‘Well…’ He shrugs it off, his eyes lifting to the sky like it’s all just one big laugh. A bit of fun.
‘Don’t you live nearby?’
‘Uh, not so near.’
‘But you live in the city, and yet you pick up dates and take them not to your place but to a budget hotel?’
He’s silent, shrugging and spreading his palms.
I step closer so I can lower my voice. It’s gone a bit growly. ‘Did you really move to Birmingham recently? Where exactly in the countryside did you say you lived when you registered for the dating app?’
He attempts another laugh, brushing off my detective skills with a sweeping hand.
‘I see.’ The penny drops. He’d only just been remarking how far it would be for me to get home tonight, like he had the solution. ‘How many out-of-towners are you showing a good time to? How many of us lonely rural women do you lure to the city, give us a petrol station flower, let us split the bill with you, and romance us a bit? Then it’s back to your crappy hotel room?Ugh, I’m an idiot!’ I shove the empty wine mug and the red rose into his hands.
He doesn’t even watch me go as I stride towards the train station, my ill-advised boots seriously pinching now.
As soon as I’ve checked the next train heading remotely close to home, Moreton-in-Marsh will do, and texted Lucy asking if she’ll pick me up from there, I fire up Countryside Cupids. I resist the urge to leave an unkind review for handsome, gregarious Rusty who was only after a shag in a budget hotel with a country bumpkin from some backwater where the dating pool is shallow, a yokel blinded by the bright lights of Birmingham. He’s not looking for romance or a relationship at all, and, as he’s just proven, he scares really easily at the first (imagined) signs that a woman actually wants something from him.
I hitDelete app, watching my very last chance at finding love online disappearing before my eyes.
Chapter Twelve
Thursday 14 December: The Gingerbread Christmas Village
It’s here. The deadline that has regulated my entire life for years. It’s the third Thursday in December and the exhibition opens tomorrow at half-three, as soon as the school bell rings for the holidays. Mum’s already FaceTimed twice to tell me not to be nervous, which has only served to make me nervous.
‘You don’t seem as… invested as previous years, Margi,’ Mum observed during the second call, her face so close to the screen as she examined me for signs of gingerbread fatigue that all I could see was her eyebrows.
I didn’t want to tell her the main thing I’m feeling is relief that it’s almost over and I won’t have to do it again, even if it’s been lovely having Lucy’s help this year, and Fern and Shell have promised to come along to the help with the final layout.
‘It’s a lot of work,’ I said. ‘Not like the old days when you had all those women helping. Plus, I always have to make the exhibit bigger and better than it was the year before. There’s an expectation.’
‘From who?’ Mum wanted to know.
‘Well… I…’
I didn’t know how to answer that. The truth is the pressure is coming from myself. I decided to pin the blame a little further from home.
‘That’s just how Christmas is, isn’t it? Always grander and more expensive year on year, always one-upping itself, with presents and food and decorations…’
Mum interrupted. ‘When I started, it was all about the village, about the people.’
‘I don’t think the people are all that interested nowadays.’
Mum took a moment to compose herself. I watched as her nostrils flared on a big in-breath. ‘Margi, darling. Nobody’s making you do the grotto. If you feel like it’s getting too much, you can hand it over. I wouldn’t be disappointed.’
That was a first. We’d never spoken about me stopping. I assumed she’d be happy for me to just go on forever, baking and icing myself into the grave.
‘Who do I pass it on to? Everybody’s got their own lives.’
‘Your young helpers?’
‘They’re kids. They’re not going to stick around in Wheaton.’
I’m not lumbering my niece with this – anyway, Lucy and I will be swanning round the Bullring by next Christmas, so she’s ruled out. The best bet might be Sully, but what kind of a poisoned chalice would I be handing him? He’s just so young. Even if he didn’t mind doing it, who’d help him? Sully and Patrick might make a good team, but no, it’s too much for them, and will Patrick want to so much as look at another piece of gingerbread once I’ve moved away? I doubt it.
I made a good show of pulling myself together, for Mum’s sake, and she wished me luck and told me not to stay up too late fiddling with the small details.
