In ancient times, a woman in love could ask a folk medicine practitioner to bake a gingerbread man in the likeness of the object of her affections. If she could get him to eat it, he was guaranteed to fall madly in love with her! Women are also known to have eaten ‘gingerbread husbands’ to increase their chances of finding the real thing!
After the mince pies are collected and Mum and Saff have left, I’ve tidied up, made a cuppa and wolfed down something to eat, it’s 9 p.m., and I’m standing at the bottom of the stairs, trying to persuade myself to go up to bed, but I can’t get the gingerbread house out of my head.
I’d intended to go back up to the gardens as soon as we were finished with the mince pie order, but I hadn’t expected it to be so late. I’ve got to get up at 5 a.m. to start baking for the day ahead, but I know I’ll lie awake tossing and turning. While my body is tired after the busy day, my mind is far from it. I go back into the kitchen and make a batch of royal icing. I can do something useful for a couple of hours. I can make a start on the decorating, and it’ll be a surprise to Joss when he arrives in the morning, and it might allay some of the guilt at having to abandon him today.
It’s a cloudy December night as I walk up the road, the footsteps of my winter boots echoing across the brick paving stones. The Christmas lights are still on, but they’ve had a makeover. There’s a tasteful ‘Nadolig Llawen’ emblazoned across the street, and sprays of LED snowflakes hanging from each lamppost. Blue icicles with white snowflakes criss-cross the road ahead like ribbons, and there are reindeer that flash alternately and appear to chase each other around town.
At the beginning of December, they were the same old decrepit decs that had been languishing in the council’s storage room since the mid-eighties, but these look new and modern. Shops are busier lately, and people have been posting photos from their visits to Folkhornton – not just of the gingerbread house, but the other parts of town too, the quaint shops, the fountain, the town tree and the Christmas decorations. Either Mum’s had the thumbscrews on Mervyn again or there have been enough extra visitors to make the council consider it worthwhile to upgrade.
I feel a pang when the empty gateway comes into view. I miss seeing his van there, as it has been every time I approach Mistletoe Gardens lately. My keys rattle loudly as I undo the gate and lock it behind me.
‘Ess, is that you?’
A voice in the darkness should make me jump, but I know Joss’s gentle Welsh accent so well that it sends butterflies scattering through me instead, and the bucket of icing bangs my legs as I hurry towards the shadow sitting on the bandstand steps.
This is Mistletoe Gardens at its most magical. A warm orange glow coming from the old-fashioned streetlamps, and every bare tree branch is wrapped in twinkling micro lights. The hedge atop a wall that forms the perimeter of the gardens is covered with a glowing net of fairy lights, and the holly bushes are interspersed with red ball lights that give the impression that the berries themselves are glowing.
But nothing makes me happier than seeing Joss sitting there. I don’t realise how much I’ve missed him until it takes all my willpower not to throw my arms around him. ‘Hi! What are you doing here?’
‘Honestly? I don’t know. Went for a walk, ended up here.’ He looks up and even in the darkness, I can see he’s smiling. ‘Thinking, I guess.’
‘About…?’
‘I’m not sure I’ve worked that bit out yet either.’
I go up the steps to stow the bucket of icing inside the gingerbread house, surprised to see Joss has finished laying the entirety of the roof tiles today, and then I sit down on the step beside him. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah.’ He glances over at me. ‘Better than I’ve been for ages, actually. I just wanted to spend some time here, to appreciate what we’re trying to save. Mistletoe Gardens didn’t matter to me until recently. No one in Folkhornton did.’
I like how he uses the past tense without even realising it.
‘After you left this morning, Douglas came over to ask if he could help seeing as I was flying solo, then Beryl brought me a cup of tea and a biscuit, then Mr Arkins started painting the backdrop for his festive dino area and chattered the whole time, and I felt like I was an important part of something really special…’ He looks over at me again. ‘Why are you smiling like that?’
I laugh and then put a hand to my face to check, but he’s right, I’m grinning because he sounds so happy. Folkhornton is funny like that – it creeps up on you and before you know it, you’ve fallen in love with the place. And Joss is obviously feeling it too, but he’s holding himself back, probably because of his history with this place and the people in it. It seems like a good moment to broach a difficult subject. ‘The only reason they didn’t tell you about your wife and the personal trainer was because they didn’t want to pile more misery on top of what you were already dealing with.’
His head snaps up and he looks at me for a long moment. ‘So you do know.’
‘I asked my mum after she mentioned it here. I wasn’t being nosy – I wanted to know if you were right about everyone knowing.’
‘And?’
‘They were trying to find a way to tell you, but you found out before they could.’
‘Yes.’ A shiver goes through him. ‘On the day of my father’s funeral, my ex booked a session at the gym. I thought it was a bit odd, because you’d expect your wife to go to your father’s funeral with you, right? But I didn’t want to argue about it, and I thought maybe she was too upset, maybe she didn’t want to cry in public, maybe she knew I’d have my hands full with my mum and didn’t want me to worry about supporting her too, so I let it go. Afterwards, I was driving home and I passed the gym – it was after closing time but her car was still in the car park, so I thought I’d go in and see if she wanted to go out for dinner and toast my father in our own private way, and I walked in on… well, let’s just say, there was a workout of a different kind going on. One that involved a lot less clothes than a traditional workout, and a truly inventive use of a fitness ball that had probably never been violated like that before.’
‘Wow. That’s awful, Joss.’ I reach over and give his forearm a squeeze through the sleeve of his coat. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It wasn’t a good relationship. I’d been so caught up in what was happening with my parents that I hadn’t noticed how bad things had got between us. When my mum started going downhill, and then my dad’s diagnosis, I went completely numb. I got through each day on autopilot. When I look back, I remember almost nothing from that last year living in Bristol because I wasn’t “there”. I could have a conversation with someone, blink, and not have a clue what they’d said. I was blank, staring at things but not seeing them. I drove down here every weekend, and my ex thought that should “get it out of my system” and then I could focus on the week ahead, but I was preoccupied all the time. I pulled away from our friends. I didn’t want to do anything or go anywhere. She thought I should be able to switch it off when it was inconvenient.’
‘If only grief worked like that,’ I murmur.
‘They were both still alive. It wasn’t—’
‘Of course it was. Grief doesn’t start exclusively at the point someone dies. Grief for the person your mum used to be. Grief for your father’s diagnosis. Grief over what was inevitably coming.’
He goes quiet, thinking it over. ‘I’ve never thought of it like that before.’
My hand is still on his forearm and I squeeze it again, and he shifts just a little bit closer to me on the step. ‘I’m guessing there was a decision you had to make about coming back here too?’
‘Yeah, but it was a decision with only one option. I’d always known that I’d take over my father’s company one day, didn’t expect it to be that soon or in those circumstances, but that’s the way it had to be. My wife isn’t from here, and she didn’t want to move back here with me. She thought I was throwing away a good job with prospects for a failing building company that was in a hole of debt deeper than any of its broken-down JCBs could dig, but I’d made a promise to my father and I couldn’t let him down. The lads who worked for him are all young fathers with families to support – I couldn’t let them down either. I didn’t cope well after he died. I didn’t care about the business. I resented it. I hated everything. I drank too much and didn’t turn up when I was supposed to. Those lads kept the business going when I couldn’t. That’s why I have to do this one last job in January – to make sure they’re taken care of.’
‘So that’s where all the bad reviews come from…’
His face screws up in confusion and he tilts his head until he can catch my eyes. ‘You’ve read my reviews?’
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. ‘Saff has. She was being the overprotective best friend.’
‘So Saff thinks she’s got something to protect you from in me…’ His hand twists around until he can get his fingers under mine and lift my hand from his arm. He pulls my hand to his mouth and presses his lips to the back of it, burning on this chilly night, and my breath shudders as I let it out slowly.
‘Where on earth would she get that idea from?’ I murmur, barely audible. It’s a good thing I’m already sitting down because I’d have had to sit down pretty swiftly after that, and I’m equally glad he’s not looking at my face because it’s probably glowing brighter than the holly berry lights in the nearby bushes right now.
‘A total mystery,’ he concurs, my hand still held to his mouth, the movement of his lips making his stubble graze against my skin in the tingliest way possible, causing a shiver that’s not the traditional kind of shiver.
And I have to ignore it. I’m feeling something for Joss, but it’s something that can never be anything more. This could go further, I know it could. The things I felt when he kissed my cheek the other day, the tingles I’m feeling now… if he was staying… but he’s not.
‘Seeing as we’re oversharing tonight, how about you?’ Joss has let my hand drop from his jaw, but our still-joined hands are resting on his thigh. ‘What really happened in Paris?’
‘I’d been dating this guy for a couple of years. He was French. Younger than me, but it hadn’t seemed to matter at first. No one had ever treated me as nicely he did. It was a whirlwind of romance. I’d always waxed lyrical about how much I’d love to live in Paris, but it was just daydreaming about something I’d never do. And then he got a job offer in Paris. He asked me to move there with him, and I… I think I’d talked myself into it rather than it being something I wanted to do, you know? There was this guy who I thought I was in love with, offering me a chance to do something wild and daring and so far removed from this little Welsh town, and I thought I’d be stupid to say no. I had this idea of taking a piece of Wales to Paris and starting my own bakery there. I even called it Cannelle Dansante, and thought it would be just like here, except I’d be my own boss, and it would be something new that Parisians and tourists alike would flock to.
‘He found a tiny little flat for us to live in, and I found a tiny little shop to rent. The flat was awful and the shop was awful. I sunk everything I had into doing it up and buying equipment, convinced it would be worth it in the end. He was only a couple of years younger than me, but it felt like he’d dragged his granny along to the City of Light with him. He had new work friends and he wanted to go out partying and enjoying the city atmosphere, and I was baking all the time, from the early hours until midday, and then spending the rest of the day on my feet, trying to encourage people into my empty shop. I was too tired to do the fun things he wanted to do. We argued all the time. He went and did the fun things with his friends from work and came back tipsy and smelling of other people’s perfume.
‘The relationship was over and we were barely tolerated housemates in an apartment that wasn’t big enough to avoid each other. I couldn’t tell Mum how wrong it had all gone because she’d told me I was making a big mistake and I’d ignored her. Saff was so excited and supportive and wanted to live vicariously through me, and I couldn’t tell her how much I’d let her down. The bakery was an abysmal failure. I worked so hard and was lucky if I sold one or two cakes a day. I had to pull out – I had no money left to keep funnelling in and getting nothing back. My ex found someone else and wanted to move her into his flat, and I had nowhere to go. I had to swallow my pride and beg Mum to help me get home.’
‘Oh, Ess, I’m sorry.’ He covers my hand with his other one and squeezes it between them both. ‘I know your confidence was knocked, but I didn’t realise how big the knock was.’
‘More like a crater,’ I mutter, wondering why I’m saying this to Joss Hallissey, of all people. Even Mum and Saff don’t know the true extent of how miserable I was in Paris, but Joss makes it impossible not to talk to him. ‘I stopped trusting myself and believing I know what’s best for me. I should have listened to my mum. She could foresee how it was going to go. I stopped trusting my own judgement, and anything I do now, I think it’s going to end in failure, and everyone else does too.’
‘No, they don’t.’ His words are pointed and he tugs my hand until I look over and meet his eyes, and it makes me realise that I’ve welled up. I look away quickly, trying to swipe tears away before he notices.
From the way he squeezes my hand, he’s noticed, but he doesn’t push it. Instead, he puts his elbows on his knees and leans on them without letting go. My arm is between his arms and my hand is still clasped in his, and his chin is resting on it. ‘Sometimes you have to make mistakes before you know they’re mistakes. That’s just how life is. And it’s not a bad thing to have jumped headfirst into something and given it your all. Whether it worked out or not, it takes courage to do that. That is something to be proud of, no matter the end result. And it takes guts to admit you failed too. To come back with your head held high and try to move on, and to still have this creativity and this drive to do something special and to single-handedly make it happen, even when you aren’t sure you can do it.’
‘It helps if other people are sure.’ I give his hand a purposeful squeeze so he knows exactly who I mean.
His mouth tips into an involuntary smile and he looks across at me again. ‘Since the moment you plonked a basket of baked goods in front of me in the swimming baths lobby, the one thing it’s been impossible to do is doubt you, Ess.’
My breath catches and I have to hold it to stop it escaping as a sob. He has no idea how much that means to me… and how much of an impact it’s had to work with someone so encouraging and confidence-building, and I’m overwhelmed by a sudden urge to kiss him.
And I cannot kiss someone who won’t be here this time next month.
Instead, without giving him a chance to protest, I jump to my feet and go up onto the step behind him. I put a hand on his back for balance as I fit one leg on either side of his body and sit down. I lean forwards and slip both my arms around him, pulling him back against me. ‘Sorry, but you can’t say things like that and not expect to have a cwtch, whether you like it or not.’
He laughs, sounding like he doesn’t mind anywhere near as much as he would have a few weeks ago. His hands cover mine and he lets out a happy-sounding sigh and relaxes in my arms, and I squeeze him tighter.
It’s quite possibly the strangest cwtch I’ve ever had, but that’s the thing about a Welsh cwtch – it’s so much more than a hug. You can hug anyone, but only someone you really care about gets a cwtch.
He leans backwards until his lips brush all-too-briefly against my cheek. ‘Thank you for making life make sense again.’
I close my eyes and rest my head against his. There’s none of his usual styling product tonight, his hair is soft and barely dry after a shower, and he smells of shampoo, and I have to force myself not to nuzzle it with my nose.
Sitting here holding him soothes something inside of me. Everything feels better when I’m with Joss.
Until the thought of Joss not being here rears its ugly head again.
‘Do you think it’s still going to make sense on an isolated island? You can’t live alone forever and shut out the whole world because one ex was a complete jingle bell-end.’
‘It’s not just because of that. It’s everything. It’s all been too much. The only thing that’s kept me going for the past two years is holding onto the fact I’m leaving soon and never coming back, and you’re making me want to stay, and I can’t—’ His voice breaks and he runs out of breath.
In my mind, I cling onto that ‘making me want to stay’ line because it sends a flutter of hope through me. Instead of pushing him any further, I squeeze him with my knees on either side of his body, holding him tightly, and I lose track of time as long minutes tick by. Not another word needs to be said tonight, but in the back of my mind is the one thing I don’t know how I’m ever going to say – goodbye to him in January.