swallow hard. I should turn it off, but I sit and listen to it instead. It’s a song I’ve successfully avoided since the first time I heard it after they died and ended up having a breakdown in the middle of Debenhams while Christmas shopping in my lunch hour.
As if the universe knows this, Mariah is immediately followed by ‘Something About December’ by Christina Perri, a song about childhood Christmases and memories feeling closer in December, and I don’t even realise I’m crying until tears drip onto the blanket.
God, what am I doing here? How can I have made such an awful mistake?
I can feel panic creeping up my chest. I have nothing left and nowhere else to go. I look up at the dark house in front of me and the sight of its crumbling bricks and missing roof makes me cry harder. How can I have been so positive yesterday? Driving along sunny motorways, singing along to ‘Carol of the Bells’, glad no one could hear me because I haven’t got a clue what the words actually are, to this – sitting outside what was supposed to be my dream home, sobbing because Elvis is on now. This probably wasn’t what Elvis had in mind when he sang ‘Blue Christmas’.
My phone beeps again.
LEAH! Will you answer a flipping text, please? I’m starting to get so worried that I broke out the capital letters. Send me a picture of the place or something! Is the dwelling better than we expected?
I hit reply and my fingers hover over the empty text box. It’s great, I type and then delete it. I can’t lie to her but how can I admit that I’ve made such a huge mistake? I know she’ll try to help. I know she’ll tell me to come back to London and sleep on her sofa, and she’ll offer to help me find another job and probably get someone from the law firm to draft a letter to Scottish Pine Properties demanding my money returned because the pictures were inaccurate, and that would be great, but how much of a failure can one person be? I made this mistake, I should be the one to fix it.
More tears blur my eyes as I sit there staring at the screen of my phone, hating myself because I don’t know what to say to my best friend. Chelsea and I text each other all day, even when we’re in work and aren’t supposed to have our phones on us. Thinking of something to say to her has never been a problem before.
I push the phone onto the dashboard and cry harder. I know she’s going to ring in a minute because I haven’t answered, but I’m crying so much that I can’t even see the screen to type now.
I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt before. I just want my mum. What would she tell me to do? What would she and Dad do in this situation? I already know the answer. Mum would’ve found a mop and bucket and started cleaning the house and Dad would’ve gone out for a good look around to assess how bad things actually were before panicking about it. Mum would’ve whipped out a gigantic bar of chocolate and somehow produced a cup of tea, and promised that things would look better in the morning.
I don’t know how long I sit there having a good cry. I miss them, and I don’t allow myself to miss them very often, because I inevitably end up as a snot-drenched wreck, but none of this would’ve happened without their accident, their money, and their love of Christmas and the real Christmas tree that stood proudly in front of our living room window every December. I let the grief consume me in a way I haven’t for many months now. In front of Chelsea and Lewis, Steve, work colleagues, and acquaintances who were friends once but have barely spoken to me for the past two years because they don’t know what to say, I pretend I’m fine. The last time I sobbed in my own flat, a neighbour banged on the door and yelled at me to keep it down.
I look up at a glimpse of light coming towards me. It must be headlights on the road – the first car that’s passed since the estate agent zoomed off. It’s moving slowly for a car though, and as I blink tears away, I see it’s only one beam of light, not two, and it’s on the grassy verge, not the road.
Just a dog walker, I tell myself. Mountain lions wouldn’t carry torches so it’s nothing to worry about.
Until whoever it is stops at the edge of my driveway and the beam of the torch settles on the house, and then slides across the gravel to point directly at the car. Or, more specifically, my red, wet, snotty face in the car, and the owner of the torch moves towards me.
I recognise the faded jeans and the fall of dark hair across shoulders.
Oh, come on. It’s like he’s got radar to detect the worst possible moment and time his arrival accordingly. I’ve still got tears streaming down my face and I’ve been crying so hard that I can barely catch my hitching breath. I cannot deal with him right now.
If I stay still, maybe he won’t see me, but I know it’s hoping for too much. It’s dark and the light is on inside the car – I’m literally a flame to a petulant moth. I sink down in the seat and pull the blanket up further over my face so I can barely see out, but it’s no good, I can feel the beam of torchlight on me, coming closer.
I do the sensible, adult thing and stare stubbornly at the house, pretending I haven’t seen him. Maybe he’ll get the hint and go away? I stare resolutely ahead, even though I can sense the shadow outside the car window and see the beam of light disappear as he turns the torch off.
It still makes me jump when he knocks on the window.
Bugger. I sniff hard and turn away to swipe my hands over my face, trying to brush away the evidence. Maybe it’s dark enough that he won’t notice the red puffiness?
I paste a smile on my face and turn back to roll down the window just as he’s about to knock on it again.
‘Noel,’ I say, my voice thick, the fake smile pulling painfully on the skin of my lips.
‘What are you doing out here?’ His voice has that same half-amused half-sarcastic tone that he had earlier. He rests his arm along the open window and his head appears in the gap, but he suddenly looks taken aback and his voice turns serious. ‘Are you crying?’
Well, one point for observation, I suppose.
‘No.’ I don’t know why I’m bothering to deny it; if the tears streaming down my face don’t give it away then the snot definitely will.
‘What’s wrong?’
I should turn around and snap something at him, but his voice is soft and those two simple words sound so caring and genuine. No one has asked me that in months. I struggle to keep my emotions hidden in public, and when I hang out with Chels, if I slip up and look upset for a moment, she gives me a hug but she doesn’t ask me what’s wrong because it’s obvious.
I go to say ‘nothing’, but it comes out as noth-urrth as another sob gurgles out of my throat and more tears fill my eyes and spill over. God, why am I like this? Why can’t I even hold it together in front of this rude man? He’s going to love this, isn’t he? He already thinks I’m stupid, and now he finds me crying in the car. He’ll have a field day with this. He’ll probably go and tell all his mates about this silly girl who thought she could run a Christmas tree farm and make sure the whole town has a good laugh about it.
I turn away again and bury my face in the blanket. I can’t even pretend not to be crying now. Maybe allergies?
My nose is running and I know there’s a pack of tissues in the glovebox, but the passenger seat is so jam-packed that I can’t open it fully. As I’m trying to snake my hand in the inch-wide gap and feel around for them, a packet appears in front of my face.
I take them from his hand and wrestle the packet open with wet fingers. They’re soft and thick and large, and I pluck one out and hide my whole face in it. If I can’t see him then he can’t see me either, so maybe he’ll go away? That’s bound to work, right?
I breathe into the tissue for a few minutes but he doesn’t go away.
I can feel the warmth of his presence beside the car, hear his breathing and the crunch of frozen gravel under his boots with every movement. Even the scent of juniper and dark cinnamon aftershave has wafted into the car and it’s