‘Hello, come in. Nice to meet you.’
‘Ah, Mr Latham, thank you for seeing me.’
No one had mentioned Mr Latham is a dish. Somehow, I manage to articulate a sentence. The parents must be hurling themselves, panting, at the school railings. No wonder the school looks immaculate, they probably have mothers from other schools volunteering here. I imagine the PTA coffers are overflowing. They’d only have to auction him off for ‘an evening with…’ at the school fayre and that would be three minibuses bought.
He’s like Orlando Bloom – you know, as he got older and all hot – with that flicker of naughtiness in his eye. I sit down in my chair, try to breathe evenly and use my most graceful posture, the one that is second nature to my mother and that I have never, ever felt the desire to emulate before.
‘Absolute pleasure, how can I help? You mentioned something about offering workshops for the children?’
‘Yes, yes, exactly that. I have developed a package for primary school children introducing them to Shakespeare at a young age to familiarise them with the language and story to help them access it both now and as they go through the school system…’ And I’m off.
Twenty minutes later, I am panting a bit myself. Although not with desire, merely because I’d got a little over-excited discussing why I thought it was important that children were familiarised with a long-dead Elizabethan playwright.
‘You are certainly passionate about your subject area.’ Mr Latham smiles.
‘I am.’
‘And I would love to have you.’
‘I would love that.’ I wink.
Mr Latham smiles again. I can’t decode it.
I had winked!
What the actual hell did I think I was doing? Way to go, Belle. Is my self-sabotage now at such a high level it has crossed from merely making shitty decisions in my personal life into making them in my potential professional one as well? Why, why,whywould I mess up with the first person I have sat in front of who is interested in what I have to say and can kickstart me? I feel myself sliding down in the chair.
‘Unfortunately, Belle – I can call you Belle, can’t I?’ I nod but fail to smile or make eye contact, my shame still washing over me in a tsunami. ‘The run-up to Christmas is insane but if you have a free spot in um…’ He pulls up his diary on his laptop. I sit up straighter. This is it, this is a booking. ‘…May of next year, we’d love to have you in then.’
‘Oh my goodness, isn’t this so pretty?’ A woman next to the display I am close to holds a bauble aloft. ‘It reminds me of how my daughter decorates her tree.’
I’m on my second job trial of the day and this customer looks like a mum, or at least how I always picture a mum should be. You know, like how grandmas are always supposed to resemble Mrs Claus, a little tubby, carefully styled but dated hair and a pair of pince-nez. This woman looks like she could knock up scones whilst bathing a grazed knee and still play Monopoly with a spare hand. Mothering 101.
‘They’re one of my absolute favourites,’ I agree. ‘I love how the different glasses all fuse into one another, and that colour, it’s ice sprites, and snow fairies, winter balls in the ice palace. Magical.’
‘Oh, she’ll love this. Itisall those things.’
‘Isn’t it lovely? It’s so delicate. I think it goes beautifully with this one as well.’ I pull up another bauble, this one in the same colour scheme of icy blues and greens but with little feather details on the inside of the glass, tiny, as if Jack Frost himself lived inside and had very lightly blown upon it.
‘You’re so right. She’s going to love them.’ She takes four of each – they aren’t cheap either – and I’m shot through with a thrill I never had when I sold coffee or shoes or a sausage roll or two in that ill-fated month in Greggs. Mind you, the less said about that the better.
This is turning out to be a whopper of a day, I have cleaned a den of iniquity – who would have ever thought I could have added that to my CV? – secured my first school booking and now I’m selling Christmas decorations in the best ever shop in the world and smashing it. At least I think I’m smashing it.
A friend of mine, Sarah, who had gifted me the Dickensian evening tickets, had to suddenly fly to Australia, her mother being in some kind of accident. She had a seasonal job at the Christmas bauble shop and knowing I was out of work and that she wouldn’t be back until at least January she pitched my name to her employers and called me to tell me to follow up with them. Which I did. On my super-industrious I-will-not-be-beaten-Monday.
And now I’m doing a couple of hours to see if I exude enough Christmas spirit to work two shifts a week in the most Christmassy shop ever.
I love it in here; it’s actually part of my Make-Rory-Love-Christmas plan. But it has to be done carefully – this can’t be pulled out the bag until he is practically converted and far more ready to enjoy the full Christmassy-ness this shop brings. It will have to be once all that nonsense about being scared of sparkling lights has been eradicated from his soul because this is sparkle and glitter and snow and Santa heavenliness all in one place. You can’t move for rows and rows of baubles and trees, all set out in colour-coordinated joy.
The store is madly busy, as it always is when the Bath Christmas market is on. Traffic swirls out of the city like worms on a rod. People queue for miles and as the market throngs, the majority of shoppers can’t fail to be pulled into this shop.
My customer seems content with her purchases and I help her carry the baubles over to the till. They’re so fine and so delicate it seems sacrilegious to put them in a basket, to risk them being knocked in the crush of customers. I catch the manager looking at me, is he pleased? Or does he want me back on the shop floor? Is he cross that I’m guiding this woman to the till instead of making her browse her way to pay? Arrggghhh.
I’m not going to risk making any positive assumptions. I head back into the throng, only stopping when I see that someone has put a red icicle on the tray of pale gold baubles. Savages. That wouldn’t do, oh no, and that blue one is meant to be all the way over the other side of the shop.
I can still feel the manager’s eyes on me so quickly swish them back to their correct place. I must stop fussing, I need to interact with someone and quick.
‘Excuse me…’ Oh, thank you, Christmas Fairy Godmother.
