Page 55 of The Cake Fairies
I like it, thought Annabelle. Her cousin was getting bolder by the new-age day, and Annabelle couldn’t help but beam with pride. So long as Polly restricted her boldness to the platonic, unromantic kind, of course.
Their captive tutted and disappeared beneath the paste tables that made up his father’s stall, pulling out a vivid green plastic instrument.
Polly snatched the horn from his hands and put it to her lips before she could change her mind (and before the naïve stranger could come to his senses), blowing into it with as much gusto as she could muster.
“It’ll take a bit more puff than that!” the stallholder yanked it from her and let out a massive screech.
Heads turned. Faces lit up with the kind of terrifying expressions the Cake Fairies had only clocked a handful of times over the years in the neighbouring town’s pubs. A Middle Ham brewhouse scuffle was as rare as Christmas Day snow. Here, though, there were faces that spoke of brawls in dark alleys, the locking of stag horns, and deep red metallic bloodshed.
Torsos swivelled; feet propelled. There was no turning back. Why hadn’t they had the good sense to book Nigel for this drop? Oh yes, that would be because Annabelle had felt the need to treat Polly to a posh dinner at the Thai restaurant on Fulham Road, to mask the impending shame of her actions to come.
Finally, in the slowest of motion, so that Annabelle thought it was a trick of perception, the magic began to take hold. She held her breath, unable to believe their good fortune. Scarves sailed to the floor in a reverse balletic arm sequence, of fifth position through to second. Like something out of a wildlife documentary, the opposing packs became a herd, marching as one and with purpose toward the stall, or more accurately, Annabelle hoped, towards a deep-as-the-ocean blue, thoroughly captivating, cake. Never mind any imminent dribbling of the ball by Loftus-Cheek and co on the pitch. The only drooling these fans were partaking of was that of the sugared variety.
Annabelle was staggered at the transformation, half-wondering if that bazooka hadn’t piped out a spell. Polly ended up having to steady the stallholder and sit him on the stand’s one and only seat; a wooden stool with very questionable legs.
“Bagsy the first slice right here,” said Polly. “Unless you want to call for an ambulance. He’s going into a mild state of shock, Annabelle! What the hell have we let ourselves in for?”
“Red rag to a bull.” Pop’s son snatched at a glut of brown paper bags tied up with string behind the counter, deftly rubbed at one to open it, and breathed into it rhythmically. “You’ve done it now, interrupting their battle,” he enlightened Annabelle between puffs. “Never play referee with fire. The only place these guys welcome a red card is on the pitch!”
“But I wasn’t trying to break up their skirmish. I was letting them know we have cake. Besides, it was you who made all the noise.”
“Ha, good luck telling them that! I’m going into hiding.”
With shaking hands, Annabelle worked as fast as she could to hack off an ample chunk of blueberry iced sponge for Pop’s son, wincing at the speed with which their hard work could be deconstructed. She felt momentarily sad. It wasn’t like Monet painted hisWater Liliesonly for the masses to snip the canvas to pieces with scissors, hanging a fragment each in all their many abodes. And The Beatles didn’t put together a lavish LP so the radio stations could portion out its drumbeats and vocals among them; playing seven-second snatches across their rival frequencies. But there was no time to dwell on any of that, with a bunch of approximately thirty blues and yellows advancing towards them, gathering their own brand of speed.
“Did some geezer bazooka his intent to break up our pre-match stress-relieving session… or was it a figment of my imagination?” a gangly yellow inquired, arms folded to showcase an impressive array of tattoos.
“Cake?” Annabelle whispered, pointing at the once strapping edifice of crumb, whose topping was oh-so-hideously-wrong for the occasion. She’d told Polly to keep the flowery bits at home, dammit. But her cousin would insist she knew best. This was a football match, for goodness sake, not Chelsea Flower Show!
Annabelle chanced a fleeting glance behind her to find that Pop’s son had instinctively pulled a pillar of curtain around his quivering form. Polly was standing guard as he alternated between cake chomp and paper bag. Talk about a wet blanket.
“It’s a… erm… hyacinth, lilac, and sweet pea special.” Polly gritted her teeth to offer a fake smile to the unimpressed Millwall fan.
Behind the shield of his canvas curtain, Pop’s son let out a snivel that spoke of being done for; their imminent pummelling so close it was palpable.
“Flowers?”
“Yep,” Annabelle quivered too, inwardly madder than mad at herself for letting a guy scare her into submission. Which reminded her: if she survived, she needed to ask Ivy for a little Krav Maga tuition.
“Who the frig eats flowers?” the leader of the pack demanded, pulling a half-smoked cigarette from behind his ear and lighting up. Yuck. Some fashion accessories definitely hadn’t evolved in thirty years.
“Oh, I dunno, Baz; it’s all the rage,” said the curly blonde bloke behind him. He might not have been much to look at himself, but Annabelle would’ve dated him there and then on the spot for that very statement. “My missus has been chucking pansies and marigolds into our salads for a while now. If it’s good enough for Heston, it’s good enough…”
“Yeah?” Baz sucked in a lungful of smoke, exhaling at a leisurely pace as all around him held their own breaths for his verdict. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
Baz flicked his cigarette away, causing the legs around him to skitter and hop in a frenzy, and nodded at the cake.
“Gizza a slice then, babe.”
Ew. Annabelle despised being spoken to as if she were an object. But under the circumstances, she had no choice but to comply. Just wait until she caught up with Amber Magnolia. Whenever that might be. She steadied her hand and cut a generous portion from the most delectable looking side of the cake, plated it up and passed it to the bully for his scrutiny. Baz held her gaze, worked his plastic fork through a decadent morsel of sweet frosting and moist sponge, and wedged it between his pencil-thin lips.
“I’m not being funny, but that’s…” he broke off to chew again and Annabelle couldn’t bear to watch the mounting display of disdain playing out across his face for a moment longer. Had she been twenty-first century celebrityau fait, she’d have taken Baz from Bermondsey as Jim Carrey’s not-so-easy-on-the-eye twin. “That’s absolutely…” he screwed his currant eyes tightly shut – a relative blessing in the most excruciating of waits. “Fookin’ ’ell,” he opened them up again now and his mouth became an angry pitbull’s; his incisors flashing their warning. “It’s deeeelicious, sweetheart. Cut me off another piece, if you will.”
The thirty-strong crowd roared triumphantly, causing Polly to stumble into the cocooned Pop’s son, making for a finale of Charlie Chaplin proportions.
“I’m not gonna lie. I thought you were trying to serve me up a paint pot.” Baz nodded at the drips embellishing the cake’s edges. “And I don’t like being served paint pots. Takes me back to playschool. Ma abandoning me. Pushing my newborn baby bro, Billy, in his posh magenta Silver Cross pram, and never giving me a backward glance as I stared into the uninspiring yoghurt pots of poster colour, brown marbled with green, and attempted to create an apple tree without any red. But this is the bee’s knees. Dive in, lads.”
Okay then.
