Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe Read Free

had no interest in baking and relatively little in food, unless it was mung beans, or tofu – neither of which were readilyavailable in 1980s Manchester – or some other fad she’d read about in one of the badly mimeographed pamphlets about alterative lifestyles she subscribed to.
    ‘An icing piper. Gramps won’t let me use his.’
    ‘It’s too big and you kept ripping it,’ grumbled Grampa Joe, then winked at Issy to show that he wasn’t really cross. ‘That butterscotch icing you made was pretty good, though, my girl.’
    Issy beamed with pride.
    Marian glanced downwards. ‘My Little Pony oven gloves … My darling, I don’t think they do those.’
    ‘They should,’ said Issy.
    ‘Pink mixing bowl … Girl’s World … what’s that?’
    ‘It’s a doll’s head. You put make-up on it.’ Issy had heard the other girls in her class talking about it. That was what they were all getting. She hadn’t heard anyone wanting a mixing bowl. So she’d decided she’d better join in with them.
    ‘You put make-up on a plastic head?’ said Marian, who had perfect skin and had never worn make-up in her life. ‘For what, to make her look like a tramp?’
    Issy shook her head, blushing a bit.
    ‘Women don’t need make-up,’ said Marian. ‘That’s just to please men. You are perfectly fine as you are, do you understand? It’s what’s in here that counts.’ She rapped Issy sharply on the temple. ‘God, this bloody country. Imagine selling make-up to small children.’
    ‘I don’t see too much harm in it,’ said Grampa Joe mildly. ‘At least it’s a toy. The others are allwork tools.’
    ‘Oh Lord, it’s so much stuff,’ said Marian. ‘The commercialisation of Christmas is disgusting. It drives me mad. Everyone stuffing themselves and making themselves ill and trying to pretend they’ve got these perfect bloody nuclear families when everybody knows it’s all a total lie and we’re living under the Thatcher jackboot and the bomb could go off at any moment …’
    Grampa Joe shot her a warning look. Issy got very upset when Marian started talking about the bomb, or made noises about taking her to Greenham Common, or forced her to wear her CND badge to school. Then he went on calmly buttering the bread they were having with their turnip soup. (Marian insisted on very plain vegetables; Grampa Joe provided sugar and carbohydrates. It was a balanced diet, if you included both extremes.)
    Issy didn’t bother sending the letter after all, didn’t even sign her name, which at that point had a big love-heart above the ‘I’ because all her friends did the same.
    Two days later Marian had gone, leaving behind a letter.
    Darling, I need some sun on my face or I can’t breathe. I wanted to take you with me, but Joe says you need schooling more than you need sunshine. Given that I left school at fourteen I can’t really see the point myself but best do what he says for now. Have a very lovely Christmas my darling and I will see you soon.
    Next to the card was a brand-new,unwrapped, shiny-boxed Girl’s World.
    Issy became aware, later in life, that it must have cost her mother something to buy it – something more than money – but it didn’t feel like that at the time. Despite her grandad’s efforts to interest her in it, she left the box unopened in the corner of her bedroom, unplayed with.
    They both woke early on Christmas morning, Joe from long habit, Issy from excitement of a kind, although she was aware that other children she knew would be waking up with their mummies and probably their daddies too. It broke Joe’s heart to see how she tried so hard not to mind, and as she unwrapped her new mixing bowl, and her lovely little whisk, all child-sized, and the tiniest patty pans he could find, and they made pancakes together before walking to church on Christmas morning, saying hello to their many friends and neighbours, it broke his heart all over again to see that some of her truly didn’t mind;