5

The tradition of making gingerbread houses began in Germany in the 1800s, after the publication of Grimm’s fairytale, ‘Hansel and Gretel’.

‘Helloooooo!’

Joss doesn’t hide the groan. ‘For a moment there, I was thinking how nice Mistletoe Gardens is.’ He looks at the resident committee swarming through the gate, carrying boxes and ladders. ‘And then they turn up.’

‘They’ve volunteered to decorate.’ I wave to the gang. ‘They’re trying to help.’

Joss watches as Douglas from the coffee shop carries a box so big he can barely get his arms around it, and Mr Arkins, in his dino costume, waddles in carrying one end of a huge foldable ladder with Mr Chalke from the shoe shop on the other end. Beryl carries a stack of boxes she can’t see over the top of, and Edna has apprehended a supermarket trolley and filled it with tinsel. Mr Selman has got two armfuls of snowflake stake lights that he keeps dropping and every time he bends to pick one up, he drops another one and chases it across the path, the wire trailing behind him and tripping up Mrs Allen, who’s carrying another armful of lights. ‘I’m not sure Mistletoe Gardens is that big. Are they decorating the park or are they going to start here and go in all four directions until they hit a distant seawall?’

The residents continue pouring in, one after another, carrying boxes and bags and flasks of tea and picnic baskets and blankets like they’re settling in for the day. Most of them aren’t exactly spring chickens and they’ve still come out in their coats, hats, scarves, and mittens.

‘They haven’t put half of this stuff up for years. Mervyn must find your mum very… persuasive.’

I giggle at his word choice because there are a lot of ways to describe my mum, and persuasive is one of the tamer ones. I have no idea how she persuaded Mervyn Prichard to let the residents ransack the council warehouse where decorations are stored, but I suspect the use of thumbscrews was involved.

‘Ooo ooo, morning Essie!’ Lynette comes towards the bandstand.

‘Behave yourself.’ I threaten Joss with a warning finger. ‘No growling.’

He laughs and then bares his teeth at me, doing a little growl for good measure, and it really shouldn’t be as sexy as it is.

‘Morning, Joseph,’ she says warily.

Joss looks at me like he’s surprised word hasn’t got around, and I see the moment he realises he’s going to have to give up that little bit of himself or put up with being called by his full name.

‘Friends call me Joss,’ he says eventually, and it makes something else go warm inside me. It feels like one more tiny brick out of his wall.

A brief look of joy flits across Lynette’s face and she looks around like she’s misplaced her megaphone to announce this to the entire park. Instead, she nods approvingly at the house frame Joss has put together in the bandstand.

There are smooth planks of wood forming the bottom, sides, and top of each wall. The two panels for the roof are in the back of Joss’s van and one of his lads is coming to help him get them on today.

‘Got to admit, I thought it was a bonkers idea when you mentioned it, Essie, but it’s all coming together now. Who knew you two would work so well together, eh?’

When I glance at Joss, I’m almost positive there’s a hint of redness colouring his cheeks.

‘Many happy memories in this old place. My late husband used to make a point of pulling me into the bandstand for a kiss every time we came here, no matter the time of year. He thought the mistletoe magic should be harnessed year-round.’ She admires the structure for a few moments and then looks at the crate full of gingerbread bricks at my feet. ‘You two look busy, I’ll leave you to get on.’

Joss calls after her when she goes to walk away. ‘Lynette? I’m sorry for the way I acted that time you approached me at a town meeting. I wasn’t dealing with things very well, but you didn’t deserve the reaction I gave.’

The chemist owner looks surprised by his apology and it takes her a while to respond. ‘Thank you, Joss. Don’t worry yourself about it. I’ll take down my voodoo dolls of you when I get home.’

She keeps her face remarkably straight for someone who’s obviously joking, and waves a cheery ‘toodle-oo’ over her shoulder as she walks away.

I elbow him. ‘Look at you being a decent non-werewolf.’

‘A decent non-werewolf. That’s the kind of compliment I want on my gravestone one day.’

I’d intended to come up and see the frame last night, but it was too late by the time I’d finished making a few batches of gingerbread bricks. He’s also got the tent rigged up around the bandstand, and it’s currently pulled back to allow access and let daylight in.

Lynette has gone over to where Beryl is untangling the artificial berry lights that get tucked into the real holly bushes so they give out a red glow. She whispers something to her and they both look in our direction.

‘Look at that. Gossip spreading in action.’ He crouches down by the bakery crate and picks up a gingerbread brick. ‘I’ll “test” this wonky one.’

At first I think he means test it for strength, and I almost start laughing when Mr ‘I don’t like gingerbread’ uses the flat of his hand to break a corner off and pops it in his mouth.

The friendly robin is on the bandstand wall next to us, and Joss keeps crumbling pieces off and leaning over to put some down for him, and he eats, singing for more every time it’s gone.

‘Do you think it’ll hold up?’

He grins around a mouthful of gingerbread. ‘I knew you could do it, Ess.’

‘Really?’

He picks up two gingerbread bricks and bangs them together and then nods, satisfied with the tapping noise they make.

‘My mum took one look at them and said they’d fall apart, and she’s been a baker for over fifty years, so she’d know.’

‘She ever tried to build a life-size gingerbread house?’

I shake my head.

‘Then with respect, she wouldn’t know.’

That simple. There’s something so honest about his uncomplicated way of putting things. He has no reason for trying to make me feel better about myself, and yet he does, just by being himself.

‘There are cracks already.’ I pick up one of the bricks and use my little finger to point out a couple of flaws that developed as they cooled.

He cocks his head to the side and I can feel his eyes on me, and I don’t dare to move because if I do, he’ll see right through me. ‘You doubt yourself too much, you know that?’

I do doubt myself, I know that, but my last big idea turned into my biggest failure, and now I’m back where I grew up, working with my mum who’s a powerhouse in time management and keeping things together, and somehow manages to keep up with the bakery and her resident committee commitments and still find time for a social life, whereas I’m up until the early hours to get the bakery stocked, and I can’t make anything without doing a run of practice pieces to iron out any kinks first because something always goes wrong. I can’t say any of that to Joss though, so I mouth a ‘thank you’ at him.

‘I guess we could say you’re baking spirits bright.’

I laugh out loud. Who knew Joss Hallissey had an eye for puns? ‘That’s genius! That would make an amazing hashtag. Can I use that?’

He shrugs, bemused.

‘Saff runs the bakery’s social media accounts and is covering the build. A hashtag is a good place to start. I’m supposed to be taking photos today too.’

There’s a clatter as Douglas sets his ladder against a tree and starts climbing it, holding a string of lights between his teeth, being fed up to him by Mr Arkins. The dino suit is obviously too bulky for climbing ladders.

Beryl chooses that moment to start playing Christmas music on a battery-operated radio she’s brought with her, and not to be outdone, Edna puts on a playlist from her phone, and two competing lots of music clash in the middle of the park.

‘Oh, come on,’ Joss groans. ‘When it’s just you and me, I can block out the fact I’m doing something Christmassy, but this is too much.’

‘Christmas music is the best. It’s supposed to be out-of-tune and sung with joyful abandonment.’

Yet another station of Christmas carols starts playing through someone else’s phone.

‘It’s like a duet.’ I look around. ‘Well, a trio. Oh no, Mr Chalke’s got an iPod and a Bluetooth speaker out, so it’s soon to be a quartet. It’s fun to sing them together, like a duet where you perform both parts.’

Joss looks… unconvinced would be a nice way to put it, but undeterred, I sing along to all of them. ‘All I want for Christmas is walking in a winter wonder sleigh ride the snowman to the world oh come all ye hark the silver bells.’

It frightens the robin away.

Probably just as well when they start squabbling over the best Christmas song and one turns up their music to drown out the other music.

‘Oh no, now there’s a fight over whether “Mistletoe and Wine” is better than “Saviour’s Day” and they’re having a Cliff play-off. A Cliff-off, if you will.’

‘I certainly wouldn’t mind Cliff-offing myself right now.’

I grin at him. ‘Wait until someone throws “21st Century Christmas” into the mix, it’ll end in fisticuffs.’

‘Can’t wait.’ He drags the crate of gingerbread bricks across the bandstand and crouches down to line the first brick up with the frame. ‘Ess, what am I supposed to use for mortar? You said something about icing?’

‘Oh no!’ I slap my palm to my forehead and make a noise of frustration. ‘I forgot. I’ve been so caught up in getting the bricks done that I’ve forgotten to make royal icing. How could I have been so stupid?’

‘Essie,’ he says calmly, his eyes gleaming with that same bemusement. ‘Breathe. There’s no rush.’

‘You don’t understand. This was supposed to go perfectly. I’m supposed to be on top of things like this. I was supposed to help the residents and take photos and—’

‘It doesn’t have to go perfectly.’

‘That’s not what—’

‘I don’t care what your mum would say. It’s no big deal. I’ll take the photos while you go and make the icing.’

I go to ask if he’s sure, but he shoos me away. ‘Take your time. And catch your breath because your face is currently the same colour as your hair and an aquatic animal would have taken a breath more recently than you have.’

It makes me smile to myself as I hurry back down the road towards the bakery. I race into the kitchen and start throwing icing sugar and egg whites into the stand mixer, measuring quantities in only the loosest sense. I flap around more than Joss’s robin friend would, trying to tell myself I’ve done this hundreds of times before, even though admittedly, I’ve never made quite this quantity of royal icing in one go, and it isn’t long before I’m racing back through town, hauling a food-grade bucket full of icing with me.

Joss isn’t in the bandstand when I get back, and I stop at his van and survey the area. The music has quietened down and only two playlists remain, one on either side of the park, each quiet enough for the other side not to hear.

Maybe it really was too much for him and he’s gone. Maybe he was so desperate to get out of here that he abandoned the van and left on foot.

‘Useful to have one that tall. And that young. And that fit. Not enough young chaps willing to help out the older generation these days.’

‘Hmm?’ I ask as Mr Arkins glides up in his brown dino suit, his face completely obscured by the window in the dinosaur’s neck that he can see out of.

‘Got to admit, we thought he might be difficult to work with, but he’s been quite pleasant. No growling at all.’

Mr Arkins uses his T-rex arm to indicate the tree where he and Douglas were stringing lights up when I left. Douglas is now at the bottom of the ladder, and Joss is at the top, wrapping fairy lights around a bare branch. ‘Douglas had a little slip and he came to help.’

Helping the people he supposedly hates. Surprising.

Mr Arkins goes to help Edna who’s spreading a net of lights along the hedges, and when Douglas spots that I’ve returned, he calls someone else over and insists Joss get back to the gingerbread house.

On the way across the park, Joss is pulled over by Lynette and has a cake forcibly inserted into his mouth, and before he gets back to the bandstand, Beryl has manhandled him into bending low enough that she can reach to tug a red and green hat with elf ears onto his head, except one of the ears has got half a crocheted brain leaking from it.

The robin is hopping back and forth along the bandstand wall, unperturbed by the activity all around us. ‘You really like him, don’t you?’ I say to the bird, unable to take my eyes off Joss as he walks back.

Rob chirps in response.

‘Love the hat. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were enjoying yourself.’

‘Just trying to be a decent non-werewolf.’ He leans over to lift the lid off the bucket I’m carrying and dips a finger in.

‘Joss!’ I complain as he sucks it clean.

‘There is no point making a gingerbread house if I can’t eat half the equipment. I will never again work on a project where I can eat the mortar and the bricks, so let me have my fun. It’s the best bit – like scraping the bowl out when your mum made cake mixture when you were litt—’ He stops abruptly and his voice wobbles like it’s going to break. He holds his hand out for the bucket handle, his tone flat when he continues. ‘Time’s marching forwards, let’s get a move on.’

I hand it over wordlessly, unsure of what caused the change, but unable to shake the feeling that a hug would solve a lot of his problems.

He takes the hat off his head and puts it on the wall, where Rob hops over and tries to peck off the crocheted elf brain. His hair is messed up from it but he doesn’t bother to straighten it out. He sets the bucket by the furthest corner of the frame and hauls the crate of gingerbread bricks across with a loud scraping noise, and yanks his tool bag over too.

Pushing him isn’t going to help, I know that much, especially with so many people around. ‘Royal icing starts drying out on contact with the air. You have to put the lid back on every time you touch it, or it’s going to start setting within ten minutes. It needs a few hours to reach full hardness.’

‘Thanks.’ He nods like he appreciates me not pushing it.

* * *

‘Ooh, good job, Edna. Very nice, Douglas. Oh yes, just like it used to be.’ Mum marches towards the bandstand and I groan.

Joss looks up, looks between me and the approaching figure, and goes back to work on the bricks, sort of shrinking, like if he curls into a small enough ball, she won’t see him.

Our red-breasted companion flies off in sheer terror as her heels click along the path.

‘Look at this.’ Mum whistles as she stands at the bottom of the bandstand steps and looks up at the house frame. ‘That’s a much better start than I expected.’

‘It’s all Joss, not me. He’s the builder.’

‘We’re a team.’ Joss is kneeling down in front of the frame, laying the first line of gingerbread bricks. ‘Essie makes, I build. Neither of us would work without the other.’

I’m surprised because I thought he saw me as more of an annoyance than anything else, but I watch my mum’s perfectly made-up face shift. First her mouth opens, then her eyes widen, and then I recognise the excitement that fills her eyes – the kind that’s reserved solely for potential matches.

‘Isn’t Saff on her own in the bakery?’ I jump in quickly, hoping to inspire an immediate need to rush back there before this goes the way I think it’s going.

‘She’s got the two Saturday girls.’ Mum does a dismissive handwave and stalks up the steps, her grin getting wider. ‘Mr Hallissssssssey.’ She draws out his name, probably going for sultry cat but coming across more like a deranged cobra. ‘You wouldn’t happen to be single, would you?’

‘No, I’m a monk.’

‘Jolly good.’ She licks her lips like the cobra is now preparing to eat a yipping prairie dog it’s caught.

‘I’m not single, Mrs Browne,’ Joss replies without looking up from his work, his tone suggesting he knew this was coming. ‘Single implies that one day I might not be single, and that’s never going to happen. I don’t think of myself in relationship terms – there is no single or taken, I am simply non-existent. A non-entity when it comes to relationships. Think of me as a non-sentient object. A paperclip, if you will, with a similar level of interest in romance, although the paperclip would arguably be more interested than myself.’

My mum stops in her tracks and her entire demeanour changes. Distress fills her eyes and she looks like she’s about to well up. Her lip actually starts wobbling, and before I can stop her, she’s crossed the bandstand, physically hauled Joss’s head up and is cuddling it against her thigh, stroking his hair.

‘Oh, you poor darling boy. Who hurt you? Who hurt you so badly that this is the result? Do you want me to track her down and poke her with my knitting needles?’

Joss has been yanked backwards on his knees and is hanging in the headlock she’s put him in, one hand braced on the floor, looking like he’s about to tap out.

She’s got confused between wrestling moves and gestures of affection again. ‘Mum! Don’t suffocate my builder! I need him alive!’

‘Was it that prickly poinsettia you were married to?’

‘Joss was married?’ I say in surprise, and then turn to him. ‘You were married?’

‘The past tense is the key aspect of that sentence,’ he chokes out, barely audible under my mum’s vice grip.

‘Look at him, Essie,’ Mum continues. ‘Don’t you think he deserves better?’

‘I think he’s about to lose consciousness.’

‘Oops, sorry.’ She loosens her grip and he rubs his neck, probably trying to ascertain it isn’t broken. ‘I see so many people hurt by past relationships who close themselves off to new beginnings and actively shut out the idea of giving love another chance.’

I remember what the MMM said the other morning. It isn’t love that hurt you, Mr Hallissey. Do they all know something about Joss’s marriage that I don’t?

‘Just because one person hurt you, Mr Hallissey, doesn’t mean they all will.’ Mum ticks a finger at him.

‘Bronwen!’ Mrs Allen toddles over. ‘Come and settle a dispute for us, will you? Mr Selman is insisting that “You Make It Feel Like Christmas” is Neil Diamond’s best Christmas song when it’s plainly “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”. Can you help before I strangle him with this tinsel?’

‘It’s a full-time job being president of the resident committee, you know,’ Mum says to us as she hurries after Mrs Allen who’s got Christmas decorations in hand and Neil-Diamond-related murder in mind.

‘You okay?’ I ask Joss. ‘You look a little traumatised. My mum tends to have that effect on people.’

He’s still on his knees, and he looks up and meets my eyes, holding my gaze for a moment, before he rapidly looks away and goes back to gingerbread brick-laying. ‘Fine.’

‘I didn’t know you were married,’ I venture carefully, trying to sound conversational and not interested at all, when in reality my brain is racing along at ninety miles per hour. I’m desperate to know more and equally certain that he isn’t going to open up to me.

‘Past tense,’ he repeats.

‘When?’

‘Essie, in the nicest way possible, I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Oh, right. Okay,’ I stutter. ‘Sorry.’

I sound totally un-sorry, but it’s myself I’m annoyed at because I knew that’s how it was going to go. I stand there in awkward silence, trying to think of something to say to ease the tension, but Mum comes back before I have a chance.

‘The mistletoe is getting to people. What those two need is a damn good snog.’

‘With each other?’ Joss looks confused and mildly horrified. I can see thoughts of clacking dentures and prune breath running through his mind.

‘They’ve been in love for years and they still haven’t figured it out for themselves. Maybe the magic of the mistletoe can help them this year.’

Joss meets my eyes and raises an eyebrow, and for some reason, it makes me grin.

‘Right, where was I? Oh yes, dates! Have you checked your matches this week, Essie?’

‘No, because I’m not inter—’

‘Never mind that, it’s the weekend so I thought some more men might be ripe for the picking.’ She gets her phone out and opens the dating site app. ‘Look, this one’s a handsome one, don’t you think?’

She waves her phone screen in front of my face, briefly showing me a long-haired man in the photo, and then goes over to Joss. ‘Look, don’t you think he’s handsome? He and Essie would make a nice couple, wouldn’t they?’

‘It takes slightly more than looking nice.’ He doesn’t even give her phone a cursory glance.

She scrolls further. ‘Ooh, this one’s six-foot-four. And this one’s got a lovely big bathroom.’

Maybe she’s accidentally logged into Rightmove again. ‘What type of man posts pictures of his bathroom on dating sites? Doesn’t that disturb you even slightly?’

‘Well, it’s an asset, isn’t it? Trying to show you that he’s got a nice big…’ She trails off and stays silent long enough for us to get the innuendo.

‘House?’ Joss offers, and I burst out laughing.

Mum continues scrolling. ‘Ooh, look, this nice chap’s just posted that he’s in desperate need of a date tonight because he’s made reservations but the woman has dropped out. It’s only twenty miles away, you could pop there easily on the train.’

‘Oh my God, Mum, will you stop? I don’t want to be anyone’s second choice. I don’t want to go on some consolatory date with a guy who considers me only a marginally better option than losing his deposit on the table.’

‘He could be your perfect match. It might be fate that his other date dropped out because all along he was destined to meet you. I’ll send him a quick reply and see if he’s filled the position ye—’

‘Essie’s already got a date tonight, Mrs Browne.’ Joss interrupts without looking up from what he’s doing.

‘She has?’ Mum says in surprise.

‘She has?’ I say warily, wondering what he’s up to. ‘I mean, I have?’

He lifts his head and grins at me. ‘She’s going out with my friend Rob.’

Mum looks between us with her mouth hanging open. ‘Well, why didn’t you say something earlier? How marvellous. What’s he like? Is he handsome? Does he have as nice a bathroom as the bloke on here?’

‘He’s, um, quite short. Red hair, like Essie. He’s got a lovely singing voice. They’re going to make beautiful music together.’

‘Karaoke!’ Mum claps her hands together. ‘What a brilliant date. I wish you’d said something before I wasted my time looking through these.’

‘Didn’t want to spoil the fun of looking at all the men with big… bathrooms,’ Joss says brightly.

‘Ooh, so exciting! I must go and tell the others. Tatty-bye!’

‘That was… inventive,’ I say when she’s out of earshot. ‘Thank you. I’m totally ineffectual at standing up to her. I say I’m not interested and she ignores me.’

‘How could anyone ignore you?’

I’m not sure if he’s being sarcastic or if it’s a compliment, but for once it doesn’t sound like a bad thing. ‘Either way, you didn’t have to do that. No one is ever usually brave enough to get between me and my mother.’

The robin lands back on the wall again, and Joss fishes some gingerbread crumbs out of the crate and sprinkles them in front of him, and like he can sense me watching, he brushes his hands together and looks over his shoulder at me. ‘Relationships only end one way, no one should be forced into that against their wishes. It was the least I could do.’

‘Is that what happened to you?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it, Ess,’ he repeats.

I sigh and he glances up at me and then sighs himself. ‘At least she confirmed something I’ve always known.’

‘What?’

‘My wife cheated. Your mum wouldn’t have said that if she hadn’t known about it, so she’s proved I was right. Everyone in town knew what was going on, and none of them had the decency to tell me.’

I suddenly fall in. ‘Is that why you hate Folkhornton and everyone in it so much?’

He nods. ‘And that was a much-needed and timely reminder. It’s easy to get swept along, find myself enjoying this, feeling a sense of community here. It felt nice helping out with those lights this morning. I needed a sharp reminder of the total lack of care or consideration these people showed me.’

‘How do you know they knew? Your wife obviously was a prickly poinsettia – people like that have a hard time hiding their true personalities for long, it could’ve just been something people picked up on.’

He scoffs. ‘Is there anything that people don’t know around here? If gossip was a superpower, they’d all be some plural version of Batman. Any hint of tittle-tattle is like a bat signal lighting up the sky to the residents of Folkhornton. They knew.’

I chew on my lip. ‘I didn’t know you’d been married.’

‘It ended a couple of years ago. We lived in Bristol and only moved back here when my father was ill. Were you even here then?’

I shake my head because I hate even thinking about Paris and the time I spent there. ‘I lived away for a while. I only came back last year. But for what it’s worth, I’ve not heard anything about it since.’

‘It’s old news. Someone’s life imploding is only interesting when you can gossip about it in real time.’

He sounds so bitter, and I want to stand up for the residents, but he’s probably got a point. Not much gets past the town busybodies. It’s unlikely that an affair would be going on without someone knowing about it.

‘I’m sorry.’ I kneel down beside him, intending to help with the wall building. ‘Even if they did know, that can’t be an easy thing to tell someone, Joss.’

‘Well, I would rather have heard it from any one of them in any way than to have found out the way I did. It’s proof of what I’ve always known – people are inherently selfish and do nothing if there isn’t something in it for themselves.’

‘Maybe they didn’t know how to break it to you. You’re quite scary.’

‘Am I?’ He quirks an eyebrow so high that it makes me smile. ‘I mean, good. That’s exactly what I want. People to stay away from me. Far away.’

‘I don’t think you mean that.’ I knock my shoulder against his where I’m kneeling beside him. ‘I think you’re quite a nice non-werewolf really.’

This time, he meets my eyes and something flickers in his gaze, and I really, really wish I could hug him.

‘Stop it.’ He holds out a warning finger. ‘You’ve got that huggy look in your eyes again. Don’t even think about it.’

I poke my tongue out at him. ‘Get over yourself. I’d rather hug a Portuguese Man O’ War.’

‘Hmm. Squashy.’

‘And murderously stingy.’

‘Like me.’

I narrow my eyes at him. I think not, somehow.