Page 7 of Barging In
V ictoria reluctantly got to her feet and trailed after Jasper, catching up with him on the bridge.
“You queue,” she instructed him. “I’m going to sit and watch.”
“What can I get you?” Jasper asked.
“Lemon drizzle if there is any, otherwise surprise me.”
Victoria settled on a wooden bench a little way down the towpath, not yet ready to come face to face with whoever was causing the headache now pulsing behind her temples.
She wanted to observe. Knowing one’s enemy didn’t simply mean sampling their wares; it was about understanding the person behind the product.
People heading towards the wharf paused at an A-board, eyed the boat, and joined the queue. The length of it didn’t seem to deter them; if anything, it drew them towards the boat like a magnet. Typical .
Victoria’s eye caught the hatch of the narrowboat, where a woman who looked to be in her late thirties frantically served coffee.
A high ponytail constrained her long, brown hair, and a rather intriguing smile was flashed at every customer.
Her eyes looked kind and genuine, and her face was so expressive that Victoria struggled to look away.
Was this annoyingly attractive woman… Clem?
A couple of plastic benches sat in front of the narrowboat, crammed with people shovelling cake from paper plates into their mouths.
They nodded to each other with satisfied smiles.
A group of people stood up and wandered over the bridge into the wharf, where, under different circumstances, they might have headed into the café.
Her stomach churned over the lost revenue.
Jasper finally joined her after ten minutes, presenting her with a small cup and a paper plate. “An espresso and a lemon drizzle.”
“Thanks.”The cake looked irresistible, making Victoria’s mouth water.
“Shit,” Jasper muttered, mid-bite. “That’s the best damn coffee and walnut cake I’ve ever tasted. How’s yours?”
Victoria remained silent for a moment, overwhelmed by the perfect balance of sharp, zesty lemon cutting through rich, buttery sweetness.
The sponge was light and moist, soaking up the tanginess that seemed to seep into every crumb.
The crisp sugar glaze gave a satisfying crunch before melting into lemony bliss. It was divine.
Jasper reached over, unable to wait for Victoria’s assessment, and scooped a forkful into his mouth. “Oh, wow,” he mumbled around the bite. “Who knew cake could taste this good?”
“Indeed,” Victoria agreed.
“What the hell are we selling? Our cakes are like rubbery plastic compared to this. ”
Victoria winced. “Yes, thank you for that observation. Sadly, you’re not wrong.”
She watched as Jasper scanned a QR code on the side of the cup with his iPhone and then tapped the screen a few times. She could just make out the image of an orange boat on what looked like an Instagram page.
“You’re not going to follow her, are you?”
“Of course not,” he said, quickly shoving his phone into his trouser pocket. “Oh, she gave me this.”
Jasper pulled a business card out and passed it to Victoria. One side displayed a logo with a website, an email address, and assorted social media logos. The reverse featured a QR code with the words, Please leave a review.
“She’s friendly, too — very chatty,” Jasper added through his last mouthful of cake. “We should leave her a review.”
“We certainly will not,” Victoria sniffed, shoving the card into her pocket as Jasper chuckled and took their rubbish to the narrowboat’s bin.
Back at the wharf, Jasper returned to the museum, but rather than heading straight back to her office, Victoria stopped in the café. With her catering manager nowhere in sight, Victoria nodded at Emma behind the counter and headed into the kitchen.
“Ah, Christine, there you are,” she said, spotting the woman standing at a stainless steel island, prepping for lunch.“As suspected, takings are down, so Jasper and I have been over to try the cake from the boat. They are far superior to what we offer. I assume you don’t make ours fresh?”
“Of course not,” Christine scoffed, slicing a cucumber with unnecessary force. “I don’t have time to make cakes. I just buy whatever’s available from our supplier. We’re short-staffed enough without me spending my days baking.”
“Can I see the cakes?” Victoria asked firmly.
Christine dropped her knife onto the worktop with a clatter that made Victoria pull in a breath. She let it out slowly and followed Christine to one of the large fridges at the back of the kitchen.
“There.” Christine pointed at four large cakes in disposable plastic containers.
Extracting a chocolate one, Victoria examined the label and its long list of unpronounceable ingredients. “I don’t even know what half these ingredients are. Do you?”
Christine gave her a flat look. “There’s preservatives, so they keep longer; emulsifiers and stabilisers to improve the texture and consistency; and syrups to stop them drying out.”
“And all this is necessary?”
“If you want to be able to store them, yes. They last for one to two weeks.”
“I don’t want to store them, Christine. I want to sell them!” Victoria snapped. She’d bet Clem’s cakes didn’t have a single additive — and didn’t need them either. They probably flew out of her hatch within hours.
“Well, best get bums on seats then, hadn’t you? Marketing is not my department,” Christine bit back as she returned to her post and proceeded to chop cucumber regularly and firmly.
The problem, Victoria was quickly surmising, was that marketing wasn’t anyone’s department.
If anything, the job fell to her, but she had no idea how to draw people in.
She had assumed, naively, that people would flock in once they were open, but after an initial buzz, numbers dried up faster than Christine’s chemical-laden cakes.
There was also the question of finding the budget to hire a full-time marketing person; a part-time one would be a stretch, though she wasn’t sure she could afford not to.
Lifting the lid on the chocolate cake, Victoria recoiled at the overly sweet, synthetic smell.
Half the cake remained, and she could see the sponge was dense and unappealing.
A shiny frosting coated the top, but on closer inspection it looked greasy.
It was the sort of cake that promised indulgence but delivered disappointment on the first bite.
Not that she was about to taste it. The only thing she was craving was another slice of Clem’s lemon drizzle.
Her thoughts drifted to getting her hands on one, but she quickly shook the idea away. She needed that boat gone, not to be adding to its profits.
Victoria left Christine to her prep work, satisfied that she had made it clear she wasn’t happy with what they were serving customers.
She returned to her office with yet another dilemma playing on her mind.
Changing how they ran things in the café would take work, especially if Christine wasn’t on board.
If they couldn’t bake onsite, new suppliers would need to be found.
By mid-afternoon, her head was fuzzy and overwhelmed.
Victoria kicked off her boots and slipped into her trainers, ready to head home.
There was still work to do, but she could do it from a laptop with a glass of wine in hand.
The bright sunshine and warm breeze beckoned her outside, and the stroll home might even prove productive.
It didn’t, thanks to a group of noisy school children following behind her.
As she crossed her driveway, she noticed the neighbouring house was now clad in scaffolding, which further soured her mood.
The builders had better be quiet with whatever they were doing, or she’d give them a stern talking-to.
With her work hours split between weekdays and weekends, she’d likely be around when they were, and builders were notorious for noisy radios, inane whistling, and shouting.
She kicked off her trainers and hung up her coat and bag in the boot room, then immediately headed to the kitchen with only one thing on her mind — a bottle of chilled New Zealand sauvignon blanc.
She uncorked the bottle and filled a glass.
The cool liquid trickled down her throat and soothed her instantly.
As she slid open the bi-fold glass doors of her large kitchen extension, fresh air and birdsong drifted inside, and the weight of the day began to melt away. Tucking herself into her armchair, she gazed out towards the canal, the greenery framing it like a scenic photograph.
She’d missed her house. Even though she’d only lived there for four years, it felt more like home than their London property ever had. The penthouse, perched at dizzying heights, was not for the fainthearted, and anything above a third storey certainly made her heart race.
Avoiding the floor-to-ceiling windows was near impossible, and when she tried to lower the blinds, Drew would complain she was ruining the view and raise them again.
He never missed a chance to remind her how hard he’d worked to afford such a panorama.
He would dismiss her concerns with a casual, “You’ll get used to it.
” It was the same line he’d thrown out when announcing that they were to leave their four-bedroom Georgian house in Primrose Hill for a penthouse in Canary Wharf.
He said he wanted to jog to the office in the mornings rather than be collected by the company car for the hour-long commute.
She had adored their Primrose Hill house, not least because it had been her first project for Drew’s construction company.
Although she was already well established at the firm of architects, this had been a test, an opportunity to prove herself to her boss and his most important client, Drew.
The firm had worked on several developments with him, and he was impressed by her style, particularly when it came to historical restoration.