Cupcake Couture (7 page)

The moving finally stopped when, out of the blue, my dad inherited a gallery in Newcastle, left to him by a gay artist friend who had no family. The gallery even came with a small house, which became my first real home until I was old enough to flat share with Roxy and Heidi. Finally, at the age of twelve, I found a school and the sanctuary of true friendship. As my confidence grew, so did my academic achievements. I was a good student but not being able to afford university without digging the inevitable trough of debt, I eventually gravitated towards a solid career path (or so I had thought) with no brush skills required.

The day I took the plunge to buy my own property was the turning point in my life. I would never forget the Estate Agent leading me across the polished, slightly uneven original wooden floorboards of the renovated lounge and peeling back the original wooden shutters masking a huge bay window overlooking the mouth of the River Tyne. It was not a sunny day. A golden glow did not flood into the room; this was Newcastle after all, but as I perched on the window seat and gazed at the view, a warmth wrapped itself around me like one of Heidi’s hugs. At a stretch I could afford this flat. Every inch of it from the window seat scattered with cushions and the huge windows to the iron fireplaces and the stunning wooden kitchen with a breakfast bar and a Belfast sink. I even loved its imperfections; floors that sloped towards the North, the subsidence crack in the Master bedroom and the creaky bathroom door that didn’t fully open because of yet another wonky floorboard that had been trodden on by Victorian heels.

‘I’ll take it,’ I heard myself say and the Estate Agent’s eyes flashed with pound signs that I had been paying for ever since.

I had lovingly filled the flat with my possessions, crammed the floor-to-ceiling bookcases in the lounge with paperbacks and trimmed the view with fairy lights (the
prerogative of every single girl). I had finally found my safe haven. Which, as I said, was why I was terrified that after a little over forty-eight hours spent in its confines, I was beginning to dislike it.

‘I’m going stir crazy, Roxy,’ I moaned, cradling the phone between my shoulder and my ear while I attempted to paint my toenails, ‘I’m just not used to doing nothing with my time and I’ve never realised how many ticking clocks I have. Even the oven clock is doing my head in and that’s digital. I swear I’m going mad.’

‘Howay man, Chloe, you’ve really got to work on your leisure management skills. You’ve not even been there a whole week yet.’

‘Exactly. How am I going to survive the boredom week in, week out? You might come round and find me dead one day. I may drop dead of boredom. You have still got the spare key haven’t you?’

I pressed my face against the cold glass of the window.

‘You’re not gonna die, pet. Just think of it as a holiday.’

‘I don’t like holidays.’

‘You are the only freak I know who hates holidays.’

‘Come and keep me company, Roxy,’ I whined.

There was a shuffling at the other end of the phone and then a strained sound as if a cat was being strangled.

‘Roxy, are you alright?’

Silence.

‘Roxy?’

‘Sorry, Chloe, I’ve been chucking my guts up since yesterday. In fact they haven’t been the same since Vik’s fucking rank cheese and potato pie. I should have known. It was like a Scholl sandal with used corn pads in it.’

I retched.

‘I’ll give him a piece of my mind next time I see him, I tell you. Not that I’m ever going back to that shithole. It’s fair to say I’ve outgrown it and outclassed it.’

‘I’m sure Vik will be disappointed, he would happily take any piece of you, Roxy, be it mind or body.’

I held the phone away from my ear. Either she was sandblasting her interior walls or she was being sick again.

‘I’ll call you later!’ I shouted and hung up.

I called Heidi instead.

‘Hello, pet,’ she said in a whisper, ‘are you OK?’

‘I’m losing it, Heidi. Daytime TV just goes round and round in an endless loop of the misguided being encouraged to air their grievances in return for lie detector and DNA tests, the design challenged being forced to turn their semidetached in Maidenhead into something resembling a French brothel by an excitably flamboyant designer, and celebrity chefs creating £1.50 masterpiece dishes out of a cabbage and two pork chops that they would then sell for £35 in their flashy restaurants. The more I watch, the more I feel myself being drawn into their world. I found myself talking to an imaginary audience of green peppers and red tomatoes while making a sandwich for lunch and I’ve already sanded one dining room chair and applied appliqué roses, which means I’ll have to do the other three now. But it was when I found myself calling
Jeremy Kyle
to apply for tickets that I realised I have to get a grip.’

‘Chloe, you didn’t!’

‘No. Well yes but I’m not going on the show.’

‘Thank God.’

There were whispered exchanges at the other end.

‘Chloe, look, I’m really sorry pet, but I’m at work and I’m dealing with a client with behavioural problems right now. Why don’t you look into getting a different job? Use your time wisely.’

‘Get a different job? Heidi, have you not heard there’s a global crisis?’

‘But you’re a smart girl with a great CV and you haven’t even looked, Chloe.’

I stuck my tongue out at the phone.

‘Telling me what I have not done is really not helping, thank you, Heidi. I need positive comments right now. Do you not think I deserve a bit of support and sympathy or have my two best friends decided I’m a loser and already cut their losses?’

‘Of course not, I do sympathise and I promise I’ll come round after work but right now I have to prioritise and… Gerry, put that down… don’t do that Gerry. Come on now. Let’s talk about why you want to cut your head off… I’m sorry, Chloe, I have to go.’

I gazed out of the window at the grey winter afternoon. The old man from the basement flat below pottered in his garden that was the size of a generous shoebox. Perhaps a knee-length boot box. He held a watering can, his narrow shoulders stooped as he poured water onto the window boxes attached to the wrought iron fence bordering the pavement, despite it being evident from the angry sky that a rainstorm was approaching. He chatted animatedly to a nonchalant cat with black and brown splodges on its fur that looked as if it had been finger painted by a toddler. The cat conscientiously licked every inch of its fur while its owner chatted, the cat jumping every so often as if spooked by the presence of its own tail.

A door to my left opened and closed and the young Chinese woman from number nine carried her red Quinny baby buggy down the steps to the street. While she lovingly tucked her baby in like Moses about to be sent off down the river, she passed the time of day with the old man. His bald head tipped back occasionally when something she said made him laugh. She gestured frequently towards her child as she recounted, I imagined, the amazing feats he or she had achieved that day like waking up and burping.

I sighed and pressed my palms up against the windowpane.

‘Denise, I am officially at the self-pity stage,’ I said out loud.

Was that even a stage?
I’d forgotten. If not, it should have been. I made a mental note to call the show first thing on Monday morning.

I had been living in my flat for five years and it was only now I realised I had been resolutely modern British in my approach to my neighbours. I was polite and friendly. I exchanged conversation about the weather, I stroked their dogs and admired their children. I was respectful and quiet. Yet I didn’t know them. There were only a couple – Neil and Ali – whose names I knew… or was it Abi? Heidi was the sort who left a spare key with her neighbours and they left theirs with her so that she could let herself in and look after their cats when they went on holiday. Perhaps my insular behaviour stemmed from the places I had lived in as a child, which either did not have keys or, if they did, were in such dodgy locations that if you left said key with a neighbour, they would be round with a few mates and a white Transit ridding your house of its contents. Either that or I was simply unsociable.

Now, as I looked down at the old man and the young woman brightening each other’s lives for a few minutes, I regretted my actions. For the second time that week, I felt excluded from a club. They were all in a cosy neighbourhood club and I hadn’t
been invited. Well, how bloody dare they? (It was the anger stage again, Denise). I raised a fist to knock on the window but it froze in mid-air. Admittedly it may have been my fault. After all, I had always left early for work and come back late and when I did have free time I had either wanted to dedicate it to my friends or shut myself away in my sanctuary without worrying about the possibility of nosy neighbours banging on the door to hang out on my lovely cream sofa.

I glanced back at my immaculate sofa. It looked as good as new. I sighed and pressed my hand back on the windowpane. What I wouldn’t have given right then for a less pristine sofa that reflected a life full of the fun comings and goings of friends, neighbours, family, children, dogs, cats… anyone. What good was it all if I didn’t have anyone to share it with?

Steeling myself to be brave, I plastered a smile to my face and rapped on the windowpane. The woman ducked as if a roof tile had been dislodged. The old man glanced around at street level and (I have no idea why) sniffed the cat. The cat stared up at me, blinked and then returned to licking its bum. I knelt up on the window seat, opened the little window above the main pane and knocked louder this time. It was the young Chinese woman who saw me. I waved enthusiastically. A brief smile flashed across the woman’s face and she gestured to the old man. He turned to face me, held his lower back with one hand and his wire-rimmed glasses with the other and looked up.

‘Hi neighbours!’ I called through the little window, my smile now manically set on my face. ‘How are you? Anyone fancy a cup of tea? Come on up!’

They were polite enough to smile but then the young woman pointed to an imaginary watch and grasped the handles of the buggy. The old man pointed at the sky, lifted the cat from the wall, nodded to the young woman, waved at the baby and,
with a brief smile in my direction, shuffled indoors. I’m sure the cat even sneered. The young woman pulled up the hood of her jacket and hurried away at such a pace I swear the wheels of the buggy were smoking by the time she turned the corner at the top of the street. Any ounce of self-esteem I had left climbed out of the open window, teetered on the window ledge and dived headfirst into the Mr Downstairs’ basil plants. He had it coming, the unsociable old git.

CHAPTER SIX

Pinch of salt

I ordered a skinny something or other with sugar free syrup and no cream. And a triple chocolate muffin. I chose the comfortable purple armchair in the window, its fabric worn by the tucked up feet of students and the sharp suits of the office workers who frequented the café. From there I had a view of the Tyne Bridge; the magnificent green metallic structure that was still the King of the Quayside despite the addition of the Millennium blinking eye bridge that twinkled at night like the Tyne Bridge’s pretty Princess. Most Geordies would admit to feeling at home at the sight of the bridges dominating the river and, despite not officially being a Geordie lass, I always had the same reaction. The fact that my office had a view of the bridge had only cemented my love for the area. My office that I could see now from my worn purple armchair through the glass of the coffee shop door as I waited for six o’clock and the end of the working week.

Really? Had I really become the office stalker?

‘Can I get you a top up, pet?’

Resisting dragging my eyes away from the glossy blue office door with the neon
BLUNTS RECRUITMENT AGENCY
sign above it, I glanced at the young man in his coffee shop uniform. He had one thumb tucked into the pocket of his green apron and the other hand outstretched towards my cup. His smile was as sweet as the muffin.

‘You’re very welcome to stay and warm yourself,’ he beamed, ‘but you’ve been nursing that half cup for about an hour without moving so I just wanted to check
you hadn’t died.’ He laughed like someone running a glittery stick over the top notes of a xylophone. ‘Only joking, I just thought you might like a fresh one before we get canny busy and you have to queue. It’s like Leicester Square in here after six with all the business folk rushing in and rushing out. Always rushing as if they’ve got somewhere important to be.’

‘You mean Piccadilly Circus,’ I grumbled, letting him take the cup.

He wafted a smooth-skinned hand.

‘Do I? Ee well I cannot imagine what that’s like, pet. Leicester Square was manic enough for me.’

He wriggled away and busied himself at the counter while singing a Little Mix song at top volume. I wished I could be so happily uninhibited. He soon returned with a fresh cup of coffee topped with so much cream and chocolate it looked like a cake in a cup.

‘Just settle up with me before you go.’ He leaned closer and winked. ‘I added extra toppings on the house because you look like you could do with a bit of cheering up.’

I blinked up at this sweetly handsome young Barista who could not have been much older than nineteen and I felt a lump surge into my throat. It might have been the muffin but I think it was in response to the sympathetic tilt of his head. This young man pitied me. Me, the successful manager from the office across the road who had rushed in here and rushed out again on many an occasion because I did, in fact, have somewhere important to be.

I cleared the lump with a sharp cough and lifted my chin.

‘I’m fine thank you. Wonderful. Great. I just have a naturally downturned face. I’m like Jack Dee, only female.’

His smile faltered.

‘And I’m just relaxing here for a moment before I have to rush off. It is Friday after all and I’ve had such a hectic week at the office I’m entitled to a little down time. I’m a recruitment manager you see, I run the office, I’m very successful.’ I tried to ignore the way his eyes moved over my sweatpants down to my Ugg boots. One week out of the rat race and I had turned into a chav. I grabbed my caramel leather Tod’s bag. ‘I bought this for myself you know and it’s very expensive. I don’t have a rich boyfriend.’