‘Nooo, no, no, no.’ Poor misfit angel, winding up with only me to look after her. I’d been her guardian for all of ten minutes and she was drowning in a muddy puddle.
I crouched down to pull her out by the arm, streams of filthy water cascading out of her now grey and overstretched woollen dress.
‘What is that?’ he asked, vaguely disgusted, and even though I knew the angel was nothing much to look atbeforeshe took a dip, it still irritated me. She might be a misfit, but she wasmymisfit. An evil thought occurred to me.
‘What she is, is irreplaceable. She’s been in our family for generations. My great-great-great-grandmother made her, and we bring her out every Christmas. It’s a family tradition.’
He blinked at me and cocked his head to the side slightly, then his expression cleared.
‘Ohhh, it’s afairyfor the Christmas tree,’ he said, like he’d finally figured out a major puzzle.
‘Itwas. Now I’ll have to take her home and show my mother – she’ll be heartbroken.’
His face fell and his cheeks, which were pink with cold, paled beneath. I almost felt bad.
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ He unzipped the top of his jacket so he could reach inside and pull his wallet out but when he checked the contents, he bit his bottom lip and winced at me. ‘I’ve only got a couple of pounds left in English money. I doubt that would cover it?’
His accent was definitely from somewhere in the south east of England, so he must’ve just got back from his holidays. Everyone was either on holiday, coming home from holiday or planning one, it seemed. What I wouldn’t have given to be on a desert island at that moment. Just me, a good book and a bottle of rum. Perhaps I should give Granny Caroline a call in Jamaica, see if she fancied putting up her granddaughter for a couple of weeks…or months?
Instead, I started wringing out the angel’s smock dress as best as I was able. ‘Of course it won’t. I told you. She’s irreplaceable.’
‘Well. Here. At least let me give you something to take her home in, so she doesn’t get any more water damage.’ He swung his backpack free and let it fall to the pavement in between us with a thump.
As he undid the toggles and rummaged around inside, a lock of his saturated hair fell free from the rest. It hung there, twisted in a perfect little curl, begging me to pull it down just to see if it would spring back. I have issues with compulsions like that, so I tightened my grip on the angel. When he straightened back up, it settled on his forehead and he unfolded a white T-shirt and extended it towards me.
I wasn’t sure how it would help at all, but it seemed like I’d made him feel sufficiently guilty; he clearly needed to dosomethingto make it up to me, and if ruining one of his T-shirts would ease his conscience then so be it.
I gave the angel a last gentle shake and moved closer again to put her in the centre of the T-shirt so he could wrap her up. There was a strange intimacy to the moment as his long fingers showed an excess of care when folding over the left side of the shirt. He paused before covering her with the right.
‘Are theyplasticwings?’
Oh. Whoops. Guess I’d added too many ‘greats’ to my list of fictional grandparents.
‘She’s over a hundred years old – she’s needed some modernisations over the years.’ I tugged the rest of the T-shirt over her and hugged her to my chest. ‘Guess she’ll need even more now.’
‘Look, if you give me your number or address, I can drop some money in to help with her repairs, once I’ve had a chance to get some more sterling.’
‘Please don’t trouble yourself any further.’
He rifled in his wallet again and produced a business card. ‘In case you change you mind.’
I jammed it in my back pocket and turned on my heel, throwing a sarcastic ‘Merry Christmas,’ at him, over my shoulder. I needed to get this angel home and figure out a way of avoiding giving her to my mum until she was fixed. I couldn’t even be trusted to buy a Christmas decoration and deliver it in one piece.
When I got back to the hotel, I bypassed the front door in favour of the side entrance that led straight into the kitchen. That way I had a good chance of dodging my mum who should be setting up the bar round about now.
The kitchen was warm, full of the creamy aroma of tomato soup, bread and coffee. I put my soggy parcel of T-shirt and angel on the island in the middle of the kitchen and shrugged out of my wet jacket.
Henry, one of our chefs, stepped out of the walk-in fridge, his arms laden with cheese and milk.
‘That soup smells amazing,’ I said, hanging my jacket on the back of a stool at the island. ‘Any chance there’s some left over?’
Henry grunted and took his dairy products to the other side of the island.
‘Didn’t you just come back from your lunch break?’ He slammed a slab of mature cheddar onto the chopping block.
‘I did, but I didn’t have time to grab anything. I’ll sort it out if there is some – I wasn’t expecting you to warm it up or anything.’
‘My goodness, how generous of you,’ he muttered, snatching up a knife and slicing the packaging of the cheese in one swift slash. ‘There isn’t any. You’ll have to lower yourself to making a sandwich, if you think you can manage that, Princess?’
