Читать книгу It’s a Wonderful Night - Jaimie Admans - Страница 9

‘Puss puss puss puss,’ I call, standing in the front garden and shaking a box of cat biscuits.

A black cat immediately appears on the gatepost and starts rubbing around my hand, a tabby cat peers cautiously out of the hedge, a ginger cat jumps onto the fence from the other side, and there’s a meow from up the street.

‘Good morning, kitties.’ I pour cat biscuits into a row of dishes and stroke the cats brave enough to come over. I put a handful of biscuits down in the hedgerow for the little tabby cat who’s too scared to come out.

‘Morning, George!’

My dad makes me jump, peering around the side of the house from the top of a ladder and giving me a wave. I thought he was still in bed. He deserved a lie in after he waited up for me to come home last night. When I eventually got in, he had dropped off in front of the TV with a blanket over him and a cold cup of tea beside him. A cold cup of tea is enough to ruin anyone’s night.

‘What are you doing up there? You’re nearly eighty!’ I try not to cringe at the sight of him up the ladder, merrily waving with one hand while stapling his Christmas lights up with the other. He’s not even holding on. ‘Please will you get down? I can do that after work!’

‘It’ll be dark by then and you won’t be able to see what you’re doing. Besides, I like doing it, and I’m being careful. Reminds me of being a young lad again and you wouldn’t deny an old man the pleasure of remembering his youth, would you?’

‘You’re not young anymore,’ I mumble to myself. I often feel like I’m the only one who notices my dad’s age. He’s had a couple of scares with his heart, and some nights his arthritis means he needs help getting out of his chair, and then other days, he’ll be outside washing the car, painting the shed, and stapling Christmas lights up from the top of a very high ladder. Possibly all three at the same time. You never know with my dad.

He’s retired now but he used to work for the council. He was solely responsible for the Oakbarrow Christmas tree that stood outside the churchyard every December. He’s fearless when it comes to decorating. The other workers used to stand back and let him get on with it. I remember many an enchanting walk to school with my mum when we’d stop for a few minutes and watch him putting the first decorations up, and then we’d be late so we’d have to rush, but it wouldn’t matter because everyone who walked to school down the high street would’ve stopped to watch too. And then, like magic, on the way home, we’d stop and admire the newly decorated tree. His retirement was the beginning of the end for the Oakbarrow Christmas tree. No one else on the council cared about it as much as he did. Now the only thing he decorates is our house, and he manages to put the same amount of magic into it as he always used to with the Christmas tree.

I give the ladder a wary glance, trying to assess it for rickety-ness, and Dad gives me another reassuring grin from the top of it, like he can tell exactly what I’m doing. I could try to argue with him about getting down, but I know that even if he gets down to appease me, he’ll be back up there as soon as I’ve turned the corner at the end of the street when I leave for work.

After the phone call last night, I tried to go back to doing our first Christmas window of the season –

showcasing our brightest, sparkliest eveningwear ready for Christmas party season – but I couldn’t concentrate on a thing, and it was about half past one when I finally gave up and went home, leaving the windows unfinished. If Head Office pop down for a surprise spot check today, I will be in serious trouble. Thankfully surprise spot checks are few and far between now. Things have been so quiet that there’s not much to spot check on.

I grab my bag from beside the door and tell Dad again to be careful as I go out the gate in the bright December sunshine. It’s a beautiful morning, surprising after the downpour of last night, and I’m earlier than usual because Head Office consider it unprofessional to dress windows when customers are around, so I need to get them finished before we open at nine.

There’s something niggling me about Leo from It’s A Wonderful Latte too. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him all night. All right, he’s so gorgeous that I tend to think about him quite a bit anyway, but there’s definitely been an abnormal amount of thinking about him since that ‘lovely’ last night. It couldn’t have been him on the phone, and yet the thought won’t leave my head.

My pace quickens as I walk through the residential streets towards the upper end of the high street. I don’t even know why I’m going so fast. I tell myself it’s just because I really shouldn’t have left naked mannequins on display in the window and sequinned backing paper only halfway up, and I’ve actually got quite a lot to do before the shop opens – not least because if Head Office do find out about the windows and question why they aren’t done, I will be in huge trouble. Taking that phone call last night goes against every rule the charity has. It was a call meant for the trained counsellors on the helpline. By taking it, I could have been responsible for making the situation worse. I should have immediately redirected him to the correct number, and the fact that I didn’t is probably a firing offence. If anyone notices the windows, it will open a can of worms about why I clocked a few hours of overtime last night but apparently didn’t get anything done.

My chest is tight and I’m walking so fast that sweat is beading on my forehead even though the morning air is so chilly. I pause outside what used to be a toy shop next door to It’s A Wonderful Latte and try to mop it up with my sleeve and calm my heart rate. I take a deep breath, count to five, and carry on, glad all the surrounding shops are shut so there are no shopkeepers to watch me trying to remember how to breathe outside the old Hawthorne Toys building. Even I don’t understand what I’m getting so worked up about. I love coming here every morning. Leo’s mum works in the kitchen, baking sweet treats to tempt customers, and Leo makes the best coffee I’ve ever had. The shop has a real homely, family feel, with a big open fire in one corner surrounded by cosy sofas, mismatched tables and chairs that make it easy for customers to take a liking to and always sit in the same place. There are lots of natural wood fittings and fixtures, the lighting is soft and warm rather than blindingly bright, and it always smells of roasting coffee and cakes baking.

‘Ah, my favourite Georgia.’ Leo looks up and gives me a wide smile when the bell above the door tinkles as I go in. His curly hair flops across his forehead and he shakes it back. ‘You’re early today. Morning, lovely.’

And I just know. No one says ‘lovely’ in quite the same way he does. No wonder I thought his voice sounded familiar. I speak to him every day.

My mind is suddenly reeling. How can he have been the person on the other end of that phone? How can he have been thinking of taking his own life? How can things be so bad for him underneath the happy face he shows to customers?

‘Yeah. Er, couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d get an early start,’ I stutter. I’d be less shocked if I’d just walked smack bang into the back end of a hippopotamus. It’s like I’m having an out of body experience. My brain can’t comprehend that the man on the phone was Leo. That he’s the guy I felt such a connection with. That his bright smile is hiding so much pain.

Maybe I’m wrong. I must be wrong, and at the same time, I know I’m not. I have absolutely no doubt that it was him. Everything suddenly adds up. Leo named his shop after It’s a Wonderful Life, so he obviously knows the film we talked about last night. He’s definitely in his late thirties. The man on the phone even said his mum works with him and Leo’s mum does. Leo often talks about funny words and the man last night said that honking was a good one. Which it undeniably is. And I get the feeling it’s one Leo would appreciate too.

‘Me too, on both fronts,’ he says. ‘What can I get you? You’re just in time for the start of the Christmas menu. The festive coffees I’ve been teasing you with for weeks are finally available if you want to try something different?’

His smile doesn’t falter and the expression on his face doesn’t change. He looks at me exactly the same way he looks at me every other morning. He doesn’t realize it was me.

And I can’t tell him.

How can I say that the ‘stranger’ he opened up to is someone he sees every morning? I can’t tell him that I work on the same street, that if I walk to the bend in the road just past the bank, I can see the duck-egg-blue and mocha-brown frontage of his coffee shop. I can’t tell him that he’s the sole reason for my caffeine addiction, or that seeing his smile brightens my day, or that he shared his deepest feelings, something he obviously works hard to keep hidden, with someone he actually knows. He’ll be embarrassed. He might be scared that I’m going to tell someone. People can be more open with a stranger. They can tell them things they wouldn’t tell a friend. Not that I’m exactly a friend of Leo’s, but we share two minutes of conversation every day. He wouldn’t have said half the things he said last night if he knew I’d be buying a coffee from him in the morning.

It was a private conversation between two strangers. It was a magical connection on a wonderful night. It’s not my place to drag it into the real world. It will change everything, and it would certainly breach even more anonymity rules than I’ve already broken. If he’d phoned the helpline like he intended to, if I’d given him the right number and made him phone there like I should have done, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

If he doesn’t know, which he clearly doesn’t, I can’t tell him.

‘Go on then, what have you got?’ I suddenly realize that if I recognized his voice then he could recognize mine. He did say he thought I sounded familiar too. I clear my throat and put on a lower voice to disguise my own. I’m going for low and sultry but probably sound more along the lines of flu-ridden moose. ‘I still think you could’ve given me an early preview. You’ve had that countdown to Christmas coffees on the counter since mid-October, and everyone knows your Christmas coffees are the best thing about this time of year,’ I say, referring to a joke we’ve had every morning lately. He’s had a hand-drawn chalkboard by the till counting down the days to Christmas coffees for weeks, and knowing I love all things festive, he’s been teasing me about them every morning.

It’s a shred of normality in what has otherwise been a completely abnormal morning.

I search his face for some hint of what happened last night, but I don’t know what I expect to find. He’s wearing his usual plain black T-shirt and baby blue apron with ‘It’s A Wonderful Latte’ embroidered on the chest in brown thread. There’s no hint of how cold he got. His denim-blue eyes aren’t bloodshot from crying, his face isn’t red or puffy, and his mop of curly hair is styled and quiffed at the front. If I think the man in the shop this morning will show some hint of the truth revealed by the man on the phone last night, then I’m sorely mistaken. His mask is firmly back in place.

‘So …’ he says, sounding like he’s waiting for an answer.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I was miles away. Can you tell me again?’ My face flushes bright red. I must’ve been staring at him without listening to a word he was saying.

‘You okay?’ he asks in such a genuine way that it makes me feel like I really could tell him if I wasn’t.

‘Absolutely fine, thanks. Sorry, the early start clearly doesn’t agree with me. Better add an extra shot of espresso to today’s drink. What have you got again?’

‘I was saying my Christmas coffee syrups are out today because it’s the first of December. I was thinking about you when I put them out this morning because I know you’ve been waiting. I’ve got warm apple pie, caramel pecan, chestnut praline, gingerbread biscotti, peppermint, orange and cranberry, mince pie, and unlike the big coffee chains, my pumpkin spice will stay available until January.’

‘Mince pie flavoured coffee?’ I pull a face involuntarily. ‘Yuck.’

He grins. ‘I knew you’d say that. It’s really nice though, trust me.’

I’m sure he knows as well as I do that I’ll try one flavour a day until I’ve decided on a favourite. I love seasonal coffee and he always has the best selection. ‘How am I supposed to choose out of all those? They all sound delicious. I’ll try the –’

There’s a clatter from the kitchen and Leo looks panicked for a second. ‘Hold that thought.’

He rushes out the back and I hear him talking. I sidle along the counter to the one spot where, if you squint, you can see through a gap in the sliding door and straight into the kitchen.

‘I’m fine, dear, I just dropped an oven tray.’ Leo’s mum pats his arm. ‘You don’t have to worry, I’m quite capable of managing. It was all vibration and no damage.’

Maggie is a tiny, frail woman who I sometimes see sitting in the kitchen of the coffee shop with her feet up and an oven timer on the unit beside her, always looking so happy to be there. She’s just as cheerful and friendly as Leo is, with the same bright eyes and curly hair, and never without a smile.

Leo comes back looking slightly more het up than before. ‘Sorry, just my mum clattering around with the morning muffins. Have you decided yet?’

To be honest, I’m so distracted that I’ve already forgotten what his new flavours are, but an idea comes to me. ‘What would you have? If you were going to have one, which would you go for?’

‘Mince –’

‘And not mince pie, I’m not brave enough for that this morning.’

His face lights up with his wide grin, the one that makes it impossible not to grin back at him, letting me know he was only saying it to wind me up. ‘I’d go for the peppermint.’

‘Okay, peppermint latte it is. I’ll take two of those, please.’

‘Two?’ He doesn’t hide the double take. ‘You must be really tired. How many years have you been coming in here and I’ve never made you two coffees before. Rough night?’

Oh, if only you knew. ‘Something like that. How about you?’

‘Me?’ He’s already gone over to the espresso machine but he turns around with a raised eyebrow that makes me wish I’d kept my mouth shut. ‘Nah. I was tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle and a hot chocolate by ten o’clock. Snug as a bug.’

What did I expect him to say? I’m a customer. We might have a few minutes of friendly banter every day, but we’re not friends. I didn’t really think he’d turn around and say, ‘I nearly threw myself off a bridge last night’, did I?

He slides one peppermint latte onto the counter and goes back to the chrome coffee machine to make the other one, the milk frother hissing on the unit beside him. I look at him while his back is turned and wonder when he lost so much weight. I’ve never noticed how loosely his apron is done up at the back, as if to hide his waist that hasn’t always been that narrow. His bare arms are pale, having lost the tan they had in the summer, and although muscular, there isn’t an ounce of fat on them and I’m certain there used to be. His hair is short at the nape of his neck but straggly, like it needs a trim, and the curls on top are light brown with a few natural highlights left from the late autumn sun. He reminds me of a cross between Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing and the Hollywood stars of years gone by, a lovechild of Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, with his sharp jawline and bright blue eyes that are always smiling.

He carefully writes my name on the first cup, complete with fancy scrolls underneath and a star above the ‘i’, and it makes me smile like it does every morning. Even though the shop has been gradually getting emptier in the last few months, even when I’m the only customer, he still writes my name on the cup, and I don’t know why it feels as special as it does, or why I try to imagine what he’s like outside the coffee shop as I walk to work sipping my latte. I think about what his life might be like, if he might be single, and how much I wish I had the courage to ask him like my best friend, Casey, would. She’d just march in and say ‘Are you single? Do you want to sleep with me?’ I’m not that brave. I just chat to him while he makes me a latte and think about how much I’d like to run my fingers through his curly hair.

‘Seven quid, please, lovely.’ He puts the second peppermint latte down as the coffee machine gurgles itself to completion with a puff of steam behind the counter.

Why is my hand shaking as I go to hand him the money? I fish a note and two coins out of my purse and try to brace my elbow against my stomach to hide the trembling as I put them into his hand. I might have a teeny tiny crush on the man but I’ve never trembled when talking to him before. It’s because of how much I want to grab his hand, I tell myself. I want to take his hand between both of mine and squeeze it and tell him he’s appreciated, that he’s lovely, and funny, and the world would be a much darker place without him in it.

‘Thanks, beautiful.’ At least he’s enough of a gentleman not to mention the shaking hand if he notices it. ‘Here, let me get the door for you, you’ll have your hands full.’

‘Wait, actually …’ I push one of the peppermint lattes back across the counter towards him. ‘This one’s for you.’

‘What?’

‘It’s for you.’

‘Why?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t know. I just thought you might like one.’

He looks at me like I’ve asked him if he’d like to exfoliate with someone else’s toenail clippings. ‘You do realize I work in a coffee shop, right?’

‘Yeah. And I bet no one’s ever bought you a coffee before.’

‘Well, no, but …’

‘There you go, then.’

‘Yeah, but … why?’

‘I don’t know. Because it’s December. Because it’s nearly Christmas. Who doesn’t deserve a peppermint latte to kick off the best month of the year?’

He grunts.

‘Oh, come on. You’re not a Grinch, are you? Because I distinctly remember seeing you in here last year in your tinsel reindeer antlers and your red apron with Santa’s belt on it. Tinsel reindeer antlers are very un-Grinch-like, Leo.’

I know that Leo loves Christmas usually. He always goes all out in December. He gets in purple cups with sparkly silver swirls on them, he’s always got loads of festive coffee flavours, more than the big coffee chains get, and the shop is always decorated beautifully.

‘You have a good memory.’ He looks down at the coffee and shakes his head. ‘This is really sweet of you, but I can get a coffee literally twenty-four hours a day, I don’t deserve … at least let me give you the money back.’

The vintage till rings as he goes to open it, making me think of angels getting their wings, and I slap my hand on the counter. ‘Don’t you dare. I asked you what you’d go for, end of story.’ I pick up my own cup and tap it against his. ‘Cheers. Have a good day.’

‘At least stay and drink it with me,’ he says as I go to walk away. ‘Unless you’re rushing to get to work or something?’

I make a show of checking my watch even though I’ve got bags of time. It’s not even half past eight, I’ve got twenty minutes before I need to open the staff entrance. ‘I’ve got plenty of time, I’m really early this morning.’ I go back over to the counter, trying not to think about the unfinished window displays. I’m going to have to get the volunteers doing the take-offs this morning while I finish them in opening hours.

I lean against the counter and let my bag slip off my shoulder to the floor as I look around. I had no idea It’s A Wonderful Latte was in trouble. I mean, I know Leo doesn’t have as many customers as he used to, but I still thought he was doing okay. He always seems like he’s doing okay. If it wasn’t for what he said about his business going under last night, I would never have known.

‘Thank you,’ he says quietly. He leans his elbows on the counter and lets his head drop, and for just one second, his mask slips. In that moment, the lighting shows up the grey bags under his eyes, the taut lines around them, the stubble darkening the jaw of his usually clean-shaven face. I wish I’d looked at him more closely before. I’ve been so caught up in his infectious smile that I’ve never tried to see what it hides.

He covers it quickly, too quickly, and looks up at me with the same pasted-on smile. ‘Now I know why I call you my favourite Georgia.’

‘I’m sure you say that to all your Georgias.’

His laugh makes me smile. ‘Nope, you’re definitely my favourite. Gotta say, being bought a coffee is kind of a novelty. That’s never happened before.’

‘Well, you do make wonderful lattes.’

‘Hence the name,’ he says with a tight grin.

‘And I bet that’s the first time you’ve ever heard that joke, right?’

This time his smile reaches his clear eyes, making his eyelids crinkle. ‘It’s the first time this week, I’ll give you that.’

‘I always thought it was a play on It’s a Wonderful Life?’

‘It is. It’s named for my dad, it was his favourite film of all time, and he loved a good pun. It took me ages to come up with a clever name when I bought the place.’

‘It was my mum’s favourite Christmas film. I’m named after it too.’

‘Georgia. After George Bailey?’

I nod. ‘It helps that my surname is actually Bailey. My mum thought she’d hit the jackpot when she married my father and took his name. She knew what their first child would be called before the end of the first date.’

His jaw drops in surprise but he’s smiling too. ‘Wow. You should be, like, my mascot or something. What are the chances of a Georgia Bailey and a coffee shop called It’s A Wonderful Latte living in the same town? That’s like fate or something, right?’

Fate. Like Leo finding the leaflet I put on the bridge. Like him accidentally phoning the shop on a night I just happened to be working late.

‘That’s why I come in here. Couldn’t walk past a shop named after the same thing as me. It’s like fate is calling me in. Fate and caffeine addiction.’

I don’t add that I didn’t even like coffee until I peered in the window on the day it opened to see what it was like inside, unable to ignore it because of the It’s a Wonderful Life connection, and he flashed me that smile through the glass.

‘Oh no, really? I’ve always thought it was my scintillating charm and incessant wit.’ He pushes his bottom lip out, pretending to pout, and I force a smile, but all I can think about is the man on the bridge last night who was at rock bottom. Leo’s false confidence doesn’t seem as funny today.

‘That and your impressive coffee flavours,’ I say, because all I want to do is wrap my arms around him and whisper ‘I know’ in his ear, but I can’t. ‘Speaking of Christmas films, you’re late putting your decorations up this year,’ I say instead. I know from our conversation last night why he hasn’t, but he doesn’t know I know that, and even though I can’t tell him it was me, I can try to get him to open up to the real me in the real world. Now I know how bad things are, I have to help him. I have to show him how much he matters to people, like Clarence did for George in It’s a Wonderful Life. He needs a friend and he’s going to get one, whether he likes it or not. I don’t know how to make more customers come in, but I do know that Leo needs someone to talk to, someone he doesn’t have to put on his happy face with, and it’s going to be me. He has no choice in the matter now.

‘I’m already done.’

I look around for some hint of these decorations and Leo points to the front window. There’s a narrow ledge running along the inside of it; usually it’s decked out with holly garlands with bright red berries and twinkling lights and the tops of the window are draped with sparkly paper chains, but today, only a gingerbread house sits on one side of the window ledge, facing the street outside.

‘That’s it? Usually this place is …’ I wave my hands above my head to demonstrate the amount of decorations he usually has up.

‘Festooned?’ he offers. ‘Festooned doesn’t get nearly enough usage these days.’

‘Festooned is a good word.’

‘So?’ I prod when he doesn’t make any attempt to answer the question.

‘Oh, my mum made the gingerbread house. It’s an excellent gingerbread house.’

‘I wasn’t debating its merits. If the witch from Hansel and Gretel was real, she’d hire your mum as chief house builder. It’s just … usually you go all out.’

He’s quiet for a few moments and then he throws his arms out to the sides and gestures towards the empty shop. ‘What’s the point? As you can see, this place is absolutely crawling with customers to appreciate it. Honestly, I just couldn’t be bothered. Seems pointless this year.’

‘But people like festive things. We’re always told to make a big deal of our Christmas windows to attract customers.’

‘There are no customers to attract,’ he says with a shrug.

I glance out the window again. He’s got a point. Oakbarrow High Street is silent out there. Even the sky has gone from blue to dark grey, almost like it’s reflecting the mood of the few people left working on this street. ‘I remember a time when you’d be dodging delivery lorries and shopkeepers displaying their goods at this time of morning.’

His face replicates the forlorn feeling as he looks towards the window. ‘Those days are gone.’

I want to say something positive, but it’s impossible to ignore the feeling of desolation that this street bleeds out of the cracks in its concrete.

He puts his upbeat voice back on. ‘But my mum loves Christmas baking so the least I could do was display one of her gingerbread houses. She could give Mary Berry a run for her money any day,’ he says loudly, angling his head towards the kitchen so she hears.

Maggie sticks her head round the door. ‘He’s not talking me up in front of the customers again, is he?’

‘He was just telling me about your gingerbread house,’ I say with a smile. ‘It’s absolutely stunning. It must’ve taken you ages.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind things like that, lovey. The fiddly bits are my favourite part of baking. I can sit down with my feet up and take my time over it. I wanted to make some miniature ones for the shop this year, but it seems such a waste of energy. We don’t sell enough to warrant more than a batch of pumpkin spice muffins. Even my batch of decorated shortbread robins went to Bernard last week. Not that that’s a waste as he deserves food, but I like to make him something more substantial than twenty-four shortbread birds.’

Maggie is standing in the kitchen doorway looking between us sipping our coffees. ‘I must say, it’s nice to see a customer in here enjoying one of his creations. People never have time to stop for anything these days. Most of them barely look up from their phones as they order, let alone have time to read the menu or look at the bakes on offer.’

‘People don’t see what’s right in front of them nowadays,’ I say, knowing I’m just as guilty as everyone else. Maybe not with my phone because talking to Leo is more interesting than anything that could be happening online, even on the days that John Lewis premiere their Christmas advert, but I’ve always taken him at happy, smiley face value, never talked about anything deep or meaningful, and never hung around long enough to let him suspect I’ve got a crush on him. I’ve never asked him how he is. Not really, anyway. Not in anything other than a polite way, expecting nothing but a bright smile and a ‘Fine, thanks, and you?’ in return. No one would ever, ever think things were anything but fine.

Maggie’s wrists are bony and her fingers curled with arthritis, and her thinning white hair is covered by a hair net. Even at this time of day, her apron is already splashed with flour. She looks small and frail, and I get the impression that she hasn’t got much energy to waste.

I wish I could make her sit down and take over her duties. Although, if they don’t have any customers now, they can kiss the last one goodbye after I’ve got my mitts into the muffin recipe. The extent of my cooking ability is ‘three minutes on 800 watts’.

‘Ah well, onwards and upwards,’ Leo says, his cheery words sounding rather false. ‘I’m sure my new mince-pie-flavoured coffee will attract customers in droves.’

I know he isn’t going to drop the act that easily, but I wish he would.

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Maggie says. ‘I don’t drink coffee but I tasted a spoonful of the syrup, it’s frightful.’

The giggle takes me by surprise and I point at him accusatorily. ‘And you almost had me taken in this morning too. I knew it would be awful.’

‘It’s not,’ he says with a grin, holding up his hands in a surrendering gesture. ‘It’s not supposed to be tasted by itself, Mum. It needs the coffee to bring out the flavours. Just because you wouldn’t even try a decaf with it doesn’t mean you can go around telling my customers it’s awful.’

His tone is light and Maggie is smiling the whole time and I like the easy teasing relationship they have. ‘Oh, I think all your coffee’s awful, dear. You do make a nice cup of tea though, I’ll give you that.’

‘You can’t say that in front of a customer.’

‘Georgia knows I’m joking, she’s your best customer. If she hasn’t figured out your coffee’s awful by now, there’s no hope.’

‘One cup! That’s all I’ve ever made you, and it was back when I was learning how to use the machines.’

‘I know. I was picking coffee grounds out of my teeth for a week.’ She grins at me. ‘He has improved now though, don’t you worry, lovey.’

‘You don’t have to tell me, he makes the best coffee for miles around. Even if he does try to force mince pie flavouring on unsuspecting customers.’

‘Ah, but you’re still going to try my mince pie coffee one day, aren’t you?’ He waggles his dark eyebrows at me. ‘I know you, Georgia, you’ll try them all eventually. I’ll even throw in an actual mince pie for free. As compensation.’

‘Wanna know a secret?’ I lean across the counter towards him. ‘I know they’re a British festive tradition but I don’t actually like mince pies.’

He steps back and gasps in horror. ‘Oh no, I think an elf somewhere drops down dead every time a British person says that. Next you’ll be telling me you don’t like Brussels sprouts either …’

I pull a face. ‘To be fair, who does like Brussels sprouts? I mean, we always have them on our Christmas dinner and I appreciate the tradition of them, but no, like ninety-nine percent of the country, I don’t actually like them.’

‘Ah, Christmas. The annual time we torture ourselves with food we wouldn’t eat if someone paid us the other three hundred and sixty-four days a year.’ His wide grin offsets the wistful tone in his voice.

‘All part of the fun, Grinch,’ I say, grinning back at him.

‘Do you know, when someone tells me they don’t like mince pies, I take it as a personal challenge?’ Maggie says. ‘You’ll like mine, Georgia. I’ll make you some and change your mind on the humble mince pie.’

‘Oh, please don’t go to any trouble for me. I’ll buy a box in the supermarket and try them again. I’m sure –’

‘Blasphemy!’ she cries, smiling so wide I’m sure her teeth are going to fall out. ‘Mass-produced supermarket pies that have been pumped full of preservatives since August won’t help. Homemade mince pies are Christmas in a bite. They were my husband’s favourite, and he wouldn’t stand for anyone running them down in his shop.’

I glance at Leo for help but he holds his hands up. ‘Don’t look at me. My mum has never left a mince-pie-hater unconverted. And if she fails, free coffee for a week.’

‘Don’t be daft, you’re not doing –’

There’s a crack of thunder overhead, making us all jump, and the sky that’s gone from grey to black suddenly opens, rain pouring down, splashing off the coffee shop’s striped awning and pounding against the pavement, as the world outside lights up with a lightning flash.

‘Flipping heck, it was sunny just now.’ I glance at my watch, having completely lost track of time. The ‘bags of time’ I had earlier have turned into minutes before Mary and the volunteers due in today will be banging on the back door, and they aren’t going to want to be kept waiting in this rain. I slurp the last of my peppermint latte and deposit the cup into the recycling bin beside the counter. ‘Thanks, Leo, that was gorgeous,’ I say, meaning the chat with him and his mum just as much as the coffee. ‘And now I’m late. Have a good day. See you tomorrow.’

‘You got an umbrella?’ he asks as I throw my bag over my shoulder and pull my hood up at the door.

‘Yeah. At home, on my desk. It was a beautiful day when I left the house.’

‘I can’t send a lady out into a thunderstorm without an umbrella.’ He puts his cup down on the counter and slides his arm round the kitchen door, feeling around until he pulls out a tall umbrella and thrusts it into the air in victory. ‘Come on, I’ll walk you. You only work down the street, right?’

I nod.

‘Mum, you all right on the counter for a few minutes while I make sure my best customer gets to work safely?’

‘Of course, dear. Have a good day, Georgia. Don’t forget, no supermarket mince pies.’

‘I’ll try to restrain myself,’ I say, watching as Leo disappears into the kitchen and comes back shrugging a coat on. ‘Leo, you really don’t have to do that. I’m literally just around the corner.’

‘Do you see how heavy that rain is? You’ll be soaked in less than a second. My conscience won’t let me hear the end of it if I stay here in the nice dry shop and watch you go out in that without an umbrella.’ He walks across the shop and pulls the door open, peering out and making a face. ‘Come on, it’s for my peace of mind rather than your dryness. Your carriage awaits.’

I can’t help smiling as he leans out to open the massive umbrella and gestures for me to walk out underneath it.

‘Thanks.’ I squeeze past him in the doorway, lingering for just a second too long because it’s the closest thing I can get to the hug I wanted to give him last night, and then I step straight into a puddle. No one maintains this street anymore so the pavement is cracking up and there are more potholes than in a block of Swiss cheese that a family of toothy mice have had a nibble of. Cold water seeps into my supposedly waterproof winter boots, freezing my socks against my skin.

Leo steps out behind me and pulls the door closed and I give Maggie a wave through the window as he holds the huge umbrella over both of us.

‘I didn’t mean to get her making mince pies too,’ I say. ‘I don’t want her to go to any trouble for me. I’m sure she works hard enough as it is.’

‘Don’t worry, she loves baking and it’s December, she’ll be making them for all the family anyway. And you don’t have to like them. I’ll happily scoff anything you don’t want and you can go on in your narrow-minded tradition-hating anti-Brit Christmas forever.’

‘Says the man with no Christmas decorations up.’

‘Even the street isn’t decorated anymore. I don’t think one shop will make much of a difference, do you?’

‘It might attract more customers. When they’re cold and wet and tired and it’s dark outside and they see the warm glow of your fire and the twinkling lights, it’s going to draw people in.’

‘Well, the warm glow of the fire will just have to work alone this year.’

Huge drops of rain are splashing down on the umbrella and water is running in rivulets along the gutters, and I can’t believe Leo is so caring that he’d willingly come out in this just to save me getting wet.

‘It’s miserable, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ I say as we walk in the middle of the road to avoid the puddles on the pavements. There was a time when that would’ve been impossible because of the traffic, but now, there’s less chance of being run over by a passing car than there is of us coming face to face with a flying red-nosed reindeer. ‘It doesn’t really get any brighter on the high street though, does it?’

‘Tell me about it.’ He turns around, spinning the umbrella as he moves to make sure we both stay dry, walking backwards as he looks at the shops behind us, not even worrying about tripping over. ‘This place used to be the life and soul of everything. I remember coming here at Christmas and feeling it pulsing with life, and light, and sound. Did you grow up here?’

I nod.

‘Do you remember Christmases on Oakbarrow High Street? I was telling my niece what it used to be like and she thought I was pulling her leg.’

‘It was amazing, wasn’t it?’ I feel myself light up at the memory. ‘The lights, the decorations, the window displays. There were always carols playing and it always seemed to be snowing.’

‘And now look at it. Even Hawthorne’s, the one shop I thought would always be here. One look in that window would leave you convinced that Santa’s elves were working out the back.’

I glance behind me in the direction he’s facing, at the sad old building next door to It’s A Wonderful Latte. It used to have bricks of the deepest burgundy, green fascia boards, and gold lettering. Now the bricks are sun-bleached to a dirty salmon pink, the green boards are grubby and cracked, and the gold lettering has faded beyond recognition. There’s moss spilling from the guttering and some form of black mould crawling out of every crack.

‘What’s it got to offer now?’ Leo says. ‘Graffitied windows and a solitary cobwebbed teddy bear looking out. It makes me sad every time I walk past it.’

‘Me too.’

‘What have we got left, eh? A coffee shop, a bank, a charity shop, a tanning shop, a television repair shop with an old CRT TV in the window to really attract modern day customers, and a lingerie shop called Aubergine.’ Leo laughs. ‘Aubergine. I mean, of all fruits and vegetables to name a lingerie shop after. It’s not even a distantly sexy vegetable, is it? Even cucumber has a vague phallic connotation, but aubergines? They’re not quite the first thing you’d associate with sexy lingerie, are they?’

‘Maybe she meant the colour, not the vegetable?’

‘Call it Deep Purple then. Even that’s sexier than Aubergine.’

‘You’ve clearly spent an abnormal amount of time thinking about this. You don’t strike me as a sexy lingerie type of guy. Do they do plunge bras in your size?’

‘I’ve never been in there,’ he says with a grin. ‘I just don’t get it. It makes me laugh because it’s so random. Why not Pomegranate, or Celery, or Granny Smith?’

‘Well, it doesn’t get much more seductive than Granny Smith, does it?’

‘See?’ he says. ‘You get it. Shops called Aubergine are a testament to Oakbarrow as it is now. It looks more like a brothel than a lingerie shop and its name doesn’t make a blind bit of sense. No wonder no one shops here anymore.’

‘Say what you want, but Aubergine are still open. Poorly named vegetable decisions or not, they’re still going when most other shops have closed.’

‘I reckon it’s a cover for a drug cartel or something. Maybe it is an actual brothel.’

I raise an eyebrow and it makes him grin again. ‘So where are you? All this time we’ve known each other and I can’t believe I’ve never asked you where you work before.’

I meet his eyes and try to keep a straight face. ‘Aubergine.’

He stops walking so abruptly that he nearly falls over his own feet, and my shoulder knocks into his arm as his eyes flick between mine and my mouth.

‘I might believe you if you could keep a straight face.’ He grins. ‘Nice try, though. You nearly had me there.’

I burst out laughing. ‘Sorry. Couldn’t resist.’

‘I’d have done the same.’ He knocks his shoulder into mine again, deliberately this time, and it makes a little shiver run up my spine. At last he turns around and walks forward again so he can see where he’s going. ‘Where are you really?’

I go to answer and suddenly realize that I can’t. I hadn’t even considered that he might walk me to work. What on earth am I going to tell him? If I say One Light, he’s going to make the connection straight away.

‘The bank!’ I say as a moment of blind panic combines with a moment of inspiration. If I was a cartoon character, a lightbulb would’ve just pinged above my head.

He laughs. ‘Well, if that isn’t life imitating art, I don’t know what is.’

I look at him in confusion.

‘The real George Bailey worked at a bank too, didn’t he? Well, the Building and Loan, that’s close enough.’

‘Oh, right! Yes!’ I laugh but end up overcompensating and come across as marginally hysterical.

‘So was your career mapped out based on It’s a Wonderful Life or is that just coincidence?’

I look at the One Light sign sticking out from the charity shop in front of us. ‘Just coincidence.’

‘Maybe fate has more of an It’s a Wonderful Life-shaped influence than you think.’

‘Yeah. Maybe.’ I bite my lip as I look at him. I don’t want this to end yet. I could stay here and talk to him all morning but we’re nearly at the door of the bank and if we get much closer, he’s going to expect me to go inside.

‘Well, thanks for walking me,’ I say breezily. ‘You should get back to your mum. See you tomorrow!’

‘It’s chucking it down. Go on, get someone to let you in, I’ll wait.’

He’s too nice for his own good. And mine.

I don’t work here and if I knock on the door, whoever answers is going to say exactly that. I peek in the window of the bank as I hesitate over what to do and see Casey setting out leaflets on one of the tables in the waiting area. Casey! My best friend, and now, a godsend. She’ll play along.

I knock lightly on the door just in case anyone else comes to answer it.

‘George!’ she says, sounding surprised and confused in equal measure. ‘And Coffee Man.’

Leo nods to her. ‘I’ve been called plenty worse than that.’

‘Hi, Casey!’ I say, wondering if anyone will notice my voice has suddenly gone up three octaves. ‘Just come to work! In the bank! Where I work!’

‘Right …’ Casey says slowly, her eyebrows rising up towards her hairline where her blonde hair is pulled back into a conservative bun.

‘Are you going to let me in before we need an ark out here?’

‘Of course,’ she says smoothly, stepping back and pulling the reinforced glass and sturdy metal door fully open. ‘Come into the bank where you work.’

I knew I could rely on Casey.

Leo shuffles forward until the huge umbrella is pressed right into the open doorway so I can go through without getting a drop of rain on me. As I turn to thank him, I don’t miss the way he’s looking up at the sign for One Light next door or the way his eyes have gone distant.

‘Thanks, Leo. You’re my knight in shining … coffee apron.’

He looks back at me and blinks, looking like he was lost for a minute, then he pastes a smile back on his face, steps back and twirls the umbrella so raindrops spray from it in a perfect spiral. He does a curtsey. ‘Always a pleasure to serve you, Madame. And thanks for the coffee. Have a good day, lovely, I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Hey, Leo?’ I say as he goes to walk away. When he turns back, I make a point of looking him in the eyes. ‘Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you every morning.’

He gives me a sad smile. ‘I think you mean my coffee, but thanks.’

I watch him walk away until he rounds the corner out of sight. ‘No, I mean you,’ I whisper to the empty street.

That sad smile makes me realize how scarily wrong you can have someone. I thought I knew Leo. As well as you can know someone you chat to for two minutes a day, anyway. That’s two minutes a day, six days a week, for the past two and a half years. If you add it up, that’s quite a lot of time to spend talking to someone, and I still never knew. Leo would be the last person I would ever expect to be suffering with depression. It just goes to show that you never know what kind of battles people are fighting on the inside.

And I know I have to do something. Leo needs customers. He needs to feel important to the town – as important as he makes me feel every morning. Leo is kind. I’ve seen him knock the price of a coffee down for an old man who’d gone to pay and found he didn’t have enough cash. I’ve seen him make a special batch of dairy-free muffins just so a vegan customer could have one. Every day I see him walking down the road towards the churchyard with a coffee and a bag of food for Bernard.

Doesn’t he deserve some kindness in return?