A Little Love (2 page)

He smiled back at her with eyes that crinkled into laughter, peeping from behind black-framed Ray-Bans that, with his head tilted towards the camera, had slipped down to the end of his nose. Pru loved this photo. There weren’t that many of her family – owning a camera had never been a priority – but his grin and the setting, on what looked like a bright, sunny day, meant that she knew he’d had this one good day. Or, more specifically, this one good moment on this one day. She hoped that when things had got bad for him, the memory of that moment might have sustained him. As usual, he didn’t reply.

Pru padded around the flat in her soft grey jersey pyjamas and dressing gown, with a cup of hot black coffee balanced on her palm. She hummed as she walked from room to room, finding it calming to see that everything was just as she had left it the night before, harvesting reassurance from the order in which she lived and gaining confidence from knowing she was the owner of so many lovely things. The pictures were straight, cushions plumped and objets d’art positioned just so. Though she had to admit that, barring a messy burglary or natural disaster, the likelihood of this not being the case was extremely slim.

She sat on the chair at the little walnut desk in the corner of her bedroom and let the bank statement flutter in her hand. She no longer paid heed to the black figures and their commas, lined up in neat rows; it was more of an inquisitive glance to see that payments had gone through and a reminder of where she was in the month. Gone were the days of shuffling balances and debts around to keep suppliers happy, juggling dates and orders to ensure there was enough money in the accounts to pay the wages. The business had reached the point a couple of decades ago where takings began to exceed expenditure and once the scales had tipped in their favour, they had never looked back. She unscrewed the lid of her Montblanc fountain pen and placed a tiny cross by the payment that was referenced CM; one thousand pounds had gone through on the fourteenth, just as it did every month and had done for the last ten years. If she did the maths, it caused a ball to knot in her stomach and a tide of panic to rise in her throat, so it was better that she didn’t. Pru folded the paper sheets and clipped them into the leather file that she stowed back in the drawer.

After showering and blow-drying her auburn hair into its blunt bob, Pru sat down at her dressing table and applied the merest hint of taupe lip stain and a single wand-slick of mascara. She rubbed her fingers over her temples. She had never thought she would become this sort of older lady. In her youth she’d only ever imagined herself in her mid twenties, old enough to know best but still young enough to enjoy herself. Yet here she was, hardly recognising the face in the mirror. And it had happened in a heartbeat! She sighed and pulled her lower teeth over her top lip, making her neck and chin taut, the way they used to look. A liberal spritz of Chanel No. 5 and she was set for the day. She accessorised her navy trousers with a white silk blouse and two rows of pearls that hung in differing lengths against her small, high chest. She slipped her feet into navy penny loafers, her footwear of choice on days like this.

Pru held her breath and tugged the blind. She watched a white transit van pull up on to the kerb with its hazard lights flashing, delivering to Guy all that they needed for a day of baking and trading. On the opposite side of the street, two young men in dinner jackets, with ties loose about their necks and a wobble to their saunter, walked arm in arm. No doubt homeward bound at this early hour. She smiled; there it was, Curzon Street, just as she had left it.

She worried that one day she might pull the blind and see instead the traffic of Kenway Road, a few miles across town in Earls Court; as if she had dreamed her success, her home in Mayfair, her Italian marble flooring, espresso machine and walk-in closet and was still there, living that life. Back then, although her surroundings had been drab, she had been full of life: a young girl with a defiant stare and a gut full of determination.

The day that she and Milly had arrived at the six-storey terrace on Kenway Road, they had thought they were invincible, immune to the regrets and recriminations that came with old age. It was the last in a long list of rentals that she and Milly had painstakingly ringed in the small ads, and from the moment they arrived they knew it was the place for them. A statuesque, elegant woman opened the door wearing a silk kimono and smoking a thin cigar in an ivory cigarette holder. She introduced herself as Trudy; she lived in a flat on the top floor. Pru walked to one of two deep-set sash windows on the landing and gazed at the most incredible view of the London skyline, all the way out to Fulham and beyond. She let her eyes skim the horizon and red-brick chimney pots. This would be the start of their journey, here among the west London rooftops, living with this assured, worldly woman. Pru followed Trudy down a narrow hallway, noting the way she swept along on her high heels, which made her look refined and sophisticated, sexy. She was going to practise that walk and when she had enough money, buy herself a pair of high-heeled red patent leather shoes, just like Trudy’s.

‘Who’s David Parkes?’ Milly asked. She had stopped at a framed certificate that hung on the wall and pointed to it.

‘David was… err… my brother.’ Trudy arched a carefully plucked eyebrow. ‘He died a couple of years ago.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Pru offered. She rolled her eyes at Milly, who was always jumping in feet first.

Pru and Milly told Trudy how they wanted to open their own bakery with a shop and a café, where they would make the most delicious cakes and bread that London had ever tasted.

Trudy didn’t laugh or mock, as others had when they’d shared this. Instead, she nodded and blew large Os of cigar smoke. Then she pressed her full, carmine-painted lips together and said, ‘I think people without dreams are living only half a life and that’s a life I wouldn’t want to live.’

Pru had been impressed, Trudy sounded like a poet.

‘But it’s no good dreaming unless you are prepared to work really hard. You have to dream it
and
set yourself a path to make it happen. A dream won’t put food on the table or money in your purse.’

Pru had subconsciously patted the purse in her pocket, which contained their first week’s rent, bus fare and a lucky coin with a hole drilled through it. It was the sum total of their combined wealth. She nodded, wondering what they would need to do to clear their path – the one that led straight to the shiny glass window of Plum Patisserie.

‘What’s your dream then?’ Milly asked Trudy over Pru’s shoulder.

Trudy gave the younger girl her full attention, and drew on her cigar. ‘To have a little love in my life,’ she said as she turned her back and walked forward. ‘I think that’s everyone’s dream, really.’

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.