Chapter 7
Nicola only managed half of her hot chocolate which was thick and rich, topped with cream, and had just a hint of Christmas spice.
They walked it off, down the narrow set-paved road lined with shops, each of which blasted a snippet of Christmas music as they passed.
She stole a quick glance at Lucien when a couple of bars of ‘Last Christmas’ met their ears, but he seemed not to have noticed.
Then the street met a larger square and Place de la République opened out in front of them.
It, too, was scattered with the wooden Christmas huts, each with its own unique offering: hand-blended essential oils, silver charm bracelets and rings, woollen coats with riotous patterns, puzzles and games.
They wandered through, stopping here and there to make small purchases or to ask about prices, pointing out things to each other as they passed.
A little later though, as she browsed, she realised that Lucien was no longer with her. He’d obviously wandered off to look for something. She continued, assuming that he’d find his way back to her when he was ready.
Something about the day – the hot chocolate, the bauble ride, the Christmas music being played in the little market square, and now the sight of an enormous Victorian carousel, with adults and children squealing on white horses as it turned – filled her with a combination of nostalgia and excitement.
But at the same time, underneath it all, was an ache that wouldn’t shift.
This would be her first Christmas without seeing family – not Steven, not her parents, and not Harriet.
‘Would you like to buy?’ a voice cut through her thoughts, and she realised she was still holding a small vase she’d picked up to examine from an antiques stall. It was blue glass, with a sweet floral pattern around the stem.
‘Perhaps,’ she replied, smiling at the stallholder.
The man behind the wooden counter could have been aged anything from sixty to ninety.
He was small in stature, his face creased by time, but his eyes were startlingly green and flashed when he smiled.
‘I hope you will find something to suit you,’ he said.
‘Tell me if you need assistance.’ Then he turned to another customer who was buying a wooden jewellery box.
She continued to look. The stall showcased an eclectic mix of antiques, as if someone had stored a multitude of items from different eras in a chest, then simply tipped them onto a table.
There was crockery, porcelain, silver items and jewellery cluttered together.
Rifling through them felt a bit like putting your hand into a lucky dip and rummaging, hoping to find treasure.
Nicola picked up a necklace with a small red stone contained in a tiny heart.
It was pretty and caught the light. She laid it on the counter and continued to look for other items. She wasn’t sure when she’d get to give Steven his presents, but it would be nice to find him a couple of things to open.
A glitter of gold twinkled at her from behind a cat ornament, reflecting a combination of sunlight and a sparkle from the Christmas lights that decorated the opening in the hut.
She reached out and picked it up. It was a model of an angel, its face serene, a halo painted gold at its temple.
The porcelain figurine was smooth and light in her hand, its surface crazed, revealing its age, but actually making it seem even more quaint.
She wondered how many families had placed the angel on their mantlepieces each December, how it had come to be on a small stall in a Christmas market. Nicola looked at the angel and something about its face made her warm to it.
‘How much is this?’ she asked the man who had just finished serving a customer and was putting change away in a small cash box.
He was small, perhaps only five foot or so, his height reduced by a stoop in his posture.
He looked up, noticed the angel and smiled warmly. ‘To you, madame, it is gratuit. Free.’
‘Oh, no! I can’t take it for free,’ she said, wondering whether the man had taken a shine to her or something. ‘Look, I want to buy the necklace too.’ She held up the pair of items and he looked at them thoughtfully.
‘OK, if you cannot,’ he said, ‘we will say twenty euros for both.’ He folded his arms, his sweater threadbare at the elbows.
She was about to say that seemed awfully cheap, then stopped herself just in time, her dad’s voice in her head.
He loved visiting markets, car boot sales, anywhere a bargain could be found, and prided himself on negotiating a few pounds off here and there.
If he discovered that she’d negotiated a price up, she’d never hear the last of it.
She paid her money and the stallholder carefully wrapped the angel in light blue tissue paper, deposited the necklace into a tiny velvet pouch, and presented both of them to her in a square paper bag with a string handle.
As she watched, he picked up a candy cane from a box behind him and slipped it in too.
‘Joyeux Noel,’ he told her.
‘Oh yes. Thank you.’
‘She will bring you luck.’ He looked up at her, his eyes crinkling. They were dark brown, almost black, deep pools of colour.
‘The candy cane?’ She knew that French nouns were often masculine or feminine but she’d never heard that candy canes were good fortune. How would that work exactly? If she ate the cane, would she ingest the luck? Or destroy it? Should she keep it on her mantlepiece as an ornament…?
‘The angel, of course. She is good luck.’
‘Oh. Thanks,’ she said, blushing. Of course he hadn’t meant the candy cane.
‘She comes to those who need her,’ he added, nodding sagely.
‘Oh.’ She tried to smile, but what on earth was he talking about?
‘You chose her for a reason,’ he continued. It was really getting a bit odd now.
‘Great! Well, lucky me!’ she said, holding the bag aloft as if proving that she had the angel in her possession. ‘Merry Christmas!’
She hadn’t realised that someone was standing closely behind her so, turning, she bumped straight into a man who smelt of wood shavings, soap, a fresh, sharp cologne and somehow, gingerbread, all at once. ‘Lucien!’ she said. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘You’re in a hurry!’ he asked, an eyebrow raised. ‘Are you trying to escape?’
‘No. I just bought…’ She gestured at the stall, but couldn’t see the man standing behind the counter any more. Presumably he’d taken a break.
‘Relax, I am joking. You just seemed to be in a hurry.’
‘Oh, yes. Well, the guy was a bit chatty…’
‘You do not like conversation?’
‘I do but…’ She couldn’t explain to Lucien the awkwardness that came to her sometimes during small talk, and how something about the man’s profession that the angel was good luck, that it had come to her when she needed it, had made her feel a bit weird.
‘I bought a little angel ornament and he seemed to think it has magical powers.’
‘Really?’
She shook her head. ‘Not quite. I’m exaggerating. Only he said it was good luck and that it found me for a reason or something. It kind of freaked me out.’
Lucien laughed. ‘Yes, I can see that. Luckily you only crashed into me, not some frail old lady or a little kid.’
‘See, that’s good luck already!’
He smiled and lifted his arms, and she noticed for the first time that he was carrying several bags. ‘Well, I think I am finished, or at least my bank manager will think so. How have you got on?’
‘Oh, good, thanks. I mean in all honesty I didn’t come here to buy much. More—’
‘To go on the children’s fairground rides?’ he teased.
‘Ha. No, just to kind of absorb the Christmas magic,’ she said, then flushed at hearing her own words.
‘I thought you were trying to avoid too much Christmas?’
‘Maybe I’m more like my mum than I like to let on.’
‘Then I have just the place.’
She’d assumed he was taking her to a café where they’d buy lunch before heading home, but instead he guided her to the centre of the market where behind a small barrier, people seemed to be gliding along at an unusual speed.
A step closer and she realised that it was an ice rink, set up in the centre of the market for customers to use.
‘Oh. No. I can’t skate.’ She had a flashback suddenly of a frozen lake, the crack of ice when she tested it. How her foot had plunged through. And another, a skating party when she was thirteen. Clinging to the side, almost twisting her ankle.
‘It’s easy. And you want to feel like it is Christmas? Then you must at least try it. It is a tradition.’
‘’You think?’
‘Yes, it will be fun!’
She wanted to ask him what was fun about breaking an ankle. But his enthusiasm was infectious so instead she allowed him to lead her to a small area at the edge of the ice where she exchanged her trainers for a pair of boots, adorned with plastic-covered blades that looked impossible to balance on.
Then she was on the thin ice, a kind of artificial plastic surface beneath giving it enough to support her, and wobbling along as Lucien glided effortlessly, turning and grinning and coming up to her to offer a hand.
‘It is graceful, non?’ he joked as she struggled towards him, bending forward unnaturally in the hope that it would help her stay at least partially upright.
‘Speak for yourself.’
‘May I?’ He reached out his hands to take hers and with the extra support she was able to straighten. ‘Now one foot at a time,’ he instructed, skating backwards as she shuffled one foot then another forwards.
At first, she remained stiff and awkward, but then she began to feel herself glide slightly, began to learn the movement, the amount of push needed to move smoothly without skidding, without giving in to the temptation to lift her foot too high and almost walk in her skates, as she’d been doing at first.
She was slow, but she was doing it. She was actually doing it.
Gradually he withdrew his hands, skating beside her, his arms outstretched ready to grab her if she needed him to.
She swayed a little but remained on her feet, slid but managed not to land on her bottom.
And as she gained confidence in her ability to survive without breaking a bone, she began to smile, then laugh.
‘That’s it!’ Lucien said. ‘You’re doing it! Well done!’ He seemed genuinely pleased at her minor achievement. ‘You are a skater now.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ she said, slipping slightly and grabbing at the side before carrying on. ‘But you know, this is the closest I’ve ever got.’
Back on the bench, swapping skates for shoes again and feeling the stable ground under her feet once more, she wished she’d got Lucien to take a picture to show Steven.
Then a sudden flash of something. Guilt?
How would Steven feel if he saw her then, holding hands and laughing with this handsome man?
‘Well, thank you,’ she said.
‘It is no problem. You are helping me paint, I will help you where I can.’
‘True. Although you are paying for my help,’ she pointed out.
He laughed. ‘Yes, well, I am not a professional sharing my skill. Just someone who can move without falling on the ice. It is not worthy of payment.’
‘Buy you lunch?’ she suggested.
‘It’s a deal.’
‘You know, you’re a pretty good teacher,’ she added as they walked along. ‘I’ve never managed to skate like that before.’
‘Or maybe it is the angel, giving you good luck,’ he teased.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll let her take all the credit!’