Page 4 of A Wish For Jo
A selection of sandwiches would go down well, but use only soft white bread with the crusts cut off. Egg mayonnaise is fine, but no cucumber. It gives her chronic indigestion.
A birthday cake to serve 12 people. Or maybe 10, as her boyfriend (who's 92) has a bad dose of gout and might not make it. And her best friend Elsie's got the flu, although I reckon it's just a head cold.
Jo had settled on a finger-sandwich selection, filled with egg mayonnaise, wafer-thin ham and beef paste, then melt-in-the-mouth (dentures notwithstanding) macarons in an array of pastel hues, and mini vanilla and chocolate éclairs. And the pièce de résistance: a fluffy chocolate cake shaped like a curled-up tabby cat, in homage to the much-missed Mr Moggs. Jo had devoted several hours to creating the cake, slicing and dicing sponges to form the various body parts. She'd worried that it resembled a poo emoji more than a beloved pet, but hoped poor eyesight would work in her favour.
With the food boxed up ready for delivery, Jo had ensured the kitchen area was spotless then turned her attention to front of house. Behind the counter was a long, high shelf which housed a colourful collection of mismatched teapots and jugs and the two lamps she'd bought from Sam Addin's antique shop. Every couple of weeks, Jo gave everything a good wash and experimented with the display. She'd polished the lamps once or twice, a strange sensation sweeping over her each time. As if someone had walked over her grave, as her mother used to say. Jo wasn't sure what had possessed her to buy them, but at a fiver for the pair they hadn't broken the bank.
With an hour to go before opening the café, she picked up the prettier of the two. What exactly made it prettier, Jo couldn't say. In many ways the lamps were identical, although this one had a special lustre that had caught the eye of many a customer. Noticing a tiny dark spot on its surface, Jo grabbed a sheet of kitchen roll and a tin of polish and set to work removing it. Seconds later, she landed on her bottom as the lamp leapt from her hands and clattered into a corner.
Nerves jangling, Jo held her breath as something — someone — materialised before her disbelieving eyes. Her first irrational thought was Kim Kardashian. The person — creature — had a figure that would make hourglasses weep, although how those incredible curves could have emerged from an opening the size of a kettle spout boggled Jo's mind.
The figure took on a solid form, most definitely female, and if Jo wasn't mistaken, frantically chewing gum. Jo blinked rapidly, hoping that whoever (or whatever) it was might be a figment of her imagination. She'd eaten an enormous chunk of truffle-infused Cheddar last night: didn’t cheese sometimes induce nightmares? But that was hours ago, and Jo was pretty sure this was no figment of her imagination. Just to be sure, she pinched herself hard on the leg.Ouch!Nope, she hadn't drifted off into a daytime, cheese-related slumber.
Struggling to her feet, Jo regarded the figure with trepidation. Any residual wispiness had gone. The woman was as real as the customers who visited A Bit of Crumpet for their daily sugar and caffeine fix — just more glamorous, with her hair done in an intricate chignon that emphasised her angular features. The look was somewhat marred when she blew an enormous bubble which promptly popped all over her perfect face.
'Oops! What a wazzock!' She peeled the pink mass from her mouth, rolled it into a ball and stuffed it in the pocket of her floaty trousers. 'It's me last piece, so I’m savin' it for later.'
Now on her feet, legs wobblier than a half-set jelly, Jo's sense of disbelief went up a notch. Whatever this creature was, she had an unmistakable Geordie accent, which seemed totally at odds with her exotic appearance. Didn't genies come from— Hang on a minute, had she just said ‘genie’? Not out loud, for she wasn't sure her voice would work. Yet it seemed the only logical explanation.Come off it,she thought. Genies are fictional beings. They don’t just materialise in humble Scottish cafés. And even if genies did exist, surely they didn't hail from Newcastle and chew gum?
Lost in her thoughts, Jo didn't notice her visitor moving closer. When she did, she stood her ground, determined not to faint in the manner of an eighteenth-century lady with a delicate disposition.
'Eeh, you're lookin' a bit peaky, lass. Are you alreet?' She squinted at Jo, who poured herself a glass of water and downed it in one. 'Mind if I have one, too?'
Still unable to utter a word, Jo poured a second glass and handed it to the — thething… Her hand trembled, and some water slopped out. Her companion — Jo was running out of ways to describe her — tutted and knocked it back with very unladylike gulps.
'Ta, love. The name's Aaliyah, by the way. And you are…?' She extended a slender hand, bangles jangling.
'Jo. I'm Jo. This is my café. I really don't know what's going on, but—'
Before she could continue, Aaliyah's gaze fell on the second lamp. With a snort befitting an irritable horse, she reached up and lifted it down.'Have you rubbed this one?' she demanded. Jo shook her head, then recalled that she'd given both lamps a bit of a buff. She switched to a nod, the change in motion making her feel dizzy.
'Well, don't touch it again — not unless you want two genies in your life.'
CHAPTER5
Two genies?Jo gawped in horror at Aaliyah, who replaced the second lamp on the shelf. She couldn’t wrap her head around one, never mind two.
‘Aye, pet. His name’s Dhassim. We were an item, once upon a time, but he got too clingy and accused me of flirting with others. And you would not believe how vain he is!’ Aaliyah checked her reflection in a glass cabinet and smoothed down a strand of hair, and the phrasepot and kettlesprang to Jo’s mind.
Jo forced her thoughts away from images of two otherworldly beings jostling in front of a mirror and back to the here and now. ‘OK, this is a little difficult for me to understand. You’re a genie, I accidentally conjured you up by rubbing your lamp, and now…’
Aaliyah rolled her eyes (immaculately lined with kohl, and with lashes that could fan a small fire) and shook her head, clearly conveying the message that Jo needed to pull up her intellectual socks. ‘Look, I know you humans have heard of us through books and films, like. Although Dhassim told me about some stupid blue guy who did our species no favours. Apparently he sang and turned into different creatures. Ridiculous! I’m a WYSIWYG kinda gal.’
What the heck was a whizziwig? Jo felt her grip on reality loosen further. She didn’t want to appear any dumber, but she had to ask.
‘What you see is what you get,’ replied Aaliyah. ‘A bona fide wish-giving babe with the very latest technology to get this show on the road.’
She fumbled with her top, producing a glitzy device that emitted a series of buzzes, beeps and jingles. Jo had an iPhone 11 that did a lot of clever things — though, sadly, not the ironing — but she’d witnessed nothing as over-the-top as this.
‘This is my Wish Instigating Finder Instrument: WIFI for short. It allows me to check if your wishes are allowed — there are rules, not that Dhassim ever followed them — and grant them. You have three.’ Aaliyah held up three fingers.
Jo resisted the urge to hold up two, and not in a Winston Churchill, V for victory kind of way.
‘You can actually grant wishes?’ Jo realised that was probably a dumb question. What little she knew of genies was all about the wish-granting, Robin Williams’s wise-cracking blue guy notwithstanding.
‘Of course. Dhassim went a bit OTT with his last mistress, though. I gave him a right bollocking when he told me what he’d done. I mean, giving someone perfect hair, then sorting out a winning scratch card for one of her friends… Not exactly setting the world on fire, eh?’
A winning scratch card? Jo recalled Angela’s bubbling excitement when she’d won fifty thousand pounds on a scratch card. Angela had insisted on investing twenty thousand pounds in Jo’s fledgling catering business: money Jo fully intended to pay back over time, despite Angela’s insistence that she didn’t want it. Come to think of it, the hair rang a bell too. Hadn’t Jinnie’s hair been transformed overnight into an impossibly sleek, super-shiny style that remained impervious to the relentlessly damp and dreary weather?
