‘Maybe I should make a cake just for you.’ Marco laughed, slapping me playfully on the behind as I turned away. ‘Get some flesh back on your bones.’
‘I don’t want a cake, Marco. I just want to make this one. Now go on, piss off. I need to make a list. I need to get ingredients. Most of all I need to concentrate.’
‘Why are we celebrating London’s biggest slut whoring knickers again?’
‘Marco, please.’
‘Okay, okay. Don’t know why you don’t just buy one. All that time and effort, you know you’ll only end up binning it.’
‘I can do this.’
‘Fine, I’ll get out of your way. I’ll pick you up at seven. Don’t burn the bloody thing.’
But Marco hadn’t arrived at seven. I had been waiting, pacing the hallway in heels which clattered noisily. I was sore that he’d stood me up. When it was nearly eight o’clock, I called Carmel.
‘Where are you?’ Carmel demanded. ‘We’re all waiting.’
‘Bloody Marco hasn’t turned up.’
‘What do you mean? He’s here. He’s been here nearly an hour.’
I blinked.
‘Do you want me to put him on the phone?’
‘No, I – no, I think I must have got confused. I’ll come now.’
I had left the building, carrying the cake in a box, my stomach already knotted. I hadn’t always been absent-minded, and it worried me in a way I couldn’t articulate, like being lost in a forest full of mist and lights and false turns.
By the time I reached the restaurant, my head had started to ache. It was a very specific pain, pin-sharp, and it deadened my thoughts. Marco stood and helped me take my jacket off, took the cake from my hands.
‘Where were you?’
‘Here,’ he responded. ‘Like I said I would be.’
‘But you didn’t. You didn’t say that.’
‘Stella, I did.’
‘But you didn’t. Why do you think I was waiting at the flat for you?’
I became aware that people were looking over at us and forced myself to smile, to lower my voice.
‘But why would I say that? Look. The restaurant is here.’ He picked up a pepper grinder and placed it on the table. Then he picked up his fork and showed it to me. ‘This fork is my flat, see? That goes here, near the restaurant. Now, watch this. See this drink? I’m going to put that all the way over here because that is your flat. Now. Why would I come so far out of my way?’
‘Because you bloody said so, that’s why.’
‘Oh, you lovebirds,’ Carmel chimed. ‘Please. Stella, you’re here now and I’m thrilled. Well done me on being so excellent and getting a job.’
‘Sorry, Carmel. Well done.’
‘Have you seen what Marco brought along?’ Carmel asked, smiling just a little. She pointed to a box in the centre of the table. A big box. A cake box. I stared at it. The pain in my head was humming brightly.
‘It’s very thoughtful. I’m surprised. I always think of you as being such a wanker, Marco.’
Marco raised his glass to her wryly. It can’t be, I stupidly told myself as I stood to look inside the box. It can’t be. She must be wrong.
But she wasn’t. It was a cake. A huge sponge cake fashioned to look like a pair of breasts in a bra. The blue icing had been piped on in delicate filigree patterns to form the lace of the cups in a pale blue. There was even a diamante clasp in the centre. It had been professionally made, with a scattering of icing flowers about the edges and ‘Congratulations’ spelt out in cursive icing at the top. It was enormous, and it was beautiful. Tears stung my eyes as I gasped and sat down a little too quickly. Marco grabbed my forearm, face creased with concern.
‘Sweetheart, are you all right?’
‘I can’t believe you did that.’
‘Did what? Are you okay? Do you want some water? You look awful.’
‘I can’t beli— You knew I was making a cake for her.’
Just for a second he looked at me blankly and I thought, Okay, there will be a punchline. There will be an explanation, and we’ll laugh and fall into each other, but his face remained still, frighteningly still.
‘Stella? All right?’
‘No, I’m not, I’m not bloody all right. You knew what I was planning. What do you think is in the box next to you, for God’s sake?’
He lowered his voice. ‘Listen to yourself. I thought we’d agreed this. We all know you can’t cook. Isn’t it better this way?’
I blinked at him.
‘Honey, don’t you remember? We talked about it earlier, about how you burn everything you bake, how you can’t be trusted in the kitchen.’
He laughed, looking around the table, appealing to the others sitting there.
‘Come on, you can’t be mad about this. Don’t you remember? When I said we should just buy one?’
My mouth was opening and closing. He laughed again mildly.
‘I just wanted to do something nice for Carmel,’ he continued, ‘and I thought you agreed with me.’
‘Why? You’ve never liked her.’
Someone whistled, long and low. The sound of a bomb falling. I didn’t look up.
Marco’s face darkened, and he said quietly, ‘Stella, lower your voice. People are staring.’
I closed my eyes, opened them, Marco was looking at me. There was nothing on his face, no expression. He was a blank page.
‘Stella?’ Carmel was saying as I stood, picking up my unopened cake box, my eyes full of tears. As I walked away towards the toilets I heard Marco saying that he was sorry, that he didn’t know what my problem was. The pain in my head was glittering.
Inside the toilets I tried to catch my breath, to slow the tears which I knew were coming. Sadly, I lifted the lid of the cake box and stared at my own effort, lumpy as hand-thrown clay. I had written ‘Silky Bollocks’ across it in wobbly red icing and covered the bits where it had stuck to the cake tin with thick layers of too-hard icing. It was too dark, too dry, too shit. I stuffed it into the bin in the toilet, slamming the lid against it, and cried and cried.
Chapter 16
Alice answers when I call Marco’s office. I can hear her nails clattering against the keyboard and imagine her with the phone tucked beneath her beautifully straight jawline, pastel-pink lips moving ever so slightly. Alice would never do anything as vulgar as speak loudly.
‘Did you get your luggage, Stella?’
‘I did, yes. Thanks.’
‘You’d left it right by the door. I’m surprised you didn’t trip over it on your way out.’
‘Can you – please can you get Marco? Tell him it’s important.’
‘He’s in a meeting. I can’t interrupt him at the moment.’
‘Please, Alice . . . I – I—’ I’m horrified to discover there is a lump in my throat and I remind myself to breathe, breathe. ‘I think someone has been breaking into the house.’
‘Are you safe? Have you called the police?’
‘No. Not yet, I mean.’
‘Has anything been taken?’
‘Maybe. I think so. I don’t know. Things have been moved around. Please, Alice, can’t you get him for me?’