Page 29 of It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know if I should say anything, but I’m Dawn, Gemma’s mum – she was in your class at school?’
Oh God, bumping into Tom Brinton like that had completely distracted me from my plan to avoid this kind of encounter and resulting conversation.
I swallowed and smiled blandly as she continued to talk, most of her words not registering. ‘And how are your parents? We still miss them at Supper Club! Completely understandable, of course.’
‘Ah, the Supper Club’s still running?’
‘Oh yes, but we had to relocate it to The Star after they turned the village hall into flats.’
How tragic. My parents had had their first snog in that village hall, as Dad had once told us after a few too many limoncellos one Majorcan holiday.
‘Well, here’s your receipt, sweetheart. Do pass them my love, won’t you?’
‘Of course. Thanks, Dawn. And say hi to Gemma from me.’
I pushed my trolley towards the exit, gripping the handle extra-tight to try and stop my hands from trembling. The news that I’d returned would now fly around the WhatsApp groups of Scarnbrook, I was sure of it. There was no hiding now.
I was still shaking as I pulled up to the pump in the supermarket’s own-brand petrol station. As the fuel flowed into the vehicle, I tried to regulate my breath, inhaling the flammable yet soothing fumes as I did so.
The sudden judder of the nozzle jolted me back to the present. I paid at the pump and settled back into the driver’s seat, relieved that the supermarket ordeal was finally over.
As I was about to put my key in the ignition, there was a sudden hammering on my window. It was Tom Brinton. And he was shouting, frantically.
Chapter 8
?Car drama
‘STOP! DON’T START THE ENGINE!’ Tom Brinton screamed, his delicateeyebrows contorted in panic.
What-in-the-forecourt-flip was happening? I froze and slowly moved my hands away from the steering wheel, the keys dangling from my right thumb.
Tom made a gesture for me to lower the window. Which, of course, I couldn’t do without my keys in the ignition, so I opened the car door a couple of inches instead and angled my head in the general direction of the gap.
‘Umm, hello?’
‘Hey, oh God, I’m so sorry for acting like a lunatic here, but I promise you this will all make sense. Eventually. It’s Amelia, right? You might not remember me but we were in the same year together at school. I’m Tom – Tom Brinton?’
‘Oh yeah – Tom – of course. I knew you looked familiar at the checkout.’Just give me the Best Actress Oscar now. I was acutely conscious that not only was this the first time I’d ever spoken Tom Brinton’s name to his face rather than round and round in my head, but it was also the only time I’d not followed ‘Tom’ up with ‘Brinton’. To me, Tom Brinton had reached household-name brand status, like Sugar Puffs or Cillit Bang.
‘Okay, so please don’t turn the engine on. I realise this whole scenario is, well, ridiculous on many levels, but I’ve got a bad feeling you might’ve just put petrol in your diesel car.’
‘Diesel car? I… oh… fuck!’
This was so bloody typical of me.Stupid, idiotic Mally.The first time I’d ever done something even vaguely rebellious when it came to my parents and I’d flung myself into a steaming pile of manure at the very first hurdle. I remembered getting detailed, typed-out instructions from Dad the first time I’d borrowed his car, which had said something along the lines of:NEVER fill it with unleaded fuel by mistake. This will COMPLETELY ruin the engine. You have been warned!
‘Huh, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before,’ Tom said.
‘Huh’ indeed. Because it was true – I don’t think Ihadever uttered a swear word back at school. I added ‘phenomenal memory for useless information’ to my mental list of Tom Brinton’s qualities. A list that, come to think of it, had probably once existed in top-secret physical form back in my school days.
‘I guess that’s what a decade and a half in London does to you,’ I replied.
‘The corrupting capital.’
Did he just…? Yes. He’d winked at me. I felt my insides threaten to melt into a puddle of serotonin. There was no doubt that my outsides were blushing furiously. And, by the looks of his be-dimpled face as he examined the ground between us, he’d clocked as much.
‘Anyway… um, yeah, as you probably know, petrol doesn’t tend to make diesel cars very happy. I noticed you filling up while I was sorting out my tyre pressure…’
He gestured towards a gleaming vehicle in the corner of the forecourt.
