Page 5 of Christmas Ever After
‘Just ignore him.’ Mitch’s knees aren’t what they used to be so he puts the stool beside me and sits on it, reaching out to help me into a sitting position. ‘Are you hurt anywhere else?’
‘I don’t know.’ I’ve tried to deny it, but I’m openly crying now. It’snotbecause of Jorge’s callousness, and it’s not because of the pain, but maybe it’s shock of some kind? That was ahardfall and my entire body feels bruised and shaken up. And the longer the tears run down my face, the smaller and more belittled I feel.
Not many people have carried on with their day as Mitch told them to, they’re all just milling around, watching me as I sit here sobbing, like a child who’s fallen over in the playground and is waiting for a teacher to make it all better. It’ll take more than a strip of Elastoplast to sort this one out.
I hold my hand out in front of me. It’s shaking, and it’s bright red and is already starting to swell up. Mitch rubs my shoulder comfortingly, and Mrs Bloom comes back and kneels down again. ‘Raff has got a lot to answer for.’
‘It was just an accident. You werebothwinding each other up,’ Mitch says. ‘And the last thing people want in a situation like this is to be crowded around. He was probably only thinking of Franca.’
‘Pfft.’ Mrs Bloom’s disbelieving snort says enough for both of us. ‘He could’ve at least pretended to care. Look, everyone else has hung around to see if they can do anything.’
I groan when she points out the group of shopkeepers from Ever After Street who are standing to one side, waiting to jump into action if needed. Unlike Raphael Dardenne. It’s nice of them to stay, but if there’s anything worse than embarrassing yourself, it’s a large group of your friends and colleagueswatchingyou hurt yourself in the most embarrassing way possible.
I want the ground to swallow me up and spit me back out again ten minutes ago, so I could stop this happening at all. This is the kind of moment that needs a Groundhog Day, where you can live it over as many times as it takes to fix it, and then go about your life with unbroken fingers and uncrushed pride.
Mitch helps me to my feet and wraps an arm around my waist to hold me steady as I try to ascertain that nothing else will need an X-ray. At least it doesn’t feel like I’ve damaged my leg again. Bones are never the same when they’ve been broken – my leg is testament to that, and I now have to face the same again with my fingers. Panic pushes at the edges of my mind about what that will mean for making nutcrackers and my shop, but I can’t think about it at the moment. I can’t think about anything at the moment apart from the pain burning outwards from my hand.
‘Did anyone cut the livestream?’ Mrs Bloom asks.
‘Oh, crikey, no, I didn’t.’ Mitch slaps a hand to his forehead. ‘I’d best go and turn it off.’
He rushes back to his forgotten camera that’s been focused on me the whole time, and I sink down onto the stool and drop my head into my one functional hand. ‘That just streamed live, didn’t it? Me wailing? Me clinging onto the arch? Me hurting myself? Jorge’s oinking?’
‘It, er…’ Mrs Bloom looks over at Mitch. ‘Well, it might not have… These things, um, well, it might have run out of batteries, mightn’t it? Batteries never last on any of my technology; I’m charging my phone every five minutes, it seems.’
She’s trying to make me feel better, of course she is. We both know that the most embarrassing moment of my life has been livestreamed for all the internet to see.
Well, second-most; the other one happened in a very public place too, back when I was a ballet dancer, on stage in front of a large audience, and that one also resulted in a broken bone.
‘I’ll bring the car round and give you a lift to A&E.’ She pats my knee again and makes a hasty retreat. ‘Anything you need me to grab for you?’
Just my dignity back. And some sort of internet-wide blackout where all livestreams were magically disrupted. Oh, and some way of making nutcrackers one-handed would be good too. Because I’ve got nutcracker orders piling up for December… and as I look at my rapidly swelling hand, I have no idea how I’ll manage to fulfil them.
December isby farmy busiest month. If I can’t produce my usual output, The Nutcracker Shop will have no way of staying afloat and certainly no way of beating Raphael Dardenne, and afterthat, I am even more determined to beat him. There is no way that I’m going to let the council evict me and keep his ridiculous ‘magical’ snow globe shop.
No way.
2
‘Maybe they’re not broken.’ My friend Cleo tilts her head to the side as she sits next to me in the A&E waiting area, looking at my hand hopefully. ‘Just a bad sprain? Areallybad sprain?’
It’s a nice thought, but my hand is now so swollen that all of my fingers have merged into one mass with no space between them, and although I had knuckles once, you’d never be able to tell. My whole arm is still shaking, and I know you need to elevate injuries like this, so I’m trying to hold it up above my head, but the pain is throbbing in my hand and seeping into the rest of my body as well.
‘I can’t believe Raff didn’t even apologise, never mind stop to see if you were okay,’ Mrs Bloom mutters. I didn’t expect her to come in and wait with me, especially when Cleo said she’d come, but she’s insisted on staying and driving us home too.
‘Don’t get me started onRaffDardenne.’ I hadn’t intended to sound quite so venomous, but far too many of my colleagues are taken in by his amiable nickname and Disney prince smile, and this latest incident just proves how lacking he is in any kind of community spirit. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if he did it on purposejust to ensure he wins this contest and the council evict me in January instead of him.’
‘He’d never do that!’ Cleo says incredulously. ‘And this stupid competition between youwaskind of your suggestion in the first place…’
‘And didn’t that backfire spectacularly?’ I grumble. We’veallhad enough of Raff’s bad reviews, but I didn’t expect the council to turn my complaint into a head-to-head challenge and to be on the chopping block myself.
Love Is All A-Round and Dardenne Snow Globes are world famous. They’ve got a cult following online and a few thousand fans in their Facebook group who wholeheartedly believe the story that their snow globes will match you with your soulmate. The business was started by Claude Dardenne, Raff’s grandfather, who worked throughout the local counties since the 1970s, before eventually settling on Ever After Street. Claude died two years ago, and for the past eighteen months, Raff has been at the helm of the shop.
Claude Dardenne was known as a magical snow globe matchmaker. People flocked for miles, hoping to be matched with another lonely soul, choose a snow globe, pick it up between them, see something move inside, and live happily ever after. If that sounds like an absolute load of codswallop, that’s because itis. I know because, many years ago, he was responsible for matching my parents, and his ‘magical’ snow globe sat on the mantelpiece of my childhood home for years of my young life.
Until my mum threw it at my dad’s head during the divorce, anyway.
My mum swore that she saw it move once – just like she swears it was love at first sight when she clapped eyes on my dad in Claude’s shop, forty-odd years ago. Back then, he operated his snow globe swindle from a little tucked-away shop in analleyway off the High Street, and Mum was looking for love. Claude pointed out the lonely man browsing the snow globes and told her he thought they’d make a good couple.
