Page 45 of The Cosy Travelling Christmas Shop

To Daniel, the scene could have been one from a Christmas card. It was certainly evocative of a Victorian Christmas, complete with a side table holding a glass of sherry (which he was more and more tempted to drink as the day wore on), and a couple of ginger thins. She’d even gone to the trouble of placing a fountain pen and a scroll of yellowed paper, half-unfurled, next to it. His very own naughty or nice list.

Helpfully, in the absence of an elf, Miss Carruthers was writing each child’s name on a label and plastering it onto their chests as they came through the door, so he could at least pretend he knew who the kids were. It had been his suggestion when he was hastily donning the Santa suit that he’d thankfully left in a bag on the passenger seat of his truck. If he was going to do this Father Christmas thing, he at least wanted to do it properly, and he realised that knowing the children’s names added to the magic of the experience for them.

Finally there was only one child waiting to see him and he smiled when the small girl broke free of her mum’s hand and came charging towards him. She nearly tripped over the edge of the rug, windmilled her arms, then continued with her headlong rush.

Daniel braced himself for impact, but she came to a jerky halt a hair’s breadth away from his knees and stood there, her eyes wide and a solemn expression on her heart-shaped face.

She clasped her hands together and looked at him warily.

‘Ah, yes, Charlotte,’ he boomed, surreptitiously reading her label. ‘Have you been a good girl? Or a naughty girl?’

‘Good girl,’ she whispered, blinking owlishly.

‘No coal for you, then,’ he chuckled. ‘What would you like for Christmas?’

‘A kitten.’

Daniel pulled a sad face and said, ‘Kittens don’t like it at the North Pole.’ He risked a glance at the mum’s face. She was shaking her head and biting her lip, so he carried on, ‘It’s far too cold for them, even in a room with a nice warm fire. And imagine how cold they’d get on my sleigh?’

‘You could wrap them up warm,’ the little girl said.

‘That’s a good idea, but there’s no seat for them on the sleigh. They’d have to go in the back with the presents, and they might get squashed or fall out, and then they’d be lost and frightened.’

He shot another glance at the child’s mother and winked at her when he saw the relieved expression on her face. She smiled at him gratefully, as did the girl’s father. He was carrying a tiny baby in a sling across his chest and Daniel guessed that the parents had their hands full with this new arrival without any more additions to the family in the form of a feline, however cute.

‘Is there anything else you’d like Santa to bring you?’ Daniel asked.

‘Yeth, pleathe,’ she lisped. ‘A tractor.’

The little girl’s mother nodded furtively.

‘I think I can manage that.’ Daniel picked up the scroll, unfurled it a little, then reached for the pen and pretended to write. ‘Charlotte,’ he said slowly, moving the pen across the page a millimetre above the paper’s surface, angling it so the child couldn’t see that he wasn’t actually writing anything. ‘Tractor.’ He looked up at Charlotte. ‘Any particular colour?’

‘Red,’ she said, without hesitation.

‘I’ll have to see what colour paint the elves have got in the cupboard,’ he told her, not wanting to make promises her mother might not be able to keep. ‘There, I’ve written it down. Now, remember, you’ve still got to be good between now and Christmas morning, because I’ll be watching. Do you promise?’

Charlotte nodded.

Daniel reached into a sack behind his chair and pulled out a gift-wrapped present. He had no idea what was in it because Miss Carruthers said she’d taken care of the present buying and wrapping; he just hoped it was age-appropriate. On the other two occasions that he’d dressed up as Santa, an elf had handed him a present out of one of the sacks. There had been several and their contents had been based on age and gender.

He sat back in his chair and breathed deeply, letting the tension flow from his shoulders. It was hard work being so jolly all the time, but he did, however, feel a sense of achievement. It wasn’t comparable to that which he felt when he’d cleared an overgrown flower bed of weeds or when he’d pruned an unsightly, straggly shrub into a more compact shape, but it was there nevertheless.

Miss Carruthers stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. Daniel couldn’t be certain, but he thought she was smiling. It was difficult to tell because although her mouth was curling up ever so slightly at the corners, she still had a flinty look in her eye.

‘All done,’ she announced, briskly. ‘Thank you for stepping up to the mark.’

‘You’re welcome.’ The experience hadn’t been as bad as he’d anticipated, and he decided he must be getting used to it.

‘I expect you to return tomorrow to finish removing the ivy,’ she said. ‘You can’t leave a job half done.’

‘I didn’t intend to.’ Daniel blinked; it hadn’t been his idea to down tools. It had been hers, and he’d been doing her a favour by playing Santa. Anyone would think he’d been skiving off.

‘Good, because you won’t receive a penny from me until it’s completed to my satisfaction. I’ll also pay you for today in the morning. Cash.’

She’d mentioned being paid in cash previously and it suddenly occurred to him that she might have been relying on the profit from the Christmas Fayre to pay him. And possibly to go some way towards the other renovations she’d mentioned.

‘I’ll be back first thing in the morning,’ he assured her, taking off the Santa jacket and peeling off the fake facial hair.

---