Somehow, I think we might have very different definitions of ‘best behaviour’.
5
Bram stayed late last night, washing up while I mopped the floor and wiped down all the tables and chairs until long after closing time, and unsurprisingly there’s no sign of him when I arrive before 7 a.m., with bags of shopping over my shoulder, bought on a clandestine trek around the local supermarket late last night.
There isn’t space to do much in the caravan, but the space in the food preparation area in the tearoom is generous and I have plenty of room to make packet after packet of supermarket-bought goods look homemade.
I’ve bought mini carrot cakes and I’m adding my Wonderland twist by making carrots out of fondant and adding a white fondant rabbit and a clock made out of a white chocolate button that I’ve drawn hands on with edible ink. I’m filling a crystal plate in the display case as I go, a couple of different things today in case we have any return customers who’d like to try something different.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I have to get a handle on baking if I want to keep The Wonderland Teapot, because of the dishonesty, and because of the money too. Supermarket goods are expensive. I spent much more at the checkout last night than I took from customers throughout the day. And this is the furthest thing from what I wanted to do when I had a tearoom of my own. My entire livelihood now depends on me being able to summon some vestiges of the baker I used to be, but I keep failing. Last night, Marnie and Darcy went on a date and she let me use her kitchen, and what I made was… Well, I put the resulting banana bread out for the birds this morning and even they didn’t want it.
At five to nine, I go over to pull the net curtains back and hopefully welcome customers in.
‘’ello!’
I let out a yelp of surprise. Bram must’ve been sitting on the pavement because he suddenly pops up outside the door. I fiddle with the keys until I can yank it open. ‘What are you doing down there?’
‘Coming to work, I wouldn’t wonder.’ He looks around in confusion, like I might genuinely not realise why he’s here.
‘Knocking is a foreign concept?’
‘I could see the light on out the back. Figured you were busy and wouldn’t want to be disturbed.’ He gives me a jovial shrug. ‘It’s a nice April morning. Sitting outside for a while is no hardship.’
He’s right there – I wouldn’t have wanted to be disturbed in the middle of my underhanded misrepresentations. But he puts an intonation on the word and I have to shrug off the feeling that he knows. I’m projecting again. He couldn’t possibly know. No one could.
‘Still, I’m here now. You know what they say – the early bird gets the worm. But actually, so does the lunchtime bird, and the mid-afternoon bird, and the late-evening bird. There are always plenty of worms to go round when it’s raining.’
I look past him as he comes in. It’s not raining. ‘This is a tearoom. Can we not talk about worms?’
He ignores me and his aftershave instantly fills the café with a bright and lively sherbet-like scent as he stops in front of the glass display full of delectable looking goodies. ‘Ooh, some changes, excellent. Going to yell at me for sampling one for breakfast?’
I give him a non-committal grunt because whether I say yes or no, he will anyway. ‘You’re unnervingly cheerful this morning.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be cheerful?’
‘Because it’s unnerving,’ I mutter, well aware that I sound like a real grump in comparison.
‘It’s only unnerving to un-cheerful people.’ He turns around and grins at me. ‘I’m still alive. I get to go to work. That’s worth celebrating. Not everyone is that lucky.’
‘That’s both surprisingly sunny and alarmingly macabre.’
Behind the lashings of black eyeliner, his twinkling brown eyes suggest that’s exactly what he was aiming for. ‘I’m healthy. I’ve got a job and a roof over my head and food in my fridge. People underestimate the privilege of having an average life, but if you’re well and warm, what more can you want?’
I notice that he didn’t say happy. Most people would say ‘healthy and happy’. Bram did not. It makes me wonder about his life and who the real Bram is behind the Hatter costume. Is he happy? Or is this just a front he’s putting on? ‘Another fair point.’
‘I know.’ He gives me that grin again, the one that turns arrogance into mischievousness and makes him impossible to dislike, even if you really, really want to.
Today he’s wearing an electric blue shirt that’s almost the exact same colour as his hair, and the same lime green pleather jacket and stack of three top hats. He takes his bag upstairs, taking the stairs in sets of two, his neon yellow boots thunking on each step.
I’m folding napkins into rose shapes when he comes back down and starts making us a cup of tea each without being asked. He sets a mug down in front of me, opens the display case and peers in. ‘There’s so much choice that I don’t know which to go for. It’s like browsing the shelves of a supermarket.’
Again, it sounds sarcastic, and my stomach plummets. I have to repeat to myself that there’s no way he could know.
I can feel his eyes on me as he takes a Black Forest cupcake without a word and closes the doors of the display case quietly. He’s mercifully silent as he eats it and we both down our tea with further awkward glugging. It’s like he knows he’s said something wrong, but he can’t possibly know what. He takes the empty mugs through to the back while I open the door for customers, but like yesterday, there’s not exactly a horde clamouring to get in. Ever After Street is quiet at this time of day.
‘Sorry. I’m always putting my foot in it and saying something I shouldn’t.’ Bram returns from the so-called kitchen and we skirt around each other as he goes to tidy tables that are already tidy and I squeeze in behind the counter. ‘People pay no attention to me. You shouldn’t either.’ He switches into his Mad Hatter voice for that bit, and it makes me wonder why. That voice seems like a façade, and I can’t help thinking about what it’s covering.
‘Let me make it up to you.’ He comes up to the counter and produces a deck of playing cards from one of his many trouser pockets.
‘How?’ I raise a dubious eyebrow, watching as he shuffles them like a card-shuffling master.
He looks up and waits until I meet his eyes to wink at me. ‘By making you believe in magic.’
I laugh. From anyone else, it would sound horrifically cheesy and egotistical, but from him, with that twinkle in his eyes and his Mad Hatter voice on again, it sounds kind of endearing. Even though it will take more than a magician in eyeliner to make me believe in magic. The magic disappeared from my world long ago.
‘Pick a card, look at it, but don’t let me see it.’ He fans the cards out face down in his hand and then turns to the side and looks away while I select a card and cup it in my hand. The Three of Diamonds.
From a pocket, he produces a biro and holds it out to me. ‘Sign your initials on it, fold it into quarters, and hold it between your thumb and forefinger.’
I do as he says and he turns back, splices the deck of cards together and shuffles them, and then spreads them across the counter and taps his finger on one and slides it out. ‘Is this your card?’
It’s an Eight of Spades. ‘No. Considering I’m still holding my card, it would be highly unlikely.’
‘Oh, okay, this has gone wrong already. Let me try again.’ There’s a hint of teasing in his voice that suggests this is deliberate misdirection and I play along, because whatever trick he’s trying, it’s not going to work on me.
He reshuffles the cards and pulls out another one and then sighs when I confirm that it, once again, is not the card I’m still holding. ‘Oh well, I’d better give up then.’ He gathers a handful of cards and throws them up in the air and they glide down and land in disarray on the counter, and then he suddenly holds a finger up. ‘Ah, I know where it’s got to.’
His hands go to his hat, and from behind the ‘ten shillings and sixpence’ sign, he pulls out a folded playing card and holds it up in front of me, making a show of deliberately unfolding it. ‘Is this your card?’
