Page 31 of Christmas Ever After
‘Funnily enough, watching you work on the nutcrackers has reminded me of how much I joy I used to find in it and how muchthat’sgone away in recent months.’
He lets out a snort of solidarity and rolls his head towards me, his dark hair flopping forwards and giving me an unexpected urge to tuck it back. ‘Well, don’t we make a fine pair of Grinches?’
I laugh, even though I never thought I’d have enough in common with Raff Dardenne to be a pair of anything. ‘Thanks for tonight. For inviting me – and for doing the left-handed thing. You didn’t have to do that.’
‘It was a bit of fun. I didn’t mind.’
‘Yeah, but you did it solely to make me less self-conscious and that was really thoughtful. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Why does he make me smile so much? His head is leaning sideways against the headrest and his answering smile is Disney-prince-like and so wide that it looks like he’s got too many teeth to fit in his mouth, and I know he knows he’s winning me over, and I can’t find it in myself to care.
‘Your family are amazing. You have no idea how lucky you are.’
‘Oh, I do, even when I don’t, if that makes sense?’ He waits for me to meet his eyes and when I do, he scrunches his nose up to make me smile.
Everything is dark outside and the only light is the tiny one in the car roof and we sit there in comfortable silence for an abnormal amount of time, until I force myself to stretch and say goodnight.
‘Hold that thought.’ He jumps out of the car and jogs around to my side, where he pulls the passenger door open and holds his arm out, giving me something to hold onto while I lever myself out of the car. It’s totally unnecessary but it’s such a sweet and gentlemanly thing to do, and I slide my left hand through his elbow and let my fingers curl into his forearm as I use his strength to haul myself up.
When I’m on both feet, he settles his hand over mine and walks me to my front door, and when I’m safely inside, he tips an imaginary hat in my direction and gives me a wink as he goes back to the car.
I stand inside and watch him pull away, feeling glowy and cared for, because of Raff and the whole Dardenne tribe, and nothing else seems to matter more than that.
10
The workshop is littered with pieces of nutcracker. There are legs and arms and heads and hats and torsos everywhere.
‘So the hat goes on the bottom of the left foot, right? And the base goes right here in the middle of the torso?’
‘Oh, the hilarity continues.’ I smack Raff’s arm because he’s assembling his first nutcracker from all the pieces he’s carved, and he thinks the ‘this foot goes on this shoulder’ gag is much funnier than it is.
In truth, spending time with him is amusing and easy and he makes nutcrackers fun again, and the deliberately mis-assembled nutcrackers are making me laugh, even when I’m trying not to.
He’s put his Christmas music playlist on and the workshop is filled with the sound of ‘Mistletoe and Wine’, and Raff’s warm and wintery aftershave is almost outdoing the scent of freshly sawn wood from the array of cut and sanded nutcracker parts strewn across the workbench in front of us.
‘Start assembling from the bottom up. Dowels run through the legs and then they’re glued onto the base.’
He’s got my hot glue gun plugged in but he’s clearly no stranger to using one, because he fits the parts together easily and holds them in place long enough for the glue to bond, humming along to Cliff Richard while waiting.
I’ve already shown him how to make the mouth lever and cut out the groove in the torso for it to fit in, and the next step is lining it up and drilling all the way through from one shoulder to the other. I point it out with the little finger of my left hand, but I’m pretty sure that Raff is just humouring me and has studied my nutcrackers well enough to have worked out how they fit together.
‘Your weeks will pass in a flash,’ he says as if he can tell what I’m thinking as I watch him drive the drill bit through the wood with his dexterousbothhands. ‘And I’m not going anywhere. I can come and doanythingyou need help with.’
‘Thank you.’ I realise I’m leaning so close to him to oversee what he’s doing that my chin is practically on his shoulder and I sit back quickly.
He lines up the holes and pushes the pin through to hold the mouth lever in place, bashes it in with a wooden mallet, and then takes the arms, lines them up with the pin sticking out of each shoulder, and glues on one and then the other, and he’s quiet while holding them in place.
‘Have you really never been in love?’ I blurt out because it’s been on my mind since Biddy announced it so vociferously on Friday night.
‘That’s not an odd questionat all.’ We’re sitting next to each other and he pulls back far enough to look at me. ‘Why’d you ask?’
‘I don’t know. You seem like someone people would fall in love with.’
He tilts his head to the side. ‘That’s… a very nice thing to say, I think. Unless there’s an insult to follow?’
‘No. I mean, you’re… very loveable.’ Where did that come from? Heis, but I never intended to say ittohim. I attempt to dig myself out of this hole… and end up making it ten times deeper. ‘What I meant is you’re… funny. Sweet. Warm. A great hugger. A gentleman. A total softie when it comes to children, and the most respectful grandson anyone could dream of. Why wouldn’t people be in love with you?’
