A Little Love Read online

  Dear, dear Trudy.

  Pru closed her bedroom door and popped her head into the kitchen, where she spied Milly, clad in a tiger onesie.

  ‘What are you wearing?’ Pru shook her head.

  ‘It’s new and quite possibly the cosiest thing I have ever owned. I might never take it off.’

  ‘That’ll be nice front of house.’

  Milly dipped a large croissant into her coffee before lowering the soggy mess into her mouth.

  ‘Gross,’ Pru commented.

  ‘It’s what they do in France!’ Milly spoke with her mouth full.

  ‘Maybe, but you’re not French, Mills.’

  ‘What? You are kidding me! Mon Dieu! I had no idea. I thought I’d imagined growing up in Bow and I was actually from a fashionable little suburb of Paris!’ She winked at her cousin.

  Pru grinned as she left the flat and trotted down the stairs. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door of the café. She and Milly took it in turns to do the early check on the bakery and it was her turn this week. In truth, after two decades in these premises, and with the celebrated Guy Baudin at the helm of a trusted team, it was more a cursory nod to everyone that she was around, a reminder of who was boss and the chance to monitor quality rather than get stuck in.

  The cleaners in their blue nylon tabards and with their hair scraped up into untidy knots were hard at it, buffing the brass fixtures with yellow dusters and mopping the pale, waxed wooden floor. The sun had started its creep through the large window that displayed the Plum Patisserie logo, working its way up like the revelation of a dancer’s fan until the whole room was bathed in light. Tiny white rosebuds had been placed in slender, finger-sized vases on every table. The glass display unit they had re-created to mimic those found in nineteenth-century Parisian coffee houses gleamed. The tiered glass cake stands and fancy china plates whose hand-painted flowers and swirls delicately kissed their fluted edges sat shining. Soon they would be arranged with scones full of jam and cream, soft iced buns and frosted sponges; flaky-pastry masterpieces stuffed with marzipan and dotted with an almond would tempt the sweet-toothed, perfect with a cup of hand-roasted French coffee.

  Pru particularly loved this time of the morning, before the customers arrived, before the problems arose, before tiredness crept over her aging joints.

  ‘Good morning, all!’ she trilled with a singsong intonation. Many of these girls spoke little English, but could glean enough from her tone to reciprocate with a nod and a smile. ‘This looks lovely, thank you.’

  The girls duly nodded and smiled.

  Making her way down the twist of staircase, she placed her foot on the last step. The wood creaked unexpectedly beneath her weight and she gasped, putting one hand to her breast and the other against the wall, trying to steady her heart rate. She exhaled and leant on the wall, using her index finger and thumb to wipe away the tiny dots of perspiration that had gathered on her top lip. She flattened her palm against her chest, trying to calm her flustered pulse. ‘Come on, you silly moo.’

  It still had the power to do that to her, the flash of a memory, an image, a sound. It could transport her back to a time she would rather forget.

  She waited a second and dug deep to find a smile before taking one final step and pushing on the wide double fire door with its brass-edged glass porthole of a window. Immediately, she was engulfed by the smell of fresh bread baking in the oven. She never tired of the aroma; it cocooned her in a blanket of well-being and evoked full tummies, log fires, cosy rooms and all that was homely.

  ‘Good morning, Guy.’

  ‘Is it? I’m not so sure!’ He slammed his clipboard with its checklist on to the stainless steel counter top.

  This was entirely expected; Guy lived his life with his fingers tense against his flustered, plucked brow and a sigh hovering in his throat. Whippet thin and groomed to within an inch of his perma-tan, Guy lived on caffeine and his nerves.

  ‘What’s up?’ Pru refrained from adding, ‘now’. Guy was undoubtedly a worrier, a panicker and a drama queen, but all that was forgiven because of his insistence on impeccably high standards both in and out of the kitchen. His attention to detail and his innovative ideas ensured that Plum Patisserie was internationally renowned for its exquisite cake designs. He was the jewel in Pru’s crown, an analogy that he particularly loved.

  ‘I specifically ordered extra lemons for our dessert du jour, lemon posset with almond-crusted shortbread, and they have sent me my standard order. These people drive me crazy! Are they trying to ruin my day? How can I deliver what I promise with this?’ He poked at a large net of sorry-looking yellow fruit and grimaced as though he had been presented with roadkill rather than inadequate waxed citrus.

  ‘I doubt they set out to ruin your day intentionally, they probably just forgot or got muddled; you know how it is when an order deviates from the norm, it often gets confused somewhere along the line. We could always send someone up to the supermarket to grab you some more lemons?’

  Guy placed his hands on his hips. ‘Well, I suppose we will have to.’

  Pru noted the slight flicker of disappointment that crossed his face whenever a solution was easily and quickly found.

  ‘Also, Guy, can we get someone to fix the bottom stair that comes down from the café? It’s got a creak.’ She gave a small cough.

  ‘Oh, Pru! You and your creaks! I could have a man here every day, fixing one creak or another. This building is over two hundred years old, it’s going to creak!’ He raised his hands to the sky with flattened palms.

  ‘And as I’ve said before, I don’t mind if a man – or a woman, for that matter – has to come every day or indeed every hour of every day and I don’t care what it costs. I can’t have the stairs making that noise. Any of them, at any time. I can’t. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ He shrugged, then muttered something inaudible in his native French.

  ‘How’s the window display coming along?’ Pru knew she could easily distract him and if she were being honest was keen to change the subject. In between the double-fronted café and the front door that led to their apartments stood a tall bow window emblazoned with the Plum Patisserie logo. The window was all that was left of the Victorian pharmacy that had been knocked through and transformed into their current corner premises. The space behind it was a little over five feet deep and with no particular purpose other than decoration it was the ideal place for Guy to showcase the latest Plum creations. The little gallery had become one of the most photographed spots in Mayfair. This pleased Pru no end: whether the photos were for a magazine or just one of a tourist’s haul of snaps, the fact that her logo and cakes were being admired by a wider audience was great advertising.

  Guy clapped his hands under his chin, instantly diverted from his lemon crisis and his lack of empathy regarding stair repair. ‘Oh, Pru, oh my! It is beyond exquisite, it’s divine. No, it’s beyond divine, it’s epic, it’s… Words fail me.’ Guy placed his middle three fingers over his pursed lips and blinked away the tears that threatened.

  ‘That good, huh?’

  He nodded slowly, unable to fully articulate. ‘Mais oui, and more!’ He was quite breathless.

  Pru smiled. She was used to this: each of his creations was always similarly lauded and the funny thing was, it was always entirely justified. ‘I can’t wait to see it. Any luck with the new trainee?’

  ‘Don’t. Even. Go. There!’ He held up a palm in front of her face. ‘Every single person they have sent has been completely useless. I have the same conversation with the agency after every sorry interview. I tell them repeatedly, I don’t need bakers! Bakers are ten a penny – no offence intended, Pru.’

  ‘None taken.’ She was a baker and proud.

  ‘But I don’t need a baker, I need an artiste! Someone who has the eye, the touch and the imagination, someone who can turn sugar paste into pure fantasy, someone who can make the dreams of others into reality! Is it too much to ask?’ For the second time in as many minute
s he looked close to tears.

  Pru stared at him in silence, fishing for a suitable response and wondering if this was the job description he had given the agency. Then she gave up and abandoned the topic altogether. ‘I’m nipping out this morning. Bobby has a dress fitting in Spitalfields, but Milly will be around if you need anything.’

  ‘Oh, a dress fitting? How exciting! I saw the lovely couple yesterday afternoon, strolling hand in hand like love’s young dream. Oh my goodness, so beautiful together! Can you imagine what les enfants will look like? They are a couple that heaven blessed for sure.’

  ‘I know, Bobby’s a lucky girl. She certainly doesn’t take after me; she takes after her mum, Astrid. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.’

  This wasn’t a topic Pru normally discussed. Astrid had disappeared to India when Bobby was three months old, leaving Alfie, her drug-addled boyfriend, to care for their daughter. She told Alfie she needed space and enlightenment; apparently it didn’t occur to her that what their little girl needed was a mummy who wasn’t over six thousand miles away. Ironically, the move probably saved Astrid’s life. She had been as fond of recreational drugs as Alfie, but she left before he progressed to heroin and the habit that would eventually kill him.

  ‘Oh, Pru, she most certainly does take after you. You are beautiful inside and out. I can see you now…’ Guy raised his hand as if shielding his eyes. ‘You could model for denture cream or stair lifts!’

  Pru threw a napkin at him and turned on her heel, smiling as she did so.

  2

  It was two hours later that Pru found herself standing under the hot lights of the low-ceilinged basement room in Spitalfields. She found the pristine white walls and flooring quite dazzling and felt the beginnings of a headache stirring behind her eyes. Bella turned to her and grimaced: Bobby was not making her job any easier.

  ‘Bobby, you are not helping Bella by wriggling!’ Pru placed her hand against her forehead and un-gritted her teeth. ‘You need to stand still or you are going to end up with a pin in you,’ she barked at her niece, who twitched her arms and jiggled her legs as she squealed and chatted.

  Pru ran her fingers through her hair and stretched out her right hand, glancing at the flawless solitaire diamond and its sister band that sat there rather loosely. She had bought the diamond herself: it was proof of her success and independence and a measure of her taste. It didn’t quite compensate for never having been given a ring by a man, but it certainly helped.

  She flattened the front of her navy Chanel blazer, checked her buttons were neat in their holes and pulled at the sleeves until they rested just so above her silk cuffs. She might be well into her sixties, but she still had long legs, a slim physique and designer clothes to be proud of; reminding herself of this gave her a much needed jolt of confidence and happiness, every time.

  ‘Imightstickapininheranyway!’ Bella mumbled and winked.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ Bobby shouted.

  ‘Keep still!’ Pru yelled. This whole exercise was altogether more stressful than any of them had bargained on.

  She shrugged apologetically at Bella, the short, chubby seamstress who was toiling over the hem of the wedding dress. With a mouth full of bobble-headed tacks, a pincushion on the back of her wrist and a determined stare, Bella tucked, scrunched and pinned.

  The bride-to-be stood on the small podium that raised her twelve inches in the air, her head only inches from the ceiling. ‘I can’t keep still, Aunty Pru, I’m too excited! I feel like the bride on top of one of your cakes, standing up here. I can’t believe it, in just under a year I shall be Mrs William Fellsley! Eleven months, and that will fly by.’

  Eleven more months of this! Pru took another deep breath.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about my bouquet,’ Bobby rattled on, ‘and I know exactly what I want. I can see it now: white lilies with ivy trailing through them. I want it to look like they’ve been grabbed from the wild and bunched together in a hurry. It will be haphazard but beautiful! Won’t it be wonderful?’ She did a little skip and clapped her hands again.

  ‘Yes, Bobby, wonderful. I could do with some sugar.’

  ‘I thought you said you’d given up sweets?’

  ‘I have, but there are certain days I wish I hadn’t.’ Pru didn’t confess to sneaking the odd packet or two of wine gums, when things got a bit much. This was fast turning into one of those days.

  Roberta Plum placed her slender, manicured hands on her tiny waist, pulled her mouth into a sideways smirk and bit her cheek, an expression she employed when things weren’t going according to plan. ‘You look a bit fed up. I don’t feel like you are sharing my joy here, Aunty Pru.’

  ‘Oh I am sharing your joy, darling. It’s just that we’ve been sharing your joy for the last ten months and there’s only so many times I can hear about how wonderful Billy-boy is, what he said, where you went, what you wore, what he ate, where you are going on your honeymoon and how many kids you are planning on having, starting with a boy called Harry.’

  ‘Henry, not Harry! I knew you weren’t listening.’

  Pru rubbed her temples and closed her eyes, pushing her thumbs into the sockets as if trying to relieve some unseen pressure. ‘I’m sorry, my love, you are right. Whenever you told me that, I can’t have been listening.’

  As ever, she must have been running through the to-do list in her head while her niece was talking. Check the sugar-paste order, get the repair bloke in for the other bread hook, run the invoice over to The Dorchester, send the sample colours to Lady Miriam so she can start thinking about the birthday cake, speak to the Condé Nast design team, chase the agency for the CVs, book a hair appointment with Cleo, order the paint for the front gallery window… ‘Tell me again, Bobby. I promise I’m listening now.’

  Bobby visibly brightened and Pru felt the familiar swell of happiness at seeing her niece beam.

  ‘Well, after we are married, we are going to stay in the flat in Curzon Street, but that’s just until William gets promoted and gets his next posting, which we hope will be somewhere hot. I rather like the sound of Cyprus or Belize, but I am hoping for Cyprus because, as you know, I absolutely love halloumi and taramasalata, and I don’t know what they eat in Belize.’

  It always made Pru smile, hearing Bobby speak with the enthusiasm of a child, taking pleasure from the little things. It was reassuring too to hear confirmation that her niece wouldn’t be going away any time soon. It was bad enough that she would be leaving at some point, but at least it wasn’t immediately. She and Milly would have time to adjust. Bobby would remain in the flat above theirs for some time yet, where they could keep an eye on her, as they had ever since she had come to live with her aunts above the bakery when she was eight years old.

  ‘I shall get pregnant literally just before we move and spend the whole nine months soaking up the sunshine while the Major does whatever majors do, and then I’ll come back to London to have the baby, a boy, who we shall name…?’

  ‘Henry!’ Pru came in on cue.

  Bobby nodded, satisfied. ‘Yes, Henry! Well done, Aunty Pru. And on the day I have him, I want you to make me a basket full of those little white-chocolate muffins that I love, with pale blue ribbons streaming from the handle, and because I’ll still be a bit fat, I’ll be able to eat them and it won’t count!’

  Pru searched in her navy satin clutch bag for a bar of Galaxy she had lurking there, for emergency use only. She held the shiny foil wrapper between her fingers.

  ‘Notinhere!’ Bella grunted through her pins and pointed at the foil-wrapped bar, understandably nervous about the combination of hand-beaded white duchess satin and sticky milk chocolate.

  ‘Of course not, Bella. I know! I’m not even going to eat it; it just makes me feel calmer to hold it, knowing I might eat it later, which I won’t, because I’ve given up sweets.’ She used the chocolate bar to point in the direction of her niece, who stood draped in her elegant gown. ‘I don’t know how she turned out like t
his, I really don’t.’ Bobby looked stunning. Her thick blonde hair hung like a wave over her left shoulder, her large eyes shone from above her sculpted cheekbones.

  In truth, a lot of careful thought and loving attention had gone into making Bobby the effervescent young woman she now was. Alfie had struggled on for years after Astrid left, a single dad fighting his addiction and trying to care for his baby daughter. Finally, when he felt he was losing his battle against the toxic drugs that he craved, he had entrusted Bobby into the care of his elder sister: Pru, successful businesswoman, childless and wealthy. Some members of the family called him a heartless bastard – ‘How could a dad hand over his own daughter? What kind of man is that?’ They had tutted and sipped tea through lips stretched thin with disapproval. The same lips that had uttered a thousand reasons as to why they couldn’t offer him help when he needed it the most. But Pru and Milly had defended his action, standing defiantly with their chins up and shoulders back. They knew what kind of man he was. Alfie was a man who had performed the ultimate act of selflessness, handing over his precious, adored child into the arms of those who could do better than he, even though it hurt like hell.

  Pru would never forget the day Alfie knocked on the door of her swanky Mayfair address to deliver his little girl, who was clutching everything she owned inside a plastic carrier bag. He had looked to the left and right as if expecting to be castigated or turfed out of the postcode. His hair was dull from lack of shampoo, his skin grey and acned, and Pru noticed that he had lost more teeth, causing his mouth to pucker and making him look like the old man he would never become. The trainers on his feet had collapsed, gaping on either side to reveal his sockless, dirty instep. His tracksuit top, worn shiny on the arms, was smelly and stained.

  Pru’s heart tore as he bent down, and kissed Bobby’s scalp goodbye.

  ‘You be a good gel, now, promise?’

  Bobby had nodded and thrown her arms around his legs as she cried huge sobs that rattled her little chest and made her gulp for air. Her tears left pale white streaks down her sallow cheeks; she had the face of someone who had absorbed the stress and sadness of life with an addict, sentenced through association to a life of darkened rooms, squalor and a topsy-turvy routine.