Take My Breath Away by Ali Ryecart
Chapter Seventeen
JAMES
At his desk, Perry’s concentrating hard on his computer, his fingers flying over the keyboard. Standing next to him, Elliot leans forward slightly, nodding as he reads whatever it is Perry’s typing out. Neither of them has seen me. It’s been a while since I visited Elliot at his office and it seems a little strange seeing Perry here working in his other life. I’m also very aware, almost viscerally aware, of my and Elliot’s talk in The Breaker’s Yard.
Elliot says something and, straightening, spots me standing in the doorway to the outer office. Perry looks up too, and smiles, his cheeks reddening.
“I’m taking Perry to meet a couple of friends of mine who run a bakery. We’re going to be spending the evening talking about buttercream icing and sponge cake, and the awful drudge it is to run a cake shop. Isn’t that so, Perry?”
“If you mean you’re introducing me to contacts in the hospitality industry, specifically within artisanal bakery, then yes, you’re correct.”
Perry’s voice is even and professional although he’s still blushing as red as the cherry on top of a Bakewell.
“You’re not yet,” Elliot says, frowning at me. “This acquisition correspondence needs to be sent out.” Elliot looks down at Perry. “If you could just get those emails out with the attachments, I think that’s all we can do for today.” He looks up and fixes me with a hard stare. “And no, nobody’s going to make you a coffee whilst you wait, if that’s what you’re thinking. You can do it yourself if you want it, or you can come into the office so you don’t disturb Perry.”
“Oh, he’s so butch sometimes. How can you stand it?” I mutter to Perry as Elliot strides towards his office, leaving the door open for me. “Make sure you’re ready to go at the dot of five. Rory and Jack keep disgustingly early hours now that they have the baby taking up every spare minute they’re not in the bakery.” I give him a quick squeeze on the shoulder before I follow Elliot to his office.
Closing the door, I flop into the chair opposite Elliot’s desk.
“You really shouldn’t be encouraging my Executive Assistant to leave.”
“You’ve changed your tune, because that’s not what you said to me in the bar.”
Elliot snorts. “Perhaps I’ve changed my mind. He’s been invaluable over this latest acquisition.”
“Then I hope you recognise that in the appropriate manner.”
Elliot glares at me. “It’s bonus and pay review time, soon. It’ll be sorted then.” He taps hard at this keyboard, all his concentration on whatever it is on his screen. “It’ll be hellish when he goes, but I meant what I said the other night. Leaving will be the best thing for him, in the long run.”
The muscles in my shoulders tighten. Best for Perry that he’s away from me, is what he’s really getting at. We’ve already had this conversation, but I can’t help biting.
“Best for him to get as far away as possible from me, before I can no longer restrain myself and fuck him into tomorrow before throwing him on the scrap heap, you mean? Give me some credit for self control, Elliot. Perry’s become a friend, a good friend, and I know about lines you don’t cross.”
Elliot takes his time to close down his laptop, allowing my burst of anger to fade. Fade, but not disappear. He leans back in his chair, and looks at me across his desk.
“That is not what I meant. He has an ambition, and he should do his best to chase it. Whatever you read into my words is for you to dissect.”
I don’t say anything for a moment. I feel like I’ve been told off, which I probably deserve.
“It’s good you’re helping him, if this is what he truly wants.”
There’s a softness to Elliot’s voice, and I meet his eyes across the desk. I let out a long sigh as I let go of my residual anger.
“I do want to help him realise his ambition, I just don’t want to help him realise it in Brighton. I only found that out a day or two ago. Brighton, for God’s sake.” I shake my head. It’s only sixty-odd miles, but at the moment if feels like the dark side of the moon. “He seems to have his heart set on going there, and he’s been looking at suitable properties online.”
“Expensive location. I hope he’s got the funds to back it up.”
“He said his parents are willing to lend a hand, but he’ll have to get a mortgage as well, I imagine. And business loans.” Long hours hunched over vats of buttercream, and loans heaped on loans…
Maybe he’ll reconsider; maybe he’ll think twice; maybe he won’t go to bloody Brighton…
I’m wishing failure on him, and it makes me sick to the stomach. I’m a better man than that.
Am I?
“If you’ve become friendly and are essentially just giving him a hand, as you claim, then why does it matter to you so much where he goes?”
Because his smile warms me down to my marrow. Because all I want to do is rush home at the end of the day to a house that now feels like a true home. Because I want to wrap my arms around him, hold him close and keep him safe. Because no other man has ever made me feel that way, and it thrills me as much as it scares me. Because when it comes to more than light and shallow, I fuck up. And when he’s gone, all that warmth will go with him, and my life will revert to what it was before.
Elliot’s steady, questioning gaze is resting on me as he waits for the answer I’m not ready to give, but I’m saved from offering up a limp response by Elliot’s desk phone ripping through the silence.
“Excellent, thank you Perry. It’s all we can do for now so you might as well finish for the day.”
I’m more than happy to escape the spotlight of Elliot’s keen gaze. Telling him I’ll see him soon, my back muscles twitch with the weight of his stare following me out as I leave.
* * *
“It’s hard work. It’s harder than you ever imagine it would be. It becomes your life. If you’re not there doing the baking, you’re spending time thinking about new recipes and new offers, experimenting with new flavours which more often don’t work than do. And then there are the customers. Most are lovely but some are a pain in the arse. Nothing’s ever quite right, and they moan — very loudly — about what they think is wrong, then they come back and do it all again the next day. Honestly, we had to ban one man, he was so rude to the staff and other customers. And talking of staff — we’ve been lucky, touch wood — but last Christmas we had to hire a couple of temps and I walked into the store room and found one of them with a ring donut hanging off his, well, you know what. Fortunately Mabel, who’s our senior assistant, was on duty and she threw him out. She’s very brave, and feisty. We took all the ring donuts off sale, and it was a good few weeks before I could even think about reintroducing them. On top of that, there’s all the ordering, the invoicing, and the balancing the books stuff which is vital but really, really boring. Owning and running a bakery-café is a nightmare except when it’s a dream and then all the late nights and all the early starts are totally worth it.”
Rory, who’s barely taken a breath, at last runs out of steam. He flops back into his seat with a wide smile, and Jack joins in.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my friends, mainly because their lives have changed so much and that life is the antithesis of mine. They’re now a family, and for the next couple of hours or so their baby girl Bella is in the care of the nanny. The bakery-café is a piece of cake to being parents, they always say, and although the two of them look tired, the happiness and contentment with their lives shines stronger than the sun.
“So, the focus is commission work, with a small café attached? That’s right, isn’t it?” Jack asks.
“Yes. As far as the café side’s concerned, I want to go high-end as my thinking is that it’ll also serve as a kind of advert for, and supplement, the commissioned work.”
“Hmm, that’s one option I suppose. Where are you looking to set up?”
“Brighton. I’ve had a few changes in my life recently, and it’s the right time to move away and make a new start somewhere fresh, away from London. Brighton seems a good place to do it, and being by the sea is a huge bonus as I love the coast.”
Move away… A fresh start….He says it with such conviction my stomach drops. Pretty much the only time I ever leave the city is when I’m getting on a plane to go somewhere hot and sunny or cold and snowy. If I’m honest very little exists for me outside of the M25. It’s another mark of how fundamentally different Perry and I are, I suppose.
“Good choice.” Rory nods. “Busy town with the right demographic for your offer. And commissioned, or bespoke, or made to order celebration cakes — call it what you want — is big business. It really is booming, and there’s lots of work out there, because people are increasingly looking for something different.
“But,” Rory says, leaning forward, “if you really want to have a small café attached to it, to attract those with plenty of disposable income you’d have to offer not only the high-end products but also gluten free, veggie and vegan choices. We’re selling more and more free from goods in the shop. It’s an expanding market. If you don’t, you run the risk of filling your seats with pensioners looking for cups of tea and toasted teacakes. No offence to senior citizens, of course, but they can make a cuppa and a slice of cake last for ages. That’s a hell of a lot of baking in addition to the commissioned work — and that means employing good, reliable staff. They’re harder to find than you’d think. If you get the staffing wrong, it can be a nightmare.” Rory shudders.
Ring donuts as dick decorations, anybody?
All of this is what Perry needs to hear, this is absolutely what he needs to know, although I’m not so sure about Rory’s agreement that Brighton’s the right place to do it all in.
“Rory’s right, it’s incredibly hard work and having a small team of solid gold staff is crucial,” Jack chimes in. “It was a big help that Rory used to work as a pastry chef, but a lot of this stuff we picked up as we went along and we’re more than happy to share what we’ve learned — about what’s worked as well as what hasn’t.”
“It’s the commissioned work that really interests me, I want that to be the focus. Maybe having a café side business would be too much.”
“To be honest, I think it would. Have you accepted any special orders? From strangers, I mean? Don’t take this the wrong way,” Rory says, a flush filling his face, “but making a birthday cake for friends or family is a lot different to charging mega bucks for somebody’s wedding cake.”
Perry smiles. “Yes, I have, quite a few times, and I’m not just talking about a Victoria sponge. I’ve made…”
He rattles off what he’s already told me. Perry’s enthusiasm is infectious, and I can’t help but feel proud of him. Both Rory and Jack’s eyes widen when he tells them about the specialist courses he’s taken, but their eyeballs all but burst from their sockets and roll around on the floor when he shows them his portfolio of photographs, the ones he showed me weeks ago, and tells them about the hotels he’s supplied and the corporate work he’s carried out.
“Wow, that’s really impressive,” Rory says. “And your sugarcraft, it’s amazing — so you already know how time consuming this type of work is, and how clients want everything yesterday.”
Perry laughs. “You can say that again, but I was fitting it in around a full-time job. I think that’s one of the things that made it so difficult. But going forward, the big stumbling block I’m coming across is finding the right premises, in the right location. I’ve scoured the internet, but the commercial premises available are so expensive, even ones that would involve a lot of compromise…” Perry shakes his head, his eager smile fading.
“What’s your opinion, James?” Rory asks. “You’ve been very quiet on the subject. What do you think Perry should do?”
Stop thinking about going off to Brighton or anywhere else by the sea, and stay here.
“You only get one shot at life.” I try to sound more light-hearted than I feel. “Yet, there are always practical considerations and many businesses fall at the first hurdle.” Ouch. Perhaps that’s not what I should have said as three pairs of eyes laser into me.
Jack nods. “You’re right. It’s a sad fact that many businesses opened by people with more enthusiasm than cold, hard business sense collapse within their first year of trading. But that doesn’t mean you don’t try if that’s what you want to do. As Rory said, we do a lot of commissions and it’s a growing and very lucrative market. For us, though, it runs alongside the bakery-café which is our core business and main love. You don’t have to have a physical presence on the high street, not for commissioned work. But you already know that, as you were renting kitchen space, not running a café — that’s what you said, wasn’t it?”
Perry nods. “But I think I just got lucky with the old couple who had the café.”
“Maybe,” Jack says, “but the point is, you should ditch the idea of a café if that’s not your focus — and it isn’t by your own admission. Which means there are other ways to approach this, which in turn widens your options.”
Perry leans forward. “How do you mean?”
He’s looking intent and focused and even in the pub’s low lights I can see his eyes are sparkling.
“You can set up an at home business, backed up by a killer website, which you’d need in any case. Obviously there are hoops to jump through with the council as you’d be making products to sell to the public from your home.” Jack’s brow’s wrinkling hard, as he thinks it through on the hoof. “You already know you’d need a large kitchen, with loads of storage and separate bakery business facilities to your own private domestic kitchen. But if it’s bespoke bakery that you’re really interested in pursuing, being home based automatically increases your options.”
Perry mashes down on his lip as he thinks hard about what Jack’s said. His excitement is almost palpable.
“It could be the answer,” Rory adds. “You could always expand into shop premises later, if things go well. Just don’t start out that way.”
“I hadn’t thought of it from that angle before.” Perry’s voice is quiet; it’s almost as though he’s talking to himself. “It’s certainly worth considering. More than worth it.”
“It is,” Rory says. “We know quite a few bakers who run home based businesses, and it’s working well for them all. Why not for you? Especially with the experience you’ve already had, and you’ve shown you can already attract prestigious clients. If I were in your shoes, I’d consider getting somewhere that is, first and foremost, a home, especially as you’re looking to relocate, and extend the kitchen if needs be. And, you’d stand a better chance of not ending up as a failed business statistic which sounds harsh, I know, but not something you can afford to ignore.”
“I think there’s a lot of sense in what Rory’s just said.” Jack places his hand over Rory’s and gives it a squeeze as he smiles at his husband. “Brighton’s a good choice, but it’s expensive. It’s not called London-on-Sea for nothing.”
“That’s what I said,” I chip in.
“How desperate are you to live down there?” Rory asks.
Perry doesn’t answer for a second or two, and I swear my heart stops beating.
“Desperate?” he says slowly, “no I wouldn’t go so far as to say desperate, but it’s certainly somewhere I like and the idea of living and working by the sea holds a hell of a lot of appeal. I love London’s vibrancy but I think now’s the time to make a change before I sort of get too settled again.”
He picks up his drink and takes a sip. He’s not looking at me, not even glancing my way. His focus is on the road ahead and the future that’s opening up for him, a future I know I have no part in. I turn my glass around in my hand; the gin’s warm and the tonic’s gone flat.
“So what’s the dream ticket?” Rory asks. “Somewhere vibrant with the right client base for your offer. Somewhere bursting with affluent people who are willing to spend their disposable income. Somewhere with a community that supports independent artisanal craftsmen and women. Somewhere that’s a home first of all, but which has the right kitchen in place or potential to rejig, or expand.” Rory is counting off the points one by one on his fingers.
“That’s it, in a nutshell.”
“I know the coast, and Brighton in particular, is the ideal, but is setting up and staying in London a complete and utter no-no? Because this is where the really big market is,” Jack says.
“No, but to be honest I’m not sure I could afford it in London, not somewhere with the space I’d need, even with help from my parents. In fact I know I can’t. But this is as much about a change in lifestyle as it is a change of profession.”
“So a lot to think about,” Rory says. “In my view, you need to get the location squared off first.” His expression’s serious but his eyes begin to widen at the same time a smile lifts his lips. “But you’re in exactly the right place. You do realise that, don’t you?”
“I don’t understand what you mean?”
But I know what Rory means. I know exactly what he’s saying as he glances at me and his sunny smile widens even further.
“You’re in exactly the right place where you are. Highgate. There’s more money sloshing around in that area than just about anywhere in London. If you operated from there you’d make a mint. James’ kitchen, it’s huge. It would make the perfect location.” Rory’s really laughing now at the joke he thinks he’s made, and Jack’s joining in.
“Ever fancy going into the cake making business, James?”
