by Jo Thomas
‘Well, yes. A couple of times.’
‘A couple?’
‘Yes, we met, got on. But they … well, they haven’t worked out.’ Then, more brightly, ‘But this time I’m sure you and I have everything that it takes.’
‘All the boxes ticked,’ I say sagely.
‘Exactly.’
Except one.
‘But actually, Connie, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Oh?’ I focus on his face in the here and now, not ten years down the road.
‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Planning, really.’ He looks up from the empty glass. ‘You say your boss is selling your business?’
‘Yes, but I can’t—’
‘And you don’t have the money to buy it?’
I nod.
‘Well, how about I move to the UK, buy the business and we run it together? I could tell my parents that we are pushing the cakes into the UK. Especially with Brexit, it might be a way to expand without all the complications that are going to go with it now. What do you say?’
He has it all worked out. This is everything I could have wanted. A man I know I can get along with, who is kind and thoughtful, and always on time. He is financially independent, successful even, and looks and smells lovely. He even knows which Haribo sweets are my favourite. And now he wants to move to the UK to be with me, and run a business with me that I really want to buy. If only I could forget the final question on the list.
‘Heinrich, that’s a really kind offer.’ But this proposal isn’t about love: it’s about business and a plan coming together. It’s also telling me he’s trying to stretch the ties between him and his parents. He’s looking for a way out.
‘How would your parents feel about you moving to the UK?’
‘Well, they would obviously take some time to get used to the idea, but I’m sure they’d come round when they saw the business sense in it.’
This is part of the reason Heinrich contacted me in the first place, looking for a UK girlfriend. It’s part of a long-term plan. It’s his escape route.
But he could be mine too, couldn’t he?
‘Heinrich, I could have bought the business. But I lost my money.’
‘You said. Careless!’ he tries to joke.
‘Someone stole it from me. Someone I thought I trusted. I met a man online, and believed everything he told me because I wanted it to be true. I wanted him to be my perfect match. But I was fooling myself into thinking he was who he said he was. I lent him all my money because I wanted to believe I had found love. I hadn’t. I never heard from him, or saw my money, again. The police said it happens all the time. That I shouldn’t blame myself. I believed I was an intelligent woman, but I wanted to believe in something that wasn’t there. I got it very wrong. But I think I’ve been fooling myself for a very long time.’
‘It’s okay.’ He reaches over. ‘We have both learned from the past and realize that this is the way forward. We have been cautious and, that way, we can’t lose. We won’t get hurt. We are made for each other. It is science.’
Or is it because we can’t get hurt if we don’t love each other? That’s the chance you take when you fall in love. It might really hurt. He is right. This is science. It’s the right way. I want to say yes, but on the other hand, I need to be sure I’m doing the right thing. I need to listen to the voice in my heart, just to be sure that my head is taking me down the right path. Right now, my head and my heart are shouting so loudly I can hardly hear myself think. Everything I’ve been looking for is sitting in front of me, my future on a plate. But my heart keeps repeating, ‘What about love? Will love grow?’
‘Heinrich,’ I say, looking down at the untouched water and champagne and take a deep breath, ‘I’m really sorry, but there’s somewhere I need to be right now.’
He frowns.
‘Something I really need to do, to put right.’ I stand up and grab my bag from beside me.
‘But I have made plans. I thought we would eat, then go on the ski slope. I have a late slot booked. Then, I thought, back to mine. It is your last night.’
He has it all worked out, perfectly.
‘And it sounds wonderful,’ I say. It does. ‘But I need to change the plans.’
‘Change the plans?’ He is aghast.
‘Yes, Heinrich. Sometimes in life things happen and we need to change the plans.’
‘But it’s all booked.’
‘Look, it’s the competition tomorrow. You said yourself it’s your Christmas wish to win. Ten years in a row.’
‘And for you and me to become official,’ he adds.
‘Yes. You go and get ready for tomorrow. I need time to think.’ If Heinrich wins tomorrow, because there is no other competitor, he wins by default, and the victory isn’t worth anything, is it? It just turned up, ticked the box. For it to be a competition, for it to mean something, you have to put your heart on the table. The cake has to be made with love. I can hear William’s words from our first email. Can a cake really make you happy if it’s been made without love?
I have tonight to work out if I want to be with Heinrich. I can’t mess him around. He’s a good man, and is offering me everything I want in life right now, isn’t he?
‘I just need to think about … everything,’ I say.
‘Take your time. I understand. Making a list, checking it twice,’ he jokes.
‘Exactly.’ I try to smile. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I say and grab my coat, feeling bad about him sitting there with the unopened champagne, but I have to do this. I have to put this right for everybody.
‘Tomorrow?’ He stands and kisses me gently. It’s nice. But no fireworks. I wish there were fireworks.
‘Yes. Tomorrow.’ I nod.
By tomorrow I need to decide whether I want to make my future with Heinrich, with a business I love, and a man I hope I could come to love. Tomorrow, we all have a chance to get what we want, but everyone has to have a fair chance. And I ruined William’s. I can’t leave feeling I did nothing. If Heinrich wins, it has to be because he won fair and square, not because I ruined someone else’s chance of a Christmas memory.
THIRTY-EIGHT
‘William!’ I’m standing in the snow outside the bakery under the orange glow of the streetlamp, snowflakes falling heavier, like feathers from the sky, tickling my face. The shop is dark and closed. So different from when I first saw it just a few days ago.
‘William!’ I push open the door, but everything is dark. There’s no smell from the ovens. The shelves are bare. Not even Fritz is there to greet me. There is still a dusting of icing sugar over everything. I run my fingers along the wooden counter, making a line in the whiteness. My notebook is there, open at Heinrich’s page. I brush off the icing sugar and see the ticks. I think about the effort he’s put in to making this an amazing first few dates, an incredible Christmas memory. One I will never forget as I grow old.
I walk slowly into the back room where the fallen Christmas installation is, still in smashed pieces on the floor. I look around, for some kind of hope, I suppose. I pick up one of the penguins, still in one piece, but it cracks and crumbles in my hand. There must be a way of saving this, surely. I look down at the remnants.
‘All the right ingredients,’ I say sadly.
‘But not the right timing,’ a deep, gravelly voice says behind me.
I swing round to see William standing there. He looks like he hasn’t slept in ages.
‘Hi,’ I say, waiting for him to be furious with me and tell me to leave.
‘Hi,’ he replies, stepping into the room, looking at the chaos that was clearly once a well-thought-out masterpiece. He paces around the room, passing the debris that was once his dreams and is now a crumbled mess on the floor.
‘It was supposed to highlight how our actions and choices are destroying our world …’ He trails off, with a half-hearted ironic laugh. His head drops and I can feel his despair. I reach out and hug him. I have no idea
why, but I need to share the pain he’s feeling. At first he doesn’t move – he doesn’t do anything. Then slowly he puts his arms around me, instinctively, and hugs me back, his face buried in my hair and mine in the crook of his neck, sharing his pain and mine for what I finally feel I’ve found and have been looking for all this time on a computer screen. Something that can’t be found between the lines of a typed conversation or the pages of a recipe book, or a series of lists … a feeling of belonging. A feeling of freedom. And of loss, knowing I may never feel this again. Finally, we pull away from each other and I realize tears are rolling down our cheeks.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my throat tight with what feels like desire. ‘I … I need to tell you—’
He cuts me off. ‘It’s okay. Maeve told me what happened, when I took her on the ice rink.’
‘She did?’ I say, surprised, and we finally break away from our impromptu embrace. ‘What did she say?’
‘She said that Noah had come here when I went to meet his mother. When I was late!’ He runs his fingers through his dark hair, as if he’s trying to get his thoughts under control too.
‘That was my fault,’ I say.
‘No,’ he says firmly. ‘I should have kept an eye on the time. It’s always been my problem. Baking, well, it just gets under your skin and everything else just comes after it. I get lost in my world. My wife, my ex, whatever,’ he waves a hand around, clearly confused, ‘she was right. I’ve always put baking first. And what have I got to show for it? A son who hates me, a wife who left me, and I barely noticed, just carried on as normal.’
‘Baking is a good place to be when life leaves you feeling alone,’ I say, my throat still tight with unspoken emotion, thinking about the times I’d baked after Tom, and then Sam, left home. It was the glue that held me together, connecting me to the past and who I used to be when I was younger, the dreams I’d had for life when I baked with my grandmother. Baking reminded me of who I was, connecting with me, even if I did end up delivering my cakes to the residents at the retirement flats. And it was Pearl and the others who brought me here. Pearl brought me to meet Heinrich. But right now it’s not Heinrich I’m thinking about. It’s me, who I am, how I’m feeling right now, and William, the town and the competition tomorrow, with a desire and a drive I haven’t felt since I was a teenager. And whatever I might feel for Heinrich, however much I know he is a good man, and would do everything to make my life with him a good one, I know I have to make this competition fair.
‘Look, about the competition …’ I start.
He shakes his head. ‘It’s over. It’s all over. I put everything I had into it this year. Borrowed against the business to get the ice rink in. I thought this year … I thought I’d done it. But it’s time I admitted defeat. I can’t win tomorrow now.’ He walks back into the shop, behind the counter and rests his head in his hands, among the icing sugar. I follow him and stand beside him. I don’t know what to say. I can’t put how I’m feeling into words. He lifts his head. ‘I will have to sell to Heinrich. It’s time.’
I catch my breath. ‘How is your father?’ I ask suddenly.
‘Upset.’
And I can’t help but feel responsible still. If I hadn’t tried to get his son to stay … But maybe I need to realize you only see what you want to see. I think about my first love. I was in love with the fantasy of being in love. I can barely remember what he looked like, other than his blond hair and that he was tall. Anyone who came afterwards, I tried to match up to this vision of my ideal man. But he didn’t exist. I’d created an idea of a man I loved. But what if he’d loved me the way I wanted to be, and me him? No tick boxes. Just accepting each other for our differences, not our similarities. You can’t choose who you fall in love with, I think. You can’t invent a recipe for the perfect man and hope it will turn out right. He has to make you feel a certain way. He has to leave you thinking about him, wanting more …
Is that what I’m feeling now? Sometimes you have to follow your instincts. I step forward to William, take his face in my hands and lift it. He takes my face in his hands and looks at me with his deep, dark chocolate eyes, and I want to kiss him and keep kissing him, tasting this recipe: the one that doesn’t have the right ingredients, that shouldn’t work well together, but somehow you know is going to be amazing. And I suddenly feel a sense of freedom. To be me. Not tied to lists. Like I’m making the gingerbread my grandmother made, from memory, for the joy of it.
He drops his hands and turns away abruptly. My emotions are spinning and I’m desperate to be in his arms.
‘Thank you for coming, but there’s really nothing you can do now,’ says William, standing with his back from me. ‘Go to Heinrich. He’ll be wanting to see you, I’m sure.’
He’s right. There’s nothing here that can be rebuilt. Heinrich is going to win tomorrow and buy the shop. I take a final look around. ‘Are you sure I can’t help clear up the mess?’ I croak, as I finally realize that everything I’ve ever wanted and been looking for is right in front of me.
‘Maybe I’ll leave that for Heinrich when he buys the shop.’ He gives another ironic laugh.
Heinrich buying the shop. Heinrich doesn’t love the shop. It has all the right ingredients to sell his cakes but not the love that William puts into his. Real love. That’s what our Christmas memories are about, remembering love, feeling loved. Not how big a present you can buy or receive. It’s about remembering the ones we love, how we felt when we felt loved. Tom didn’t love me. I let the words sit in my brain. My son, my grandmother, those Christmases cooking together: even when we didn’t have money for big presents, that felt like love.
I walk towards the shop door. I grasp the brass handle and the bell tinkles. I look in the window, which is empty, except for the little gingerbread house. Its bright light has all but gone out, just a tiny flicker from the tealight, still trying to burn.
‘I’ve got it!’ I shout, and spin round to a surprised William. Fritz barks as if he’s heard me. And suddenly I’m beaming. ‘Get your father! Meet me back here as soon as you can. And turn the ovens on.’ I beam.
‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘Christmas! That’s what I’m talking about. And your Christmas wish! Meet me back here!’
THIRTY-NINE
I’m heading back to the shop, through the snowy square, barely half an hour later. There are a few families on the ice. Leaning on the barrier, watching them, is a small lone figure I recognize straight away. I stop and stare. All kinds of emotions fly around my head and my heart. Anger, sadness, empathy, loneliness … I take a deep breath and, instead of heading straight back to the shop, change direction and walk towards the lone figure, who looks as if life has forgotten him while everyone else enjoys the Christmas fun. Much like Pearl, Maeve, the others and myself before we got here, until we remembered the memories and the ones we loved and who loved us.
‘Hey,’ I say, leaning on the railing next to him.
He turns, startled, and glances around to see if I’m with anyone. He might be about to run.
‘Don’t worry, I’m on my own,’ I say, looking at the skaters, not at him. I remember that if I had to talk to Sam about something it was best done when I was in the car, driving, not making eye contact. ‘Looks like you’re feeling that too.’
I take another deep breath and wonder if anything I’ve got to say can make any difference. So far, all I seem to have done is create more trouble and mess for William. But one thing I am sure about is how much William loves his son, like I love Sam. No matter what happens in life, we never desert the ones we love. That’s what love means: no matter where you are, how far apart, the memories are always there if you look carefully enough.
I’m at the front door of the bakery. The ovens are on. But nothing else is. I turn on the lights, pick up a cloth and start wiping down the surfaces.
William appears from the back room, holding two cups of hot chocolate and hands me one. I breathe it in, and detect a sp
lash of Asbach. The scent of it will be imprinted on my memory for ever, like a photograph I can enjoy when I want to remind myself of being here.
‘What’s this all about?’ He half smiles. He’s clearly intrigued and possibly a little amused. ‘I thought you’d be spending your last night here with Heinrich. I’m surprised he hasn’t proposed yet.’
I raise my eyebrows, sipping the hot chocolate and wiping down the surfaces with my free hand.
‘Ah!’ William nods, as if maybe he’s seen this happen before. ‘Looks like everything’s going his way.’
‘He hasn’t,’ I say quickly.
‘Yet,’ he adds, looking at me with those dark eyes.
‘Look, about the competition.’ I change the subject quickly. ‘We don’t have much time.’
‘There’s nothing to be done. Really, I appreciate your concern, but—’
I cut him off. ‘Remember? Your Christmas memory? Your wish?’
‘Yes,’ he says slowly.
‘You said you’d want things back the way they were. And when I asked you who you’d have at your Christmas dinner table, you said the ones you love. You said, one last Christmas with your mum.’
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘Then that’s what we’re going to do.’
He frowns.
‘What?’
‘Give you a Christmas with your mum.’
He frowns deeper and I can’t help thinking how attractive he looks, as the half-smile widens. Something inside me flips over and back again.
‘We’re going to do Christmas here in the Old Town. The bakery. Your house upstairs. Your Christmas dinner table and the market in the square, outside, just like it was, with the ice rink for skating on Christmas Day with family and friends.’
He laughs. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, we’re going to make a gingerbread town!’
‘Just like that? You and me, in one night? It’s a lovely idea but it will never happen.’ He looks at me and my stomach flips. I feel tingles of excitement, like Christmas-tree lights going on, right down to my knees. ‘We’d never get it done, I’m afraid.’ He shakes his head and his dark curls bounce.