‘Why did you take responsibility for that?’ You wouldn’t think my mouth could be dry when I’ve just swallowed so much water, but it comes out hoarse and I have to clear my throat and try again. ‘We both made them.’
‘He seemed angry enough to complain to someone, somewhere, so better for me to get in trouble than you. Don’t worry about it.’ He drops my hand again when a customer comes in, and goes to greet them with a levitating playing card trick.
‘He’s so good, isn’t he?’ Mrs Moreno says as she comes up to the counter and orders a cup of sparkly tea and her usual toasted teacake.
‘He’s as mad as a box of frogs,’ I say with a smile, trying to forget everything else and concentrate on the customers who haven’t just witnessed a potential poisoning on the premises.
‘And you wouldn’t have him any other way, right?’ She looks over her shoulder to where Bram is now with another customer and has produced a playing card from nowhere and turned it into a rose with a snap of his fingers, only for it to vanish and then turn up again on the other side of the table moments later.
‘Right,’ I say. Because he is as mad as a box of frogs in the best way possible, and he’s many other things too, and yet the only question I keep coming back to is him taking responsibility for the brownies. Is it because he’s kind… or because he is responsible?
15
‘You okay, Bram?’
‘Fine.’ He lifts a hand to reassure me without looking up, probably because he knows that if he looks at me, I’ll see how ill he looks. It’s 4 p.m. on a Wednesday, just over a week after the fiery brownie incident, and for the past hour or so, Bram has not been looking good. And although he insists he’s fine, he’s gone from Mad Hatter to Quiet Hatter. He’s been getting paler and paler until his face is so white, a ghost would look healthier, and he seems to be using the backs of chairs or the walls to keep himself upright as he moves around the tearoom.
It’s the after-school rush time. There’s always an increase in customers when the school day finishes. Parents and kids come up to the counter, picking out baked goods from the display case and tea or the soft drinks we’ve started offering for youngsters, squash or lemonade, served in mason jars with ‘Drink Me’ tags tied around them. Bram loves kids, he thrives on making them gasp in awe, but at the moment, he’s leaning listlessly against the back wall, looking like he’s having trouble staying vertical.
‘Bram?’ I say again, between customers, not wanting to draw attention to him.
‘I’m fi—’ Instead of finishing the repeated rebuttal, he pulls a chair out and sinks down in it, laying his arm across the empty table and putting his head down on it, unable to hide the groan that such a small movement elicits.
I nearly cut my own fingers off as I make an order for Brie and cranberry sandwiches and keep poking my head round the food prep room door to check on him, and as soon as I deliver the tray to the woman and young girl, I go and sit down in the chair opposite him.
One hand is on his belly, holding it protectively, and I can hear the angry gurgling noises his stomach is making. I reach over and slide my hand over his other hand where it’s curled into a fist on the table. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Something I ate,’ he mumbles. ‘You know what they say – the proof of the pudding is in the food poisoning.’
‘You’ve only eaten my caramel cake all day. And a cheese sandwich at lunchtime.’
He groans like the mention of food is making it worse.
‘Do you want to go and sit upstairs? Can I get you some water or something?’ I ask, despite the fact he doesn’t look like water is going to solve this problem.
‘Don’t think I can move without throwing up. Just gimme a minute, it’ll pass. Don’t worry abo—’ The sentence is cut off with another groan and I can hear how violent that stomach cramp was.
‘I’m going…’ He lifts his head and points upwards. ‘Bathroom. Staff puking in the tearoom is a really bad look.’
Even when he’s feeling like death warmed up, he still makes me smile despite the worry for him. He pushes himself up to his feet, looking wobbly, and hesitates for a moment. I didn’t think it was possible for his pallor to go any paler, but now he goes from white to almost translucent and suddenly dashes behind the counter and up the stairs, the thump of his feet reverberating through the café from how fast he takes them.
I follow him as far as the bottom of the stairs, but the bathroom door has slammed shut and the tap is running to drown out any other noises that might be audible, and it’s Tabby’s day off, so I can’t leave the tearoom unattended.
I take the caramel cake out of the display case and lift the cloche off. Bram has had at least three slices today. I baked it last night, and early this morning, a customer complained that it was a bit doughy, but he refused the refund I offered him so I thought the cake couldn’t have been that bad. Because it was something I baked by myself, Bram has been trying to make me feel better about the moany customer by nabbing a huge slice at every chance he’s had, and at least three other people have ordered slices today too, and no one else has complained, although one woman did leave a big chunk on her plate. Usually we’ve been making batches of small things, and it felt like a big step to make a whole cake, by myself, displayed under a cake dome, ready to be cut into slices if anyone ordered one, and I decorated it with strips of Galaxy Caramel bars and drizzled warm caramel over the top. There’s a third of the cake left and I take it out the back and break it up with a fork, and although the top part is cooked, the ‘soggy bottom’ is very, very soggy indeed. The lowest parts of the cake are barely cooked.
No wonder he’s feeling ill. What about the other customers who have eaten this today? Are their stomachs rebelling in the same way?
I look up the stairs again. I want to go after him and see if he’s okay, but it looked like that was only going to end one way, and there’s not much I can do to help with that.
I keep going to the bottom of the stairs, but the bathroom door is still closed and the tap is still on after twenty minutes have passed, but at least the tearoom is quieter now.
Marnie and I have partnered up with the friendship dates she runs, where she matches her customers up and sends them here to get to know each other better, and two women nattering about their favourite books are the only customers left, and when they eventually leave, I shut the door behind them and flip the sign over to ‘closed’ even though it’s not five o’clock yet, and run straight upstairs.
‘Bram?’ I knock softly on the bathroom door. ‘You okay?’
‘I’m fi—’ His denial is cut off by the sound of him retching, and guilt presses down on me. Are all the other customers having this reaction too? Are there, right now, three other people heaving into toilets because of me?
Why did I ever think trying to run a tearoom was a good idea? This is exactly what I feared would happen, but I never imagined it would happen to my Hatter. I’ve made someone ill, and not just someone, but someone I really… care about. It’s bad enough to think that strangers might be ill after eating my cake, but it’s even worse when it’s Bram.
I’m about to ask if he needs anything but I think better of it. There’s only so many things a person can need when they’ve got their head over a toilet bowl. ‘I’m around if you need anything.’
I want to stay and do something, anything, to make him feel better, but no one wants someone hanging around outside the bathroom door, listening to the dulcet tones of them being ill, so I go back downstairs and start cleaning up, collecting plates and cups and taking them through to the sink in the food prep room. I wipe down all the tables and set all the Wonderland props to rights after a day of being played with by kids and used as selfie props by adults. The playing card roses in a vase on each table frequently end up squashed where people fiddle with their cardboard petals, so I squish them back into shape, and when there’s still no movement from upstairs, I start washing up, and then I dry up and put everything away in the cupboards ready for tomorrow.
I go back upstairs and knock on the bathroom door again. ‘Bram?’
‘I’m fine, Cleo.’ His response is mumbled and he does not sound fine. ‘Just go away.’
There’s not much more I can do downstairs, so I sit at the desk in the corner of the staffroom and cash-up the takings from the till.
It’s after six before the toilet flushes for the last of many, many times tonight, and the bathroom door unlocks.
I jump up and clearly startle him because a very clammy looking Bram lets out a yelp and overbalances on wobbly legs and grabs onto the bathroom doorframe to hold himself up. ‘What are you still doing here? I thought you’d gone home!’
‘I couldn’t leave you by yourself, could I?’
‘I wish you had,’ he mutters. ‘There were some extremely unpleasant… sound effects… coming from that bathroom. No gentleman wants a lady to overhear that.’
‘I’ve given you food poisoning, Bram. We left gentlemanly and ladylike things behind long ago.’
