Her phone rang. She fumbled for it in her pocket, her heart thudding. Was this it? What was she going to say? Sorry, Austin, this is it for us? I’m leaving you because you’re about to leave me anyway and I don’t want to go through four months of torture whilst you faff around between London and New York unable to make up your mind? Or, Please please please come back to London with me and give up all hopes of an exciting future to be stuck behind a desk in Stoke Newington for the rest of your life?
She was tempted not to answer – nobody’s name would come up on her screen because she was abroad – because she didn’t know what to say, and a snot-and tear-filled gabbling wouldn’t really help anyone. But to not answer would be worse, passive-aggressive and horrible and scary, and if Austin was putting things off, it wouldn’t help if she did too.
‘Hello?’ she whispered into the phone, her hand where she’d taken off her glove to press the green button already feeling cold and stiff. Automatically she kept walking north to where it seemed quieter; up through Columbus Circle and skirting the bottom of Central Park.
‘Oh thank GOD,’ said Pearl. ‘There you are. Issy, I may have been … ahem … slightly exaggerating before. About how things are.’
‘What?’ Issy snuffled, wrenched back to reality.
‘Um,’ said Pearl.
Pearl was standing in the basement kitchen of the shop. It looked like a bomb had hit it. Strawberry cake mix that Issy had carefully made up in advance was dripping off the walls. Receipts and pieces of paper were piling up on surfaces all over the place. It was the middle of the night and Pearl hadn’t slept properly in two days.
‘I think,’ she said, finally, ‘I think I’ve broken the mixer.’
‘Frick,’ said Issy. The industrial mixer was a central part of the operation. ‘But it’s Saturday tomorrow! It’s a huge Christmas shopping day. The entire world is going to be out.’
‘I know,’ said Pearl. ‘And some cake mix landed on the calculator and I’m having, um, some trouble cashing up. And possibly there’s a health inspection due.’
Issy made up her mind. ‘Listen,’ she said, with a heavy heart. ‘It’s all right. I’ve got this totally posh plane ticket.’
She paused and took a deep breath.
‘I’ll fly straight back. I’ll see you in the morning.’
Chapter Fourteen
It didn’t take Issy long to pack. Apart from Caroline’s ridiculous coat, she’d worn almost none of the unsuitable clothes she’d packed so quickly, with such excitement. Flicking pointlessly through the television channels, she saw Sleepless in Seattle playing on TCM and nearly burst into tears.
Austin arrived back at the hotel shortly after her, a grumpy Darny in his wake.
‘This really isn’t good for me,’ Darny was saying. ‘Having to deal with conflict in an already difficult childhood.’
‘Shut up, Darny,’ Austin said. His face fell when he saw Issy with her suitcase out.
‘It’s not because of you,’ she said. ‘Honestly. Pearl can’t cope without me. Things have gone really wrong.’ She looked at him straight on. ‘Sorry. I can’t leave the café.’
Austin looked straight back at her. His heart was pounding in his chest. Darny was sitting in the corner, his face drawn and tense. Austin didn’t want to mention the letter in his pocket. It wouldn’t make anything better. It would make everything worse; Issy might think he was blaming her, because it had happened in his absence. He never wanted her to think that she had done anything wrong; with Darny, with him. Not anything. He felt a terrible lurch. There was so much he wanted to say, but would any of it change that essential truth?
‘I know,’ he said, quietly.
There was a long silence after that.
Issy felt as if she’d been punched in the face. He was going to let her go, just like that. Without even vaguely trying to persuade her to stay. For some stupid job. For his career. Everything she had ever thought about her big, handsome, gentle Austin … well, she hadn’t imagined that this would happen. Not like this.
She put out her hand to steady herself. Austin saw her and wanted to burst into tears. She looked so vulnerable. But what could he do? If it wasn’t now, it would be later. Should he just prolong the agony? He felt as if he were ripping apart inside; and yet here they were, words still coming out of their mouths, almost like normal human beings.
‘I’m just going to phone the airline,’ Issy said, feeling as if they were someone else’s words, someone else’s script. Surely she should be saying, let’s take a ferry ride to see the Statue of Liberty; or go for a romantic evening in a cocktail bar where a pianist would be tinkling ‘It Had To Be You’ in the corner; or go and watch the adverts and the sailors down in Times Square and look at the great bows and Christmas lights that draped every corner of the city.
‘I’ll get someone to do that,’ Austin was saying, like a robot.
‘Someone at your office? In New York?’ said Issy, then wished she hadn’t. Everything was bad enough without being spiteful on top of it. ‘Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean that.’
‘No,’ said Austin. ‘It’s OK. I’m sorry. I mean …’
He looked so thoroughly miserable, all Issy wanted to do was take him in her arms and hold him till he felt better. But what good would that do? she thought. He seemed to have made up his mind. Prolong everything? Pretend to carry on a financially ruinous and technically impossible career between two totally different continents?
‘Ssh,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ She indicated Darny. ‘We can talk about it back in the UK.’
‘Mm,’ said Austin. He couldn’t figure out where exactly this had all gone so terribly wrong. Issy hadn’t even taken a second to look around or tried to see the positive side of New York. She’d been against the entire thing right from the start, almost as if she’d decided that it was going to be a disaster, and therefore it had turned into one. It made him incredibly cross.
They stood a little while longer with neither of them saying anything.
‘Well, this is boring,’ said Darny. ‘I can feel my ADHD kicking in.’
‘I’ll make the call,’ said Austin.
‘OK,’ said Issy.