The Little Vintage Carousel by the Sea: A gorgeously uplifting festive romance!

‘Hi, this is Nathaniel.’ He pauses and my heart jumps into my throat. I pull the phone away from my ear and look at the number onscreen, a mobile number that’s not saved in his contacts. It must be him on another phone. Maybe it’s just as well I didn’t know – he’d have rung off by the time I’d psyched myself up to speak to him.

‘No, wait, it’s Nathan. Only people who hate me call me Nathaniel. Where did you get that name from?’

‘I texted the first name in your directory.’

‘Who was … oh no, don’t tell me. Alan? I take it he gave a suitably charming response?’

‘He, er, didn’t seem to like you very much …’

‘The feeling’s entirely mutual.’ He sighs. ‘What did he say?’

‘Um …’ I don’t feel particularly comfortable repeating the nasty message. ‘You’ll see when you get your phone back.’

‘Don’t worry, “um” is more than descriptive enough.’ He lets out a sad laugh. ‘It’s actually nice of you not to tell me. You are planning on giving it back then?’

‘Of course I am! I have my own phone that I’d like to get away from half the time, I certainly don’t want yours as well. I saw you on the train this morning. I was behind you when we pulled into your stop and you went to put your phone in your pocket but you missed. I picked it up before it got trampled or stolen. I’ve been trying to find a way to contact you all day.’ You know, between writing an article about how pretty your eyes are and examining every inch of your phone.

‘You’re the girl I see sometimes, aren’t you?’ His breath catches in his throat and I get the sense that he’s holding it, waiting for an answer.

At that caught breath, all of my doubts slip away. He does know me. I haven’t imagined some connection between us. He smiles at me too. Whatever Sliding Doors magic Daphne keeps going on about, whatever else Zinnia wants me to write about him. It doesn’t matter. Maybe they’re right. Maybe this isn’t just coincidence.

‘We do see each other sometimes, yeah,’ I say, hesitating a little because I’m not quite sure how to describe it.

He lets out a long breath and warmth floods my insides. He must’ve felt something over the months of our silent flirtation too. Not just that I was a weird public transport starer.

‘What’s your name?’ he asks in a soft Yorkshire accent.

‘Ness. Well, Vanessa, but everyone calls me Ness.’

‘We have something in common then – full names we don’t get called by.’

The way he says it makes me want to smile but I still feel like I need to explain myself. ‘I tried to catch you, you know? But you ran out of there faster than the Road Runner.’

‘Beep beep,’ he says, doing a spot-on impression, and a giggle takes me by surprise because I used to love those cartoons.

‘Yeah, sorry, I had a connection to catch and about three minutes to make it between platforms and that was without the tube being a couple of minutes late. Trains to this part of the country only run once a day. I couldn’t miss it.’

‘What part of the country’s that then?’ I grew up in a little village where my parents still live. I remember the days of one bus an hour and being completely cut off from civilisation. The constant trains and buses were one of my favourite things when I first moved to London, but even that’s got old now. Sometimes I long for the days of one bus an hour and not being crammed into a tube train every morning like a limp flip-flop on a summer’s day.

‘A little village called Pearlholme. I bet you’ve never heard of it because it’s so small that even people who live five miles away from it have never heard of it. It’s on the Yorkshire coast, not far down from Scarborough.’

‘I always hear people saying they love that part of the country.’

‘It’s perfect here. The beach is amazing and the village is so tiny. It’s all cobbled streets and quaint cottages. There’s one combined shop and post office, a pub, and a couple of beach huts on the promenade, and that’s it. It’s the perfect antidote to London. I’ve only been here a few hours and I feel better than I have in months.’ He sounds like he’s smiling as he speaks.

I wasn’t expecting him to sound the way he does. His voice sounds warm and approachable, like a steady reassuring policeman, someone you’d be safe with. It matches the way his smile has always looked.

‘Are you on holiday?’ With your wife? And children?

‘No, I’m working, although I’ve got a nerve to call it work, really. I’m restoring an old carousel by the sea. I’m literally on the sand. The beach is my office. It’s amazing. It couldn’t get any better.’

I find myself smiling at how happy he sounds. ‘That explains all the pictures of wooden horses on your phone.’

‘So you’ve been going through my pictures then, have you?’ He still sounds jokey and not annoyed at all.

‘I wasn’t going through them, I was looking for a way of getting your phone back to you.’ I don’t mention quite how much time Daph, Zinnia, and I spent combing through his phone inch by inch this morning or that I’m already thinking about how smug I can sound tomorrow when I tell them the carousel horses aren’t just a weird fetish.

‘In my photos?’

‘Well, you could’ve taken a picture of your house, couldn’t you?’

‘Hah. It’s a crummy flat in an ugly block in London. The only people who’d take a photograph of it would be filmmakers for a documentary on Britain’s worst housing.’

‘Oh, I know that feeling.’ I glance over at the bucket in the corner, catching a leak of unknown origin. The landlord, on the rare occasion I can get hold of him, promised to get it sorted last year. He hasn’t answered his phone since. Perhaps I should stop the rent direct debit – that’d get him round here pretty fast.

‘And I bet you pay enough rent to purchase a small car every month too, right?’

‘Several small cars, actually.’

‘You should see the cottage I’m staying in here. It’s a holiday let that I’ve rented for six weeks, but I could live here for six months for the price of one month in London, and it’s gorgeous.’

‘Six weeks,’ I say, trying not to think about a beautiful cottage by the sea or that gorgeous man in it. It sounds like the most perfect place and I suddenly have an overwhelming pang of sadness because I’m here and not there. ‘You won’t be back for ages.’

‘No, the owner wants this thing restored by the summer holidays so I’m here until then. It’s an incredible old carousel. I reckon it was carved entirely by one person, and it was found in an old ruin. The owner won it in an auction, and put it on the beach for the public, and their busiest season is once the kids break up from school so that’s my deadline.’

So much for hoping to see him on the train again tomorrow morning to return the phone. ‘Do you do this a lot then? I mean, all those pictures …’

‘Yeah, mainly repairs rather than full restorations because there just aren’t that many carousels to restore in the country – this is a rare treat for me.’ He laughs. ‘And yeah, I really am that boring. That’s pretty much all I use my phone for, as I’m sure you discovered. Pictures of work.’

And keeping track of your shopping lists, of course. Which I know because you buy all of my favourite food.

‘I must be creating such a good picture of myself here. All I do is moan about my flat and talk about work. Sorry, I’m sure I’m not usually this boring.’

‘It’s not boring at all. Pretty much all I do is work and moan about my flat too. At least your job is a lot more interesting than mine.’

‘What do you do?’

‘I’m a fact-checker for a women’s magazine. I have to double-check everything that proper journalists write so we don’t publish anything that’s untrue. I want to be a journalist and I thought I’d get a chance to prove myself there, but it’s been years now and all I am is basically a proofreader who does a lot of googling and phoning around to confirm quotes. I work a lot of overtime because I have nothing better to do and I keep hoping my boss will notice how dedicated I am.’

‘I can’t complain about my job. I work a lot of overtime because I love old carousels and mainly because if I’m working then I’m not sitting in my crappy flat thinking about how many places I’d rather be.’

‘I know that feeling too,’ I say, looking at the window, which gives me a marvellous view of the building next door. I can imagine what his view in that gorgeous cottage is like. ‘Do you do anything other than carousels? There were some pictures that we— I— couldn’t work out, they looked like bits of rollercoaster?’

‘I’m glad you were so thorough in your search for my address.’ He still doesn’t sound annoyed by it. ‘And yes, I’m not strictly carousels, although they’re my speciality. I’m just a repairman in general, really. My firm restores all sorts of old things, from organs to engines to fairground rides, and yes, they were bits of rollercoaster but not rollercoasters as we know them now – the old wooden scenic railways that were popular in the early 1900s, the kind of thing anyone from a baby to a granny could enjoy a ride on, a real throwback to days gone by. I take a lot of pictures because you can rarely get parts in this day and age, and we usually have to find something similar and adjust it or make the parts ourselves.’

He suddenly stops himself. ‘I’m sorry, I must be boring you senseless. I’m not usually this boring, honestly. And the fact I’ve said that twice tonight probably doesn’t bode well. You’re not busy, are you? I’ve been rabbiting on for ages and never asked you if I was interrupting something. You’re probably sitting down for a nice dinner with your husband, and—’

I laugh at the mental image. ‘No husband. I was sitting down with a microwave meal and Netflix. How’s that for busy? Talking to you is much more interesting.’

He laughs too. ‘You obviously don’t know me well enough yet.’

I try to ignore another little flutter of butterflies at that ‘yet’.

‘And you’ve just described my average evening. Netflix and a sarnie. Sometimes I stretch to something really strenuous like cheese on toast.’ He says it with a French accent, like a posh chef describing a gourmet meal, and it makes me laugh again, and I realise that I’m gripping the phone tighter because I don’t want him to go yet. ‘My brother bought me a chef’s blowtorch once. God knows what he thought I was going to cook with it. Beans on toast on fire?’

‘You know what I don’t get?’ I say, trying to stop myself laughing again. ‘Instant mashed potatoes. You sprinkle a little bit out of the packet into the bottom of a mug, and it makes six bowlfuls.’

‘Oh, I love instant mashed potatoes,’ he says. ‘They’re like the ultimate comfort food, and I can pretend they’re healthy because they’re vegetables. Powdered, reconstituted vegetables, but still. I’m spoiled tonight because the landlady at the cottage made me a macaroni cheese and left it in the fridge. At least I now know why she asked if I had any allergies. I wondered if she was planning on filling the roof with asbestos and painting the walls with lead or something. I’m just waiting for that to come out of the oven and I’m going to eat it in the garden with a cup of tea.’ He pauses. ‘You probably thought I was thirty-six this morning, but now I reveal I’m really an eighty-year-old woman in disguise. No wonder I like it in Pearlholme so much. Everyone seems to be elderly around here. You should’ve seen my landlady, bless her. She looked like she could barely carry the key when I collected it. God knows how she’s still managing to cook huge casserole dishes of food.’

I laugh yet again. I’m not good at talking to strangers, which is probably quite weird for someone who spends a lot of time phoning strangers to confirm facts and double-check quotes in articles, but there’s something about him that puts me completely at ease. I’m often on edge in my flat – you can usually hear the shouting of neighbours or fights in the hall, and it never feels safe here, but his warm accent on the other end of the phone settles something inside me.

‘Thanks for picking up my phone this morning. I’m glad it was you. I mean … I saw you … We’re usually much further apart … and I was in such a hurry … and I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say. Just thank you for grabbing it and trying to get it back to me. I assumed I’d been pickpocketed. I always think the worst of people and don’t really trust anyone, so …’

‘My best friend has been saying exactly the same thing about me this afternoon.’

He does a soft snort. ‘Ah, at least we can revel in our trust issues together. Which is, of course, a totally normal thing to talk to a complete stranger about. I don’t talk to many people, as you can tell because I’m so bad at it.’

He’s self-deprecating and rambly in the most adorable way. And I just … don’t want to stop talking to him. ‘Well, that’s three things we have in common – trust issues, full names we don’t use, and being bad at talking to people. And for what it’s worth, you’re doing a great job so far. This is fun.’

I can hear the grin in his voice. ‘Maybe it’s because you’re on my phone. I feel like I’m talking to myself.’

‘Yeah, that must be it.’ I’m sitting here smiling at my empty living room, which is not something that usually evokes a smile. ‘How’d you manage without your phone today? Must’ve been tough – we’re so used to always having them on us.’

‘Oh, you have no idea. My train timetable was on it, directions, and the bus timetable to get into Pearlholme. I didn’t even know the time because I rely on my phone instead of wearing a watch. I had to do the unthinkable. I had to stop strangers in the street and ask for directions.’

‘Oh no, how did you cope?’ I struggle to hold in a giggle.

‘It was terrible! I had to make actual eye contact and everything.’ He makes the noise of a shudder. ‘Who does that in this day and age? It’s what Google Maps was invented for – to prevent the rare occasion that you might have to speak to a random human being you don’t actually know.’

‘I remember that. It was always so annoying when you’d ask someone and they’d tell you the way, and you’d follow their directions and you were clearly in the wrong place, so you’d ask someone else and they’d tell you completely the opposite direction from what the first lot had told you, and then you’d have to drive back past the first lot and wonder if you could casually push them over a bridge or something.’

He groans. ‘I better not tell you that one of my favourite pastimes growing up was trolling people who asked for directions. They’d ask if I knew where a place was, and I act all authoritative and say, “Oh, yes, I live right near there; it’s this way, take a left and turn down the lane.” I’d direct them to, like, the middle of the nearest cow field. It was great!’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I grew up in a tiny village and life was boring.’ He pauses. ‘From the tone of your voice, I take it the correct answer is “because I was young, cruel, and incredibly immature, and got my jollies off by making other people’s lives a misery”?’

‘That’s better,’ I say, unable to contain my laughter. He’s naturally funny but none of it seems forced. He seems like an old friend I’ve known for years.

A really hot old friend, obviously.

‘I nearly had to go full-on retro and call the speaking clock to find out the time.’

‘With what?’

‘I hadn’t even thought of that!’ He laughs. ‘See? That’s how weird it is not to have a phone on you. I suppose I’d have had to find a relic of an old telephone box. Anything would be better than having to ask a stranger again. Starting conversations with strangers once in a day is more than enough.’

‘So what phone are you on now? Did you have to borrow one?’

‘No, I bought this ancient pay-as-you-go thing for fifteen quid. It’s one of the old clamshell flip phones, if you can remember them. Colour screens had barely been invented and there’s so much glare that you can’t see it in daylight. Most people haven’t seen one since 2003 but they like to keep up with the times around here.’

‘And you managed to get that in Pearlholme? From what you’ve said, it doesn’t sound modern enough for a phone like that.’

‘Flipping ’eck, no. There’s a slightly bigger village about five miles away. I got the bus there and found it in the chemist of all places. And when I got on the bus, the bus driver said, “You’re the bloke doing up the carousel on the beach, aren’t you?” and he refused a fare because the carousel will be good for the area. That’s how archaic it is round here. I’d only been in town long enough to collect my key and dump my bags at the cottage.’

‘I grew up in a village like that. I used to hate it, but sometimes the crowds of London make me miss it.’

‘Me too. I’m from a village in South Yorkshire. I haven’t lived there for a long time though.’

‘Yeah, your accent kind of gives that away.’ I try not to sound as spellbound by his accent as I am. I could quite happily sit here and listen to him read the phone book. ‘I’m from Nottingham but it reminds me of home.’

‘I hate London. You never really escape the feeling of loneliness there despite the fact you’re constantly surrounded by people. I love going on jobs like this where I can get away for a while.’

‘I’m so jealous. My office is a cubicle the size of a matchbox, and my choice of view is a white wall or a white wall with the scars of a thousand drawing pins being stuck in it over the years. Your job sounds like heaven.’

‘I’m really lucky,’ he says. ‘If you ever want to get away, you should come up here. It’s beautiful.’

‘I’ll add it to my list of destinations for holidays I’ll never take,’ I say, feeling more desolate than is normal when talking about holidays.

He sighs and the line goes quiet, but it doesn’t feel awkward. I used to talk about nonsense to fill up uncomfortable silences with ‘poor Andrew’, but I feel content just listening to him breathe down the line.

It is a bit weird though.

‘So how am I going to get this phone back to you then?’ I say eventually. I don’t want this conversation to end, but it seems stupid not to mention anything about it. ‘I can keep—’

‘Why don’t you come and find me? It’s kind of your fault that I lost it in the first place because I was distracted by you—’

‘Oi! You can’t blame me.’

He starts laughing, letting me know it was just a joke. ‘Well, you want to give it back so badly, come up to Pearlholme and give it back. It’s the most gorgeous village – you’d love it here.’

‘I can’t, Nathan, I’d never get the time off work and it’s a long way and …’ I trail off, feeling like I’m scrabbling for excuses. In reality, my heart has leapt into my throat and is hammering like a pneumatic drill. The idea of getting away, of going to a beach, a vintage carousel, and … him. The idea that he might actually want to see me …

‘Yeah, of course. Sorry. It’s been a long day of travelling. I’ve lost my grip on how funny my jokes are. I didn’t mean owt by it.’

‘I mean, I would, but …’

‘No, no, I was just messing about. No one would be that much of an idiot. Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll look after it for me.’

‘Of course, but—’

‘I’d better go before I make an even bigger fool of myself. It’s getting late and I’ve got to start work at first light tomorrow. I need to strip the carousel to pieces and assess exactly what kind of condition it’s in and what needs doing, and that macaroni cheese is bubbling away, ready to come out of the oven.’

‘Thanks for ringing.’ I try not to think about how jealous I am of his quiet cottage, homemade meal, garden, tea, and sea view. Nothing has ever sounded more appealing. I squeeze the phone tighter, hoping that I can somehow cling on to him a bit longer. ‘I’m really glad you did.’

‘Me too,’ he says softly, and I can hear that smile in his voice again.

He doesn’t say anything else and I get a sudden flutter that maybe he’s doing the same thing as I am, hanging on that little bit longer.

This is all too weird. I can’t remember the last time I talked to someone so easily. It’s like something from a film, like those first exciting emails between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail, and I’m sure I’ve got the same sappy smile on my face.

‘I suppose I’d better say goodnight,’ I say, feeling abrupt, but the longer I hang on to this call, the more real it seems, and this … whatever this is … how can it be real? Life doesn’t happen like this. You don’t smile at a stranger on a train and then they turn out to be the perfect match.

‘Yeah, me too,’ he says. Am I imagining how sad he sounds?

I could so easily ask him something else, anything else, just to stay chatting to him a bit longer, but I give myself a shake. ‘Goodnight, Nathan. It was nice talking to you.’

Nice? It’s the best evening I’ve spent in months. Years, maybe. Nice is how you describe the questionable jumper your nan knitted you for Christmas when she asks if you’ve worn it, not a warm, funny conversation with a gorgeous, sweet guy.

Even though I’m not interested in guys, no matter how gorgeous or sweet they are.

‘Night, Ness,’ he says. ‘And thanks again. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.’

‘Don’t let the sand fleas bite in that gorgeous cottage of yours.’

I can hear his laughter fading as he hangs up, and it makes me smile. Again. I’ve lost count of how many times he’s made me smile tonight. He’s better than anything I could’ve chosen on Netflix.

And no matter how not-interested I am in men and relationships, I grab my charger and breathe a sigh of relief when it fits his phone. I don’t even know why I’m so relieved, but I know I want to keep it charged in case he phones again.

* * *

About an hour later, after I’ve warmed up my microwave meal – living on the edge because the packet said ‘do not reheat’ – Nathan’s phone jingles again. I trip over my own feet as I rush embarrassingly fast to get the message, still convinced it will be his girlfriend wondering where he is.

It’s him again, a picture this time. I smile as I open it. He must be standing on the beach, and he’s taken a photo of the sun setting over the ocean, almost pink sky and darkening clouds as the sun sinks into the sea, a jagged cliff to one side.

It’s the most perfect view I’ve ever seen.

The phone jingles with another text message, and I smile again as I read it.

This is my office. Not a drawing pin scar in sight.

Two seconds later, it jingles yet again.

And yes, that was taken with the bona fide VGA camera on this awful flip phone. That should go some way towards showing how beautiful it is here – it even looks good in 0.03 megapixels.

What is it about this guy? Everything about him makes me smile.

And everything about him makes me want to throw caution to the wind and go to Pearlholme. But that would be stupid, right? I mean, it does look like a gorgeous place, maybe I really will add it to my list of potential holiday destinations, and Mum and Dad aren’t too far from there; maybe I’ll pop by next time I go up to visit them, see the carousel after it’s restored and Nathan’s long gone.

I couldn’t go up there now, while he’s still there. That’s another thing that would only happen in one of Daph’s beloved romantic comedies. Not in real life.

Chapter 4

‘Gimme that.’ Daphne whips Nathan’s phone from my hand before I’ve fully pulled it out of my trouser pocket.

‘He texted you goodnight at half past ten last night and he put two kisses. If that’s not a sign that he’s into you then I don’t know what is. Do you know how hard it is to get a goodnight text from a guy? Gavin doesn’t even text me goodnight when he’s away and we’ve been married for three years.’

‘Everyone puts kisses these days. It’s habit. It’s a nightmare when you send a professional email and accidentally sign off with a couple of x’s. I’ve done it loads of times.’