There's More to Life Than Cupcakes

by Poppy Dolan

  ‘So.’ Martin clears his throat as the beautifully clear champagne is poured by the waiter, half over his shoulder.

  I am still mentally checking myself in for my BA flight to JFK. Could I convince Pete to dip into the savings and come with me?

  ‘We’re getting you that intern.’

  Ah. Not exactly what I’d call cause for celebration, but it’s something. I could do with the help.

  He coughs lightly again. ‘Because we need our ad revenue to increase.’

  Martin is now studiously avoiding my eye.

  He finishes in a rough voice. ‘Or else.’

  Wow. I really am going to need that help. It turns out Martin’s extra bullish calls for better features in our meeting today were because his investors are getting itchy and want to sell the magazine. Unless we can show that we can be crazily profitable over the next months, the money men might pull out, or flog us dead cheap to someone else. And what’s the fastest source of cash at our disposable? The ad sales department. Otherwise known as: me. Shortly to be known as: me and an intern.

  ‘I’ll let you do the hiring.’ Martin’s hands flap around his face as if this whole situation is a wasp that won’t leave his doughnut alone. ‘Well, not so much hiring as looking though the letters we get sent asking for work experience and fishing someone decent out. Some clever chap.’

  I’m just going to let that slide, in the circumstances. Circumstances being that I want to stick a straw in that bottle of Krug and down it.

  ‘Hang on, Martin. Why don’t we get another ad sales exec in? I’m sure we could find someone on a temporary contract, like … a sort of maternity cover.’

  He bristles and I know this was the wrong way to phrase it. ‘Why?’ he asks sharply.

  ‘Ha ha!’ I shoot him double finger pistols in a desperate act to look jolly. ‘No, not like that, not for me. But wouldn’t someone working alongside me be more effective? I’ll have to train an intern.’ I secretly fancy myself as a kind, cool mentor type, but not when I’ve suddenly had my targets doubled before the guilt alcohol has even had time to soften the blow.

  ‘Another you would bugger the profits, ‘scuse my French. An intern would be … how can I say it?’

  ‘Keen to learn?’

  ‘Free. And it’s all about the profits, Ellie. We need our circulation and web hits up pronto, so I’m going to be on Features like truffle oil on chips.’

  Martin has his own brand of sayings that my Reading upbringing can’t quite compute.

  ‘It’s up to you to get bigger ads, bigger clients. I don’t want to think about …’ He breaks off, frowning and pressing his lips together. His eyes stare blankly at the bar but I hope his look of sadness is for the Crumbs’ staff and their futures, rather than his ability to come here and put charcuterie boards on expenses.

  Jee-sus. This is pretty serious. I’m going to have to pull my socks up. And find an intern with similar sock-pulling skills. We need revenue or Crumbs isn’t going to be such a fun magazine title any more, and way too apt.

  Chapter Eleven

  I actually come back to my desk after that doom-laden champers with Martin. I want to get started: brainstorming fresh ideas, requesting CVs from our HR lady, Googling ‘What happens when magazines get sold?’ – I close that depressing screen pretty quickly.

  I’d almost forgotten it was baking class tonight when ‘Bread!’ flashes up in my calendar, so I dash to the Tube and twenty minutes later am almost at the college. I have my sleeves ready rolled, like an absolute nerd. If there is anything that can take some vicarious pummelling in the wake of work stress, it’s bread dough. In fact, the bread will be all the softer for my work angst. Also, I am secretly relishing the chance to tone my upper arms; since hitting thirty, bingo wings aren’t so much a joke as a Christmas Carol-style foreboding of the future. Just a light jiggle here, the echo of ripple there. Maybe a crusty loaf a week will be my saviour. I can have Madonna’s scary muscular arms but Delia’s cheery round arse.

  As I uncross my eyes after that thought has left my mind, I pick up a voicemail on my iPhone. Lyds’s tinkly voice starts to play in my ear. Even in the darkening, windy October night, stood outside the college doors, her voice makes me think of warm, funny, friendly things.

  ‘Lady! Is tonight the class? I need more info, maybe a mobile pic, yeah? Thing is, I kind of have something bubbling under with the guy who does the jacket potatoes at the market, so taking stock right now. Someone said he’s been married, like, three times but that might be his dad who does the hog roast. Anyway, whatever you make, come round soon and I’ll eat it. Love you! Byeeee!’

  And as soon as Lydia’s tinkly voice snaps off, there’s a trill to tell me that a new text has popped up too.

  From: Hannah

  Ellie, can’t make tonight, sorry. Just got back from a field trip and have two different vomits on me. No time to go home and change and I’m sure you don’t want a whiff of upchuck in your granary bap. Take notes for me. See you next week x

  The warm, friendly buzz dampens a bit as I contemplate getting floury elbows on my lonesome. But a true baker must knead on regardless.

  Just as I turn to push through the double doors, I get a faceful of soft denim.

  ‘Whoah, Nellie!’ Joe takes a deep step back and laughs.

  I quickly rub my fringe out of my eyes and try to generally reassemble myself. ‘Ooof, sorry.’ My cheeks burn. ‘How are you, Joe?’ I decide to just style it out.

  ‘Better now I’ve had your face buried in my clothes.’ The friendly lilt of his voice somehow means this didn’t sound as creepy as it should do on paper. ‘But looking forward to some good, old-fashioned manly bread tonight. Got to balance things up after the girlier side of baking, you know?’

  ‘Mmm, yep. Right, mustn’t be late, off we go then.’ I don’t care that I sound like my aunt Helen, I just want to sweep the fact I smooched Joe’s shirt buttons under the carpet. I’d been in so deep for that split second that I still have the cinammony smell of his aftershave right up my left nostril.

  ‘No Hannah tonight?’ Joe asks as he ties his apron behind his back then rolls up the sleeves of his brushed light denim shirt. Lyds was going to die for those forearms.

  ‘No, she got vommed on.’ I pull the matching face.

  Joe mirrors it. ‘God, she should get danger money for that job. Oh, here comes Mr Berry. No soggy bottoms, Ellie.’ He eyes me with mock-seriousness and I smile. As we strolled out of last week’s lesson, Hannah, Joe and I had discussed where our lecturer got his baking know-how from. We decided – in what Hannah gleefully decried as reverse sexism, ‘For once!’ – that he must be married to an excellent baking woman who’s taught him all she knows. Like Mary Berry. Or Mary, Queen of Scones, as I call her. And so now, our poor, earnest, humourless teacher will forever be Mr Berry.

  ‘Baps!’ he calls from the front of the room and I have to snigger into my clean tea towel.

  Kneading is such a wonderful thing. Meditative, soothing, stimulating. Your hand is like a knuckly sea captain navigating the doughy ocean tides; rolling this way, flopping that, the gluten stretch of the waves snapping back in place and only ever going the way it wants to. This dough is a cruel mistress, I think to myself in a Cornish accent, and press down with my palms into the smooth wholemeal blob.

  ‘You look like you’re in another world,’ says Joe, almost in a whisper. His small but even bread rolls are having their second prove under a damp tea towel and he’s leaning back against the counter, his arms folded. There is flour in the hair at his temples. I’m tempted to tell him that I know a few kitchen appliance companies that could give him lucrative work making Agas look sexual, but I have only met him three times. ‘Who are you thinking about?’

  It’s not the right time to tell him about the knuckly captain either, so I say, ‘Oh, ha ha, no one. You all done?’

  ‘Yup, plumping up nicely before the oven. Mr Berry wants us to put them in at the same time so we get synchronised
bakes.’

  He subtly nods his head back and to his left., where I see the row of people behind me trying not to look as bored and pissed off with me as they must so agonisingly be. I have been playing bread pirates while they’ve been ready to go, no doubt with real journeys home to tackle, not imaginary ones where the mode of transport is a giant hand in a flour-and-water ocean.

  I bite my bottom lip. ‘Okay-dokey. All done.’ I tear the dough into wildly random-sized bits and bang them on a tray. In any other situation I would fiddle about until they looked really equal, but this is no time to be a square. Or perfectly round, even. ‘I’ll be ready in ten,’ I mouth to Mr Berry, another of my huffy watchers. So nothing left to do but try and pull off nonchalance and copy Joe’s pose. My rolls puff up with all the confidence I seem to be leaking like a string bag full of custard. I start racking my brains for a topic to fill the silence that the kitchen timer is doing little to soften.

  ‘So, Joe, baked anything good for your sisters yet?’ In our first lesson Joe had quickly explained that his place on the course was a gift from his sisters – they were eight and nine years older than his twenty-six years and desperate to see him smarten up, get serious about things and make himself some proper food. He’d already done French Bistro Cooking and Introduction to Fish but, admitted sheepishly, he was still a friend to The Colonel at least one a week. But the courses were a good way to get his sisters off his back at least – not easy to do when he lived in the converted loft of one of their homes, in Balham.

  ‘They really liked the red velvet cupcakes I took home last week, so I did another batch of those. And Grace went nuts for them – that’s my niece, Grace. She’s five. I know I shouldn’t give her the sugary stuff, but I’m a sucker for a gappy smile.’ He wipes his hands on his apron and fishes a phone out of his back pocket, sliding his finger across the iPhone screen until he finds a beautiful sunny face with curly hair and a gap between her milk teeth so wide she could probably fit a Starburst into it.

  ‘She’s a cutie.’

  ‘Ah, see; I like you even more now. You have brilliant taste. Do you want kids one day?’

  Oh, that lovely chestnut. Just what I need, today of all days. Martin’s gauntlet at my feet was making a nice pile of worries, alongside Mum’s Conversations and Pete’s thoughtful gift reminding me how behind I am in my life goals. Can’t there be one space in my life that doesn’t have baby footprints tracked through it? Maybe just this square of lino in this slightly shabby classroom? That would do.

  It’s as if my hand decides to take the stress of this question all on its own and it sort of jerks out in a dismissive ‘How can I answer that?’ gesture and catches the metal bowl from the top of the weighing scales, which then takes a small bottle of milk down for good measure. As the milk sprints over the stone countertop like a dairy Jessica Ennis, I’m mopping up one end and Joe takes the other. Everyone else does a bad job of not staring.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks seriously, his thick black eyebrows scrunching in the middle.

  ‘Fine, fine, super fine,’ I squeak back, milk up my forearms and panic in my throat. I can’t even really begin to cover why I’ve turned into Mr Bloody Blobby right now. And besides, this class is my safe space: where jobs and husbands and families all come second to the right balance of raising agents and salt. When I can’t stand the heat of the real world, I come to this kitchen.

  Sam looks politely away as Mr Berry clears his throat and announces, ‘Time to open those nice warm ovens, people. In the buns go.’

  Speak for yourself.

  Chapter Twelve

  None in the Oven

  Egg racing.

  Dear three followers,

  Firstly, I count you even if you are a spammer, so there. I take those generic compliments about my blog very much to heart but sadly don’t need to earn extra money from home. Unless you can get paid by the hour to shout criticisms at Downton Abbey.

  This week I came across my first egg race. Well, not on purpose, but I was caught in the crossfire of an accidental egg race (long story involving lovely husband’s family, who are a mixed bag of nuts to say the least. I could FILL UP the Internet by describing them). It didn’t bother me so much that someone had beaten us to the finish line, with their lovely squidgy eggs on the spoon and fertilised by a wriggly sperm. And other medical definitions. But it really miffed my husband, for some reason. Like, shoulders tensed, picking at food, grumbling at radio ads on the way home kind of irked. I had to make him a cup of tea when we got home, just so he’d uncross his arms to hold it.

  The gist is: his brother is going to have a baby and he’s a bit, well, jealous. But I’m not entirely sure that’s not just because he didn’t get there first. When you are one of four brothers, it leaves you about as competitive as a stage mother/poker player/Olympiad cyclist. Imagine Victoria Coren with a dancing baby and a bike.

  What’s niggling me is that perhaps the urge to get up the duffers is contagious. There are pregnant women everywhere – in my office, in Boots, walking along my road, on the telly. When I have a tingle in my heart that tells me I want a soft little ball of cute baby, is it me talking or … mass hysteria? Please note: I could be talking in extremes following the in-law comedown …

  Sprogless x

  Comment

  I didn’t feel a crazy maternal draw but lots of friends were having babies and I wanted our kids to be friends and play together. Sounds stupid but I’m so glad I did it – I had my best mates there to share stuff with. No sleep, no sex, no fun. Sorry, Sprogless. But that’s the truth!

  Comment

  All the ads I’d ever seen made pregnant women look all glowing and serene. Errr, hello! I had swollen ankles, stretch marks, days I couldn’t stop crying and no one gave me a bloody seat on the bus. Glowing, my arse! Listen to what your heart tells you, love. You’re going to be the one with the saggy boobs at the end of the day, not the woman on the Mothercare advert.

  I’m huddled over my laptop in the spare room, furtively blogging on the single bed like a teenager who is yet to discover how to waste time properly with their private parts. So far, I’ve always blogged when Pete is out, doing rugby training or tracking down some weird beer to share with mates, in a funny little offie in town. Dead Bear’s Feet or Old Plumber’s Regret, something like that. But today I just had to get it out of my head and on to the screen: the Saturday visit to Pete’s parents’ was flipping crazy. I mean, they have their level of crazy, but this just went beyond. Beyond beyond.

  To start with, I can’t call Pete’s family ‘The Caldicotts’, because they’re not. I mean, Pete is a Caldicott but his mum prefers to go by her first name alone and his dad only begrudgingly answers to the surname because his sons insist on using it. Those squares. Though it at least meant there was no grumpy in-law behaviour when I didn’t change my name when we got married. To call Pete’s parents hippies is like calling Nigel Farage a tiny bit xenophobic now and then. I can’t really paint the full picture of their tumbledown country house because thinking about it too much makes me itch for an Ikea catalogue. I’ll just give a flavour by saying: wind chimes, doorless bathrooms and vegetable tagines. And somehow out of this sprawl of gypsy skirts and patchwork flat caps, Marie and Bee (real name Albert. Hmmm) have produced four big, strapping and straight-laced sons. If they weren’t so Zen, they’d be livid. Despite schools so left-wing that the pupils could skip a term as long as they painted a picture to express why they felt the need to be distant, Pete and his brothers all found their way to universities and ‘establishment’ careers. Or maybe ‘because of’ – the poor gits just fancied a bit of stability after all that nettle soup and family meditation.

  Eldest Pete is of course the numbers man. I think this comes from a childhood where red-stamped bills provided extra cavity insulation. He’s been keeping an eye on budgets ever since. His twin brothers Adrian and Adam are architect and electrical engineer respectively (I think, but they are pretty identical and have a very simil
ar taste in jumpers too, so I am prone to getting confused). Youngest Rich is a biologist. Not a chakra healer among them, and Marie will shake her head when she sees them drive up in their reliable cars, when they mention their regular foreign holidays and only give to two charities a month. I think she’s still holding out that enough joss sticks burning in the house might turn at least one of them. She was very excited when she heard Rich’s new girlfriend was called Skye, but it turned out she had a Scottish mum and was an assistant account manager. You can’t win them all. The boys’ names, I should say, are only as sane as they are because his mum and dad accepted the offer of some new apple trees in return for Pete’s paternal grandparents picking them. Marie and Bee thought the boys would want to choose their own names eventually and have a nice naked naming ceremony but that never happened, come to think of it …

  Pete’s brothers all get on well, with that bond of people who’ve survived the elements, and they love their barmy parents. Pete does worry about them making enough electricity from their solar panels to keep warm (they won’t trim back the hedge that blocks the sunlight, as it would be denying the hedge its place in the natural order), but otherwise I think he just learnt to take deep breaths and be self-sufficient by about the age of seven. Perhaps this is why I find it so hard to actually draw him into a proper argument: he’s just too calm for his own good. The rage just bounces off him like rain on a parka.