‘But it’s official!’
Caroline shrugged. ‘So what? We pay taxes. The fewer nosy busybodies they employ to do this kind of thing, the better for everyone. Shall I?’
Shocked and feeling naughty, Pearl nodded. Normally, anything official she paid very close attention to. In her world, you did what those letters said or bad things happened. They cut your benefit. They reassigned where you lived, and you just had to go, even if it was somewhere awful. They came and pawed at your children and if you didn’t like it, they could even, she was sure, take your children away. They asked you how much you drank and how much you smoked and how many hours you worked and where was the baby’s father, and if you got the answer wrong, even a tiny bit, then you weren’t going to be buying shoes in the foreseeable future. Seeing Caroline rip up the letter like it was nothing – something stupid to be ignored – worked a surprising change in her. She was still cross at Caroline for not having to care about this stuff. But she felt oddly liberated too.
‘Thank you,’ she said to Caroline quietly, with a hesitant admiration.
‘You know,’ said Caroline, daintily sweeping up the scraps, ‘you don’t look like you’re the kind of person who would let anyone push you about.’
Pearl sat Louis back up on the high chair. Was he plump? He had round little baby cheeks and an adorable pot belly, and a high little round bottom and chunky kissable thighs and fat pudgy fingers. How could he be fat? He was perfect.
‘You’re gorgeous,’ she said, looking at him. Louis nodded. His mum told him this a lot and he knew how to respond in a way that normally got him a sweetie.
‘Louis is gojuss,’ he said, grinning merrily and showing all his teeth. ‘Yis! Louis is gojuss! Now sweeties.’
And he put out his chubby hand and made a beckoning gesture.
‘Mm,’ he added for emphasis, just in case anyone had missed the reference, licking his lips and rubbing his tummy. ‘Louis does do like sweeties.’
Caroline was rarely demonstrative even with her own children – in fact, had she stopped to think about it she would probably have categorized her mood with them as mostly peevish – but she moved towards Louis on the chair, who eyed her warily. He was universally benevolent, but this woman never gave him sweeties, he knew that much.
Caroline prodded him in his fat tummy and he giggled and wriggled obligingly.
‘You are gorgeous, Louis,’ she said. ‘But you shouldn’t have that.’
‘It’s just a baby tummy,’ protested Pearl strongly.
‘No, it has rolls,’ said Caroline, whose contemplation and understanding of human body fat in all its permutations bordered on the maniacal. ‘That’s not right. And I never see him without a cake in his paws.’
‘Well, he’s a growing boy,’ said Pearl defensively. ‘He’s got to eat.’
‘He does,’ said Caroline thoughtfully. ‘It all depends on what.’
A tap at the door alerted them to their first customers – the labourers who were working on Kate’s house on Albion Road. Now Kate directly blamed the work’s slow progress and tardy completion on Caroline selling them coffee and cakes all day and encouraging them to hang about chatting rather than getting on with the job and taking five minutes of their own time to throw down a home-made cheese sandwich underneath the roof slats. Her annoyance was making Stitch ’n’ Bitch increasingly uncomfortable.
As they handled the morning rush, and Louis sat cheerfully greeting the regulars, who found it hard to pass him without tweaking his sticky cheeks or rubbing his soft shorn head, Pearl kept sneaking glances at him in the faded antique mirror that hung over the room. Sure enough, there was old Mrs Hanowitz, who liked a huge mug of hot chocolate and a proper kaffeeklatsch, scratching his roly tum as if he were a dog – then she popped the marshmallow from the top of her chocolate into his mouth. And Fingus the plumber, with the huge belly and builder’s bum spilling out of the side of his white dungarees: he high-fived his little mate, and asked as he did every day if Louis had brought his spanner yet, seeing as he was going to be his apprentice. Issy didn’t help matters by running in from her early meeting to get started on the baking, but not without going up to Louis for her morning cuddle and announcing loudly, ‘Good morning, my little chub-chubs.’ Pearl’s brow furrowed. Was this what he was? Everyone’s plump pet? He wasn’t a pet. He was a person, with the same rights as everyone else.
Caroline caught her looking, and bit her lip. Well, quite right, she didn’t want her child to end up the same way as her, did she? And Pearl’s distress had given her an idea …
‘Well, maybe she’s right,’ said Ben, lounging against the kitchen counter. ‘I dunno. He looks all right to me.’
‘And me,’ said Pearl. Ben had ‘popped in’ on his way home, even though he was working in Stratford, which was right across the other side of town. Pearl pretended that he was just passing, Ben pretended he didn’t really want to stay the night (although Pearl’s cooking was worth it on its own. It was odd, Pearl had found. When she wasn’t working, she couldn’t really be bothered with cooking and they’d lived off chicken and fish fingers. Now, even though she was tired when she got home, she quite liked sticking Louis on the counter and putting a meal together. She was a good cook, after all), and Louis nearly expired with happiness.
The little boy bumbled past them entirely covered in a blanket.
‘Hey, Louis,’ said his dad.
‘I not Louis. I turtle,’ came a muffled voice. Ben raised his eyebrows.
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Pearl. ‘He’s been a turtle all day.’
Ben put down his cup of tea and raised his voice.
‘Any turtles around here who would like to go outside and play some football?’
‘Yaaayyyy,’ said the turtle, getting up without taking off his blanket and bumping his head on the cooker. ‘Ouch.’
Pearl looked at her mother in amazement as Ben led his boy outside.
‘Don’t think it,’ said her mother. ‘He comes for a bit then he goes again. Don’t let the boy get too fond.’
It might be too late for that, Pearl found herself thinking.
Bran and Carrot Cupcake Surprise
1½ cups wholewheat pastry flour
½ tsp baking soda