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‘I didn’t have a chance,’ I say. ‘It got dark so early.’
‘You’ll have to get used to that, flower. I’m sure you’ll have fun learning all the quirks of Peppermint Branches. It’s such a special place, it deserves a special owner too.’
My body betrays me by letting my eyes fill up again. It’s the first positive thing anyone’s said about this place, and it’s been a long time since anyone thought I was a special anything.
She gives me a sympathetic look and reaches over to pat my arm. ‘It must seem overwhelming, but you’ve definitely got the right mindset.’
I get the feeling she knows that if she stands there being nice to me for much longer, I’m not going to be able to hold back the tears, and no one wants their new neighbour sobbing all over them.
‘You’ve obviously got a lot to be getting on with so I won’t keep you. I only wanted to say hello …’ She hesitates and winds her finger in a lock of grey hair that’s loose across her shoulders. ‘You know where we are if you need anything? If you want any advice or help with moving in, Noel’s a strong young chap, he’d be glad to help you with any furniture or anything you want shifted when you clean up and clear things out.’
Yeah, I’m sure. ‘I’m good, thanks,’ I say, hoping she doesn’t notice the shudder at the thought of him helping me with anything. ‘Thanks for the pie,’ I add quickly, because I don’t know what I would have eaten without it.
‘You’re very welcome. It was lovely to meet you, Leah. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other. Come by anytime. I’ve always got a hot kettle and a warm slice of pie for my only neighbour.’
‘Are you okay getting home?’ I say as she walks away.
‘Oh yes, thank you. It’s only across the field, I know every ridge like the back of my hand, don’t you worry. Cheerio!’
‘Give Gizmo an ear rub from me!’ I call after her.
‘Sorry, flower, I didn’t quite catch that,’ she calls back. ‘Did you say Gizmo or Noel?’
‘Gizmo!’ I shout loud enough for astronauts on the International Space Station to hear me.
No response. Great. Sending Noel’s mum home to give him an ear rub on my behalf would be the icing on the cake of this ridiculous day, wouldn’t it? If I was going to ask her to give Noel anything, it’d be a swift whack with a broom, but I’d be worried she might take the pie back.
I take the plate into the kitchen and squeeze around the broken door, which is now hanging halfway between closed and open, and use my phone light again to survey the damage. Like the living room, it’s got boarded up windows at the front and back, a sink and draining board built into an empty counter that runs along one wall and curves around the corner and underneath the front window. I use my sleeve to wipe part of the unit free of the muck and grime that’s settled after years of not being cleaned and put the plate down. I’m starving and I could murder a cup of tea, but I settle for the bottle of water I’ve got in my bag and make do with giving my hands a good anti-bac wipe before I unwrap the slice of pie and take a bite. I’ve never had pumpkin pie before and the sweet creaminess of condensed milk and pumpkin, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger combine to make it taste like autumn in a mouthful. It’s a good job the only neighbours are likely to be of the rodent variety because I’m definitely having a When Harry Met Sally moment. I hadn’t even realised how hungry I was until the first mouthful filled my belly with warmth, and I stand there in the dark kitchen, taking bite after bite, washing it down with lukewarm water that’s been in the car all day. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for a cup of tea right now.
There isn’t much to see in the kitchen. There’s a rusty old fridge-freezer standing next to the passageway that goes under the stairs and straight through to the living room, past a back door that leads out into the garden where the caravan is. Cupboards line the upper walls, and it smells like someone never got around to throwing out whatever was left in them, because the kitchen is heavy with the smell of food that’s been gradually rotting for years.
My phone pings on the unit where I’ve put it down and I look at the screen. Another text from Chelsea, asking me if it’s a magical winter wonderland, following on from the one she sent earlier asking if I’d seen any elves yet, which I ignored because I couldn’t face answering with the truth.
How do I tell her that my magical winter wonderland is full of spindly dead trees and fluffy-tailed rodents and the most elf-like thing I’ve seen since I got here is a Chihuahua called Gizmo who qualifies only on the basis of his pointy ears? How do I say that, far from a couple of coats of Dulux, the only thing likely to improve this ‘dwelling’ is the application of a wrecking ball, and that when we joked about it being a stable, it would actually be better if it was?
I put the phone back on the unit without replying. How can I do this? How can I stay here? How can someone who doesn’t know the first thing about trees suddenly decide to run a Christmas tree farm? What was I thinking? I must’ve genuinely thought I was part of a made-for-TV Christmas movie and forgotten real life for a moment. I’d pictured stepping onto the set of a film, saving the gorgeous little tree farm from the edge of destruction with my annoyingly upbeat personality and perfect hair. Neither of which I possess in real life, so I’d definitely mistaken myself for a film character.
For the real me, this is overwhelming. I can’t sort this mess out. How can I stay here with no water and no electric and nowhere to sleep? All the positivity I was feeling earlier has drained away in the cold dark of the night. I spent all of Mum and Dad’s money because they would have loved a Christmas tree farm. And now I want to run away. I hate myself for wanting that.
My phone pings simultaneously with a low battery warning and yet another message from Chels.
Have you found David Tennant and run off with him and that’s why you’re not answering my texts?
I pick it up and try to formulate a reply that sounds more cheerful than I feel, but it beeps again before I can think of anything.
Are you buried under a vat of gorgeous-smelling pine needles? Are you building a snowman to welcome your first customers? Why do I imagine it’s snowing there? Ooh, have Richard Madden AND David Tennant turned up and you’re off having a naughty Scottish threesome under the Christmas trees?
The low battery warning gets more persistent as I stand there and stare at it.
I could go and charge it in the car. That’s not a bad idea actually. I could even sleep there. There’s too much stuff in the back to lower the seat, but I can sleep upright a lot more comfortably than I could sleep anywhere inside the house. And, more importantly than anything, it’s got a heater.
It’s nearly seven o’clock by the time I slide into the driver’s seat. I plug my phone into the lighter socket and start the engine. I flip the light on above me and turn the heater up to full and hold my shivering hands over the air vents.
I reach into the back and snake my hand between boxes and bags until my fingers close around the soft edge of a Christmas blanket that Chelsea bought me last year. I pull it out inch by inch as the bag holds onto it tightly in the squashed space. I drape it over myself and wrap it around my face and breathe into it, trying to warm up my cold nose. I’m still unsure of what to say to Chelsea, so I let my phone charge for a bit and reach over to put the radio on instead. It’s still tuned to my favourite Christmas station, and the car is immediately filled with Mariah Carey singing ‘Miss You Most At Christmas Time’. I wish I’d stuck to my playlist. The songs on there are safe. They won’t remind me of my parents and how much I miss them.
I swallow hard. I should turn it off, but I sit and listen to it instead. It’s a song I’ve successfully avoided since the first time I heard it after they died and ended up having a breakdown in the middle of Debenhams while Christmas shopping in my lunch hour.
As if the universe knows this, Mariah is immediately followed by ‘Something About December’ by Christina Perri, a song about childhood Christmases and memories feeling closer in December, and I don’t even realise I’m crying until tears drip onto the blanket.
God, what am I doing here? How can I have made such an awful mistake?
I can feel panic creeping up my chest. I have nothing left and nowhere else to go. I look up at the dark house in front of me and the sight of its crumbling bricks and missing roof makes me cry harder. How can I have been so positive yesterday? Driving along sunny motorways, singing along to ‘Carol of the Bells’, glad no one could hear me because I haven’t got a clue what the words actually are, to this – sitting outside what was supposed to be my dream home, sobbing because Elvis is on now. This probably wasn’t what Elvis had in mind when he sang ‘Blue Christmas’.
My phone beeps again.
LEAH! Will you answer a flipping text, please? I’m starting to get so worried that I broke out the capital letters. Send me a picture of the place or something! Is the dwelling better than we expected?
I hit reply and my fingers hover over the empty text box. It’s great, I type and then delete it. I can’t lie to her but how can I admit that I’ve made such a huge mistake? I know she’ll try to help. I know she’ll tell me to come back to London and sleep on her sofa, and she’ll offer to help me find another job and probably get someone from the law firm to draft a letter to Scottish Pine Properties demanding my money returned because the pictures were inaccurate, and that would be great, but how much of a failure can one person be? I made this mistake, I should be the one to fix it.
More tears blur my eyes as I sit there staring at the screen of my phone, hating myself because I don’t know what to say to my best friend. Chelsea and I text each other all day, even when we’re in work and aren’t supposed to have our phones on us. Thinking of something to say to her has never been a problem before.
I push the phone onto the dashboard and cry harder. I know she’s going to ring in a minute because I haven’t answered, but I’m crying so much that I can’t even see the screen to type now.
I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt before. I just want my mum. What would she tell me to do? What would she and Dad do in this situation? I already know the answer. Mum would’ve found a mop and bucket and started cleaning the house and Dad would’ve gone out for a good look around to assess how bad things actually were before panicking about it. Mum would’ve whipped out a gigantic bar of chocolate and somehow produced a cup of tea, and promised that things would look better in the morning.
I don’t know how long I sit there having a good cry. I miss them, and I don’t allow myself to miss them very often, because I inevitably end up as a snot-drenched wreck, but none of this would’ve happened without their accident, their money, and their love of Christmas and the real Christmas tree that stood proudly in front of our living room window every December. I let the grief consume me in a way I haven’t for many months now. In front of Chelsea and Lewis, Steve, work colleagues, and acquaintances who were friends once but have barely spoken to me for the past two years because they don’t know what to say, I pretend I’m fine. The last time I sobbed in my own flat, a neighbour banged on the door and yelled at me to keep it down.
I look up at a glimpse of light coming towards me. It must be headlights on the road – the first car that’s passed since the estate agent zoomed off. It’s moving slowly for a car though, and as I blink tears away, I see it’s only one beam of light, not two, and it’s on the grassy verge, not the road.
Just a dog walker, I tell myself. Mountain lions wouldn’t carry torches so it’s nothing to worry about.
Until whoever it is stops at the edge of my driveway and the beam of the torch settles on the house, and then slides across the gravel to point directly at the car. Or, more specifically, my red, wet, snotty face in the car, and the owner of the torch moves towards me.
I recognise the faded jeans and the fall of dark hair across shoulders.
Oh, come on. It’s like he’s got radar to detect the worst possible moment and time his arrival accordingly. I’ve still got tears streaming down my face and I’ve been crying so hard that I can barely catch my hitching breath. I cannot deal with him right now.
If I stay still, maybe he won’t see me, but I know it’s hoping for too much. It’s dark and the light is on inside the car – I’m literally a flame to a petulant moth. I sink down in the seat and pull the blanket up further over my face so I can barely see out, but it’s no good, I can feel the beam of torchlight on me, coming closer.
I do the sensible, adult thing and stare stubbornly at the house, pretending I haven’t seen him. Maybe he’ll get the hint and go away? I stare resolutely ahead, even though I can sense the shadow outside the car window and see the beam of light disappear as he turns the torch off.
It still makes me jump when he knocks on the window.
Bugger. I sniff hard and turn away to swipe my hands over my face, trying to brush away the evidence. Maybe it’s dark enough that he won’t notice the red puffiness?
I paste a smile on my face and turn back to roll down the window just as he’s about to knock on it again.
‘Noel,’ I say, my voice thick, the fake smile pulling painfully on the skin of my lips.
‘What are you doing out here?’ His voice has that same half-amused half-sarcastic tone that he had earlier. He rests his arm along the open window and his head appears in the gap, but he suddenly looks taken aback and his voice turns serious. ‘Are you crying?’
Well, one point for observation, I suppose.
‘No.’ I don’t know why I’m bothering to deny it; if the tears streaming down my face don’t give it away then the snot definitely will.
‘What’s wrong?’
I should turn around and snap something at him, but his voice is soft and those two simple words sound so caring and genuine. No one has asked me that in months. I struggle to keep my emotions hidden in public, and when I hang out with Chels, if I slip up and look upset for a moment, she gives me a hug but she doesn’t ask me what’s wrong because it’s obvious.
I go to say ‘nothing’, but it comes out as noth-urrth as another sob gurgles out of my throat and more tears fill my eyes and spill over. God, why am I like this? Why can’t I even hold it together in front of this rude man? He’s going to love this, isn’t he? He already thinks I’m stupid, and now he finds me crying in the car. He’ll have a field day with this. He’ll probably go and tell all his mates about this silly girl who thought she could run a Christmas tree farm and make sure the whole town has a good laugh about it.
I turn away again and bury my face in the blanket. I can’t even pretend not to be crying now. Maybe allergies?
My nose is running and I know there’s a pack of tissues in the glovebox, but the passenger seat is so jam-packed that I can’t open it fully. As I’m trying to snake my hand in the inch-wide gap and feel around for them, a packet appears in front of my face.
I take them from his hand and wrestle the packet open with wet fingers. They’re soft and thick and large, and I pluck one out and hide my whole face in it. If I can’t see him then he can’t see me either, so maybe he’ll go away? That’s bound to work, right?
I breathe into the tissue for a few minutes but he doesn’t go away.
I can feel the warmth of his presence beside the car, hear his breathing and the crunch of frozen gravel under his boots with every movement. Even the scent of juniper and dark cinnamon aftershave has wafted into the car and it’s unfair that someone who is this much of a twat can smell so good.
I wipe my face on the tissue and blow my nose, managing to make the most undignified sound someone has ever made in front of a fellow human before. I take a deep breath, and force a smile onto my red, puffy, tear-stained face, and … well, I intend to turn to face him, but I lose my nerve at the last second and end up staring intently at the steering wheel instead.
‘Are you okay?’ He speaks before I have a chance to say anything. His Scottish accent sounds warm and gentle. It makes tears well up again because it’s another question that people usually ask me when they know full well that the answer will always be a cheerful ‘yep, thanks’ no matter how I really am, but he says it so earnestly that I feel like I could tell him.
Not that I’m going to, obviously. Finding me like this has probably made his day, there’s no need to make his month too.
‘Fine, thanks.’ My voice is thick and it shakes on both words. I swallow hard and try again. ‘What was it you wanted?’
‘I came to see if you were okay.’ He’s quiet for a moment, which gives my eyes plenty of time to start watering again because he’s got a caring tone that he has no right to have. ‘Which you’re clearly not.’
‘Well, there you go then,’ I snap, betrayed by the sob that comes out instead. ‘You’ve found out what you wanted to know. Goodbye.’ I have to feel around for the window button, intending to roll it up, but I press the wrong direction and it makes a clunking noise because it can’t go any further down.
‘I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re okay, Leah. I can’t walk away and leave you sitting out here in the cold. What’s wrong?’
Even if I wanted to, I can’t answer him because I’m crying too hard. Snot is dripping from my nose again and tears are streaming down my face, dropping onto the blanket, and I wrestle another tissue from the packet on my lap and try to restore some semblance of dignity.
‘Is this because of me?’ He asks gently. ‘Because of what I said earlier?’
‘Hah. Don’t flatter yourself.’ I snort and a snot bubble escapes. I’m doing an amazing job of the dignity thing so far.
‘I didn’t mean it in an egotistical way. One of the reasons I came over was to apologise. I was too harsh earlier and I overstepped the line, and I am sorry, really.’
I hate him because he sounds so genuine. Maybe it’s the accent. He has a way of sounding sincere that leaves me unable to tell if he is or isn’t.
I blow my nose again and scrub my hands over my face, telling myself that I need to tell him it’s fine and say goodbye, but a really really microscopically tiny part of me doesn’t want him to go yet. Before I’ve figured out how to say anything, he moves out of the window and the car door is pulled open from the outside, and he crouches down beside me.
The movement surprises me and I look at him without thinking. He looks even better tonight than he did earlier. He’s got the same well-fitting jeans on, black welly-boots halfway up his calves, a long waterproof coat with wooden toggles closing it diagonally across his chest, and his dark hair is sticking out from under an oversized bobble hat, looking windswept and touchable.
He nods towards the radio, where ‘Fairytale of New York is coming out of the dashboard. ‘I’ve never been a fan of this song but is it really that bad?’
I reach over and switch it off.
‘You can leave it on. It’s never too early for Christmas music.’
‘Finally, someone who understands,’ I say, so surprised by someone who agrees with my stance on festive music in October that I forget about crying for a moment. ‘I told my friend I’d dusted off the Christmas playlist for driving up here and she nearly disowned me because it’s too early.’
‘It’s nearly the middle of the month. That makes it practically Christmas. If mince pies are in the shops, it’s fine to play Christmas music.’
I can’t take my eyes off that lip piercing again as he grins.
‘So,’ he starts, pressing one hand against the doorframe to balance himself, ‘my mum came in earlier, rubbed my ears and said “that was from Leah.” Would you happen to know anything about that?’
An unexpected laugh bursts out at the crystal-clear mental image. ‘Oh, for god’s sake, I said Gizmo, not you.’
‘Yeah, he probably would’ve appreciated an ear rub more than I did.’
‘Has she got problems with her hearing?’
‘Aye, but it’s undiagnosed because doctors can’t do much about “selective” hearing.’
‘I think all parents have that. My mum was the same …’ I trail off and swallow past the lump in my throat. I’ve just about got the tears under control, I can’t start crying again.
There’s a charged silence. I know he’s picked up the ‘was’ in that sentence, and I can almost hear him deciding on the best thing to say.
‘At least you didn’t tell her to give me a Bonio.’
That makes me laugh again but I can feel his eyes boring into the side of my head.
‘Go on then,’ he says eventually. ‘Apart from having no water, no electricity, no heat, and no food, why are you outside crying in the car?’
It sounds as pathetic as it must look, but he doesn’t seem as harsh and judgemental as he did earlier.
I take a few deep breaths and lean my head back and close my eyes. ‘It’s not because of what you said, it’s because you were right. This place is a disaster and I have no idea what I’m doing. The house is cold and damp and broken, my phone ran out of battery because I had to use it as a torch, and my best friend has been texting all afternoon asking how wonderful it is, and I haven’t replied because I don’t know how to tell her the truth about what a stupid mistake I’ve made.’
His coat rustles as he shrugs. ‘Tell her it needs work but you wanted a challenge. Here, give it to me, I’ll write it for you.’
I don’t know why, but I take the phone off the dashboard and put it in his open hand. I never trust anyone with my phone, but I don’t think twice about handing it to him.
I’m almost hypnotised by his fingers as they fly across my screen. I watch him with a strange mix of gratitude and amusement, until he turns the phone around and shows me what he’s written.
It’s a great area and the neighbours are the most wonderful people I’ve ever met. Farm needs a bit of work but I wanted a challenge.
I laugh at the remark about the neighbours and give him the nod to press send.
It beeps with a reply before he’s even had a chance to hand it back to me, and he laughs when he looks down at the screen.
Have you found a gorgeous, sexy farmer in a kilt yet?
