‘Oh, lovely,’ said Issy. ‘What’s he up to? Apart from, um, lying in bed.’
‘He wanted to know if you got his cream of soda scone recipe.’
‘Ah,’ said Issy. She had got it. But the thing was, she’d got it four times, all copied out in the same wavering hand. She’d forgotten about that.
‘And,’ said Helena, ‘he didn’t recognize me on the phone.’
‘Oh,’ said Issy.
‘He knows me quite well,’ said Helena.
‘I know.’
‘I don’t have to tell you what that means.’
‘No,’ said Issy quietly. ‘He seemed fine yesterday.’
‘It can ebb and flow,’ said Helena. ‘You know that.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Ashok. ‘The same thing happened to my grandfather.’
‘Did he get all better?’asked Issy. ‘And then everything went back to how it used to be and it was fine again, just like when you were little?’
‘Um … not exactly,’ said Ashok, and he offered her a little more wine, but Issy suddenly found herself overwhelmed with tiredness. She bade goodnight to them both and stumbled off to bed.
‘I’m calling the home,’ said Issy, after a long, luxurious lie-in the next morning.
‘Good,’ said Helena. ‘What was it you wanted to ask me before?’
‘Ooh,’ said Issy. ‘Well.’ And she told her about her day with Austin. Helena’s smile got wider and wider.
‘Stop that,’ said Issy. ‘That’s exactly the look Pearl gets every time his name comes up in conversation. You two are totally in cahoots.’
‘He’s an attractive man …’ said Helena.
‘Whom I owe lots and lots of money,’ said Issy. ‘I’m sure it’s not right.’
‘Well, you haven’t done anything,’ said Helena.
‘Nooo …’
‘Apart from the dribble.’
‘I didn’t dribble.’
‘Let’s hope he looooves dribble.’
‘Stop it!’
‘Well, at least he’s seen you at your dribbliest. It can only get better from now on in.’
‘Shut up!’
Helena grinned. ‘I reckon he’s going to phone you.’
Issy felt her heart beat a bit faster. Even just talking about him was the most … well, it felt nice.
‘Do you think?’
‘Even if it’s just to bill you for the dry-cleaning.’
Austin did phone. First thing Tuesday morning.
But it wasn’t the kind of phone call he really wanted to make. It wasn’t the kind he liked making to anyone. The fact that he had to make it to Issy really made him think that, once and for all, and however sweet she might be and however interesting he found her and however pretty she looked, these kinds of things were pointless and he couldn’t mix business with pleasure, and that was that. Which was incredibly annoying, given that he was still going to have to call her. And it didn’t help that Darny kept mooning around the place, asking when he could see her again.
Well, it had to be done. He sighed, then picked up the phone.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hello!’ came the warm tones immediately. She sounded really pleased to hear from him. ‘Hello! Is that Austin? How nice to hear from you! How’s Darny? Can you tell him I have been looking for fish cake-shapes to make fishy cakes but apparently nobody likes fishy cakes and I can’t find any. Well, they like fishcakes, you know what I mean, but not … anyway, do you think dinosaurs would do and …’ Issy was aware she was babbling.
‘Um, fine, he’s fine. Um, look, Issy …’
Her heart sank. That tone of voice was one she recognized. In that instant she knew that whatever she thought might have happened on Saturday was not really on the agenda; that he’d reconsidered, if he’d ever considered it in the first place. OK. OK. She took a deep breath and pulled herself together, putting down her spatula and pushing her hair away from her face. She was surprised just how acute her disappointment was: she’d thought she was still getting over a broken heart, but this felt much more painful than thoughts of her old boss.
‘Yes?’ she said, in a clipped way.
Austin felt cross with himself, stupid. Why couldn’t he just say, look, would you like to meet for, you know, a drink? Somewhere nice. Late at night. Where nobody had to get up in the morning and be at work for 7am, and no one still wet the bed if they’d been watching Doctor Who and needed his bunkbed changing at peculiar hours; somewhere they could have a glass of wine, and maybe a bit of a laugh, and a dance and then afterwards … God. He felt like smacking himself on the head. Concentrate.
‘Look,’ he managed. He was going to keep this short and terse, make absolutely sure he didn’t say anything inappropriate. ‘I’ve had Mrs Prescott on the phone …’
‘And?’
Issy was ready for good news. Earnings were marching steadily upwards, and she fully expected Caroline to make a huge difference; when she wasn’t bursting into tears or tut-tutting over the butter order, she was already proving herself an icon of efficiency.
‘She says there’s a … she says she needs to send out an invoice and you won’t let her.’
‘Well, I’ve explained it totally to Mrs Prescott,’ said Issy stiffly. ‘I was doing a wedding favour to a friend.’
‘She says there was no mention of this at all. She found there was an unaccounted-for amount of ingredients missing that would add up to about four hundred cakes …’
‘God, she’s good,’ said Issy. ‘Four hundred and ten, actually. In case some got squashed.’
‘That’s not funny, Issy! That’s a week’s profit for you!’
‘But it was a wedding gift! To a friend!’
‘Well, the invoice should still have gone through, even at a heavy discount. You have to charge for raw materials.’
‘Not for a gift,’ said Issy stubbornly. How dare he take her out and be all soft and mooshy on Saturday, then three days later phone her up and think he could give her a bollocking. He was just as bad as Graeme.
Austin was exasperated.
‘Issy! You can’t run a business this way! You just can’t! Don’t you understand? You can’t just shut up the shop unannounced, and you can’t go giving stock away like that! Apple don’t hand out free iPods, and exactly the same principle applies to you. Exactly.’