The cake said eighty.
The woman it was intended for was seventy, knew it, and was not inclined to accept ten additional years as a gift.
Frankie stood in the little gallery kitchen with the box open in front of her.
Cara, who had booked the party, shut her eyes.
“I sent the message.”
“I believe you.”
“I said seventy.”
“Yes.”
“My mother will think I did it.”
Frankie inspected the icing. Happy 80th, Poppy. The numbers were dark chocolate on a pale surface. There were flowers. A small bird had been added at the edge, apparently attempting to escape.
“How long before she gets here?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Mara.”
Her assistant looked up from the bags she'd been unpacking.
“A knife. Small. And the chocolate buttons.”
“We don't have chocolate buttons.”
“The little things for the coffee.”
“They're mints.”
“Then the seventy-year-old bird is about to have a strong opinion about mints.”
Cara looked at her.
Frankie smiled.
“We can do this.”
Outside the kitchen, seven chairs stood round a table set for afternoon tea. Only seven. Cara had been explicit. Her mother didn't want a fuss, which generally meant somebody wanted a fuss but lacked the nerve to take responsibility for it.
Frankie had agreed to make it small and lovely.
The gallery looked out onto a Brighton street where people went past assuming art was something they could enter later, after lunch. On the walls were paintings of buildings with more confidence than the buildings themselves. Poppy used to teach art and had strong opinions about frames. She had agreed to come because Cara had said the owner wanted to show her something.
That was the only deception Frankie had approved.
The owner was indeed going to show her a painting. Then there would be sandwiches, tea, the family she'd chosen and cake which didn't put her in the wrong decade.
Frankie lifted the icing numeral carefully.
It broke.
“Fine,” she said.
Cara made a small sound.
“Better, actually.”
The number had been piped separately enough to leave most of the surface intact. Frankie removed the pieces, scraped the worst of the mark and studied the result.
It no longer said eighty.
It no longer looked as though anyone should eat it either.
Mara handed her the mints.
“Bird seed?”
“Something like that.”
They were little dark discs. Frankie made a cluster near the flowers, hid the disturbed icing beneath them and took away the zero as well.
No age.
Just Poppy.
It was better.
Cara looked.
“Oh.”
“Don't thank me until she likes it.”
“I want to thank somebody.”
“Thank Mara. She found the knife.”
Mara nodded gravely.
“Extensive training.”
They laughed.
Frankie's phone vibrated.
Nina.
She let it go.
Cara went out to the room and began moving a place card which Frankie had already moved twice. Mara looked at the cake.
“She'll put it back.”
“I know.”
“How much do we let people ruin their own arrangements?”
“Quite a lot. They've paid.”
The phone vibrated again.
Frankie turned it over.
He's asked about Tuesday. I need to know.
Gideon. The Table. An opening she had wanted, arriving while she was rescuing somebody's birthday.
She wrote, Working. Call you shortly.
Nina answered almost immediately.
I know you're working. So am I.
Frankie put the phone in her pocket.
Poppy arrived fifteen minutes later, which gave her just enough time to dislike being deceived before she saw the people at the table.
“Oh, Cara.”
“Only seven.”
“I can count.”
“Cake,” Frankie said, coming forward. “Tea. People you mostly like.”
Poppy looked at her.
“Mostly?”
“I wasn't given a full list.”
The older woman smiled reluctantly.
The party began.
Frankie liked small events. There was nowhere to hide if a person wasn't enjoying it, and nowhere to hide a failure beneath a hundred glasses of wine. People had to want to be together, or at least find somebody at the table who made the afternoon better.
She served the first tea herself because the gallery staff were helping with a visitor in the other room. Mara brought the sandwiches. Cara sat once Frankie put a plate in front of her and asked her to eat.
For ten minutes it was exactly the afternoon Frankie had promised.
Poppy talked about the paintings. Her brother disagreed with her on a point he seemed unable to understand, and she enjoyed correcting him. A friend produced a card made from a photograph nobody had meant to save. People laughed.
Then the phone rang.
Frankie went into the kitchen to answer.
Nina was in the hotel. Frankie could hear somebody moving chairs.
“Tuesday,” Nina said. “He's coming to taste.”
“Who arranged that?”
“I did.”
“You could have waited.”
“For what? He said when he was free. Vivian said she could do it. Duncan can finish early.”
“And me?”
“You can tell me now.”
Frankie looked at the clock.
“I have a call with a client.”
“Move it.”
“Nina.”
“You wanted him to ask.”
Frankie couldn't argue with that.
“What did you say about who'd be there?”
“That we'd be there.”
“As ourselves?”
“As who we are for him.”
“Not all the cast.”
“No. They're working.”
“Right.”
There were details to decide. Too many for a kitchen doorway with tea cooling outside. Frankie went back into the room, caught Mara's eye and murmured that she needed ten minutes.
“To do what?”
“A call.”
“We're about to do the cake.”
“Can you handle it?”
Mara looked at the table.
“I can put a cake down.”
“Good. No song if she doesn't want one.”
Frankie went outside.
There was noise from the street. A bus stopped, then pulled away with a sound which made her ask Nina to repeat herself. They discussed the tasting time, how long Gideon could stay, what Vivian had promised to show.
Frankie kept interrupting.
Nina eventually said, “We can do this when you aren't trying to put yourself inside every sentence.”
“I need to know what he's been told.”
“I've told you.”
“Tuesday. Twelve thirty. Table, food, four people.”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
“And Vivian wants the window repaired.”
“Which window?”
“The one which doesn't shut properly in the Ballroom.”
“That's not—”
“It is when people are sitting near it.”
Frankie could hear the irritation in her own breath.
“We'll discuss the budget.”
“We will.”
The call ended.
Fourteen minutes.
Frankie went back inside.
The cake was on the table. There were candles in it, lit, and Poppy was sitting very still while her brother tried to organise a song which nobody else seemed certain they should join.
Mara stood beside the table with the matches in her hand.
Cara looked at Frankie.
She had the expression clients acquired when something they'd paid to avoid was happening in front of them.
Frankie moved.
“Before we do anything,” she said, “I need Poppy to make a decision.”
The brother stopped singing.
“About?”
“That painting.”
She pointed towards the nearest wall.
The artist had depicted the seafront in blue and grey, with one red door so emphatic it looked as though it had been sold separately.
“Would you live behind that door?”
Poppy looked at it.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Too pleased with itself.”
Her brother laughed.
“Exactly,” Frankie said. “Then save us from having to look at it through all this smoke.”
Poppy turned back to the candles.
She took one breath, blew, and put them out.
Everyone applauded, lightly enough to let her accept it.
No song.
Frankie took the cake to cut.
Mara followed her into the kitchen.
“You said ten minutes.”
“I know.”
“Her brother said they always sang.”
“That's fine.”
“It wasn't.”
Frankie looked at her.
Mara was young, but not as young as Frankie wanted her to be when she needed someone to absorb a mistake. She had a coat waiting behind the kitchen door and a bus to catch at four.
“I should have stayed,” Frankie said. “I'll pay you for the extra time.”
“I couldn't tell him no. I didn't know what you'd agreed, and then she was sitting there with all those candles.” Mara took the knife from her. “I'm meant to be on a bus in twenty minutes.”
She cut the first slice neatly.
“Now you can take that out.”
She did.
The afternoon recovered. Not perfectly. Cara stayed watchful for a while. Poppy didn't like the mints but ate the cake, saying it was an improvement on many actual birds.
When the guests left, Frankie helped clear without answering the phone again.
Mara put her coat on at four twenty.
“Send the hours,” Frankie said.
“I will.”
“And the next job—”
“Ask me when you know what it is.”
Frankie nodded.
Mara went to catch the later bus.
Cara remained by the table, holding a plate with two forks on it.
“My mother liked you.”
“I'm glad.”
“I didn't like that bit in the middle. She really hates singing.”
“I should have been here.”
Frankie took the plate.
Cara watched her stack it.
“Next time, no other calls.”
“Agreed.”
There would be a next time. Possibly. Frankie could feel how carefully she wanted to hold the possibility.
At Calder House later, Nina was in the Ballroom with Duncan and Sol.
The table had been moved slightly. A practical angle, not the one Frankie had chosen. Nina had used the change to keep the draught off the guest place.
Vivian stood beside the repaired window, testing it.
“Better,” she said.
Frankie looked at Nina.
“How?”
“Someone who repairs windows.”
“I meant—”
“I know.”
Duncan glanced at Frankie, then back towards the table.
They tried the approach for Tuesday. It worked. The place Gideon would take had warmth from the Morning Room and a view of Vivian which made the old history seem hers to offer.
Frankie could see three things she'd improve.
She could see something better than she'd left.
Nina came beside her.
“Well?”
“Good.”
“That's all?”
“For now.”
Nina smiled.
Frankie took out her phone to move the client call. Before she sent the message, she put in the time she knew she could give.
Then she took her coat off and asked what they needed her to do.