Page 106 of Under the Mistletoe with You

He nods to Nash to withdraw the phone as his mother hangs up.

‘Surely there was an easier way of doing that?’Tamara says incredulously.

‘She found a car?’Nash asks, ignoring her.

‘Yes, she’s sending the details now.Can someone take these cups off me?’

Shaz and Nash leap to help, and Nash returns Christopher his phone in an awkward shuffling of hands.

‘We’d better get hold of Mohan quickly so he can decide if he wants to set off today or tomorrow,’ Christopher says.

‘He says he’s going to leave right away,’ Priti answers for him, her phone to her ear.

Even from here, Christopher can hear the delighted tones from Mohan.

Esther sends over an incredibly detailed set of instructions for where to pick up the car from a garage in London which requires a handful of codes to get into.It’s only as Christopher forwards the email that he recognises the Chelsea address – it’s where Laurel’s ex, Mark Ratliff-Zouch, lives.Well, nice to see he has one single generous bone in his body.Christopher also insists that Mohan drives via the Cotswolds and up the border, a slightly more circuitous route, but one that means if the weather gets bad again, Mohan can hole up at his parents’ place.They all agree not to tell Myffy until he’s properly on his way, just in case something goes wrong.

There’s nothing like a plan coming together.

Christopher decides the next thing they all have to do is to try and solve this Ursula situation.She wants to help but ...what’s this barrier between them all?

He thinks back to Christmases in the Calloway house.Well, not just Christmases.Basically, the whole of his childhood was spent watching his mother wrangle a town’s worth of people into doing exactly what she wanted and needed.What was it she said to him?Tell people what they want to hear.It sounded like terrible managerial advice for running a business, but he’s now realising that perhaps that’s not what Esther meant.

What does a woman like Ursula want?Respect, almost certainly, which she likely doesn’t think she’s getting at the moment, especially after her disastrous vote and the way Shaz’s whole job seems to be running interference.

Perhaps she just wants to be listened to.Christopher decides to channel his mother, and hopes that his big blue eyes make up for the gap.‘Ursula, why don’t you and I get out of here for a moment, and get some fresh air?I really haven’t introduced myself properly, and I really would like to ensure we’re well acquainted.Perhaps you can come over and tour the bakery with me, get a feel for how things could work tomorrow?’

He worries for a second that Esther’s words delivered via his mouth might read considerably differently.

But to his great surprise, Ursula ever so slightly blushes.‘That sounds delightful,’ she says, taking his arm in hers.

As she steers him out of the village hall, he catches the bemused, amused and horrified faces of Tamara, Nash and Shaz in turn, and flashes them a hopeful smile.

* * *

The sun is low in the sky and Christopher is grateful to get the last of the daylight, even if it does mean stepping out into the cold with his friend’s mortal enemy.

‘Shall we go to the bakery?’he asks.

She gives him a quiet little nod, some of the bluster gone out of her, and he leads her across the least icy bits of the road.

For once, he’s thankful that he clearly left the heating on in the bakery as it’s relatively warm when they arrive.Ursula steps in like a nervous animal, as though ambush awaits.It’s clear she hasn’t been here before, which is a small sting that Christopher tries to ignore.But it’s not as if he’s gone out of his way to speak to her either.

‘Ursula, I do think you have the power to really help us all out here and make this disaster of a Christmas better for some of the lonelier people, but perhaps we have not been completely fair to you.I would like to make up for that,’ Christopher says.

He fires up the coffee machine, thankful that it doesn’t take too long to heat up once it’s on.‘Coffee?’

‘A cappuccino, please,’ she asks quietly.It’s really rather strange.Now that she’s not around Tamara and Shaz and Priti, or the rest of the town for that matter, she seems to have shrunk a little.

‘Do you think this would be enough space to host everyone?’he asks as the water in the coffee machine starts to heat up, releasing the hot-metal-and-steam smell into the air.

‘If we move all the tables around,’ she says, snapping into action, counting them up.‘We could do two long tables, and that would seat about twenty, maybe thirty people.Perhaps a few short ones.’

‘I have a table upstairs we can bring down and a couple of chairs.And we can serve right onto the counter buffet-style, which will save us some space.’

The grinding of the beans fills the silence as Ursula tallies up the logistics and seems to make some notes on her phone.

With two cappuccinos freshly made, Christopher encourages her to sit with him at a table together.