He laughed again and leaned forwards across the table. I did the same.
‘Your mother loves Madonna and I am afraid, like Madonna, she can sometimes be a little bit… crazy.’
He twiddled his finger beside his ear. We grinned at each other.
‘Thank God,’ I laughed, ‘someone in this house has got his head screwed on.’
Julian touched both hands to his head.
‘It’s a figure of speech. It means you’re not crazy, even if they are.’
We clinked our cups of coffee together and drank contentedly. I waited before I asked my next question. I was embarrassed to ask it but I was determined to be businesslike in this situation. I owed it to my whacked out parents to at least try and protect their interests.
‘Can I ask you, Julian, do you pay rent here?’
Julian pressed his lips together and nodded furiously.
‘But of course. I always pay my way, Chloe. I make the food too.’
‘Which is a definite improvement on the way things used to be,’ I conceded.
‘I fix things and make things, I sell my work and also I am a model for the life drawing classes your parents give.’
‘I didn’t know they gave life drawing classes.’
‘Yes, it was my idea. They give them here and also in the village hall. Whenever I am the model, they are very popular.’
I glanced quickly at his twenty year-old, lithe body and felt myself flush.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said, instantly feeling like a cougar.
I cleared my throat and shoved the last piece of cake into my mouth.
‘Just think of me as a lodger, Chloe,’ Julian said while I chewed, ‘and also a friend.’
He outstretched his hand across the table. I accepted it and we shook.
‘They are right,’ he said, his eyes narrowing, ‘you are the impressive businesswoman.’
My hand froze in his.
‘Did they say that?’ I said quietly. ‘Did my parents call me an impressive businesswoman?’
‘Many times. They are very proud of you and your self-sufficient life you know, Chloe.’
I squeezed his hand and lowered my eyes.
‘No,’ I replied, ‘no I didn’t know that.’
‘Just because they did not judge you,’ said Julian wisely, ‘does not mean they did not care.’
We returned the remaining cake to the fridge before we polished off the lot and washed the cups while we talked about Julian’s work and my own plans for the future. I confided in him about my redundancy but made him swear not to tell my parents. I told him I did not want them to worry but in actual fact, I knew they wouldn’t worry about such a thing as not having a job. In truth, I didn’t want them to think I was a failure. I had and always would be a perfectionist, whether that mattered to Jango and Jemima or not.
‘I am sure whatever you choose to do next, you will make a good choice,’ my twenty year-old, wise friend told me. ‘If all else fails, I will buy you a one-way ticket to Sri Lanka and you can live my old life like a sort of exchange.’
‘Hmm, sun, sand and curry,’ I laughed, ‘now that doesn’t sound too bad a deal.’
Julian excused himself to meditate before his life drawing class. He did ask me if I wanted to participate, as an artist I might add, not as a model. Believe me, if I had to strip and pose in front of a group of strangers, I would have to do a serious amount of meditation beforehand too. I declined the offer. I couldn’t imagine staring at my new young step-brother/parents’ lodger/friend/confidante in the altogether and having to draw his private parts without feeling a bit seedy, even if it was in the name of art.
Before I went to find my parents, I took a moment to sit alone in the conservatory. The snow sat in drifts against the outside walls and an ever increasing wind rattled the single panes loose from the ancient putty that just about held them in the rotting wooden frames, yet despite the freezing conditions, I felt warm inside as I flicked through my recipe notebook. The pages had taken on the stiff, parchment feel of old paper that had been dusted with flour and icing sugar over time and bore the ring stains of teacups. Some of the pencil sketches had faded, others I had drawn in biro, coloured in with what appeared to be food colouring. This was my original book. My new sketches and recipe ideas were more refined and mature, better thought through and budgeted, but there was no substitute for the vivid imagination of a child that filled these old pages. Reading my recipe ideas for cakes from when I was young was like stepping inside the childlike imagination of Willy Wonka. There was magic on these pages and, perhaps inspired by the wacky, creative environment of my parents’ house, I was suddenly itching to put the spells to the test.
I closed my eyes and listened to the metallic song of the wind chimes. I wondered whether my book had really been mislaid when I left home or whether my mother had hidden it so that she could keep a testament to my creativity close by. I wouldn’t ask her, because I didn’t want her to deny it. The idea that she had been proud enough to hide my little book of dreams was something I wanted to treasure, even if it wasn’t true. I smiled to myself when I realised that where usually I felt angry and smothered when I came to see my parents, like that sullen teenager full of blame and judgement, this time I felt relaxed and happier, hopeful and positive.
Incredibly, I had learned more about my parents’ feelings for me in one hour from a complete stranger from Sri Lanka than I had in thirty-six years of butting heads with them. Which, I supposed, had been the problem.
Granted they were verging on insane but they were kind enough to share what little they had with Julian when his own flesh and blood had let him down. Throughout my life, I had considered them to be indifferent to my achievements but Julian had made me suspect otherwise. They had told him they were proud of me and, perhaps he was right, their indifference was actually them choosing not to judge. They had brought me up to deal with my life on my own as an independent woman. Was it that they didn’t want to be burdened with my woes or was the truth that they had simply wanted me to be able to stand on my own two feet, to be strong, to know my own mind and to have the individual strength to take life by the horns? Was it not true that without them and their unconventional upbringing, I would not have become the person I was today? I would not have pushed myself hard to succeed in order to find security. I would not have valued my friendships with Roxy and Heidi as if they were my family. I would not have relished the rules and discipline of my education or the day-to-day routine of going to the office that had become my safety net. I had not wanted to rebel because my parents were the rebels in our household and I had wanted to be anything but what they were. The consequence of that was I had worked hard, got good grades, found a fantastic job, strived to reach the top, moved out of home, bought my own place and made something of myself. So, I had been made redundant but that wasn’t their fault. That was the fault of the system they despised, and I admit they were right when they said society was somewhat fucked to say the least when it came to economics.
I had a strange feeling stirring in my gut that my upbringing, the childhood I had been blaming and regretting and hating had all been one enormous double bluff. If I hadn’t had crazy parents, I would probably have been someone completely different and I knew deep down, I didn’t want to be someone else. I was me and that was OK. And, as much as it surprised me to think it, they were them and that was OK too.
Jango and Jemima Baker had not been parents in the textbook sense of the word but who really got it one hundred percent right? I knew Roxy was terrified at the prospect of being responsible for another human being’s life and who was I to say I would do any better? My parents never had money but they had somehow managed to scrape by. They had made friends, given and taken, shared and experimented. They had been true to themselves and as a consequence they had smiles on their faces, they loved each other and they loved life. After all, why should I have expected two people to forfeit their own characters just to please another smalle
r person? They weren’t the sort of parents I would rush a man home to meet for fear he legged it the minute he saw the penis doorknocker, but then again I didn’t have a man. I hadn’t found love. I had found a man I would very much like to have sex with, but he didn’t seem interested in anything other than business. Hmm, he sounded suspiciously like the old me in my old life a month before.
Don’t let the important things in life pass you by, Clo’.
I dwelled on my mother’s words for a moment and I knew she was right. Granted, the things I considered important would differ from hers. Being able to wear a pink leotard and bend my legs around the back of my head at sixty-two and experimenting sexually were not high on my list of achievable dreams. I had to write my own list. In fact, hadn’t I already written one…?
I closed the notebook that was one of the few objects in the house not splattered with paint or customised, the spine creaking like an old door and slipped it into my bag. I pulled on my jacket, jammed my hat over my ears and jangled my keys.
Jesus, what had Julian put in that cake?
I glanced from one shoulder to the other to see if I could catch a glimpse of my aura. I couldn’t but then I had never really believed in all that hippie stuff.
‘And it was all yellow!’ I sang, quoting Coldplay as I stood and went in search of my parents.
I found them in the living room working opposite each other on canvasses balanced on precarious easels. My mother did me the honour of looking sheepish when I entered the room wearing my hat and jacket.
‘Oh, you’re leaving. Did you and Julian have a chinwag?’
I stepped close to her and put my arm around her shoulders.
‘I am, Jemima, and we did. He’s a lovely boy and he’s lucky to have found you both. I’ll come and visit again soon. Before Christmas.’
It was a relief to be nice to them and, to be honest, so much easier.
My mother grinned, her eyes creasing at the corners and as I took a moment to look into her face, I realised she had aged since I had last seen her. It wasn’t a startling observation. Weren’t we all aging after all? But when I stopped long enough to be close to Jemima and take in the thin, almost clingfilm-like texture to her skin, the deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth and the fragility of her bones that felt birdlike under my arm, I suddenly grew up. I was a strong, healthy adult who was loved, no matter how unconventionally and I owed it to these peculiar little hippies to love them back while they were still around for me to love. I squeezed my mother tight then moved to my father and pulled him into a hug. When I pulled back, he clasped my upper arms and looked at me. Rather he looked around me as if tracing my silhouette.
‘It’s definitely pale yellow,’ he said with a wink. ‘I predict there’s an exciting change up ahead, Clover.’
‘It’s Chloe,’ I said with a lopsided smile and left them to paint the naked woman from the corner shop who had professionally maintained her pose throughout our family moment.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Strawberry and vanilla frosting
‘Alreet pet, how were Bingo and Bango Baker?’
‘They were fine, good, same as always,’ I said with a smile.
‘Really? Why are you smiling then?’
Roxy did not notice the admiring eyes as she swanned into the Quayside bar and restaurant wearing a black and pink striped maxi dress, furry bolero and black suede clogs with six-inch wooden heels. She kissed me on the cheek and tossed her oversized Jimmy Choo Odette handbag in hot pink leopard print onto the sofa beside me.
‘Let’s just say it was a different sort of day at Chez Baker.’
‘Shay who?’
‘At my parents’ house.’ Nodding at the bag, I added – ‘Are you moving out?’
‘Essentials, Chloe man.’
I patted the leather harness strap on the expanse of bag between us that took up more room than Roxy’s backside did.
‘By essentials do you mean spare shoes, a small dog, a hairdresser and a taxi?’
Roxy flicked her long, shiny hair behind her shoulders.
‘Make-up, hair products and the like. Maybe if you brought a bigger bag out you wouldn’t look like you’d swum here down the friggin’ Tyne.’
I glanced into the double-storey window that offered a stunning view of the River Tyne by night, but a not so flattering reflection of myself. I had come straight from my parents’ house, still wearing minimal makeup and a woolly hat. I had taken the hat off but the limp, straw-like, unstyled mess that remained only required a pompom to look very much the same as the hat.
‘I didn’t have time,’ I shrugged, ruffling my fringe into life, ‘I was too excited to get here and talk to you and Heidi.’
Roxy tucked one leg up behind her on the sofa and pouted her highly glossed lips.
‘Aye well, I have a reputation in this city and you are doing it no favours. Now’ – she heaved her handbag into my lap and made a shooing movement with her hand – ‘I’ll get the drinks in. Get yourself off to the Ladies’ and do something with…’ – she paused – ‘just do something.’
I was only in the Ladies’ room about ten minutes. I would have been quicker with anyone else’s bag of ‘essentials’ but Roxy’s contained enough make-up to stock Fenwicks’ beauty department, as well as leave-in conditioner, hairspray, clip-in extensions, beaded hairbands, jewellery and perfume. I felt like a child playing with a Girl’s World. Having resisted the urge to attach a bum-tickling brunette ponytail to my blond bob, I sprayed perfume into the air, stepped through it and posed for the imaginary paparazzi, turning in my toes, angling my hip, placing my hand on it (in this fantasy, said hip jutted out like a bull bar) and smiling coyly through my spritzed hair.
‘I know it’s a miracle how I stay like this considering I am a connoisseur of cupcakes but I am blessed with good genes, Jonathan,’ I pouted to the hand dryer who had metamorphosed into Jonathan Ross, ‘you should see my parents, they’re like this.’
I stuck up my pinky finger and kept it rising to itch my nose as the door was flung open and two tipsy women tripped through it.
‘I’ve got a board meeting at eight thirty, Mel, you bastard,’ one sniggered, ‘I knew this was a bad idea.’
‘It’s Sunday night, Siobhan, what else were you gonna do, watch Antiques fucking Roadshow?’
Despite their obvious drunkenness and less than ladylike language, they both looked polished and wealthy. One wore a sharply tailored mini dress and the other a crisp shirt undone well below her cleavage and high-waisted trousers with a precision crease down the front. Both wore heels, flawless make-up and their hair scraped back into Flamenco dancer style ponytails. They giggled and hiccupped their way towards the cubicles, only noticing me at the last minute. They looked me up and down from my puffa jacket to my bootleg jeans, the hems of which hung damply around my Ugg boots. One of the women sniffed and having clearly decided I wasn’t worth saying hello to, they laughed uproariously and fell into the same cubicle. I had recognised them immediately as two recruitment managers I had come into contact with on at least a fortnightly basis over the past year. I sighed, feeling my old life slipping even further away. I was unrecognisable to them; out of sight, out of mind, out of their league. These girls worked hard and played harder. Mel, most of us had suspected, had slept her way to the top. Siobhan drove a sports car and rode sports stars in her spare time. They were both single and rich. I heard the unmistakeable sound of a handbag being unzipped and then the hushed giggling as a credit card tapped the toilet cistern before Mel and Siobhan began to snort what I imagined was cocaine.
I paused, then glanced at ‘Jonathan Ross’ before a smile spread across my face. Inhaling my sigh, I slung Roxy’s Jimmy Choo bag over my shoulder (almost dislocating it in the process), yanked the Ladies’ room door open and tramped confidently out to tell my friends about my new life plan.
Heidi was sitting beside Roxy on the sofa, which was surrounded by what could only be described as a herd of adoring
men. Some played the nonchalant card, while others strained to catch Roxy’s eye, a pheromone explosion occurring in the atmosphere around her. I wondered what colours my parents would see in the auras. I imagined most would be the colour of red silk and animal prints.
‘Chloe, Roxy tells me you had a good day at your parents’ house,’ said Heidi, leaping up to hug me when I approached.
The giant peacock feathers on her hair slides tickled my cheek. We huddled together, them on the sofa and me on a squashy leather armchair while I told them about the day. Roxy flicked her wrist towards the barman. It wasn’t sofa service, unless you were Roxy and going out with one of the city’s favourite footballers.
‘So they’re adopting a twenty year-old, sexy artist boy from Sri Lanka, they’ve started baking curry bread and they had a naked shop keeper in their front room,’ Roxy said at the end of my story.
I nodded while studying the drink menu.
‘Uh huh, that pretty much sums it up.’
‘Ah well,’ Roxy shrugged, ‘just an average day at the Bakers. If you’d have told me they were doing Sudoku and watching Eggheads then I’d be worried.’
We all laughed. The barman approached and asked for our drink order. His eyes gazed longingly at Roxy while she pressed one finger to her peachy lips and flitted her eyes up and down the list of drinks. If I had taken so long to decide, any barman would have buggered off to the next customer, but the young man with a boyish face and a Newcastle United football shield tattoo just visible on his left wrist, looked like he would stand there all night if Roxy took that long to decide what she wanted to drink.
‘We’ll have a pitcher of mojito,’ she said.
She closed the menu and held it out. The barman nodded.
‘Your boyfriend’s class,’ he said, which was not a phrase many women would hear from another man, I had to admit.
‘Thanks,’ she shrugged, ‘in that case we’ll have two pitchers of mojito, free.’
The barman nodded again and fanned himself with the menu.
‘No you will not, pet,’ Heidi tutted, taking the menu back. ‘You’ll have a mocktail and that is as crazy as you’ll be getting.’
Cupcake Couture Page 23
