The second good result was that Louis became entirely suspicious of every cupcake in the shop and refused to eat a second breakfast there. It did him no harm at all, and with Caroline working more hours and Louis skipping to the bus stop with his mum every day, his second weigh-in went without a hitch. Which didn’t matter to Pearl and Caroline, who cheerfully tore up the health authority’s letter regardless.
Three weeks later, Pearl came in to find Caroline bent over the counter, stock still.
‘What’s up?’
Caroline couldn’t answer. She was stiff as a board.
‘What’s the matter, sweetheart?’
‘I’m … I’m fine,’ stuttered Caroline.
Pearl gently but firmly turned her round.
‘What’s happened?’
Caroline’s usually immaculately made-up face was tearstained and tragic, mascara pouring down.
‘What is it?’ said Pearl, who was familiar with how the pain, sometimes, of losing your man could come in and hit you at the most unexpected moments, even when you hadn’t thought of him in days. Like she’d gone past Clapham Common on a bus and remembered a picnic they’d had there, when she was just pregnant with Louis and enjoying looking pregnant, rather than just big, although her boobies had grown utterly gigantic (Ben had liked that). They had sat in the park and eaten chicken as Ben talked about what his future son would do and what he’d grow up to be, and she’d looked at the blue sky above and felt as safe and happy as she could ever remember. She never went to the common now.
Caroline choked and indicated her trouser zip. She was wearing a pair of very closely draped cigarette pants, clearly expensive. The zip, however, had burst and pulled off a button at the top to boot.
‘Look!’ she wailed. ‘Look at this!’
Pearl squinted and examined it.
‘You’ve bust the zip … Are you scarfing ginger cookies in secret when we’re not looking?’
‘No!’ said Caroline emphatically. ‘No, definitely not. It caught on a door.’
‘If you say so,’ said Pearl, who found Caroline’s obsession with self-denial quite amusing. ‘So, what’s the problem?’
‘These are D&G Cruise 10,’ said Caroline, a sentence which meant absolutely nothing to Pearl. ‘I … I mean, they cost hundreds of pounds.’
Pearl thought she could easily get a pair down Primark for a tenner, but didn’t say.
‘And I won’t … I won’t be able to buy any more now. That’s it for me. The Bastard says he’s not paying for my lifestyle.’ Her voice tailed away in sobs.
‘I’m going to have to wear … high street.’ Caroline’s sobs grew louder. ‘And colour my own hair!’
She dropped her head in her hands.
Pearl couldn’t see the problem. ‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. You know what they say, as long as you have a roof over your head and enough to eat …’
‘I never have enough to eat,’ said Caroline defiantly.
‘Let me take a look at it,’ said Pearl. ‘It’s only a busted zip. Can’t you fix it in your Stitch ’n’ Bitch?’
‘Ha!’ laughed Caroline. ‘No. That’s just for patchwork and gossip, not real sewing.’
‘Well, I can fix it for you,’ said Pearl. Caroline blinked her wide blue eyes.
‘Really? You’d do that for me?’
‘What would you do otherwise?’
Caroline shrugged. ‘I suppose … just buy another pair. In the old days. Of course I’d give them to the charity shop.’
‘Of course you would,’ said Pearl, shaking her head. Hundreds of pounds for a pair of trousers, thrown out because of a zip. The world made no sense.
The doorbell rang and Doti the postman came in, with his normal hopeful smile.
‘Hello, ladies,’ he said politely. ‘What’s going on here?’
‘Caroline is out of her trousers,’ said Pearl, unable to help herself.
‘Oh good,’ said Doti.
‘Why is that good?’ spluttered Caroline.
‘You need a bit of meat on your bones,’ said Doti. ‘Skinny women look … sad. You should eat some of these delicious cakes.’
Caroline rolled her eyes. ‘I do not look sad. Does Cheryl Cole look sad? Does Jennifer Aniston look sad?’
‘Yes’ said Pearl.
‘I don’t know who they are,’ said Doti.
‘I look in shape, that’s all.’
‘Well, you look nice,’ said Doti.
‘Thank you,’ said Caroline. ‘Although I’m not sure about taking fashion advice from a postman.’
‘We postmen don’t miss much,’ said Doti, completely unoffended and putting their few letters down on the counter, as Pearl simultaneously handed him an espresso. They smiled at one another.
‘You, on the other hand,’ said Doti, necking his espresso as if to give himself courage. ‘You look beautiful.’
Pearl smiled and said thank you as Doti left, and Caroline’s mouth fell open.
‘What?’ said Pearl, still pleased enough by Doti’s compliment not to be too bothered by Caroline’s unflattering amazement. ‘You don’t think he meant it?’
Caroline looked her up and down, taking in, Pearl knew, her rounded hips, her large bosom, the curve of her back and her hips.
‘No,’ she said, in a humbler voice than Pearl had ever heard before. ‘No. You are beautiful. It’s my fault. I didn’t even notice. I don’t,’ she added, her voice becoming more mournful, ‘I don’t always notice much.’
So Pearl took Caroline’s trousers home and replaced the zip, and the button, and turned up a trailing hem and was slightly disappointed, actually, at the quality of the rest of the sewing on trousers that cost hundreds of pounds, and Caroline was so genuinely grateful she wore them twice in a week, which was a record for her wearing anything, and didn’t pick Louis up on his pronunciation for almost four full days, until he said ‘innit’ and she absolutely couldn’t help herself.
Chapter Fourteen
Best Birthday Cake Ever
4 oz Breton soft butter, first churn
8 oz white caster sugar, sifted
4 large fresh free-range eggs, beaten
6 oz self-raising flour