Page 9 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

‘I’m making chocolates for my parents.’

He harrumphed. He would. Her dad had never liked Grant and the feeling was mutual.

Meg had taken Grant over to Switzerland shortly after they started dating. It was only a short three-day break given their commitments at The Cocoa Cupboard and she’d thought it would all go well, that Grant would blend in, even though he didn’t like big gatherings, let alone those of the family variety – he kept his own at a distance, so she should’ve known it wouldn’t go that great with hers.

She could tell from the moment Grant had a beer in his hand at the chalet and started talking about his business that her dad wasn’t enamoured. Meg had noticed before that Grant liked to talk about himself, but she’d put it down to pride, and he should be proud to have got a business off the ground and kept it going. The problem was Grant wasn’t all that good at listening to other people talk unless it was Meg, and it was obvious he was bored when conversation at the chalet that weekend changed to other topics, and he didn’t try to interact.

Grant wasn’t a terrible person; he just wasn’t the sort of person Earl and Astrid were used to. At the airport in Bern, waiting for their flight back to London, Grant had blurted out to Meg, ‘Your dad doesn’t like me.’ He’d grunted then. ‘But that’s fine. I don’t like him much either.’ He’d actually said those words to Meg’s face, but it turned out it was one of the few honest things he’d said from the day they met. The truths had come out slowly ever since he announced he was closing down The Cocoa Cupboard.

The first truth was that to start The Cocoa Cupboard in Camden he’d not got a full bank loan – he’d borrowed a substantial chunk of money from his brother and never paid him back. That was probably why he didn’t have much to do with family rather than not having anything in common with them like he claimed. And the real reason he’d sold his property in Hertfordshire and moved in with her was to pay a gambling debt, not because he wanted to plough funds into the second chocolaterie. Grant had a gambling addiction that she’d somehow never picked up on. It was the reason he’d ended up losing the second business in Buckinghamshire, and when she’d asked him how he’d managed to even get the finance for it he told her about a loan shark he’d borrowed from, the loan shark who wanted payment, and the only way to do that was to close down The Cocoa Cupboard in Camden.

This sorry excuse for a man standing here now in her flat, the last of his bags at his feet, had ruined everything.

‘I’m going up to York to stay with⁠—’

She put a hand up. ‘I don’t need to know.’

‘There’s no need to be like that.’ He raked a hand through hair that needed a damn good comb. He looked like he was living rough, but she knew that wasn’t the case because he’d been sleeping on a friend’s sofa since the day he closed the business and put her and everyone else out of a job.

‘You lied to me. Those times you said you were in Buckinghamshire at the other premises, you were playing cards and losing your money.’ And she’d lent him plenty she knew she would never get back. ‘You stole from me.’

‘Oh, come on, it was just a bit of cash.’

‘Cash that wasn’t yours to take.’ She could barely look at him.

‘I got you started in the industry.’ Affronted he added, ‘You should be thanking me, not judging me.’

She saw in that moment exactly why her dad hadn’t liked him. He did talk about himself a lot, but it wasn’t just a passion for his business and chocolate – it was arrogance, self-importance, with little regard for anyone else. And she felt like a victim for trusting him, believing him, working harder than he ever had at the business. She could see now that she had been the one to keep the business profitable over the last couple of years. All those times she’d worked long into the night, seven days a week sometimes, thinking she was supporting him as he grew and expanded in other locations, the times she’d felt sorry for him as she’d thought he was doing his best, he was playing cards and losing even more money.

‘You need to leave, Grant. Now.’

He opened his mouth, but didn’t argue. She closed the door almost before he was completely over the threshold.

The saving grace was that she hadn’t gone into business with him. His financial losses were his. She could walk away.

Except that in the long term, she had no idea where she went to from here.

* * *

An hour later, with the remaining chocolates packaged up in the boxes and tied off with a bow, she decided she had to start sharing them around. She couldn’t keep them for herself. And she couldn’t fit them all in her suitcase either.

Much like her mum did every year with her cinnamon rolls, Meg delivered surprise packages to some of the other flats in her building. It reminded her how she’d done the same when she was starting out, before she’d had the skills and confidence.

She bumped into a few of her neighbours on her rounds and the conversations about chocolate she could manage. What she couldn’t do was talk about the closure of The Cocoa Cupboard as Liam from flat No. 3 wanted to do because he’d been a frequent customer and had seen it in all its current glory – windows covered in Windex, the shop clearly devoid of the usual elaborate displays of confection for passersby to be tempted with, no queue at the door as there had been on so many days.

She went back to her flat for her coat and escaped outside to walk. She couldn’t sit in the flat any longer thinking about the loss, what might have been, what came next.

She ended up on Regent Street, marvelling at the iconic illuminated angels who always flew through the sky at this time of year in this part of the city. She walked on to Covent Garden to see the enormous Christmas tree. She paced beneath the vibrant lights of Carnaby Street.

This Christmas was going to be so different. Normally by this point, Meg would’ve been inundated with orders. She’d be busy making all kinds of novelty Christmas chocolates in more flavours than she could keep up with. She’d be putting together bespoke selection boxes and tying them off with elaborate gold bows. She’d be handing out tasters at the door to the chocolaterie to entice people to treat loved ones to some special chocolate this year, and she’d be doing all of it with a joy and energy she’d never wanted to let go as she wished her customers a very Merry Christmas.

This year she’d be in the Swiss Alps instead of doing any of that. When she’d heard her mum’s voice a few days ago, she’d felt the strongest pull to home. Not a place, but the feeling her sister, Chrissie, had always gone on about.

Had Meg been wrong about that too? Was home a feeling rather than a place? Had she pushed away all sense of home and family because she’d felt shoved from pillar to post as a kid and was unable to see it for herself? At least she hadn’t until now, when she felt desperate for those things. In two days, she would be getting on a plane to Bern and transferring from there to the Swiss Alps for Christmas with her parents at their chalet in Winterbruck. She just wasn’t sure how much of herself she could or would share this year, but maybe the time away would help her figure out what to do next. She could go into the town, or to Bern if she so desired, and visit chocolateries like she’d done as a teenager. She could explain getting away from the chalet and inevitable questions by claiming she was doing research, making sure that she was on top of her game with her business in London. It was a lie, she knew, but for now she couldn’t bear to admit the truth. She would, in time, but not yet. Eventually she would tell her parents that Grant had lied to her, that he’d got rid of the business and she was no longer a lead chocolatier anywhere. But for now, Grant’s non-appearance would easily be explained, since after the one and only time she’d taken him there, he’d never wanted to go again, and she could tell her parents that he and the other staff were managing the shop in her absence.

The one blessing with her impending visit was that her sister never went to Switzerland for Christmas, not since she lost her husband. Home for her seemed to be in Oxfordshire, so at least Meg wouldn’t have to face Chrissie and the complications that came with it.

Chrissie had made it clear that she would never ever accept Meg’s apologies.