Chapter Ten

‘I SAID NO PENISES!’ shouted Mia.

It was the Saturday before the wedding and twenty of us were sitting round a table in a Soho club. It was a new members’ club just for women, Ruby had explained, and we were going to do a ‘fun’ activity before drinks and dinner.

She’d been very secretive about this activity. No wonder. It turned out to be a class called Milky Moments, which had nothing to do with milk. Instead, a man called Lewis was standing in front of us, explaining that we were about to enjoy a ‘light-hearted’ ninety-minute foreplay lesson. Lewis was a singer from Guildford who ran these classes to make extra cash, he confided to Ruby and me. Once everyone else had arrived, he’d handed out hot pink feather boas, novelty aprons with naked male and female torsos on them, and dildos. This is what had upset Mia: we each had a floppy, rubber dildo on the table in front of us.

‘Keep calm and drink your Prosecco,’ Ruby told her sister.

‘I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one this big,’ said Patricia, who’d finished her glass and was holding her dildo like a lightsaber.

‘That’s what they all say, madam,’ Lewis told her with a wink. He’d draped a feather boa around his neck which clashed with his purple silk shirt.

‘Less of the madam, please, and can I have a top-up?’ replied Patricia, putting down the dildo and waving her glass at him.

Lewis went around the table refilling glasses and we began.

First came a warm-up exercise. ‘Wiggle your fingers, ladies! We need to get those going. That’s it, mother-of-the-bride, very good. And then we need to windmill our arms, watch the person next to you. There we go.’ Lewis’s pelvis rocked back and forwards towards us as he demonstrated, his arms sawing their way through the air like a swimming instructor.

There was a mixture of Mia’s friends around that table. We’d all politely kissed and said hello at the start but I’d already forgotten the names. Some were fashiony sorts from her office. They were the most sombre. Dressed in velvet dresses or silk jumpsuits with blow-dried hair, they’d also looked at their dildos with grim horror.

Then there were the school friends. Less severe, more giggling, they were mostly all married with small children who they’d left at home for the day with Sloaney husbands called things like Biffer and JP.

Hugo’s sisters – Holly and Henrietta – were sitting next to one another. I squinted at them and tried to remember what they did. One schooled show-jumping horses in Berkshire; the other was a teacher at a London prep school. Henrietta looked a bit like a horse herself – long nose, large forehead – so perhaps she was the show-jumper.

Plus Mia, Ruby, Patricia and me. Mia had been persuaded into a plastic tiara and a bride-to-be sash even though she’d protested that she was wearing Erdem and the props ruined her outfit.

After the warm-up, Lewis skipped round the table again handing out sheets of paper and pens and telling us we needed to pair up.

Henrietta guffawed – she was definitely the sort of woman who guffawed – and held the pen out in front of her. ‘Look, even these have cocks on them!’

She was right. At the end of my pen was a very small plastic penis. I glanced at Mia. Her face had puckered with disgust.

Lewis’s sheets were illustrated with a detailed diagram of a penis.

‘You have to label all the bits,’ he announced. ‘And there’s a prize for whoever gets the top mark.’

‘Come on, darling,’ said Patricia. Since I was sitting next to her, she was my partner. It was like being at school; pairing up with the least popular kid to burn a small strip of magnesium ribbon.

‘That’s obviously the shaft. And those are the testicles although they look very small to me. Your father has mu—’

‘PATRICIA, I need to stop you there.’

‘And look, that’s the urethra,’ she went on, unabashed.

‘Chop chop, darling, write it down. How’s Rory, by the way?’

‘Fine,’ I said, my head bent to the sheet. ‘In Prague with Hugo.’ They’d left for the stag the previous night and Rory had sent me a selfie of them on the plane holding up cans of Heineken. Hugo was dressed as a woman, in a blonde wig with his chest hair poking from the top of a red dress.

‘So nice that they’re friends,’ said Patricia, patting my knee.

‘And I am glad he’s coming to the wedding. As is your father.’

I ignored this and wrote ‘foreskin’ in very small letters on our sheet. Around us was high-pitched shrieking. ‘It looks like a slug!’ ‘No, that’s not the prostate, this is!’ and so on.

Mia had partnered with one of her colleagues. Luckily, three Proseccos down, she was laughing.

‘How we doing?’ shouted Lewis. ‘We all finished?’

‘We have,’ cried Patricia, snatching the sheet and waving it above her head.

We swapped sheets to mark them like school spelling tests.

‘Which means in joint first place are Holly and Henrietta, and Patricia and Florence!’ Lewis announced a few minutes later, before handing us our prize: a lollipop shaped like a penis.

‘I will enjoy that,’ said Patricia, sliding it into her handbag.

‘Mum!’ reprimanded Mia.

Then came the final part of the class: a foreplay lesson using the rubber dildos. Lewis handed out bottles of lube, threw a packet of wipes in the middle of the table and sauntered around us, offering helpful tips.

‘No, Jessica, harder than that,’ he told one of the fashion lot as she ran her manicured fingers up and down her dildo. ‘That’s it, Mia, perfect! Your husband’s a lucky man. Well done, Patricia, that’s excellent technique. But, Florence, oh dear! What’s going on here?’

I looked up, my hand frozen. ‘What?’

‘You’ve got to grip it, not tickle it! Get your fingers right round it.’

I frowned at my dildo and held it more firmly. It was like being seven and back in gym class again when I couldn’t do a cartwheel and everybody else could. Except worse, because ropey hand-job technique was much more shaming than not being able to do a cartwheel.

‘There we go,’ Lewis said approvingly. ‘The penis is much more resilient than you think, ladies. You’re not going to break it.’

‘I wish I could break yours,’ I muttered.

‘What’s that, darling?’ said Patricia.

After the class, Lewis swept away with his box of props and we moved up a floor to a bar. The bottles of Prosecco continued and trays of canapés appeared.

‘Can everybody get ready for the knicker game!’ announced Ruby.

If you don’t know what this is, consider yourself blessed. I’d only been to a couple of hen parties before. One for an Edinburgh friend, another for an old schoolmate. But we played the knicker game at both since it’s become a hen party tradition. It will be mentioned in one of the 273 emails you receive before the event itself and the gist is that every hen has to buy a new pair of knickers for the bride to take on her honeymoon. At the party itself, they’re all put into a bag and the bride pulls them out one by one, guessing who bought which pair. Some will be novelty thongs. Some will have Mrs ‘So-and-So’ stitched on their bottom. Others will be lacy, or leopard print, or huge elasticated pairs which could double as a tent. Ruby had mentioned this in an email several weeks earlier but I’d forgotten until she reminded me that morning. I’d raced back upstairs and scrabbled through the back of my drawer to retrieve the lacy thong that Mia had given me years before. In my defence, it was barely worn and the gusset looked fine.

We settled on bar stools and watched as Mia pulled out the first pair.

It was black lace with a red bow on the back. She squinted around the circle at us. ‘Amy! It’s got to be you. They’re beautiful!’

They looked like the sort of pants that would ride right up your bottom, but Amy – one of the fashionables – nodded and smiled. ‘Enjoy them, babe.’

Then came a pair with ‘Just Married’ written on them; an edible G-string made from sweets; a thong with the phrase ‘Ain’t going to lick itself!’ on the front (from Ruby) and a frilly coral pair with the word ‘wifey’ on it. Mia squealed at this while I wondered which word was worse: wifey or hubby?

My pair were pulled from the bag last. ‘They must be from Flo!’ said Mia and I braced myself for a ticking off. ‘How did you know I love this brand?’ she said, holding them up in front of her. ‘You’re so clever, thank you.’

Phew.

Patricia left after this game and the rest of us returned to the table downstairs for dinner. Between the windows, Ruby had strung up home-made bunting made from photos of Mia and Hugo. She’d also done a seating plan that put me at the end, next to Cressida from Mia’s office.

Plates of salmon appeared but most people were too pissed to eat. The fashion sorts kept drifting to the window and back again to hang out of it and smoke, gazing down on the Soho street beneath as tourists and punters wandered between pubs.

‘Are you the sister who’s going out with Rory Dundee?’ Cressida asked.

‘Yeah, how come?’

She giggled and the smell of cigarette wafted from her mouth. ‘How funny. My husband knows him.’

‘Oh right. What does he do?’

‘He’s in politics.’

‘With Rory?’

‘In the Foreign Office, mmm.’ She giggled again. ‘I think they have quite a wild time on their travels.’

‘Wild?’

She giggled again. ‘Yes, sort of debauched. On that trip to Nigeria they did recently, Wilf said they were lucky not to have gotten arrested but Rory’s so charming – he talked the policeman down. And there was that time in Brussels when Rory got in a fight with someone’s husband. So funny! Naughty boys.’

At my silence, her giggles stopped.

‘Debauched? Debauched like how?’

‘No, sorry, I didn’t mean… I think he’s better behaved now. I mean, not better behaved. Oh gosh, this is all coming out wrong.’

I smiled at her, not wanting to give away that my heart was beating at double time under my dress. What did she know that I didn’t?

Cressida waved a hand in the air. She had dark blue nails which matched her jumpsuit. ‘Just drunken stuff. Forget I said anything. Wilf says he’ll be prime minister one day,’ she added, with a more sympathetic smile.

‘He does want to be, yes,’ I replied, the fake smile starting to make my cheeks ache.

‘I’m going to have another fag,’ Cressida said, clearly desperate to escape the situation she had placed us both in. She stood and hurried to the window with her clutch bag.

I leant back in my chair as an espresso martini was put down in front of me.

‘I’ve ordered a round,’ Ruby shouted at me from the other side of the table.

That was the moment Mia swayed to her feet and caught the room’s attention – ting, ting, ting – by tapping her walnut-sized engagement ring against her empty wine glass.

‘Ijustwanttosay,’ she started. ‘ThatIloveyouall. AndI’msogladyou’rehere.’

‘SIDDOWN,’ shouted Ruby, laughing at her sister.

Mia hiccupped and slumped back into her seat. There’d been talk of going on to a gay club round the corner where men danced on podiums but Cressida’s revelation had winded me. Plus, I wasn’t much of a podium person and was worried about Harry having been on his own for so long.

‘Just going to the loo,’ I mouthed at Ruby, before making for the door with my bag and taking the bus home. They wouldn’t notice. Sneaking off was a skill I’d honed on university nights out, leaving when the party was in full swing so I could fall into bed with a book. This hadn’t helped my romantic life, I knew, since people only started pairing off towards the end of the night. But I’d rather get into bed with Mr Rochester or Captain Wentworth than a dribbling student who’d drunk ten pints and wanted chips with curry sauce on the way home.

I let myself into the house, poured a pint of water in the kitchen and walked upstairs. Pushing open my bedroom door, I saw Harry curled under a corner of my pillow. I should have been cross. I was trying to persuade him to sleep in his basket on the floor, but he’d learnt to leap on to the corner of my duvet and claw his way up like a very small mountain climber.

I pulled my phone from my bag. Since the aeroplane selfie, I’d heard nothing from Rory, but Mia had told me that they were on a stag and ‘as long as they didn’t get arrested’, it was better not to know what was going on.

I took a few photos of Harry and looked at the time. It was 11.43 p.m. Too late to message?

I opened up WhatsApp, scrolled to find Zach’s name, and sent a picture of Harry to him anyway. The baby’s asleep xxx, I wrote, hoping that it wasn’t one of those messages I regretted in the morning.

For some extraordinary reason, Mia had decided that the Sunday after her hen party would be a good day for our final bridesmaid dress fitting. I didn’t feel great but my hangover was nothing compared to Mia and Ruby. Sitting between them in an Uber to the dress shop the following morning (Mia had actually cried when I’d suggested taking the Tube) was like travelling with a couple of cadavers.

‘This is all your fault,’ Ruby said, slumped against the car door.

‘I wasn’t the one who ordered nine hundred martinis,’ Mia replied, leaning against the other door.

‘I need a coffee before we do anything else,’ said Ruby.

Mia retched.

They climbed out of the car slowly, groaning as if they’d just finished a marathon.

‘Morning, darlings!’ trilled Patricia. She was standing on the shop’s step wearing a beret and a pair of sunglasses.

Mia held a hand up in the air. ‘Pat, not so loud.’

‘Not that name, you know I don’t like it. But oh dear, are we suffering?’

‘Yes,’ said Ruby. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘No. I feel fine. Florence, how about you? You look wretched.’

I cleared my throat. ‘I’m all right. Could do with a coffee.’

‘We can ask them inside,’ said Mia, pushing open the door.

We followed her in and the smell of expensive candles made me gag again. And it was too hot in here. Why did they keep it so hot? It was like stepping into a crispy pancake.

Hilda, the lady who’d helped with Mia’s dress fittings, ushered us to a changing room and all three of us slid down on the sofa, as if our legs couldn’t sustain us for another second. Dressing that morning had been an effort. The idea of peeling my clothes off to slide a silky peach gown over my head was deeply, deeply unpleasant.

‘Can I get you ladies anything to drink?’

‘Could I have a coffee? Black,’ demanded Ruby. ‘And a large glass of sparking water? And an orange juice?’

‘A cappuccino for me,’ said Patricia.

‘I’d like a coffee with milk,’ said Mia. ‘And have you got any San Pellegrino?’

If Hilda was exasperated by the multiple beverage demands of my family, she didn’t show it. She nodded and looked to me.

‘A white coffee, please,’ I said.

‘How was the rest of last night?’ asked Patricia.

‘Mia ended up being smacked round the face by a penis in a nightclub,’ said Ruby.

‘What?’ I said.

‘WHAT?’ demanded Patricia.

‘Volume, please,’ said Mia, leaning back on the sofa with her eyes closed. ‘And she’s exaggerating. We went to a club and I very briefly danced around a pole.’

‘With a man who was wearing a sock shaped like an elephant on his cock,’ added Ruby, just as Hilda reappeared in the room carrying the dresses. Her pencilled eyebrows leapt in alarm.

‘Forgive my daughters, Hilda,’ said Patricia. ‘But these look wonderful. Don’t they look wonderful?’

‘This one is Ruby’s,’ said Hilda, inspecting a label attached to the hanger. ‘And this one is for Florence.’ They were exactly the same design – pale pink silk, floor-length, with thin shoulder straps and a deep V-neckline. But Ruby was shorter than me and had a more heaving bosom. She was going to look like a fairytale nymph in her dress while I’d look like a drag act.

Hilda looked at us expectantly on the sofa. Nobody moved.

‘Come on, girls,’ chivvied Patricia.

‘I can’t stand up until I’ve had my coffee,’ said Ruby.

Embarrassed by my family and not wanting to annoy Hilda, I stood, pulled the curtain of the changing booth behind me and started undressing.

‘Any word from the chaps in Prague?’ Patricia asked loudly as I peeled down my jeans.

‘No,’ said Mia. ‘Florence? You heard anything?’

‘Nope,’ I shouted back, while I scowled at myself in the mirror. Naked but for my knickers, bra and socks. Not a good look. The only messages on my phone that morning had been from Zach, a series of them sent at 1 a.m. in reply to my photo of Harry.

Hello, how come you’re up so late?

Oh, Mia’s hen. I remember now. Hope it was… fun?

Hey also, there’s a new Quentin Blake exhibition on in Dulwich tomorrow which I thought I might check out if you feel up to it?

Curtis the counting caterpillar research?

But no worries if not.

I’d read them while lying in bed, staring at the screen for so long it kept going black, but I wasn’t sure what to answer. The idea of going to an exhibition on the weekend with Zach made me feel uneasy. Rory was my boyfriend. Rory was the one who loved me. And I couldn’t gallivant off to an exhibition, anyway, because I had to try on this unflattering dress. In the end, I sent one line back, using the dress fitting as an excuse, and said I’d see him in the shop the next day.

I unzipped the dress from its plastic sheath and held it over my head, letting the silk slide down my body.

‘How’s it going in there?’ demanded Patricia.

I turned to look in the mirror again. The light bounced off my lumpiest bits – my hips and the curve of my belly. And my bottom looked enormous. I might as well slap a ‘wide load’ sticker on it and reverse out of the cubicle making a beeping sound.

Hilda whipped back the curtain and I turned to see them all frowning at me.

‘Perhaps, with a better bra?’ ventured Hilda.

‘Turn round,’ instructed Patricia, circling a finger in the air.

I turned.

‘Mmm,’ Patricia went on, ‘definitely a better bra.’

‘And no knickers,’ said Mia.

‘What?’ I shrieked. ‘We can’t wear no knickers.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s your wedding. We can’t go down the aisle of Claridge’s commando. What if there’s leaking?’

‘Oh, Florence, really,’ said Patricia, wrinkling her nose.

‘I don’t mind,’ said Ruby.

‘I do!’

‘Florence, do stop fussing,’ said my stepmother, as Hilda stepped forward and adjusted my dress while the others watched over their coffee cups. She pinned it at the back and along the right side of my body to stop it gaping around my chest, but the silk still didn’t look right because it was pulled more tightly across my stomach. Oh, too bad. On the day itself I’d be carrying a small posy of roses so I could always try and hide my belly behind that.

Hugo and Rory were supposed to come back to Kennington that night. Mia had said it would be fun, that we could order a takeaway and all have it on the sofa, united in our hangovers. But in the end Hugo arrived home by himself.

‘You just got out of prison?’ said Ruby, laughing at him from the sofa. She and I were watching Grand Designs while Mia plucked her eyebrows upstairs.

‘No,’ he said hoarsely, leaning against the doorframe. ‘Why?’

‘I’ve never seen you look worse. What did they do to you?’

Hugo flinched as if in physical pain. ‘This and that. Where’s the wife?’

I shuddered. He’d only started calling her that recently but it irritated me every time.

‘In her room,’ said Ruby.

Hugo trudged upstairs and she looked across at me. ‘I thought Rory was coming back?’

‘He was but he’s got to work,’ I said, staring at a message on my phone. Darling, heading to mine as I need to do some work on this European summit before tomorrow. And I couldn’t possibly see you like this. I need to wash Prague off me. Speak tomorrow? R

‘Borrr-ring,’ said Ruby. ‘Hey, since you’ve got your phone out, do you wanna see what we want from Deliveroo?’

She embarked on a ten-minute soliloquy about whether she felt more like pizza or Chinese while I tried to decipher why Rory’s message left me feeling so deflated. Because I wasn’t seeing him? Because it was Sunday evening? Because I was still fretting about what Cressida had told me? Or because what I really wanted was to be with someone who’d come over to scoop me up and ask about my weekend even if he was presenting to the frigging UN the next day?

We had pizza in the end and I paid for it, obviously.

‘GOOD NEWS!’ said Zach, running upstairs in the shop the next morning and flinging his arms into the air like an evangelical priest.

I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘You’ve cleaned out the fridge?’

Zach shook his head.

‘Someone has emailed you saying you are the sole beneficiary of a fifty-three-million-pound will after everyone else died in mysterious circumstances?’

Another shake.

‘They’ve discovered a new and entirely painless way to remove tattoos?’

‘Very amusing. But no. The agent’s interested in your Curtis story.’

‘WHAT? You’re kidding me. Zach, don’t joke about this.’

‘I’m not joking, I literally just got an email from her. She likes it and says could I put you guys in touch.’

I put my palms to my forehead. ‘This is mad. I never thought… I didn’t think… I—’

Zach was jumping from one foot to the other, grinning at me. ‘So can I do it? Can I put you in touch?’

‘Course,’ I said, with a laugh. ‘I mean, yes please, thank you.’

He reached his hand out to high-five me across the counter and our palms slapped just as Norris appeared, pinching a red furry jacket between his fingers and holding it out in front of him.

‘Zachary, what is this and why was it addressed to me?’

Zach’s face became more serious. ‘Ah, yes. That’s your outfit for Thursday evening. Part of it, anyway.’

‘What am I expected to do with it?’

‘Wear it, Uncle Norris. Where’s the rest of it? There should be some trousers. And a belt. And a hat.’

Eugene sniggered from the history section.

‘Funny, is it?’ said Norris, spinning round and glaring at him.

‘Ignore Eugene,’ said Zach, ‘he’s got his own costume.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Eugene, hurrying over. ‘I didn’t know anything about this.’

Zach leant back against the shelves. ‘It was going to be a surprise but seeing as we’re all so uptight and anti-fun in this shop, I’ll tell you. I’ve bought us all costumes for Thursday.’

‘What am I?’ Eugene asked warily.

‘You are an elf.’

I snorted from behind the till.

Zach raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Florence, I wouldn’t get too cocky because you’re a Christmas pudding.’

‘Ha!’ barked Eugene.

‘And Norris is Father Christmas.’

Norris grunted.

‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘You can’t be the only one who gets away with it.’

‘No, you’re right,’ said Zach. ‘I will be attending the party as Mr Snowman.’

‘How many kids are coming?’

‘About fifty at the moment. So I thought you, Uncle Norris, could be stationed in a chair up here and hand out presents from your sack? Then a few carols with mulled wine and mince pies. If you guys don’t mind being in charge of handing those out? They’re being delivered on Thursday afternoon.’

‘What sack?’ said Norris.

‘I’ve bought you one. And presents. Don’t worry.’

‘How much is all this costing me?’

‘Very cheap. All made in China.’

‘Zachary…’ Norris growled again.

He held his hands in the air. ‘I’m joking, I’m joking. Sort of. But come on, where’s the community spirit? That’s what we need. And Florence, I’m going to email this agent back right now and loop you in.’

He bounded back downstairs and I wondered whether my Christmas pudding costume might, in fact, be more flattering than my bridesmaid dress.

I walked to Rory’s after work, happily weaving my way through the shoppers, untroubled by their lethargic pace. Zach had emailed the agent. Jacinta, she was called, and she’d emailed me straight back suggesting a coffee the following week. Just seeing her name and email signature in my inbox – Jacinta Ewing, Millward & Middleton Literary Agents Ltd – gave me a kick.

‘Darling, how brilliant!’ said Rory, when I’d explained the news. ‘Although…’

‘What?’

‘It’s just a meeting.’

‘I know. But a meeting’s more than I’ve ever had before.’

‘Of course. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.’

I felt squashed but didn’t want to let it sour the evening. I wanted one night where I didn’t feel a spasm of insecurity about this relationship. One night where it felt like it had at the start.

‘How was Prague?’ I asked, laying my head on his shoulder. We were sitting on the sofa while Rory wrote emails on his laptop.

He mumbled under his breath as he typed.

‘Rory, how was it? The stag?’

‘Sorry, darling, so much to catch up on. And it was good. Not much to report. Beer, strippers, the usual.’

‘Strippers?’

‘Got you! No, no strippers. Just beer, and tequila, and some god-awful club I can hardly remember. But it was fun. He’s not that bad, you know, your future brother-in-law.’ He turned to kiss me on the cheek before looking back at his screen. ‘Can you give me, five, maybe ten minutes to get through these and then I’m all yours.’

We had sex on his sofa as soon as he’d finished. Wordlessly, he placed his laptop on the floor and put his hand under my chin to tilt my face towards his. I was so hungry I almost protested to say could we eat and chat first, but then I felt my body respond to his touch. It was hunger of a different kind. Women are often accused of using sex as a weapon, a devious ploy, but Rory could do it too. He was like a sex wizard, I thought, which almost made me laugh into his mouth. But then his hand slipped under my T-shirt and I gasped instead. I just had to keep my eyes open throughout so Zach didn’t appear in my head again. But that was all right, right? That was normal?

My Christmas pudding costume was absurd. I looked more like the turd emoji. The brown felt hung like a sack around me while on my head was a brown hat with a red felt berry stitched on top of it.

I stepped out of the way as the loo door opened and Eugene emerged in a green and red suit, with a pair of green booties that curled at the toe.

‘Paaahahaha, you look ridiculous!’ I said, reaching to jingle the bell on the top of his pointy hat.

‘Stop it,’ he said, batting me away. ‘What am I supposed to do with these?’ He held out a pair of large plastic ears.

‘Put them on.’

He sighed and stepped in front of the mirror. ‘Rory coming tonight?’

‘Nope, he’s got work.’

Eugene tutted. ‘That’s a pity.’

‘Not really. Would you fancy this?’

He turned to look at me. ‘No. Not even if you were the last Christmas pudding on earth.’

‘Exactly. And also it’s always weird between him and Zach. Easier if they stay apart.’

Eugene tutted again in the mirror as he fiddled with his ears. ‘So stupid. It’s just jealousy.’

‘What’s Rory got to be jealous of? Literally nothing.’

He caught my eye in the mirror.

‘What? He hasn’t! Zach is my boyfriend and Rory’s my colleague. It couldn’t be clearer.’

‘You mean Rory’s your boyfriend and Zach’s your colleague?’

‘Yes,’ I snapped, ‘obviously that’s what I meant.’

‘Knock, knock, can I come in?’ said Zach from outside the bathroom.

‘Course,’ I replied, shooting a warning glance at Eugene.

He opened the door and both Eugene and I burst out laughing. If possible, Zach looked even sillier than us. His face and a couple of stray black curls poked out from a small hole in a white-felt costume that was too short for him. It covered his head and ran down his body, stopping just below his knees so his jeans and Doc Martens stuck out underneath. On his nose was a fake carrot.

‘You guys look great! Hottest Christmas pudding I ever saw.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, blushing before flapping my arms. ‘It’s literally quite hot. Shall we go up?’

He nodded and we headed for the shop floor where the world’s grumpiest Father Christmas was sitting in his chair, one leg over the other while his boot jiggled irritably in the air.

‘Norris!’ said Eugene, ‘I’ve been a very good boy, can I have a present?’

Norris paused and glanced at us and I saw a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth before he erupted with a big belly laugh. ‘Zachary, I don’t know why I allowed you in this place. How’s being dressed like the cast of a pantomime going to help anything?’

‘Less of the defeatism, please, Santa.’ Zach waddled around the shop, his legs restricted by the white felt, checking that everything was in order. Behind the till was an urn, warming the wine. Eugene had laid out glasses and two trays of Lidl mince pies on a table next to it.

‘Sack ready?’ Zach asked Norris. It was propped against his armchair. I’d spent all afternoon wrapping crap presents in tissue paper – small bouncy balls, novelty pencils, plastic yo-yos, dinosaur keyrings and neon putty that looked extremely poisonous.

‘You need to be friendlier than that,’ Zach said, still standing over his uncle. ‘Try a smile.’

Norris raised his upper lip.

‘Not that far. Dial it down a bit. Not so many teeth.’

Parents started arriving with their children and prodded them towards Norris. Eugene and I watched from behind the till, snorting disloyally.

‘Merry Christmas!’ he’d say stiffly to each one. ‘Would you like a present from my sack?’

‘He’s got to stop saying that,’ muttered Eugene. ‘He’ll be arrested.’

The small child looked terrified but, behind them, their pushy parent urged them on as if it was sports day: ‘Come on, Orangina/Archibald/Persimmon! Tell Santa what you want for Christmas!’

Little Orangina would perk up at this point and declare she wanted a real-life unicorn.

‘I’m not sure I have one of those,’ Norris replied, with a chuckle. ‘But why don’t you put your hand in here and see what you can find?’

‘Seriously, I’m going to call the police in a minute,’ hissed Eugene.

I hit him on the arm. ‘Don’t ruin it. This is nice.’

It was better than nice. It was magical. Zach had run white fairy-lights around the shelves and Nat King Cole was burbling from the speakers. The shop glowed through the windows, which encouraged more and more people inside, off the damp pavements.

Having texted me earlier in the week, asking if she could bring ‘a date’, I spied Jaz arriving with Dunc, plus Maya and George. I grinned and waved at them across the crowd but had to stay put because there were so many punters queuing to buy books. I doled out the wine while Eugene put the sales through the till. I quite forgot that I was dressed like a pudding and he shook his head, making a little jingle every time a customer reached for their paper bag.

In another corner, underneath the gardening books, stood some of the NOMAD crew. Seamus had swapped his tatty old overcoat tied with string for a tweed jacket and looked like he’d brushed his hair, a Christmas miracle. Lenka and Mary were sipping nervously at their mulled wine and Elijah was frowning suspiciously at a mince pie. I’d never seen any of them outside our classroom before and felt a swell of pride that I’d brought them together here.

Although really this was all thanks to Mr Snowman. Every now and then I glanced up to see him taking pictures, his camera over his ludicrous plastic nose, and felt grateful. Not just for injecting energy back into the shop but for livening us all up. Even Norris seemed to be enjoying himself, smiling at Zach’s camera less like a murderer.

‘Carol singers are here,’ said Eugene, elbowing me and pointing through the windows at a group of Chelsea Pensioners waiting outside.

‘ZACH!’ I shouted over the throng, before pointing at them.

He carved his way towards the door, his white head bobbing above the others. One by one he shook their hands, then turned back and stood in the doorway of the shop.

‘EXCUSE ME, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Could everyone make way for our carol singers? No, not you, Father Christmas, stay right there. But if everyone else could make space, that would be grand.’

Shoppers, parents and children huddled together. Some sat on the stairs, others were pressed up against the bookshelves. I told a couple of people to lift their kids on the counter so they could see. It was as crammed as the Central Line at 8.01 on a Monday morning, just more festive.

I bent under the till to turn Nat off and poured myself a glass of wine as the Chelsea Pensioners shuffled themselves into a semicircle. One of them was holding a trumpet. There was a brief silence and then they were off, into a warbly rendition of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman’.

Then the trumpeter picked up his weapon for a rendition of ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’. We joined in for the chorus, getting louder every time. And I don’t know whether it was the wine, the music, the old soldiers singing in front of us or my hormones (a combination?), but I suddenly felt almost overwhelmed with emotion. I looked around the shop, from Jaz standing with Dunc on her hip, to the trumpeter parping his way through the last verse, and all my anxieties – about this place, about Rory, about counting and the colour of cars – seemed insignificant. For a brief moment, my head felt more spacious, empty of worry. I filled up my glass again and, looking across the shop, caught Zach’s eye, grinning at him as the geriatrics launched into ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’.

They finished to loud cheers and calls for an encore. Zach rattled a bucket for donations, which was passed round while they did a final number, ‘Away in a Manger’.

‘Cor, there are a few fifties in here,’ said Eugene, peering into the bucket when it reached the till.

‘It’s for them, not us. Look, put that down and give them these.’ I passed him a tray of glasses steaming with wine. The carollers’ average age must have been ninety-four and I imagined they needed a sugar hit before one of them keeled over. It was a sweetly comical sight – Norris in his Father Christmas outfit drinking with old soldiers while a snowman shuffled around them taking photos.

I watched from the counter as Eugene handed out the drinks, and Zach lowered his camera and pushed his way back towards me.

‘Not bad, huh?’

‘The singing?’

He shook his head and smiled down at me. ‘The whole party.’

I nudged his arm with my shoulder. ‘Yes, OK, OK, well done. Good work.’

‘Well done all of us,’ he said emphatically, putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me into him. ‘Teamwork.’

I rested against his chest for a second but sprang back again at the sight of Jaz coming through the crowd, hand-in-hand with Dunc.

‘Like your outfit, babe,’ she said, a wide grin spreading across her face. ‘Dunc, look, what’s Auntie Florence wearing?’

He pointed at the berry on my head. ‘Are you meant to be Rudolph?’

I laughed. ‘No, not quite. I’m a Christmas pudding. But good guess. How are you guys doing?’

‘Ace. We had a nice little sing, didn’t we, Dunc?’

He nodded and then looked shyly up at Zach. ‘But I like your snowman outfit best of all.’

Zach laughed. ‘Thanks, buddy.’

‘You want another drink?’ I asked Jaz.

‘Yes, please,’ she said, waggling her empty glass at me.

I topped it up and nodded at George standing across the shop with Maya, talking to Norris. ‘How’s it going?’

Jaz’s entire face erupted in a smile. ‘Oh, Floz, he’s such a sweetheart.’

I glanced at Dunc but he was distracted by Zach, who’d crouched down and was showing him animal pictures on his phone. ‘Have you done it?’ I whispered.

She shook her head. ‘We were supposed to have a date this week but something came up in his office, so I think tonight might be the night. They’re coming back to mine for a sleepover.’

‘What’s he do?’

She shrugged. ‘Something with computers. Actually, talking of sleepovers, can I bring Dunc to the hotel on Saturday morning? I’ll just sit him down with an iPad somewhere while I primp you.’

‘Course. I’m sharing a room with Ruby but Mia’s got the next one so there’ll be loads of space.’

‘Great.’ She had a swig of wine. ‘How’s the mood ahead of the big day?’

‘Mia hasn’t eaten anything apart from apples all week, and Patricia’s emailing us hourly weather updates and shrieking about the rain even though it’s all inside, so, pretty much as expected.’

She lowered her glass. ‘And where’s Rory?’

‘Work. He says he’s got loads to do before this weekend and we’ve got the rehearsal tomorrow afternoon and then drinks, so I get it.’

Jaz raised an eyebrow at me and then caught Dunc’s hand as it snuck towards the mince pie tray on the till. ‘Hold it right there, my friend, that’s enough.’

‘What a GRINCH,’ said Zach, scooping the small boy into the air. He tipped him upside down to loud squeals.

‘Careful, you don’t want sick all over that,’ said Jaz, nodding at Zach’s white costume.

Zach put him down again and Dunc tugged on Jaz’s coat sleeve.

‘Mum, Mum,’ he said. ‘Zach’s showed me photos of his holiday. Can we go to…’ He stopped, stuck on a word.

‘Patagonia,’ said Zach.

‘Can we go there, Mum? Please? They have whales and dolphins and eagles.’

Jaz laughed. ‘Maybe, although it sounds a bit expensive.’ Then she looked at Zach. ‘What holiday is this? You going for Christmas?’

‘An extended holiday. Few months, probably, taking pictures.’

‘Serious? I thought you meant a hotel and a pina colada kind of trip,’ said Jaz, flicking her eyes from Zach to me.

‘No, jetting off with my camera for an adventure at seven o’clock on Saturday.’

‘Can we go, Mum?’ Dunc pleaded.

‘Maybe one day,’ she said, before draining her glass, ‘but right now, we need to go home.’

‘For your sleepover?’ I said, raising my eyebrows at her.

She picked up Dunc’s little hand. ‘Exactly. Come on, let’s go get George and Maya.’

She and Dunc said goodbye to Zach, then she turned to me. ‘See you Saturday morning.’

I nodded and watched as she made her way to George’s side. She put a hand on his back and said something whereupon he nodded and shook hands with Norris, then waved at me.

‘Thank you,’ he mouthed across the shop. He prodded Maya to do the same and then they all left, the last of the punters to go. Jaz winked at me through the shop window as they walked down the street. She looked so happy.

At a shout from the front door – ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ – we all turned to look at Norris, who’d spun the open sign to closed and was grinning at us.

‘Oh, hello, Father Christmas has perked up,’ said Eugene.

‘He has,’ said Norris, pulling off his hat and rubbing his hair so the white tufts stuck up like meringue peaks. ‘And do you know why?’

‘You weren’t arrested for indecency?’

Norris shook his head and clapped his hands together. ‘That man. That man! He’s just saved us.’

‘What man?’

‘That man,’ said Norris, whose face had turned so puce I thought he might explode. I’d never seen him look so cheerful. ‘George something who was here with Florence’s friend.’

‘Spencer?’

Norris nodded. ‘Yes, that’s it, George Spencer. He’s an internet millionaire who founded some shopping site.’

‘What shopping site?’ I shrieked.

He flapped a hand in the air. ‘Don’t ask me. I don’t know anything about these things, as you all know. But he’s offered to pay our lease. Lives round the corner and thinks it’s important that we stay open. Daughter’s a big fan of reading, apparently.’

‘You’re kidding?’ said Zach.

‘He can’t be a millionaire, he looks about eleven years old,’ I added, thinking of George’s smooth face and nerdy spectacles. ‘Jaz just said he works in computers.’

‘Exactly,’ said Norris, still nodding furiously. ‘Some shopping business that Google’s just bought for a fortune and he wants to help us out. It was all thanks to the petition, apparently.’ He bent over to pour himself another drink and raised his glass at me.

I shook my head in disbelief. Jaz was unknowingly dating a tech millionaire, and a modest tech millionaire at that.

We all glanced around one another in stunned silence, before Eugene leapt in the air and whooped, and we all followed suit, our arms over one another’s shoulders. I winced as wine from various glasses spilled to the floorboards but told myself not to ruin the moment.

‘So thank you all very much for all your efforts,’ said Norris, once we’d calmed down. ‘Because it’s worked and I couldn’t… I can’t… I’m not sure I would ha—’ He paused and blinked around at all of us.

‘You all right, Norris?’ asked Eugene.

‘I’m fine,’ he said, clapping himself on the chest and coughing. ‘I’m just ever so grateful.’

‘I can’t get over this,’ said Zach. ‘We need to celebrate. Excuse me, elf,’ he said, shuffling behind the till.

‘What you doing?’ asked Eugene.

Zach pulled his phone from his pocket, plugged it into the lead and the opening bars of Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ tinkled over us.

We drank the urn dry of wine so Norris went downstairs to retrieve a dusty bottle of whiskey from his office. We drank that, too, even though I hated whiskey. I ate six mince pies while we danced around the hardback table to Wham! and Shakin’ Stevens, then more Nat King Cole and Mariah Carey again because it was Eugene’s favourite. If you’d passed the shop and seen a large snowman twirl a Christmas pudding under his arm while an elf moonwalked – very badly – back and forth against the floorboards you might have worried you were hallucinating. It was the perfect evening until I remembered Harry and started collecting up glasses, carrying them downstairs to wash up.

Zach dried while I washed and we hummed ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’.

‘You packed?’

‘Nah, I’ll shove a couple of black T-shirts into my bag on Saturday morning.’

‘We’ll miss you,’ I said as I handed him another glass. Declaring this collectively, on behalf of the shop, felt less intense than admitting it was me, personally, who’d miss him.

‘Will you?’ he said, wiping his hands on the tea towel.

‘Course. Although I won’t miss tidying up after you,’ I added, and because I was tipsy and it seemed like a good idea, I scooped up a palm of bubbles and blew them at him.

Zach laughed, wiped them off his cheek and then we smiled at one another just long enough for it to feel weird. My cheeks went hot, and it was as if all the air in the small galley space had been sucked out of it.

‘Come on, got to finish this lot,’ I said, turning back to the washing-up bowl, embarrassed, feeling as if I had to look anywhere apart from at him.

‘Why are you with him?’ he said quietly.

‘What?’

Zach didn’t answer immediately. He just looked at me in the same way as before, the way which made me feel as if he could almost see inside me. ‘With Rory. Why?’

‘What do you mean? Because he’s my boyfriend, that’s why. Come on, dry this.’ I handed him another wine glass.

He dried it in silence while I swished suds over a plate, trying not to feel awkward. From upstairs came the muffled shouts of Norris and Eugene belting out ‘Joy to the World’.

‘The guy is a selfish jerk.’

‘Zach…’

‘Where is he now?’ he asked, spinning to face me. ‘If he’s so great, why wasn’t he here tonight? Why is he never here for you?’

‘Zach, I’m not a child that needs a minder. He’s got work.’

He clenched his fists and growled. ‘Jesus, Florence, you just deserve so much better. You’re too good for him, and I wish you could see that.’

‘Zach—’

But he ignored me, his voice getting louder. ‘You think that he’s everything you want because he dresses like an Edwardian and talks like a despotic medieval king. But he’s going to squash you.’

‘Zach, seriously, this is very dramatic,’ I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. I could sense my fear of any difficult, emotional conversation flex itself inside me.

‘I’m going away on Saturday, I’ve got to be dramatic! Listen, when I first met you, I thought you were the weirdest, most uptight person I’d ever come across.’

‘Thanks very much.’

‘You’re welcome. But then I got to know you, and I realized that underneath that weirdness and your genuinely astonishing obsession with mugs, you were also the kindest, sweetest, most loyal person I’ve ever met. And he’s taking advantage of that.’

‘Zach—’

‘You don’t love him, do you?’

I glanced at the lino floor, sticky with slopped coffee stains, and made a mental note to mop it on Monday. ‘I… I’m not… I don’t know.’

He shook his head. ‘You don’t, I know you don’t.’

I felt a flare of anger. ‘Why are you saying this all now?’

‘Because I can’t watch him eat away at you.’

‘He won’t, he doesn’t. He’s just busy. He’s got a serious job instead of—’

‘Instead of what? Taking pictures? Working for his uncle?’

‘I wasn’t going to say that, course I wasn’t,’ I mumbled, shamed by Zach’s hurt expression.

We were interrupted by my phone vibrating in my pocket with a message. Leaving office now and heading back to mine. Hope this evening was a veritable triumph. See you tomorrow my darling. R

‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, suddenly desperate to get home to my own bed.

‘Florence, please just think about you. And what you want for once.’ He reached out and grabbed my arm, his fingers pressing into it.

‘I’ve got to go,’ I repeated, shaking his hand off.

‘Fine,’ he said, tersely. ‘See you when I get back.’

I spun in the doorway, anguished at the idea that Zach and I could leave things like this, but also stuck, unsure what else I could do.

‘Have a good trip,’ I said, waving pathetically before running upstairs, saying goodbye to the others, who were slurring their way through ‘Good King Wenceslas’.

Bursting out of the shop, I drew in large gulps of cold, December air. It was dark, nearly midnight, and the pavements were black with rain, but I walked the whole way home, rolling lines of the conversation around my head.