‘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.’
‘You don’t know it was the cake. It could’ve been dodgy cheese at lunchtime. Maybe I’ve developed a sudden allergy to dairy products. Maybe it’s another gremlin-related incident.’
We both know Tabby wasn’t in today, and no matter the niggling doubts she’s put in my mind, it’s not like he’s going to have eaten something that he knew had been tampered with, is it? ‘You didn’t see the state of the partially raw cake I just pulled apart downstairs.’
I didn’t think it was possible for his face to go any paler, but at the mention of the cake that caused this, his skin takes on a decidedly green tone and he glances back at the toilet bowl longingly.
The sickness has made his eyes water and his eyeliner has run, leaving big splotches of black around his eyes and I wish I could hug him, but I doubt he’s feeling like being crowded, so I keep my distance. ‘What do you need?’
‘There’s a spare toothbrush in my bag, you couldn’t grab it for me, could you?’
There’s something about a man who cares so much about his oral health that he carries a spare toothbrush. There’s a cabinet of staff lockers in one corner, but Lilith lost the keys to them years ago, so now they’re just storage cupboards, and all of us leave our stuff in the staffroom, and Bram’s camo-print bag is on a chair near the desk. I rifle through the array of pockets and zippered compartments, pulling out packs of cards and other tricks of his trade, and oddly, a spray bottle of squirrel repellent. It’s so bizarre that it stops me in my tracks.
The bathroom is around a corner from the main staffroom so he can’t see me as I pull it out, wondering what other mysteries of the universe he’s got in here. Does he really have so much trouble with squirrels that he needs to bring squirrel repellent to work with him? This is bizarre, even for Bram.
‘It’s in a white toiletries bag…’ It doesn’t sound like he suspects I’m snooping through his things, but it makes me realise that he soon will if I don’t get a move on. I rummage through the endless compartments until I find the toiletries bag and take it to him.
‘Thanks, beautiful.’ He goes to take the bag and then his hand freezes in midair when he realises what he’s said, and his complexion is so ashen that it’s actually a relief to see the redness of a blush smudging his pale cheeks.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbles. ‘I’m not… My mind’s not… not thinking clearly, I didn’t mean to say that.’ He salutes me with the toiletries bag and disappears back into the bathroom, but then he pokes his head back out again. ‘I think it, but I didn’t mean to say it.’
My cheeks redden too because I’m so surprised by the simple compliment. I didn’t know Bram saw me like that. I dress as Alice during the day, in my white pinafore and blue dress. My blonde hair is always down and held back by a black bow headband, and when I see him in the evenings… Well, after a long day at work, I’m certainly not dressing up, so I typically go to his house in jogging bottoms and oversized T-shirts, so it doesn’t matter if I get them coated in flour or spattered by whatever batter we’re mixing. But ‘beautiful’, in a moment when he doesn’t have his walls up… It feels special. Significant.
I glance at the closed bathroom door, and before I realise what I’m doing, I’ve gone back over to his bag and pulled out that bottle of squirrel repellent again. There’s a picture of a squirrel on the front with sizzle lines around it, and when I turn it over and read the back, it explains that squirrels don’t like the spiciness of this spray. The ingredients list only two things – cayenne pepper and water.
Cayenne pepper. We never found whatever was put into those Jaffa Cake brownies last week. No hidden bottles of hot sauce or jars of chilli powder lurking around the place, but this… I swallow hard because this makes my insides burn more painfully than a forkful of that brownie did. Surely this is it. This is the smoking gun. And it’s in Bram’s bag.
Why else would he have a spray of burning hot spice with him at work? And it’s not like he’s been out and bought it today to repel squirrels at home, because it’s half-empty, and I have a horrible feeling about where the other half went.
I pace around, listening to the sound of the tap running as Bram cleans his teeth. I keep the spray in my hands, twisting it between them, trying to think of a reasonable explanation. Maybe it’s a prop or a trick? There’s a lot of stuff in his bag and he can produce seemingly anything from the multiple pockets on his trousers. Magicians carry a lot of stuff. Maybe it’s just part of that?
Yeah, it sounds a bit unlikely in my head too.
This time, he makes me jump when he emerges from the bathroom. He holds the toiletries bag out to me because he doesn’t look like he can walk that far himself without keeling over, and I shuffle over awkwardly to take it, keeping the squirrel spray concealed behind my back. I feel guilty that he trusts me when I’ve just snooped through his things, and I slide it back into his bag alongside the toiletries bag. He’s obviously forgotten it’s there. He doesn’t realise what I’ve just seen.
I go to say something, to confront him over it because the evidence is right there, but he looks so ill that I can’t do it. What I want to do is take him in my arms and hold him. It’s my fault he feels this bad. I cannot bring myself to metaphorically kick him when he’s already down.
He’s splashed his sweaty face with water but it’s done nothing to remove the smudged eyeliner, and he’s leaning against the wall by the doorframe, looking like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. Everything about him looks leeched of its usual colour. ‘That’s it. I’m never cooking anything again.’
‘Of course you are.’
‘I’ve given you food poisoning, Bram! And probably a few other people too!’
‘Well, that’s not so good, but I wouldn’t worry about it. Very few people would associate cake with food poisoning.’
‘Parts of that cake were raw! Trust me, it will be an easy association to make. Didn’t you realise it wasn’t cooked properly?’
‘No, I thought it was fudgy and delicious.’
The caramel threw me off. The skewer coming out with gooey stuff on it made me think it was just that and not still-raw cake batter. ‘I’m beginning to think this place is doomed. Something seems to go wrong at every turn. If it’s not salt in the muffins or chilli in the brownies then it’s salmonella from undercooked eggs in the cake.’
‘Actually, it’s raw flour that’s the number one culprit in food poisoning from baked goods. The processing that the plants go through to convert them from grain doesn’t kill any germs they might have picked up while growing in the fields. If flour hasn’t been cooked, it can have all sorts of nasties in it.’
‘I will never look at a bag of flour in the same way again. Murderous stuff.’
He laughs and then groans because laughing must’ve been painful, and I chew my lip in worrying for him. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Nothing. Honestly, I’m fine. Just go home. I’m not leaving the vicinity of a bathroom yet, so I’m going to stay… right… here.’ He limps to the wall opposite the bathroom door and slides down it into a sitting position. His green jacket and stack of hats are dumped in the staffroom, so he’s just wearing his usual black combat trousers and a T-shirt that looks like the innards of a kaleidoscope. He leans his head back against the cool painted surface, and I reach down and press my palm to his forehead. ‘You’re burning up.’
‘I’m freezing,’ he says as a shiver goes through him.
‘So you’ve got a temperature. That’s not good, Bram.’
‘I’m fine. Honestly. Just go home. Or go back to mine and make something; you can take my keys; it doesn’t matter if I’m not there.’
‘You think I’m going to leave you alone in this state?’
‘I wish you would,’ he mutters without opening his eyes.
‘I’ve given you food poisoning, Bram!’ I repeat incredulously because he seems to have forgotten. ‘I don’t want to come in tomorrow morning and find your internal organs on the bathroom floor.’
He laughs. ‘I’ll be fine. My stomach’s… rebelled and got… everything… out.’ He’s obviously choosing his words carefully and trying not to venture into TMI territory. ‘I’m going to sit with this lovely wall for a while and wait for the room to stop spinning and my insides to stop twisting themselves in knots. I just want to be left alone.’
‘Well, we don’t always get what we want.’ I step over his legs and sit down next to him. I wriggle my back against the wall and try to get comfortable.
He rolls his head along the wall until he’s blinking heavy-lidded eyes at me. ‘Cleo, don’t. I’m a mess. It’s bad enough thinking about what you might’ve heard coming from that bathroom. I might need it again in a minute. Just leave me alone, honestly.’
His skin is still so pale that I can almost see through him, and another shiver wracks his body, and I reach over to feel his forehead again. There’s no thermometer in the shop, but he’s burning hot. ‘I need to cool you down.’
Even though he’s boiling to the touch, his teeth are chattering, and I get up again and get my phone to google what to do for a high temperature. I get a glass of water in case he wants to sip it, soak a tea towel in cold water, and grab his lime green jacket and sit back down beside him. ‘Do you want to lie down?’
‘Here?’ His eyes are closed and raising an eyebrow takes a Herculean effort.
‘Yeah. Come on.’ I shift over to give him space and pat my lap. ‘Put your head down and get… well, comfy might be pushing it, but comfier than sitting upright.’
He laughs. ‘Nooo, I can’t. My hair still bleeds blue dye. You’ll get a stain on your Alice dress.’
‘I don’t mind.’ I reach over and let my fingers rub over the back of his hand where it’s resting on his lap. ‘Save yourself the energy of trying to protest and let me at least give you a pillow to lie on.’
He forces both eyes open and rolls his head along the wall to look at me again, and he goes to protest, but I give him such a stern look that he stops, sighs, and shifts around to lower himself down onto his side and rest his head on my thighs. Once I can reach the back of his neck, he lets me pull the hair up and lay the cool damp tea towel across his skin, and the online advice says I can cover him with something light, so I pull his jacket over and spread it out across his body. ‘This okay?’
He sounds like he doesn’t have the energy for more than a noise of consent.
‘Close your eyes. Doze off if you need to. I’m not going anywhere.’ I hold my hand against his forehead again, which still feels warm, and from there, it’s kind of natural to brush my fingers through his hair.
He makes a noise that’s a cross between a groan and a moan of pleasure. ‘That’s the nicest thing I’ve ever felt.’
There’s something so refreshing about how he says exactly what he feels. His body was stiff and tense, but the tension melts away as he relaxes, so I keep doing it. His blue hair has got a line of dark brown roots growing through now. It started off in hairsprayed spikes this morning, but has now deteriorated into a chaotic mess of spiky bits and mussed-up bits sticking out in every possible direction and then some extra directions for good measure, and I scrunch my fingers in it, stroking my fingertips along his scalp, brushing it back off his too-hot forehead, and he snuggles into the jacket and shifts around to get more comfortable, letting out that little noise of contentment again, and it makes something inside my heart turn to goo.
I don’t think Bram lets people take care of him. He keeps his Mad Hatter shield up all the time, and if anyone says something that might cut a bit too deep, he’ll say something silly or throw a handful of confetti or make a playing card appear out of thin air, anything not to let someone see they’ve hurt him, and this is a side that he hasn’t let anyone see for a very long time.
He’s half-asleep already. His breathing is shallow and his arm is stretched out, his fingers limp where his hand is resting on the floor, but he’s still shivery, and I continue playing with his hair, letting my fingers work through the remaining hairspray, stroking through the bright blue strands, and loving every little sigh of bliss and every time he turns into the touch, and the way relaxation seeps through his shoulders, the rest of his body sinking into the carpet too.
I didn’t realise how much I care about him. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than right here, making sure he’s okay, or at the very least, that he’s not on his own if he isn’t. Even when he’s not fully awake, his stomach is making very angry noises, and I feel so horribly guilty because I’m responsible for this. My mind goes back to the other customers who ate that caramel cake too. I have no way of getting in contact with them to see if they’re currently feeling as bad as Bram is, but I suspect they probably are.
I’ve still got my phone in my pocket and without taking my fingers out of his hair, I scroll one-handedly through social media while he dozes, checking for mentions of Ever After Street, and refreshing the review site in case anyone has posted something about food poisoning.
This could be the end of everything. Guilt over not making sure, double-sure, that cake was cooked mixes with panic that my one mistake could finish The Wonderland Teapot when it’s barely started. I feel horrible that I might’ve caused other people illness, and as well as scrolling reviews, I read pages of info on how to ensure things are cooked properly and place an order for a food thermometer because I’m determined to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
I lose track of time. I know it’s passing because I can see the edge of a window in the main part of the staffroom and where it was daylight when I first came up here, darkness has long since fallen outside now. All that seems to matter is Bram’s head on my lap and the way his hair twirls around my fingers, and as much as I don’t want it to, that bottle of squirrel repellent keeps popping into my mind.
I’m at war with myself over it. Should I have confronted him straight away? Does it just tie in to that niggling worry that was already sitting in the pit of my stomach, the one that says if anyone could sabotage cakes without being noticed, it would be a magician. Or is it something completely innocent? Maybe he has squirrels nesting in the car or something… Maybe he had to repel a squirrel on the way out this morning and it was easier to shove the bottle into his bag than take it back to the house? Maybe he is followed by gangs of vengeful squirrels everywhere he goes and spray bottles of repellent are his only defence?
It’s certainly a possibility…
There’s no way he would’ve done this. Why would he, for a start? He has nothing to gain by sabotaging things here. If he wanted anything to go wrong with this place, he could’ve just left me serving supermarket-bought cakes and not tried so hard to help. Or he could’ve taken that information straight to his father and watched me be fired on the spot. He hasn’t. He’s gone out of his way to help me rediscover my love of baking. The man is letting me use his kitchen night after night. Why would he do that if he wanted this venture to fail?
‘What are you thinking about?’ Another hour or so has passed before his hoarse voice disrupts my spiralling thought pattern.
‘You’re awake?’ I whisper without knowing why I’m whispering. Neither of us left a light on earlier, and now the staffroom has fallen into darkness.
‘Not really. Somewhere in between.’ His voice sounds scratchy and thick with sleep. ‘With you doing that to my hair, I might be in heaven. Do you think they have stomach cramps in heaven?’
I burst out laughing so hard that it shakes him too, and then I scrunch my fingers in his hair by way of apology and tuck it back gently, enjoying the way his eyes slip closed again and he shifts to get more comfortable.
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he murmurs after a few minutes.
It’s the perfect opportunity to bring up the squirrel repellent. I wasn’t going to, but he’s so relaxed that his body is practically a blue-haired puddle, and if there’s ever a moment to get the truth out of him, this is it.
The more I try to think of a way into the conversation, the harder it seems. ‘Do you have a lot of trouble with squirrels?’ I eventually blurt out. Great work, Cleo. Totally subtle. He’s going to know instantly that I’ve been through his bag.
‘Squirrels?’ He sounds thoroughly confused. ‘I thought I was awake, but this is clearly some bizarre fever dream. As random questions go, that really is quite random.’
I reply by raising an eyebrow. His eyes flick up to my face and then he sighs. ‘I can honestly say I’ve never had trouble with a squirrel in my life. Does that answer your very strange question?’
He doesn’t seem to have made any connection between my question and the bottle in his bag, and it’s not the right time to push it. ‘I guess so.’
‘Where did that come from?’ he asks after a while in silence.
‘I don’t know. Thinking about you, I guess, and Tabby, and the… gremlins.’
‘You think the gremlins are squirrels? Because I was thinking actual gremlins, you know, the “don’t get them wet, don’t feed them after midnight” type… Squirrels are clever, but I’m not sure they’ve got the dexterity or presence of mind to add salt to muffins or hot sauce to brownies…’
Does he really not get it? Is his mind so fevered that he hasn’t put two and two together as to why I’m asking about squirrels?
‘You never told me what she said when you confronted her…’ His leading tone suggests he’s waiting for me to fill in an answer.
‘She denied it,’ I say eventually. His eyes are still closed and my finger pads skim his forehead where I’m brushing his hair back, debating whether to tell him the rest or not. ‘She actually suggested it was you.’
His dark eyes fly open and his body stiffens. ‘Of course she did. And let me guess, you believed her.’
‘No. Of course I didn’t believe her.’ It’s a lie and we both know it. The bottle of squirrel repellent floats unbidden into my mind, but something doesn’t sit right about it, and I realise it hasn’t changed anything. I still don’t believe he could be responsible for the sabotage.
His head has shifted on my thigh and I can sense his eyes looking up at me, and it feels like he can read every thought, so I keep letting my fingers stroke through his hair.
‘I don’t think you’d be doing that if you did,’ he says eventually and then sighs too. ‘It wasn’t me, Cleo. Of course it wasn’t. And I’m not going to defend myself. I spend so much of my life defending my choices, and you make me feel like I don’t need to, and I’m not going to do it with you. You either believe me or you don’t. Either way is fine.’ He sounds beyond exhausted and weary, like he knew this was coming. ‘You know what they say – you can lead a horse to water but you can’t teach it to fish.’
‘Make it drink!’
‘Ah, no, but you can make it thirsty. If it needs to be led to water, it’s probably already a bit on the parched side.’ His face screws up like he’s given this some serious thought.
‘I’m not sure if you’re one of the greatest philosophers of our time or just a complete nuthatch.’
‘Can’t I be both?’
I was trying to suppress my giggles, but this makes a full laugh burst out, and I contort myself until I can lean down and kiss his forehead. ‘Yes, you can.’
Long moments pass in which I’m grateful for the darkness because he can’t see how red my cheeks have gone, although his head is still on my thigh, and I’m so embarrassed that even my thighs are blushing. Why did I do that? What possessed me to kiss his forehead like that? It’s a protective, motherly instinct because he’s not well, I tell myself, even though my maternal instincts are usually similar to that of an iguana.
‘We didn’t lock the back door, you know.’
‘What, now?’ I say, because no matter how confused I am by the random observation, I’m glad of the subject change. ‘I can run down and do it…’
‘No. Last Monday. I thought I’d locked it when we went to the shopkeepers’ meeting, but when I went out of it later, it was open. Anyone could have come in while we were outside with everyone else.’
‘And Tabby was suspiciously early that day.’ I realise what he’s saying. On the day that something was done to those brownies, Tabby could have come in and done it without us knowing. And so could anyone else, for that matter. It doesn’t narrow it down, but surely it’s more likely than Bram being involved, because we were together at the Ever After Street meeting that whole time.
‘She was telling me about your break-up,’ I say casually when silence has settled over us again. ‘About how close she was to your family…’
‘Yeah, she was, but…’ He pushes out a long breath. ‘What am I supposed to do – invite my ex for Christmas because my sister got on with her? Have her round for Sunday lunches so my family can have a catch-up? Break-ups don’t work like that. What if there was someone else?’
My heart is suddenly thundering in my chest and it feels like my whole body is pounding. There’s no way he can’t feel it too. ‘Is there someone else?’
He shifts over onto his back until he can look up at me, and when our eyes meet, he reaches up to tweak the black bow of my headband and rubs his fingers over the velvet material. His arm touches mine and the spot is burning heat, and it has nothing to do with his body temperature. ‘You’re the only woman in my life, Alice.’
It’s physically impossible to take my eyes off his. He doesn’t mean it in that way, but it still makes my breath catch. It’s nice to hear that. It’s been a while since I felt special to anyone.
He drops his hand with a sigh. ‘Relationships end, and unfortunately, other facets of those relationships get caught in the crossfire. I know she’s bitter, I know she thinks I ended it out of the blue, but I didn’t. I ended it after years of being picked at and criticised. It’s not wrong to want to be with someone who wants to be with me. Tabby didn’t. She knows that, really. Besides, she’s seeing someone now. She’s moved on. I’ve never tried to stop her keeping in touch with my family, but it’s awkward, and it’s always going to be awkward. I don’t want to hurt her, or them, but I don’t want to pretend we’re still friends, because we’re not. I don’t want to spend time with someone who made me feel the way she did.’ He sighs again and shifts back onto his side. ‘Families should come with an instruction manual.’
‘Tell me about it.’ My mutter makes him glance up at me.
‘Will you tell me about your mum?’
‘How about you go back to sleep instead?’ I suggest, scrunching my fingers through his hair again, and then sigh when he gives me the same look that I gave him earlier. ‘There’s not much left to tell. It was a fractured relationship. In the handful of times I saw her over the years, I never let her get close. I never opened up to her because I thought she’d leave again. I thought we’d have a big emotional reunion, and then she’d go back to her life in Greece without a second thought for me, so I kept her at arm’s length, and yet, I’d always thought we’d repair the relationship somehow. That I’d go out there or she’d come here, and everything would be forgotten and we’d go on mother-daughter shopping trips and go out for lunch together and do all the things that I spent my life watching my friends do with their mothers, and when she died, the grief was really about the fact we’d now never have a chance to do that. And regret, too. I wished I’d made it a priority to go out and see her. I was always resentful that she wasn’t there while I was growing up. I held it against her. She sometimes invited me to visit her and I always had something better to do because of that petty resentment.’
He doesn’t say a word as I speak, but he’s taken hold of the hand that’s not in his hair and he’s playing with my fingers, running his fingers up and down them, pressing his fingertips against my nails. Soft reassurance and gentle encouragement, like he knows I’ve never told anyone that before.
‘When she died, I felt like something was broken inside of me. It suddenly seemed so childish and stupid to have pushed her away and put my fear of being hurt again above the chance to reconnect with my mum, and now the chance was gone. I didn’t know what to do with the unexpected emotions. At first, I channelled it into starting up the tearoom, and when that fell through, it made me want to back out of the world, to get away from people and shut myself away and stop connecting with anyone because I clearly couldn’t be trusted to handle relationships and other people’s feelings.’
His fingers slot between mine and curl over and he pulls my hand up until he can press his lips to the back of it, which makes me feel overheated and shivery and very glad I’m already sitting down.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says gently. ‘Grief comes in different forms and I don’t think anyone would know how to handle that kind. You seem like you’re coping better now?’
I let out a bitter laugh, because some days, it still feels like swimming against a tide of emotions that are going to drown me if I stop kicking my legs for half a second, and other days, especially in the last six weeks, it’s got easier to face the world each day. Doing something I love, getting to live a Wonderland fantasy every day and seeing how happy it makes other people… It’s made me feel like life is worthwhile again.
‘It’ll probably sound weird, but finding Ever After Street and connecting with Marnie made a huge difference, and then I got to know the other shopkeepers too, and they all made me feel like I belonged here. They wanted me to get a shop here. Feeling unwanted was something I’d been struggling with my whole life, and feeling like they wanted me kind of made me understand that and confront it.’
‘It’s a powerful thing, feeling wanted,’ he murmurs. ‘Not many people understand how it affects someone to grow up feeling unwanted or not good enough.’
I know it’s a sentiment he understands all too well, and I squeeze his fingers between mine, and for tonight, it feels like the only thing either of us wants is to sit right here with each other.
It’s later still when he stirs again, shifting and groaning at the ache of lying on a hard floor for so many hours. He disentangles his hand from mine and pushes himself up into a sitting position, holding still for a long few moments in case any internal organ is going to object to the movement.
My backside is aching so much that it went numb hours ago and I get myself onto my knees and lean forwards to see how dark it is outside the staffroom window. Pitch black. My phone screen tells me it’s nearly 10 p.m.
Bram scrubs a hand over his face and winces at the brightness of my phone lighting up our little corner of the room.
‘Your colour looks better. Earlier you looked like a ghost. Now you only look like a zombie who’s been dead for about five years.’ I reach over and press my palm against his forehead. ‘You feel… less warm. How do you feel?’
‘Like I might make it home tonight after all.’
‘I’ll drive.’
‘Cleo—’
‘You’re in no fit state to get behind the wheel, and I’m not leaving you alone, end of story.’
He doesn’t agree immediately, but he’s obviously exhausted, and after it takes both of us a good few minutes to get him onto his feet and he’s clinging onto the wall and panting just from that small exertion, he relents. ‘My car’s in the car park round the corner. Keys are in the front pocket of my bag.’
It feels like a teeny-tiny win. ‘You don’t need to be a fun and frenzied Mad Hatter all the time. Sometimes you can just be Bram, and that’s okay.’
He waits for me to meet his eyes and then swallows before he speaks. ‘I always am with you.’
It warms me inside and that fluttery feeling comes again, especially at the intensity in his dark eyes when he doesn’t drop eye contact. I know I’ve seen the real, unguarded Bram tonight. The one who’s quiet and vulnerable without ever losing his sense of humour. The one who manages to be just weird enough to make me feel at one with my own weirdness. The one who wants to be loved for who he is – not in spite of it.
Eventually he blinks and looks away. ‘Sorry, I must look an absolute fright.’
‘You’re beautiful, you know that,’ I say without thinking.
He scoffs. ‘I’ve got blue hair, I wear eyeliner, have got both ears pierced, and wear clothes that make me look like I get dressed inside a box of Liquorice Allsorts every day. “Beautiful” is not a way to describe me.’
‘Yeah, but underneath all that. Your playful brown eyes and killer smile. That dimple.’ I reach out and touch his singular dimple, the pad of my index finger pressing against the first hint of five o’clock shadow on his cheek. ‘And you. Just you, Bram. Superficial things aren’t what makes someone beautiful.’
It’s like an out-of-body experience. My voice doesn’t sound like it belongs to me. The words sound like they’re coming from somewhere else, someone else. It’s like his honesty when it comes to feelings has rubbed off on me and it doesn’t even cross my mind not to be so embarrassingly open with him.
‘I’ve been so fevered tonight that I might not remember some of our conversations, but trust me, I’ll remember this one.’
‘Please don’t.’ At least it’s still too dark for him to see me blush, although I’m surprised the red glow from my cheeks hasn’t illuminated the room.
‘I’ll tell myself you’re just trying to make me feel better.’ He uses the wall for stability, and I haul his bag over my arm and tuck his jacket over the top of it, and keep a hand on his shoulder as we go down the stairs, him in front of me.
At the bottom, he holds a hand out. ‘For safety.’
That’s all it is, I tell myself as I slip my hand over his. For safety. To make sure he doesn’t walk into anything in the darkness.
He laces his fingers with mine and squeezes. ‘For safety.’
He’s quiet in the car, his eyes closed, his head resting against the window, and once we’re inside his house, whatever reserves of energy it took to get this far swiftly drain away, and I keep an arm around him to make sure he stays upright as he toes off his yellow boots, stumbles to the living room and sinks onto the sofa. He tries to protest as I plump up the cushions and make sure he’s comfortable. I find a bucket in the kitchen and leave it beside him, just in case, and put a glass of water on the coffee table. He’s not feeling as hot now and there’s a cream-coloured knitted throw over the back of the sofa, so I pull it down and cover him with it.
And because I can’t help myself with this man, I tuck it over him and lean down to kiss his forehead. ‘Goodnight, beautiful.’
I’m not leaving him alone, so I text Marnie to let her know I won’t be in the caravan tonight and curl up in an armchair on the opposite side of the massive room. There’s another snuggly cream throw over the back, so I pull that over me and huddle under it, and when I close my eyes, all I can think about is his smile and his soulful brown eyes, and how nice it was to simply be with him tonight.