Page 27 of Christmas Ever After
‘And you’ve kept it all these years,’ I murmur, running the fingers of my good hand along the wooden shelf, being careful not to touch any of the ornaments on it. ‘Did he make all of these?’
Erin nods. ‘Granddad used to make one for Granny Biddy every Christmas.’
‘Will you youngsters stop using the G word? Being anyone’s granny only comes in useful on Mother’s Day! Unless you’re going to buy me a gift, do not refer to me as anything so old!’
‘But you’remygreat-grandma, Biddy,’ Sofia tells her and she covers her ears, pretending not to hear such a slight against her.
It’s impossible not to smile at them, all of them. This is what a familyshouldbe like.
‘That’s the first one Raff made on his own,’ Biddy says when she sees me looking at a snow globe with a young ballerina holding a nutcracker soldier aloft, exactly like the protagonist does in the ballet. ‘That one stays on display year-round.’
It’s faded with age. The liquid inside is starting to go cloudy and there’s glue around the base that’s turned brown. Trisha leans over and gives it a shake, and I watch the little ballerina being enveloped by iridescent glitter.
Everything keeps coming back to nutcrackers. They’ve always been a big part of my life, from my career as a ballet dancer to opening a shop that specialises in them and spendingevery day of my life making them. Even so many years ago, he was making them too. A feeling of fate or coincidence orsomethingtingles at the back of my neck, but I force myself to ignore it. No matter what, the main thing I should be concerned with is whatelsehe puts into those snow globes.
The tree in the living room is such a traditional family Christmas tree. It’s six-foot tall with an angel on top, smells of pine, is strung with multi-coloured lights, tinsel, and garlands of popcorn, and adorned with an array of mismatched ornaments, from photographic ones to handmade ones to shop-bought individual ones. It’s the sort of tree that you’d see in happy family commercials, but never in reality. In my life of alternating Christmases between parents, Dad would always get a real tree but only a little one and he never had any decorations for it, and Mum always insisted that the faded plastic thing she kept in the loft was perfectly adequate and didn’t make any mess, unlike a real one. I’ve always wished I had a family Christmas tree just like this. It has a red and white striped skirt and already has a few gift-wrapped boxes underneath it with bows and tags on.
‘Do you think the tree will grow at midnight on Christmas Eve?’ Sofia asks me as I stand and look up at it.
The tree growing is what happens in the ballet when the wooden nutcracker prince comes to life on Christmas Eve. It’s always been one of the most magical parts of the show. ‘Only if you’ve got a really special nutcracker who will awaken to defeat the Mouse King.’
‘Do your nutcrackers come to life?’
‘Franca’s shop isfullof nutcrackers.’ Raff comes back in from the kitchen. ‘There’d be chaos if they came to life.’
‘Have you ever been there on Christmas Eve? Have you ever seen if they do?’
‘I have. Sometimes I work on Christmas Eve and disappointingly, none of them have ever turned into a handsome prince.’
‘No one should work on Christmas Eve,’ Trisha says from the kitchen, and when Sofia goes to protest, she quickly adds, ‘except Santa.’
She turns to me with a motherly look. ‘I hope you don’t make a habit of that, Franca.’
‘No, er, of course not,’ I lie. The truth is that in recent years, Christmas and the days around it have become just like any other day. Apart from a phone call to my mum and a video chat with my dad, I appreciate the quietness of the street when every other shop is shut, and after a busy December where I’m constantly trying to work between customers, I like sitting in front of the lathe and knowing I won’t be disturbed.
Within minutes, Sofia comes back waving a brightly painted nutcracker at me. ‘Did you make this one?’
‘No, honey, that one’s mass-produced tat.’ Raff makes us all laugh with his bluntness. ‘I never realised how rubbish the factory-made ones are. Look at the glue around his hair and the gap between his shoe and his leg. No refinement whatsoever.’ He reaches over and takes it from her and tilts his head to assess it. ‘You haven’tseena nutcracker until you’ve seen one of Franca’s nutcrackers. They’re really special.’
I meet his eyes and mouth a thank you at him and he smiles, making the cold cavity inside my chest feel as warm and cosy as the rest of me feels in this house, and I look away quickly because I can feel eyes on us.
Trisha’s gaze is watchful, and she blinks through a serving hatch from the kitchen with a soft smile on her face, before she shakes herself. ‘Right, what everyone needs to do is get themselves sat down at the table. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.’
Erin helps Sofia get seated, and Raff goes over to help Biddy up and offers her his arm to escort her to the dinner table, one shaky step at a time, until he pulls out the chair at the head of the table for her, and she grips his arm as she lowers herself down into it. I’m so enamoured with watching the sweet scene that I get lost in it, until he comes back and offers his arm to me too.
I smack at it because I don’t need assistance to walk the few steps to the table, but I sense those familiar gazes on us again, so I slip my hand through his arm and my fingers involuntarily give his forearm a squeeze. He’s got an old-fashioned gentleman vibe about him that’s incredibly charming.
At the table, he pulls out a chair for me too, and when I’ve sat down, he takes the seat next to me.
He mouths, ‘Okay?’ and knocks his knee against mine under the table, and I nod in response. I’m apprehensive about attempting to eat in public with only my left hand, but the atmosphere in the house is so relaxed and easy-going that it feels like I’m part of their family even though I’m a stranger to all of them.
I’m sitting directly opposite Sofia and her eyes are on my splint where my arm is resting on the table. ‘What happened to your hand?’
‘I was standing on a stool to hang some mistletoe and your Uncle Raff and I had a bit of an argument and?—’
‘Uncle Raff let his petty frustrations get the better of him and stormed off without looking where he was going and accidentally sent her flying.’
I stare at Raff when he takes over the story. I feel terrible about the argument we had, especially live on camera. We both brought shame on Christmas Ever After, but it’s the first time I’ve heard him speak so openly about that day to someone else.
