I’m distracted from the line of thought as singing reaches my ears. ‘The carollers are back!’
James groans, but I rush to the open door to see them. One of my favourite things about Nutcracker Lane was always the carollers. A group of women and men in full Victorian dress, carrying lanterns and singing traditional Christmas carols from sheets. When I was young, they were employees of Nutcracker Lane, paid to walk up and down during opening hours. They always carried spare lyric sheets and anyone who wanted could join in and walk with them or sing along when they passed, but the budget for carol singing was cut by Mr E.B. Neaser years ago, and now they’re just a group of five volunteers who come by whenever they’ve got time.
I hum along to “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” as they come into view from the end of the lane and wave excitedly as they get nearer, glad to see that other shopkeepers are in their doorways doing the same. Now they don’t get paid to do this anymore and their number has dwindled over the years, everyone is expecting the day when they don’t come back, and it’s heart-warming to see that customers have stopped to join in too. Maybe if enough people get behind them, we could convince the new owner that it’s worth adding carol singers back to the budget.
I wave and shout “hello” as the group of carollers get nearer. The leader of the group is a wonderful woman called Angela who handmakes all their Victorian clothing and has been doing this for longer than I can remember, and she waves back, unable to stop to chat mid-song, but she points towards Starlight Rainbows and gives me a thumbs up, looking slightly confused that I’m in the wrong doorway.
I turn around at a noise and see James throwing and catching a resin reindeer in his one hand as if testing the weight of it. ‘What are you doing?’
He holds it up to his head. ‘Debating how much force it would take to knock myself out until it’s over and if it would be worth the pain of getting up from the floor again.’
‘I really hope you’re joking.’
He grins, letting me know that he is.
‘Don’t you think that’s lovely?’ I force myself to look away from his smile because it’s doing something to me. ‘You don’t have to like Christmas to appreciate nice music and talented singers.’
‘Pardon? I can’t hear you over that racket!’
He’s deliberately winding me up now. ‘You must like some Christmas music. You have The Nutcracker score playing in your shop.’
‘I’m left with no options. The only tolerable Christmas music are songs without any words in them. I don’t know how anyone can bear this lot waltzing around with their constant “Hosanna in Excelsis-ing”. They need to fa-la-la off.’
I’m trying to be annoyed but I can’t help the snort of laughter that escapes at his turn of phrase, and he smiles back at me, and I lose track of everything for a minute as we smile at each other across the shop, and by the time I come back to myself, the carollers are off in the distance and have moved on to “Away In A Manger”.
‘Well, your shop is amazing so you must be doing something right …’ I pause for a minute and then blurt it out anyway. ‘Other than the name. And what’s with the weird pricing?’
‘When people try to haggle, I can knock a six or twenty-six off and customers think they’ve got a bargain. It works better when it’s not a round number.’
‘Shrewd.’
He bows his head like it’s a compliment. ‘And what’s wrong with the name?’
‘Tinkles sounds like something you need the bathroom for.’
‘I hadn’t even thought of that. I was thinking of Tinker Bell, you know, fairies on top of Christmas trees and stuff like that …’
‘Well, other than that, it looks like a real winter wonderland – just like Nutcracker Lane used to be.’
‘I hear things are changing now …’
‘Yeah,’ I say sadly. He obviously got a letter this morning too.
‘Good. This place is old and tired. It’s long past time it was put out of its misery.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s long past time it was owned by someone who cares about it and thinks it’s worth saving and putting money back into rather than selling off everything that’s not nailed down and putting some miserly accountant in charge to squeeze every penny out of the budget. And this competition to be the most profitable shop is terrible. It pits us all against each other. It turns friends into enemies.’ I pick up a little nutcracker that had ricocheted off a plastic snowman and tried to hide under a shelf and point it at him. ‘You and me are officially rivals.’
‘Ah, but I don’t want anything to do with that. This is a one-off for me. I won’t be back next year, and this shop’ll only be here until the stock’s gone. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not the rival type. We might have to be friends instead.’
I know my face has gone red because there’s something so sweet about his innocent words. I’m trying not to smile, but there’s something about him that’s impossible not to smile at. ‘I don’t think I can get along with someone who hates Christmas as much as you do.’
He pushes his bottom lip out, pretending to pout, and I go back into the aisle where he’s still standing and go to give him the nutcracker back but he shakes his head. ‘Keep it. As a reminder of your Christmas-hating shop neighbour. You can put it on the counter and throw darts at it.’
They’re unusual little nutcrackers – bare wood from the bottom of their circular stand to the peak of their top hat, their only facial feature is the traditional wedge-shaped nose and opening mouth, and there’s no decoration whatsoever apart from a shock of furry white hair and a patch of white beard. ‘I could never throw darts at a nutcracker … but I’m absolutely fine with knocking them over and breaking their arms, obviously.’ I regret the words before I’ve finished the sentence. Well done, Nia: first you cause clumsy destruction in his shop, then you keep mentioning it just to keep the embarrassment nice and fresh.
He goes to say something, but I hold up the little nutcracker. ‘Thank you. I’ll hang him on my Christmas tree when I put it up.’
‘That reminds me – why are Christmas trees such bad knitters?’
‘What?’ I say in confusion because it sounds like the start of a bad Christmas joke.
‘Because they keep losing their needles!’
Oh, what do you know, it is a bad Christmas joke. ‘Did you seriously just pull a Christmas cracker joke on me?’
‘Did you seriously just use “pull” and “cracker” in the same sentence?’
My traitorous face goes red at the terrible pun. ‘That was unintentional.’
He raises an eyebrow and his mouth curves up into a smile at one side, and I literally can’t get the smile off my face. Every time I try to stop smiling, I smile more. Who is this guy? He seems serious and pained, and then he comes out with that? I could stand here and talk to him all day, but Stacey is still waiting for her cup of tea. ‘I’d better …’ I point at the door and back away towards it. ‘See you around, Grinch.’
‘See you around, Mrs Claus!’ he calls after me.
It’s probably the most perfect parting line ever, and he definitely thinks Mrs Claus is an insult, but even though he’s a Grinch, I probably won’t complain about seeing him around. Not with those eyes and that smile and the little hint of butterflies that are fluttering around inside me.
***
I must float back across the lane because I don’t realise I’ve got there until Stacey says, ‘There you are! I thought you’d taken a wrong turn and ended up in Narnia or something. I was about to send for a Search and Rescue team.’
It feels like I’ve been gone for hours, even though it’s only been about twenty minutes.
‘What happened? Did they let you have a payment plan?’
‘No, he—’
‘He!’ she squeals, frightening the two customers who are browsing at the back. ‘I knew I recognised that smile on your face! I haven’t seen that smile since you met Brad.’
The reminder of my
first boyfriend brings me back down to earth with a crash. ‘That’s a terrible comparison! I don’t want to be reminded of the guy who cheated on me and apparently kicked off a trend for every subsequent guy to end a relationship in the same way.’
‘Yeah, but he was the only guy you’ve ever been in love with. He was the only one who’s ever made you smile like that.’
‘I’m just happy because of the carol singers. Did you see them?’
She narrows her eyes at me, but maybe the reminder of Brad was a timely one. I spent most of my twenties living with him, the man I thought I’d end up marrying and having children with, only to walk past his parked car one night and discover him having sex with someone from his office in the back of it, and it set the trend for every subsequent relationship.
From then on, every time I’ve come close to letting someone in again, they do the same. Every relationship since then has ended with cheating or lying. There’s no point thinking about James’s eyes or warm smile. Men cannot be trusted. I learnt that much-repeated lesson yet again last night.
‘What’s this he like?’
‘Oh my God, Stace, he’s like a cross between every Disney prince you’ve ever had a crush on. He’s got the most unbelievable smile, and eyes like I’ve never seen before, and—’ I cut myself off when I realise I’m not following my own advice.
‘But you’re happy because of the carol singers, right?’ She crosses her arms over her chest.
‘It’s not about that.’ I give the customers a wary glance and step closer to the counter, beckoning her to lean over. ‘I think he might be an actual prince. You know the story of The Nutcracker? Where the nutcracker gets broken on Christmas Eve and the girl mends him and he grows to life-size and defeats the evil mouse king, and it turns out he was a prince all along, cursed to take the form of a nutcracker?’ I tell her about how I found James when I went into his shop.
‘And you don’t think it’s far more likely that he heard the crash of the nutcracker falling, saw it, moved it, and got down to find the missing gemstones?’
‘I was only back here for a couple of minutes. He wouldn’t have had time.’
‘You were back here for ages.’
‘It wasn’t that long … was it?’ I seem to have lost all track of time this morning. ‘And I wished for a nutcracker prince last night. I made a wish on the magical nutcracker for a prince just like him. And The Nutcracker score was playing in the shop. And James said he got knocked over, Stace. Knocked over. I knocked over the nutcracker. He even said “my arm breaker” when I went in.’
‘Poor guy was probably concussed from banging his head on the shelf.’ She shrugs. ‘I know you love Christmas, and nutcrackers, and the idea of Christmas magic, but I really don’t think it’s likely that he’s a wooden doll turned into a real live man …’
‘Well, when you put it like that …’ I trail off, realising just how mad I sound as a customer approaches the counter with a basket full of decorations and jewellery and Stacey goes to serve her.
All right, it’s a bit unlikely, and even I don’t really think James is a giant nutcracker come to life, but it can’t just be a coincidence, can it? Not with the wish last night as well, the green flecks in his blue shirt, saying he got knocked over and the same arm broken. It has to be a sign. It has to mean something.
‘It’s just … I don’t know … weird,’ I say to her when the customer has left after complimenting us both on the shop. I watch her go across the lane and into Tinkles and Trinkets, hoping she didn’t overhear any of our conversation to relay to the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. ‘Did you ever see a “Help Wanted” sign?’
‘No, but we’ve spent the last month hauling stock up that hill and using the back entrance by the tree lot …’
Hmm. Good point. I suppose it’s feasible that there was a sign up somewhere that we could’ve missed by shortcutting around the back. ‘But why would someone who hates Christmas voluntarily run a Christmas shop in a Christmas village? And since when are there vacancies here? You know how crazy the availability for these shops was. I had to register our interest at 12.01 a.m. on a January morning, submit an application by February along with our stock samples, and then we had to wait months while they assessed all applicants and chose the most suited ones. He makes it sound like he wandered past and they happened to have a spare shop. And if they did have a vacancy, why not go back to the original applications and offer it to the next best?’
‘I think you might be overthinking this …’
Once again, I’m annoyed by how well she knows me. What am I doing – looking for flaws in his story that might somehow prove he’s a wooden doll come to life? Trying to prove that you can’t take anything a man says at face value?
‘Do you know you haven’t stopped smiling since you got back in here? And even mentioning Brad hasn’t done it. Maybe this James guy is some kind of magical prince after all … It would definitely take magical powers to put a smile like that on your face.’
‘Nooo,’ I say quickly. ‘He’s exactly the type of person I hate, Stace. He hates Christmas and is keen to tell everyone how much he hates it at any opportunity. It’s fine if people don’t like this time of year, but they have no right to try to stop other people’s enjoyment of it.’
‘He’s selling Christmas decorations. And judging by that nutcracker you’re lovingly caressing, he’s giving them away too. It doesn’t sound like he’s trying to spoil anyone’s enjoyment of it. Is he single?’
‘I don’t know, but there’s no way. You haven’t seen him. Men who look like that aren’t single. And he was nice too – sweet, funny, engaging. No wedding ring, but his left arm is in a cast up to his thumb; he’d probably have taken it off.’
‘Or he could be a magical nutcracker come to life solely meant for you to fulfil your wish on another magical nutcracker … There seems to be an influx of magical nutcrackers around this place.’
‘Which, once upon a time, was what made it so popular.’ Thinking about Nutcracker Lane and its rapid decline is one thing guaranteed to get the smile off my face. ‘And I don’t actually think he’s a nutcracker, I just think there are a lot of coincidences.’
‘Like the universe is winking at you—’
I cut Stacey off with the old British excuse for everything. ‘Didn’t you say something about a cup of tea?’
I hurry off to the back room to make it with our little kettle, because I can’t think about things like that. James seemed lovely, and even though there was something about him, he’s just going to have to be lovely from a distance. Single or not is irrelevant. I’m nowhere near ready to trust another man, and after so many relationships ending in lies and cheating, I’m not sure I ever will be again.
Chapter 3
‘Well, that explains the spring in your step this morning,’ Stacey says as we both huddle at the window of our shop the next day, watching James across the way. ‘What is he doing?’
‘Taking my advice.’ He’s standing on a stool outside his shop, repainting the sign to read “Twinkles” instead of “Tinkles”. He’s already been out there a few times to paint over the original T to blank it out, and now he’s up there again with a much smaller brush, gliding a smooth outline to the new letters in gold paint. His left arm is still in a sling so he’s got the paint pot balancing on the outer ledge of the shop window and he keeps having to lean down to reach it and wobbling around precariously on the stool, and I’d be lying if I said my heart wasn’t in my throat. I don’t want to watch in case he slips, but I can’t tear my eyes away.
‘He’s going to break the other arm if he’s not careful,’ Stacey mutters.
‘He’s going to break his neck.’ I groan as he bends to reach the paint again. ‘Come on, James, get down from there,’ I say even though he can’t hear me. ‘I wish I hadn’t said anything about his shop name now.’
‘You’re very concerned about his wellbeing.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean it in that w
ay. I’m cheering him on. Y’know, woohoo, go on, break the other arm. Close your shop because you won’t have enough functional limbs to run it.’ I wave an imaginary pompom.
She laughs and shakes her blonde hair back. ‘I thought he wasn’t getting involved in the competition.’
‘Well, it’s easy to say that, but not everything in his shop is Nutcracker Lane stuff. He’s got rows and rows of cheap import decorations that the new owner wants shifted too. Everyone is competition now. That’s what’s so horrible. Even if he’s not back next year, the shop will be if it makes more money than us.’
‘Which it’s practically guaranteed to do. Look at the number of customers he’s got going in.’ She nods towards him as he clambers down off the stool and rushes inside to serve a woman standing at the counter with an armful of decorations. ‘So far this morning, we’ve only sold two necklaces and one of those make-your-own wooden gingerbread house kits you put together.’
‘That’s because you can see his shop from Scotland.’
‘Did he say what other job he does? Because he’s exceptionally good at retail. His shop looks magical, and ours looks like a glorified craft fair. We could use some tips.’
‘It’s not right that someone who’s that much of a Grinch can run a Christmas decoration shop and be so frustratingly good at it,’ I mutter.
The customer comes out the door carrying a bulging bag and James reappears behind her and gets back onto the stool, wobbling on the uneven paving stones. He’s wearing navy jeans and a plain black T-shirt today, but it’s way too cold for T-shirt weather, so it makes me wonder if he’s having trouble with his arm. He was clearly hurting yesterday, maybe it’s prohibitive to getting dressed easily too.
Thoughts of James getting dressed lead to thoughts of him undressed and I suddenly feel a lot warmer than I did just now. I snuggle tighter into my Christmas jumper, this one dark blue with a big fluffy snowman on it and glittered-thread snowflakes all around. ‘And that’s a good point too – what sort of office job lets him have the whole of December off to go and do a different job? That’s a bit strange, isn’t it?’
The Little Christmas Shop on Nutcracker Lane Page 5