Clara

      Monday, December 4^th 2017

      The gloomy grey clouds hadn’t lifted all day, and the darkness they cast around the office at The Club on the Corner wasn’t encouraging Clara to work. The paperwork she’d been staring at was also tedious and depressing, so much so that she’d almost caved and opened the stollen she’d bought for Joe. The sweet bread-like texture dissolving in her mouth would have been an antidote to the charity submissions she’d been working on all day, first at home and then at the office. If the cake hadn’t taken so bloody long to wrap the previous evening she’d have opened it first thing; all that would’ve been left of it would be a Hansel and Gretel trail of crumbs leading from her house to the club. Or halfway to the club, more likely. It would never have lasted her all the way to work.

      Stollen was another of the traditional Christmas foods that she couldn’t resist, and the brand she’d bought from a European supermarket on Ayres Road was her absolute favourite. It was packed with so much dried fruit that it wasn’t far off being a Christmas cake, and the icing sugar dusted on top was thick and generous. Most importantly was the marzipan rope woven through the centre of the dough, the sharp almond tang the perfect finishing touch. Her grandparents’ next-door neighbours were Austrian and gifted her family one of the cakes each year, and the sight of the distinctive wrapper alone was enough to set Clara’s mouth watering.

      At the Christmas market Joe had mentioned in passing that he’d never tried stollen and she’d immediately known it was the next gift she’d get him. She only hoped he liked it as much as she did, because she’d gone for the biggest they’d had in stock.

      Clara looked at the clock, noting it was later than she’d thought. She really should start setting up for the session, especially as it was doubling as a much-needed fundraising event. Deirdre had decided a bake sale was a relatively easy way to bring more money into the club, but Clara wasn’t in the mood for swarms of adults descending on the place. She loved being with the youngsters, finding them much easier to talk to than their older counterparts. They were more straightforward, less prone to game-playing. If they had an issue with you it’d come firing out in a hormone-fuelled rage.

      Picking up her bag, along with her mum’s spotty cake tin, she headed downstairs, hoping people wouldn’t laugh her misshapen Smartie cookies out of town. Clara never professed to be a baker and didn’t aspire to be one either, and she’d only brought something along to the event to show her support. If no one wanted to buy them, she’d throw a tenner into the margarine tub they used for collecting money and take them back home herself.

      * * *

      Deirdre was flapping. She often got like this when there was an event, keen to show the club in its best light. Plus, of course, there was the near desperation, the need to make as much money as possible from this bake sale to keep the club open and available to as many young people as possible. Clara understood all that, but the tension in the kitchen rubbed off on her as soon as she walked through the door.

      ‘Oh, Clara. Thank goodness! I thought you were never going to come down.’ Deirdre peeled back the lid of a Tupperware container and examined the contents – mince slices – before adding the box to a pile. ‘I’ve got a system,’ she said, her voice hurried and flustered. ‘Buns and cupcakes near the kettle, biscuits next to the microwave and big cakes and Christmassy goods here on the table.’

      Clara cast her eyes over the offerings. There seemed to be an awful lot of buns, plus an abundance of Cornflake Crispy bites, which were Deirdre’s speciality. She made them for every event, every time.

      ‘I’ve brought some biscuits,’ Clara said, putting her tin near the microwave with a tray full of beautifully iced gingerbread men. ‘They don’t look that appealing, though, I’m afraid.’

      ‘They’ll be fine,’ Deirdre said, ‘people buy anything at these bake sales. They’re not fussy.’

      Clara didn’t rise. Much like the chocolate cake in the corner hadn’t. It was as flat as a pancake.

      ‘Who brought that in?’ Clara asked, pointing at the paper-thin cake.

      ‘Oh, that was Joe,’ Deirdre said with a laugh. ‘I don’t think he’s much of a baker. Bless him for trying, though, eh?’

      ‘It’s not so bad,’ Clara said, surprised at how quickly she jumped to defend Joe’s efforts. The cake was thin, but the chocolate buttercream smothering it still looked tasty and tempting. ‘And, like you said, people aren’t fussy. They’d buy anything if they thought it’d support the youth club.’

      ‘I hope you’re right, because if we don’t raise some money fast we’ll have to cancel the Christmas disco.’

      ‘We’ll find the money somehow,’ Clara said optimistically. ‘There’s been a Christmas disco every year since the club opened. We’re not going to start letting the kids down now.’

      ‘You’re right,’ Deirdre agreed, as she opened a tin. The tempting waft of chocolate brownie flooded out and Clara’s mouth started to water in response. ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’

      Clara rummaged in her bag for her purse. It was buried at the bottom, beneath a pile of crumpled receipts, an empty chocolate-bar wrapper and a couple of emergency tampons. Wasn’t that always the way? She took her rubbish and posted it in the bin, and removed the present for Joe, placing it on the work surface until she found the purse. Unzipping it, she took out a newly-minted coin.

      ‘Well, for starters, can you bag me up a piece of that brownie? And make it a large one. It looks amazing.’ She placed the pound coin in the margarine tub, the two-tone disc mingling in with the float of silvers and coppers.

      ‘Brianna Moore’s mum made it, so you know it’s going to be good.’

      ‘Ah, that explains why it smells amazing,’ Clara replied, inhaling deeply to get another hit from the sweet aroma. Mrs Moore had started up a small bakery on the same row as The Club on the Corner, and apparently the orders had been flooding in. She’d been especially busy over the summer with wedding cakes, and Clara imagined she’d be in demand over the Christmas period too, for those who had neither the time nor skills to cobble together a Christmas cake.

      ‘I’m going to buy the ginger loaf she contributed,’ Deirdre said with a wry smile. ‘And she’s donated a voucher for a celebration cake too as a raffle prize. I was going to ask if you’d stand on the door as people arrive to encourage them to buy a strip or two.’

      Clara snorted. ‘Encourage? Bully them into it, more like.’

      ‘It’s a fantastic prize.