Page 53 of The Cotswolds Christmas Fair

‘I’ll send you his number.’

‘Brilliant, thanks.’ Jen turned her attention to Lottie, who was tugging on her jumper. ‘Shall we choose a biscuit?’ she asked, taking her to the children’s area.

The little girl nodded, putting a chubby finger to her lip as she contemplated the choice. ‘I like that one,’ she said, pointing to a stocking.

Jen was soon surrounded by happy, sticky children as they sat in the children’s area of the café, blobbing icing onto biscuits and filling the surface with every sugary decoration they could. The parents sat at the tables, watching and chatting, making the most of the chance to drink a cuppa and eat a mince pie in peace.

When Amy arrived she ran straight to Jen and immediately chose a reindeer-shaped biscuit. Julia, who hadn’t left the house for a week, was greeted like a celebrity by her friends. Throwing a grateful glance at Jen, she sat with Michelle.

‘Train Lady,’ a little boy called. ‘Can I eat mine now?’

‘She’s not Train Lady, Oscar,’ Amy told him crossly. ‘She’s Auntie Jen.’

Lottie licked the finger she’d dipped in the red icing. ‘Hers my Train Lady,’ she said, slurping.

Amy nodded. ‘But she’s my Auntie Jen.’

Jen looked at the little boy’s biscuit, which had once been in the shape of a snowman but was now just an undiscernible blob under the lake of icing and sugary treats that oozed over the plate. She looked around to see if his parents were giving permission, and caught the eye of a man who was clearly Oscar’s dad. He nodded and rolled his eyes, looking a little bemused.

‘Daddy says you can,’ she said.

Oscar was already holding the sugary mess to his face and licking, leaving his nose and mouth coated in icing. His dad sighed and took another sip of his cappuccino; Jen guessed that Oscar was going to be rather lively for a few hours to come.

‘Drink?’ Marnie asked, smiling, as she brought a plate full of gingerbread cupcakes to a table.

Jen looked up from where she sat on the floor, Amy on her lap and Lottie hanging over her shoulders, laying her sticky face on Jen’s hair and murmuring, ‘I love you, Train Lady.’

She grinned at Marnie. ‘What have you got?’

Marnie laughed. ‘Nothing stronger than coffee today, I’m afraid.’

‘Well, a gin would’ve been good, but tea would also be great. Thanks.’

Marnie nodded. ‘Coming up.’

‘You’re pretty,’ Lottie said, picking up clumps of Jen’s hair and squashing them in her icing-smeared hands. ‘You’re my best thing that I’ve found on a train.’

Jen laughed. ‘Thank you. You too.’

‘Marnie, look,’ Amy called, as Marnie brought a pot of tea and a mince pie over for Jen. ‘Look, I’m making two, one for me and one for Georgie.’ She looked down at the biscuits on her plate, a reindeer that was drowning in a sea of icing, and a Santa that had a thin scraping of icing and one sugar ball on. She held up the reindeer. ‘This is mine.’

Marnie laughed. ‘They both look lovely.’

By the time the children had finished, chorusing ‘Bye, Train Lady’ or ‘Thank you, Auntie Jen’ as they left, and she’d helped Marnie tidy up, she was tired, sticky and there were definitely a few sugar snowflakes in her hair. But she was buzzing, her heart bursting with warmth and joy that, for a few hours at least, she’d made these children happy. It was so long since she’d been able to enjoy the simple pleasure of spending time with children, and somewhere in the back of her mind she felt the painful memories it always brought begin to form.

She swallowed, smiling as Marnie chatted, and forced herself not to think of those times, not to let the crest of panic that began to build submerge her. She couldn’t allow those feelings to take her over again, especially not now. Now, she needed to wash the icing out of her hair. She needed to get ready for her date with Anthony. The Christmas fair decorations were ready for collection, too, so she needed to remember to pick them up while she was in Waterfield.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Amy helped her get ready. She flitted around in her pyjamas, her hair damp from her bath.

‘Why don’t you actually wear this one?’ she asked, holding up a T-shirt with a print of trees and mountains on it.

‘That’s a great one,’ Jen said, watching Amy in the mirror while she tried to do her mascara. ‘But it might be a bit cold for that. I’ll just wear this, for now.’

Amy cast a doubtful gaze over her outfit of tartan knee-length skirt, Julia’s Doc Martens and a dalmatian-print jumper. The cat necklace, that she now wore every day, was hidden inside her top. ‘It’s funny.’

‘Well . . .’ Jen looked down at herself. ‘I like funny,’ she said, beginning to wonder if she actually did. She didn’t usually mix patterns, she was more of a jeans and nice-top girl, but she felt like trying something new. Something more quirky; something that Anthony might like.