‘Who else is coming?’ asked Issy. She rather liked the idea of becoming a whizz at children’s parties.
‘My mum,’ said Pearl. ‘My pastor. A couple of people from the church.’
She didn’t add that she’d hardly asked any of her friends. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of where she worked, or that Louis was in with a group of new people. A lot of her friends couldn’t work anyway; they had more than one child at home, or no help with childcare like she had with her mum. She just didn’t want them to think that she was showing off, throwing a big extravagant party for Louis like she didn’t think the local Maccy D’s was good enough for her child (which she didn’t), and she didn’t want anyone to imagine she was getting above herself. Louis had to go to school soon, after all. Life where they lived was hard enough.
Most of all, she didn’t mention Ben. She couldn’t. He had been, though, so sweet. So lovely. She’d seen him so much. She had actually begun to … Well, he was working up this way. Up at the Olympic site. He was earning. Her mother could stay in the council property, but there was nothing to stop them … well, maybe renting a place. Just a little place round here. Not too far from Ben’s work, and close enough so that Louis could still go to the same nursery … and then, maybe next year, one of the wonderful schools they had around here, filled with light and art and happy children in smart uniforms. She’d seen them. It didn’t feel, to Pearl, in the scheme of things, such a big dream. It was more than she could possibly have envisaged only a year before. And she was terrified of jinxing it. But Ben knew where the party was. And he’d promised to be there.
‘Well, it’ll be fantastic,’ said Issy, sorting out the raw ingredients into little bowls. She’d also invested in a dozen tiny aprons, which she’d been sighing and cooing over. Pearl looked at her with narrowed eyes. Something was definitely up.
‘Ish my birfday!’ announced Louis loudly, seeing as no one had mentioned it for at least three minutes.
‘Well, is it there, little man?’ said Doti, coming through the door. ‘Just as well I have some cards for you then.’
And he opened his bag and revealed half a dozen bright-coloured envelopes. The girls and Louis gathered round. Some were addressed just to him, others simply to ‘the little boy at the Cupcake Café’. Pearl squinted.
Issy picked him up. ‘Have you been telling everyone it’s your birthday?’ she asked him solemnly.
Louis nodded. ‘On Satday. Mah birfday Satday. I say “Come to my birfday pahty Satday. Ah have mah birfday pahty in shop!”’
Pearl and Issy exchanged slightly worried glances.
‘But I’m already closing the shop for a dozen toddlers,’ said Issy.
Pearl put her head next to Louis.
‘Who did you ask to your birthday, baby?’ she asked gently.
‘Well, me for one,’ said Doti. ‘Thought I’d come by when I’ve finished my rounds. I have quite the present for you, young man.’
‘Yay!’ said Louis, rushing up to the postie and throwing his little arms round his knees. ‘Ah do laike presents, Mr Postman.’
‘Well, that’s good.’
Doti checked his bag. ‘Oh, there’s another couple here.’
‘Oh God.’ Pearl rolled her eyes. ‘He’s invited half the town.’
‘Are you an irrepressible socialite?’ said Issy to Louis, rubbing his nose.
‘I is ipress slite!’ said Louis keenly, nodding his head. Pearl watched the two of them together, meaningfully, until she almost didn’t notice the postman leaning over.
‘Heavy bag this morning,’ he said. ‘Maybe I should have a coffee. And one of your gorgeous cakes.’
Pearl gave him her usual amused look.
‘What about a green tea?’ she said. ‘I might even come drink it with you. Seeing as you appear to be such a good friend of my son.’
The postman’s face lit up, and he immediately dropped his bag.
‘I would like that,’ he said, just as an Owl City song came on the radio. It was such a beautiful morning. Pearl and the postman sat down and Issy spun Louis round in a dance, feeling his little heart close to hers. She hugged him so hard she nearly squeezed the breath out of him.
‘Hip hip h’ray!’ yelled Louis.
‘Bugger it, Ow. Ow. Ow. Darny!’ Austin crumpled over on to the floor.
‘Well, you didn’t stay still,’ came the small, furious-sounding voice.
‘I bloody did,’ said Austin, pulling his hand away from his face. As he’d expected, there was blood on it. ‘Back to bears!’
‘I am never going to become Robin Hood if you won’t let me practise,’ huffed Darny. ‘And Big Bear said no more arrows.’
‘Why did Big Bear say that?’ said Austin, marching upstairs to the bathroom.
‘Um, because it is … so sore,’ said Darny, his voice tailing off.
‘Exactly!’
Austin looked at himself in the bathroom mirror – which, he noticed belatedly, was horribly smeared. He had just about enough money to pay a cleaner, but not enough to pay a good one. He sighed, and wiped it with a towel. Just as he’d thought, there was a perfect hole in his forehead – not much blood, but deep enough to leave a mark. He groaned. Obviously he shouldn’t have let Darny shoot that arrow at him but it was only meant to be a toy, and Darny had been so persuasive … He rubbed the sore spot. Sometimes this parenting lark was a steep learning curve. Dabbing it with tissue, he came back downstairs. There was also a mountain of work mail that he had thrown in his satchel the previous evening before he left the bank. He absolutely had to look at it, it wasn’t – as he repeatedly told his overdraft clients – going to go away.
‘OK,’ he said, going back downstairs and opening the sitting-room door. An arrow narrowly missed his head. ‘You can watch that Japanese strobe-y thing you like on TV. I have work to do.’
‘And we have a party this afternoon,’ said Darny laconically. Austin looked at him suspiciously. Darny didn’t get asked to many parties. Darny had explained to him that it was because he wore pants trainers, but had also said he didn’t care because pants trainers were a stupid reason not to like someone. In fact, they did get invited to a few, but it was no coincidence, Austin quickly realized, that it was all the single mothers who invited him along, whether their kids were boys, girls or sometimes not even in Darny’s class. Darny complained about this most vociferously of all and hated ‘being a pimp’, as he called it.