by Beth Morrey
‘Don’t worry,’ I gasped, groping for a nearby railing to hold on to. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute.’
I heaved a few more times, then, checking that no one had seen my indignity, used a few leaves to cover the offending cake-mix. Seeing her favourite urinating patch, Bobby promptly crouched and did her business, causing me to retch again. I could feel the sweat beading on my brow, legs still trembling from the purge. As I began to totter towards home, my mobile rang.
‘Listen, I feel bad about your job and the after-school thing,’ Angela said as soon as I answered. ‘I wasn’t going to ask you coz kids’ birthdays are so fecking hideous, but do you want to come to Otis’s party on Sunday? You don’t have to do anything, just hang around drinking Prosecco and listening to balloons popping, but you might like to see him get his cake.’
I thought of Sylvie’s cake, gleaming on the peninsula, and then oozing on the pavement like a gross yellow toad.
‘I’d love to,’ I said, my voice croaky. ‘Thank you for asking me.’
‘No problem. Though you won’t be thanking me on Sunday when you’re dodging those little bastards. I’ll text you the details.’ She hung up, and I put my phone back in my bag, trying to focus on this one thing I could look forward to – to banish the ghost Sylvie had just raised. If I could do that, perhaps the feeling of doom I’d had of late would dissipate eventually. I was sure Sylvie wouldn’t mention Leo again, and we could just forget it ever happened. Sometimes it was better not to think about things – bills, phone calls, arguments – because that way you could hold them at arm’s length, maybe indefinitely. If I could just hang on a little while, things would get better again; I could forget again. Just for a little while.
Chapter 42
Sunday dawned bright and clear, one of those beautiful days when you could feel the world opening up again after the bolted door of winter, tender shoots curling out of the damp ground, the earth unfurling beneath us as the tide surged back in. When I walked Bobby that morning, greeting my fellow dog walkers and sucking up the fresh air like a tonic, the spring was back in my step. After the unsettling episodes of the last few days, I was glad to be going to Otis’s party, to clap as he blew out his candles, to give him the present I’d spent so long pondering, see him with his friends. I would absorb their youth and energy and let it recharge me. What did the job, the bills, the phone calls, the creaking bones matter? The day was young, the sun was warm, and with Bobby by my side I was raring to go.
Six hours later, I was raring to leave. I had no idea children’s parties were so ghastly. In my day they were much tamer affairs – a few friends, sausages and pineapples on sticks and a Victoria sponge with the age dotted out in Smarties. I remembered one of Mel’s parties, the dim light and breathless anticipation when I carried out the cake, her little face screwed up in concentration as she waited. She was always worried about blowing out the candles. ‘What if I don’t blow them all out at once? Will my wish still come true?’ She would fret about it for days beforehand.
For Otis’s party, Angela appeared to have invited thirty chemically-fuelled gremlins and their Prosecco-powered, utterly disinterested zookeepers. The little fiends raged around the cramped church hall while their parents necked fizz and prattled about house prices, ignoring their appalling offspring entirely. Poor Angela was scurrying round filling up people’s glasses, offering olives and removing sharp kitchen implements from tiny hands.
I stood in a corner, thinking that in many ways it reminded me of the St Botolph’s party where I met Leo. Too hot, and loud, and things being thrown around while people talked nonsense to each other. Still, at least I wasn’t going to get overlooked in favour of another woman this time. I snatched a glass from Angela and took a sip, ducking as a carrot stick whizzed past my ear. One of the beasts reared up in front of me, roaring, his face covered in hummus like a kind of war paint. Holding my glass above my head, I roared back at him, earning myself a few disapproving looks from the zookeepers. Briefly chastened, he soon recovered and continued his rampage, kicking over a chair and felling a younger child with a well-timed punch. ‘Horatio!’ rebuked one of the women vaguely, before spearing an olive and resuming her conversation about council planning laws.
Feeling the urge to escape, I made my way to the back of the hall in search of the kitchen, and found Angela seated at a small table with her head in her hands. She looked up as I entered.
‘Oh, it’s you. Aren’t you glad you came?’ She sank back down again and pressed her fingers to her temples. ‘I told you it would be horrendous.’
I fetched her a glass and poured her the dregs of a Prosecco bottle.
‘I can’t drink, I’ve got to clear up after and pay for it all. I should have booked an entertainer but I can’t afford it. Most of them get in these guys called Jackanapes, they turn up and do everything, flap a big rainbow sheet about and keep them occupied, but they cost, like, hundreds and I thought “I’ve got this covered, I’ll do a Pass the Parcel and we can make our own entertainment.” What a fucking joke.’ She took a slug of the Prosecco. ‘I’ve got five kids whose parents didn’t RSVP so I wasn’t expecting them and now I haven’t got enough party bags, I’ll have to hand them fucking fivers on the way out. Jesus Christ.’ She took another gulp. ‘And none of the mums like me because I’m a single mother and they think I’m going to steal their husbands. As if. They’re all wanker bankers who stay late at work to avoid bedtime and train for marathons at the weekend so they don’t have to help with childcare.’ She drained the glass. ‘Why did I do this again?’
‘Mummeeeeee.’ We both turned to see Otis at the door. He looked slightly woebegone and my heart jumped in my chest at the sight of him in his new robot costume. ‘Can we do Pass the Parcel?’
‘Yes, love, is it that time already?’ Angela got to her feet, smoothing down her tousled hair. Otis wandered around the kitchen, idly exploring.
‘Where’s the cake?’ he asked, poking his head in the fridge.
‘Over there by the sink,’ returned Angela, putting empty bottles in a bin bag.
‘No, it isn’t.’
Angela turned and looked at the counter. Next to the sink was a foil-covered cakeboard, entirely devoid of cake.
‘Where’s the fecking cake?’
She started to stalk around the room, pushing paper plates and napkins to one side, opening the fridge, peering inside the bin bag in increasing desperation. Having searched through all the cupboards, she returned to the table and gripped one edge with both hands, staring at me with wild eyes.
‘Where’s the cake?’ she breathed.
Otis’s lip started to tremble. ‘Where’s my cake? Did you forget it?’
She turned to him immediately. ‘No, sweetie, of course I didn’t. Mummy will find it. Why don’t you go and play out there and we’ll start Pass the Parcel in a minute?’ She bundled him out, ignoring his protests, and turned back to me, panting.
‘So the cake’s fucked off. We need another one.’
‘Where did it go?’
‘One of those little bastards will have nicked it. Slimy little feckers, I hope they choke on it. Listen, we’ve got half an hour, maybe forty minutes. If I give you some money, can you get in a cab and go and buy me another?’
‘Of course.’ I felt daunted, but also delighted to have a genuine reason to escape this hellhole. Angela delved in her purse and pulled out a wad of notes.
‘Right, here you go, that should be enough. You need to be back by five, otherwise the sugar withdrawal will kick in and they’ll run amok.’
Feeling slightly hysterical, I giggled as I took the money and put it in my bag.
‘Oh, and Missy? It needs to be a robot cake.’
I turned back, perplexed.
‘A robot cake?’
Angela nodded grimly. ‘He’s really into robots now. I was up ’til 3 a.m. painting the icing silver and making antennae out of Satellite Wafers. WE CAN’T LET HIM DOWN.’
I took a
deep breath. ‘One robot cake coming right up.’
Luck was on my side. A black cab pulled up across the road with its light on just as I emerged from the hall, blinking in the sunshine. Hurrying forwards, I hailed it and waited as the driver made a U-turn to come and pick me up.
‘Where to, love?’
Settling in the back, I hesitated. Where did one go to buy an emergency robot cake on a Sunday afternoon? I took my phone out of my bag and told the driver to head towards Upper Street, then called the only person I could think of who could rescue this situation.
‘Darling, I’m so glad you called,’ said Sylvie. ‘I’m so sorry about the other day—’
‘Never mind that,’ I barked. ‘I need your help. Otis’s birthday cake went missing and I need to get him another one, but Angela says it must be a robot cake. I’ve got some money but I don’t know where to go.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In a cab going towards Upper Street. I need to be back by five o’clock.’
‘Give me two minutes.’ She rang off and I sat back and put my seatbelt on as the streets of Highbury flashed past.
‘That’s a new one,’ observed the taxi driver, eyeing me in his mirror.
‘Children’s birthday party.’
‘Thank Christ I’m past that,’ he replied, turning towards Canonbury. As we thudded our way over a series of speed bumps, my phone rang and I snatched it up.
‘Right,’ said Sylvie. ‘Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once. There’s a little place near Angel, owned by a friend. He owes me a favour. I’ll text you the address, and he should have something for you by the time you get there.’
‘Thank you so much.’
‘Don’t thank me; thank Etienne Durand, one of the finest pâtissiers on the planet. Goodbye and Godspeed!’
We raced through the streets of Islington, my driver now thoroughly committed to the venture, promising to wait outside the shop while I went in to collect the goods. He told me his three children were grown up, scattered across the globe in diverse lives and professions – ‘that’s what it’s about isn’t it? They’re off, doing their thing’ – while he and his wife lived in Enfield and waited for grandchildren. ‘I know we won’t see them much, them all living all over the place, but they’re nice to have, aren’t they? I’ll like seeing the photos.’
Having received the address, we turned into an expensive-looking Georgian terrace where every window had a Juliet balcony, and then turned again, squeezing down a narrow cobbled mews. At one end was a tiny corner shop that looked like it should have been in Diagon Alley. A sign above the door read ‘Durand’s’ in flowing script.
‘You sure this is a cake shop?’ queried my driver, pulling up outside.
‘I’m not sure that’s what the owner would call it,’ I replied, getting out and checking my roll of notes.
Taking care not to trip on the cobbles, I knocked on the shiny black door and stepped back. After a few seconds’ agonizing wait, it opened and a tall dark man poked his head out and regarded me solemnly.
‘I’m Millicent Carmichael,’ I stammered. ‘Sylvie Riche sent me.’
‘I am Etienne Durand,’ he said, bowing and gesturing me in. I waved to the cab driver and stepped inside.
It looked nothing like any kind of shop I’d been in before. There were no cakes on display. We stood in what appeared to be an elegant sitting room with a chaise longue at one end and a round oak table in the middle, surrounded by chairs. For some reason it reminded me of a funeral parlour. I repressed a snigger.
‘Sylvie did explain? We need a cake. An, um, robot cake.’
He made a little moue of distaste. ‘Yes, she explain. It is not what we usually do, but she is very great friend.’
‘What do you usually do?’
He indicated the table. ‘People sit there. And I bring them … les gateaux. If you wait ’ere, I will bring you yours.’
He disappeared through another door at the far end of the room and I waited, checking my watch and tapping my foot. We had twenty minutes. Forty foot taps later, he emerged, carrying a huge box.
‘You don’t know what I ’ad to do to make this ’appen,’ he said, resting it carefully on the table. I stepped forwards and reached out to open the box. He slapped my hand away.
‘Do not open until you get to your party.’ I shrank back, chastened. He was very forbidding. I’d always imagined cake shop owners were jolly.
I paused. ‘But … I just wanted to check that it’s … a robot.’
He snorted. ‘It is robot. It is best robot you ever see. Trust me.’ He handed me a separate paper bag. ‘This is a little flourish I add, make sure you don’t forget.’
‘What do I owe you?’ I asked, feeling faintly sick, sure Angela’s roll of notes couldn’t possibly cover this. But he brushed away the question as he’d brushed away my hand.
‘There is no money required. This is favour for my friend Sylvie.’ I felt dizzy with relief and embarrassment.
‘You ’ave car outside?’ he asked, interrupting my halting expression of thanks. I nodded, and he picked up the box again, ordering me to open the door for him. Together we manoeuvred it into the back of the taxi. I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes. We could do it, but we’d have to drive slowly. As the engine rumbled, Monsieur Durand’s face loomed at the window. He tapped at the glass and I opened it.
He leaned forward menacingly. ‘You tell Sylvie we’re even now, yes? No more favours?’ He smiled and his teeth gleamed in the gloom of the cab. They were slightly pointed.
‘Definitely. I’ll tell her,’ I gasped, and the head retreated. He smacked the side of the car and we were on our way. ‘Drive carefully,’ I said to the driver and saw him nod, his eyes on the road.
My heart leapt at every speed bump on the way back, but the box remained upright. We pulled up at the church hall at 4.56 p.m. Angela was hovering outside. As I got out of the cab I saw she was holding an unlit cigarette.
‘Just holding it for comfort,’ she said. ‘How did you get on?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, turning back to the driver. ‘Derek, how much is that?’ But once again, my roll of notes was pushed away. ‘No charge,’ he said cheerily. ‘I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since I picked up a bloke dressed as Batman and he pointed in front and said “follow that car.”’
‘Oooh,’ said Angela. ‘Was he chasing a baddie?’
‘Sort of,’ said Derek. ‘He was on his way to a stag do.’ He got out of the taxi and picked up the cake box. ‘Now, where do you want this?’
I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘Come round the back,’ said Angela.
Together we carried the cake round the back of the building and through to the kitchen. The empty silver cakeboard was still next to the sink.
‘Any sign of the original?’
Angela shook her head grimly. ‘It’s that little fucker Horatio, I know it. He’s got silver paint in his hair.’
Derek put the box on the table, Angela took the lid off and we all looked inside.
‘Holy shit,’ she said.
Nestled in the box was the most glorious robot cake I had ever seen. Well, I had never actually seen a robot cake before. But none could live up to the splendid beauty of this one. It was a vivid blue, sitting up with its legs out, with bright red buttons, and a TV screen across its chest that read ‘Otis’. Its liquorice and icing grille mouth was smiling at us.
‘That’s some robot cake,’ said Derek, stepping back to admire it.
‘Fuck, I haven’t got any candles,’ said Angela, scrabbling around in drawers.
I remembered the ‘flourish’, and looked in the bag I was holding. Inside there were five candles and two sparklers.
‘Here you go.’ I stuck the candles on the robot’s outstretched legs, and arranged the sparklers either side of his head, as antennae. Looking at my watch, I saw that it was 5.02 p.m. ‘Time to go.’
‘You should take it in,’ urged Angela. ‘You did it all.’
‘No, I want to watch.’ I shook hands with Derek, telling him I hoped his grandchildren came soon, and he left via the back door, while I slipped back into the hall and went in search of the light switch.
As I’d watched my own children decades before, I kept my eyes on Otis’s little face in the darkness, alight with excitement and anticipation, tiny body shivering with the joy of it all, gremlin-friends surrounding him as he waited. Even the parents stopped gassing about loft renovations long enough to appreciate Angela’s entrance. Her face was illuminated by the sparklers, grinning at the ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ of the assembled party, her eyes softening and blinking rapidly as she saw his reaction, his gasp of astonishment and wonder as everyone began to sing. He blew out the candles, his eyes screwed up with the effort of huffing and wishing at once, everyone cheering as the flames were extinguished, the smoke carrying our prayers to the heavens. I thought about what Derek had said. That’s what it was about, them doing their thing, and you just enjoying it. Why had I waited so long to be able to do it? I clapped and cheered along with everyone else, and then, as the lights came on again, there was a piercing scream from one of the mothers.
‘Horatio Lysander Swinton!’ she bellowed. ‘What on earth is this?’
We all surged towards her as she held out her bag, her tan buckled leather bag that looked like it had cost several bonuses, and was now filled with the crushed remains of one home-made robot cake with Satellite Wafer antennae. As the other mothers crowded round her patting and sympathizing, I could hear Angela’s cackles from the kitchen.
The parents began their goodbyes, and the children clamoured for party bags, so Angela hastily re-emerged, buckling under a tray of them, eyes rolling as she totted up children versus bags. She moved through the throng pawed by eager mites, little claws snatching, each retreating to inspect and compare their hauls. A wilting Otis was curling around his mother like a kitten while she rifled through her tray, patting cheeks and tweaking pigtails as she distributed her largesse, a lolly stick jutting out of her mouth. She still hadn’t smoked.
