‘There was other stuff too. I wished for a special day for my gran and granddad before he died and they took them on the most magical sleigh ride. One of those big walk-and-talk dolls that were sold out worldwide. It was never about stuff though, I think they gave my parents that to put under the tree as a way of teaching me that Christmas wasn’t about material things because it broke down on Boxing Day and I preferred the crafting kit my grandma and granddad had put together for me anyway.’
I wait for him to say something belittling but he doesn’t. We’ve both stopped at the towering nutcracker and are looking up at it, my left hand next to his right hand on the fence, so close it would be easy to reach my little finger out and touch the side of his hand. I look up at the nutcracker to distract myself. ‘I wish I knew what the story behind him is. I was intending to ask the old owners when I saw them this year, but they haven’t been around.’
James is grinning as he pushes himself off the fence, goes inside the open gateway, and somehow manages to negotiate the walnut vending machine with just one hand. He comes back and holds a walnut out to me between thumb and forefinger. ‘Here. You can’t say you wish something in front of him without cracking a nut.’
I take it from him even though I’m not sure if he’s humouring me or making fun of me, but I can feel his eyes on me as I go inside the fence and stand on the lowest step to reach up to the nutcracker’s mouth, place the walnut in it, and lean around to pull the lever down. ‘I wish I knew the story behind you,’ I say aloud as the shell starts to splinter, but no wind whispers in his beard tonight and the rainclouds above us block out any prospect of stars twinkling.
‘He was carved in the 1930s by a local artist, and you know how nutcrackers are said to be lucky and are supposed to protect the homes they’re in? He was moved around a lot and eventually mounted on a church near here in 1940, and when the area was bombed during the war, that church was the only building that survived, and people thought he’d somehow protected it and started visiting him for good luck.’
I’m still standing on the step and I turn around in surprise. ‘You know it?’
‘See? Wishes can come true.’ He holds his one hand out like he’s shrugging. ‘After that, he disappeared. Some say he was stolen, some say the artist took him back and hid him where he could never be found, some say that so many people thought he was lucky that they came to touch him and simply wore him down to nothing.’ He nods towards it. ‘That one’s obviously not true.’
I collect my walnut from the nutcracker’s mouth and step down onto the floor. James continues as I go back out the gate. ‘Years and years later, somewhere around the 1970s, an antique dealer came across him in a collection he’d gone to appraise up in the Scottish borders, recognised him and came back here with the story, and there was a big local campaign to raise enough money to buy him back and transport him home, and the whole county got involved in fundraising, and just as they’d nearly reached their goal, he went missing again.’
I hold out the cracked walnut shell to offer him half of the nut, and I can’t tear my eyes away from him as he takes it and pops it into his mouth. ‘You are full of surprises.’
‘I’m full of something.’ He holds the walnut between his teeth and grins around it.
I take my half and throw the empty shell onto the garden, glad to see how many shells have piled up there since my last wish. People are still coming. They’re still cracking nuts and believing he can grant wishes. Not all people have given up hope that something magical can happen.
‘Two years later, he was left right here leaning against the door of the nutcracker factory. It was founded in the 1930s and it’s said his creator used to work here.’ James points towards the entranceway. ‘No one ever found out where he came from or who put him there. The factory was the only thing that was unchanged in the forty years since he was made, so the popular theory was that he walked by himself and found his way home.’
I feel myself inexplicably welling up and have to blink furiously to stop tears forming. While I doubt the giant wooden nutcracker uprooted himself and walked his way home, it’s such a nice thought, and just the kind of magical feeling I was hoping would be in the story behind him. ‘How on earth do you know all that?’
‘It was the interest in the story of his return that prompted the factory to expand into the commercial side of things and Nutcracker Lane was opened in the early Eighties. My grandparents were around in the Forties when it all happened, so my parents grew up hearing it, and then they were around in the Seventies when he returned, so it was passed down to me as well. They’ve still got newspaper clippings from the time. I’ll see if I can find them next time I go there.’
Something in his voice changes whenever he mentions his parents,
