Graeme rubbed the back of his hair, nervously. It stuck up. It normally did, unless he used quite a lot of taming gel. He didn’t know Issy liked it better that way.
‘Uh, Issy. Actually, it’s great news. For us. We’ve been granted planning permission to turn Pear Tree Court into apartments!’
‘What do you mean, “us”?’ said Issy, her blood running cold. ‘There’s no “us’’.’
‘Well, you, me, Kalinga Deniki, you know,’ said Graeme, hurrying his words. ‘This whole space is going to be an amazing flagship development for Stoke Newington.’
‘We don’t want a flagship development,’ said someone at the back. ‘We want a café.’
Issy stepped closer to Graeme. ‘You mean you were thinking of doing something that involves … closing the café? Without telling me?’
‘But listen, sweetie,’ said Graeme, leaning in close and giving her the special crinkle-eyed intense look that always made the temps work extra hours for him. He spoke quietly so the rest of the café couldn’t hear, though Austin caught the gist of it. ‘Listen. I thought you and I could do the deal together. We were so good together, we could be again. We can make a lot of money. Buy a bigger house of our own. And you won’t have to get up at six in the morning any more, or spend all night doing paperwork, or haggling with suppliers, or getting yelled at by that accountancy woman. Huh?’
Issy looked up at him. ‘But …’ she said. ‘But …’
‘You’ve done such a great job here, it’s going to give us real financial independence. Really set us up. Then you can work on something much easier, huh?’
Issy gazed at him, half disbelieving, half furious. Not with Graeme – he was a shark; this was what he did. With herself. For staying with him as long as she had; for letting this snake into her life; for stupidly believing that he could change; that the man she had met – sharp, selfish, attractive, not interested in commitment – would suddenly turn into the man she wanted him to be, just by her blindly wishing for it to be so. After all, how would that happen? It didn’t make any sense. She was such a total idiot. Such a cretin.
‘But you can’t!’ she said suddenly. ‘I have a lease! I rent this place.’
Graeme looked regretful. ‘Mr Barstow … he’s more than happy to sell out to us. We’ve already spoken. You’re nearly at the end of your six months.’
‘And you’d have to get planning—’
‘That’s already in process. It’s not exactly an area of outstanding natural beauty.’
‘It bloody is!’ said Issy. Infuriatingly, she felt tears sparking in her eyes and a huge lump in her throat; outside the window, the children were laughing and playing round their beloved, stumpy, twisty, unbeautiful tree.
‘Don’t you see?’ said Graeme, desperately. ‘This is for us! I was doing it for us, darling! We could still work it out.’
Issy glared at him.
‘But … but don’t you see? I love getting up at six am. I love doing the paperwork. I even love that old cow Mrs Prescott. And why? Because it’s mine, that’s why. Not yours, not somebody else’s and not bloody Kalinga Deniki’s.’
‘It’s not yours,’ said Graeme softly. ‘It’s the bank’s.’
At this Issy turned to Austin. He held out his hands towards her and was shocked to see the rage in her face.
‘You knew about this?’ she yelled at him. ‘You knew and you never told me?’
‘I thought you knew!’ protested Austin, taken aback by her fury. ‘I thought it was your little plan all along! To tart up this joint then flog it to some naff City boys!’
At this, something inside Issy cracked. She didn’t know how much longer she could dam the flood of tears.
‘You thought I would do that?’ she said, all anger gone and pure sadness taking its place. ‘You thought I would do that.’
Now it was Austin’s turn to feel awful. He should have trusted his instincts after all. He stepped towards her.
‘Stay away from me,’ Issy yelled. ‘Stay away from me. Both of you. Go. Get out. Get out of here.’
Austin and Graeme shot each other a glance of mutual loathing, and Austin hung back to let the shorter man leave first.
‘Hang on!’ Issy shouted suddenly. ‘How long … how long have I got?’
Graeme shrugged. Dumpy, blushing Issy, plucked out of the bloody typing pool, for fuck’s sake – that she dared to say he wasn’t enough for her … Bloody cow. How dare she dump him. How dare she get in the way of his plans. He suddenly felt coldly furious that she would cross him like this.
‘Planning goes up tomorrow,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a month.’
The café went silent, as the oven pinged. Louis’s cakes were ready.
Pearl looked at the tears flooding down Issy’s face and the crowd of concerned well-wishers around her as she ushered the littlies back in and decided it was time for the emergency white wine to be deployed, licence or no licence. Two of the mums, excited to be caught up in such a drama, sorted out the children’s cakes, which they could decorate, as soon as they cooled a little, with blue or pink icing, hundreds and thousands and tiny silver balls. There were also bowls set out of chopped fruit, sesame seeds, carrot sticks, hummus and twiglets. Caroline had managed this side of the catering ‘as a gift to darling Louis’. Louis had given her one of his Hard Stares when he’d seen what was on offer. They were keeping it all to one side.
Pearl and Helena bundled Issy downstairs.
‘Are you all right?’ said Pearl, worriedly.
‘That snake,’ shouted Issy. ‘I’ll kill him. I’ll sort him out. We’ll establish a fighting fund! We’ll start a leafleting campaign! I’ll bury him! You’ll help, won’t you, Helena? You’ll get on it with us?’
Issy turned to Helena, who was suddenly looking rather distracted and biting her lip, having left Ashok behind upstairs. Issy explained everything again. She started to cry a little as she did so, particularly at the point where she talked about Austin thinking she’d done it on purpose. Pearl was shaking her head.
‘I mean,’ Issy protested, ‘they can’t do that. They can’t just march in here, can they? Can he?’