Page 73 of All I Want for Christmas

He came and stood beside her. ‘You like those?’

‘Love them! I had a little carousel light when I was little. I haven’t seen one of these for years.’

She looked at the display: they were all unpainted larch with the wooden figures set in the round, 360 degrees. There were some with woodland animals: bears, deer, rabbits; a seascape with crested waves and ships at full mast; ponies on a fairground carousel...She crouched further in front of one of a winter wonderland scene with reindeer, Christmas trees and stars.

She reached a hand forward to turn over the price tag.Ouch.Withdrawing her hand, she straightened up.

‘What was yours like?’ he asked, watching her watching it.

‘Oh, it wasn’t anywhere near as lovely as these. It was a silvery metal and had butterflies sort of springing from it. You’d put a tealight in the middle and the heat would make it revolve and the butterflies would spin round...I was a bit of a wired kid and I used to have trouble falling asleep sometimes; but I could always drop off watching the butterfly shadows on my wall.’

‘Do you still have it?’

‘God, no,’ she scoffed.

‘What happened to it?’

‘My brother pulled the butterflies off the wires after we had a fight. Mum couldn’t get them back on again.’ She shrugged but she could still remember how upset she’d been as she had watched it go into the bin.

‘...Brothers, huh.’

‘Yeah.’ She shot him a look. ‘Consider yourself lucky you don’t have one. He was the bane of my life till I was about sixteen.’

There was a pause. ‘What changed at sixteen?’

She shot him a wry look. ‘He started to fancy my friends. He had to be nice to me.’

Max gave a small smile. ‘Why don’t you get it, if you like it so much?’

Her eyes fell again to the price tag and she shook her head quickly. ‘No.’ But she bent her knees again to get a last look at the revolving scene. She could just imagine how dazzling it would be at night, in a dark room, throwing golden light shadows onto the walls. It was hypnotic, the steady, relentless turn of the shapes, and it triggered in her strong memories of childlike wonder, when Father Christmas had still been real and there was such a thing as happy ever after.

A pair of hands came into her field of vision and she looked up with a start as the vendor plucked it from the stand. She straightened, remembering herself. ‘Anyway, we should probably get g—’

She turned just in time to see Max handing over his card once again.

‘Max? What are you doing?’ she asked, looking back to seethe carousel being set inside a box, which was then put in a bag.

‘Buying it for you.’

‘No! You can’t do that!’ she protested.

‘Why not? You obviously love it.’ He frowned and shrugged. ‘Happy Christmas.’

‘But you don’t do Christmas.’

‘No, but you do...’

She stared at him until he threw his hands out. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘I don’t understand you! How does this come under “being professional”? People who are just colleagues don’t buy each other Christmas presents.’

He held up Sara’s felted teddy bear.

‘She’s your PA. That’s different. She runs your life.’

His hand dropped back down and he didn’t reply immediately. ‘Fine...Then consider it an apology.’

‘An apology?’

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