28
There are seven dishes on the table now. Our landlord, Mr Yip, worried after Dad’s visit earlier, has brought some deep-fried sausage and chips up for us.
‘Christmas is a special time,’ he says. ‘I don’t celebrate it myself, but I know what the spirit of Christmas is all about. I won’t have you going hungry at this time of year. As for the rent, I’ve talked it through with the wife. There’ll be no rent due this month, none at all. Didn’t you fix the broken window and mend the kitchen cupboard, put new shelves up in the bathroom?’
Dad smiles. ‘Thank you, Mr Yip,’ he says simply. ‘You have no idea how much that means. Please, stay with us this evening, share our meal, help us to celebrate Christmas.’
‘Thought you’d never ask,’ Mr Yip grins.
Mum is dishing up herring with chips on the side when the doorbell rings again. She blinks, setting an extra place at the table hastily just as Dad opens the door.
‘Tomasz! Stefan!’ Two young men shuffle in, stamping the snow from their boots, talking in Polish. They clap Dad on the back and set vodka, fruit and chocolates down on the table. They are two of Dad’s best workers, loyal to the end.
‘You paid us every week, even though we knew it came from your own pocket,’ Tomasz says. ‘We’re grateful.’
‘We know what it’s like to be far from home at Christmas,’ Stefan adds. ‘We wanted to wish you a Happy Christmas, and a prosperous New Year…’
Before they can sit down, the doorbell rings again. ‘Who now?’ Dad puzzles. ‘So many visitors!’
Mum ushers Karen Carney into the room, her coat starred with snow. She is carrying Dad’s Christmas castle with its shining towers and bright painted patterns, still draped with Christmas lights from its stay in Heaven’s big bay window. I’m glad to see Karen, really I am, but I can’t help wishing Dan was with her.
‘You said it would bring good luck, and I truly think it did,’ she says, setting the castle down beside the window. ‘I thought it was important to make sure it was back where it belongs for Christmas, with all of you…’
Mum plugs in the fairy lights and the whole thing glimmers brightly in the darkened room. ‘It’s lovely,’ she smiles. ‘Thank you for bringing it back, Karen. Please join us… all of you! Eat! Enjoy!’
The meal has turned into a kind of buffet, with everyone crowding around, filling their plates, eating with forks and spoons and teaspoons, mixing chips with spiced cabbage and deep-fried sausage with mushroom dumplings.
‘Dan is home!’ Karen tells us, in between mouthfuls. ‘James brought him back an hour ago. We talked and talked, all of us together, cleared the air a little. James won’t be coming back, but that’s for the best, I can see that now. And me and Dan… well, we’ll be OK.’
‘Where is he?’ I dare to ask.
‘He fell asleep, right there on the sofa – he had no sleep at all last night, and he must have walked twenty miles today, looking for his dad’s place. He was worn out. He doesn’t know, Anya, about you going back to Krakow. I’ll tell him in the morning. He’ll be very upset, I know. But right now he needs to rest, and James is staying a while to spend some time with Ben and Nate, so I thought I’d call over and thank you all properly for today.’
I’m glad, of course, that Dan is home. I’m glad he is sleeping, curled up on the sofa with his dad nearby. But I wish he was here, I really, really do, even if it’s just to say goodbye.
‘I’m sorry you’re leaving,’ Karen is saying. ‘I know, Jozef, how hard it is to keep a business afloat at a time like this. I know that you don’t really want to go back to Krakow, and I had an idea –’
‘An idea?’ Dad frowns.
‘Klaudia, you could come to work at the cafe!’ Karen suggests. ‘You could help me make designer cakes for birthdays and weddings! I couldn’t pay as much as the hotel, but we could build the business together…’
Mum’s eyes shine. ‘We’re a good team,’ she says.
Dad clears his throat. ‘Karen, it’s a wonderful offer,’ he says. ‘But it’s not enough. We’ve lost everything, there’s nothing left. I’ve spoken to my old boss in Krakow, and he will find a place for me in the team, even after all this time. I have to take it.’
‘Jozef was a joiner,’ Mum explains. ‘A real craftsman.’
‘I can see that from the szopka castle,’ Karen nods. ‘There was an old bloke in the cafe this afternoon, asking about that…’
‘Really?’ Dad asks, surprised. ‘Still, I could never sell it, it’s special to our family. Now… let’s put all of that aside, yes? It’s Christmas Eve! I for one would like a slice of this wonderful chocolate cake…’
The party breaks up after ten. There are hugs and Happy Christmas wishes and then, as soon as they appeared, our visitors are gone.
‘We have more friends here than we know,’ Mum says, her eyes soft and misty. ‘So kind, so unexpected…’
‘It will be hard to leave these good people,’ Dad agrees. ‘But I don’t see any other way.’
And the doorbell rings again.
Mum looks at the table, a wasteground of empty bowls and dishes, with barely a crumb of food left. ‘There’s nothing left to offer!’ she panics. Dad puts an arm round her, and I move to clear the dishes, so it’s Kazia who walks over and opens the door.
‘Oh!’ she says. ‘It’s you! I thought you’d never get here!’ She leads an elderly man with a bushy white beard into the room.
‘You see?’ Kazia is saying. ‘I told you he’d come! It’s Santa! He’ll fix everything!’
Dad steps forward, frowning. ‘Sorry… have we met?’
The old man smiles, and I realize he does look familiar – he’s the old guy Kazia mistook for Santa in the cafe earlier.
‘Not yet,’ he says to Dad. ‘I have met your charming daughter before, though I didn’t realize… down at the grotto in town…’ He drops his voice to a whisper, so that Kazia can’t hear. ‘Their regular Santa had a flu bug, and I stepped in at the last minute as a favour to a friend.’
I blink. It is Santa – or the closest we’re going to get, anyhow. The old man from the cafe and the fat old guy in the red suit surrounded by grumpy elves… they’re one and the same. Kazia isn’t as crazy as I thought.
‘See?’ she’s saying. ‘See?’
‘I know it’s Christmas Eve,’ the man goes on. ‘I do apologize. I planned to wait until after the celebrations, but I’m not a patient man. It’s hard to be patient, at my age. I couldn’t resist coming along, just to see you, just to ask…’
‘See who?’ Dad says. ‘I think there must be some mistake…’
‘No mistake,’ the old man says, his eyes drifting to the window where the castle twinkles and shines. ‘I am looking for the man who created that! I enquired in the cafe this afternoon – I saw your wonderful szopka castle in the window. I’ve never seen one in this country before. I asked at the counter, and the lovely lady explained who you were, told me where you lived…’
‘Ah,’ Dad says. ‘Karen mentioned that. I’m sorry, it’s been a wasted journey, the castle is not for sale…’
‘No, no…’ The old man strokes his beard, peering at the szopka. ‘I don’t want to buy it. I was wondering if you have any others, if making things… toys, decorations… is something that may perhaps interest you?’
Kazia takes the old man’s hand, leads him across to the dolls’ house. ‘Ah… I see… wonderful! The quality of the painting!’
‘It’s just a hobby,’ Dad explains.
‘Jozef loves to make things,’ Mum chips in. ‘There is nobody better with wood and tin. He is an artist, I’ve always said so.’
‘There’s no money in it,’ Dad shrugs. ‘No future.’
The old man sits down in the corner of our sofa. His eyes are shining, and his cheeks are red and rosy above the bushy beard.
‘I think there could be,’ he says. ‘Mr Mikalski, I have a workshop, a business, just a mile from here. I make rocking horses… old-fashioned ones, handcarved, handpainted. Each one is worth over a thousand pounds, some much more, and we have a waiting list of customers from all around the world. I have made a good living for many years.’
Dad frowns. ‘Rocking horses… yes, I can see that would be a skill. But…’
‘I’m almost at retirement age,’ the old man says. ‘I want to go on working, but I can’t do as many hours as I used to. I have two young apprentices and, up until last week, a manager who ran the workshop for me. And then, with no warning, my manager left – he met a Scottish woman on an Internet dating site, would you believe, and he’s gone to live in Inverness. It took me years to find someone with traditional woodwork skills, toymaking skills. And now he’s gone…’
Dad’s eyes glitter in the half-light. He is listening now, really listening, and Mum takes my hand and wraps an arm round Kazia, and we stand quietly, watching, waiting.
‘You are offering me a job?’ Dad asks. ‘A management job?’
‘There would be a trial period, of course,’ the old man says. ‘But if it works out… it’s a well-paid position, Mr Mikalski, and one that I think might suit you. Are you interested?’
Mum squeezes my hand very tightly, and the breath catches in my throat.
‘Very interested,’ Dad says.