Page 33 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museum

‘Joking aside,’ Warren says with his hand on his throat, sounding hopeful that it really is a joke, ‘this is amazingly fun. Thank you for letting me be part of it. Since I came here, it’s been eye-opening to have an insight into how kids see the world, how they’re always so hopeful and believe in things like wishing wells, and fairytales, and magic.

Makes me wish I had a childhood like that. ’

‘It’s never too late,’ Ali says to him.

‘Where have I heard that before?’ Warren’s tone is soft and fond as he looks over his shoulder to catch my eyes again, and only looks away when he spots that Marnie, Cleo, and Franca are all watching us.

Mickey kicks my foot under the table we’re sharing and waggles her eyebrows.

‘Soooo, what are we getting Sadie and Witt for a wedding gift?’ Marnie says, sounding like she’s deliberately steering the topic towards the wedding and I have an instant premonition of exactly where this is going. ‘Should we all go in on something together?’

There’s a chorus of agreements, but no one makes any suggestions. It’s like they all get that the point of this conversation has nothing to do with a wedding gift and everything to do with the look they’ve just clocked between me and Warren.

Taking up the baton from his other half, Darcy says, ‘Are you still desperately searching for that plus one, Lissa?’

He puts such an emphasis on it that the word sounds like it’s in capital letters, like I’ve been spending my every waking moment since the wedding invitation frantically hunting for a mythical plus one, and not had anything else like museum takeovers and escaping exhibits to worry about.

I’ve always liked Darcy, he’s the castle gardener and owner of the florist shop next door to Marnie’s bookshop, and her partner of over two years now, but that sentence makes it sound like they collaborated to get onto this topic.

‘I don’t need a plus one. It’s not compulsory.

’ I can’t help glancing at Warren. Any discussion of my love life should be banned in front of people I fancy, or actually, banned completely, regardless of who’s listening in.

I can’t help thinking he looks uneasy. He’s following the conversation back and forth, like a tennis match, but he’s looking at the wrong person when someone else is speaking, and he looks like he’s fighting to keep up.

Although maybe that’s a good thing with this particular discussion.

We’ve all worked together for years and get used to when to let each other talk and when to make our own voices heard, but I can imagine it would be a lot for someone who isn’t used to it, especially as it’s after-hours now and the professional masks that we hold up in front of customers slip and we can be ourselves amongst friends.

There’s constant chatter about how our days have gone, and everyone moans about difficult customers or things that happened this week or Mr Hastings’s latest antics, or the most favoured topic of conversation lately, my eternal spinster status.

‘I’ve got a mate who’s just broken up with someone,’ Bram offers. ‘He’ll probably be out of rebound territory before the wedding comes around.’

‘A delightful thought, but no, thank you. Can we focus on the wishes and not my love life?’ I’m blushing hard and I can feel Warren’s eyes on me. I’m embarrassed by the fact that everyone I know is more invested in this than I am, and that they think I need this much help in the love department.

‘Surely we could find someone who’d pretend or join you as a platonic date,’ Cleo suggests. ‘No one specified it had to be a romantic plus one. Any mate will do.’

‘Someone who’d pretend out of pity?’ I raise an eyebrow. ‘I don’t want to go to a wedding with someone who feels sorry for me.’

‘Raff’s brother-in-law has got a single colleague. He’s a tad younger than you, but no one would ever know,’ Franca offers.

‘Oh, good. I’m not sure what’s worse – someone who makes me look like I’ve taken my grandson to a wedding or the fact that you’ve all been putting feelers out on my behalf. Plus ones are not mandatory. Sadie and Witt are not really going to bar me at the door if I turn up alone.’

‘Listen to this one,’ Warren says loudly, and when I look over at him, he tips his head in my direction, and my heart melts a little bit at his clear attempt to rescue me from this awkward conversation.

What he’s doing is so obvious, and the others will undoubtedly notice and read something into it, and I think he realises that and doesn’t mind taking the flak on my behalf.

‘I wish I was an astronaut so I could live on the moon and make friends with an alien. How sweet is that? Does anyone have a little alien we could send her?’

When no one does, he turns to me. ‘Can I keep this and do it tomorrow? I’ll go and buy an alien soft toy or something and send it?’

I nod, pleasantly surprised by his eagerness because that was a wish from the ‘ignore’ pile, and even though I know he loves being privy to children’s wishes, I didn’t expect him to offer to do something so sweet off his own back, and I can’t help the smile as he slips it into his pocket.

As soon as he’s turned away, Mickey kicks my foot under the table again and cups her hands around her mouth and whispers to me, ‘Who is that and what have you done with the evil gerbil with no soul?’

I try to give her my best ‘shut up, everyone’s listening!’ look, but I can feel my face pulsing with redness, and she barely contains a squeal. ‘Pocahontas and John Smith! I told you, you’re showing him how to paint with the colours of the wind! Literally!’

‘Having fun, Warren?’ Franca is boxing up one of her handmade nutcrackers for a child who wished it could be Christmas every day.

He ignores the question. Which, again, is strange because he’s never usually so impolite.

‘Warren!’

‘Sorry, what?’ He turns around to her and I notice how red his face has gone.

‘Are you having fun?’ she repeats.

‘Oh, yes, thank you, yes.’ It’s a strangely curtailed answer, and he looks wildly embarrassed, and it makes me think again about how much he’s struggling to keep up tonight.

‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you were talking to me.

’ He adds it as an afterthought and the whole exchange makes him hunch over the counter, like he’s trying to make himself smaller, especially when everyone else has turned to look at him too, and something sparks in my mind, a realisation that remains frustratingly just out of reach.

‘Who’s got the nicest handwriting to write the little boy’s name on this teddy bear’s collar tag?’ Ali asks. ‘My handwriting’s terrible and I don’t want to mess it up.’

‘Warren’s really artistic,’ I say, glad of the opportunity to let the others see there’s more to him.

He’s blushing as he glances at me and then turns back to Ali to take the pen and the plastic tag and Ali murmurs the little boy’s name to put on it.

I go back to holding my finger on the ribbon around Mickey’s box so she can tie it in a neat bow, and don’t think anything more of it until Ali snaps, ‘For goodness’ sake, Warren, didn’t you hear me? I said Jaden, not Aiden! We’ve only got one of those and now it’s ruined!’

For one moment, the world freezes, and I instantly know what Warren’s been trying to hide all these weeks.

With one comment, Ali has blown open what I’ve been trying to put my finger on and never quite getting there.

Everything that didn’t add up suddenly makes perfect sense.

It’s why he’s struggling so much tonight. There are too many people, all talking at once, interrupting and talking over each other, saying things to him when he can’t see their faces. He didn’t ignore Franca just now – he didn’t hear the question.

He doesn’t watch my lips when I’m talking because he’s got a weird lip fetish, but because he’s lip-reading.

The little girl I accused him of ignoring, and how oddly upset he seemed by it at the time. I thought it was because I’d called him out for being rude, but it wasn’t, was it? He didn’t ignore her – he didn’t hear her. He probably didn’t even know that a little girl had tried to talk to him.

The inexplicable changing of sides on the night of the stakeout.

And the way he moves so he’s facing people.

He’s always got to be opposite someone talking to him.

Front-on, never sideways. The way he leans in when someone’s speaking, turns slightly to his right.

I’d noticed it but I’d never realised it was anything more than a quirky little habit.

Even the phone call the other day. I literally cannot do this, as you well know. I wondered what it was he couldn’t do and what the other person was supposed to know, and this is the answer. He never takes phone calls because he has to see someone’s mouth moving to catch what they’re saying.

The number of times I’ve mentioned the instrumental music playing in the lobby and he’s given a brush-off or an empty agreement and I’ve half-wondered if he even knew what I was talking about.

‘Liss?’ Mickey clicks her fingers in front of my face and her tone sounds like it’s the tenth time she’s said it. She’s tied my finger into the ribbon when I didn’t move it from the box in time, and I hadn’t even noticed.

I pull it free and look around. ‘Where did Warren go?’

‘Did you not see him stomp upstairs in a sulk?’ Bram asks. ‘He’s a weird one, isn’t he?’

‘I think it might be more complicated than any of us imagine…’ I murmur, unable to get my mind off what I suddenly understand.

I don’t know why someone would go to such great lengths to disguise having an issue with hearing, but there’s something going on there, and it must be a touchy subject, otherwise he would’ve been open about it.

He obviously doesn’t want anyone to know, and Ali’s just unintentionally put it in a very public space, even though it doesn’t seem like anyone else has made the same connection that I have.

‘I don’t trust him, Liss,’ Mickey says gently. ‘He’s hiding something.’