‘This place smells awful,’ said Caroline, wafting in twenty minutes late. ‘Good lord, look at that disgusting pile of dirty dishes all over the tables. Yuck, who’d want to eat here?’
‘Can you keep your voice down?’ said Pearl, wiping sweat off her forehead. ‘And get cleaning up.’
‘Can’t the newbie do that?’ sulked Caroline. ‘I just got my nails done.’
‘The newbie is trying to learn how to make a cup of coffee without exploding anything,’ said Pearl.
‘Oops,’ said Maya.
‘Maybe try again when we’re a bit quieter,’ said Pearl through gritted teeth, getting her to start on the dishwasher, which she figured even Maya couldn’t mess up. Wrongly, she discovered, half an hour later, when Maya tried to refill the soap dish with dishwasher cleaner and managed to somehow scoop the overflowing foam over an entire tray of fresh lemon slices.
‘Oops,’ said Maya, again.
There was a queue out the door, but not a good queue – it was a grumbling bunch of freezing people who’d waited far too long for watery coffee and nothing-like-as-good-as-usual cakes, being served up by three grumpy, stressed-out people instead of being soothed by the normal gentle smile and greeting from Issy. If one more person said ‘Boss on holiday, then?’ to Pearl, she was going to scream.
Just as one of their everyday regulars was looming up to the counter bearing a cake with teethmarks in it and an ominous expression, the phone rang. Pearl ducked down the stairs with the handset, leaving Maya to put on an apologetic look and try to explain why the strawberry tart tasted a bit soapy.
‘Hello.’
‘PEARL!’
‘Oh, well, you don’t have to shout.’
‘Sorry,’ said Issy. ‘I’m not used to phoning from abroad. Wow, it’s good to hear your voice. How are things?’
Pearl paused. As she did so, she heard the tinkle of falling crockery.
‘Uhm, fine,’ she said quickly.
‘Really? You’re all doing great without me?’
Issy’s voice sounded slightly disappointed. She had rather hoped they would find it difficult to struggle on without her being there. Mind you, Pearl was so capable and had reassured her so many times that she could manage on her own. It was hardly rocket science. She thought back to that snooty woman at dinner last night. Maybe she was right after all.
‘Well,’ said Pearl. ‘It’s certainly not the same.’
‘PEARL!’ came Caroline’s imperious voice. ‘Did you remember to reorder the milk? Only we appear to be running out and it’s only one thirty. And the sandwich boy hasn’t been, so we’ve missed an entire lunchtime.’
‘Bollocks,’ muttered Pearl under her breath.
‘What’s that?’ said Issy. ‘This is a terrible line.’
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Pearl. ‘Just congratulations from cheerful punters.’
‘Well, good,’ said Issy. ‘I’m glad it’s all carrying on fine.’
‘Yup, don’t worry about us,’ said Pearl, catching with her foot an orange that appeared to be bouncing down the stairs. They didn’t even sell oranges. ‘Don’t worry about us at all.’
Issy wrapped Darny up against his strongest protestations and took out her guidebook. ‘Don’t complain,’ she said.
‘I am complaining,’ said Darny. ‘I’m considering a citizen’s arrest, in fact. I don’t want to go out. I want to stay in and play computer games. They have Modern Warfare 2.’
‘Well I’m afraid you can’t,’ said Issy. ‘We’re in the greatest city in the world and I’m not letting you miss it. Any other kid would be desperate to get out there and explore.’
Darny’s brow furrowed. ‘Do you think so?’ he said.
‘Yes!’ said Issy. ‘It’s a huge world out there, full of all sorts of things. Let’s go explore!’
Darny stuck out his bottom lip. ‘I think this is kidnap.’
Issy, hung-over, stressed, tired, worried about the café – she had thought she would be worried if it was wobbling, but no, nobody even seemed to have noticed she was gone, so a fat lot of use she was back there; and here she was nothing but a liability – had finally lost her patience.
‘Oh for CHRIST’S sake, Darny, just do what you’re asked one FRICKING time and stop behaving like a spoilt baby. It’s pathetic. Nobody’s impressed.’
There was a sudden silence in the room. Issy had never spoken to Darny harshly before. It was the tightest of drawn lines. He was not her boy. He was not her son. She had always promised herself that she wouldn’t cross that line.
And she just had. She had been harsh and hurtful and it was hardly Darny’s fault; he hadn’t asked to come here. And neither had she. Oh, what a mess.
In total silence, Darny stood with her as they waited for the elevator. As they descended into the lovely lobby, the charming receptionist smiled nicely at them and asked if everything was all right, and Issy lied through gritted teeth and said it was, then they both steeled themselves to go out into the freezing New York morning. The sky was a burstingly bright blue and Issy resolved that the first thing they needed was sunglasses; the sun bouncing off the glass panes of the skyscrapers and the snow was almost blinding.
‘Wow,’ she said. For a moment she forgot everything that was going on, just how impressed she was with the fact that she was actually here. In New York!
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go shop! We can have Darny at Barneys! There’s a shop called Barneys, you know, very famous.’
Darny didn’t respond.
‘Look,’ said Issy, putting up her hand to hail a taxi. It really was impossible to be outside for more than a couple of minutes. ‘I’m sorry, OK. I really didn’t mean what I said. I was … I was frustrated about something else and I took it out on you.’
Darny shrugged his shoulders. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. But obviously it did.
Barneys turned out to be horrifically expensive, so they left after Issy had swooned a little over the staggeringly beautiful clothes draped on the mannequins, and marvelled at the young, beautiful American women who were storming through and picking things up right, left and centre, commenting on them all the while. She spied a Gap across the road and they hurried across. Everything was much cheaper there, and she bought Darny a few things she thought he needed (most notably new underpants) that neither Austin nor Darny ever seemed to notice. Then she thought about it again and bought Austin a whole bunch of new underpants too. Couldn’t hurt. And some shirts and a couple of jumpers. She liked buying for him. She couldn’t ever have bought clothes for her last boyfriend, Graeme; he was very anal and particular. Austin probably wouldn’t even notice, or care, but it made her feel like she was looking after him, and at the moment she didn’t feel that she was looking after anyone particularly well – and worse, no one, from her customers to her boyfriend to his brother, felt particularly like they wanted looking after either.