Chapter 9
A couple of days later, Hamish says he’s going into Campbeltown and asks if I’d like to join him, and after working on one of the busiest shopping streets in the UK for so long, in a few short days, I’ve almost forgotten that shops even exist. Hollybrae Castle is a total escape from the world, and while that’s been welcome, I also want to get out to explore the nearest town and see what Christmas bits I can pick up.
Hamish leaves his truck in the harbour car park and lets me loose, and I spend a wonderful couple of hours enjoying the sea air and exploring an array of small independent shops that sell the most unique things, with not a single household name in sight.
Hamish told me it looks busy today, but ‘busy’ has a different meaning here.
Busy in London is so tightly crammed that you can barely breathe, and battling your way through the crowds at this time of year is an exercise in frustration, but here, everyone has got time for you.
Every shopkeeper greets me, asks if they can help with anything or notices my English accent and suggests I’m a long way from home.
In London, I’m just one face in a sea of others, but here, I feel like I’d get to know everyone if I came back often, and their shops are beautiful.
They remind me of growing up in Ipswich, in the days before high streets across the country died a slow death, but here, everything is thriving.
Unlike the flashy lights of London streets, their Christmas decorations are understated and vintage.
There’s the warm light of glowing bells above my head, strung from one side of the road to the other, and every shop bears a wreath of real foliage and an unassumingly decorated real tree, welcoming shoppers inside.
It’s like stepping back in time in the best way possible. After years in London, this is exactly what I need. This is how to do Christmas shopping. This whole place feels like exactly what Christmas should be.
I find the festive curtain tiebacks I’d envisioned but didn’t know existed.
I find locally made chocolates and posh cheese, and a shop that specialises in handmade vintage-style decorations and nearly clear out their entire stock.
I find arts and crafts stuff to entertain Maisie and Rory when they visit.
I find the most gorgeous little boutique where the owner hand-knits everything from Christmas jumpers to festive socks, and I find the best pair of Christmas socks I’ve ever seen and instantly get two pairs in his and hers sizes because I know someone else who’ll love them too.
And people are so willing to help. Shopkeepers offer to order in anything I want.
Assistants offer to help me carry things back to the car, but I’m used to carting around heavy stock and bulky props, and it doesn’t faze me as much as the thought of having to go back to London after this.
This place feels like a community, where everyone knows everyone and people truly care about their neighbours.
There’s no rivalry between shops. If one shop hasn’t got something I’m thinking of, the owner directs me to another shop down the road, and there’s no competition to have the flashiest, sparkliest, shiniest window that outdoes every other window.
Their windows simply showcase the products they sell, and it’s so refreshing that it makes me question why it was constantly reiterated to our team that we must one-up all the other shops on Oxford Street.
It makes me wonder what it would be like to work somewhere like this again…
I used to, and I always felt it would be a step down to go back to smaller shops, like I’d be admitting failure of my lifelong dream, but seeing a place like this still thriving is making me wonder if Calloways was the step down in the first place?
* * *
‘You look like a woman with a purpose. And a ladder.’ Ollie pushes open the door of the entrance hallway and catches me on my way to clean the upper reaches of our largest room before starting to install the undecorated garlands that have arrived this afternoon.
Boxes upon boxes of many, many metres of green branches, waiting to have lights twirled through them and festive touches tied on when everything else I’ve ordered also arrives.
‘Hello,’ I call over my shoulder as I carry my ladder towards the dining hall. ‘How was your day?’
‘I’m more interested in how yours wa— Good lord.’ He rushes after me to hold a door open, and then looks around the room in surprise. ‘If anyone ever asks me “how many poinsettias is too many poinsettias?” at least I’ll know the answer.’
‘Hamish drove past a farm selling them from their driveway on the way home. It would’ve been rude not to,’ I tell him with a grin. ‘And it’s a moot point. There is, of course, no such thing as too many poinsettias.’
He laughs, but even his laugh is cut off as he bends to examine one. ‘Have you glittered these?’
‘Of course. Why have an ordinary poinsettia when you can have a sparkly poinsettia?’ I turn around as I set the ladder down and make a gesture for him to back up.
He’s wearing one of his work suits, his hair is parted and swept sideways, and he’s carrying his serious briefcase.
If he gets too near, his suit will be sparkling for weeks.
‘They’re not all staying here, but they’re finishing touches for after everything else has gone up.
I got some terracotta pots for them that the kids can decorate at the weekend, so in the meantime, they can enjoy lots of light from these lovely windows.
I’ve already been responsible for the death of one gifted poinsettia this year, I won’t have any more on my conscience. ’
‘The kids are decorating the pots?’
‘Ollie, there is nothing in this house that suggests we have children. People with kids have… toys. Artwork. Crafts. A general mess and slight air of staining and hysteria.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got that part covered.’
I laugh, but it’s something I’ve realised over the past couple of days.
Mira is constantly picking up after Rocco.
His fingerpainted watercolours from school adorn the front of their fridge.
There are crayon marks on her favourite wallpaper and toys everywhere.
‘When Maisie and Rory come this weekend, we need to make some ornaments for the trees. Draw some pictures. Paint plant pots for our poinsettia army. Get some stains on our clothes. Anything that makes it look like children actually live here.’
‘Personally, I’m all for wearing your fake husband’s hoodies all the time.’ He reaches out and tugs the hem of the light blue hoodie I’m wearing today that’s got the thickest lining I’ve ever felt.
‘Me too. Thank you for this. I’ve never worn anything comfier.’
‘And I’ve never seen my clothes look better.’
I blush, and so does he. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean… I’m going to shower and leave you and your fifty-three poinsettias to it before I say something else I shouldn’t. Dinner in a minute?’
‘There’s nowhere near fifty-three,’ I call after him to distract myself from the fact that eating Nancy’s soup of the day with Ollie has become one of my favourite parts of every day, and it has very little to do with how good the food is.
* * *
Later that evening, I’ve cleaned the furthest reaches of the dining hall and organised everything I bought today ready for the deliveries that should be arriving tomorrow, and showered and changed into my pyjamas.
My body aches in the satisfied way of doing a lot.
You get used to bumps and bruises because installing windows is like working in a hot, cramped, waterless fishtank, but it’s been a while since I felt the burn of muscles well-used for a job that felt worthwhile, and I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed that.
I haven’t seen Ollie since we had dinner together earlier, and I take the socks I bought for him today and go downstairs, intending to leave them on the kitchen table where he’ll find them and make myself a cup of tea, but as I walk through the entrance hall and pass the door to his little living room, it opens and he pops his head out.
‘I heard jingling and hoped you might be coming in here.’ He opens the door all the way and blinks in surprise when he catches full sight of me. ‘Now those are Christmas pyjamas.’
‘Don’t knock ’em ’til you’ve tried ’em.’
His eyes run up and down me in a way that would probably be sexy if I wasn’t wearing the least sexy pair of pyjamas imaginable, with red flannelette trousers covered in gingerbread men and a long-sleeve top with a huge gingerbread house motif on the front.
‘I doubt they’d fit me, but I wasn’t knocking them.
I was merely suggesting that I wish I owned pyjamas that festive. Are your socks jingling?’
‘Before you comment on them, you should know that I got you something today.’
‘You did not.’ He inclines his head, inviting me in. ‘You didn’t have to get me anything.’
The fire is crackling in the hearth and it looks like he was curled up on the sofa because there’s an empty corner with a tartan blanket beside it like he’s just thrown it off, the TV is on pause, and there’s a cushion on the coffee table where his feet were up.
He tears into the giftbag I hand him and pulls out the handknitted elf socks, which are red and white striped with a green zigzag band around the top with tiny golden jingle bells sewn all around it, and the smile on his face gets wider and wider.
‘As soon as you walked in, I wanted to ask if they came in a bigger size. These are unbelievable. Thank you so much.’
He perches on the sofa arm and pulls them on over his normal socks and tucks his trouser legs into them so they come up to mid-calf, wiggles his feet around to jingle the bells, and then stands up and comes over to give me a hug.
It’s an awkward, one-armed hug because he’s still holding the giftbag in his other hand, and I feel like I need to stand on a box with the height difference, but he leans down and I lean up and slide my free arm around his neck too, and inhale the scent of shampoo while appreciating the slightest scratch of his end-of-day stubble against my skin as his voice murmurs another thank you directly into my ear.
‘You’re the best fake wife I’ve ever had. ’
It makes heat rush through me because there has surely never been a man with a sexier, more rumbly voice in existence, and it’s impossible not to have a physical reaction to it, especially given that I can feel the movement of his lips and his breath stirs my hair when he speaks, and hugging him, even a one-armed partial hug, lets my imagination run wild about how good he’d be at giving proper hugs.
His hand on my upper back is melting through my pyjama top, and he lingers longer than strictly necessary.
My fingers curl into the hood of his navy ombre hoodie and squeeze, because until this moment, I hadn’t realised how long it had been since anyone hugged me…
Since I felt like anyone wanted to hug me.
‘Same,’ I murmur, even though it doesn’t make sense and he laughs and squeezes me again before pulling back.
We blink at each other in the low light of the room for a moment, because that was unexpectedly intense for a half-hug, and I finally come to my senses. ‘What were you up to?’
He waves a hand towards the spot where he was sitting. ‘Tomorrow’s a Glasgow commute day. I was just looking for something festive on TV to chill out before having an early night. You?’
‘I don’t know. I was going to make a cuppa and find a fire and a good book. It’s been a long day and the lights for the garlands aren’t arriving until tomorr—’
‘Depending—’
‘Depending on the weather and the roads being open, I know. I’m getting the hang of this Mull of Kintyre thing now.’ I hold up the box of handmade chocolates I was hiding in my other hand. ‘And I got these in town today. Interested?’
He makes a noise of desire. ‘If there’s one thing I can’t resist, it’s chocolate of any kind. Can I persuade you to swap the book for joining me and finding something mindless on TV?’
I nod happily while he ducks back across the room and gathers up the blanket and deposits it into my arms and then hands me the TV remote. ‘You take this because it’s the thickest blanket, get comfortable and choose something to watch while I go and make us both a cup of tea. Deal?’
‘Deal.’ My fingertips graze against his as I take the remote from him, and the sound of his socks jingling as he heads towards the kitchen makes me smile to myself.
The red tartan blanket is still warm from his body heat when I wrap it around my shoulders and sit down at the opposite end of the three-seater settee, and when he comes back with two steaming mugs of tea, he sits back in the corner of the sofa and pulls another blanket over himself.
I put the chocolates in the space between us and leave a Vicar of Dibley Christmas special on the telly, and we both giggle even though we’ve seen it many times before.
The fireplace crackles away to itself, filling the room with a cosy glow. I realise that drinking tea, sharing a box of artisan chocolates, and simply talking to Ollie has quickly become my favourite way to spend a night, and I already know I’m going to miss this when December is over.