They’re pink and purple striped fleece bottoms and a cream long-sleeve top with the Cheshire Cat on the front. ‘If I’d known you were coming, I’d have worn something less embarrassing.’
‘Where would be the fun in that? Pyjamas are perfectly acceptable midnight picnic wear.’
I think about it. On the one hand, they’re pyjamas, and on the other, there is no such thing as a bedroom in the caravan, just the sofa that folds out into a bed, so there’s no door to close where I could feasibly get changed in private, and I’m not undressing in front of Bram.
‘This place is amazing.’ He’s looking around as I debate what to do. He pokes at one of the window frames, and then reaches up to wiggle a dodgy bit of the roof. ‘You sure this is a caravan and not some mobile science laboratory where they study different types of rust?’
It makes me laugh, even though I’m mortified too. ‘It’s over fifty years old. You’d be a bit rusty and leaky if you were over fifty and had people living in you!’
‘Touché.’ He laughs too. ‘It wasn’t an insult. I love it. It’s so you.’
Other people say things like that and they’re derogatory, but with Bram, it’s a genuine compliment. He looks at the framed watercolour painting of Alice that Marnie had commissioned for me at Christmas, admires the handmade colourful bunting strung across the windows, and then starts poking through the open craft box on the only available work surface. ‘It’s alive with you-ness.’
It’s mostly alive with woodlice, to be fair, and that thought makes me decide not to get changed before he discovers those as well. I grab my coat and take hold of his arm to gently but firmly drag him outside and half-push him down the two steps. ‘Okay, that’s enough caravan exploration for one night. Do you have somewhere in mind for this midnight picnic of yours?’
He lets me turf him out without a fuss, and waggles his eyebrows in answer to my question. ‘I do.’
‘Are you going to enlighten me?’ I shove my feet into a pair of shoes and lock up behind us.
‘Wasn’t planning on it.’ Instead, he holds his hand out, openly inviting me to slip mine into it, and when I do, he laces his fingers between mine and squeezes. ‘For safety. It’s dark. I know where we’re going and you don’t.’
‘For safety.’ I return his hand squeeze and let him lead the way through silent streets, subconsciously edging nearer to him with every creak of a branch in the forest and every car whizzing past on a distant road.
‘I love your caravan. It’s so full of personality. It must be nice to live somewhere that’s totally your own. My house sucks the colour out of anyone who crosses the threshold.’
I squeeze his hand. ‘No, it doesn’t.’
He tugs my arm closer to his body. ‘I would so happily live there. Anywhere that feels like mine. I know my house looks impressive, but anyone could live there. The caravan is so unmistakably you. I’d swap in a heartbeat. There’s only so much you-ness you can inject by buying colourful tea towels.’
I want to say something nice, like he’s so bright that his presence lights up the entire building anyway, but I decide to stick with focusing on the quiet of the night and watching where I’m going so I don’t accidentally fall into a ditch.
We seem to be skirting round the back of the forest that surrounds Marnie’s neighbourhood, and heading towards… ‘It is Ever After Street!’ I exclaim when we come to the car park and round the corner to the main street. ‘What are we doing here?’
He makes that smug little noise again but clearly isn’t going to share anything yet.
Ever After Street is magical at this time of night. The streetlamps are alight with a warm orange glow, and Witt and Sadie’s castle lights are glinting on the hill in the distance, but every shop is dark and there’s nothing but the sound of silence. This place is never quiet, with so many shops and their visitors, a lot of them of the excitable small-human variety.
‘Right.’ Bram extracts his hand from mine and turns to face me. He’s still holding the picnic basket, but he puts one hand on my shoulder and moves me into a position so I’m standing by the white picket fence surrounding the area with flower beds and picnic tables in the middle of the street. ‘I need to go and do something, and I need you to stay right here for a second so you get the full effect, so just don’t move, okay?’
From my shoulder, his hand runs down my arm until he lifts my hand and transfers the picnic basket into it. I grunt at the unexpected weight because he says, ‘Don’t jostle that, there’s a very unstable cake in there.’
‘Half the time, I think you are a very unstable cake,’ I mutter, still unable to work out what he’s up to.
‘Awwww. That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever called me, Cleonie.’ He winks at me as he walks backwards for a few steps, and then turns and jogs away, his footsteps echoing against the paving stones.
Within moments, the darkened carousel bursts into life, flooding Ever After Street with a rainbow of coloured lights and vintage organ music which plays an instrumental selection of classic Disney songs, and I stay put until Bram comes back towards me, his arms spread wide and an equally wide smile lighting up his face.
‘You said you always wanted to go on the carousel but were too self-conscious when it’s full of kids. I believe that no one is ever too old to have fun and wanted to prove that. In private. And with cake.’
The fluttering that fills my chest makes me feel all giggly and bubbly inside. I can’t remember when I said that to him but it was weeks ago, and he still remembered and went out of his way to do something so special. ‘I didn’t think you worked at the carousel any more.’
‘Joshy let me have my keys back for one night only.’ He takes the picnic basket carefully from my hand, and there’s still a little sparkle as his fingers brush against mine, and an even bigger spark when he settles the basket in his hand and then he holds his other hand out to take mine again. ‘A midnight ride on the carousel awaits. But first, cake. Follow me.’
The carousel is going round on its own, filling the street with the music of ‘In A World Of My Own’ from Alice in Wonderland, as Bram leads us over to the grassy area beside it, sets down the picnic basket and spreads a gingham blanket out.
I sit down on it, and he kneels and opens the basket. ‘We should celebrate what we’ve achieved this week.’
‘With an unstable cake?’
‘With an… Unbirthday cake.’
My mouth falls open in surprise when he lifts a cloche-covered cake stand out of the basket and uncovers it to reveal a familiar pink cake. It’s an exact replica of the cartoon Unbirthday cake the Mad Hatter gives Alice in the film, and it’s just like the one my mum made for me, so many years ago. I remember telling him about it when we first met, but I never thought either of us would be able to recreate it.
I didn’t intend to get emotional but my eyes have welled up. It’s a flashback to a day, many years ago, when everything was right with the world and what I wanted from life was so clear. It’s almost like being back there, a little girl again, with my mum and nan, waiting for my dad to come home from work. Making a wish that life would always be like it was in that moment.
Bram’s chewing his lip, looking unsure of himself, like he’s still undecided whether this was a good idea or not.
‘It’s perfect.’ I let out a breath. ‘How did you do that? Why did you do that?’
At least that explains why it’s unstable. The cake tapers down so the narrow part is at the bottom and the wide part is at the top – as topsy-turvy as everything else in Wonderland – and he’s decorated it beautifully with pink fondant, beads of white royal icing, and blue flowers.
‘It’s your Unbirthday.’ He beams at me. ‘It’s my Unbirthday too.’
‘It’s our Unbirthdays 364 days a year.’ I can’t help giggling at how cheerful he sounds. ‘Why tonight? After doing nothing but baking cakes lately, tonight you decided to use your free time to… bake another cake?’
‘I wanted to surprise you. I know this cake means a lot to you, and I know this is the kind of thing you want to do in the tearoom, so it’s a prototype too. It would be incredible to have these on display, and if people book their Unbirthday parties in advance, we could make them one of these for that extra special touch. And I think there’s a way to make smaller, individual ones too, for everyday use. If we use pudding moulds so the base tapers down, slice the cake in half and fill it with buttercream and then ice it, each one would be a mini version of a proper Unbirthday cake in a single-serving size.’
‘Do you know how…’ I stop myself because I was going to say ‘how special you are?’ but I can’t just blurt something like that out.
