Free The Colour of Tea by Hannah Tunnicliffe

She is wearing a summer dress and heels, which are getting sooty from their points up. Pete drags over a large paper bag, the tails of rockets sticking out. A grin is slung close up to one ear and all the way around to the other. Linda gives me a wink as if I am part of the gang; then she turns toward Pete, placing a slender hand on hisshoulder as he pulls the rockets from the bag, giggling like a girl skipping class.
    I stand back from the group and watch. Before long the crowd weaves between me and them, jostling us farther and farther apart, like the tide pulling back from the shore. Linda’s whoops become less loud; she faces the peninsula, watching the bright plumes. Paul has his hands on his hips and feet wide apart. He rocks back on his heels to see up into the sky. Pete’s face glows as he lights the rockets, illuminated by the spark. His tongue hides in the corner of his mouth, and hair curls wildly from his forehead. He looks like a boy. Like the guy I fell in love with.
    I am standing with my back against the tarpaulin. The noises aren’t distinct now; the bangs and pops and whirs could be any of the rockets, laughter belonging to all the groups, huddled around their fun. The sounds become thick and murky, as though I am holding my head underwater. Somehow, in all the noise, my thoughts still. It feels as if I might be invisible, standing here alone in this sea of people laughing and cheering, among the smoke and the bangs.
    “What are we supposed to do now?” Pete’s question from the other night floats through my mind. Yes, what now?
    Above me the night sky is pale and quivering with smoke, a temporary quiet, spits and sparkles silenced. A break between sessions. The guts of rockets and burned ends of matchsticks litter the ground. The crowd moves and sighs as one great big animal, heaving, swirling around me like water around a stone rooted deep in the bed of a river. Out of it I hear my name. It gets louder, like a song, over and over.
    “Gracie! Gracie! Grace!”
    The air has turned cold. I warm my arms with a brisk rub. Above me a final, rogue rocket soars and erupts in the gray sky. It glitters sapphire blue and bright. The crowd looks up, mouths insilent circles. Something deep inside me dislodges. Tears off, falls away. I feel a kind of unpeeling. It happens in under a second, and then I know that my mind is made up. It is so bold it is probably stupid. It’s more like Mama than me. A little bit of Mama’s shamelessness and courage. The kind that was always getting us into trouble.
    My arms drop back down to my sides, warmed now, as Pete shuffles toward me, pushing through the throng. He has black soot on his wide hands and across his shirt. He keeps looking back up to the sky, distracted, checking to see if a rocket is going off.
    “There you are,” he murmurs. “I was wondering where you’d got to.”

Un Bon Début—A Good Start
    Coconut with Passion Fruit–Spiked Buttercream Filling
    I have already programmed in the number, all I need to do is press one button.
    “Hello … I’m calling about the shop?”
    The man who answers the phone is not speaking English. He is yelling, but not at me, perhaps at the small child who is letting out the great dramatic sobs that I can hear from my end of the phone. It sounds like Portuguese. Now he turns his attention back to me. “Eh?”
    “I was wondering about the shop. Is this a bad time?”
    Now there is a woman speaking in the background. The man clucks his tongue and says something conspiratorial to me, which I wish I could understand. Then neither of us says anything and we both listen to the woman. She is loud but firm. The child whimpers. The woman says something soft, soothing. There is quiet. A mother’s touch. The man and I remain quiet for a few more moments.
    “English-a?” says the man, in what sounds like a tone of distrust.
    “Yes. I’m English. I speak English,” I stammer.
    “Okay,” he says. “You come tomorrow to the