It’s just a platonic thing anyway. I mean, apart from the odd comment about how lovely I’m looking, Jasper’s certainly never given off any vibes that he’d like me to be more than a friend.
We end up in a little country pub, sitting beside the most glorious log fire drinking cider and telling each other snippets about our lives.
It’s all so lovely and relaxed. At one point, I tell him that a tall blonde by the bar definitely has her eye on him. He looks across at her, astonished, and it’s obvious he didn’t have a clue. His innocence only makes me warm to him even more. (That and the second glass of cider I’m half-way down.)
Apparently Jasper’s single, having split from a long-term girlfriend a year ago. I gaze at him affectionately, through a cider haze, as he searches his jeans pockets two or three times for his car keys, eventually remembering they’re in his jacket over the back of the chair.
I can’t help wondering if he’s on the look-out for romance.
When we get back to our building, we carry on chatting a while and he keeps the engine running to power the heating.
‘So who is this music producer? And what does he want to – erm – produce?’
‘Mike Newsham? He’s fairly well known on the London circuit. I sent him a demo disk a few months ago and I guess he’s just got round to listening to it.’
‘But that’s fabulous!’ I gasp. ‘Aren’t you excited?’
‘Yeah, I am, actually.’ He sounds almost surprised. ‘We musicians are always looking for our big break.’
‘And this could be it.’
His teeth are pearly white in the dim light. ‘Maybe.’
‘I’d be jumping up and down with excitement if it were me.’
He laughs softly. ‘And so will I be if it happens. But you know what, if it doesn’t, I’ve got a brilliant life anyway.’
He reaches across. ‘Here, let me.’ I’m struggling with the seatbelt. He unclips it and takes my hand. ‘Thanks, Lola. For tonight. You’re a really special girl.’
His eyes are deep, dark pools in the moonlight, his face only inches from mine. I glance away shyly and his lips brush my cheek.
‘Uh-oh, we’ve got an audience.’ He moves back to his side.
I look over at the window just in time to see Barb drop the curtain.
We part at my door and Jasper legs it up the stairs.
‘Thanks again, Lola. See you soon,’ he calls down.
The minute I’m through the door, Barb shouts, ‘Oh, yes?’
‘What?’ I demand, going through to find her lounging on the sofa with a bag of Kettle Chips.
‘Jas and Lola sitting in a tree…’ She starts singing at full volume, waving a crisp about, and I have to throw a cushion to shut her up.
She gives me one of her intense looks. ‘Remember you’d be on the rebound, though. Don’t go leaping into something new without thinking about it, okay?’
‘I’m not leaping into anything,’ I say airily.
‘Well, I hope not.’ She bites her lip. ‘Lola, I’m serious. I don’t want to see you hurt again.’
‘I won’t be,’ I call, heading for my room.
I hang up my coat then examine myself in the mirror.
My eyes are sparkly. My complexion looks rosy and healthy. Is it because helping with the choir is making me feel useful for the first time in ages?
Or is it the Jasper effect?
Was that brush of the lips meant to land on my cheek?
Or did I turn away right at the critical moment?
‘Got something to show you!’ yells Barb.
She’s in her room and when I walk in, my mouth falls open with amazement.
The weird ‘solar system’ of a few nights ago has undergone a miraculous transformation. Barb has painted the globes a shimmering holly green and berry red, and hung them on an arrangement of silver-painted branches in a pot in the corner of the room.
I wander over to take a closer look.
Fairy lights have been wound around the branches to brilliant effect, picking out the gleam and lustre of the delicate globes.
‘Gorgeous,’ I breathe.
‘Lovely, aren’t they?’
‘If we made some smaller ones, they’d look fantastic as Christmas tree baubles with the lights behind them.’
Barb grins. ‘Well, all we need is string, glue and spray paint.’
‘You’ll have to help me.’
‘I will.’
‘At the weekend?’
‘You’ve got a date.’ She groans. ‘Christ, we know how to live. I sometimes wonder how we stand the excitement.’
We spend Saturday afternoon experimenting with baubles of all different sizes.
And on Sunday morning, when I wander through to the living room, cereal bowl in hand, I whoop with laughter at the eerie sight.
The baubles are all in the drying out stage, dangling from strings stuck to the ceiling. We had a hilarious time getting them up there. I’d been trying out a recipe for chocolate vodka, which naturally we had to keep sampling to get it just right, and I seem to remember Barb slipping off the sofa she was balancing on at one point and landing in the sour cream and onion dip.
It’s my interview at the garden centre this morning and Barb gives me a lift along there.
The place opens at ten and Sally, the woman I spoke to on the phone, said to ‘pop in’ at 9.30-ish for a chat. She made it sound quite informal – like maybe fleece and trainers might be the order of the day – but I’m not taking any risks. There’s a great deal riding on this job. So I’m all kitted out in my serious black interview suit, crisp white shirt and patent heels, with my corkscrew curls smoothed into an elegant up-do.
Sally, who turns out to be the manager, is as jolly and friendly in person as she was on the phone. She looks in her forties with an ample figure and glossy brown hair.
‘Am I glad to see you!’ She smiles, as we shake hands. ‘We’re always rushed off our feet at Christmas. I only hope you don’t feel like we’re pushing you in at the deep end.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t mind. Bring it on!’
She laughs. ‘You sound like you relish hard work.’
‘Oh, I do.’ I beam in what I hope is an enthusiastic and intelligent sort of way.
‘Enjoy gardening?’ she asks.
A vision flashes before me of the horticultural wasteland that passes for a garden at Rustic Place.
Wilderness at the back. Completely cemented over at the front.
‘Absolutely love it,’ I say firmly.
Sally smiles encouragingly, as if she’d like me to expand.
‘Gardening, yes, nothing to beat it,’ I bluster on. ‘Butterflies flitting from flower to flower. Fresh air. And all that, erm, digging in the ground – I mean, earth.’
It’s not entirely a fib.
I do like the sound of gardening. And I’m absolutely certain it’s something I’ll get round to when I’m about sixty.
‘Brilliant!’ Sally looks impressed. ‘Customers are always asking for advice. You know, perennials and biannuals, deciduous and coniferous, those sorts of things.’
I’m nodding away sagely, with the wisdom of Alan Titchmarsh himself.
Truth is, I can barely tell the difference between a daisy and a dandelion.
‘So it looks as though you’ll be able to answer most of their questions,’ she says cheerfully, beckoning me over to the till area in the far corner of the shop.
I bite my lip and follow.
‘So you were made redundant from your last job?’ she asks, settling herself at a seat behind one of the tills.
‘Yes, it came quite out of the blue.’
‘How terrible.’
‘Yes, it was a really bad time.’ I swallow hard, thinking back to that awful day, and my face must have dropped because Sally says, ‘Oh, dear. It must have been.’
Her brow is furrowed with concern and, for an instant, I almost forget I’m at an interview. She’s so warm. Like a favourit
e aunt.
‘It was a bad day in general. Man trouble as well,’ I explain. ‘But I want to turn my life around and this—’ I gesture at my surroundings ‘—would be the perfect challenge.’
Sally pats my arm. ‘Excellent. Well, let’s get you introduced to the till. We can sort out all the paperwork later.’
I stare at her in astonishment.
Does she mean the job is mine?
She gets up and drags over another chair on casters. ‘Welcome aboard,’ she says cheerfully.
Right.
So a formal interview is obviously not necessary.
I am officially a Sunflower Garden Centre employee!
Sally fetches me a dark green tabard to wear and says she’ll sort out a staff name badge for me. Then she gives me a rundown on till procedure. At first, I’m wishing she’d let me take notes because I’m pretty rubbish at anything technical like this – especially if it’s new and strange.
But I surprise myself by fairly quickly getting the hang of it.
Another assistant, a girl called Holly, is brought over to sit by me for the day to make sure I’m doing everything correctly. Holly is quietly efficient and also incredibly patient for someone who looks like she’s still in her teens. She tells me everyone finds it bewildering at first. And to my relief, she doesn’t make me feel like a complete knob head when I occasionally get it wrong.
At twelve-thirty, Sally comes over and introduces a girl with long, dark hair and a sweet smile called Charlotte and suggests I go for my break with her. So we take our packed lunch into the little staff room and, while I eat my ham sandwiches, Charlotte starts picking at a tub of salad which seems to consist largely of lettuce, grated carrot and cucumber.
‘I’ve got a wedding dress fitting in a week.’ She smiles, revealing a cute dimple in each cheek. ‘I’m trying to stay off the carbs.’
‘Oh, congratulations. When’s the big day?’
‘Well.’ She smiles whimsically as if to say, thereby hangs a tale. ‘We originally wanted the week before Christmas. I’ve always thought a wedding then would be so romantic. But it turned out Brian – that’s my fiancé – couldn’t get that week off, so then we thought we’d have to go for earlier in December.’
‘Gosh, so it’s very soon—’
‘Well, no, you see Brian then managed to swap his week with a friend at work, which meant we could do the week before Christmas after all, which was great. Except I had a horrible feeling it might clash with my Auntie Florrie’s appointment to get her varicose veins done. But then the hospital postponed the appointment until February, so it all worked out really well in the end.’
She says all this without apparently taking a single breath and without once breaking intense eye contact.
‘Gosh, lovely. A December wedding.’
Charlotte nods dreamily. ‘I know. It’s a dream come true. But the dress. Now, that was tricky.’
‘Oh? How so?’
‘Well.’ That smile again. ‘I thought to myself, now what do you wear for a winter wedding? Do you go for traditional silk or satin, or do you go for a complete departure and plump for something like velvet, bearing in mind churches can be so draughty in the middle of winter. Mum favoured this lovely dress with the most exquisite broderie anglaise but to be honest, I wasn’t keen, although when I tried it on, I have to admit it looked nice. But then I thought, why not go for something a little bit different. After all, you only get married once.’
She draws a huge breath and talks on about the merits of this and that and after a full five minutes, I’m still no nearer finding out what her wedding dress meanderings actually led her to.
I’m finding the intense eye contact a little wearing. She’s watching my reaction to every little twist and turn in her tale (there are plenty), which means I’m having to arrange my face into such a variety of expressions, anyone looking on probably thinks I’m suffering from some strange compulsive face-twitching condition.
I finally manage to divert her to a different topic – but not before she’s given me the complete low-down on the obstacles she encountered choosing the flowers. (I am now familiar with every florist in Pottersdale and the surrounding area and could probably, if called upon to do so, list the entire stock of each one, plus the astrological birth sign of the manager.)
Charlotte is lovely and clearly very excited about marrying Brian, who appears to be nothing short of Mr Wonderful. He brings her tea in bed every morning and he chose the engagement ring himself (a stunning heart-shaped diamond). He’s also booked a surprise honeymoon, which, bearing in mind he whisked her off to Bora Bora to propose, is unlikely to be a week in the Costa del Sol.
I’m really happy for her, although I’m relieved when she offers to show me round the garden centre because all that intense eye contact has given me a headache.
The garden centre is deceptively large. It even has a Santa’s Grotto, tucked away in the corner of the main gift shop, although Santa appears to be on his lunch break. (A large felt board with stick-on letters proclaims Santa is away feeding his reindeer.)
Charlotte takes me back to Holly, who gives me some painkillers for my headache and asks, with an ironic smile, if Charlotte happened to mention she was getting married.
By the end of the day, I know where to find the bar codes on all the cards, snow globes and glittery ornaments I’m ringing through the till.
‘No one would know you just started today,’ says Holly. ‘Ooh, look, here’s Santa. He comes into the shop sometimes to chat to the kids.’
‘Well, hello, Father Christmas,’ calls Sally.
Santa holds up his hands in greeting. ‘Good afternoon, everyone!’ His voice is a deep rumble. He’s wearing big black boots and a really rather splendid suit and hat made of red velvet with snowy white edging.
Sally hurries over. ‘I’ve got something to tell you, Father Christmas.’
Santa smoothes his whiskers, dips his flowing beard and growls, ‘Really? And what’s that, then, madam?’
Sally smiles. ‘Well. Just to let you know, I’ve been a very good girl this year!’
‘Ho, ho, ho!’ Santa rubs his belly. ‘Very pleased to hear it.’
A boy of about five is staring up at his hero with an expression of astonished wonderment. Santa goes over and crouches down. ‘Been a good boy for your mum, then?’
The boy, struck dumb for a starry second, quickly finds his voice. ‘Yes. Haven’t I, Mum?’
Mum smiles. ‘Well, most of the time. This is Ryan, by the way, Santa.’
‘Excellent,’ Santa rumbles. ‘In that case, Ryan, I’ll be sure to climb down your chimney on Christmas Eve.’
The boy glances in horror at his mum. ‘But we haven’t got one—’
‘No chimney? Not a problem,’ says Santa with a wink. ‘I’ll magic myself in through the window. Would that be okay?’
Ryan nods, looking mightily relieved.
Sally comes over to me and says, ‘Isn’t our Father Christmas fantastic? He’s in his seventies now but he says he wants to be Santa as long as he can. Until the elves bury him at the North Pole!’
Chapter Thirteen
It’s Friday night and Barb is slightly the worse for wear, having had a sudden urge to revisit her teenage drinking preferences following a sentimental ‘remember when?’ discussion at work.
She’d poured me an infamous Cherry B and cider earlier.
‘Affectionately known as a “Leg Over”,’ she’d said, handing me the glass with a fond smile. ‘Used to drink nothing else.’
I’d taken one sip, almost gagged on the cloying mixture and returned immediately to the wine. And the problem I was trying to solve.
‘So what shall I do, Barb? About the garden centre?’
The Sunflower Garden Centre is four miles from Scarsby, surrounded by fields. There are no buses on a Sunday and as Barb will be away visiting her parents this weekend, I don’t know how I’m going to get there.
‘Taxi?’ slurs Barb.
‘Too expensive.’
‘Ask Jasper for a lift.’
‘No way!’ I frown at her and she shrugs expansively, sloshing Cherry B and cider on the (thankfully) brown carpet.
‘Hang on a minute.’ I slap my thigh. ‘Transport problem solved.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’ve got my bike!’
I look at Barb and, for some reason, we both burst out laughing.
Barb follows me, still snorting, to the communal shed in the back garden. It’s filled with lots of gardening implements and odd bits of wood designed to trip you over in the semi-dark. But at the back, in all its gleaming, second-hand glory, is my ladies’ racer bike.
I’d bought it on eBay back in the days when I’d assumed my rides with Nathan would be on a long-term basis. So to speak.
‘Here, let me have a go,’ says Barb, pushing me out of the way.
She wheels the bike round the side of the building and onto the pavement, and has several abortive attempts at swinging her foot over the saddle.
‘It’s the Night of the Leg Over,’ she shouts, turning to grin at me and nearly falling over.
‘Careful,’ I giggle, grabbing her arm to steady her. ‘Look, I really don’t think you should be—’
‘Ah, rubbish! Where’sh your shenshe of advenshure?’
She finally manages to mount the thing and sets off, veering very slowly from side to side along the pavement. She’s concentrating so hard, she doesn’t notice someone walking towards her.
‘Careful,’ I yell, as the man is forced to quickly side-step, the bottles in his carrier bag clanking.
‘Yeah, watch out, hooligan,’ he shouts.
‘Sorry.’ Another hairy wobble.
‘Should bloody think so. It’s illegal to ride a bike on the pavement, you know.’
‘You’re lucky,’ calls Barb, only just managing to manoeuvre around a lamppost.
‘Lucky?’ splutters the man, walking off.
‘Yeah.’ Barb turns with a big grin. ‘I normally drive a bus.’
She looks at me and we burst into hysterical laughter.
When it’s my turn to try out the bike, I’m slightly more confident because of my recent practice with Nathan and because I haven’t been on the lethal Leg-Overs.
Mistletoe and Mayhem Page 12