Cupcake Couture (8 page)

‘You don’t say,’ he said with a tight smile.

‘I’m independent. I rule with an iron rod, keep my staff on a tight rein. I’m like one of the Dragons only I’m currently undercover. Yes I’m doing some undercover recruiting. Honestly. I work just over th…’

My arm froze in the direction of the coffee shop doorway that was now blocked by the still figures of Naomi, Nigel, Kimberley and Ben. The Barista made a loud popping sound with his lips.

‘Thank God for rush hour,’ he chirped and wriggled away.

I was aware I was opening and closing my mouth like a goldfish that had jumped out of its bowl and was slowly dying on the carpet. Naomi glanced at Ben, who nudged Kimberley, then all three took a step back, leaving Nigel in front as the spokesman.

‘Are you alreet, Chloe?’

His voice sounded nervously high-pitched.

‘Me? Of course, of course, never been better thank you, Nigel. I was just… I was…’

If his was high-pitched, mine was like a dog whistle.

Naomi shook her head, her wayward curls bouncing from side to side as she scurried towards me and pulled a red velvet armchair close to mine.

‘Sit, sit,’ she said to the others, flapping her hand.

‘Careful you don’t sit on the iron rod,’ I heard Nigel mutter.

Naomi tutted at him, sat close beside me and placed her hand on my arm.

‘We’re gutted for you, Chloe. It must have been such a shock. Margaret’s doing the petition and that but I don’t think it’ll change their minds. And well we’ve wanted to contact you this week like, but we thought it best that we didn’t remind you of what you were missing.’ She paused. ‘Not that you’re missing anything other than the usual boring old business.’

Nigel laughed.

‘But we did staple Gary’s jacket to the chair when he was still in it and he didn’t even notice, the bell-end, until he tried to go for a piss and took the chair with him.’

‘That was mint!’ Ben chuckled.

Ben and Nigel hi-fived each other.

‘Oh and Kimberley got off with that accounts temp who’s got a wonky eye,’ Nigel hooted.

‘Shut up! It is not wonky. It’s just a bit lazy,’ Kimberley squealed.

‘Lazy!’ Ben snorted. ‘It’s so busy looking everywhere else but forwards it must be chuffing knackered, man.’

‘It’s been a funny week,’ Ben laughed.

‘Aye it has that,’ said Nigel.

‘Guys you’re not helping,’ Naomi hissed, ‘can’t you see how bad Chloe looks? Have some sympathy, please.’

My eyebrows leapt towards my hairline.

‘Thanks, Naomi but I’m fine. I’m just chilling out here with a coffee and reading a…’ - I glanced around for a magazine but there wasn’t one – ‘… thing and meeting a few friends in a bit as it happens.’

Naomi pursed her lips and nodded while gently ‘uh-huh-ing’ as if she were talking to a person of limited intelligence.

‘Right, aye,’ she said, glancing at Kimberley who was staring wide-eyed at my sweatpants, ‘but you do look canny bad like.’

I rubbed my hands on the scuffed jersey wishing I had changed before I left the house. I had even forgotten to put on makeup. I might as well have sauntered into town wearing just stretch marks and a smile.

‘I was at the gym,’ I protested. ‘My new fitness regime, which is great because I have all this free time and so very soon I’ll have a body like… well like Jesse J and my personal trainer, Juan…’

Juan?
Said the sane part of my mind, which was reducing in size by the second.
Get a grip, Chloe
.

‘…yes Juan said I could even release a workout DVD at the end because I’ll look so amazing. The Redundancy Regime DVD. Brilliant isn’t it? It’s intense exercise and diet.’

I nervously lifted my coffee to take a sip and my nose disappeared into a small mountain of cream. As I wiped it away, I saw Nigel lift his finger to his temple and wind it up. After years of being their responsible boss, I was losing their respect in a matter of minutes. My entire reputation wiped out by a pair of Gap jogging bottoms and a coffee topped with so much bloody fluff it could have been reclassified as soft furnishings.

I pulled my arm away from Naomi’s pitying touch and looked at my watch.

‘I have to dash guys. Things to do. I’ve been so busy all week with one thing and another I haven’t even had time to miss the office, you know, gym, lunches, meetings.’

‘Meetings?’ said Naomi a little brighter.

I jumped up and held my bag in front of me in the hope it would cover my sartorial disaster.

‘Oh yes, loads of meetings. This head has been hunted so much I’m surprised it’s still on my shoulders. Only this afternoon Henry Watkinson called and offered me an incredibly exciting opportunity but I said “Sorry, Henry, I can’t be rushed. I need to focus on a little me time. A little Chloe Baker time. If you want the best, you’ll have to wait until I’m ready, Mr Watkinson,” that’s what I said.’

‘But Watkinsons announced they were going into liquidation on Wednesday,’ Naomi frowned.

I swallowed.

‘Er, yes I know that. Of course I know that. Ear to the ground, finger on the pulse.’ I began to edge towards the door. ‘It’s a new venture… very hush hush. Top secret. So, um, anyway guys great to see you but I can’t stop I have to…yes, bye then!’

I clattered through the door and gasped for breath. Before the door swung shut and I began to run, I heard the happy little Barista shout – ‘Oi! She didn’t pay for that bloody coffee, the tramp!’

The Metro station at Monument in the centre of town was packed with commuters, snogging teenagers and terrifyingly young single mums pushing prams and eating
Gregg’s pasties. The new pastime of the ‘hoodies’ or ‘ragies’ as they were referred to in Newcastle, was apparently to play their music loud on their mobile phones without headphones so we had no choice but to share their dubious tastes in music. The tinny racket competing for the most annoying award on all sides of me sounded as if it had been made by alien life forms. Muttering to myself about the youth of today having no respect, I slung the shoulder strap of my bag across my body and stood as far away from another human as was possible on a four-foot wide platform.

A smart woman of about my age in a stylish black coat, knee length leather boots and carrying a black Prada bag, clip-clopped confidently across the off-white tiles and stood beside me. After years of commuting on the same line, it came naturally to me to smile at other ‘professionals’ like myself. I glanced at the woman, flicked my head at the coughing and spitting ‘ragie’ behind me and raised my eyes to the ceiling. The woman actually did a double take, raised her Prada bag protectively to her chest, pursed her lips and turned away. I gasped and, swinging my own expensive bag excessively to catch her attention, tried to concentrate on holding back the tears.

I used to be you!
I wanted to shout at the stuck up cow.
And I never thought this would happen to me. Don’t look down on me!

Yet hadn’t I done the very same in the not too distant past?

I was still swinging my bag like a pendulum beside her when the train cruised along the platform and the doors hissed open.

Either I was distracted by my own thoughts or all the fight had left my body. Whatever the reason, I found myself jostled backwards while Miss Snooty Boots and her fellow commuters, the ragies and the single mums fought their way onto the train.

‘Stand clear o’ the doors, please,’ warned the announcement.

‘Bloody hell,’ I cursed out loud as the doors slid shut, leaving me still standing on the platform.

Tears welled up in my eyes for what felt like the millionth time that day. If I maintained the same rate, the Environment Agency would be issuing a flood warning. Angrily, I banged on the door, the tears blurring my vision. I just wanted to be home in my flat where I could hide from the world and its cruelty. I hated everything and everyone, including myself.

It was a smiling face and the wave of a hand clutching a familiar pink tissue that suddenly cleared my tears. I gasped. The handsome man from Tynemouth Metro Station – Malachy Doyle’s brother - stood on the other side of the glass door just inches from my face. He tilted his head, made an exaggerated sad face and waved the tissue before smiling again. His shiny ebony hair covered one eye but the other eye sparkled mischievously. I surprised myself by smiling and then laughing. He had caught me crying in public on a platform for the second time in three days. The poor man must have thought I was always a gibbering wreck. If only, I thought, I could have opened the door and explained. Fate had brought us together for a second time, if you believed in that sort of thing, and I had royally fucked it up twice. Sliding doors.

I waved as the train made a buzzing sound and my knight with shining eyes slowly moved to my right. As he did so, he frowned, glanced at the door, reached out and lifted up a Tod’s bag in soft caramel leather identical to mine.

What happened next must have, in reality, occurred in seconds but in the repetitive flashbacks I suffered afterwards, the incident seemed to have so many stages and thought processes it could have been hours.

My first thought was,
the thieving bastard, he stole my bag!

I did, I believe, have time to shout – ‘Fucker!’ – before my body jerked violently and the gently accelerating train dragged me along the platform. Malachy Doyle’s brother’s expression turned to one of horror as he tugged the bag and realised I was attached to the other end by the shoulder strap I had slung across my body, ironically to protect me from thieving ragies. The train was picking up speed. I was jogging now. A woman was screaming. I think it might have been me. Malachy Doyle’s brother yanked at the bag, assisted by his fellow passengers. My feet tripped along the platform, the polluted air testing my lungs. I was approaching the tunnel wall. I would be crushed. I was about to die. I shouted for help. I banged on the door. Opposite me, separated by scratched safety glass, he did the same. The bag was too strong. Fuck, why had I bought expensive leather? Even Miss Snooty Boots was yanking at the strap. I nearly fell, my shoulder hitting the side of the train. I was bleeding. The tunnel drew closer. This was it. I was about to die in a tragic accident. What a perfect end to a perfect week. I didn’t want to die. There was so much I wanted to do. So much I had to offer. So many cakes I had yet to bake. It wasn’t fair. I screamed and gazed hopefully at my knight but his sword was sadly lacking. Then I felt a hand on my arm. A ragie. Grabbing me. His hood slipping. His hand inside his jacket. A flick knife. The flash of the blade. A slice. I bounced off the wall at the end of the platform. I landed in a heap on my young saviour’s white trainers. He glanced surreptitiously around and returned the flick knife to the inside pocket of his hoodie while my bag was whisked away with the sliced strap, still in Malachy Doyle’s brother’s shaking hands.

CHAPTER SEVEN

120ml whole milk

Roxy had grown up in a flat the size of a large skip (and similarly decorated) in Wallsend. It often slipped her mother’s pickled mind that her benefit cheques were intended to be used for the essentials like food and heating rather than alcohol and drugs so the flat tended to be freezing cold, damp and devoid of anything nutritious. She put her petite frame down to her formative years being spent in a constant state of hunger and hyperthermia and that she was still playing catch up. If it had been up to Faye to provide her daughter with her ‘five a day’, they would have consisted of vodka, fags, dope, speed and occasionally crack. Fortunately, Roxy fell back on Heidi’s very generous and loving parents who kept her fed and watered while agreeing not to alert the authorities, until Roxy was old enough to embark on a chain of relationships with wealthy men. In Roxy’s case, ‘old enough’ was officially fifteen, unofficially thirteen. She was petite but her knowledge of the street made her mature beyond her years.

Inevitably some of the men had been so creepy I imagined them living in giant webs, just waiting to ensnare an impressionable beauty like Roxy. There had been the liars, the scumbags, the jazzy entrepreneurs who talked success more than achieving it, the rich, flashy ones who pretended they lived in a loveless marriage they were about to end (but never would), the dealers, the pimps and the ones with violent tempers. Heidi and I had often feared for our friend when she hugged us outside the school gates and slid into yet another car with alloy wheels to be leered over by yet another man wearing sunglasses in the winter. There had been days when she had not
turned up for school and I had been terrified that the next time I would see my best friend’s stunning face would be on
Crimewatch
. There had also been times where Heidi and I had been called from a payphone somewhere in the city by Roxy who needed our help to escape from Steve or Larry or Grant who had promised her a life full of bling if she ‘just this once’ had sex with a stranger. Scared, clueless and ill prepared, out of the window we would climb to run to our friend’s rescue. How we all survived our teenage years intact I will never know.

At thirteen, the men were right; Roxy, who already had the power to turn heads,
was
impressionable and the majority of the men tried to dominate her with their money and power. However, by the age of thirteen and three quarters, Roxy had changed, her skinny arms already becoming (in the words of Batfink) like a shield of steel. Roxy was a survivor and, even if her school report card read ‘must try harder’ on repeat, she was a fast learner. The first man who raised his hand to her left a bruise on her face the colour of the dark, marble painting she had done in Art the same day. The second man who tried it winced every time he went to the toilet for days afterwards. Roxy soon learned to identify the men who were worth taking a risk for and, as her beauty evolved in correlation to her feminine wiles, she soon gained the upper hand. By the time Roxy officially became a woman, with a learning curve behind her long enough to straddle the River Tyne, she was far from impressionable. Barbie Doll on the outside she was, but inside she was Action Man. Roxy had become the sort of woman who clicked her fingers and men came running.