Page 43 of The Cake Fairies
He didn’t correct her or seem to pick up on her sudden stutter.
“But it’s not like you’re scared or anything.” He bit his lip in a poor attempt to disguise another smirk. “We don’t even have to look out of the same pane of glass. Plus, there are seats in the middle, and the pod’s so big you can’t even call it cosy. I just wanted you to experience the city from this perspective. It’s truly magical. I still can’t believe it’s your first visit to London, when it’s got to be my seventh. You can’t leave the Big Smoke without doing it. Ivy tells me that you’ll soon be off to your next destination in the great cake giveaway experiment.”
Was that sadness she detected in his eyes? Surely not, he’d known her little more than forty-eight hours.
“It’s very… th… thoughtful of you.” Polly tried to stop her teeth from chattering at the notion of her impending doom, her heart also curiously sinking that their stint here could be over any day now. Amber Magnolia had complete control over her destiny. Surely it wouldn’t hurt for her to skip a few pages ahead in the folder; to find out what destiny had in store? She was loath to admit it, but London was beginning to feel like home already, in a really strange kind of way. Well, home away from home, and probably only because she’d never set foot further south than Bude, and further north than the outskirts of Bristol. Of course, only Middle Ham could ever truly be her home.
If she pretended she were an actress, a Marilyn Monroe or a Jayne Mansfield, maybe she could do this; step into one of these capsules with grace, as if she were on nothing more than a Pinewood Studios film set. Everyone loved the thrill of a fairground ride! Actually no, that would never work: Maz and Jayne could only be with her in spirit, long gone as they were. A status she hoped she wasn’t about to share with them. Demi Moore was the way ahead. Yes, if she could just jump into character, momentarily assume the allure of Demi Moore, everything would be fine. Hopefully.
“So, tell me what you have planned for your next drop.”
He rubbed her shoulders as they waited, and for a moment, Polly’s head filled with images of snapping metal; giant pieces of steel warping, and crunching, cascading as the spokes of the wheel continued to turn and its little husks fell to the ground, plummeting before smashing into a million pieces.
She shook herself out of it; Alex’s presumptuousness thrilling, angering, and comforting her all at once. But she refused to bury her head in his chest despite the temptation – and his expectation. She sidestepped his capable hands, jogging up and down on the spot to keep herself warm instead. Alex let out a chuckle as if he could read her mind and had seen a thousand women respond in the same way, for the benefit of self-preservation. Clearly, he thought he’d bag her in the end, a notion she struggled to get her head around. Annabelle was the oil painting. And oil paintings hung together.
Well, he’d targeted the wrong woman. The sixties had made her of stronger stuff.
“Don’t worry, I’m not trying to worm my way in with another showstopper. Just genuinely curious.”
“Righty-ho.” Oh, great. The London Eye man was back already, sparing her the need to answer the unanswerable. She was effectively a puppet on a string, following the instructions of a woman in a striped tent. How Punch and Judy could things get?
“You’re good to go it alone, no point waiting any longer,” insisted the guard. “Gotta keep this thing cost-effective, cogs oiled. Can’t risk any tittle-tattle that we’re in a tourism slump.”
She clawed her hands at the stomach-churning thought of the two of them, alone, suspended in mid-air, flying higher than Big Ben, hoping against hope that neither official nor unabashedly good-looking guy would notice her ever-fraying nerves; momentary Demi Moore prowess well and truly shattered like the illusion it had always been.
There was still no sign of Annabelle and Ivy, but she was madder at herself than she could ever be at that mischievous pair. For someone who ran a business, and regularly outsmarted the three demand-toting brothers snapping at her heels, Polly was laughably naïve.
“Ladies first.” Alex gestured for her to step into the compartment.
“See you in half an hour,” shouted the official.
“What did he say?” Polly didn’t need a mirror to know her face was quickly turning an unflattering shade of green.
“Think of all the things we can find out about each other in thirty whole minutes.” He cocked an eyebrow at his good luck.
Polly’s jellified legs somehow plodded their way forward and she collapsed as gracefully as she could onto the elongated seat in the middle, taking several lungfuls of air.
“Are you okay?”
“I can’t believe I’m… why did I ever agree to…?”
But it was too late to turn back. The capsule’s door had firmly closed, and Polly and Alex were already centimetres off the ground, slowly soaring to ever vertiginous heights, well past the point of no return.
Panic-stricken, she inhaled and exhaled as deeply as she could, but the glass was so sheer. They weren’t kidding when they billed this London’s most panoramic view. At least with a crowd inside this giant egg, she’d be fooled into imagining they were part of the wallpaper. But Polly and Alex were (literally) two peas rattling around in a pod.
She curled herself into a tight ball, pulling her jacket over her shoulders, burying her head between her knees, rocking from side to side as the wheel slowly began its ascent. She closed her eyes, desperate to focus on her body’s rhythm, but it did little to fool her. And speaking of fools, what a prize-winning one she must look right now. How could she ever have thought she’d be cool enough to role-play this whole thing out? The trouble was she could imagine the scenery too well; the boats on the Thames becoming smaller and smaller, Heathrow’s planes up above getting bigger and bigger.
The only advantage to any of this was it was sure to send Alex scarpering – the moment they could finally get off the wretched wheel, that was.
“Damn. I feel terrible, Polly. Why didn’t I spot the signs?” He sat beside her and began to pat her back compassionately through the jacket she’d thrown over her head as if she were a small child setting up a secret den.
“Hmm, how can we get you through this?” She marvelled at the calm in his voice, unable to comprehend how anybody could produce coherent words while surveying the dizzying data below. “I know… let’s think about something you love.”
“Romance?I can’t think about that at a time like this!”
“It’s quite a poetic setting, though. I can totally see why people get married up here,” Alex chirruped away as if volleying oneself this high in the air were a perfectly normal pastime.
“Count!” shouted Polly.
