Page 14 of A Wonderland Wish on Ever After Street
I’m keeping an eye on the shop too, but it’s fun to introduce myself as Alice and tell them I fell down a rabbit hole and ended up here. I ask them about school and what they like to read and watch, and Bram starts doing magic tricks – ones more aimed at children, like making things disappear, and that thing where the magician pours water into a teacup but it disappears, and then he turns the cup into a handful of paper shapes. Makes itlooklike it turns into paper shapes, I tell myself as he throws the paper in the air and scraps of it float down and settle on the table, and the girls pick up pieces of it in awe. They genuinely believe he’s got magic powers and, although I’m a bit old for believing in magic powers, I can’t help being impressed as I fiddle with a bit of paper too, unable to comprehend how he did that.
After a while, I declare that everyone must move one place on, like the Mad Hatter and March Hare do in the book, and all five of us stand up and shuffle around the table to take each other’s seats. It’s a bit barmy, but it makes the girls laugh, and Unbirthday parties were invented for a bit of barmy-ness. After that, we try to find the Dormouse in a teapot, which results in much giggling and clinking of china lids.
I have to jump up a couple of times and rush over to serve customers, while the party finish their sandwiches and cakes, and Bram’s next trick is to take his hat off and produce two balloons from underneath it. He blows them up and gives one to each of the girls and invites them for a game of flamingo croquet. They run across the tearoom and start trying to swing the hedgehog balls through the playing card arches. I couldn’t get round balls and had to go with hedgehog stress balls that aren’t quite spherical, which makes it a bit harder, but at least they don’t get up and walk off like they do in the book.
When the game is over and their mum starts gathering their things to leave, Bram bounces over to me, takeshold of my wrist and drags me out from behind the counter. ‘It wouldn’t be an Unbirthday party without “The Unbirthday Song”. Come on,Alice.’
At first I go to protest that I’m not singing, but there’s something about Bram, the way he’s so carefree and authentically himself, that makes me remember why I wanted to do this in the first place and reminds me that you can’t open a Wonderland-themed tearoom without throwing caution to the wind once in a while.
He takes my hand and starts dancing around the girls, dragging me with him, and launches into a version of the Mad Hatter and March Hare’s song from the 1951 Disney movie. The girls clap and cheer and join in the song too, and the look on Bram’s face is so infectious that there’s no way I’mnotjoining in as well.
‘Best day ever!’ the oldest daughter declares when we’ve finished singing. If you could call it singing. Yowling might be more appropriate.
‘Can we come again tomorrow?’ the younger one asks.
‘Can’t get higher praise than that,’ the mum says to me as she comes over to pay and I hurry back to the safety of the counter. ‘We’ll be back! You two are brilliant.’
In one final trick, Bram produces a handful of glittery confetti from thin air and huffs it all over both the girls and they squeal in delight. They’re still giggling as Bram waves them off with a cheery goodbye and comes back to the counter. He drags a stool over and sits on it, leaning his upper body over the counter like he really is exhausted, and his stack of hats falls off. ‘That was brilliant. I’m knackered.’
I’mknackered too. I haven’t had much contact with people recently and that was the most social thing I’ve done in a long time, and I… surprisingly enjoyed it, and Bram is a whirlwind of colour and fun, and impossible to take your eyes off, even if you want to. Anything would be enjoyable in his company.
I’ve started clearing the table, and there’s still tea left in theteapot. He reaches over for it, adds a splash of milk, and drinks from the spout, and I watch him in horror because I’ve never seen a teapot violated in such a way before. Teapots are generally civilised things, and I’m fairly sure I could evict him for such a crime again kitchenware. ‘You really are as mad as a hatter, aren’t you?’
He grins when he realises it doesn’t sound like an insult. ‘Exatically.’
It’s another quote fromAlice in Wonderlandand his smile gets even wider when he realises I recognise it too. ‘That’s my life goal. To be so mad that it makes other people happy. Hat makers used to use mercury to stiffen felt for hats and the prolonged exposure would give them mercury poisoning. That’s where the saying comes from. Luckily also achievable without deadly mind-altering drugs.’
‘And what am I supposed to do about the confetti?’ I try to sound stern, but he’s utterly impossible to stay mad at. ‘How are we going to get that cleared up before it gets trodden into the floor tiles for all eternity? Glitter gets everywhere. Customers will be complaining about eating the stuff.’
‘And now for my next trick.’ He holds up a ‘stay there’ finger, slides off the stool and goes out the back. There’s the sound of a door opening, and then he reappears from the cupboard under the stairs holding a floor sweeper. ‘Ta da!’
It probably shouldn’t make me laugh as much as it does, but it’s like the final straw of all the hilarious things he’s done in the last half an hour, and I can’t help watching as he sweeps up the confetti, treating the sweeper like a dance partner, spinning it and twirling it, moving tables aside to get every last bit, unaware that the customers are watching him too.
I carry on clearing props off the Unbirthday table and returning them to the back room, and he goes to empty the sweeper and then stashes it back in the cupboard it came from and sits back on the stool in frontof the counter.
‘I did not expect you to get involved in that. You seem too…’ He falters, like he’s realised too late that this sentence can only be ended with an insult. ‘…uptight,’ he finishes after a moment, like it’s taken him a while to choose the least offensive option. ‘It was nice to see your fun side. I didn’t know you had one.’
‘I don’t. Didn’t. I mean, I used to, once, but…’
‘What happened?’ He pulls the stack of hats over and starts fiddling with them on the counter.
Instinctively, I want to tell him to mind his own business, but he sounds genuinely interested, and I like his straightforwardness in simply asking. I meet his eyes and, for once, it feels like I’m talking to the real Bram, like all the layers of bright clothing and eyeliner are stripped away and this is a rare glimpse into the person behind the costume, and I decide to be straightforward too.
‘Life,’ I say with a sigh. ‘Or, more specifically, death. My nan who raised me died. Then my mum died and I hadn’t seen her for years. Then an ex let me down at the last minute, and I… shut myself away in my flat. I haven’t really been part of the world for the past couple of years, and this tearoom is my way of forcing myself headfirst back into life and clawing back the control I lost…’
‘And then I turned up without your say-so or agreement. Not a good start for taking back control.’ He grimaces in a sympathetic way, like he realises how undermined I felt by Mr Hastings’ lack of upfrontness.
‘Well, maybe it wasn’t theworstidea he’s ever had…’
‘It’s a good thing I’m already sitting down because I’m almost positive this might be leading to another compliment.’ He looks up and the seriousness in his eyes melts into a twinkle and a soft smile makes his lips quirk up.
I could snap something sarcastic and cutting, but he seems quiet and open, different without his stack of hats on, more like the realBram than the character he plays, and it’s almost like heneedsto hear something nice. ‘You were brilliant today. Those two girls adored you. You knew exactly how to make their Unbirthday special,’ I say, because I’ve noticed that about him – he’s excellent at reading people. He seems to instinctively know which kind of trick will impress people the most and his approach is individual to every person who comes in.
‘And yet, I would never have thought of joining them if you hadn’t invited me. There might be a slim chance yet that Hatter and Alice actually work well together in a Wonderland setting.’
I smile without knowing why I’m smiling. The last thing I wanted was anyone else involved in this, not least because of what he might find out about the definitely-not-homemade goodies I’m serving, but tonight, it feels like no Wonderland would be complete without a Mad Hatter, andthatis more important than my hang-ups from years ago that have nothing to do with Bram. ‘How about you? How does a carousel operator become first in line to play a character who’s barking mad?’
‘Ahh, it’s a long and complicated process of becoming the black sheep of the family.’ He scrunches a hand in his hair and then holds a blue spike out and looks at it. ‘Well, maybe the blue sheep of the family. I haven’t followed the path that my father set out for me, and now my family wishes I was someone I’m not – may as well play the part of someone else entirely.’
