slowly shook her head from side to side. His grey eyes alternated between peeking at her over the top of his round, wire-rimmed glasses and looking through the lenses to read the paper he held at arm’s length. He continued, ‘Mr Twuncatt has already arranged for the contents of your bedroom to be boxed up and delivered to your neighbour—’ he checked his notes again, chewing on his bristly grey moustache as he did so ‘—a Mrs Edith Kelly?’ He looked over his glasses at Camilla who gave a nod of confirmation.

  ‘Yes, Auntie Edie, she is…was my mum’s dearest friend.’ She bowed her head and looked down at the shreds of a tissue in her hands; she would never get used to talking about her mum in the past tense.

  With eyes full of sympathy, he continued in as gentle a tone as he could muster, ‘But as for other items in the house, he has claimed they belonged to his wife and therefore now belong to him.’ He shook his head and tutted as he uttered the final words: ‘Unless you can provide a receipt.’ He shuffled his papers together noisily and Camilla could sense the distaste he had for this unpleasant-sounding man.

  ‘But I don’t understand how this could have happened.’ Camilla’s brow furrowed. ‘Roger, I mean Mr Twuncatt, had promised me he was sorting everything out. He told me he had her will and he would arrange to find somewhere else to live as soon as possible so that I could move back in; his plan was to move back to Scotland. He knew my mum wanted me to have the house. She bought it, on her own as a single parent. He was just the lodger, until she married him that is.’ She reached into her bag for a folder. ‘What about the evidence I showed you, the deeds of the house in my mum’s name when she first bought it all those years ago. Surely that’s proof enough that it was never his?’ Her throat ached as angry tears threatened to spill from her eyes. She gratefully accepted the tissue he offered and dabbed underneath her eyelashes.

  ‘I’m afraid in that time he transferred the deeds of the house into his own name and without a physical will he can just say it’s your word against his. I take it you’ve tried all the local solicitors to check whether she stored her will anywhere.’ Camilla nodded. He spoke kindly: ‘To be honest even if you found your mum’s will now, it would cost you at least ten thousand pounds to even begin a court case at this stage. In the absence of a will your mum’s estate goes to probate and unfortunately because she married him, it’s legally his. Had the house been worth more you would have been entitled to half of anything over 270,000 pounds.’

  ‘Is there absolutely nothing else I can do to stop the sale?’ she pleaded.

  ‘I’m sorry but no. The house is sold and as there is no proof that there ever was a will there’s nothing we can do. This isn’t the worst case I’ve come across unfortunately. I’ve seen young children be made homeless in these circumstances. The law does not favour stepchildren at all.’

  The words of the solicitor were still ringing in her ears as she stepped out of the offices into the busy high street. She exhaled slowly as if by doing so she could release all the negativity she’d just heard. Her chest ached from holding her breath for most of the appointment. She breathed in deeply; the cool air filled her lungs. Her head felt woozy as though she were about to faint. She leant her forehead against the cold glass of the door until the burning subsided. Her phone buzzed with a text. She fished it out of her bag to see a message from Auntie Edie.,

  ‘Have you finished yet? I’ve got us a table in the Signal Box Café like you asked. It’s lovely in here isn’t it? Your friend Lucy is looking after me well. Come on, I’m dying to know what he said. What do you want to drink? When do you get to move back home?’

  ‘I’m on my way. Can I have a cappuccino please with loads of chocolate on the top – and when I say loads, I literally mean whole bars of chocolate on the top.’

  ‘Roger that,’ replied Edie, who still treated phones like walkie-talkies.

  ‘That word is banned from our vocabulary forever now,’ Camilla responded as she made her way to the other end of the high street.

  ‘Rog— oops, I mean okay see you soon.’

  Camilla signed off with a kiss and was about to put the phone in her bag when it bleeped again.

  ‘ffffnnnnnzzznzn,’ replied Edie as she so often did without realising, usually when shoving her phone back in her bag. Camilla smiled
at the familiarity of the regular occurrence. She braced herself to let her friend know that as of tomorrow not only was she motherless and carless, but she would also be homeless. Her mum always did say that things came in threes.

  Grey clouds accompanied her to the Signal Box Café. Even the river looked dreary as she walked across the bridge. Canada geese honked and chased ducks away from the scraps of bread thrown by parents and children.

  ‘Typical,’ she muttered, as she approached the railway station just as the barriers were coming down, blocking her way with a fanfare of red flashing lights and a noisy siren. The café was just across the track and looked as pretty as ever with colourful flowers in the window boxes. Her friend Lucy had converted it from a dilapidated old signal box to the most unique little café and private wedding venue around. Auntie Edie was sitting at one of the window tables and waved at her. Camilla could practically hear the jingle of the solid silver charm bracelet that she always wore at her wrist. She waved back; the corners of her mouth lifted slightly trying to return the smile.

  She looked at the staircase up to the bridge, which traversed the track, and contemplated whether to be lazy and stand and wait for the train to pass so she could walk across, or shake herself up by trying to shift some of the excess pounds she’d put on in the last few months. She couldn’t help it; food was her thing. If she was happy, she ate; sad, she ate; every emotion under the sun she could find a reason to eat. But right now, she was eating for pure comfort and she excused herself for it. Her guilty conscience got the better of her and she climbed the steps. She felt a little queasy when walking across the bridge as she could feel the vibrations of the train rumbling through below.

  She walked down the staircase, round the side to the entrance of the café and pressed the button for the door.

  The whooshing noise sounded just like a real train door as it slid open automatically, which was no surprise, considering it was a real train door that Lucy’s grandad had reclaimed.

  Once inside, the warm air, ambient chatter and delicious cooking smells swirled round her like a cosy hug and pulled her inside. Auntie Edie waved again from her window seat; steam spiralled from the spout of the teapot on the table in front of her. The kitchen door burst open and her friend Lucy glided through balancing a tray with plates of food on it. She weaved her way to the other end of the café, whispered, ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ and blew a kiss to Camilla as she passed.

  Camilla kissed Auntie Edie on her soft, crinkled cheek and slid into the seat across the table from her, where a huge bowl of cappuccino was waiting.

  ‘Do you want the bad news or the worse news?’ she asked Edie as she slipped her arms out of her jacket and placed her hands around the mug. ‘Ouch,’ she uttered, before quickly pulling them away again and blowing on the drink, shifting the frothy topping and distorting the cocoa powder love heart on the top.

  ‘There’s no such thing as bad news, apart from when someone dies of course, but as you know there’s absolutely, nothing we can do about that as it will come to us all one day.’ Edie topped up the tea in her cup as she continued, ‘There’s just news that we maybe need to adjust our expectations for. But there’s nothing given to us in this world that we can’t handle. That’s what I’ve always told your mum and that’s what I’m telling you now.’ She added two heaped teaspoons of sugar to her cup and stirred it loudly. ‘So come on, what’s happened?’

  Camilla opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by Lucy who placed a toasted teacake in front of each of them. Tantalising swirls of butter drifted across the top before melting deliciously into the fruity bread. She added another bowl of cappuccino to the table for herself and a pot of hot water for Edie. She hugged and kissed her friend and scooted into the seat next to her. Camilla could see the hope of a positive outcome in Lucy’s eyes and as both women looked at her, rooting for her as they always had done. She almost didn’t want to burden them with her troubles. However, she knew she would have to get it over with at some point, so she blurted it out.

  ‘Basically, the sneaky – forgive my French – bastard has definitely sold the house. He requested no estate agent’s boards or anything and he’d already transferred the house into his name. It’s all done and there’s nothing I can do about it and even if I could it wouldn’t matter as although he told me he was going on holiday he’s obviously done a moonlight flit.’

  ‘What an absolute fucker. I never did like that idiot,’ replied Edie.

  Lucy spluttered on her coffee and had to grab a napkin to mop the spray up from the table. Camilla choked on the piece of teacake she’d just popped in her mouth; she took a sip of coffee to wash it down. ‘Auntie Edie!’ she shrieked. ‘I’ve never heard you use the F word.’

  ‘I’ve never had cause to until that absolute F word stole your mum’s house.’

  ‘There must be something you can do.’ Lucy put her arm round her and gave her a reassuring squeeze. ‘What about a different lawyer? I’m sure Dom could recommend another one. I can call him now if you like?’

  ‘No, thank you, it’s fine. Dom has helped so much already by introducing me to this one. He told me the other ones I was dealing with were a bunch of ambulance chasers. I’ve already lost my car thanks to them raising my hopes into thinking I could win this. I had to pay up front and the money quickly ran out after a couple of meetings with them and a few letters they sent. I mean each letter cost three hundred pounds. I should have gone to this solicitor in the beginning. His office wasn’t as high tech as the others, and he doesn’t come across as dynamic, but he was real old-school and really knows his stuff. My other problem is that I have to be out of the flat tomorrow and now I’ve got nowhere to live.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that, my dear; my couch is always there for you if you need it.’ The old lady pinched Camilla’s cheek gently as she had done ever since she had known her.

  Camilla didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but she had a vague recollection of sleeping on Edie’s tiny two-seater many years before when she had locked herself out of the house and it wasn’t something she wanted to repeat. She could almost hear her bones creaking in protest at the thought of it.

  ‘Oh, Auntie Edie, thank you. That’s so kind of you but you’re already doing me a huge favour by storing my bits and pieces from Mum’s house in your garage, and I’ll have a few more things from the flat to add to that if that’s okay?’

  ‘Of course, it is, chick – anything you want.’ She took a slurp of her tea.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Camilla. You’re absolutely welcome to stay at mine too. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. This is all so grossly unfair.’

  Touched at seeing her friend’s brow furrowed with concern, Camilla squeezed her hand.

  ‘I’ll be fine, don’t worry. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have kicked Freddy out of the flat before the lease was up as I could have done with his half of the rent for these last few months, but what’s done is done I suppose.’ She shrugged.

  Lucy replied, ‘You did the right thing, Camilla. I guess you’ve had to rethink a lot of things in your life since losing your mum and life’s far too short to spend it with the wrong person.’

  ‘That’s very true.’ Camilla looked thoughtfully into her empty cup as she swirled the remnants of the chocolatey froth around. ‘My mum liked him, but I just knew he wasn’t the one. I felt terrible because he thought he’d done something wrong. I just need time to be on my own and work out what my next step is.’ She lifted her eyes to look out the window. ‘Anyway it’s all going to be fine from now on. It’s a chance for a new start and I’ve seen a job I’m going to apply for: a live-in housekeeping job in a hotel in Wales, so I’ll possibly be moving away.’ She saw Lucy and Auntie Edie exchange glances.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, you two. I’ll be fine. I won’t have to worry about bills or anything. It will be good for me to get away.’

  Lucy jumped up. ‘Well you’re not moving anywhere unti
l we’ve had more drinks.’ She cleared away the cups and saucers and made her way to the kitchen. ‘I’ll be right back,’ she called over her shoulder.

  ‘Housekeeping? But what about your cake business,’ asked a squinting Edie who had taken off her glasses and was rummaging in her bag for her lens cleaning cloth. She located it quickly, breathed on the lenses and rubbed them vigorously.

  ‘I haven’t been able to face cake making since I lost my mum,’ Camilla admitted. ‘You know I told you that Lucy’s a wedding planner as well as owning this place?’

  Edie nodded and replaced her clean glasses firmly on her nose, checking that she was satisfied with the job she had done by closing one eye at a time so she could inspect each lens. Camilla smiled. She loved Edie’s eccentric ways. She continued, ‘Well I felt terrible because I’d had to let Lucy down on a couple of wedding cakes at the last minute. I mean she managed to find someone else to do them, luckily. But then yesterday after breaking through my anxiety and baking a cake I had a complete disaster. The bride was okay, but her mum rounded up some people to leave complaints on my Facebook page. The cake wasn’t quite how she’d visualised it because the original one met with a disaster,’

  ‘What sort of disaster?’ asked Edie before slurping her tea loudly.

  ‘I accidentally left it on the bus and I was so close to getting it back in one piece when the lady on the bus tripped and it literally went flying through the air in slow motion and landed with a splat on the bus stop seat.’

  ‘Oh bloody hell.’

  ‘We did our best to salvage a new one, which was perfectly acceptable and we didn’t even charge her in the end but there’s just no pleasing some people.’

  ‘But the people who know you wouldn’t take any notice of that would they?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe not, but my anxiety has been going through the roof over even the smallest of things – something like choosing whether I want coffee or tea can set me off with palpitations. I’ve lost my confidence and I’m now in, as you would say, “a bit of a pickle” and I really don’t think I can bake myself out of it.’