Christmas at Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop

by Jenny Colgan

  “I still can’t believe he loves teaching school,” said Tina. “Who’d have thought?”

  “I know,” said Rosie, thinking back to the bitter, empty shell of the man she’d met when she first arrived. “It’s healed him, I think. Inside, really. You should have seen him this morning, off with their Christmas song. It’s about bells. Edison keeps reciting it to me to show me how fast he can do it. I’m quite fed up with it, and the concert isn’t for another three weeks.”

  “Raspberry creams!” shouted Anton, his lips practically smacking in satisfaction.

  “You may have four,” said Rosie.

  “Eleven,” said Anton.

  “Four plus one for good behavior,” said Rosie.

  “I make that nine,” said Anton.

  OUTSIDE, THE VILLAGE was quiet. The snow was falling, still falling, the sky a gray blanket that made it feel as if day had barely come at all. Jake was laboring down at Isitt’s farm, trying to work out what he could buy that would be special enough for a girl as special as Tina. Stephen was leading his children in another rousing chorus of “Carol of the Bells” in the open-­play Portakabin by the side door of the school. Anton and Rosie were bickering in their familiar way. Lilian was dozing by the window, remembering a curly-­haired lad who threw snowballs at her way past the age when lads throw snowballs at girls.

  Edward Boyd had hit the outskirts of town and glanced anxiously at his father who, thank goodness, appeared to have fallen asleep. He felt his wallet for the card that nice young doctor had given him. Maybe, after all, it was time. Maybe it was. But his dad . . . he was his dad. Years of summer holidays down at Scarborough, and practicing his spin bowl and . . . he wasn’t sure quite when he’d noticed his dad wasn’t well. He’d always been a quiet man, injured in the war, a good father—­there had been holidays and pocket money and fixing up a motorbike and rugby league matches, but sometimes James was so introverted it had been hard to notice at first that something was wrong.

  Lost in thought, he didn’t realize that his father had abruptly awoken and was eyeing the bag of chocolate caramels that was sitting on the dashboard. Suddenly, as Edward took a tricky bend in the gloom, a massive flare of headlights half-­blinded him. At exactly the same moment, his father made a grab for the sweets, startling Edward into a half jump. The car jackknifed on the road, and the truck was suddenly on them, honking with all its might as it skidded and slid for purchase across the white ground.

  “JESUS CHRIST,” screeched Edward as the enormous headlights hit him straight in the face, dazzling him. He pulled the wheel sharply to the left with what he presumed to be his last wish, just that his father should feel nothing, that it would be only a flash and a bang and then silence.

  “ ‘TO YOU in David’s town this day is born of David’s line,’ ” trilled Stephen’s class as he nodded them on furiously while trying to accompany them (badly) on the old slightly out-­of-­tune piano.

  “A saviour who is Christ the Lord and this shall be the sign.”

  Then the handbells came in. The challenge was to make them not too enthusiastic with the bells, as they forgot to sing. Except the very little ones. Pandora Esten was only four and a half, and it seemed unfair to get in her way.

  “SWEET BELLS! (Chime, clamor.) SWEET CHIMING CHRISTMAS BELLS!” (Chime, clatter as one of the bells dropped to the floor.)

  “SWEET BELLS!” (Chime.) “SWEET chiming Christmas bells . . .” (Slight fading off as the class collectively attempted to remember the forthcoming slightly tricky line.)

  Kent and Emily, Tina’s twins, always got it right, however.

  “They CHEER us ON our HEAVEN-­lee WAY, sweet CHI-­ming BELLS!!!”

  THE LEFT-­HAND SIDE of the Astra sluiced down into the ditch and bounced along the hedge. They shook and bounced up and down as Edward tried to force the wheel to the right and not close his eyes, his breath choking in a shriek in his mouth. Amazingly, the car kept on going, eventually found its footing again and righted itself.

  Edward found himself dripping with sweat, panting hard, unable to stop or remove his hands from the wheel. He caught a glimpse of red taillights in the mirror behind him, but he couldn’t think about that; couldn’t think about anything other than the pounding of his heart and his need to get back to the motorway and on home as fast as he possibly could. Beside him his father was making puzzled noises, and he forced himself to say, “There, there, Dad. It’s all right. It’s all right.” He would never, he vowed grimly to himself, ever leave the house again.

  THE TRUCK, HOWEVER, was not all right. The cab was knocked off its axle, and the driver suddenly found the steering listing terribly. His own nerves—­he was normally a calm sort, fond of a cooked breakfast and his wife—­suddenly started to fray at the edges. He couldn’t see in his rearview mirror to figure out if anything had happened to the car. He’d had the radio playing loudly, and he hadn’t heard a bang or seen any lights, but that didn’t mean they weren’t upside down in a ditch somewhere. But he couldn’t stop here, it was a deadly single-­track hairpin. He wasn’t even meant to be out on deliveries in this weather, but his boss had insisted it was a special customer, so he’d volunteered. And now this. He cursed. He’d stop at the next town, get them to send someone out to have a look at his steering. Bugger it. Bugger bugger bugger. He pulled the great lorry up the hill, praying that he’d make it, cursing the local councils, who had all cut down on their street lighting so much they didn’t light any roads at all if they could help it, even in these conditions. He was nearly there . . . nearly there . . .

  It was cresting the hill that did it. There was a slight bump on the road at the entrance to Lipton, just past the churchyard, and as he felt the cab head up over it and heard the ominous crack, he knew that this was bad news. But the upward acceleration he’d had to use to get the truck over the top of the hill was still with it, powering it forward far too fast, the vehicle suddenly transformed into a huge weapon beyond his control. Slowly, incredibly slowly, he tried to steer it away from the building on his right, but the steering wheel was nowhere close to obeying his instructions and he watched in horror as the great stern of the truck pulled closer and closer. Then, at the last minute, he grabbed hold of his seatbelt, ducked, covered his eyes, and prayed.

  “THEY CHEER US ON our . . .”

  The throaty, roaring, crashing noise was slow and undercut the tremendous tumult of twenty-­one little hands clanging bells all at once. The back of the jackknifed lorry pulled down the wall and ripped through the side of the Portakabin that held the art and music classes. Its headlights were suddenly beaming through the open air, the storm whipping into the hot little room, flurries of snowflakes dancing in the lighted air. An open-­mouthed scream went up, and the children automatically shrank back, mindlessly obeying the loud voice that immediately shouted, “GET DOWN! GET DOWN! GET DOWN!” then a figure hurled itself forward, a cane clattering to the ground, throwing itself on top of the boy singing the solo, standing apart from the others, his dirty glasses already slipping down his face from the force of the inrushing wind, the air pushed ahead of the great machine.

  The noise shook the village. Then everything went dark.

  Chapter 5

  “WHAT WAS THAT?” said Rosie. The lights had all flickered out, then on again. “Was it an earthquake?”

  Tina and Anton looked confused. Rosie let Anton sit down in Lilian’s special chair (normally he wasn’t allowed to; Rosie was trying to keep him mobile for the sake of his veins).

  The great glass jars had wobbled on their shelves, but apart from a row of mints and a ­couple of the chocolate boxes propped up for display, nothing had fallen. Rosie dashed out into the street. She could see other ­people emerging from their homes, looking confused. The day was still so overcast and gloomy that it felt like the middle of the night. Rosie ran down to Malik’s shop. The fruit and veg he kept outside had tumbled to the ground, b
ut he wasn’t paying any attention to that. Instead, he was gazing down the hill, eyes wide open, pointing. Rosie followed his finger, and her hand flew to her mouth.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my God.”

  He was pointing at the school.

  SHE DIDN’T HAVE to knock up Moray, he was already running, trying to pull on his jacket at the same time, which made Rosie curse as she ran back to her own home for blankets. They would need them. Please God, they would need them. All the time her heart was panicking. She ran back past parents, mothers, all of them fleeing down the hill, all of them thinking one thought, she knew: “Please let it not be mine. Please let it not be mine.”

  The scene of devastation, the fuel in the lorry already smoking, had clenched her heart, and she couldn’t let herself think about Stephen, or the children in the school, every single one of whom bought lollies and chocolate and ice cream and bonbons, every single one of whom she knew well—­the guzzlers, the expectant choosers, the value-­for-­money buyers and the indecisive agonizers. She knew all of those children.

  Tina was walking down the road in a trance, like a zombie. Her eyes were looking at the school, but she wasn’t seeing it. Rosie threw herself into the house and snatched all the blankets from the linen cupboard. She was going to need more than this for shock. They’d have some down there . . . and tea, they’d need tea. She ordered her brain to behave itself. She’d worked in accident and emergency for years. She needed to go into that mode now, not think about who was there, just about what she needed to do. She knew Moray could do it; she could do it too. She had to.

  THE SIRENS FILLED the air—­there was a fire station at Carningford. Mrs. Baptiste, the head teacher, was filing children from the main building and into the street. Some looked dazed, the littler ones were crying, and some of the boys were rather excited. One by one they were fallen on by desperate, weeping parents, filled with guilty, overwhelming relief.

  Moray was by the door of the cab, desperately trying to open it. Rosie ran and screamed at him to stop being an idiot and leave it for the firemen, it could go up any second, and he looked at her confused, then realized the sense in what she was saying and jumped down.

  They could hear the sirens in the far distance, but they weren’t here yet. And Mrs. Baptiste was doing a wonderful job, but Rosie was now scanning the lines of children, who were being shepherded farther and farther away up the hill, and she didn’t see them.

  She couldn’t see Stephen, and she couldn’t see Edison.

  She glanced at Moray, both of them looking at the smoking, ruined wreck of the Portakabin.

  “We have to go in,” she said. Mrs. Baptiste was already running down the hill.

  “No, you’re right,” said Moray. “We should wait for the fire brigade, it’s not safe. Mrs. Baptiste, get away from there! Get away at once!”

  The usually brusque gray-­haired teacher looked up at him.

  “But they’re not all out,” she said, her voice quavering.

  “You’ve done what you can,” said Moray. “Get away, please.”

  Mrs. Baptiste shook her head and glanced toward the awful sight of the Portakabin. No more figures were emerging.

  “Now,” said Moray, in a voice that brooked no argument.

  He turned around.

  “EVERYONE GET BACK!” he shouted. “BACK as far as Malik’s! We don’t know whether the truck is going to explode! Get back!!”

  As he said these words, a helicopter appeared over the side of the hill. A man with a loudspeaker leaned out. He too was shouting, “GET BACK! GET BACK! GET BACK!” He clearly meant Moray and Rosie too, but they ignored him, glanced at each other, and quickly dived into the cabin.

  Inside, it was like a vision of hell. Light came through the great rip in the wall, but it only showed a great big cloud of gray dust and shredded paper that made it nearly impossible to see. Rosie heard a whimper, but she couldn’t make out where it was coming from. She tore off her apron and tied it around her mouth so she could breathe; she saw Moray do the same with his handkerchief.

  “Who’s there?” she said. Kneeling down she saw Kent, Tina’s boy, cowering behind the piano, one eye shut and colored black and purple, blood and scratches all over his hands.

  “Oh darling,” she said. “Can you move?”

  Kent looked up at her with his one open eye.

  “It hurts,” he said, terrified. “It hurts.”

  “I know, my love,” said Rosie. “I’m coming for you.”

  She clambered over fallen chairs. Sheet music floated through the air.

  “Come on,” she said. He was a big boy, but she could still lift him. He winced in pain as she touched his arm and she nodded.

  “I know it’s sore,” she said. “And the ambulance is going to be here soon and sort this out. But just for now I really, really have to get you out of here.”

  Kent swallowed and nodded bravely.

  “I’ll try not to touch it, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She took him in a fireman’s hold around the waist, and as she did so, she started in surprise, for underneath, crouching and rolled up in a ball like a tiny hedgehog, was his twin sister, Emily, with barely a scratch on her.

  “Did you cover up your sister?” she asked Kent in shock.

  Kent didn’t say anything, his bottom lip quivering with the pain.

  “Okay, okay, let’s get you out of here,” she said. “Emily, darling, can you walk?”

  Emily’s eyes were huge and white.

  “Mummy!” she said, in a wobbly voice.

  “Mummy’s outside,” said Rosie, taking a quick glance through the rip in the wall, where the tanker was still smoking.“Mummy’s outside, darling, but we really have to go and get to her quickly, okay? Quickly. Like, now. We’re going to Mummy, okay?”

  The magic word “Mummy” had its effect on the little girl, who was paralyzed with fear. Emily nodded carefully, and Rosie hoisted Kent over her shoulders—­he cried out, then tried to stifle himself, but she could hear him weeping on her back—­and they moved slowly toward the open door. Outside, Mrs. Baptiste had point-­blank refused to leave her post and helped them back toward a makeshift barrier that had been set up.

  When Tina saw them, she simply sank to her knees in the middle of the wet snowy lane. Jake had come hurtling up the road from Isitt’s farm as fast as his legs could carry him and was there now, red-­faced and puffing. He pushed past the barrier and lifted Kent up in his arms as if he weighed nothing, looking into his face with a tenderness that could not have given two figs for whose son this boy was. Emily had run to her mother and buried her face in her shoulder; Tina had taken her in her arms, but her eyes were still wide open, staring straight ahead, as if still fixed on the possible alternative, gazing in horror on another life.

  Finally the fire brigade was here; a man in full breathing apparatus stood in front of Rosie.

  “Stand aside now please, ma’am. Let us do our job.”

  Rosie stared at him. She knew he was right, that he was the man to go into that awful dark space again, that it was unprofessional and downright dangerous of her to stand in his way. She had had to do the same thing herself, many times: persuade panicking and desperate relatives to leave the professionals alone to get on with their jobs, that that would be the best for everyone, the victims included.

  She couldn’t help it. She turned around and shot back through the hole.

  “Moray!” she shouted. Now the fire brigade were setting up big arc lights that could cut through the dust, and it was even harder to see in the gloom. “Where . . . where . . .”

  Her voice choked, her lungs filled with dust. She tried to collect herself for a moment in the swirling dark.

  “Here,” came the voice, quick and clipped.

  She could see what had happened right away. The clothes were ri
pped from Stephen’s back in a line. He had obviously dived right on top of the boy who even now Moray was crouched over, trying to save. She knelt down, but straight away she could tell that, thank God, he was breathing; his back was a mess, but it was not bleeding extensively, it was just going to hurt like absolute buggery when he woke up. But he would—­even as she looked at him, broken and twisted on the ground—­wake up. If they got him out in time. The air was filled with the smell of spilled petrol.

  “Here,” she shouted desperately to the rescuers behind them. “Here!” And she grabbed Stephen’s hand tightly.

  Lying there on the ground beside them, Edison was a different matter. Moray had cleared his airways and checked his breathing; he was in the recovery position but completely unconscious. His face was a mess, his little body horribly contorted where it lay. Moray was gently trying to protect his spine. Rosie looked at the GP’s filthy face, but it was absolutely unreadable.

  “He’s a doctor,” she said to the paramedics now fighting their way through.

  “Who are you?” one of them barked back at her.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Rosie, and she knelt down between Stephen and Edison, and refused to move until the stretcher was lifted and she felt Stephen grimace and painfully and briefly come to as he was lifted.

  “You do go,” she managed to say chokily as she felt his eyes rest upon her and saw the relief in them as they did so, “to quite ridiculous lengths to try and get the attention of a nurse.”

  OUTSIDE, TO HER intense relief, the fire brigade was training its foam hoses on the big lorry, which no longer had smoke coming from it. The driver had been brought out, a little concussed, but otherwise perfectly well. He was standing by his cab, crying. A policeman was talking to him in a serious, low tone of voice. The street looked like a film set of a war zone, lit up with huge arc lights, surrounded by ­people in uniform. Many of the children had been spirited away home, but some of the adults remained, gripped, chatting and comforting each other. Mrs. Baptiste stood to the side, stiff and covered in dust, and Rosie led her to a St. John’s ambulance to get her some tea. Then she looked around for the heavily pregnant form of Edison’s mother and saw with a terrible pang of horror that she was not there. They lived in a tiny cottage set in the forest at the far end of the village. Hester didn’t like to mix much; she had very strong views on almost everything and had moved to Lipton to try to raise her son in a pure way. She disliked the efforts of everyone else to live a normal life with cable television and ready meals. Someone was going to have to go.