‘Year 9,’ my mum says as she watches me carefully spooning equally sized dollops of cupcake batter into bun cases. ‘That’s the last time I saw you bake anything.’
‘That’s probably because that was the last time I baked,’ I admit. ‘And look how that turned out.’
‘Those biscuits weren’t that bad,’ she says as she washes dishes in the sink next to me.
‘Mum, they were supposed to be buns,’ I remind her. ‘I never put any baking powder in them.’
‘You should’ve made dairy free cakes, set an example,’ Nathan calls over from the sofa.
‘It’s hard enough as it is,’ I call back. ‘And is it not bedtime?’
‘I’m watching A Place in the Sun,’ he protests, until I point out to him that I was referring to Frankie, who is falling asleep next to him.
My mum has to take a phone call (no doubt from her new fancy man, who we’re still yet to discuss) so I ask Nathan if he could put Frankie to bed, but he explains to me that we can’t pause live TV, and he really wants to see how this one plays out. I can’t believe I’ve ended up stuck with him here, spending his days on the sofa either watching TV, annoying me, or a combination of both. In his defence, while we were at the deli last night, he did go outside with Frankie and make a real start on the tree house…sort of…there’s something in the tree now at least, anyway. He’s building it in the tree next to the kitchen – something to do with his idea for a zip line, which I promptly vetoed. It doesn’t look like he’s done much work on it, but it’s a start, I suppose.
I end up putting Frankie to bed while Nathan has the ever so simple task of keeping an eye on the cupcakes as they bake. I asked him to shout me when the time was up, safe in the knowledge that in this rubbish old gas oven, it would probably take longer than it would in an electric fan oven.
I tuck Frankie in and listen to him gush about his dad, how he’s starting to be included at school, and share his concerns for his frog, which has gone missing from the garden. I thought the frog might have taken a backseat to Nathan, so it’s nice to know he stills thinks about it.
After Frankie falls asleep, I just watch him for a few minutes, stroking his little bald head, feeling a combination of wonder and terror over how quickly he’s growing up.
It’s the smell of burning that snaps me from my thoughts. I hurry into the kitchen where I find my cakes, burning in the oven, and my no good ex still watching TV.
‘Nathan, you said you’d watch them,’ I say as I hurriedly take them out, as though that would do anything to undo the damage that has already been done. Realising he has messed up, he rushes over and fusses around the cakes, suddenly trying to seem useful, but not actually doing anything other than making excuses.
Looking down at the near-black cakes, despite it being quite late in the evening, I realise that I have no choice but to start again.
‘The Lil I knew never cared about baking, or impressing people,’ Nathan insists.
‘Well, people change,’ I tell him. ‘Most people, anyway.’
If there’s one thing that has been crystal clear since Nathan arrived, it’s that he hasn’t changed at all.
‘I still see the same Lil I fell in love with, deep down in there somewhere,’ he tells me. I don’t realise he has edged closer towards me until I turn to look at him in disbelief, and notice him right next to me. Close to me. Very close to me, in fact.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, but Nathan doesn’t answer. Instead, he grabs my head with both hands and tries to kiss me. It’s uncomfortable and unwanted, so I shove him away from me as hard as I can, causing him to stumble backwards. He manages to save himself from falling, but not without knocking things off the worktop.
‘I, er, I think I’ll go to the van…get some sleep,’ he says awkwardly, his cheeks slightly flushed from his misjudged pass at me.
‘Yeah, good idea,’ I reply angrily.
I don’t think I can feel angrier until I notice the open packet of baking powder, bobbing upside down in the sink full of soapy water.
‘Did you need that?’ Nathan asks, although I’m sure he knows the answer. ‘I’ll go get you some more.’
‘From where?’ I reply, pointing at the clock. It’s late at night, everywhere will be closed.
Nathan quickly hurries off to the safety of his van, leaving me alone in the kitchen, so angry about so many things. Not only has he completely sabotaged my baking efforts – and not even on purpose, just by being himself – but then he tried to kiss me…I just don’t know what he was thinking. Since his return, at no point have I said or done anything to give him any indication that there is anything romantic between us. His pass was completely out of line and, to make sure he realises this, I’m going to have to have an awkward conversation with him about it at some point, which I am not looking forward to, but I can only sort one mess at a time. With Nathan hiding in his van, I turn my attention to solving my baking crisis.
As I stress over my problems, I spot the answer to my prayers across the kitchen. Packets and packets of biscuits and cakes sent from my bosses. Everything looks so professional and perfect though, there’s no way anyone will believe I made them, so I attempt to make them look a little more rustic and homemade. I cut up sponge cake and cover it with buttercream, I empty out a packet of biscuits into a sandwich box and shake it up a little, just to make them look a little rough around the edges, and, telling myself that the more I contribute, the more I’ll help the autumn bake sale, I even open up a packet of brownies, cut them in half and then sprinkled them with icing sugar to make them seem different to the ones we had at the party, just in case anyone thought I might have brought the leftovers or – God forbid – not made them at all.
I had faith in my plan last night, but not in my improvising abilities, which is why I dropped Frankie off at school this morning with sandwich boxes filled with sweet treats, before quickly making my exit. I was worried that if anyone saw them, they might compliment me on them and ask for the recipe or something. So I left them with Frankie, safe in the knowledge that by the time I came back this afternoon, my store-bought baking would be blending in amongst all the home-baked stuff, and no one would be any the wiser. Except that isn’t how it’s played out…
When I arrive at the school in the afternoon, I can’t help but notice that my contributions are nowhere to be seen. I’ve done a full lap of the room but I can’t spot any sign of them.
‘Where are yours, Mum?’ Frankie asks me.
‘Perhaps they’ve all been sold already,’ I wonder out loud. Well, they were made by professionals after all.
I feel my palms start to sweat as I begin to worry. They invited me to take part, so why wouldn’t they want to sell them? Was there something wrong with them? Are they on to me? I don’t see how they could be, but something isn’t right here.
‘Lily, wow, I’ve never noticed your tattoo before,’ Avril says, sneaking up behind me. She’s referring to the silhouette of a flock of birds on my back that I had done back in my hippy phase.
‘Oh, yeah,’ I reply. ‘Do you have any?’
‘Oh, gosh no,’ she replies, a little too quickly for my liking. ‘You know you have them for life, right?’
‘You have children,’ I laugh. ‘They’re pretty permanent fixtures too.’
‘Indeed,’ she says, unamused. ‘Anyway, I’m here to ask about the allergens in your baking.’
‘Hmm?’ I reply, causing her to repeat herself.
‘We couldn’t put your baking out because you weren’t here to tell us the allergens, so we didn’t know which table to put them on.’
‘It’s fine,’ I insist, making sure she realises I’m not at all offended. I mentally high-five myself for not coming in this morning, I hadn’t even considered allergens, so I would’ve had no idea what to say.
‘So?’
‘So?’ I repeat, still smiling with relief.
‘So, tell us now and we’ll lay them out.’
Oh, sugar.
‘Well, they all have flour in them,’ I say. ‘And, er, dairy.’
I’m pretty sure that’s right.
‘OK,’ she replies. ‘What about nuts?’
‘Nope, no nuts,’ I reply, but then I realise that, I don’t actually know that for sure. Sure, on the surface, it might not seem like any of the products have nuts in them, but don’t things sometimes say they were made in the same place as where nuts were handled? ‘Wait, no, maybe.’
‘Maybe?’ Avril replies, puzzled.
The bake sale is buzzing with life around us but, thankfully, the only person listening to this conversation is Frankie. I didn’t tell him that I was passing deli products off as my own baking, but he knows his mum, and I think he might be working it out for himself. I place an arm around him and give him a squeeze.
‘Which ones have nuts in?’ she asks.
‘Maybe all of them,’ I reply honestly.
‘Lily, you either put nuts in or you didn’t,’ she laughs. ‘So which ones?’
There are no lies that can get me out of this situation that won’t see a child with a nut allergy potentially exposed to nuts, and I can’t risk that.
‘You didn’t make these, did you?’ she asks.
I’m frozen on the spot, unable to speak. Avril has me banged to rights.
‘You didn’t make these, did you?’ she says, louder this time. Now we’ve attracted the attention of parents, kids and teachers throughout the room. Now everyone is frozen on the spot, silent, looking over at me.
‘What’s the problem?’ Mrs Snowball asks, hurrying over in her usual busy bee manner.
‘Lily can’t tell me whether or not her baking contains nuts and I think it’s because she didn’t make any of it,’ Avril says, address the room. I feel Frankie cling to my arm protectively.
‘Lily, you’re not trying to pass off cakes that you didn’t make as your own, are you?’ Mrs Snowball asks.
‘I…’ There’s nothing I can do but tell the truth, is there? ‘I did bake but, due to circumstances beyond my control, it got ruined last night and I just didn’t want to let everyone down.’
‘Lily, not only is it spectacularly dangerous, to potentially feed children foods they may be allergic to, but it’s incredibly dishonest of you to pass this food off as your own.’
I feel my cheeks warming with embarrassment as I’m ticked off in front of everyone.
‘You should’ve just said you couldn’t do it,’ Avril insists.
‘I’m sorry, I wanted to be helpful,’ I reply.
‘To get us all on board with your deli, I’ll bet,’ Avril says. Her hostility may have faded at the party but it’s back tenfold now.
‘Wait, is that why you helped me out in the shop?’ Mary-Ann chimes in.
‘Of course not,’ I reply. ‘I just wanted to help.’
‘And why you helped me?’ Jessica adds. ‘So that I’d feel like I had to come to the party?’
‘No, no, you’ve got me all wrong,’ I insist, but standing here, surrounded by angry faces, I realise that I’m wasting my breath.
‘The raffle,’ Mrs Snowball shouts excitedly. ‘Let’s do the raffle.’
She hurries over to the stage, taking the gaze of most of the room with her.
I know that helping out Mary-Ann and Jessica may have benefited me, but that’s not why I did it. I wanted to help. And I did try and bake, I really did. It was relying on bloody Nathan to help me last night that was my downfall, but even if I did throw him under the bus, is that a good enough excuse? And Frankie loves his dad, what would he think if he saw me passing the blame on to him?
‘Now, this raffle might just be our biggest yet,’ Mrs Snowball says, to an echo of woos around the room. ‘We’ve got a three-course meal in the private room at The Hopeful Ghost tonight, a hamper full of delicious foods from a range of local shops, and, the pièce de résistance, a brand-new 42-inch TV, generously donated by an anonymous parent.’
Mrs Snowball winks at Avril, who bats her hand and flashes a faux embarrassed smile. Anonymous indeed.
‘Come on, kiddo, let’s get out of here while they’re distracted,’ I whisper to Frankie, ushering him towards the door.
‘I hope you’ve all got your tickets ready,’ Mrs Snowball says, plunging her hand into a small red bag. She rummages around in there before pulling one out. ‘And the winner is…ticket number 202. Anyone? Anyone?’
We’re just about through the door when Frankie pipes up: ‘We won, Mum! We won!’
I look at my son who is holding the raffle ticket I’d forgotten we were pressured into buying a couple of days ago. I only bought it so that we didn’t look bad, so I told Frankie he could have it.
‘Mum, we won,’ he says again.
I glance around to see everyone staring at us, once again, only this time with a bitter resentment beneath their glares.
‘Of course we did,’ I reply.
Carrying a 42-inch TV to your car, alone, is no easy feat, and it’s a task that is somehow made harder when you’re being watched by an angry mob of parents who are secretly hoping you’ll drop it – preferably on your own foot. The hamper was pretty heavy too, I had to take things to the car in two trips.
I can tell people are angry because I won – I didn’t want to win, I wish I hadn’t – and I did consider refusing it, but I imagined that somehow making people mad too. I am well and truly back in everyone’s bad books, and just when I thought I’d made so much progress too. It was hard getting into their good books before but it’s going to be even harder now.
‘Nathan, can you get something from the car for me please?’ I ask as I walk in, dumping the hamper down on the floor.
‘After this,’ he says, unable to remove his eyes from the TV. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s an even bigger TV,’ I tell him and he’s suddenly interested.
‘Hmm?’ he says, his eyes wide.
‘Hmm,’ I confirm.
Nathan jumps to his feet and runs out to the car like a kid on Christmas morning.
‘I’ll go help,’ Frankie says, running out after him.
‘Where’s Viv?’ I ask once they’re back inside, as I take things from the hamper and put them in the right place in the kitchen.
‘She’s out with her fancy man and she said not to wait up,’ Nathan says. ‘Good news for you, right?’
‘Is it?’ I reply.
‘Yeah, he was saying how he wants to work in the deli,’ Nathan informs me as he unboxes the new TV. ‘We could sell the old TV and buy a sofa bed for in here, so I don’t have to sleep in the van any more.’
I ignore his comment about the sofa because there is no way he is moving in properly. Sure, he’s pretty much living here seeing as how he’s using the facilities and spending his every waking moment on the sofa, but the fact that he sleeps outside is – I think – the boundary that stops him feeling like he’s got his feet under the table, that will keep him motivated to find work and a place of his own. If I buy him a bed, that will be it, he’ll be happy enough living here, sponging off us, getting in the way, rubbing me up the wrong way.
‘Biagio said he’d work for me?’
‘Yeah,’ he replies. ‘That’s great, right?’
‘It might be too little too late,’ I admit. ‘And if Viv breaks his heart…’
My mum isn’t one to take a long-term lover.
‘You’re never happy, Lil, are you?’
‘Are you kidding me?’ I reply. ‘I’m not happy because the whole baking thing was a disaster – everyone knows I faked it. Any headway I’d made has been erased. I’d say I’m back to square one, except I think I’m in a worse position now.’
‘You got this rad TV though,’ he replies. ‘So it’s not all bad.’
‘Way to look at the silver lining,’ I reply sarcastically.
‘How about we have a boys’ night?’ Nathan suggests to Frankie. ‘We could watch Blackfish.’
‘Yes,’ Frankie chirps.
‘Erm, no,’ I say. ‘He’s not watching that.’
‘Why not?’ Nathan asks.
‘Because he’s 8.’
‘You can never be too young to learn about the dangers of keeping killer whales in captivity.’
‘But you can be too young to watch something like that and escape without being traumatised,’ I point out.
‘OK, fine, we’ll watching something kid-friendly, I’ll pop us some popcorn – how about that?’
‘Yeah,’ Frankie enthuses. ‘Can we, Mum?’
‘OK, sure,’ I reply. ‘I need to pop out tonight anyway. Just promise me you’ll keep him out of trouble.’
‘When is Frankie ever trouble?’ Nathan replies.
‘I was talking to Frankie,’ I point out, grabbing my phone as I head into my bedroom, closing the door behind me.
‘Hello, Blossom,’ Alfie answers cheerily. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Ohhh.’ I laugh. ‘Not amazing. Would you be interested in dinner this evening?’
‘I would,’ he replies. ‘Did you have anything in mind?’
‘I actually won a three-course meal at The Hopeful Ghost tonight, if you fancy it?’
‘You won it?’ he echoes. ‘OK, sure. I’ll get ready then pick you up?’
After making a plan I begin rushing around my room, trying to transform myself from a stressed out single mum into a sexy single lady – well, the closest thing I can get to the latter.
I step into a red off-the-shoulder cocktail dress, teamed with a black leather jacket – because with the summer coming to an end it’s finally starting to feel a little chilly on an evening now – before climbing into a pair of red heels and slicking on some red lipstick. I blend my black smoky eyes out a little as I look in the mirror, wondering whether this outfit is a bit much for a dinner at the local, but as I look at the time I realise it’s too late to change now.
‘Where are you going?’ Nathan asks angrily as I kiss Frankie on the cheek before heading for the door.
‘Out,’ I tell him. ‘And, what was it my mum said? Don’t wait up.’