‘Someone is certainly screaming something around here.’ I’m still trying to brush glitter off the shoulders of my dress. While I appreciate his forethought in making it edible glitter, even edible glitter should be used sparingly. Although the sparkly tea thing is not a bad idea. I could line each teacup with a pinch of glitter so it’s ready when people pour their tea in…
Bram ignores me trying to blow glitter off my cake before I plonk myself down on a stool and take another big, frustrated bite.
‘I’m going to need the recipe for these. They’re so good. You could make a fortune if you got the local supermarket to stock them.’
I choke on that big, frustrated bite. He suspects, I’m sure he does. The silence between us is punctuated only by my hacking breaths as I try to claw air back into my lungs. Maybe I should be honest with him. His body language is laidback and easy, like he’s inviting me to say something, and he seemed so open last night, like he’d be kind and understanding, and the guilt is weighing me down. Maybe if I told someone…
‘I’m sure,’ I mumble eventually. I can’t say anything. He’s got a direct line to the local council. There’s no way he’s not going to tell them something like this.
His eyes sink downwards and he looks disappointed, like he was expecting me to spill the beans, but he continues picking pieces off his now-glittery cake and poking them into his mouth.
‘So, Dora or Patra?’ The next time he looks up, he’s got a carefully schooled grin on his face, as though the previous few minutes didn’t happen.
‘What?’ I ask in confusion. If it’s not frustration with Bram then it’s almost always confusion.
‘What’s Cleo short for – Cleodora or Cleopatra?’
I stifle a laugh at the randomness of it. ‘Neither. It’s not a nickname, it’s just my name. Abraham.’
‘You know what they say about people who live in glass houses – they should put up curtains.’ He laughs. ‘Fair point, well made, Cleonardo.’
I try not to laugh, but once I start, I can’t stop. ‘Every conversation with you is like a trip to Wonderland where everyone talks in riddles and every encounter leaves you feeling turned-around and upside-down.’
‘Pleasure to be of service.’ He tips the stack of hats again, that indomitable grin back on his face, and we finish our tea in slightly less awkward silence.
‘So when are you going to start the sparkly tea thing – today or tomorrow?’
‘I’m not.’
He raises two dark eyebrows as high as they can possibly go. ‘Sparkly tea is a must for Wonderland. We both know it.’
I hold his gaze for a moment, intending to stick to my guns, but his eyes have a glint to them that makes it impossible to hang onto my resolve. ‘All right, as ideas go, it’s not the worst I’ve ever heard.’ I take a piece of chalk over to the chalkboard menu on the wall, and add an asterix and ‘with extra sparkle’ underneath the tea options, because edible glitter might not be to everyone’s tastes. ‘Happy now?’
‘You could just say, “Thank you for brightening up my day, Bram.” Contrariwise, I don’t exist solely to annoy you.’ He lifts his teacup and drains the last of his glittery tea, and I do the same without another word, because, to be fair, these past few days would have been a lot less successful if he hadn’t come along. Where would Wonderland be without a very, very Mad Hatter?
That morning is our first afternoon tea, ironically at 11 a.m., a birthday treat for three middle-aged sisters, and Bram entertains with card tricks while I make smoked salmon and cream cheese and egg and cress sandwiches and put them on a serving platter, and then load up one of my handmade cake stands with glittery scones, fairy cakes, and butterfly-shaped slices of lemon loaf cake that I’ve cut out with a cookie cutter, and serve it with pots of tea and a selection of mismatched dainty teacups. They requested the extra sparkle, so each teacup has a pinch of edible silver glitter inside.
After they leave, lunchtime brings a rush with it for the first time, and although it’s not busy-busy, there seem to be customers in for most of the day, and by the time I flip the open sign over to closed at five o’clock that evening, my feet are killing me and my back is protesting about not having had a sit down all day.
‘I guess word is spreading.’ Bram’s clearing tables as I walk back across the shop floor. I take a tray from him and carry it to the back room and start loading plates into a sink full of hot water, because Lilith never had anything as modern as a dishwasher.
‘I’ll do that in a minute.’ He comes out with another loaded tray. True to his word, he’s been wonderful at keeping on top of the washing up without a single complaint. I’ve never met anyone who enjoys washing up before, and yet he whistles to himself and breezes through it. ‘Right now, there are cakes in the display case that are going to end up in the bin if we don’t do our duty as responsible citizens to save landfill and scoff the lot. Tea?’
‘Bram, it’s…’ I glance at a clock. It’s after five and all I want to do is go home. Well, back to the caravan. You can’t really call a rustbox on my friend’s driveway a home, can you?
‘Always time for tea!’ he says brightly, a sentence that I hear at least three times a day, usually said at the moments when it really is not a good time for tea.
‘You’ve been on your feet all day. Go and choose what you want because I’m going to ransack that display case in a minute.’
‘You’ve been on your feet as long as I have.’
‘Ah, but I haven’t been up since the early hours baking a teashop full of delicious goodies.’
That guilt again. I didn’t plan this, but I certainly never planned on sharing a workplace with someone who would think I baked them myself. I thought hiding it from customers would be a breeze, but it’s harder to outright lie to someone who seems so utterly open. There’s something about Bram that’s unflinchingly straightforward, and my guilt is giving way to panic that I still haven’t magically become the baker I used to be. I still can’t remember my old family recipes. What if I never do? How much longer can I go on like this? Sooner or later, am I going to have to admit defeat?
I go through to the shop and sit down on the stool behind the counter, and lean over to take a fairy cake with added Cheshire Cat-style pink and purple sprinkles from the display case, and Bram comes out with two large mugs of tea and a plate. He puts a mug down by me and one on the opposite side of the counter, then opens the glass doors of the display case and proceeds to load his plate up with one of everything that’s left until there are six cakes on his plate.
‘Moderation?’
‘Nah. I could get hit by a froose tomorrow. You know that Bon Jovi song, “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”? Well, I’ll eat cake in moderation when I’m dead. I quite like sleeping while I’m alive.’
It’s hard to imagine him ever being quiet enough to sleep. ‘What’s a froose?’
‘I dunno. Cross between a frog and a goose?’
I don’t intend to laugh, but sometimes I’m so bewildered by what he’s going to come out with next that laughter is the only response. ‘How is it possible that even you can’t make sense of the things that come out of your own mouth?’
‘All part of the fun.’ He drops onto the stool, lets out a long sigh, and his shoulders droop. ‘Ah, the holy grail of life. A cup of tea, a cake, and a nice sit down. Is there anything better?’
‘You’re looking very good for your apparent age of ninety-three. I thought it was illegal to utter a sentence like that unless you’re collecting your pension.’
He laughs. ‘Age is just a number. You are never too young to enjoy the simple things in life, nor too old to enjoy the fun things life has to offer. Even better with the good company of people who barely tolerate you. Cheers.’ He lifts his teacup and clinks it against mine.
I feel that shot of guilt again. It’s not that I barely tolerate him. He’s quite tolerable sometimes. And quite intolerable at other times. Unfortunately both of those times seem to coincide and he is both tolerable and intolerable at the same moment. The Schrödinger’s cat of human beings.
He blows on his tea to cool it and then takes a big bite of his Victoria sponge slice. ‘Tell me something,’ he says conversationally, with his mouth full. ‘Why do you put preservatives in these?’
