20. Molly
Chapter 20
Molly
T hey have not registered with a local GP since they came to London. It has been a case of waiting until one of them falls sick and then do it, which luckily hasn’t happened yet, but with a third of her pregnancy already behind her, she knows it’s time. The paperwork is quick and easy enough, the female doctor pleasant and welcoming, and now Molly is back at the flat, armed with a pile of leaflets and forms, and has already been booked in for her first meeting with a midwife. This is all suddenly starting to feel exciting, like an adventure she’s only just setting out on.
She can’t settle. Jack is at work, there is nowhere she needs to be, and she just wants to do something. There is only so much tidying and cleaning she can potter about at, and she doesn’t fancy a walk, not while it’s raining outside. So, she does what she always does. She pulls out her mixing bowl and a big bag of flour and raids the fridge for butter and eggs. When in doubt, bake!
She has been thinking a lot this last couple of weeks, about how she is ever going to find a job or some way of making money now there’s a baby on the way. And they are going to need that second income more than ever now, what with a cot to buy, and clothes that get outgrown in weeks, a constant supply of nappies and all the other hundred and one things a baby is going to need. Of course, she knows that cakes are the answer, probably the only answer, but there are so many other women making birthday cakes, cupcakes, even gingerbread, and trying to sell from home or some weekend market stall. She needs to offer something a bit different, something there will always be a demand for. She can’t believe many people buy gingerbread houses other than in the run-up to Christmas and, as she’s already worked out, her tiny kitchen is never going to give her the space she needs to work on big elaborate wedding cakes, much as she’d love the challenge.
They rang Jack’s family last night after he came home from work. It didn’t really seem worth the trip all the way up to Norfolk on the train just to tell them the news, especially with money about to become a lot tighter and Molly’s wrist still in plaster, so a phone call made sense. Of course, she had let Jack do the talking. She had told her mum and dad and it was only right he tell his.
She had been curious to know how he would play it. All excited, even if he was putting it on a bit, or just plain matter-of-fact? Build up the suspense to revealing a surprise, or just come right out with it? In the end, he had only had to hint at having something to tell them for Brenda to leap right in and guess within seconds. Molly had heard the squealing down the line from the other side of the room.
She smiles to herself. Brenda and Steve will make wonderful grandparents, just as her own parents will. The only problem is going to be the two couples battling over who is going to be first to meet the newcomer and who gets first push of the pram.
‘Boy or girl?’ Brenda had asked, once the phone had been passed over to Molly and all the congratulations were out of the way.
‘We don’t know yet. We’ll get the chance to find out at the twenty-week scan.’
‘But which would you like?’
‘I really don’t mind.’
‘I must admit I always wished I’d had a little girl. Oh, not that I don’t love my boys, as you well know, but my life’s been all about standing around at football matches and tripping over toy cars. And then the obsession with real cars, once they hit seventeen, and worrying myself sick about them out driving at night. Not to mention all the scraped knees and torn trousers and muddy boots…’
‘I’m sure girls can be just as bad. I remember I was always falling over, and loads of girls play football these days.’
‘I know. It just would have been nice to have a doll’s house around the place, and to be able to have a go at plaiting hair or knitting something pink for a change… Oh, don’t listen to me. The world’s changed and I don’t suppose anyone does all that pink or blue stuff anymore.’
As Molly stirs the cake mixture, last night’s conversation keeps popping back into her head. Brenda was wrong. People do still do all that pink or blue stuff. It’s everywhere she looks. Pink teddies, blue teddies, pink bedding, blue bedding, ‘Welcome to the new baby’ cards, almost all in either pink or blue. It’s traditional. In fact, just a couple of months ago, before they’d left Norfolk, she had been to an old friend’s baby shower and had been met by a whole room decorated with pink balloons and pink bunting, and they had all eaten off pink paper plates and drunk pink champagne. There had been absolutely no doubt that the baby was going to be a girl.
That was it! Babies mean celebrations, and celebrations mean cake! Lots of lovely cake. There has to be a demand, a big demand, for cakes made of pink or blue sponge, or covered in pink or blue icing. And biscuits too, shaped like teddies or bootees, and iced in the appropriate colour. Celebrating a birth or a christening. She wondered just how many babies were born in England, in London, even just in their own small area, every year, every month, every day? There would always be a demand, always parents and families somewhere wanting to celebrate with cake.
But, how about before the birth? Baby showers and gender reveals were a big thing these days, weren’t they? The party she had been to was already awash with pink because the news was already out, but how about those occasions when a couple want to reveal the baby’s sex for the first time? Inviting their friends and family round or making a video to share on social media, where they pull a cracker with a flurry of pink confetti cascading out from inside, or let loose a host of blue balloons to escape up into the sky? This is it. She’s onto something. Gender-reveal cakes. That’s what she can specialise in. Beautiful cakes with something pink or blue hidden in the middle, something you only discover once they are cut open or bitten into. Everyone picking one up and taking that first bite at the same time, the squeals when they all find out together…
Molly can feel the excitement mounting. There’s something about cakes that has always excited her. The mixing, the adding of a new ingredient, the waiting to see how it comes out of the oven, the warm spongey top springing beneath her fingertip, the gorgeous smell that wafts through the kitchen, the thrill of planning and decorating. But this is different. It’s a new kind of excitement, the start of something.
She wanted a business idea and now she has one. And there will be a market for it, she’s sure there will. All the midwife appointments she will be going to, the clinics, the classes, the mums-to-be who she will meet. All she has to do is make up some samples, take photos, perhaps give a few cakes away to get reviews and opinions, print out some flyers or cards. She hasn’t felt so positive, so enthusiastic about anything for a long time. It’s time to let the ideas flow, to try things out, to mix and experiment and taste…
‘Thanks, Brenda,’ she mutters, as she reaches for a bottle of red food colouring and watches her mixture turning pink as she stirs.
Jack comes home expecting dinner but all she has made is cake.
‘Bloody hell, Mol. What’s all this lot for? Are we having a party?’
Molly looks at her watch. She has lost all track of time. ‘Sorry, no, just trying out some recipe ideas. I didn’t realise it’s so late. Do you mind waiting to eat?’
‘No hurry. I’ll just go and get changed, then we can sort some food out, even if it’s just scrambled eggs or something. One of these will keep me going for now.’ He picks up a cupcake from the nearest plate and takes a big bite. It’s too late to stop him.
‘No! Jack…’
Molly hears him coughing before he’s even made it to the bedroom. He comes back, a bit red in the face, a sticky coughed-up mess all over his fingers.
‘What the hell is this?’ he says, holding out his hand. ‘I could have broken a tooth. Or choked to death.’
Molly knows she shouldn’t laugh but she does. ‘That’ll teach you not to help yourself without asking first,’ she says, reaching out and picking the glass marble out from among the crumbs. ‘It was just a test run. How to hide things inside a cake. I didn’t have any little teddy sweets or packets of edible glitter lying around, so I just used any old things I could find. You weren’t actually meant to eat it.’
He looks at her as if she’s totally mad. ‘Teddies?’ he says. ‘Glitter? And why on earth are you baking cakes nobody’s meant to eat?’
‘Experimenting, that’s all. With shapes and sizes and what fits in without any bits left sticking out and giving the game away.’
He looks at her as if she’s gone completely mad.
‘Just count yourself lucky I’d popped the marble in after it was baked and not before,’ she says. ‘A red-hot lump of glass could have been really dangerous!’ She picks up another cupcake and cuts through the teetering dome of white buttercream that she has piled on top to conceal the hidey hole. The knife slides into the cake beneath, a cake that looks a very satisfying shade of bright baby-boy blue on the inside, and out from the centre pours a pile of pink Smarties. Would that work? For twins? One of each? Or should she try some sort of split-down-the-middle dual-colour cake? She’s so fired up with ideas that she hardly notices Jack retreating to the bedroom, shaking his head.