Page 45 of Christmas Ever After
‘I’m sorry too,’ I murmur.
He bows his head, letting his hair fall forward. ‘At least you’ve got plenty of nutcrackers to talk to this time around. And you can always talk to me. I’m slightly less wooden, but I promise not to judge or ridicule, and I can stand in complete silence, grow a beard, and bare my teeth at anyone who walks by, if you want.’
‘Crack nuts between your teeth?’
‘Can give it a try, but I warn you, I have a phobia of the dentist.’
‘Awwww.’ The noise has popped out before I’m even aware of it, and I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face. It’s something that’s so real and honest, and Raff’s openness makes me grin, and yet, what Iknowtwinges in the back of my mind again.
I’ve always known that the snow globes didn’t really move by magic, but actually knowing it changes things somehow. Raff is warm, honest and open, but the images of those wires in the resin base flash into my mind again. When it comes to his work, he’s running the trickery that I always knew he was, and the problem with tricks is that they have a tendency to get found out. And I’m surprised by how much Idon’twant that to happen now.
14
It’s been decades since I heard ‘Little Donkey’ and yet, I still know all the words. I don’t know how or why I agreed to this when Sofia asked me, but somehow I have joined the Dardenne family at her school nativity. I’ve also been roped in to going back to the house afterwards for an evening of board games and mince pies. Right now, it’s just after 6p.m. on a damp Wednesday night and we’re sitting in the main hall of the local primary school, watching a group of seven-year-olds put on the nativity show.
I’m sat in a row with an empty chair to my right, and Raff’s sitting on my left, and the family are filling the rest of the row of hard plastic chairs, apart from Biddy who’s in a wheelchair tonight and has been parked on the aisle end, next to Trisha.
Raff’s right forearm is resting against mine on the hard chair arms, and he senses my eyes on him and looks over with a smile, and then bends his fingers outwards until the backs of them rub gently against my good hand, and he mouths an: ‘Okay?’
I nod and… take leave of my senses, because instead of just letting his fingers stroke my hand, I turn it over until I can slip my last three fingers over his, and his fingers immediately foldaround them and he tugs my arm closer, and a tingle goes down my spine.
He catches my eyes as I turn back and his smile grows wider. I can’t help returning his smile as I settle back in my seat. IknowI should pull my hand out of his. My fingers shouldn’t be anywhere near his, and yet, the more I tell myself to pull my hand away, the more it seems impossible to do so. It’s like my fingers are stuck to Raff’s warm hand with the hot glue we were using earlier to put the finishing touches to some nutcrackers, and the tighter he squeezes, the warmer and more relaxed I feel, especially when his thumb starts rubbing up and down my little finger.
And so, we sit through ‘Away in a Manger’, ‘We Three Kings’, ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’, and more. The three wise men who bring gold, myrrh, and ‘Frankenstein’ to the baby doll that Mary’s now holding upside down by a leg, having yanked it a bit too hard from Joseph earlier and pulled an arm out, and not knowing what to do with said disembodied arm, has thrown it to the side of the stage where it’s now lying in front of the sheep. The sheep themselves have got confused and started mooing, and the third wise man has started eating whatever was doubling as the myrrh. The shepherds have had a fight and one’s yanked the tea towel from the other one’s head, and the cardboard star has fallen off the ceiling and is now being held up by a teacher on a stepladder, whose neon pink blouse wasn’t the best choice for blending unnoticed into the background.
And I somehow don’t let go of Raff’s hand until we stand up to applaud after a rousing finale of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’.
When it’s all over, we pile out into the night and wait for Erin, who’s gone to collect Sofia from backstage.
Trisha is pushing Biddy in a wheelchair. ‘I don’t need it,’ she exclaims. ‘It’s just less work than a Zimmer frame. They’re such ungainly things, don’t you think? They make one look soold.’
Quentin is about to make a witty retort when Sofia rushes at us, squealing in excitement, and throws her arms around Raff. ‘Did you like it? Did you think it was brilliant?’
‘If it doesn’t get nominated for an Oscar next year, I’ll eat my Santa hat,’ Raff says without missing a beat.
‘You’re not wearing a hat, Uncle Raff.’
‘I left it in Franca’s shop.’
‘Ooooh-wah!’ She squeals like leaving his hat at my shop is some kind of innuendo for something that seven-year-olds are definitely too young to understand.
Sofia grabs my good hand and jiggles it. ‘Did you like it, Franca?’
‘I thought it was brilliant. The best night I’ve had in years.’ I thought that sentence was going to come out sounding sarcastic, but as I say it, I realise it’s true.
Thisis what families do at Christmas, and it feels like I’ve been on a family outing with good company and people who care about me. The show itself was unintentionally the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages, and Sofia is a born performer with a confidence that only children have. The music, the old carols that I used to love when I was young, have been a welcome reminder of childhood Christmases gone by, of happy parents sitting in the audience, being proud of my Very Important Role of playing a tree one year, and the back end of a Highland cow the next. There wasn’t traditionally a Highland cow in the nativity but our teachers had the unenviable task of ensuring there was a part foreverychild in the class, hence why, one year, Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem via three donkeys, two dolphins, and a kangaroo, and shared their stable with two elephants and a rhinoceros.
The school is within walking distance from the house so we start meandering home, and Raff offers me his arm. There’s something about his thoughtfulness with the broken hand, how he always stays on my left, always thinks about which is the good side before doing anything, and when he hooks his right elbow towards me, I’m powerless to stop myself slipping my hand through his arm.
Sofia skips on ahead and twirls around, spinning her cardboard-and-feather wings, her tinsel halo glistening under the streetlamps, chattering excitedly the whole way about the rehearsals for tonight’s show and funny things that happened backstage, and that feeling of not being alone warms me from the inside out. Being welcomed into this little unit is the nicest thing. Walking in the dark, past the Christmas lights of the neighbourhood houses with Raff’s reassuring strength beside me. Going to their home for an evening of more festive fun. Erin’s walking nearby, asking me how I’m managing everything one-handed, and it makes me feel like I really matter to them. It’s been so many years since I did anything as festive as watching a school’s nativity play and even more years since I felt like I wasn’t alone.
Sofia twirls back over to us. ‘Franca, Mummy says you’re the Sugar Plum Fairy. Can I come and see you in the ballet like you’ve seen me in the nativity?’
It’s such an innocent question and I don’t realise I’m going to get choked up until I go to answer. ‘Aww, I wish, Sofe. I don’t do ballet any more. I had a bad accident and had to stop dancing.’
‘Did you break your fingers before?’
‘No, I broke my leg that time.’
