Читать книгу The Little Christmas Shop on Nutcracker Lane - Jaimie Admans - Страница 9

The chill in the air is icy as I step out the door of my cottage and lock up behind me, still finding it weird not to say goodbye to my grandma as I leave, even though she’s been gone for over four years now. The concrete of the driveway is sparkling with frost, and as I open the front gate and go through it onto the pavement, I see Stacey standing on the corner where my little side street meets the main street, bouncing on her feet to keep warm as she waits for me. She lives two streets down the hill, so we always meet at this intersection and walk up to Nutcracker Lane together.

‘Another one bites the dust, huh?’ She rubs gloved hands together as I approach.

At first I think she means Ben or Jerry, several tubs of which bit the dust last night and it takes me a moment to realise she’s talking about the cheating ex and not ice cream or Cadbury’s chocolate.

‘Another one bites the purple lingerie, to be precise.’ I shove my hands into my pockets as we start walking up the hill towards Nutcracker Lane. ‘Probably tearing it off with his teeth as we speak.’

‘Nah, far too early for that kind of naughtiness. She’s probably too busy trying to get pillow creases out of her face while he’s brushing his furry tongue to get rid of the morning breath. Remember him that way. It’ll make it easier.’

I laugh out loud at the mental image. I love my best friend. She knows it wasn’t a serious relationship, and even though she’s happily married with a daughter, she gets that it still hurts when someone cheats on you, no matter what. Thinking about it makes the loneliness sidle in again, having been blocked out by rushing to get ready this morning. It’s opening day and I thought we’d better get there early. ‘Am I ever going to find a decent man? Is there even one out there? What is it with all these guys who go for sexy purple lingerie instead of comfort and commitment – both in lingerie and in a relationship? Aren’t there any decent men on the planet?’

‘Yeah, there are loads, there’s just the slight problem of them all being married or otherwise taken. It’s a shame single men don’t grow on Christmas trees.’ She snuggles further into her scarf.

‘My relationship problems are solved anyway,’ I say as we reach the top of the hill and turn left, walking through another residential street. ‘I asked the nutcracker for a handsome prince last night, so one is bound to be along any minute. Can you hear the clip-clopping of horses’ hooves?’ I put my hand to my ear. ‘Probably him on the way in his fairy-tale carriage right now.’

‘Yep. There’s bound to be a single, gorgeous, gentlemanly prince waiting in the entranceway as soon as we get in, magically summoned by an old wooden toy to find his princess,’ she says with a laugh. ‘And any prince is bound to be entranced by your collection of Christmas jumpers. Which one did you go with today?’

I open my coat to reveal my Christmas jumper, which is black with lots of green trees all over it, each one with tiny lights that flash from a battery pack hidden inside the hem.

‘Flashing trees for opening day. Good choice.’

‘Nothing like a Christmas jumper to get you in the mood. And an added bonus of sending customers to Mrs Brissett in the Nutcracker Lane jumper shop when they ask where I got it.’

We come out the other end of the residential street, go up another slope, and shortcut across the frosty shrub border surrounding the Nutcracker Lane car park. Even though the nutcracker manufacturing plant that runs behind the lane hasn’t started work yet, the hint of fresh-cut wood is in the air, mixing with the balsam and pine smell as the tree seller unloads netted Christmas trees from the back of a pick-up truck that’s reversed up to the end of our little Christmas village where her tree lot stands.

We walk around the perimeter of the building on the pavements surrounding it until we get to the wide glass doors, a huge clear-sided foyer full of signs advertising Nutcracker Lane’s attractions – signs that have lessened every year as more and more things disappear.

‘No prince, then.’ Stacey pushes open the second set of doors into the main entrance court. ‘Just a giant nutcracker who, admittedly, is better company than some of the men you’ve dated.’

‘Aww, I think the nutcracker’s a prince in his own right.’ I wave to him as we walk past his little elf-garden enclosure. ‘Good morning, Mr Nutcracker.’

‘You’re only polite to it so when they rise up as an army on Christmas Eve and take over the world, they’ll remember you fondly and spare you.’

I poke my tongue out at her. She doesn’t get why nutcrackers have always been my favourite Christmas decoration or why I like that one quite so much.

‘You know it was the staff here who granted your childhood Christmas wishes and he’s not really magical … Unless Prince Charming randomly turns up this morning. Then I’ll take it all back.’

‘I think we can safely say that’s not going to happen …’

Santa chooses that moment to stroll out of the gents’ toilets pulling his trousers out of his bum.

Stacey and I hold each other’s gaze for a long moment and then burst into giggles. ‘Nah.’

‘God, it’s bleak, isn’t it?’ She says as we continue down the lane, the first signs of the log cabins coming to life around us. Lights on in the back rooms, a few of the Christmas trees with their lights twinkling already. ‘They don’t even decorate anymore.’ She wraps her hand around a bare iron lamppost as we pass it. In years gone by, the posts were wrapped with sparkling green tinsel wound with white fairy lights, finished with an oversized red bow and a bunch of fresh mistletoe hanging from the top of each one. The ceilings were decked with fairy-light-wrapped garlands and you couldn’t turn around without coming face-to-face with a poinsettia.

‘I always imagined bringing my children here one day, and it’s so sad that Lily has never got to see it as I remember it. She doesn’t believe me when I tell her what it used to be like. It’s such a shame to see it on its last legs.’

‘Do you really think it is?’ I try to stamp down the sadness that rears up. I haven’t got as far as thinking about having children, but if I ever do, I can’t imagine not being able to bring them to Nutcracker Lane where I spent so many happy childhood days back in the Eighties and Nineties.

‘Look around, Nee. It’s faded gradually every year, and this is the worst one yet. Opening day and … this is it. There are no staff except the shopkeepers themselves, no one keeping the actual lane running, no maintenance, no cleaners, and if you dare to turn around right now, you’ll see Santa picking his nose. How much worse can it get than Santa pulling bogeys out of his nose hair and examining them … Oh, wait, now he’s eating them as well. Lovely.’

‘It just needs one good year to recover – one year with even a fraction of the visitors it used to get. Most people don’t even realise it’s still here. The only person who seems to have any interest in it these days is the horrible Scrooge-like accountant who keeps slashing the budget every year. That lovely couple who owned it haven’t been seen for months. I was chatting to Rhonda in the hat shop the other day and she said she didn’t see them once last year— What the hell is that?’

We turn the bend in the lane towards Starlight Rainbows and I stop in my tracks. The empty shop opposite is no longer empty. Its window is ablaze with white light, and instead of a Christmas tree outside the door, there’s a six-foot-tall animatronic dancing Santa wearing a tropical shirt with a Hawaiian lei around his neck who’s currently doing some depiction of the Macarena. The hand-painted sign above the window reads “Tinkles and Trinkets” and in smaller letters underneath “The BEST Christmas decorations for all your holiday needs.”

‘But that’s …’ I splutter, unable to get my words out properly. ‘That was empty last night. There was nothing in there. How did they get it set up so fast?’

‘Elves?’ Stacey pulls a face at the dancing Santa.

‘But we sell decorations. I make decorations. And now we’ve got to compete with that? And look at it.’ We both peer into the window. There are so many fairy lights glowing in the display that somewhere in the next county, there’s a bloke wondering why the sun just came out and the National Grid has probably started groaning. The animatronic theme continues as the window display is full of dancing Santas of various sizes, musical nutcrackers, light-up feather wreaths, branches of lit-up twigs, twinkling garlands, a giant snowglobe with lights around the base that’s playing some kind of conflicting tune with one of the singing festive teddy bears, and even a model Christmas village with plastic nutcrackers moving in a mechanical circle in and out of a tiny factory building.

Even the term “plastic nutcrackers” is offensive. Nutcrackers are always, always made of wood. It’s traditional.

Something inside is playing a Christmas tune, but it sounds like its batteries are going flat, and there’s so much twisting and jiggling and dancing in the window that I can’t even tell which one it is.

‘It’s impressive,’ Stacey says. ‘Everyone is going to stop to look at it.’

‘Exactly.’ I look over my shoulder at our darkened little shop opposite. ‘It’s a million times better than our rustic wooden decorations and Nineties-style foil garlands and sets of lights taped round the windows. You can see Tinkles and Trinkets from space. There are probably aliens on Jupiter right now scratching their heads and trying to work out who turned the lights on.’

‘Well, it’s not better, it’s different. Personally, I like the nostalgic side of Christmas and think all this singing and dancing stuff is distasteful tat.’

‘Does it look like familiar distasteful tat to you?’ I cock my head to the side and try to hear the strains of a tune the nutcracker model factory is playing, but it’s drowned out by the toy with the dying batteries and the creaking of the Macarena-ing Santa.

‘I can’t see anyone inside.’ Stacey cups her hands around her eyes and peers through the glass, but the glare of the lights is too bright to see anything beyond the window display.

‘I don’t understand how it can have been empty last night. No one could’ve got this done so quickly, could they? It must’ve been a whole team of people.’ I peer in the window too, but all I can make out is rows and rows of shelves. ‘It’s like it’s sprung up from nowhere.’

‘Like magic.’ She slots her arm through mine and yanks me across the paving stones to Starlight Rainbows. ‘It’s not worth worrying about. We sell totally different types of decorations and there’s room for all of us on Nutcracker Lane.’

I give the dazzling shop one last glance. Every other log cabin on our lane has been setting up for a month now. We all got our keys on the first day of November, and since then, everyone has been back and forth unloading stock and setting up their displays. Except this one. And in the space of the nine hours since I left last night, this owner has managed to create the most spectacular display of all.

I unlock our little wooden door and turn the wood-burned wreath sign on it over from “closed” to “open”. Our shop smells of fresh-cut wood from my decorations and that inimitable scent of tinsel and foil Christmas decorations when they’ve been shut away for a while. I flip the light switch and pick up a letter that’s been posted through the letterbox.

‘You were here for hours tweaking last night then?’ Stacey looks around like she can tell every earring I adjusted on her jewellery side of the shop.

‘I was priming some nutcracker bunting so it had time to dry before today.’ I switch the electric wax burner behind the counter on to fill the shop with the scent of vanilla and balsam and dump my bag on the counter as I split the letter open and unfold it.

‘Factory space!’ I stare at the letter in horror. ‘How could they do this? Listen …’ I start reading it aloud.

Dear esteemed Nutcracker Lane lease holder,

I am writing to inform you that commencing January 1st, Nutcracker Lane will be under new ownership. As the acting manager until the new owner joins us, it falls to me to ensure we will not be carrying deadweight into the new year. Next year will see things change for the better. Next year your leases will not automatically be renewed – instead, you will have to work for the privilege. Only the most profitable shops will be going forward to the next festive season – the rest will be sold off for factory space to the nutcracker factory next door. I will review your accounts in January and let you know in due course whether you will have a place on the improved and streamlined Nutcracker Lane next year.

Do your best this festive season!

Regards,

Mr E.B. Neaser

Head accountant and acting manager, Nutcracker Lane

‘Wow.’ Stacey runs a hand through her short hair.

‘Do you think this was hand-delivered? It’s early for the postman.’ I turn over the envelope in my hands but there’s not even an address on it. ‘Everyone must’ve got one.’

‘Not even a “kind regards” or a “best wishes” or anything. How rude. And he’s still using that stupid name. It’s like he knows we call him Scrooge and he’s mocking us.’

‘There’s no way it’s his real name,’ I agree. We’ve dealt with this guy before. There’s definitely nothing kind about him. We’ve already had three letters this year telling us of yet more budget cuts and restrictions and a rent increase for the privilege. He seems to take pleasure in it. ‘This is like a cross between a motivational speech and a condescending headteacher telling off naughty schoolchildren who have run riot with the crayons.’

I open the door and look outside to see Hubert from the sweetshop looking around too, the letter clutched in his hand.

Before I have a chance to speak, Rhonda who runs the Christmas hat shop, opens her door and steps out. ‘You got one too?’

Hubert and I both nod.

‘This is terrible.’ Mrs Thwaite opens the door of the Christmas candle shop two doors down, her letter balled up in her fist. ‘How dare they!’

‘This is the same Scrooge who’s been cutting the budget every year, and now he’s eschewed the budget and started on the shops themselves,’ Hubert says.

‘What are we going to do?’ I step outside to join them. ‘We’ve only just got our shop. I quit my job to work here. I was relying on it being renewed next year.’

That’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to get a spot on Nutcracker Lane. Once you’re in, all existing shop owners get first right of renewal, and this used to be such a lovely place that if you had a shop here, you wouldn’t give it up. Hardly any new leases come up each year and the competition to get them is fierce, and the owners have always been selective about which shops they choose to be part of Nutcracker Lane. They have to add something new and unique and not have any crossover with any of the items already available here.

I glance at the shining new decoration shop. Clearly that rule has gone down the pan this year.

My job was only stacking supermarket shelves, but it would’ve been impossible to do both that and Nutcracker Lane. For the past few years, I’ve been working dead-end part-time jobs, spending as many hours as I can in the evening making decorations, and Stacey and I have been driving to every craft fair that would have us at the weekends, and selling via our own websites, eBay, and Etsy shops. I’d hoped to make enough profit from this to have a bit of leeway in the coming months until next year here.

‘We all were. I’ve been here for nine years,’ Rhonda from the Christmas hat shop says.

‘Fifteen.’ Mrs Brissett from the jumper shop comes down the lane towards us, letter in hand. ‘This is ridiculous.’

‘Twenty-something.’ Carmen, the amazing chocolatier who runs Nutcracker Lane’s very own chocolate shop follows her.

‘This is my biggest earner.’ The tree seller joins the group too. ‘And now what? They’re going to chuck out those of us who don’t make the grade?’

‘They can’t do that, can they?’ Rhonda asks.

‘This Scrooge-like accountant seems to be able to do whatever he wants,’ Hubert says. ‘He’s been running this place into the ground for years with his continual budget cuts, and now this. He couldn’t sound much more gleeful in his letter, could he? He may as well have thrown us into The Hunger Games arena and told us to have at it.’

‘Aren’t we all competition now?’ Mrs Thwaite from the candle shop asks.

‘Aww, no, you lot are like a second family. I don’t want to be in competition with you,’ Mrs Brissett says.

‘But that’s exactly what it’s saying.’ I scan over the letter again as Stacey appears in the open doorway of our shop. ‘Whichever shops earn the most money will stay, the rest of the lane will be sold off to the nutcracker factory …’

‘… who will waste no time in bulldozing it,’ Stace adds. ‘There will be nothing left. And where are our parameters? How many shops are staying? How much do they need to earn?’

‘Scrooge can pick and choose whenever he fancies it,’ Hubert says. ‘If we don’t know what the rules are, how can we possibly win the game?’

Another chill goes down my spine. It’s cold and heartless, just like the rest of Scrooge’s letter.

‘And this part of the lane is closest to the factory,’ Rhonda says. ‘So what’s he going to do, move whoever’s left into the entrance court and get rid of this bit entirely?’

‘That’s awful,’ I say. ‘How can you have Nutcracker Lane without the lane?’

‘And how can he say “earn the most money or get out” just like that? How can he pit friends against each other? And how is it possibly fair? Little shops like you …’ Rhonda points to me and Stacey. ‘You’re selling things that cost two, three, four quid. How can you compete with the chap who sells custom-made snowglobes at twenty quid each? Or whoever this is.’ She points to the dazzling new shop opposite. ‘There’s a £300 price tag on that dancing Santa.’

We all look at the animatronic Santa who is still moving his hands out in front of him, to his shoulders, and then his hips and back again. ‘One of those gone and this new arrival will have beaten the lot of us. I’ll have to sell sixty hats to outdo one item.’

‘No one’s actually going to buy that though,’ Stacey says. ‘Who would want a Hawaiian Santa doing the Macarena in their house, never mind be able to transport the gigantic thing home?’

A few of us gradually migrate towards the glowing window, which seems even fuller now than it did ten minutes ago.

‘Who’s the newcomer?’ Carmen asks.

‘I don’t know, do you?’ Hubert scratches his head. ‘Funny they weren’t here before, whoever they are.’

‘Funny they’re allowed to sell things that cross over with what the rest of us are selling.’ I nod towards the lit-up snowglobe in the window, which must be plugged in somewhere because the snow is swirling around in it like a lava lamp as it plays a tune that clashes with the one the model nutcracker factory is playing in the busy window.

That tune again. One that sounds so familiar …

After a few moments of silence, Hubert says, ‘It seems that a lot of things that once made Nutcracker Lane special have gone out the window this year.’

The sadness is palpable as all the shopkeepers, people I’ve known for years, people who have been the heart of Nutcracker Lane for as long as I can remember, realise that things have changed, and they’re changing more every day.

‘Good luck for opening day, folks,’ Mrs Brissett says as she starts to walk back towards the jumper shop.

‘No, you can’t say that now,’ Carmen corrects her. ‘We’re not all working together for Nutcracker Lane anymore – we all have to be out for ourselves and looking after our own interests. This isn’t a normal year – this is a fight for survival now. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to lose my shop. I won’t be sending any more business your way and I don’t expect you lot to send any my way. We’ve got to put ourselves first or we’ll all be jobless next year.’

‘I agree,’ Rhonda from the hat shop says sadly.

‘I don’t!’ Hubert smacks his hand against the paper he’s holding. ‘I’m not sure I even want to stay and work for this new owner. Anyone who can agree to a scheme like this is never going to be a decent person, are they? Whoever he is, he obviously cares for Nutcracker Lane as little as Scrooge does. You’d have thought any new owner would’ve been keen to reinvigorate it, but it’s screamingly obvious that he’s only interested in the money. The same as Scrooge. Money, money, money.’

He’s got a point there. The atmosphere on Nutcracker Lane has already changed because of Scrooge. Even as we stand here, a few other shopkeepers have stepped out their doors and come to see what’s going on, and I can see everyone side-eyeing each other, weighing up the competition. It doesn’t bode well for any of us, and Hubert has certainly got a point. Will the new owner be so horrible to work for that no one wants to stay here anyway?

Everyone starts to file away with no wishes of good luck or “happy opening day”. Instead there are mutterings of competition and everyone for themselves. The atmosphere is prickly and tense – something I’ve never felt on Nutcracker Lane before.

‘Good luck,’ Hubert says when there are only me and Stacey left. He raises his hand with the letter in it. ‘I’m not going to stop supporting my friends. Scrooge wants to divide us, and he won’t succeed, not with me.’

‘Me neither,’ I say, sounding more confident than I am. One glance at Tinkles and Trinkets across from us has siphoned my positivity away. Stacey and I can’t compete with £300 dancing Santas and electric-powered snowglobes. And what about the others? We’re not just in competition with another decoration shop – we’re in competition with everyone. I don’t want to lose our shop, but I don’t want them to lose theirs either. Some of those shops have been here for longer than I’ve been alive.

I remember Hubert from when I was young, peering over the counter in his candy-striped apron and taking my grandma’s money from my fist as I tried to buy everything in the shop and he patiently counted out seasonal penny sweets to the value of the two pound coins I had while Grandma and Granddad discussed what to choose for my parents and he slipped me a free Christmas tree lollipop while they weren’t looking. Nutcracker Lane would never be the same without him.

And Carmen who makes the most intricate chocolate creations, Rhonda with her short spiky hair in a bright pink Mohawk who sells every type of Christmas hat you can imagine, or Mrs Brissett who’s got the best selection of Christmas jumpers in the northern hemisphere, or the dear old man who painstakingly crafts the most beautiful snowglobes from photographs of real places.

‘There’s nothing we can do about it,’ Stacey says from the doorway.

When I make a noncommittal noise, she comes over and takes the letter out of my hand and puts her arm around my shoulders. ‘Let’s give Scrooge what he wants and “do our best this festive season”. That’s all we can do. At least if this is our only year, you’ll have got your wish – to work on Nutcracker Lane before it changes for good.’

***

‘Don’t worry about the competition,’ Stacey says as I peer out the window at the shop opposite for approximately the ninety-third time this morning and it’s only 11 a.m. ‘No one’s going to buy those things. The pricing is ridiculous. It’s Christmas, for God’s sake. Very few people have got excess cash at this time of year, and no one is going to drop £300 on a dancing Santa or the £96 that’s attached to that model nutcracker factory. Whoever’s running it has got no idea about competitive pricing. Expecting that much for Christmas decorations is pointless because there’s so much other stuff to buy at this time of year. Customers are going to come in here and spend a fiver on one of your hand-painted wall plaques or £2.50 on a pair of candy-cane earrings without worrying about it, but the stuff over there is a seriously big purchase. They won’t be as much competition as you think they will.’

‘Have you seen the number of people going in?’

‘And leaving with nothing. At least we’ve made a few sales so far.’

‘It doesn’t even look like there’s anyone in there.’ The light spilling out is so bright that it obscures everything else and I hold my hand up like I’m shading my eyes from the sun, but it doesn’t help. ‘Do those garlands around the window look familiar to you?’

She glances over but a woman takes a gingerbread-house necklace and a standing red bow ornament up to the counter and she stops to serve her.

It’s quiet for an opening day. I remember the days when you could barely move through the lane and there were queues to get into each shop. Maybe Scrooge has got the right idea – put it out of its misery before it gets any worse. Things will probably pick up at the weekend when children are off school, but it’s only Tuesday. Is this as good as it gets until then? There’s a bit of noise coming from the upper end of the lane around the magical nutcracker and Santa’s grotto, but down this end … footsteps of a middle-aged couple echo across the paving slabs as they walk straight past, not even lingering to admire the decorations like people used to when there were any to admire.

‘I’m sure those are the garlands that used to be draped from the ceiling.’

‘Nia, you’re obsessed. You’ve barely been away from that window all morning.’

‘Seriously, look. That new shop has got them around their window like a frame. They’re the same ones. And that nutcracker village. I’ve seen it before …’

She’s gone off to tidy a basket full of wooden baubles that a customer has rifled through and I’m talking to myself. A customer leaves empty-handed, giving me a wary look as he passes.

I am obsessing. I should be concentrating on our shop, not whoever’s over there and whatever they’re selling. It’s nothing to do with me.

Although the door is wide open and it really doesn’t look like there’s anyone inside … I could go over and pop my head in, couldn’t I? Have a peep and see if the inside is as spectacular as the window display. If the owner does happen to be there, I’ll make an excuse of welcoming the new arrival to the lane. There’s nothing wrong with being friendly, after all …

‘Can you hold down the fort for a minute?’ I’m out the door before Stacey’s had a chance to reply.

I run across the lane and stop in the open doorway. ‘Hello?’ I whisper, telling myself I’m trying not to startle anyone rather than I’m hoping there’s no one manning the place so I can have a nose around.

No answer. I take a tentative step inside, feeling as light on my feet as a ballet dancer as I tiptoe in.

Wow. If anything, the spectacularity of the shop itself is blocked by the spectacular window, because the inside is even better. Every wall is lined with a waterfall of twinkling white lights, a curtain of fairy lights that make it look like the walls themselves are sparkling. The shop is absolutely packed with decorations in all shapes, sizes, and colours, all lined up on chunky white shelves in perfectly size-ordered rows, like armies waiting to be called into action. There’s a metallic-y scent of glitter in the air, and every so often, a flake of fake snow floats down from the ceiling, while the music “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from The Nutcracker ballet plays quietly from a speaker in the far corner.

I keep telling myself I’m not going to worry about the competition. Everything Stacey said is right, and all we can do is put all our effort in and hope for the best, but looking around this shop makes me realise we’ve already lost. It’s like stepping into a winter wonderland, and the feeling I get is probably not dissimilar to the feeling Lucy Pevensie got when she stepped out of the wardrobe and into the snowy lands of Narnia for the first time. It would be easy to spend a couple of hours and a couple of hundred quid in here. Heck, even I’m suddenly prepared to pay £300 for a Macarena-dancing Santa and I definitely don’t have any spare cash or appreciation for Hawaiian-style Santas.

It’s weird that there’s no one here though. The light’s on out the back so maybe they’re still unloading goods. There’s plenty of space between shelves to fit more in, making it look minimalistic and still stuffed full of choice, unlike ours which just looks full because Stacey and I wanted to get as much stock out as possible and that means using every inch of wall space and getting as many display tables in as could reasonably fit while still meeting health and safety guidelines. I’d like to think our shop is relaxed, warm, homely and comforting, whereas this could be the set of a Christmas film.

But that strange familiarity is back again. Those curtains of lights covering the walls look like ones that used to be hung around the entrance foyer of Nutcracker Lane, and there’s an LED mountain range – a huge stand displaying a range of snowy peaks from one foot to four foot tall at the edge of the window display with a £256 price tag. There cannot be two of those, and I’m almost positive this one used to form part of the backdrop behind Santa’s grotto.

In one corner is a wooden crate full of soft toys that used to be given away to children who needed them. Now there’s a price sticker on the front – £16 each. I tiptoe further in for a closer look and find myself stopping to bend over the window display and peer at the mechanical nutcracker factory model. It’s playing a muffled repetition of the most recognisable bars of the first march from The Nutcracker ballet, and at the back, there’s a drip mark in the navy paint, which proves it. This used to be in a display stand at the point where the lane ends and there’s a short, covered walkway between the car parks for us and the nutcracker manufacturing plant next door. Why would it be on sale here? Why are any of these things on sale here?

The more I look around, the more I’m sure of it. Whoever owns this shop is selling off the decorations that have been taken from Nutcracker Lane. Decorations that were once used to decorate this place itself.

I back up and sidle along a shelf, looking at rows and rows of miniature snowglobes, metal reindeer ornaments, and wooden gingerbread men not unlike the ones I’ve been making with my CNC woodcutting machine in my garden shed workshop for months. Mine are four quid each and hand-painted, whereas these look like mass-printed Chinese imports with uneven eyes and wonky noses. I pick one up and read the price tag on the bottom.

‘Twelve quid for that!’ I put it down and step back quickly, except I don’t realise there’s anything behind me until something wooden hits me in the back. I yelp in surprise and turn around to see a six-foot-tall giant nutcracker staring back at me, wobbling precariously from the force of me backing into it.

‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no!’ I try to catch it but the momentum is too much and the smooth wood slips out of my hand and it goes crashing to the floor with such a loud bang that people in France probably heard it, and a shower of gemstones from his elegant green-trimmed coat clatter down and go skittering across the floor.

I squeeze my eyes tight shut and wish the ground could swallow me up. So much for a sneaky look around without anyone knowing. When I force myself to open them again to assess the damage, the giant nutcracker is lying on the floor surrounded by wood splinters. His left arm is broken jaggedly in two, and the broken bit has skidded across the aisle along with the sceptre he was holding.

Oh no. Oh no. I love nutcrackers and he was such a handsome one. Longish furry hair that’s such a dark brown it looks black from some angles, a matching beard, and painted black moustache and eyebrows above almond-shaped white eyes with big brown pupils, red cheeks and a hint of the same red on the tip of his nose. He’s dressed in red with a green trim, navy cuffs around his wrists, black boots with gold accents, and a gold crown on his head.

‘I’m so sorry, you lovely thing. I’ll pay for the damage—’ I catch sight of a price tag tied around his unbroken arm and lean across to read it, turning the tree-shaped cardboard over in my fingers. ‘£926!’ I say aloud. I’ve never had a heart attack before, but I suspect this is what one might feel like.

I’ve heard people use the phrase “eye-wateringly expensive” but this is the first time I’ve ever looked at a price tag and felt my eyes actually start to water.

Nearly a thousand pounds. Every part of my body has tensed up. I cannot pay that. I’d struggle to find a spare £26 at the moment, never mind the £900 as well.

I drop the price tag and look around in panic. There’s still no one here. Wherever the shop owner has gone, even the noise of the nutcracker falling hasn’t brought anyone running back.

No one has seen me. No one knows it was me. If I just left …

That £926 is pulsing in my head like a sign flashing in neon red. I’ve got so much stuff to buy to host Christmas for my family this year, never mind supplies to make stock, and food and presents, and in January, I won’t have a job. Not a proper job anyway, only my online sales and whichever craft fairs Stacey and I can get a spot at, not including the petrol it takes to get there. And that’s only assuming they’d let me pay it off in small amounts. The thought of being expected to find nearly a thousand quid right now makes a cold sweat prickle my forehead.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I whisper. And I run away.

I dash back across the lane and into Starlight Rainbows, kicking the weighted Santa hat doorstop I made out of the way and slamming the door behind me, even though we’ve decided to keep it open to make the shop more inviting.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Stacey looks up from replacing one of her necklaces that’s been bought from the mannequin in the window.

‘I knocked over a giant nutcracker and broke it and now I’m going to owe that shop nine hundred quid,’ I say in such a rush that even a professional translator wouldn’t be able to decipher it.

‘Can you split that sentence into more than one word?’

I lean against the wall and knock a bauble skew-whiff and don’t even bother to straighten it as I take deep breaths and try to calm my heart rate while I repeat myself.

‘You have to go back,’ Stacey says when I’ve finished. ‘Explain that it was an accident and ask if they’ll let you start paying it off in January. They run a Christmas shop; they must understand how tight things can be at this time of year.’

‘Or I could hide in the back room and never come out. I’ll go home after dark and stay in my shed making decorations and you can sell them, and between us, I’ll never have to show my face here again and no one will ever know it was me. How’s that for a plan?’

We both know I’m not serious, but I start pacing the floor anyway. ‘What am I going to say? And I’ve run away and made it all worse. Now I’ve made myself look like a criminal. I’m a fugitive. A life on the run beckons. Oh my God, I’m going to get involved in organised crime and be indoctrinated into a gang, and all sorts.’

‘Your only crime is murdering a nutcracker. I don’t think the punishment is twenty-five years behind bars, but maybe they’ve changed the charge of second-degree murder to include wooden dolls now.’

I narrow my eyes at her sarcasm and she laughs. ‘I need a cup of tea, so go on, go back over there and confess so you can watch the shop while I go and get one, or there might end up being a real murder committed due to tea desperation.’

I try to delay the inevitable for a few moments longer, but I know she’s right. I’m not a good enough liar to pretend it wasn’t me, and my conscience is already getting the better of me. Stacey and I have done craft fairs where people pick things up and pull them around and break them and then hastily put them down and hurry guiltily away, or even better are the ones who draw your attention to it and say, ‘This is broken, love. It was like that when I picked it up. I wonder how that happened …’ I would much rather someone outright apologise and offer to pay for it, even though it doesn’t matter as much with a £2.50 pair of earrings as it does with a £926 nutcracker. ‘And what is with that weird pricing?’ I say to Stacey.

‘Nia!’ she snaps. ‘You’re delaying. Get on with it.’

I’ve known Stace since the first day of secondary school, and sometimes I wish I hadn’t because she can see right through me. I grumble as I set the door open again and force one foot in front of the other to traipse back across to the open door with the Santa still Macarena-ing outside, feeling like some sort of hefty cyclops rather than an elegant ballerina this time.

Inside, the shop is still empty. Where on earth is this person? The nutcracker made such a crash when it fell that I’m surprised someone from the UK’s seismology team hasn’t turned up to investigate the unexplained earthquake that just registered on their scales, and yet there’s still no one in sight. This is getting weird now. I suppose I should pick the nutcracker up and wait with it until someone gets back …

I round the corner of the aisle where the nutcracker was, but the giant wooden soldier has gone, along with the broken bit of his arm, his sceptre and every splinter of wood, and lying on the floor in his place is a man. I scream.

The man is lying on his back and his head and right arm are under a shelf, looking like he’s trying to reach for something. His left arm is in a plaster cast and held across his chest by a sling.

He yelps in surprise at my noise and jumps so much that he clonks his forehead on the shelf hard enough to make the whole thing shake, causing such a reverberation that the rows of fifteen-centimetre-tall nutcrackers wobble and fall off, pelting down at him as he tries to curl in on himself and makes a noise of pain.

‘What are you doing there?’ I snap, the shock of seeing him making all logical thought fly out the window.

‘I work here. You?’ he snaps back as he wriggles himself out from under the shelf, every movement slow and stilted and followed by a noise of pain that he’s probably not aware he’s making out loud. He crunches the nutcrackers under his legs as he moves, until eventually he’s fully free of the shelf and is lying on the aisle floor, surrounded by a sea of little wooden nutcrackers, and squinting up at me in the brightness of the shop.

My heart is still pounding from the shock of his unexpected appearance and I’m sure he must be able to see it bouncing in and out of my chest like a cartoon character’s.

He’s got something clutched in the hand of his unbroken arm and he rubs his forehead with his free fingers. ‘Is your jumper flashing or is this the festive equivalent of seeing stars?’

It makes me snort with laughter. ‘It’s flashing.’

‘I thought you worked in the decoration shop opposite?’

‘I do.’ I can’t hide my surprise that he knows that.

‘Not the jumper shop?’

‘No.’

‘So you’re wearing that without contractual obligation?’

‘It’s Christmas,’ I say when I finally fall in to where his line of questioning was going.

‘And that makes it socially acceptable to wear a set of traffic lights?’

‘Ah, traffic lights only have three colours. This jumper has many more.’

‘Believe me, I can see that.’ He groans and clonks his head back onto the floor. ‘So, my arm breaker. You came back.’

‘I had to. I’m so sor— Wait, your arm breaker?’ The music playing in the background of the shop is now “The Waltz of the Snowflakes” from The Nutcracker and the ballet pops into my head. The nutcracker soldier given as a gift on Christmas Eve, who gets broken and then turns into a prince at the stroke of midnight and takes the young ballerina on a magical journey through a land of sweets and snowflakes.

He mutters something about the nutcracker, but all I can think about is the ballet and the nineteenth-century story behind it. About the nutcracker who turns into a real-life prince after being broken …

He’s just lying there, trying to catch his breath, pain obvious in every line that flashes across his face when he winces.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I did not think this through at all. Getting down here was hard enough, but I have absolutely no idea how to get up. I regret this decision.’ His face is still pinched but there’s a jokey tone in his voice that makes me smile.

‘Do you need a hand?’

‘No, I need a crane. Or a forklift truck.’

His tone makes me giggle again and when I look back at him, he’s smiling for the first time and his smile is so much like Flynn Rider’s that it stops me in my tracks. In that moment, he looks so much like the Disney prince that it’s almost like the animated version has stepped out of the screen and into real life. Wait … A Disney prince. A nutcracker prince. A prince … I wished for last night?

No, it couldn’t be. Like I’ve somehow developed the ability to see through walls, I look in the direction of the magical nutcracker. I wished for a prince. A prince like the nutcracker himself. And they say nutcrackers grant wishes if the wish is made at the moment a nut is being cracked, and the stars were twinkling just right and the wind did whisper in his beard. This man is even wearing a dark blue shirt with threads of green running through it, not unlike the nutcracker’s navy cuffs and green-trimmed coat.

It couldn’t be, could it? He couldn’t be … he couldn’t actually be the nutcracker I knocked over … could he?

No. Of course he couldn’t. What am I thinking? Maybe I’m the one who’s fallen over and hit my head. In the real world, outside of much-loved festive ballets, broken nutcracker soldiers don’t magically turn into real men. I think. Hope. I mean, it would be nice, but …

‘Can you take this?’ He’s holding his good hand up to me and sounding like it’s not the first time he’s said it. I put my hand out and his warm fingers touch my palm as he drops something into it.

I go to offer help again but the look he gives me makes me cut off the sentence, and I look down instead, trying to give him some privacy as he starts moving.

In my hand is an amber gemstone that I recognise from the front of the nutcracker’s gold crown, one of the many that must’ve fallen off and skidded under the shelf when I knocked it over, which explains what he was doing down there. I’m trying to look away, but he’s making so many grunts of pain that I can’t help watching him worriedly, hovering like I might be able to help even though he’s made it obvious that he doesn’t want any assistance. His legs move against the smooth laminate wood flooring, the fallen nutcrackers scattering around him as he tries to get upright.

He seems to be hurting more than a broken arm would cause, but I’ve never broken anything, so I wouldn’t know.

Eventually he gets onto his knees and has to stop. His good arm is laid along a low shelf and his forehead is resting against it, his chest heaving as he pants for breath.

I go to ask if he’s okay, but it’s obvious he isn’t. ‘What happened to your arm?’ I ask instead.

‘I got knocked over,’ he says without looking up.

I freeze again. My fingers tighten on the amber stone I was fiddling with, hoping he’s going to elaborate, but he doesn’t. No. No … it can’t be. Obviously he doesn’t mean by me. Just now. When I knocked over the nutcracker and happened to break the exact same arm. That’s ridiculous. Even though I wished for a prince last night and the more I look at him, the more strongly he resembles a Disney prince. He’s like Aladdin, Prince Eric, and Flynn Rider got together and had all the best parts of themselves put into one person. He’s got Eric’s floppy dark hair, Aladdin’s wide-set brown eyes, and Flynn’s smile, and I feel every childhood crush coming back with a vengeance. It’s some kind of sign – it’s got to be. Obviously he can’t actually be the nutcracker come to life, but what if the whole nutcracker thing is some kind of nod from the universe and this is a sign? What if this guy really is the Prince Charming I’ve been waiting for?

When he looks up, there’s sweat beading on his forehead from the effort it’s taken him, but he gives me a soft smile that makes every thought disappear from my mind and my body goes hot all over, and I realise I’ve spent the last few minutes staring at him.

‘I’ll clear these up.’ I look away and start gathering up the mini bare-wood nutcrackers, anything to give myself something to do besides stare at him.

I take a couple of armfuls over to the counter, and he doesn’t look up again until I go back for the third and final lot. ‘At least it wasn’t the snowglobes. That would’ve finished the job for the multiple things that have been trying to kill me this week.’ He glances at the tiny globes lined up on the next shelf along. ‘And been a lot messier to clean up.’

It makes me smile as I put the nutcrackers down and go back to hold my hand out. ‘Now do you need a hand up?’

He smiles gently up at me and seems to consider it for a moment before reaching out and slotting his right hand into mine. My fingers close around his and I widen my feet and brace my knees and pull him up. Agony crosses his face as he stumbles to his feet and when he gets upright, he doesn’t let go of my hand, even as he leans against the shelf for support, short of breath again. I can’t imagine how badly that arm must be broken if it’s causing him this much pain.

Eventually he opens big brown eyes with dark circles under them and moves from holding on to my hand to shaking it softly. ‘Seeing as we’re shaking hands anyway, I’m James.’

‘Nia,’ I murmur, feeling ridiculously entranced by his eyes. They’re light brown, an unusual wood-like colour. You’d expect someone with such dark hair to have dark eyes, but his are so light they’re almost out of place. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Well, let’s just say it’s a good thing the painkillers from last night are still in my system or I wouldn’t be functional at all.’ He ducks his head and his hair flops forwards, and I can’t help noticing he’s around six foot tall – exactly the same height as the nutcracker.

Somehow, my hand is still in his, and we’re still mindlessly shaking them even though the introduction phase and the awkward phase have passed and we’re now just two strangers staring at each other and holding hands. A little tingle has sparked from the touch of his fingers and I can feel it gradually sparkling up my arm, across my shoulders, and down my spine, and it takes a long few minutes for me to realise I came here for a reason.

‘I’m so sorry about your nutcracker,’ I say in a rush.

‘My what?’ He blinks, looking dazed for a second, and then awareness seems to hit him hard enough to make him jump and he yanks his hand back and pushes it through his hair, which instantly falls across his forehead again anyway. ‘Oh, that. Don’t worry about it.’

‘I’m so sorry. I broke it, I have to pay for the damage.’ I don’t add “assuming you aren’t actually it come to life” to the end of the sentence. That would be one way to make an impression and not the good kind.

‘Oh, please. I couldn’t give a toss. You’ve done me a favour – I’ll mend it and sell it at a reduced price. It needed to be reduced anyway – believe me, no one is going to pay £926 for that thing.’

‘Yeah, but I damaged your stock. Everyone knows about the “you break it, you buy it” rule. I can’t afford it outright, but if you’d let me start paying—’

‘Nia, don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Yeah, but—’ I start again, but he cuts me off.

‘It’s nice of you to offer, but forget it. It’s just another Christmas decoration – exactly what everyone needs around here.’

‘You work in a Christmas decoration shop …’ I say slowly, confused by his attitude. I thought he’d be calling the police to have me done for criminal damage given half a chance, and now he’s telling me I don’t even have to pay it off?

‘Exactly. I think there are enough nutcrackers to go round, don’t you?’ He waves his good hand towards the pile on the counter. ‘You can smash up the rest of the shop too, if you want. I hate Christmas.’

I take a step back in surprise and quickly think better of it and check behind me, lest we have another nutcracker-related disaster. ‘You hate Christmas?’ I shake my head in disbelief. Surely he’s winding me up? ‘You own a Christmas decoration shop in the most Christmassy place in the country.’

‘Exposure therapy?’

‘Are you serious?’

He laughs a sarcastic laugh, which quickly turns into a wince of pain. ‘I didn’t think it through, okay? I usually do an office job but I needed a change this year. I took a wrong turn and pulled into your car park to turn around and saw a “Help Wanted” sign. And it seemed like a sign. You know, from the universe. And a literal sign. So I don’t own it, I just work here.’

‘I didn’t know there had ever been a “Help Wanted” sign up …’ I rack my brain, trying to think of a sign I might’ve missed. I go to push further but I realise how weird I must sound and stop myself quickly. ‘Sorry, it’s just that you’re selling off Nutcracker Lane stock …’

‘Am I?’ He looks around, seeming surprised by this. ‘I collected my keys this morning from Santa who was rolling his own earwax into balls and flicking it at passers-by. I have never been so grateful for antibacterial hand gel.’

It makes me giggle again, even though with that Santa, I doubt he’s joking. ‘All this stuff used to decorate Nutcracker Lane. Where did you get this from?’

He shrugs again but I can tell he’s being careful this time because it’s a muted shrug, and I want to ask him if he’s okay again, but he doesn’t seem like he’s going to elaborate either way. ‘I don’t know, it’s nothing to do with me. All I’ve been told is that the new owner’s selling off stock and needed someone to man the shop.’

‘It’s not his to sell!’

‘Well, if he’s bought the place, technically it is his and he can do whatever he wants with it …’ He sounds cautious, like he’s waiting for me to yell at him.

‘Have you met him? Do you know who he is? He sounds like an absolute monster.’

‘No.’ He shrugs with a blank look on his face. ‘Like I said, I’ve just got a job here until after Christmas. I needed to get out of the office for a while.’

‘And you thought this was the ideal place for someone who hates Christmas?’

He pushes his floppy hair back again. ‘Look, I may not have thought it through properly, okay? I needed to do something different while I still can, and this came up and I grabbed it. It was only afterwards that I realised what I’d be doing and how festive it’d be.’ He pulls a face.

While he still can? It makes it sound like he’s dying … Or like he’s a magical nutcracker come to life for a limited time … No. I have to keep repeating it until I believe it myself – he is not a giant nutcracker come to life who’s going to turn back into a wooden soldier on Christmas Eve. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Nothing. Forget I said anything. I think we shook hands for so long that I feel like I’ve known you for months, not minutes. Ignore me, I probably hit my head harder than I thought.’ He rubs his forehead at the spot where he clonked it on the shelf.

I smile because, despite hating the thing I love most, there’s something about him. Something that makes me wish we were still shaking hands. Something that makes it impossible to look away from his brown eyes and hesitant smile. He must be in his late thirties, probably a couple of years older than me, and he’s definitely from around here because he’s got a local Wiltshire accent that’s warm and animated.

‘It doesn’t seem right that you’re selling stuff that doesn’t belong to you. Nutcracker Lane is all about handmade goods and shop owners who really care about their products, make bespoke orders for customers, and put their heart and soul into every festive season.’

‘Well, I’ll put my heart and soul into getting rid of this festive tat. Does that help?’

‘It’s not festive tat.’

‘No? God help the person who sees that Macarena-ing Santa and thinks, “That’s it! That’s what’s been missing from my life!” and rushes in to throw money at me and then Macarenas all the way home with it.’

His sarcasm makes me laugh and I let out a very unflattering snort that makes him smile his Flynn Rider smile again, and I really do have to stop staring. I force myself to turn away and my eyes fall on the miniature mechanical nutcracker factory in the window. ‘That used to mark the spot between Nutcracker Lane and the factory next door, and now you’re selling it for £96. And that snow.’ I point upwards as another flake of fake snow floats down from an unseen machine in the ceiling. ‘Nutcracker Lane used to have a snow machine but it broke down.’

‘I know, I mended it.’

‘You mended it? I thought you only picked up your keys an hour ago.’

Something flashes across his face but it’s gone in the space of a blink. ‘I’m a fast worker.’

I’m not sure I believe him. It took him ten minutes to inch his way up off the floor, but he has been missing from the shop for ages; it’s not unfeasible that he could’ve been out the back mending a broken snow machine. One-handed.

I’m distracted from the line of thought as singing reaches my ears. ‘The carollers are back!’

James groans, but I rush to the open door to see them. One of my favourite things about Nutcracker Lane was always the carollers. A group of women and men in full Victorian dress, carrying lanterns and singing traditional Christmas carols from sheets. When I was young, they were employees of Nutcracker Lane, paid to walk up and down during opening hours. They always carried spare lyric sheets and anyone who wanted could join in and walk with them or sing along when they passed, but the budget for carol singing was cut by Mr E.B. Neaser years ago, and now they’re just a group of five volunteers who come by whenever they’ve got time.

I hum along to “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” as they come into view from the end of the lane and wave excitedly as they get nearer, glad to see that other shopkeepers are in their doorways doing the same. Now they don’t get paid to do this anymore and their number has dwindled over the years, everyone is expecting the day when they don’t come back, and it’s heart-warming to see that customers have stopped to join in too. Maybe if enough people get behind them, we could convince the new owner that it’s worth adding carol singers back to the budget.

I wave and shout “hello” as the group of carollers get nearer. The leader of the group is a wonderful woman called Angela who handmakes all their Victorian clothing and has been doing this for longer than I can remember, and she waves back, unable to stop to chat mid-song, but she points towards Starlight Rainbows and gives me a thumbs up, looking slightly confused that I’m in the wrong doorway.

I turn around at a noise and see James throwing and catching a resin reindeer in his one hand as if testing the weight of it. ‘What are you doing?’

He holds it up to his head. ‘Debating how much force it would take to knock myself out until it’s over and if it would be worth the pain of getting up from the floor again.’

‘I really hope you’re joking.’

He grins, letting me know that he is.

‘Don’t you think that’s lovely?’ I force myself to look away from his smile because it’s doing something to me. ‘You don’t have to like Christmas to appreciate nice music and talented singers.’

‘Pardon? I can’t hear you over that racket!’

He’s deliberately winding me up now. ‘You must like some Christmas music. You have The Nutcracker score playing in your shop.’

‘I’m left with no options. The only tolerable Christmas music are songs without any words in them. I don’t know how anyone can bear this lot waltzing around with their constant “Hosanna in Excelsis-ing”. They need to fa-la-la off.’

I’m trying to be annoyed but I can’t help the snort of laughter that escapes at his turn of phrase, and he smiles back at me, and I lose track of everything for a minute as we smile at each other across the shop, and by the time I come back to myself, the carollers are off in the distance and have moved on to “Away In A Manger”.

‘Well, your shop is amazing so you must be doing something right …’ I pause for a minute and then blurt it out anyway. ‘Other than the name. And what’s with the weird pricing?’

‘When people try to haggle, I can knock a six or twenty-six off and customers think they’ve got a bargain. It works better when it’s not a round number.’

‘Shrewd.’

He bows his head like it’s a compliment. ‘And what’s wrong with the name?’

‘Tinkles sounds like something you need the bathroom for.’

‘I hadn’t even thought of that. I was thinking of Tinker Bell, you know, fairies on top of Christmas trees and stuff like that …’

‘Well, other than that, it looks like a real winter wonderland – just like Nutcracker Lane used to be.’

‘I hear things are changing now …’

‘Yeah,’ I say sadly. He obviously got a letter this morning too.

‘Good. This place is old and tired. It’s long past time it was put out of its misery.’

‘No, it’s not. It’s long past time it was owned by someone who cares about it and thinks it’s worth saving and putting money back into rather than selling off everything that’s not nailed down and putting some miserly accountant in charge to squeeze every penny out of the budget. And this competition to be the most profitable shop is terrible. It pits us all against each other. It turns friends into enemies.’ I pick up a little nutcracker that had ricocheted off a plastic snowman and tried to hide under a shelf and point it at him. ‘You and me are officially rivals.’

‘Ah, but I don’t want anything to do with that. This is a one-off for me. I won’t be back next year, and this shop’ll only be here until the stock’s gone. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not the rival type. We might have to be friends instead.’

I know my face has gone red because there’s something so sweet about his innocent words. I’m trying not to smile, but there’s something about him that’s impossible not to smile at. ‘I don’t think I can get along with someone who hates Christmas as much as you do.’

He pushes his bottom lip out, pretending to pout, and I go back into the aisle where he’s still standing and go to give him the nutcracker back but he shakes his head. ‘Keep it. As a reminder of your Christmas-hating shop neighbour. You can put it on the counter and throw darts at it.’

They’re unusual little nutcrackers – bare wood from the bottom of their circular stand to the peak of their top hat, their only facial feature is the traditional wedge-shaped nose and opening mouth, and there’s no decoration whatsoever apart from a shock of furry white hair and a patch of white beard. ‘I could never throw darts at a nutcracker … but I’m absolutely fine with knocking them over and breaking their arms, obviously.’ I regret the words before I’ve finished the sentence. Well done, Nia: first you cause clumsy destruction in his shop, then you keep mentioning it just to keep the embarrassment nice and fresh.

He goes to say something, but I hold up the little nutcracker. ‘Thank you. I’ll hang him on my Christmas tree when I put it up.’

‘That reminds me – why are Christmas trees such bad knitters?’

‘What?’ I say in confusion because it sounds like the start of a bad Christmas joke.

‘Because they keep losing their needles!’

Oh, what do you know, it is a bad Christmas joke. ‘Did you seriously just pull a Christmas cracker joke on me?’

‘Did you seriously just use “pull” and “cracker” in the same sentence?’

My traitorous face goes red at the terrible pun. ‘That was unintentional.’

He raises an eyebrow and his mouth curves up into a smile at one side, and I literally can’t get the smile off my face. Every time I try to stop smiling, I smile more. Who is this guy? He seems serious and pained, and then he comes out with that? I could stand here and talk to him all day, but Stacey is still waiting for her cup of tea. ‘I’d better …’ I point at the door and back away towards it. ‘See you around, Grinch.’

‘See you around, Mrs Claus!’ he calls after me.

It’s probably the most perfect parting line ever, and he definitely thinks Mrs Claus is an insult, but even though he’s a Grinch, I probably won’t complain about seeing him around. Not with those eyes and that smile and the little hint of butterflies that are fluttering around inside me.

***

I must float back across the lane because I don’t realise I’ve got there until Stacey says, ‘There you are! I thought you’d taken a wrong turn and ended up in Narnia or something. I was about to send for a Search and Rescue team.’

It feels like I’ve been gone for hours, even though it’s only been about twenty minutes.

‘What happened? Did they let you have a payment plan?’

‘No, he—’

‘He!’ she squeals, frightening the two customers who are browsing at the back. ‘I knew I recognised that smile on your face! I haven’t seen that smile since you met Brad.’

The reminder of my first boyfriend brings me back down to earth with a crash. ‘That’s a terrible comparison! I don’t want to be reminded of the guy who cheated on me and apparently kicked off a trend for every subsequent guy to end a relationship in the same way.’

‘Yeah, but he was the only guy you’ve ever been in love with. He was the only one who’s ever made you smile like that.’

‘I’m just happy because of the carol singers. Did you see them?’

She narrows her eyes at me, but maybe the reminder of Brad was a timely one. I spent most of my twenties living with him, the man I thought I’d end up marrying and having children with, only to walk past his parked car one night and discover him having sex with someone from his office in the back of it, and it set the trend for every subsequent relationship.

From then on, every time I’ve come close to letting someone in again, they do the same. Every relationship since then has ended with cheating or lying. There’s no point thinking about James’s eyes or warm smile. Men cannot be trusted. I learnt that much-repeated lesson yet again last night.

‘What’s this he like?’

‘Oh my God, Stace, he’s like a cross between every Disney prince you’ve ever had a crush on. He’s got the most unbelievable smile, and eyes like I’ve never seen before, and—’ I cut myself off when I realise I’m not following my own advice.

‘But you’re happy because of the carol singers, right?’ She crosses her arms over her chest.

‘It’s not about that.’ I give the customers a wary glance and step closer to the counter, beckoning her to lean over. ‘I think he might be an actual prince. You know the story of The Nutcracker? Where the nutcracker gets broken on Christmas Eve and the girl mends him and he grows to life-size and defeats the evil mouse king, and it turns out he was a prince all along, cursed to take the form of a nutcracker?’ I tell her about how I found James when I went into his shop.

‘And you don’t think it’s far more likely that he heard the crash of the nutcracker falling, saw it, moved it, and got down to find the missing gemstones?’

‘I was only back here for a couple of minutes. He wouldn’t have had time.’

‘You were back here for ages.’

‘It wasn’t that long … was it?’ I seem to have lost all track of time this morning. ‘And I wished for a nutcracker prince last night. I made a wish on the magical nutcracker for a prince just like him. And The Nutcracker score was playing in the shop. And James said he got knocked over, Stace. Knocked over. I knocked over the nutcracker. He even said “my arm breaker” when I went in.’

‘Poor guy was probably concussed from banging his head on the shelf.’ She shrugs. ‘I know you love Christmas, and nutcrackers, and the idea of Christmas magic, but I really don’t think it’s likely that he’s a wooden doll turned into a real live man …’

‘Well, when you put it like that …’ I trail off, realising just how mad I sound as a customer approaches the counter with a basket full of decorations and jewellery and Stacey goes to serve her.

All right, it’s a bit unlikely, and even I don’t really think James is a giant nutcracker come to life, but it can’t just be a coincidence, can it? Not with the wish last night as well, the green flecks in his blue shirt, saying he got knocked over and the same arm broken. It has to be a sign. It has to mean something.

‘It’s just … I don’t know … weird,’ I say to her when the customer has left after complimenting us both on the shop. I watch her go across the lane and into Tinkles and Trinkets, hoping she didn’t overhear any of our conversation to relay to the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. ‘Did you ever see a “Help Wanted” sign?’

‘No, but we’ve spent the last month hauling stock up that hill and using the back entrance by the tree lot …’

Hmm. Good point. I suppose it’s feasible that there was a sign up somewhere that we could’ve missed by shortcutting around the back. ‘But why would someone who hates Christmas voluntarily run a Christmas shop in a Christmas village? And since when are there vacancies here? You know how crazy the availability for these shops was. I had to register our interest at 12.01 a.m. on a January morning, submit an application by February along with our stock samples, and then we had to wait months while they assessed all applicants and chose the most suited ones. He makes it sound like he wandered past and they happened to have a spare shop. And if they did have a vacancy, why not go back to the original applications and offer it to the next best?’

‘I think you might be overthinking this …’

Once again, I’m annoyed by how well she knows me. What am I doing – looking for flaws in his story that might somehow prove he’s a wooden doll come to life? Trying to prove that you can’t take anything a man says at face value?

‘Do you know you haven’t stopped smiling since you got back in here? And even mentioning Brad hasn’t done it. Maybe this James guy is some kind of magical prince after all … It would definitely take magical powers to put a smile like that on your face.’

‘Nooo,’ I say quickly. ‘He’s exactly the type of person I hate, Stace. He hates Christmas and is keen to tell everyone how much he hates it at any opportunity. It’s fine if people don’t like this time of year, but they have no right to try to stop other people’s enjoyment of it.’

‘He’s selling Christmas decorations. And judging by that nutcracker you’re lovingly caressing, he’s giving them away too. It doesn’t sound like he’s trying to spoil anyone’s enjoyment of it. Is he single?’

‘I don’t know, but there’s no way. You haven’t seen him. Men who look like that aren’t single. And he was nice too – sweet, funny, engaging. No wedding ring, but his left arm is in a cast up to his thumb; he’d probably have taken it off.’

‘Or he could be a magical nutcracker come to life solely meant for you to fulfil your wish on another magical nutcracker … There seems to be an influx of magical nutcrackers around this place.’

‘Which, once upon a time, was what made it so popular.’ Thinking about Nutcracker Lane and its rapid decline is one thing guaranteed to get the smile off my face. ‘And I don’t actually think he’s a nutcracker, I just think there are a lot of coincidences.’

‘Like the universe is winking at you—’

I cut Stacey off with the old British excuse for everything. ‘Didn’t you say something about a cup of tea?’

I hurry off to the back room to make it with our little kettle, because I can’t think about things like that. James seemed lovely, and even though there was something about him, he’s just going to have to be lovely from a distance. Single or not is irrelevant. I’m nowhere near ready to trust another man, and after so many relationships ending in lies and cheating, I’m not sure I ever will be again.