The Little Bakery of Hopes and Dreams

So Sunnycombe was Christmas crazy?

She closed her eyes and shook her head. Only she could find herself living in a place that stood for everything she disliked, everything she didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to remember.

It was like the universe was plotting, forcing her to face that which she ran from.

If that were the case, the universe was about to be disappointed. She was only staying in Sunnycombe for as long as she had to. In her experience she had six months, tops. Nothing – and no one – could change that.

No matter how hard they tried.

Chapter 5

‘Josie, can you give me a hand over here?’ Callan twisted round from trying to string fairy lights around the shop’s window to see Josie rubbing her temples, her elbows anchored to the counter, her head low and shoulders scrunched up round her ears.

She’d been like that all day. Hunched up. Distant. Like she wasn’t one hundred per cent there, and he was starting to wonder if he ought to send her home for the rest of the day.

Josie glanced up and caught his eyes. ‘Sorry, Callan. Bit of a sore head.’

Before he could stop her, she came to stand beside him, dragged a chair to the opposite side of the window, climbed on top of it and indicated for him to pass her the string of lights dangling from his hand.

Callan hesitated. ‘Are you sure you should be up there? With a headache and all? I don’t want you passing out and hurting yourself. Should you be at home? In bed getting some rest?’

‘No, I’m fine, honest.’ Josie waved her hand like it was nothing.

The pain in her eyes said otherwise.

Reluctantly he passed the lights to her and she hung them over the hook that a heavily pregnant Abigail had screwed in for the shop’s first Christmas. He’d begged her to let him do it, worried that she’d fall over and hurt herself and their baby, but she’d laughingly shushed him, then flapped him away.

He shut his eyes as a wave of grief surged through him. How was he going to get through Christmas without her? How was he going to get through life?

‘Callan? It’s my turn to ask … are you all right?’

Josie’s concern brought him back to the here and now. He took a silent breath in and slowly blew it out, opening his eyes and fixing a smile on his face as he did so. He focused on the carollers who were practising out in the street, their voices jaunty as they sang ‘Deck the Halls’.

‘’Tis the season to be jolly.’

Except jolly was the last thing he was feeling. ‘Jaded’ he could get on board with.

‘I’m fine.’

Josie eyed him. Her expression remained unconvinced. He waited for her to further interrogate him, but no questions came. For that he was grateful. He didn’t know how to explain the grief. The intensity. The pain. The way it surged and settled but was always there. He didn’t know how to talk about it, and didn’t want to. Not to a therapist. Or Josie. Or Margo. Not to anyone. Ever.

Falalalalaaaaa … lala … la … laaaaaa.

‘How long are they going to go on for?’ Josie sounded as flat as Callan felt.

‘Not helping the pain in your head?’ Callan stepped down from his chair then offered his hand to Josie.

She hesitated, her eyes narrowing, like she didn’t trust him to get her down safely. Just as he were about to drop it, embarrassed for overstepping a mark he didn’t know existed, she placed her hand in his.

He was surprised at how soft it was, considering she worked with her hands. Warm, too. And it fit so perfectly. Like it belonged there.

Josie stepped down, tugged her hand out of his and folded her arms. ‘To be honest I’m not a huge fan of carols. They’re so … so …’ Her nose screwed up in thought.

‘Joyful?’ Callan shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and tried to ignore the heat imprinted on the hand that had held Josie’s a few seconds ago, like a part of her had been left with him.

He pushed the thought away. Nothing had been imprinted. And hands weren’t like jigsaw puzzles, they didn’t just ‘fit’ together. He was being silly. The stress of the season had clearly gotten to him.

The choir launched into a solemn rendition of ‘Silent Night’, and Callan had to bite his tongue to stop laughter from spilling out as Josie visibly shuddered.

‘So joyful. Even songs like that one. It’s a peaceful song but it’s joyful as well. Uplifting.’ Josie’s nose wrinkled further. ‘The worst bit is you can’t escape them. They’re everywhere. On the telly, radio, in shops. I clicked onto my favourite baking website this morning and was greeted with a pop-up ad that had packets of baking ingredients singing and dancing to “Jingle Bells”. I now have to avoid that site for nearly a whole month. It’s a tragedy.’

Callan’s lips quirked to the left, disobeying his direct order not to show their amusement. He’d never met a person who disliked carols so much they could rant about it. Never met anyone who had a distinct aversion to Christmas. He’d thought he was the only one. His family Christmases had been staid affairs. Formal. Boring. Midnight mass on Christmas Eve, followed by gifts in the morning, a family lunch at dinner where the conversation was so polite it bordered on painful. After lunch they’d settle round the television to watch the Queen’s Christmas Message, then leftovers were had for dinner and they’d retire to bed not long after that.

There was no dancing while cooking. No silly hats or crazy jumpers. No surprise gifts brought out throughout the day. No magic. No fun.

Abigail had transformed his attitude to Christmas with her own traditions. Ones she’d created after a childhood where money was scarce and Christmas was even more depressing than his. She’d embraced the season that could have – should have – made her sad, and she’d made her life richer for it.

With Abigail gone, so had his reason for the season.

Irritation jolted him back to reality. This wasn’t about him. He was not alone in his grief. He had Mia to think about. Which meant Christmas couldn’t be a miserable affair. He wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t let Mia down. Wouldn’t allow her to feel as humdrum about the festive season as he once had. As he threatened to feel now that Abigail wasn’t there to inject joy into it.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t admit his lack of love for the season to a fellow Grinch.

‘My least favourite carol is “The First Noel”. We’d sing it at church growing up and I sounded like a strangled duck warbling out the words. All the other kids would have a great laugh at my expense.’ Callan finished stringing the lights and plugged them in. A warm glow bathed the window, and Josie’s face – highlighting her cheekbones and revealing strands of copper in her hair that he’d not noticed.

Not that he should notice them. Or had any reason to.

Annoyed and embarrassed with himself, he set to unravelling another set of fairy lights.

‘Do you still go to church?’ Josie poked around in a box of Christmas decorations that he’d dragged down from the loft.

She hadn’t noticed him noticing her? Good. Callan breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want her getting the wrong idea. It was bad enough that for a fleeting moment he’d found her attractive.

Not that he hadn’t noticed that she was pleasant on the eye. He had in a general manner. As you do when someone good-looking passes by. Just now was different though, because he’d noticed details. The kind of details you only see in someone special, or someone you hope will become special.

He didn’t want anyone to become that person. The only person who was special to him was the little girl who was sitting at the table out back watching grown-ups in bright outfits dance to silly songs on the tablet.

‘No, we don’t go to church. I was never all that much of a church-goer.’ He reached up and hung the lights on the hook. ‘Only went because my parents did.’

‘Do you spend much time with them now? Have they helped out much since …?’

‘Since Abigail passed away?’ Callan jumped in before Josie had the chance to feel awkward. ‘No. My parents didn’t approve of Abigail. She wasn’t from the same social class as the one I was born into. My falling in love with her, giving up a promising career in an accounting firm and moving to the middle of nowhere to do the accounts of people who earn in a year what my father made in a week … Well, if there’s a black sheep in every family, then I’m it.’

‘Wow.’ Josie twisted a gold bauble round in her fingers.

Callan waited for her to elaborate, but nothing more came.

‘Really? “Wow?” That’s all you’ve got?’ He grinned to show her he wasn’t offended.

‘Well, yeah.’ Josie hung the bauble off her finger and spun it round. ‘Where should this go?’

‘There’s a series of hooks under the counter.’

‘Great, thanks.’ Josie hoisted the box up, walked to the counter, sank down onto the ground cross-legged and began hanging the baubles in their place. ‘It’s just – and please don’t take this the wrong way – you seem so … straight. Black sheep of fancy families are meant to … I don’t know, have tattoos everywhere and piercings in places the majority of us don’t get to see. You wear clothing that could be on the cover of a men’s fashion magazine. You use your manners. You run a business. And you’re a great father. Not what I’d call black-sheep material.’

Callan shrugged. Same way he’d spent years shrugging off the lack of phone calls and visits. The stiff upper lip his family had cultivated came in handy in the face of his parents’ reticence to connect with their granddaughter, let alone their son. ‘That’s my family for you. I don’t regret what I did though. Marrying Abigail. Moving here. The seven years we were together brought me more happiness than all the years I spent at home.’

Josie took hold of the counter with both hands and heaved herself up with a quiet ‘oof’. ‘I can understand that. What’s next?’

The simultaneous sounds of something being dragged across a wooden floor and puffing exertion interrupted their conversation.

‘Tree next, Daddy. And I know Josie can help decorate this one because it’s downstairs, not upstairs.’ Mia dragged the rectangular cardboard box that contained the fake Christmas tree into the shop, around the counter, and released it with a dramatic swipe of her brow. ‘It’s heavy. I need a treat to get my energy back.’

‘Lucky your dad owns a cake shop.’ Josie plucked a miniature chocolate cupcake, replete with chocolate ganache and red, white and green Christmas tree-shaped sprinkles, out of the cabinet and passed it to Mia who quickly stuffed it in her mouth.

‘Thankshoo, Joshie.’ The words came out as mushed as her smile was wide.

Callan stopped himself from reprimanding Josie for giving Mia treats without checking with him first. She didn’t mean any harm, and it had made Mia happy. He’d have a chat about it later, when Mia was out of earshot and there was no danger of destroying the cheerful ambience.

‘Probably should have asked you if that was okay, right?’ Contrition was written all over Josie’s face.

‘Probably. There’s always next time. Especially, like you said, when your father owns a cake shop. It’s hard to resist temptation when it’s right in front of you all day long.’ Callan squatted down and began pulling out the pieces of fake tree, hoping Josie wouldn’t notice the hot spots burning high on his cheeks. His talk of temptation had sounded way too much like flirtation for his own liking. Not that it was, or that he’d meant it that way. Yet, if he really hadn’t meant it to sound like that, would he have thought it sounded like that?

He inserted the trunk of the tree into the base, then righted it, faking concentration as he gave himself a stern talking-to.

He was being silly. Overthinking an innocent statement. He wasn’t being flirtatious. Just nice. Allowing Josie to feel okay about jumping the gun with the cupcake rather than have the easy atmosphere between them disappear.

‘What’s with the fake tree?’

Callan gripped the tree’s plastic trunk as the closeness of the words took him by surprise, nearly causing him to lose his balance. He glanced over to see Josie hunkered down next to him, her inquisitive eyes just a few inches away. He caught her scent – a sweet, comforting mix of sugar, butter and vanilla. He shuffled away from the inviting aroma, grabbed the final part of the tree, stood and slotted it into the lower half, then began fluffing out the spiky, green fronds.

‘We made the mistake of getting a real tree for the shop for the first Christmas. Thought it would add to the festiveness. We may have also been bemused by the rest of the shops’ use of fake trees and wanted to one up them.’ The memory tugged at his lips and erased his previous unease. ‘We found a tree in the woods about ten minutes out of the village, and chopped her down in the middle of the night.’

‘Daddy, that’s stealing.’

Callan sucked his lips into his mouth at Mia’s outrage and forced himself not to laugh. ‘You’re right, Mia. It was. And I just need to talk to Josie about something grown up, so I’m going to mute your ears for a second, okay?’ Mia nodded her agreement, and he placed his hands over her ears. ‘Mia’s right, of course. It was stealing, but we were just starting out and figured what was one less tree in a populated forest if it meant spreading cheer to the rest of the village. Except what we spread were ants. All through the food.’

‘I thought ants nested underground and hibernated in winter?’

Callan shrugged. ‘So did we. Turns out Sunnycombe has many quirks, one being that these ants nest and hibernate in trees, and the warmth of the bakery woke them up. We were in catch-and-release mode for weeks, since Abigail refused to harm a hair on their heads. Not that ants have hair on their heads. Although, maybe they do in these parts. Who knows? It wouldn’t surprise me.’

Josie’s hands went over her mouth to hide her grin, but her amusement was evident in the silent shaking of her shoulders. Her chest rose and fell in a deep breath as she composed herself, then she dropped her hands to her hips, a serious look on her face.

Callan removed his hands from Mia’s ears.

‘That was very naughty of you, Callan. Did you get a gift from Santa that year?’

‘No. Absolutely not. But I was sure to be most well behaved and buy a fake tree the next year so that it would never happen again.’ He ruffled Mia’s hair. ‘So how about we decorate this?’

Mia jumped up and down and clapped her hands with excitement. ‘Yay! Can I put the angel at the top, pretty please?’

‘Of course you can. It’s only right that you, my wee angel, should place the angel on top.’ Callan took the bag of decorations that were stored in the tree’s box and placed them on the table.

Josie peered in and scanned the contents. ‘Pink and purple colour scheme? I love it.’

Before he could say anything, an ornament was in each hand and she was placing them on the tree alongside Mia, who was chatting happily about everything and nothing, as she was wont to do.

Callan picked up his own ornament. A pink and purple tiered cake that he’d bought Abigail that first Christmas. ‘You know you don’t have to help us. I’m sure you’ve other things you could do, if you want.’ Callan placed the cake on the tree, tweaking it so it was safe, secure.

‘I know, but I …’ A slow smile spread across Josie’s face. ‘I’m actually enjoying myself. And it’s too late in the day to whip anything up for tomorrow and have it done before it’s time for me to sign off.’

Outside the carollers rolled from ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are’ to ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’.

‘Want me to tell them to pipe down?’ Callan jerked his head in their direction.

Josie shook her head. ‘No. They’re actually not as bad as I thought.’

She ducked down and placed a glittering pink star at the base of the tree.

Her lips were kicked up, fine lines radiated from her eyes, and for the first time in months Callan felt the ache in his heart lift. He was surprised, and relieved, to discover that the lightening didn’t leave him riddled with guilt.

‘I agree.’ He hung the ornament on the tree. ‘They’re not as bad as I thought either. In fact, I might actually be beginning to like them.’

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