‘And taken the old ones away for scrap,’ her husband finishes phlegmatically.
As the customers leave the shop, Malcolm reaches for another copy of the cookbook that Padam donated.
Sprouts with lemon and parmesan.
Interesting.
They are just shutting up when Padam calls from the back of the shop. ‘A rep left me a bottle of mulled wine and I was thinking of having a glass. Would you like to join me? I have a bit more tidying up to do before I can leave.’
‘Well, that would be very nice.’ Malcolm pauses from wrapping his red scarf around his neck. ‘I could pop across to the deli and fetch a couple of slices of Christmas cake,’ he suggests, wanting to contribute to the occasion. Something about this snags at a memory. Isn’t that what Jo and Eric the Viking used to do when she ran the stationery shop, Eric popping in from his optician’s practice next door? The thought of this warms him. He and Padam have never shared an alcoholic drink before. He has wondered if Padam even drank. He realizes there is so much he doesn’t know about him. He still wants to ask him about when he represented Nepal in archery.
‘No need,’ comes the cheerful response from the kitchenette which, along with the stock room, is situated off the back of the shop. ‘Mr Roberts gave us one of his wife’s cakes as a thank you for helping track down all those out-of-print Trollopes for his dad.’
Soon they are both holding steaming glasses, plates balanced on the counter. Padam is studying the noticeboard to the side of them. ‘I haven’t had time to sort this out.’ He pauses, ‘I think most of the notices are still up from earlier in the year.’ He pulls down an out-of-date flyer. ‘Oh, you can definitely go!’ He puts down his glass and places an orange leaflet advertising an autumnal charity sale in the recycling pile. ‘And you,’ he adds, and takes another notice down. ‘Could you pass me those leaflets to your right?’ Padam asks Malcolm, and swiftly pins up the more seasonal notices. Looking down at one of the older notices now lying on the counter, he hands it to Malcolm. ‘Do you still need this?’ It is an appeal from the conservation group that Malcolm is part of, asking for volunteers to help clear an ancient woodland burial plot.
Malcolm shakes his head, ‘No, that can go too.’
‘Giving up on the campaigning?’ Padam teases.
Malcolm has told him a bit about the lost days of his youth, and how he had not taken up the causes that appealed to his hidden hippy soul. He had explained that as anolder, and hopefully, wiser man, he wanted to show support for the things that mattered to him. Now he just smiles at Padam and says, ‘You can be sure I will be out again in the spring.’
That feels like a long way off now. Malcolm sips his drink and looks around him at the shop. It feels particularly festive and cosy in the evening light, with its view out over the town. Has his sense of excitement grown, along with his plans for Ruth’s Christmas? Or maybe it is just being here and sharing this time with Padam? Around the Market Place he can see illuminated shop windows and, in the centre of the cobbled square, is the town’s immense Christmas tree covered in white lights, standing tall beside the old Trinity Church. He wants to ask Padam what he is doing for Christmas, then wonders if he even celebrates it.
‘Do you “do” Christmas?’ he asks tentatively. He knows Padam is a Buddhist, but there he was in the church, shaking hands warmly with Rev. Ruth.
‘Very definitely. I think, as I came late to it, I am a big fan – like my nephew’s children,’ he grins. ‘My nephew Dawa met his wife Jill in Nepal when they were both working for a charity. Then, when they came to the UK, they settled here – this is where Jill is from. She supported Dawa when he studied, and then he did the same for her when she got her doctorate.’
‘What does Dawa do?’
‘He’s an engineer. Specializes in bridges. He is the reason I settled here, and the children are the reason I fell in love with Christmas.’
‘You didn’t ever want to marry and have your own family?’ Malcolm finds the courage to ask. He hates this sort of personal prying, but the fragrant, heady wine is making him braver.
Padam looks up from the paperwork he is sorting on the counter. ‘Oh, I think we both know I’m not the marrying kind, Malcolm.’
Malcolm cannot read the expression in Padam’s hazel eyes, and he looks quickly away. He blunders into speech, saying the first thing that comes into his mind. ‘Three French hens, two turtle doves …’ His voice trails off.
‘And a partridge in a pear tree,’ Padam finishes, laughing.
‘I’m sorry, it was the mention of children that brought that to mind. My mother used to sing it at Christmas to me and my brother.’ Malcolm tries to refocus.
‘Whereas I used to read “T’was the Night Before Christmas” to my nephew’s children, Toby and Myra. Now how does it go …?’ Not waiting for Malcolm to answer, Padam picks up his glass of wine and heads towards the children’s section. Malcolm follows suit, ducking low under the Buddhist prayer flag bunting.
Ten minutes later they are sitting on the floor, children’s books open around them. Malcolm has gingerly lowered his tall form, with his back against the radiator, knees bent. Catching sight of a Roald Dahl book, he thinks he really must look like the BFG. Or an elongated Alice squeezing into a small, box-like room, having eaten the cake with ‘Eat Me’ on it. He is enjoying himself immensely, but he is seriously wondering how he will ever get up again. He hasThe Tailor of Gloucesteropen in his hands, and is studying Beatrix Potter’s delicate drawings of the tailor sitting neatly on his workbench, sewing. Malcolm thinks he himself looks a bit like the man in the picture, except it is Padam who is sitting cross-legged, not Malcolm. He wonders if Padam does yoga. Perhaps that is something that he ought to try?
Turning a page, Malcolm is brought up short by the next sentence and, delighted, he reads out loud Beatrix Potter’s words. ‘But it is in the old story that all the beasts cantalk, in the night between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the morning (though there are very few folk that can hear them, or know what it is that they say).’
‘Did that give you the idea for your story?’ Padam asks, looking up from the book he is studying, and Malcolm is made a little breathless by the thought that this man has read his book, and also, that he remembers it.
‘I hardly know,’ he eventually manages. ‘I thought it came from my mother, but perhaps it was she who read me Beatrix Potter.’
He thinks of one of the children’s picture books he had left on the shelf as he was browsing: ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’.Why hadn’t he wanted to pick that one up? Too poignant a reminder of his mother? Conscious it could never be as glorious as the book he remembered? His mention of his mother had given him a jolt, and yet at the same time he had thought how much he would have liked to introduce Padam to her. Has he ever sung, or even spoken ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ since her death? Probably not. Until now. When he was a child, she had sung it to him and his brother and, laughing, had encouraged them to join in with extravagant actions. As an older man, he remembers her once humming it in the kitchen as they prepared their Christmas meal. She had only murmured the refrain, as if something was caught in her throat, a memory that stopped the words forming into song. He had understood, but had tried to make her smile by loudly chorusing, ‘FiveGO-OLDrings’. He has no idea if it worked, as she had quickly turned away to bend over the stove and her face was hidden from him.
Padam nods towards the Beatrix Potter book open in Malcolm’s hands. ‘I think if I’m honest, I enjoyed those books more than the children did. Toby and Myra gave me an excuse for having a stack of children’s books by my bedside.’
Malcolm tries to focus on the here and now. Maybe he will put some festive children’s books by Rev. Ruth’s bedside? She might find them soothing after such a crazily hectic time.
‘Ah, here is one that Myra did like. She went through a stage of loving everything to do with fairies.’ Padam holds up the copy ofPeter Panhe is reading.
