‘Contrariwise, I would never recommend waiting for something to cool before sampling it. There really is no point in making anything if you don’t burn your mouth and fingers in your haste to try it.’
‘I’m glad we agree.’ I turn over the square cookie, which somehow managed to retain its perfectly square shape in the oven instead of expanding and splurging into one mass like my attempts keep turning out. I roll it from edge to edge using my nails until it’s cool enough to break a piece off and pop it in my mouth.
‘Oh my God,’ I murmur, but this time it is the good kind of ‘oh my God’. The biscuit melts on my tongue in a mix of chocolate and vanilla, with a crunch of sugar and a buttery taste. I quickly pop another bit in. ‘These are amazing. How did you do that?’ It’s a rhetorical question because I watched every step and I still can’t explain how he can make a few simple ingredients complement each other so well. Before I know it, I’ve eaten a whole one and taken another one. ‘Magic by day, wizardry in the kitchen by night. I don’t know why I’m even trying – I should just give up and hire you as the tearoom chef.’
He laughs, but it’s an awkward laugh and his cheeks are blazing with redness. I never would’ve thought that someone who is so cocky as the Mad Hatter would be so bad at taking compliments himself. ‘Well, firstly, “wizardry” is pushing it a bit for simple chequerboard cookies, secondly, because I wouldn’t stop doing magic for anything, and thirdly, because you don’t want to hire a tearoom baker, you want to be the tearoom baker, and we’re not giving up on that.’ He puts another piece of the cookie into his mouth. ‘But I’m happy to carry on helping out to supplement the supermarket-bought goods until you don’t need them any more.’
I like how much faith he has that that will ever be a possibility. ‘These are beyond perfect for The Wonderland Teapot. I’ve still got some “Eat Me” rice paper tags, I could stick one of those on each with a dob of icing. How did you get to be so good at this?’
‘I don’t know. It’s an outlet.’ He gets a Tupperware container out, ready to load the cookies into when they’ve cooled down. ‘I have a limited amount of outgoingness, and when I get home after work, I need to do something to chill out and be alone. I can switch off and concentrate on nothing but measuring and mixing and rolling out with no pressure or expectation to be fun and entertaining. Sometimes it goes wrong, sometimes it goes right, but either way, by the time it comes out of the oven, I feel like me again and I can face another day tomorrow with a spring in my step.’
I’m once again struck by how open he is and how he isn’t afraid of his feelings. ‘Am I messing that up? Your alone time, your time in the kitchen… I’ve been here almost every night.’
‘No.’ He thinks about it for a moment. ‘No, you’re genuinely not. I still feel like I’m alone when you’re here, I’m just less lonely.’
His words make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. ‘Was that a compliment?’
‘I think so.’
We both laugh, but I see what he’s really saying. The front he puts on in public is exhausting, and afterwards, he needs to decompress and just be himself. He hasn’t hidden that from me since the moment I arrived, and it means a lot that he can still do that while I’m here.
It’s late by the time the cookies have cooled, and the sky outside is dark when Bram walks me to the door and pulls it open.
‘Thanks for tonight,’ he says without elaborating, but I know what he means. A non-judgemental listening ear makes all the difference sometimes. I feel it too. I didn’t tell him much about my mum, but it was more than I’ve told anyone else in recent years, and the tension that seems to constantly clench around my shoulders feels looser somehow.
‘Thanks for the cookies.’ I give the Tupperware box I’m holding a gentle rattle.
It feels like he’s lingering and I know I’m lingering. I’ve lingered in the kitchen, I’ve lingered all along the hallway, and now I’m lingering in the open door.
‘See you tomorrow?’ He sounds hesitant and unsure, even though I most definitely will see him tomorrow.
We both seem uncertain of how to say goodbye tonight, like we’ve passed some invisible border of friendship by being so open with each other. It feels wrong to just wave goodbye and walk away like I would any other night.
He seems as though he needs a hug. His hand touches my hip like he doesn’t know where else to put it, and I reach up and slip the arm not holding the cookies around his neck and awkwardly pull him down. Even though the position is uncomfortable, I feel him exhale and relax, and I can’t see his face, but I imagine his eyes slip closed.
It doesn’t last anywhere near long enough. Within a few seconds, he’s stood back upright and extracted his arm from around me and taken a step as far away as the narrow doorway will allow, and I try to ignore the urge to cling on a bit longer. He gives incredible hugs, but it’s not just the hug that’s making me feel warm and squishy inside tonight.
‘So, see you tomorrow, then?’ I paste on a smile and step out onto the top step, because if I stand here much longer, I’m likely to hug him again, and that would be a very bad thing.
‘With out-of-tune bells on.’
It makes me laugh because I wouldn’t have it any other way now, and I wave as I head down the steps.
‘Cleo?’ he says as I reach the bottom. ‘Why didn’t you ask me who he is?’
His father. Someone important. Someone with influence. Someone who can afford a house like this. Someone famous, maybe? It never even crossed my mind to question it any further. If Bram wanted to tell me, he would have. ‘I don’t care who he is. Who you are is what’s important.’
The smile that crosses his face looks like he couldn’t not smile if he tried, but his eyes flicker downwards and then he turns serious again. ‘I might have to hold you to that one day.’
‘You have my word. You’ll always be more important than whoever your father is. He sounds like an inflated walking ego with excruciatingly bad taste in décor.’
I can hear his laugh as I crunch across the gravel to my car and he stays leaning against the doorframe as I get in and start up. I meet his eyes across the distance and smile to myself, trying not to look at how the light from the outside lamps catches the blue pigments in his hair and make it look like it’s glowing.
The Mad Hatter might be a spectacular nut, but Bram might just be something spectacular.
10
‘There’s no such thing as a secret ingredient, only an ingredient that hasn’t been remembered yet.’
‘Well, being both secret and forgotten doesn’t bode well, does it?’ We’re in Bram’s kitchen again and I’m trying to make scones in the vague hope of them not turning out like small lumps of boulder clay this time. ‘My nan was famous for her lavender scones. She would put a chalkboard outside and write the time they were due out of the oven on it, and people used to queue up to get them while they were so hot that the butter would start to melt as you put it on… She always swore there was a secret ingredient that must never be written down in case someone found out our family secrets.’
‘Tearoom espionage,’ he says with a grin. ‘That must’ve been some scone.’
‘I watched my nan make them so many times. I’ve tried to recreate them, but it was like eating a greenhouse. A soapy-tasting greenhouse. And that was my most successful attempt, others have been worse.’
He laughs from where he’s sitting on the unit, clearly not realising just how bad my attempts at baking have been in recent years.
‘It tasted like cloves, but I’ve tried it with cloves and it was just…’ I shudder at the memory. I feel like I’ve let down my family name, and I’m definitely letting down my own tearoom.
I’m not intending to make my nan’s scones tonight because I can’t remember that missing ingredient. These will just be plain ones, that hopefully won’t go wrong with Bram’s supervision. The other day, I made the mistake of trying one of the supermarket-bought scones I’ve been serving and they really do taste like they come from a supermarket, and The Wonderland Teapot deserves better than that.
I keep thinking I’ll remember it. But even with the ingredients set out in front of me and my fingers literally in the mixing bowl, rubbing the butter into the flour, my mind is still blank. I remember Nan telling me to add a pinch of something, but no more than a pinch otherwise it would be overpowering. But… what was it? I wrack my brain, getting increasingly annoyed with myself. This is ridiculous.
I didn’t realise I’d made a noise of frustration until Bram speaks. ‘I think you’re too worried that you might not remember and your brain is putting up a mental wall. When you’re trying so hard to remember something, the harder it gets to remember it.’
I’m not sure if that makes sense or if it’s one of his nonsense ramblings, but he jumps down and holds a hand out to me. ‘Come here.’
‘What are you doing?’
