Chapter Twenty-Five
By Sunday, Robina’s cakes had run out. Honor let Ru and Aletta do all the prep in the morning while she made chocolate cupcakes from the recipe she remembered from school, times five, and cherry scones from a recipe she called up from the internet on Ru’s phone. She used the last of Robina’s chocolate frosting from the fridge to swirl over the cupcakes, hoping she wasn’t contravening any health regulations and crossing her fingers that no one would get sick.
There was plenty of jam for the scones, which, because she included a little extra baking soda, rose every bit as majestically and drunkenly as Robina’s ever did.
The cake table still looked empty, by Robina’s standards, so, cursing, remembering a recipe from Jess’s time at girl scouts, Honor mixed up apple and cream cheese with chopped Snickers bars and dolloped the mixture into more cupcake cases and cooked them.
When she emerged from her mad bake-in, hot and bothered and muttering, she realised that Ru had filled the potato oven and opened the tearoom and he and Aletta were serving, everything under control. ‘You guys are so great.’ She opened the back door and fanned herself, gulping iced water, then called Ru into the kitchen to tackle the washing up whilst she whizzed through the mini clean-down necessary after her efforts. Just in time for the “elevenses” trade to morph seamlessly into the lunchtime trade.
By three in the afternoon, she was flagging. With Martyn in France, she’d gone to bed early on Saturday evening. But then he’d called from his hotel room and what began as a quick goodnight became, ‘So, what are you wearing?’ and ended up as phone sex. Fabulous, but it didn’t fulfil the same function as sleep.
But the teagarden was busy and she was making a couple of pints of fruit slush by throwing fat red strawberries into the blender with ice cubes.
‘Honor!’ Aletta scuttled in from the garden, eyes wide in alarm.
‘What’s up?’ Startled to see Aletta moving at more than a serene amble, Honor twisted the blender jug from its base and halted.
‘Those . . . those . . .’ Aletta’s English deserted her. ‘Big boys! And they push Ru—’
Throwing open the counter flap, Honor raced outside to find Frog and his Tadpoles gathered in a threatening knot around Ru, whilst customers exchanged looks of alarm and drew away.
Ru stood, unmoving, his hands by his sides, eyes on Frog. His hair was pulled off his face by his reversed ball cap and it made him look vulnerable. But he was clearly composed as he said, ‘No. Not without the money up front.’
‘ No , freak?’ Frog sneered, his back to Honor, his jeans hanging low to reveal the swirling black pattern on his boxer shorts and his shoulders menacingly broad in a tight black T-shirt. ‘“No” isn’t the right answer. Get your arse indoors and get me a drink. I know your freaky mummy isn’t here to cast her scary spells on me.’
Honor knew that she should give Ru a chance to sort this out on his own. This is what the classes had prepared him for, given him the confidence to face. If she charged in then she was undoing all the good that Hughie the instructor had done.
Ru smiled into Frog’s face. ‘No.’
Delicately, as if preparing to enjoy himself, Frog put his fingertips on Ru’s chest. And shoved.
As he was forced to step back, Ru’s gaze dropped to the ‘button’ at the base of Frog’s throat, his smile stretching into a big grin of anticipation as his right hand drew back.
And suddenly, Honor didn’t want him to make that jab that would stop Frog in his tracks and even throw him, coughing, to his knees.
She didn’t want him to drop to Frog’s level, to get the badass reputation she’d once wanted for him, or maybe even get pleasure from the violence, get a taste for it. She’d watched Stef stand up for an underdog and enjoy it; she’d had a hard time calming him down afterwards and preventing him from turning all vigilante. Being a badass could be bad.
Even for the badass.
With a squeak, she leapt forward, yanked out the elastic waist of Frog’s boxer shorts and tipped in the contents of the blender jug. ‘Watch your ass, buddy.’
Frog screamed, spinning around to face her, gyrating and glaring, plunging his hands into his pants. ‘You fuckin’ Yankee!’
‘Good one!’ Ru began to howl with laughter.
The Tadpoles started to snort, shoulders shaking.
Customers joined in as Frog jiggled and danced and ice rained out of the leg of his jeans, until the teagarden was swept with gales of laughter.
When he had finally pawed what he could from his underwear, ice and crushed strawberries lay glistening on the ground. He glared ferociously at Honor. Honor glared right back, swinging the jug gently.
Slowly, laughter was replaced by silence.
‘That,’ said Frog, with perilous dignity, ‘was fuckin’ ’orrible.’ But his lips twitched as he looked down at a damp patch spreading over the crotch of his jeans. Gingerly, he wiggled his hips, reigniting some giggles. His mouth actually curled up at one corner. Without his habitual teeth-gritted snarl, he was nearly good looking.
Then Honor stepped forward and enfolded him in a great big hug, somehow recognising that, beneath the fa?ade of adulthood, the heart beating was still that of a child. ‘Please stop bothering Ru because we don’t want to have to hurt you. If you want to earn a drink and a cake by doing half-an-hour’s washing up, there’s plenty.’ She stepped back to gauge his reaction.
Frog’s jaw was suitably dropped and the tips of his ears had gone red. ‘Earn?’ he repeated.
‘Sure.’ Encouraged, she linked her arm in his and turned him towards the tearoom. ‘We’re real shorthanded so you’d be doing me a favour. You wash up this load that’s waiting and it’ll be worth a drink and a big cake. What do you say?’
Frog paused. Then said, gruffly, to the Tadpoles, ‘Catch you later.’
In the kitchen, he surveyed the stainless steel sink full of steaming water, a stack of plates ready beside it. ‘Two cakes,’ he stipulated.
She sighed. ‘Well, OK. Just this one time. Because I have to make more strawberry slush.’
He looked at her and laughed. ‘OK, Yankee Doodle, how much do I have to do to get a cheesy potato?’
‘A lot.’ She gave him an apron and began to rinse more strawberries in the other bowl of the sink. Then, seeing that Ru had come into the kitchen to stare, ‘And you have to get along with Ru while you’re here. Rufus, Toby is going to be helping us this afternoon, as we’re shorthanded.’
‘Frog,’ said Ru.
‘Freak,’ said Frog.
‘Whatever. Just play nice.’ Honor switched on the blender.
* * *
After showering out a head full of hair wax that, in his view, had been totally unnecessary on a windless day, but the hair stylist had ‘wanted definition’, Martyn emerged from the all-white hotel bathroom with an all-white towel hooked around his hips, and checked his phone. He’d become a compulsive checker on this trip, greeting every text with a skip of anticipation in case it was from Honor.
But this one was from Ru. He read and reread it, half-convinced that Ru must be suffering from hallucinations. Electing to go straight to source, he dialled Honor. ‘Ru tells me that you beat Frog up, again.’
Her laugh was little more than a breath down the line, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. ‘I didn’t! It was a satisfactorily non-violent intervention. I suddenly didn’t want Ru to prove that violence breeds violence.’ She yawned.
His eyes ran over the text again. ‘So you tipped ice down Frog’s boxers? And then hugged him? Are you bonkers?’
She yawned. ‘I guess you had to be there.’
Laughter bubbled up from his chest. ‘I can’t tell you how much I wish I had been. You’re something else, Freedom Lefevre.’