His arm around me, and knowing he’s probably hurting and holding an angry woman at this proximity to broken ribs and God knows how much bruising, is enough to make the fight drain out of me.
The advent calendar in the bag bangs against my arm as his fingers curl around my shoulder and he pulls me just a little bit tighter. I rest my head against the good side of his chest and reach up to give his left shoulder another gentle pat as I let out a long breath, trying not to think about how much I love that he trusts me not to hurt him.
When I’ve lingered in his embrace for longer than strictly reasonable, I reluctantly pull away and mouth a ‘thank you’ at him.
‘We have to do something,’ I say. ‘We have to fight this. Nutcracker Lane can’t end this way. And it can’t be impossible. Even the real Scrooge changed his ways by the end of A Christmas Carol.’
‘Do you know a few ghosts?’ James gives me a wink.
It makes me smile, but it also makes me start thinking. The ghosts showed Scrooge that things hadn’t always been the way they were and there was still time to change. If we could show our version that Nutcracker Lane is worth saving, maybe it would help. Maybe if he saw the place and met the people here, he’d realise that his “on paper” idea is terrible in practice. I just need to find him. His letters give no clue about an address for the office, and the contact number is still ringing out unanswered according to Hubert who’s been trying it daily.
James follows me into Starlight Rainbows, waving a fiver at Stacey who’s behind the counter having just served a woman buying one of my red-and-white striped North Pole signposts who ducks out as we enter. ‘Four quid of your finest Christmas gear, please.’
‘Take your pick.’ I gesture to the shop, unable to take my eyes off him as he starts wandering around.
‘I like what you did with the windows.’ He nods towards the living-room scene in one and the nutcracker Christmas party in the other that Stacey and I finished this morning.
‘Thanks for the advice. They’re much better.’
Instead of looking at our products, he points upwards. ‘What wattage are your lightbulbs?’
‘They’re not for sale.’ Stacey’s clearly confused by the question.
He laughs. ‘I was trying to say they’re not bright enough.’
‘Are you buying something or appraising us?’ I ask.
‘I’m not being horrible.’ He comes over to stand next to me. ‘I said I’d help with your shop and I am. It’s too dark in here.’
‘We have Christmas lights.’
‘Exactly. It looks pretty but you can’t actually see anything.’ He points out a customer who has picked up a sparkly wrapped present necklace and stepped back to tilt it under one of the main lights.
I meet Stacey’s eyes and we both make the same face. He’s got a point. Maybe we have gone a bit far in the “cosy Christmas evening” direction.
‘We’ll bear that in mind,’ I say, unwilling to admit I’m going to dash down to the storeroom when he leaves and find brighter bulbs. ‘Anything catch your eye yet?’
‘Will you choose something for me? I’d prefer it if it came from you. Your choice of whatever Christmassy thing I desperately need in my life.’
I grin as I start wandering around the shop, trailing my hand over the festive fabric tablecloths covering our display tables. My eyes fall on the perfect thing. Stacey sells gorgeous, dainty, pretty festive jewellery, but we also have a few novelty bits, because Christmas is a time for garish, light-flashing, chunky plastic pieces that you can see coming halfway down the street. I hold it up so Stacey can see what I’ve bought and she rings it up on the till and gives James his change.
I tear the packet open and pull the tab out of the battery box and unwind it in my hands as I approach him.
‘What is that? Why do you look so … gleeful? That look can only mean one thing – that you’re about to do something horrible to me.’
‘You’ve got a six-foot-tall Santa doing the Macarena all day, every day. You deserve everything you get,’ Stacey tells him.
I hold up the necklace at full width ready to slip over his head. It’s a string of plastic candle-shaped bulbs in red, green, blue, and yellow, that flash in different patterns. Exactly the thing someone who hates Christmas would be overjoyed to wear.
‘That’s not a necklace, those are the lights that are wound round your garden fence.’
‘In wearable form.’ I gesture for him to lower his head, and am quite surprised when he does. I push myself up on tiptoes and slip it over his head, my fingers accidentally catching his strokable dark hair before I step back to admire my work.
‘I hate you.’
‘I know you do.’ I give him my most self-satisfied grin.
‘Until now, I’ve thought you were the loveliest person I’ve ever met, but my opinion has done a total one-eighty-degree turn – you know that, don’t you?’ He’s trying his absolute hardest not to smile as he says it, but his mouth keeps tipping up.
‘I know,’ I repeat.
‘Good.’
‘Good.’ I reach up over his shoulder to get to the battery pack at the back of his neck, my fingers brushing the dusting of fine hairs there, which stand on end at my touch and I can feel the goose bumps rising in their wake, until my thumbnail finally finds the on-off switch and I flick it and step back as the necklace flashes each colour of bulb alternately.
James groans as he looks down at himself, and I reach out and straighten it over the sling. ‘And, as a bonus, it can help with road safety. I bet that car would’ve noticed you if you’d been wearing this.’
‘It probably would’ve veered off to the side and crashed
