Page 64 of Christmas Ever After
‘You could come up to visit. I’d like to introduce you. And bring this Raff fellow, I’d like to meet him too.’
‘I can’t bring Raff. We’re…’ I sigh in frustration. ‘I don’t knowwhatwe are. I don’t know what we can be when he’s got his shop and I’m left contemplating the thought of calling the ballet company and asking if that teaching role is still available…’
‘You are not!’
‘I’m not over the hill yet, Mum,’ I say, assuming she means my age. ‘Those who can’t do, teach.’
‘You would be the worst ballet teacher in existence – not because of your experience, but because you don’twantto do it. I could never support you going back to something that made you so miserable!’
‘But… you…’ I had no idea she’d ever realised that Iwasmiserable, let alone that she wasn’t waiting for the day I’d come to my senses and forge ahead with a dance teaching career. ‘I thought you thought I was throwing my life away to make nutcrackers.’
‘I did at first, darling. It was a surprise after that terrible accident. What I really wanted was for you to get back into your pointe shoes and show your ex that he couldn’t bring you down that easily. But that wasmybitterness and resentment. What you did was rise above it and move on. Every time I’ve visited you, I’ve seen your lovely little shop and how happy you are, and the only thing any parent everreallywants is for their children to be happy. And if youarehappy, then you go back and fight for your place there.’ She takes a sip of tea to fuel herself. ‘You’re never too old for motherly advice. Find someone who makes you feel like a Christmas tree when the lights have just been plugged in, and when you do, hold onto him tight, and when things get difficult, you bloody well fight for him too.’
I let out a wet half-snort half-sniffle. I had no idea my mum felt like that. Maybe if I had known, our relationship would have been easier than it has been over the years.
‘I’ve decided to give men a second chance,’ she says. ‘Maybe your Raff deserves one too…’
The thought of him being ‘my’ Raff makes my breath catch in my throat, because of how desperately I want that. Nutcrackers or no nutcrackers, Istillwish he was ‘my’ anything.
And having Mum’s support makes me realise she’s right. Iamhappy on Christmas Ever After, and Ideserveto stay there, and so does Love Is All A-Round. My shopandRaff are worth fighting for. And I don’t have to hand my keys in until January…
Maybe it’s not too late for a bit of Christmas magic after all?
19
It’s Christmas Eve and the doors are locked to customers. I’m pacing the workshop. What I want to do is make a nutcracker. One with dark brown eyes and chocolate-brown floppy hair, holding a snow globe, but my hand is still too painful to even contemplate using my lathe, and the only other person capable of it is Raff himself, which would somewhat defeat the object.
I shouldn’t have sent him away yesterday, and with what Mum said ringing in my ears, I’ve come back to Christmas Ever After to fight for what matters. My shopandthe man I’ve fallen in love with. The Nutcracker Shop has so much more to give, and it was my own misplaced bitterness that led to it being in trouble in the first place. I was wrong to have judged Raff like I have for the past couple of years, and Claude before him too. I was a child, desperately looking for someone to blame for the implosion of my parents’ marriage, and I should have grown out of that rather than carry it with me for so many years. If I’d behaved differently, maybe Raff and I would have met years ago. Maybe we’d have become friends. Maybe we’d never have found ourselves in the position we found ourselves in this December, and now I have to do something about it.
Webothdeserve to stay on this street. We both proved we can do what was asked of us. We were on equal footing, and then the council moved the goalposts, and I am not going to take it lying down. I’ve never been good at asking for help, but now I’m going to askeveryonefor help. Customers, strangers, friends, colleagues. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without nutcrackersandsnow globes.
Just as I’m contemplating who to ask to sign my petition first, there’s a knock on the shop door and I grumble to myself about customers being relentless. Does anyonereallyneed a nutcracker on Christmas Eve? Although I’d rather it be a customer than someone who’s seen my light on and come to get the inside scoop of gossip after Sunday’s calamity of a meeting.
When I open the door, there’s no one there. Instead, there are… gnomes.
Alotof gnomes. One is standing right in front of the door with his hand raised, like he was the one who just knocked.
I glance towards Coming Gnome For Christmas, because I’malmostpositive that resin gnomes can’t knock on doors of their own accord. The gnomes form a circle around a Dardenne Snow Globes box, which is on the pavement outside my door, and then a line of gnomes trail off, disappearing around the curve in the road between here and the main part of Ever After Street.
It fills me with a tingling fizziness.Somethingis going on here, and whatever it is, Raff – and presumably Mrs Bloom – must be involved in it.
I crouch down and slip the lid off the box and part the tissue paper to reveal the most incredible, detailed snow globe. I lift it out carefully, holding it with my good hand and trying to support it with the thumb of my splinted hand, terrified of dropping it. The snow inside whirls around a tiny archway. It’s the Christmas Ever After arch, the ceramic inside so intricate that the words are readable. There are the snowy grey cobblestones of thestreet along the bottom, and underneath the arch are two people kissing. The woman has long brown hair, just like mine, and the man has dark hair flopped over at one side like Raff’s, and there’s a sprig of green mistletoe with white berries hanging by a red ribbon on the arch above them. They’re both wearing Santa hats.
My heart speeds up and thuds harder as I shake the globe up again and watch the snow falling over the tiny versions of us.
This snow globe has a small and solid base. There are no micro-holes and no place to stash hidden parts. This is arealsnow globe, the kind Raff wants to get back to making, and that makes it even more special somehow.
The first gnome is pointing forwards, towards the other gnomes, which must be a hint, so I put the snow globe carefully back in the box and take it with me as I follow the line of gnomes, wondering how anyone has managed to set all these out, especially without me hearing a thing. Who would go to this much trouble? It’s the sort of thing that has Raff written all over it…
As soon as I round the curve in the road, a brass band starts playing ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’, and the scene that greets me is… reminiscent of a day, a few weeks ago, that will be etched in my mind forever. Our fellow shopkeepers are gathered to one side, and a few last-minute customers have stopped to see what’s happening. Mitch has got a camera set up and trained on the Christmas Ever After arch, and under the arch, there are two stools, and standing on one of them, holding a bundle of mistletoe, is Raff.
When the line of gnomes comes to an end, Mrs Bloom appears at my side, dressed as Mrs Claus, just like she was before. She gently extracts the box from my hand. ‘Let me take that, just in case you find something more interesting to use that hand for…’ Her waggling eyebrows leave no doubt about whatthat something might be. She nudges me forwards, closer to the arch, to where Raff is waiting.
‘What are you doing?’ I look up at him and lift my splinted hand to shade my eyes from the low winter sun.
I hadn’t seen her until now, but before he can answer, Mrs Willetts steps forward from the crowd of gathered shopkeepers and says, ‘Righting a wrong, and reversing a decision that it was wrong of us to make.’
My heart starts pounding at the thought that she might mean what I think she means.
