‘The problem is,’ said Pearl, ‘if we were in it, we’d fill the shop with other people who looked like you. And people that look like you are bad for turnover. Don’t eat enough cakes.’

‘Yes, but we take up less room,’ pleaded Caroline. ‘So you can fit more of us in. And let’s face it, we’ll pay almost anything for a smoothie, especially if it’s green.’

Issy smiled. ‘Well, even so. We wouldn’t win and I don’t want to spend a lot of time doing stupid stuff.’

‘You might,’ said Caroline. ‘And it might bump you up the ladder a bit. It’s time you were expanding anyway. That’s how the Bastard grew his business. Well, I think. He used to talk about it, but I didn’t really listen, obviously – very boring.’

‘I will never understand why you two split up,’ murmured Pearl.

‘At least I was a married mother,’ sniffed Caroline.

Thankfully, the bell tinged, and Helena entered, carrying Chadani. She had a gigantic buggy that had cost about as much as a small car, with personally commissioned muff, hood, foot cosy and car seat in pink and purple tiger stripes, so that from a distance it looked, as Austin had pointed out (quietly), like a small monster that had just eaten a baby, then exploded. It didn’t fit up the stairwell of their apartment, through the doorway of most shops or in the boot of their Fiat, so Helena regularly left it in the middle of the pavement, which managed to make it look even more like a monster, and meant it got in absolutely everybody’s way. This didn’t stop her from recommending it as the very best in buggies to everyone she met. Issy was rather grateful it didn’t fit inside, but she’d had to insist that Helena chain it to the little tree that grew in their courtyard, after she kept leaving it outside the door and it tripped up four people in one morning (it had an extra, malevolent wheel that jutted out the front, and was used mostly to jar people’s heels at pelican crossings).

‘Hello!’ said Issy cheerily, glad she wouldn’t have to break up Pearl and Caroline. ‘Hello, Chadani!’

Chadani yelled and contorted her face.

Issy looked at Helena.

‘Tell me that isn’t real fur.’ Chadani was practically buried in a huge fur coat with a matching bonnet and her pale pink Uggs.

‘No!’ said Helena. ‘But doesn’t she look so CUUUUTE? Ashok’s great-aunt wants to pierce her ears.’

Issy didn’t say anything to this, but kissed Chadani on her little button nose. Once you got past all the fluff and nonsense, she was a very endearing baby.

Chadani smiled cheerfully and pointed at the largest cake on the stand, winter raspberry with pink icing confection that Issy, in whimsical mood, had covered in sparkly stars. They were very pretty and shiny, she conceded.

‘WAAAH!’ shouted Chadani.

‘Will I get one for you to share?’ said Issy, firing up a cappuccino for Helena.

‘Oh, Chadani doesn’t really like to share,’ said Helena. ‘She’s a bit young to be forced into that, don’t you think?’

‘It’s a very big cake,’ said Issy.

‘Yes,’ said Helena. ‘You really shouldn’t have made them so large. You have to think about children too.’

Issy decided not to roll her eyes, and put another batch of bear cakes into the oven. Then she decided to take a quick break – Pearl and Caroline weren’t talking to one another, which made them both work really quickly and efficiently in a gigantic huff – and sat down next to Helena, who was looking at toys in the Argos catalogue whilst Chadani made shorter work of a gigantic cupcake than Issy would have believed a one-year-old capable of.

‘Hey,’ said Issy.

‘Do you know,’ said Helena, flicking through the catalogue, ‘Chadani has every single one of these, just about. They really need to invent some new toys.’

‘You love having a daughter, don’t you?’ said Issy, suddenly.

Helena beamed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘yes. Yes, I do. I mean, obviously we got a very special child, not everyone gets that. But yes. In general. I mean, obviously, it can be …’ She stopped herself. ‘Yes. It’s wonderful. So when are you and Austin going to get to it, then?’

Issy bit her lip. Ever since they’d got together … well, everyone had just seemed to think that it was the end to a fairy tale, a happy ever after; there was Austin and Issy, and wasn’t it funny, she fell in love with her bank manager, ha ha, bet she’ll never be short of a few bob, ha, well, you can guess where he’s putting his deposits … oh, she’d heard all the jokes. And now it was more than a year ago, and everyone was expecting some kind of announcement, or at least for something to happen. But Austin’s work had gone on and on and she’d got caught up in the shop and moving, and, well …

Something in her expression penetrated Helena’s baby haze.

‘You two are all right, aren’t you? There’s nothing wrong? I refuse to believe there’s anything wrong. After all the goat’s arseholes you’ve dated, I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Don’t you dare. I mean it. I’ll march Austin round at gunpoint. I will put him in a wrestling hold. I will remove his horn-rimmed glasses and stuff them up his—’

‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ said Issy hastily. ‘I’m sure he’s just … you know, a bit caught up in New York and a bit excited. That’s all. Nothing bad.’

The doorbell rang. Issy looked up. It was a delivery service. She wasn’t expecting anything.

‘Issy Randall?’ the man in the uniform said.

Issy signed for the box, noticing with excitement that it was from Austin.

‘AHA!’ she said. ‘Look! I shouldn’t have mentioned anything! Look! He’s sent me a present from New York!’

Helena beamed as Issy cut through the brown tape. ‘Hurrah! Now never think badly of him again! You need a relationship like Ashok and me.’

‘What, where you tell him what to do and he lies down and kisses the ground you walk on? Hmmm,’ said Issy, but she was smiling with happiness.

Inside was a bright green box, wrapped with a paler, pistachio-coloured ribbon.

The girl in the New York cupcake shop was called Kelly-Lee. She was very pretty, with a snub nose and wide grey eyes and a few light freckles that looked as though they were dusted on like icing sugar. Her hair was thick and auburn, in a high ponytail, and she wore the pink polo shirt uniform of the shop in a way that was pert but not too sexy.