Chapter 2
Mal parked up outside his brother’s house. Pubudu lived in a modest house in the suburbs. He was a manager for a multinational pharmaceuticals company. Not quite the doctor he had hoped to be, thanks to Mal screwing things up for him, but he still did pretty well.
Mal let out a long breath, grabbed his vouchers and invitation card and went up to the front door. The doorbell prompted raised voices from inside. Mal smiled. Persuading the kids to answer the door was always going to be a battle. Finally, the door was flung open. Pubudu stood there, dressed in his usual ‘at home’ attire of jeans and an old university jumper. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘It’s you.’
‘Hello, aiya,’ Mal said.
The awkwardness had frost at the edges. ‘Um. Come in,’ Pubudu said, politely. ‘Priya’s in the kitchen.’
It was a pointed reminder that Priya was the one who talked to Mal, not Pubudu. Mal took off his shoes and followed his brother to the back of the house. ‘Where are the kids?’
Pubudu shrugged. ‘Dilan is playing Minecraft.’ He gestured towards the front room as Dilan’s laugh reverberated through the house. ‘Nilupa is … in her room, probably on the phone again.’
‘Tweenagers, huh?’ said Mal, conversationally.
‘Hmm.’
Priya was sitting at the kitchen table, tapping away at her computer. She gave Mal a big smile, a warm welcome that made her husband’s reception look all the more chilly. ‘Mal! One second, let me just finish ordering the shopping.’ She glanced over at Pubudu, who looked like he was about to leave the room. ‘Can you put the kettle on, love?’
Pubudu did as he was told, then stood, staring absently out of the window. It had been seventeen years since Mal had screwed up Pubudu’s life. He had apologised. In theory, they had agreed to let bygones be bygones, but Pubudu could barely stand to be near him. When they were in the same room, the atmosphere was so tense that Mal had stopped trying to talk to his brother.
‘So, Mal.’ His sister-in-law slowly closed her laptop. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure?’
He handed her the invitation to the opening of Man Buns. ‘I came to give you this. Opening day on Thursday,’ he said. ‘And I have a few money-off vouchers you can give out to friends. If that’s okay?’
Priya took the invitation card from Mal and read it. ‘So you got Jake to go for the idea of a café, then?’
‘Reluctantly, yes.’ Mal leaned against the worktop.
Priya nodded, thoughtfully. ‘How are you feeling? All that planning is about to come to fruition.’
‘I’m … mostly terrified,’ Mal admitted. ‘But also hopeful.’
The silence that followed was strained. Pubudu cleared his throat. ‘I … ahem … I’d better go see how Dilan’s getting along.’ He rubbed his arm. ‘Good luck with your café opening,’ he said to Mal, still polite.
‘Thank you.’
‘I’ll see you around.’ Pubudu all but ran out of the room.
Priya and Mal looked at each other.
‘I’ll see if I can get him to come to your opening thing,’ said Priya, quietly.
‘No need to force him,’ Mal said. If his brother didn’t want to come to the opening of his café, he didn’t want him there. Sure, he felt bad about what had happened, but he had spent all these years making it up to him and his family and it hadn’t made a blind bit of difference. ‘He still hates me.’
‘He doesn’t,’ said Priya. ‘He’s just … awkward, you know.’
He didn’t know. The Pubudu he remembered from school had been clever and popular and brimming with confidence. This guy who stared out of windows and made stilted conversation wasn’t like that at all. The only explanation had to be that he was only like this with him. ‘If you say so.’
‘You two need to talk to each other,’ said Priya, not for the first time.
‘Nah,’ said Mal. ‘We tried that.’
Priya gave him a despairing look and shook her head. ‘You’re as bad as each other.’
That was hardly fair.
‘Anyway,’ she said, passing him a cup of tea. ‘I’ll take some of your vouchers to yoga class and pass them around. I’ve already posted on the Keto Parents group. You should have a few people popping in, just out of sheer curiosity to see what the keto snacks are like.’
‘That would be great.’
‘Obviously, I’ll bring the kids around after school.’
Mal smiled. ‘I’d be interested to see what Dilan makes of it.’
His nephew had been a big part of the inspiration behind having a keto-friendly café. Dilan had epilepsy. After several attempts at finding the right combination of drugs for him, the doctors had suggested putting him on a medical ketogenic diet, which had been a terrifying prospect for Pubudu and Priya. They had to control everything he ate so that all his meals consisted of 75 per cent fat. Three grams of fat for every gram of protein or carbs. The idea was that, instead of using carbohydrates to get energy, Dilan would use ketones, made by breaking down fat. In theory, these were easier for the brain to use.
Mal, who was already familiar with carb-controlled diets, had stepped in to help Priya. The diet had worked miracles, but as Dilan grew older he wanted to eat the same food as other teenagers. Mal wanted him to have a place where he could come and not have to pick apart the food.
‘I know he mostly communicates in grunts and sarcasm these days, but he’s really touched that you’re trying to help,’ said Priya. ‘We all are.’ She smiled at him and Mal felt the warmth in it. He wasn’t exactly close to his brother or his parents, but Priya and the kids treated him like proper family. So did Jake.
Sometimes, you had to take what wins you could get.
Elodie was in the back of the shop, very carefully icing details onto an anniversary cake. It was delicate work getting the filigree piped on. She scowled with concentration. Outside, Marty shouted something. She ignored him. He knew better than to bother her when she was icing. He was in charge of the shop right now. He could handle it.
This cake was one of three orders she had for this week – a fortieth anniversary cake. The piping bag was getting a bit low. She sat back in her chair and stretched out her neck. Putting the bag down, she flexed her fingers before picking it back up again to refill it. The cake was looking good. It was blue with white curlicues and flowers decorating the top and sides, styled after a cameo brooch that Kenny had got for Sue when they were young. The words ‘Happy Anniversary Kenny and Sue’ were already iced in her best cursive writing on the top.
She stood up to stretch and leaned sideways to look into the shop. Marty wasn’t behind the counter. Where had he gone?
Putting down the icing, she washed her hands and went into the shop. Marty was standing by the door, staring out.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Shush.’ Marty waved her over. ‘I think those are the new café guys.’
Elodie tucked in beside him to peer out.
The two men had their backs to them. One was tall and white with blond hair scraped into a bun on top of his head. He looked extremely fit with muscles pulling his shirt snug at the arms. The other was smaller than his companion, with broad shoulders and a slim waist. He had dark brown skin and black hair, which he too wore as a man bun. He had his hands on his hips. Both were wearing chinos and polo shirts.
‘Just look at that arse,’ said Marty.
Despite her attempt not to, Elodie’s eyes betrayed her and focused on the trouser-clad bums. Both these guys clearly worked out a lot. The big one had shoulders like Superman’s. The other guy looked toned and elegant like he was made of muscle and sinew with no fat to spare. She shook her head. The eye-candy factor was beside the point. Those guys had stolen her shop from right under her nose. How dare they? How did they get to lease the place before it had even been advertised? She smelled the patriarchy in action. At every turn, there was some man trying to steal away the things she was working hard towards. It was too much. Anger fizzed in her stomach like indigestion. ‘I’m going to have a word with them,’ she said.
Marty turned around and grabbed her shoulders. ‘No. No. You can’t.’
‘Why the hell not?’ She tried to push him off, but Marty, even though he looked like he would blow away in a stiff breeze, was strong.
‘Because they are your new neighbours and spats between businesses isn’t good for anyone. You know that leads to disaster.’
This gave her pause. He had a point. The arcade was small. There were only a few shops in it and the owners mostly got along. When they argued, it dragged the whole community into it.
‘There’s room for two cake shops here,’ said Marty, in the tone of someone trying to calm a beast. ‘You make the most incredible cakes and scones. No one can compete with you. Let them serve their boring cakes and dry scones. Okay?’
None of that made any sense. Of course people could compete with her. She was good at what she did, but that didn’t mean there weren’t people who were better.
‘Let’s just stick to what we’re good at. We have loyal customers. Let’s not make life unpleasant for ourselves,’ Marty said.
She focused on his face. He looked genuinely worried. She nodded slowly. ‘Okay. Sorry. You’re right.’
Marty relaxed a little, but didn’t lessen the grip on her shoulders. ‘Good. How about … you go back and finish the cake? I’ll take five minutes and go and see if those two hunks out there will give me some information.’
That made her smile. ‘Fine. You go and flirt and see what you can find out.’
He twitched his eyebrows at her. Now, he finally let go of her shoulders.
Behind him, someone knocked on the door. A muffled voice said, ‘Are you open?’
Elodie reached past Marty and opened the door. ‘Yes, yes we are,’ she said.
A woman who worked in the travel agent further down the arcade came in. She was a regular. ‘I’m on the cake run for the office,’ she said.
Elodie moved behind the counter and gestured at her neatly arranged display. She always sold some cakes at lunchtime, but most of them went around this time of the afternoon and when the evening rush came as people popped in to pick up a treat on the way home. ‘What would you like? Scones as usual?’ She waved a hand over the trays of scones. Along with the usual round scones in chocolate chip, white chocolate and raspberry and plain, she had some extra ‘signature’ ones – strawberries and cream flavour ones in the shape of strawberries, and apple-shaped ones in apple and cinnamon. She liked to offer a choice of cream and jam or Nutella to go with them.
The woman chewed her lip carefully. ‘Cakes look nice today too,’ she said, thoughtfully.
Elodie smiled. She was quietly pleased with the way the icing on the red velvet cakes had come out as a deep, opulent red. She had placed a few edible pearls on them so that they looked like jewel cases. She liked to match the outer decoration with a nod to what was inside. So the lemon and crystallised ginger cupcakes had tiny sugar paste lemons on top of the pale yellow swirl of icing. The Toblerone cheesecake flavour had pieces of Toblerone surrounded by snowy peaks of icing.
‘What’s that one?’ The customer pointed at some cupcakes.
‘That’s Toblerone cheesecake flavour,’ said Elodie. ‘It’s got a baked cheesecake centre hidden in the middle of the sponge.’
While the customer chose, Elodie looked out through the glass door. The two man buns were gone. Damn. Marty seemed to have collared someone else though. Some guy in a suit. She couldn’t see who it was. Elodie turned her attention to the customer. Marty would find out what he could.
‘Looks like there’s a new café coming,’ the woman said. ‘That’s nice. It’ll be good to have a venue to pop down to if we need to have another meeting somewhere less stuffy than the office.’
‘Hmm.’ She had thought of that, when she’d written her business proposal. The previous owners had run a sandwich shop out of those premises. They made most of their daytime takings from office workers grabbing lunch. She used to often get people who would pick up their sandwich and then come over to grab a cake or scone to go with it.
‘Man Buns is a weird name for a café though,’ the woman carried on.
‘Probably named after their hair.’ Elodie boxed up the cakes and rang the order up on the till.
‘Makes me think of other sorts of buns,’ said the woman, grinning.
Elodie gave her a polite smile. She got enough of that sort of thing with Marty, whenever he was single. She handed over the box of carefully packed cupcakes. ‘Come again soon.’
The woman didn’t answer. Elodie decided to wait until Marty came back before she went back to her work. It was teatime. If anyone else came in, she’d have to stop again anyway.
He returned a few minutes later, his mouth twisted into a little moue.
‘What?’ said Elodie. Surely there couldn’t be more bad news.
‘You’re not going to like it.’ Marty fussed at his apron and washed his hands before taking his place behind the counter.
‘Just tell me.’
‘So …’ He leaned his elbows on top of the display cabinet. ‘Apparently, it’s going to be a keto meals café. Like, low-carb everything.’ He waved a hand.
Elodie’s gaze fell on the display, which was a shrine to sugar. ‘R … ight.’ At least they weren’t going to be competitors. Not really. Carb counters wouldn’t be coming into her shop anyway.
‘Apparently, the big guy owns a chain of gyms. And the little one is the catering one. He mainly does lunches for the people at the gyms and he’s branching out. But, get this, the reason they got the lease without it even going to advert is because Warren goes to Big Guy’s gym and someone mentioned that it was going to be coming up for rent and they did the deal from there.’
Elodie stared, not really seeing Marty anymore. Anger flared. The men had done a deal before the space even went out to let. All done over a drink and a laugh in the gym. Elodie, with her carefully laid out business plan and hard-won loan that she’d filled eleventy billion forms to get, had never stood the smallest chance. It was so unfair.
‘It’s so wrong.’
Marty gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m sorry, honey,’ he said. ‘The patriarchy does for us all. There’ll be another café space soon. We’ll keep looking.’
‘Yeah. Sure.’ There wasn’t much else to say about it really. At least she still had her regular customers who wanted birthday cakes and anniversary cakes made. She was still in business. For now.
She looked across at the café. If she saw either of those two guys again, she was definitely going to tell them what she thought of their little gym boy network.
Until then, there was work to be done. Elodie went back to decorating the cakes.