Page 16 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
“Get Pete to warm you up!” said Laura.
“That won’t be happening again,” said Kate.
“Couldn’t you just give him a snog to pass the time?”
“Laura!”
“What?” said Laura. “Warble out a couple of Bonnie Tyler numbers, play a bit of tonsil hockey with Pete, and then get an early night.”
Kate left the karaoke bar after a spectacular rendition of “Proud Mary” and managed not to snog Pete, although he seemed to be underneath mistletoe every time she saw him.
The taxi pulled up outside Josie’s building and even from the ground Kate could see the orange flickering glow of candlelight at Josie’s windows.
Josie was the first proper friend Kate had made in London, when she’d come back from traveling. Kate had found a job in a little greasy-spoon café in Camden, the wages from which just covered the rent on the tiny studio apartment above it.
Kate had earned her living making mugs of tea and cooking fry-ups and spent her evenings upstairs, working on her linocut designs. She bought packs of plain fabric tote bags at wholesale and printed her designs onto them.
Kate got to know the regular customers at the café, in particular Josie. Josie had a stall in the market, where she sold Indian print scarves, tie-dye skirts, and velvet jackets and smelled permanently of smoky incense.
Josie had offered to sell some of Kate’s tote bags in her stall. They sold well and, soon, with Josie’s encouragement, Kate began to paint her designs directly onto fabric: patterns and colors inspired by her travels, on silk scarves and squares mounted onto stiff card for greeting cards, to be sold alongside her bags.
As with so many things in life, coincidence played its hand, in the form of a Liberty buyer wandering through Camden Market on the hunt for a lunchtime burrito, who happened across Josie’s stall and was instantly struck by Kate’s designs. It was the start of her beloved career and a lifetime love affair with Liberty.
The sweet scent of smoky incense wafted up through the communal hall and then rolled over Kate like a sea fog of yellow scent when Josie greeted her at the door, wearing a tie-dye caftan.
“Happy winter solstice season!” said Josie. “You’re just in time to help with the tree.”
Kate was dragged into the small flat, handed a mug of organic mulled cider, and set to work.
Josie’s Christmas tree was made from a series of long twigs fastened horizontally to a tall, gnarled branch that rose up out of a large clay pot. There was a wicker basket on the floor filled with small scraps of fabric, which Josie and Kate painstakingly tied to the tree until the branches fluttered with multicolored scraps, like a kaleidoscope of butterflies.
“Maybe you’re not cut out to stay with one man,” said Josie. “You’re a free spirit! Embrace it!”
“Ihaveembraced it,” said Kate. “Now I’d like to embrace a lasting relationship.”
“Come back to London,” said Josie. “I could introduce you to the new Camden crowd. I’ll bet I could have you hooked up in a heartbeat.”
“Someone recently told mea bigger pool doesn’t mean a better swim,” said Kate.
“Was he the one who cried all through your date until you got him back with his ex?” asked Josie.
“That’s not the point,” said Kate.
“Come back to London,” said Josie. “This is where it all happens.”
“You ought to come to Blexford,” said Kate. “You’d be surprised at how much happens there.”
“Oh dear,” said Josie, taking a long drag on her cigarette “It’s happened just as I feared. You’ve gone back to being a country mouse.”
Kate shared the spare room in Josie’s flat with her stock for the Christmas rush; boxes of scented soy candles and chunky knit rainbow scarves and hats jockeyed for space with carved wooden elephants, velvet jackets, and the small single bed where Kate slept under a patchwork eiderdown.
Josie left with a cheery wave a little after five a.m. She liked to have her stall open early to catch opportunist Christmas shoppers on their morning commute. Kate left soon after, her clothes and hair infused with the scent of patchouli and her head muggy from too much organic cider.
Kate had to admit there was a certain magic to the early-morning city bustle: the roar of cars and buses and the air electrified with the sheer determination of human energy. But as the train left Londonbehind and the landscape became studded once more with shivering forests and a miscellany of dark green and brown scrubby fields, Kate knew Josie was right: she was no longer a city mouse.
Blexford was still mostly functioning behind closed curtains when Kate arrived back in the village, hot beneath her layers from the walk up the hill. She saw Matt getting the café ready for opening and banged on the window, pressing her face against the cold glass in a variety of unflattering expressions until he let her in.
“You smell like a fire in a perfume factory,” said Matt.
