Page 57 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
Tom was already fighting his way back down the queue. ‘Thank you,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘And I’d much prefer a plain napkin without any Christmas nonsense on it.’
Yes, Christmas was coming and there was nothing that Mattie could do to stop it. Although this year, she didn’t seem to be quite so adversely affected by the Christmas spirit.
Maybe it was something to do with finally facing all her Steven-related demons. Ever since she’d emptied a bowl of cake batter over his head and told him exactly what she thought of him, Mattie had felt different. There was a lightness to her as if she’d been buckled under the heavy weight of the load she’d been carrying for the last two years, and now it was gone. Instead of looking back, she was looking to the future and the future was looking good.
As she came downstairs each morning, unlocked the front door and stepped outside to wait for her deliveries, Mattie delighted in the crispness in the air. How her breath crystallised in front of her. She’d feel a little anticipatory tug in her belly that she used to get at the thought of Christmas, even though she still wasn’t on board with the idea of actuallycelebratingChristmas.
‘I still haven’t decided what my plans are,’ Mattie told her mother, phone clamped tightly between shoulder and chin as she opened the oven door in the tearooms kitchen so she could move her mince pies down a shelf to make room for a fresh batch of shortbread. ‘So I don’t really have an opinion on whether you should do turkey or goose.’
‘Yes, but is it worth making bread sauce when only Ian likes it?’ Sandrine demanded as if Mattie’s Christmas plans involved spending a lot of time on December 25th helping her mother make dinner. ‘And those sprouts?Ils sont horribles!Maybe we could strip them down and sauté them with bacon. Also, none of us really like Christmas pudding, so can you makeune bûche de Noel?’
It was stuffy and hot in the little kitchen. Mattie shut the oven and asked, ‘If I make you a Yule log, that doesn’t mean I’m coming to you on Christmas Day.’
‘But you said that you’d seen Steven. That you’d finally settled the dust on him …’
‘Well, it was actually cake batter and you mean that the dust has settled …’
‘So, there’s no need for you take to your bed on Christmas Day,’ Sandrine triumphantly pointed out and now Mattie’s sweaty brow was nothing to do with opening the oven door and everything to do with her mother and her extensive Christmas to-do list being quite trying.
Mattie opened the back door so she could get another hit of that crisp, Christmassy air, only to surprise Sophie and Sam who appeared to be eating each other’s faces off. They jumped apart as the door swung back on its hinges with a loud crash.
‘I have to go now, Mum,’ she said.
‘But is there anything we can add to that infernal bread sauce to make it …’
‘Really have to go,’ Mattie insisted and she terminated the call as Sophie and Sam, now a respectable half a metre apart, looked everywhere but at Mattie and at each other.
Little Sophie and Sam? K.I.S.S.I.N.G.?
Of course, she knew that Sam had a crush on Sophie. Pretty much everyone in Bloomsbury knew that, because he wasn’t subtle about it; always gazing adoringly at her when he thought she wasn’t looking; asphyxiating them all with his aftershave on Saturdays when he knew that Sophie was going to be working in close proximity.
And Sophie had always humoured Sam but somehow it seemed there’d been a major upgrade from quite fond to proper full-on fancying.
Did Posy know? Did Cuthbert know? Was it Mattie’s place to tell them?
She realised she’d been standing, slack-jawed, for a good two minutes. ‘Um, is this something we need to talk about?’
‘Oh my God, nooooooo!’ Sam whined in alarm, daring a glance at Sophie, whose pretty face was distorted by a horrified grimace.
‘We don’t ever have to talk about it,’ Sophie said firmly. ‘Especially not to my grandpa. He says I’m not allowed to have a boyfriend until I’m at least thirty. Please don’t tell him, please Mattie. Will you promise?’
It wasn’t Mattie’s place to tell anyone. Or stand in the way of young love.
‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ Mattie said with a smile. Then she remembered that all this young love was happening in work hours. ‘Now, can you go and do what I’m paying you to do?’
‘Yes! Of course,’ Sophie agreed, scurrying up the yard to rush past Mattie, still avoiding making eye contact.
Sam slunk towards Mattie like a dog that had been caught with its head in the treat jar, though when he did make eye contact with her, he flinched slightly. ‘We are entitled to take a break,’ he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, just to show that he wasn’t completely cowed, but when Mattie fixed him with her most frosty look, he bolted past her like the hounds of hell were after him.
Sam still wouldn’t look Mattie in the eye when she popped into the shop later with a plate of mince pies that were too oozy to be sold. Really, it was a flimsy excuse to take a five-minute breather and have a sit down, although she was hampered in this quest by the fact that two of the three sofas had been put into storage to make way for the gigantic Christmas tree and the one that was left had been colonised by truculent-looking men who’d been reluctantly dragged into the shop by their partners. Mattie had to make do with sitting on the second rung of the rolling ladder. ‘So, you’re quite busy then?’
‘Yes, it’s horrible,’ said Nina, as she scanned a customer’s books with her iPad and dumped them in a tote bag. ‘You get a free tote bag if you buy more than three books, which you have. Happy Christmas, please don’t come back until the new year! Joke!’
‘I just have to go and buy some novelty pants for my husband and then I’m done,’ the woman said with great feeling.
The shop was as rammed full as Mattie had ever seen it, though it didn’t help that the Christmas tree, the life-sized baby reindeer and the Mistletoe Booth took up so much space. And despite the fact that all the staff could take payment on their shop iPads, there was a huge snaking queue to pay at the counter, where Posy was perched on a stool in front of Bertha, the temperamental and ancient shop till, who had a mechanical hissy fit at least once every day.
There was now also a massive queue for the Mistletoe Booth, which was out of the shop door and into the mews. It was a pretty cheerful queue, unlike the queue for pig-in-blanket rolls, which was getting quite hangry. Next year Mattie had plans to set up a pop-up pigs-in-blankets stall in front of the tearooms so they wouldn’t disturb her regular customers. Maybe they could also serve hot chocolate and buns. As it was, Sophie, keen to stay in Mattie’s good books ever since she’d been caught snogging Sam, was working her way down both queues with a laminated menu and taking orders.
