‘Ah, what the heck …’ I pull the lever until the nutcracker’s jaws touch the walnut shell. ‘I wish to finally find Prince Charming. A prince like you, Mr Nutcracker. A strong, dependable, handsome man who will be loyal and charming and kind. Is that too much to ask?’
The breeze whispers through the lane again and the walnut splits. I take it out of the nutcracker’s smiling mouth, throw the shell into the nutshell garden, and pop the kernel into my mouth. ‘Goodnight.’
A cloud passes over the moon above and for just a moment, it looks like he winks at me.
I shake my head at myself as I walk away. Apparently break-ups cause hallucinations now too. It reminds me that I’m alone again, and I decide to take the long way round and pop into the 24-hour supermarket on the way home. Never mind magical nutcrackers and walnut wishes, there’s only one thing that’ll make me feel better in this situation – Ben & Jerry’s. Several tubs. And one of those gigantic tubs of chocolates they bring out for Christmas.
In 65,903 calories’ time, yet another cheating man will be nothing but a distant memory. It won’t matter that I’m alone again because it’s Christmas and Nutcracker Lane opens in the morning, and it’s my first year here. It’s going to be the best Christmas ever.
Chapter 2
The chill in the air is icy as I step out the door of my cottage and lock up behind me, still finding it weird not to say goodbye to my grandma as I leave, even though she’s been gone for over four years now. The concrete of the driveway is sparkling with frost, and as I open the front gate and go through it onto the pavement, I see Stacey standing on the corner where my little side street meets the main street, bouncing on her feet to keep warm as she waits for me. She lives two streets down the hill, so we always meet at this intersection and walk up to Nutcracker Lane together.
‘Another one bites the dust, huh?’ She rubs gloved hands together as I approach.
At first I think she means Ben or Jerry, several tubs of which bit the dust last night and it takes me a moment to realise she’s talking about the cheating ex and not ice cream or Cadbury’s chocolate.
‘Another one bites the purple lingerie, to be precise.’ I shove my hands into my pockets as we start walking up the hill towards Nutcracker Lane. ‘Probably tearing it off with his teeth as we speak.’
‘Nah, far too early for that kind of naughtiness. She’s probably too busy trying to get pillow creases out of her face while he’s brushing his furry tongue to get rid of the morning breath. Remember him that way. It’ll make it easier.’
I laugh out loud at the mental image. I love my best friend. She knows it wasn’t a serious relationship, and even though she’s happily married with a daughter, she gets that it still hurts when someone cheats on you, no matter what. Thinking about it makes the loneliness sidle in again, having been blocked out by rushing to get ready this morning. It’s opening day and I thought we’d better get there early. ‘Am I ever going to find a decent man? Is there even one out there? What is it with all these guys who go for sexy purple lingerie instead of comfort and commitment – both in lingerie and in a relationship? Aren’t there any decent men on the planet?’
‘Yeah, there are loads, there’s just the slight problem of them all being married or otherwise taken. It’s a shame single men don’t grow on Christmas trees.’ She snuggles further into her scarf.
‘My relationship problems are solved anyway,’ I say as we reach the top of the hill and turn left, walking through another residential street. ‘I asked the nutcracker for a handsome prince last night, so one is bound to be along any minute. Can you hear the clip-clopping of horses’ hooves?’ I put my hand to my ear. ‘Probably him on the way in his fairy-tale carriage right now.’
‘Yep. There’s bound to be a single, gorgeous, gentlemanly prince waiting in the entranceway as soon as we get in, magically summoned by an old wooden toy to find his princess,’ she says with a laugh. ‘And any prince is bound to be entranced by your collection of Christmas jumpers. Which one did you go with today?’
I open my coat to reveal my Christmas jumper, which is black with lots of green trees all over it, each one with tiny lights that flash from a battery pack hidden inside the hem.
‘Flashing trees for opening day. Good choice.’
‘Nothing like a Christmas jumper to get you in the mood. And an added bonus of sending customers to Mrs Brissett in the Nutcracker Lane jumper shop when they ask where I got it.’
We come out the other end of the residential street, go up another slope, and shortcut across the frosty shrub border surrounding the Nutcracker Lane car park. Even though the nutcracker manufacturing plant that runs behind the lane hasn’t started work yet, the hint of fresh-cut wood is in the air, mixing with the balsam and pine smell as the tree seller unloads netted Christmas trees from the back of a pick-up truck that’s reversed up to the end of our little Christmas village where her tree lot stands.
We walk around the perimeter of the building on the pavements surrounding it until we get to the wide glass doors, a huge clear-sided foyer full of signs advertising Nutcracker Lane’s attractions – signs that have lessened every year as more and more things disappear.
‘No prince, then.’ Stacey pushes open the second set of doors into the main entrance court. ‘Just a giant nutcracker who, admittedly, is better company than some of the men you’ve dated.’
‘Aww, I think the nutcracker’s a prince in his own right.’ I wave to him as we walk past his little elf-garden enclosure. ‘Good morning, Mr Nutcracker.’
‘You’re only polite to it so when they rise up as an army on Christmas Eve and take over the world, they’ll remember you fondly and spare you.’
I poke my tongue out at her. She doesn’t get why nutcrackers have always been my favourite Christmas decoration or why I like that one quite so much.
‘You know it was the staff here who granted your childhood Christmas wishes and he’s not really magical … Unless Prince Charming randomly turns up this morning. Then I’ll take it all back.’
‘I think we can safely say that’s not going to happen …’
Santa chooses that moment to stroll out of the gents’ toilets pulling his trousers out of his bum.
Stacey and I hold each other’s gaze for a long moment and then burst into giggles. ‘Nah.’
‘God, it’s bleak, isn’t it?’ She says as we continue down the lane, the first signs of the log cabins coming to life around us. Lights on in the back rooms, a few of the Christmas trees with their lights twinkling already. ‘They don’t even decorate anymore.’ She wraps her hand around a bare iron lamppost as we pass it. In years gone by, the posts were wrapped with sparkling green tinsel wound with white fairy lights, finished with an oversized red bow and a bunch of fresh mistletoe hanging from the top of each one. The ceilings were decked with fairy-light-wrapped garlands and you couldn’t turn around without coming face-to-face with a poinsettia.
‘I always imagined bringing my children here one day, and it’s so sad that Lily has never got to see it as I remember it. She doesn’t believe me when I tell her what it used to be like. It’s such a shame to see it on its last legs.’
‘Do you really think it is?’ I try to stamp down the sadness that rears up. I haven’t got as far as thinking about having children, but if I ever do, I can’t imagine not being able to bring them to Nutcracker Lane where I spent so many happy childhood days back in the Eighties and Nineties.
‘Look around, Nee. It’s faded gradually every year, and this is the worst one yet. Opening day and … this is it. There are no staff except the shopkeepers themselves, no one keeping the actual lane running, no maintenance, no cleaners, and if you dare to turn around right now, you’ll see Santa picking his nose. How much worse can it get than Santa pulling bogeys out of his nose hair and examining them … Oh, wait, now he’s eating them as well. Lovely.’
‘It just needs one good year to recover – one year with even a fraction of the visitors it used to
get. Most people don’t even realise it’s still here. The only person who seems to have any interest in it these days is the horrible Scrooge-like accountant who keeps slashing the budget every year. That lovely couple who owned it haven’t been seen for months. I was chatting to Rhonda in the hat shop the other day and she said she didn’t see them once last year— What the hell is that?’
We turn the bend in the lane towards Starlight Rainbows and I stop in my tracks. The empty shop opposite is no longer empty. Its window is ablaze with white light, and instead of a Christmas tree outside the door, there’s a six-foot-tall animatronic dancing Santa wearing a tropical shirt with a Hawaiian lei around his neck who’s currently doing some depiction of the Macarena. The hand-painted sign above the window reads “Tinkles and Trinkets” and in smaller letters underneath “The BEST Christmas decorations for all your holiday needs.”
‘But that’s …’ I splutter, unable to get my words out properly. ‘That was empty last night. There was nothing in there. How did they get it set up so fast?’
‘Elves?’ Stacey pulls a face at the dancing Santa.
‘But we sell decorations. I make decorations. And now we’ve got to compete with that? And look at it.’ We both peer into the window. There are so many fairy lights glowing in the display that somewhere in the next county, there’s a bloke wondering why the sun just came out and the National Grid has probably started groaning. The animatronic theme continues as the window display is full of dancing Santas of various sizes, musical nutcrackers, light-up feather wreaths, branches of lit-up twigs, twinkling garlands, a giant snowglobe with lights around the base that’s playing some kind of conflicting tune with one of the singing festive teddy bears, and even a model Christmas village with plastic nutcrackers moving in a mechanical circle in and out of a tiny factory building.
Even the term “plastic nutcrackers” is offensive. Nutcrackers are always, always made of wood. It’s traditional.
Something inside is playing a Christmas tune, but it sounds like its batteries are going flat, and there’s so much twisting and jiggling and dancing in the window that I can’t even tell which one it is.
‘It’s impressive,’ Stacey says. ‘Everyone is going to stop to look at it.’
‘Exactly.’ I look over my shoulder at our darkened little shop opposite. ‘It’s a million times better than our rustic wooden decorations and Nineties-style foil garlands and sets of lights taped round the windows. You can see Tinkles and Trinkets from space. There are probably aliens on Jupiter right now scratching their heads and trying to work out who turned the lights on.’
‘Well, it’s not better, it’s different. Personally, I like the nostalgic side of Christmas and think all this singing and dancing stuff is distasteful tat.’
‘Does it look like familiar distasteful tat to you?’ I cock my head to the side and try to hear the strains of a tune the nutcracker model factory is playing, but it’s drowned out by the toy with the dying batteries and the creaking of the Macarena-ing Santa.
‘I can’t see anyone inside.’ Stacey cups her hands around her eyes and peers through the glass, but the glare of the lights is too bright to see anything beyond the window display.
‘I don’t understand how it can have been empty last night. No one could’ve got this done so quickly, could they? It must’ve been a whole team of people.’ I peer in the window too, but all I can make out is rows and rows of shelves. ‘It’s like it’s sprung up from nowhere.’
‘Like magic.’ She slots her arm through mine and yanks me across the paving stones to Starlight Rainbows. ‘It’s not worth worrying about. We sell totally different types of decorations and there’s room for all of us on Nutcracker Lane.’
I give the dazzling shop one last glance. Every other log cabin on our lane has been setting up for a month now. We all got our keys on the first day of November, and since then, everyone has been back and forth unloading stock and setting up their displays. Except this one. And in the space of the nine hours since I left last night, this owner has managed to create the most spectacular display of all.
I unlock our little wooden door and turn the wood-burned wreath sign on it over from “closed” to “open”. Our shop smells of fresh-cut wood from my decorations and that inimitable scent of tinsel and foil Christmas decorations when they’ve been shut away for a while. I flip the light switch and pick up a letter that’s been posted through the letterbox.
‘You were here for hours tweaking last night then?’ Stacey looks around like she can tell every earring I adjusted on her jewellery side of the shop.
‘I was priming some nutcracker bunting so it had time to dry before today.’ I switch the electric wax burner behind the counter on to fill the shop with the scent of vanilla and balsam and dump my bag on the counter as I split the letter open and unfold it.
‘Factory space!’ I stare at the letter in horror. ‘How could they do this? Listen …’ I start reading it aloud.
Dear esteemed Nutcracker Lane lease holder,
I am writing to inform you that commencing January 1st, Nutcracker Lane will be under new ownership. As the acting manager until the new owner joins us, it falls to me to ensure we will not be carrying deadweight into the new year. Next year will see things change for the better. Next year your leases will not automatically be renewed – instead, you will have to work for the privilege. Only the most profitable shops will be going forward to the next festive season – the rest will be sold off for factory space to the nutcracker factory next door. I will review your accounts in January and let you know in due course whether you will have a place on the improved and streamlined Nutcracker Lane next year.
Do your best this festive season!
Regards,
Mr E.B. Neaser
Head accountant and acting manager, Nutcracker Lane
‘Wow.’ Stacey runs a hand through her short hair.
‘Do you think this was hand-delivered? It’s early for the postman.’ I turn over the envelope in my hands but there’s not even an address on it. ‘Everyone must’ve got one.’
‘Not even a “kind regards” or a “best wishes” or anything. How rude. And he’s still using that stupid name. It’s like he knows we call him Scrooge and he’s mocking us.’
‘There’s no way it’s his real name,’ I agree. We’ve dealt with this guy before. There’s definitely nothing kind about him. We’ve already had three letters this year telling us of yet more budget cuts and restrictions and a rent increase for the privilege. He seems to take pleasure in it. ‘This is like a cross between a motivational speech and a condescending headteacher telling off naughty schoolchildren who have run riot with the crayons.’
I open the door and look outside to see Hubert from the sweetshop looking around too, the letter clutched in his hand.
Before I have a chance to speak, Rhonda who runs the Christmas hat shop, opens her door and steps out. ‘You got one too?’
Hubert and I both nod.
‘This is terrible.’ Mrs Thwaite opens the door of the Christmas candle shop two doors down, her letter balled up in her fist. ‘How dare they!’
‘This is the same Scrooge who’s been cutting the budget every year, and now he’s eschewed the budget and started on the shops themselves,’ Hubert says.
‘What are we going to do?’ I step outside to join them. ‘We’ve only just got our shop. I quit my job to work here. I was relying on it being renewed next year.’
That’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to get a spot on Nutcracker Lane. Once you’re in, all existing shop owners get first right of renewal, and this used to be such a lovely place that if you had a shop here, you wouldn’t give it up. Hardly any new leases come up each year and the competition to get them is fierce, and the owners have always been selective about which shops they choose to be part of Nutcracker Lane. They have to add something new and unique and not have any crossover with any of the items already available here.
I glance at the shining
new decoration shop. Clearly that rule has gone down the pan this year.
My job was only stacking supermarket shelves, but it would’ve been impossible to do both that and Nutcracker Lane. For the past few years, I’ve been working dead-end part-time jobs, spending as many hours as I can in the evening making decorations, and Stacey and I have been driving to every craft fair that would have us at the weekends, and selling via our own websites, eBay, and Etsy shops. I’d hoped to make enough profit from this to have a bit of leeway in the coming months until next year here.
‘We all were. I’ve been here for nine years,’ Rhonda from the Christmas hat shop says.
‘Fifteen.’ Mrs Brissett from the jumper shop comes down the lane towards us, letter in hand. ‘This is ridiculous.’
‘Twenty-something.’ Carmen, the amazing chocolatier who runs Nutcracker Lane’s very own chocolate shop follows her.
‘This is my biggest earner.’ The tree seller joins the group too. ‘And now what? They’re going to chuck out those of us who don’t make the grade?’
‘They can’t do that, can they?’ Rhonda asks.
‘This Scrooge-like accountant seems to be able to do whatever he wants,’ Hubert says. ‘He’s been running this place into the ground for years with his continual budget cuts, and now this. He couldn’t sound much more gleeful in his letter, could he? He may as well have thrown us into The Hunger Games arena and told us to have at it.’
‘Aren’t we all competition now?’ Mrs Thwaite from the candle shop asks.
‘Aww, no, you lot are like a second family. I don’t want to be in competition with you,’ Mrs Brissett says.
‘But that’s exactly what it’s saying.’ I scan over the letter again as Stacey appears in the open doorway of our shop. ‘Whichever shops earn the most money will stay, the rest of the lane will be sold off to the nutcracker factory …’
The Little Christmas Shop on Nutcracker Lane Page 2