Scarlett - Cathy Cassidy [44]
What will Kian be doing now? Making hayricks in the scorching heat. It’s not even half ten. I don’t think I can survive till one o’clock.
I open the fridge and see a jug of Clare’s home-made lemonade tucked away at the back. I pour myself a glass, and, as an afterthought, one for Clare. I add a couple of cubes of ice and take it out to the workshop.
The smell of crushed strawberries and fresh mint hits me as I open the door, and Clare looks up from a bowl of freshly liquidized fruit. This is her territory, and I’ve been careful to avoid it before today; my eyes flick around the room, taking in shelves stacked with pans, jars of mysterious powders, oils and granules. In the corner, a big pan filled with molten soap is cooling.
‘Lemonade?’ I say shyly, setting the drink down on the table. ‘It’s so hot, I thought you’d need something.’
‘Thanks,’ Clare says, taking a long drink. ‘That was thoughtful.’
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
Clare looks startled, then faintly horrified. I have never offered to help her with the soap before. She frowns, then shrugs and chucks me an apron. ‘Why not?’ she says. ‘You can grease the moulds for me – it’s like greasing a cake tin.’
I set to work while Clare gives the fruit and mint a final whizz. She finishes off her lemonade, puts on rubber gloves and goggles and weighs out a heap of white granules.
‘This is caustic soda, pretty strong stuff,’ Clare says. ‘Open that window as wide as it’ll go, would you? And stay over there.’
‘Why, what happens?’
Clare ties a scarf over her nose and mouth so that she looks like a pregnant bank robber, then tips the granules into the fruity liquid. A cloud of fumes rise up from the mixture, prickling my nose.
‘You can’t put stuff like that in soap,’ I protest. ‘It’d burn the face off you!’
Clare shakes her head and the scarf slips down round her neck. ‘Ah, but when we blend this into the vegetable fat mixture, there’s a chemical reaction. The soda gets neutralized – it disappears, if you like.’
‘I didn’t realize it was so complicated,’ I say, impressed.
‘Ah, it’s a real mad professor’s laboratory in here,’ Clare says.
She pours the strawberry and mint into the cauldron of soap, and starts stirring. ‘It’ll take a while to reach trace point,’ she tells me. ‘Meanwhile we can take this little lot out of its moulds…’
She chucks me a pair of rubber gloves and I set to work turning out slabs of what looks and smells like coconut ice – the soap has been layered with white on the bottom and pink on top. Clare trims each slab and cuts it neatly into squares with a cheese slice, for me to stack and cover with a blanket to ‘cure’.
‘I don’t like this weather,’ Clare frowns. ‘It’s really close and sticky, even with the window open. I feel like I’ve done a whole day’s work already. I think there’ll be thunder, later.’
I give the strawberry mixture a stir. ‘Hope not,’ I say. ‘I wanted to go down to the lough.’
‘You love that lough, don’t you?’ Clare says. ‘I have to admit, you’ve worked really hard on that project of yours, even in the school holidays. That’s something to be proud of.’
Would she still think that if she knew the real reason I love being by the lough? So I can hang out with a runaway boy a bad boy a boy I’m going to miss like crazy Nope, she’d think I was bad beyond hope.
‘Clare, I’m sorry about what happened with Holly,’ I say into the silence. ‘Really sorry. OK?’
‘I know that, Scarlett,’ she says softly. ‘OK. That’s trace point for the soap – time to add the colouring and fragrance.’
I stir in diluted red colouring and watch the soap change from speckled pink to deep, vivid red. Next, I measure out strawberry and peppermint oil, mix it up and stand back as Clare ladles the liquid soap into the moulds. A film of sweat glistens on her brow and she catches her lip as she dips and pours the