Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe Read Online Free PDF Page B

Helena was completely ignoring it.
    ‘Of course!’
    ‘And Ashok’s aSikh,’ Issy added, unnecessarily.
    ‘We’ll go to temple for Diwali as well,’ said Helena. ‘Now for that you need to
really
dress up.’
    Issy smiled. She wanted to open a bottle of wine, but remembered that she couldn’t because Helena wasn’t drinking because she was still breastfeeding on demand, and at this rate looked likely to be doing so till about 2025.
    ‘So anyway,’ said Helena, ‘Chadani is …’ and she launched into a list of Chadani Imelda’s latest accomplishments, which may or may not have included ‘scatter all the Baby Einstein DVDs’.
    Suddenly Issy had slightly lost the urge to confide in her friend. Normally they could chat about anything, but since Chadani had arrived, Issy had felt them drifting apart in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Helena had met a load of new, pushy mums through North London Mummy Connexshins, which she presided over by virtue of having the most natural birth and breastfeeding the longest, and their endless, stupefying discussions about baby-led weaning and sleeping through the night left Issy completely cold. Even when she tried to join in by bringing up Darny’s latest misadventures (all the children had to be either perfect or awful, it seemed, there was no middle way; likewise, when you’d given birth you had to have either hardly noticed, or nearly died and required fifteen pints of emergency blood transfusions), Helena had looked at her patronisingly and said it would be different when she had her own. Starting a conversation about missing her boyfriend seemed a bit …
    ‘I miss Austin,’ saidIssy, suddenly. She was going to at least give it a shot. ‘In New York. I wish he was hating it.’
    Helena looked at her. ‘Ashok’s on call,’ she said. ‘I’ve been getting up four times every single night, then he comes in and wants me to keep the baby quiet all day. In this tiny, crappy apartment! I ask you.’
    Issy loved the flat, and still felt very proprietorial about it.
    ‘Oh dear,’ she said tentatively, then ventured, feeling cut off from her own feeble complaint, ‘Should Chadani still be waking up at night?’
    ‘Yes,’ snapped Helena. ‘She’s very sensitive.’
    As if in answer to this, Chadani toddled over to the large pile of freshly washed clothes on the sofa and upturned her beaker of supplementary milk all over them.
    ‘No!’ howled Helena. ‘NO! Don’t! I just … Chadani! That is behaviour of which I am critical! Not that I am criticising you as a person and as a goddess. It is because this behaviour at this time …’
    Chadani stared at Helena, continuing to hold the beaker upside down, as if conducting an experiment.
    Issy decided not topress the boyfriend matter any further.
    ‘I’ll just head out …’ she said.
    As she went, she could hear Helena saying, ‘Now, I would be very happy if you would give me that cup now, Chadani Imelda. Very happy. Make Mummy happy now and give me the cup. Give me the cup now, Chadani. Give Mummy the cup.’



Chapter Three
    Whatever Pearl thought,Issy decided when she got home, it was time to start the Christmas cakes. She gathered together the huge bags of sultanas, raisins and currants – wondering, as she passingly did once a year, and once a year only, what the difference between them was again – along with the glacé cherries and candied peel. If she didn’t start them now, she wouldn’t have enough time to feed them and they wouldn’t be good and strong and delicious in time.
    Darny thumped through to the kitchen as soon as he got in from homework club. As he marched through the door, Issy jumped; he sounded like a grown man already, even though he was only eleven. And of course he’d had his own set of keys since he was six years old.
    ‘Hey,’ he shouted. Normally he swung straight past her up the stairs to his bedroom to play on his Xbox – unless, of course, she was making