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It was no surprise to anyone who knew the fahtest, e and now a good job with a thrusting commercial property company in the City By the time she was ready to start work, Gra older and the changing times And she had an education, he had pointed out (sadly, she so up at sparrow’s fart and doing hard manual labour for the rest of her life She was set for better things
But deep down she had a passion for kitchen coht of caterer’s creaht, flaky pastry, set off by the crunchiest diaar; for hot cross buns, baked at Randall’s strictly during Lent and Lent only, their cinna, sticky s on top of the highest, lightest, floatiest les Hence her project with Graet as h neither of them ever referred to it, but before, or in case, he started to forget theot an email from Mum,’ said Issy ‘She’s in Florida She’s met a man called Brick Really Brick That’s his narandfather
Issy gave hiht be home for my birthday In the summer Of course she said she’d be home for Christmas but she wasn’t’
Issy had spent Christmas in the home with Grareat
‘Anyway’ Issy attempted a smile ‘She sounds happy Says she loves it over there Said I should send you over for some sun’
Issy and Graot tired out crossing the rooo catch the next plane to Florida Taxi! Take me to London Airport!’
Issy tucked the sheet of paper away in her handbag and stood up
‘I have to go,’ she said ‘U the recipes But you can keep them quite, you know, normal if you like’
‘Normal’
She kissed hiot off the bus It was freezing, with dirty ice on the ground left over from a short day’s snowfall just after New Year At first it had looked pretty, but noas getting a little ropy round the edges, especially poking through the wrought-iron fencing of the Stoke Newington Municipal Offices, the rather grand edifice at the end of her street Still, as ever, Issy felt pleased to be stepping down Hoton, the bohemian district that she’d stumbled upon when she moved south
The smell of hookahs froled with the incense sticks fro next to expensive baby boutiques that sold children’s designer wellingtons and one-off wooden toys, perused by shoppers with Hasidic ringlets, or headscarves; crop tops and patois; young ies Despite her friend Tobes once joking that it was like living in the bar in Star Wars, Issy loved it all She adored the sweet Jaisters in the grocers; little Indian sweets of dried ht She liked the strange cooking smells in the air as she cas; from a handsome square of pretty flat-fronted houses to blocks of flats and red-brick conversions Albion Road was lined with odd shops, fried chicken joints, cab firrey houses It was neither commercial nor residential but lay sohfares of London that once upon a ties, and now connected its suburbs
The grey houses were stately, Victorian and potentially expensive Sorotty sub-divided flats with bicycles and daardens These boasted several doorbells with nah on the kerb Soentrified, with reclaimed oak front doors, topiary trees on the steps and expensive curtains leading to polished hardwood flooring and stripped-back fireplaces and big mirrors She loved the area’s h and ready and smart and alternative, with the towers of the City on the horizon, and the tumbledown churchyard and crowded pavements … All types of people lived in Stokey; it felt like a e that reflected the city’s true heart And it was ton
Issy had lived here for four years, since she moved out of south London and on to the property ladder The only downside had been e of the tube She’d told herself that didn’tlike this with the wind cutting between the houses and turning noses into red dripping taps, she thought perhaps it did Just a bit It was all right for the posh yurey houses, they all had 4×4s She did wonder soies and tiny, expensive bodies … she did wonder how old they were Younger than her? Thirty-one wasn’t old, not these days But with their toddlers and their highlights and their houses with one wall covered in smart wallpaper … she did wonder Sometimes
Just behind the bus stop was a little close It was lined with tiny shops, older places that had been left behind by the Victorian development Once upon a tier’s; they were quirky, and oddly shaped There was an ironer’s with ancient brushes round the door, old-fashioned toasters for sale at inflated prices and a sad-looking washingas Issy had been co to the bus stop; a telephone/wifi/internet office that stayed open at strange hours and invited you to send ent that faced on to the road and here Issy picked up ht at the very end of the row, tucked into the corner, was a building that looked like an afterthought; somewhere to use up the spare stones It was pointed at one end, where a triangular corner of glass stuck out towards the road, widening into a bench, with a door co out on to a small cobbled courtyard with a tree in it It looked quite out of place, a tiny haven in theabsolutely out of time – like, Issy had once reflected, an illustration by Beatrix Potter All it needed were bottle-glass s