by Ali Harris
‘But I thought we had till Boxing Day?’ Sam says, furrowing his brow.
I shrug defeatedly. ‘Looks like they changed their minds.’
‘But that doesn’t make any sense!’ Sam says, shaking his head. ‘They haven’t given us a fair chance and, besides, that was before any of them saw this!’ He holds up the paper and we smile sadly at him. He puts it back down on the table and looks at us all despairingly. ‘Come on, guys, are we really going to give up just because the board of directors have? These sorts of deals take ages to finalize! We might still be able to claw Hardy’s back from an impending sale! After all, no one has stopped us so far! So who’s in?’
I see Lily lift her chin determinedly and glance at Felix, who is straightening his tie and rolling his shoulders back as if preparing for some OAP-style fisticuffs. Jan Baptysta is cracking his knuckles. As is Justyna. Velna has started humming ‘Waterloo’, Abba’s 1974 Eurovision-winning entry loudly, which I presume means she too is up for a fight.
I glance at Sam and he raises his eyebrows questioningly at me. I pause and look at everyone. ‘So are we all with Sam?’ I say at last, and there is a chorus of approval from the group. Sam nods and smiles at me as Felix disappears to get Sam a celebratory drink. Minutes later he plops a pint down in front of him. Sam takes a sip and immediately takes charge of the meeting.
‘Can I tell you the even better news now you’re all feeling a bit more positive?’ Sam smiles as he picks up the Evening Standard again. ‘On my way here I had a call from someone at the Metro. They’ve seen the Evening Standard’s coverage and are running something in their morning paper, too . . .’
‘That’s great news!’ I exclaim. ‘That’ll reach all the commuters in the morning who didn’t get the Evening Standard tonight!’
‘But that’s not all,’ Sam grins. ‘The editor from the Metro told me that the Daily Mail, who own the Metro, have agreed to run it in their paper, too, in a couple of days’ time! Forget local papers, we’re going national!’
Lily whoops and claps her hands and everyone joins in.
‘Oh my God, that’s incredible Sam!’ I gasp. ‘How the hell did you manage that?’
Sam shrugs modestly. ‘I’ve been told I can be quite charming when I want to be,’ he says with a wry wink. ‘There is a catch, though: the Mail need a new angle. They don’t want to regurgitate coverage of the same story and the same makeovers. We need to do something big, something brilliant that will get the whole country talking . . . and then shopping at Hardy’s! But the question is, what?’
Everyone immediately looks at me. I pause for a moment to gather my thoughts. ‘I guess it’s time to bring out the Christmas Big Guns,’ I say at last, thinking of the reams of vintage decorations I’ve been sorting through in the stockroom and the ideas we’ve been working on since the last meeting. We’ve been waiting for the right moment to give Hardy’s the Christmas makeover it really needs. And there isn’t going to be a better moment than this. I clear my throat and stand up, feeling like a sergeant major rounding up his troops.
‘We need to turn the store into a winter wonderland so that Sam can take the picture to the Mail’s offices. Which means, we need to do the makeover to end all makeovers. Tonight.’ I look at my watch and drain my glass. It’s nearly nine o’clock. That gives us eleven hours. ‘So who’s coming back to the store with me?’
There is no reply and for a moment I think I’ve gone too far. Then my ears are filled with the sound of chairs scraping as everyone stands up and pulls on their coats, chattering excitably. Sam takes my arm gently and we all pour noisily out of the pub and into the cold – but no longer bleak – midwinter.
The store is eerily dark when we pile in through the staff entrance. A layer of snow has settled on the pavements outside and taken the temperature down to Arctic levels. Everyone is shivering and looking blankly around us. All of a sudden the store feels really big and our group feels really small. I’m paralysed with fear that I don’t actually really know what I’m doing. It doesn’t help that everyone is looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to tell them where to start. Justyna coughs loudly and for a moment I am reminded of the sound of an air-raid siren. It is just the trigger I need.
I close my eyes for a moment and try to imagine the Hardy’s I want to see; the one that it used to be back in the post-war glory days when country had gone through hell and heartache and Hardy’s survived to tell the tale. I imagine well-dressed women strolling through the halls arm in arm with their lovers, mothers, children and best friends. I imagine Nat King Cole’s velvety voice crooning from the speakers, singing about chestnuts roasting and Jack Frost nipping. I can visualize thick garlands of greenery draped around the atrium with mistletoe and holly twined around it, gloriously coloured home-made vintage paper chains hung round the doors, twinkling fairy lights wrapped around pillars and doorways. Crepe-paper crackers and nativity scenes, the hand-carved wooden shoes I unpacked yesterday . . . and, of course, the most important thing of all, the Hardy’s Christmas tree, back standing proudly by the grand central staircase.
‘Jan?’ I say briskly. ‘I have a job for you. It requires you somehow finding and purchasing a very big Christmas tree. Tonight.’
‘He can take my van!’ Sam offers, and within minutes Jan has disappeared on his mission.
‘Right, everyone,’ I clap my hands and look at them all. ‘Are you ready?’
The next four hours pass in a haze of hard work and high spirits. Boxes of decorations are unpacked and hung, assembly lines are created to get all the decorations moving from the stockroom to the shop floor, songs are sung, jokes are made and Sam takes photographs of us all working. Hour by hour the empty boxes and mess that surrounds us gradually starts to look like the winter wonderland I have in my head. The tiny shoe decorations have been cleverly stacked by Lily on a Perspex stand, which Sam has built in the shape of a Christmas tree and wrapped with strands of mistletoe. We’re going to put it in one of the windows illuminated with some pretty fairy lights and then recreate the Tree of Shoes idea in the shoe department using the gorgeous vintage Hardy’s ex-display evening shoes.
Felix has come up with a brilliant idea of putting vintage beauty products, like the gold lipstick holders and pretty compacts, into actual snow globes in a display in one of the windows.
Inside the store I’ve laid a path of letters to Santa that leads to a grotto on the fourth floor. Felix has promised to dress up as Santa and hand out gifts in the days leading up to Christmas. These letters have been painstakingly handwritten and popped into faded old airmail envelopes by Velna and then tied into little bundles with string. Lily has been sitting wrapping boxes in brown paper and then decorating them with ribbons of gold, green and red for the past two hours. She has a ballet dancer’s eye for detail and each one is beautifully finished. And Velna and I have spray-painted gold over one hundred Conference pears, which I plan to thread on string with some cranberries and holly and then drape over the door arches of each department.
And this is all without Hardy’s secret weapon; the store’s original decorations that used to deck the place; the ones that look and smell and feel like Christmases past. A row of painted toy soldiers line the windows, like marching marionettes. Little Santas and snowmen and faded felt-covered reindeer join them. As well as entire snow-capped villages and little painted elves, there are old Santas’ boots that were once filled with candies, and miniature vintage bottlebrush snow-covered Christmas trees. Vintage glass jars have been filled with old satin-sheen and glass baubles that have lost their hooks and can’t be used on our tree. All of them make you dream of snow and stockings, Santa and carol singing. Looking around me I am suddenly filled with the real spirit of Christmas. And for the first time since yesterday I’ve even forgotten all about Joel and what a pig he turned out to be.
Well, almost.
By 1 a.m. we’re all flagging. Lily has just handed out a round of hot chocolate when a grinning Jan Baptysta comes in with
four burly Polish men all dragging an enormous Norwegian pine, and we all applaud as they lay it on the floor.
‘I had to callsk in some reinforcements,’ explains Jan. ‘Everybody say hello to Alesky, Viktor and Konrad. They havsk been working on a Christmas tree farm in Essex and opened up late so I could come and choossk one!’
‘It’s HUGE!’ I squeal, clapping my hands excitedly like a seal. ‘Are we going to be able to put it up ourselves?’
‘Nie problem, Evie, leave it to us. We haves more reinforcements comings. However, we would be verys grateful for some of that chocolate drink, OK?’
‘Coming right up, Jan!’ Lily says, and scuttles off to her tearoom.
Jan’s arrival is just the lift we all need. The next three hours pass quickly as the tree is hauled into place by the burly Polish men. Then all we have to do is decorate it, which is a feat involving ladders and assembly lines. It is nearly 5 a.m. by the time we finish, all collapsing on the floor in a tired but happy huddle as we sit and survey our work.
It’s clear to us as we gaze in awed silence that Hardy’s is a store transformed. Gone is the sad, faded, lifeless shop it used to be, and in it’s place is a joyful, glittering wonderland of bygone Christmases.
‘It looks beautiful,’ breathes Lily tearfully. ‘It reminds me of the good old days,’ and everyone murmurs their agreement.
‘Fingers crossed everyone else thinks so, too,’ I say, and silence descends as we consider the terrible alternative.
‘Of course they will!’ Sam responds – Mr Positive, as ever – and I smile at him gratefully.
‘Thank you, everyone,’ I say, feeling my throat constrict with emotion. ‘You’ve been amazing. Now go and get some rest. I can do the remainder of the clearing up here.’
Everyone is so exhausted that they don’t even argue; they just throw on their coats and file out of the store. Everyone except Sam, who starts sweeping the rogue pine needles off the floor.
‘You too, Sam,’ I say. ‘Honestly, I just need to take all these boxes back to the stockroom and sort a few things out.’
‘Don’t be silly, I’m not leaving you now,’ Sam says gruffly, putting down the broom and scooping up an armful of empty boxes. ‘Race you back to the stockroom. Last one there has to make the tea!’
Friday 16 December
9 Shopping Days Until Christmas
I open my eyes and rub them, shivering a little despite the blanket that has been thrown carefully over my body. My cheek is wet, presumably because of the pool of dribble that has escaped from my mouth whilst I was sleeping, and my eyes are sticky from falling asleep with my contacts in. Sam helped me tidy up and put away all the boxes and then we sat on the sofa, talking about our lives and drinking tea until dawn broke. Or until I fell asleep, I’m not sure which. I vaguely remember leaning my head against Sam’s shoulder just as he said he had to go and start his deliveries. He must have waited until I was asleep and then put this blanket over me. Part of me can’t help but wish that he’d stayed. But Sam’s just a friend. He’s with Ella, and besides, I still haven’t spoken to Joel and found out what the hell he has been doing.
Part of me wants to put off confronting him; I don’t need to know that he was using me and that he never liked me at all. As much as things were complicated when I was trying to be Carly, it also felt like life was finally going my way. And the attention I got from Joel was a big part of that. If it really was all just an act, then I’m back to square one. Back to being me: invisible, forgettable, me. But then again, maybe it’s better that way. Everything is back to its natural order.
I yawn and throw the blanket over the arm of the sofa, smacking my lips and trying to work out if I can substitute gum for toothpaste and if a strong coffee will overpower my morning breath or just enable it. I splash water on my face from the sink and pull my hair back into a ponytail, wrapping a thick strand tightly around the elastic band to make it look more finished. My days of letting myself go have gone, even when I’ve been up all night and have only the prospect of a long day in the stockroom to look forward to. Not for Joel; not for anyone else other than me. The tea dress I wore to the pub last night has managed to stay remarkably fresh and crease-free, and with a lick of lipstick, a swipe of deodorant and squirt of Chanel No. 5 from my handbag, I’m just about ready to face the morning. Or at the very least, get through it.
‘Oh my God!’ shouts Carly as she suddenly bounds through the stockroom door, making me jump. ‘You have to come here, now!’ and she runs over, grabs me by the arm and drags me out into the shop floor.
‘LOOK!’ she gasps, turning in a circle as she takes in the store’s Christmas makeover.
‘Wow!’ I breathe in what I hope is a believably surprised manner.
Carly eyes me suspiciously. ‘How come you didn’t notice it yourself when you came in this morning?’
‘Er, I came in through the delivery doors. Anyway,’ I shoot back, ‘what are you doing here so early. It’s way before your clocking-on time.’
‘You know what they say,’ Carly says flippantly, ‘the early bird catches the worm and all that. Actually, I was hoping to catch the Secret Santa but it looks like they’ve been and gone already. I’m going to have to be more cunning.’
She narrows her eyes thoughtfully and I start to walk back towards the stockroom. I really don’t want to get into this conversation with her again.
‘Hey, don’t go!’ Carly calls, ‘I still haven’t shown you this . . .’
I turn round and see Carly holding up a copy of the Metro, open at page 3 and with ‘Hardy’s Christmas Miracle’ as a headline.
‘It looks like Hardy’s is still getting more positive press despite the takeover,’ she says, and I grab it excitedly from her and scan through it.
‘It’s good, isn’t it?’ she says, looking over my shoulder. ‘Maybe Hardy’s won’t be sold after all? I mean, Rupert is bound to use this in our defence.’
I look up at her curiously. ‘I thought you wanted Rumors to take Hardy’s over? You said you’d much prefer to work for a more modern store that was cooler, more fashion forward . . .’
Carly shrugs and brushes her hands over the vintage silk blouse she’s wearing today. Weirdly, it looks like something I’d wear. ‘A girl can be wrong. I mean, there’s plenty of stores like that in London, but there’s not one like Hardy’s, is there? I realize now how short-sighted I was being. Besides, Rupert has been good to me. I’ve made friends here . . . I’ve lost a few too, but I’m hoping I can get them back.’ She gives my arm a squeeze. ‘Your advice really helped me, you know,’ she says softly. ‘I always knew you were a great listener, but you’re really worth listening to as well, you know.’
I swallow back a gulp and smile gratefully at Carly as my phone buzzes in my hand. ‘Home’ flashes up on the screen and I mouth, ‘Got to take this,’ to Carly and head back to the stockroom.
‘Hello?’
‘Evie?’ says a barely recognizable voice. ‘Where are you?’ The phone sounds muffled, like the person is holding their hand over it.
‘Delilah? Is that you?’
‘Yes,’ she sobs, and her voice sounds muffled again. ‘Where are you?’ she repeats.
‘I’m at work. Are you OK?’
‘Noooo!’ she wails desperately, her voice taking on a manic tone. ‘Will didn’t come home last night, nor did you, I tried calling Mum but she didn’t answer. I don’t know what to do . . . my marriage, it’s over. I know it.’ She is crying inconsolably now.
‘Hey, shhhh,’ I say, feeling my stomach constrict with concern.
Delilah sounds on the edge. I know I need to go to her, but I don’t know how I can get away. Sharon is taking a dim view of sick days in this week before Christmas and I honestly think that leaving here now could cost me my job. But what about my sister?
‘Listen, Delilah, stay calm. I’m sure there’s some explanation for Will not coming home. Where are the kids?’
‘They’re at nursery,’ she s
niffs.
‘OK, I’m going to try and get away as soon as I can. I’ll meet you at home, all right? Are you going to be OK till then?’
Delilah doesn’t answer.
‘Delilah,’ I press urgently, ‘I said will you be OK till then?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replies quietly, ‘I just don’t know,’ and she rings off.
I immediately call Mum on her mobile.
‘Hello, Grace Taylor speaking, how may I help you?’ Mum’s prim voice answers as if she is an office receptionist.
‘Mum, it’s me,’ I say quickly.
‘Darl—’
‘It’s Delilah, Mum,’ I interrupt. ‘She’s in a bad way. I’m really worried about her.’ And I relay our conversation.
‘Oh, my poor girl,’ Mum moans. ‘I was so worried something like this would happen. Will told me they haven’t seen her all week at work. He’s really worried about her. He said he was going to talk to you but maybe he hasn’t had a chance to—’
‘Mum,’ I interrupt. I can’t bear her portrayal of Will as the perfect, concerned husband any longer. ‘There’s something you should know. Will’s been having an affair. Delilah suspects something but I overheard him on the phone. Oh, Mum, what are we going to do?’
Mum makes soothing noises and tells me not to worry. But I can’t help it. I’ve abandoned my sister in her time of need. I’ve been so preoccupied. For the past few weeks I’ve listened to everyone in the store, I’ve thrown the rest of my energy into saving Hardy’s but I haven’t once stopped to listen to my own sister when she was crying out to me for help.
‘Oh God, she sounded awful,’ I sob, and Mum consoles me, but I can tell she’s struggling to hold it together too.
‘I’m going back home now,’ I say determinedly through my tears.
‘But you’re at work, darling,’ Mum says. ‘I’ll go. I’ll just throw my stuff in a bag, hop on a train and I’ll be there in three hours.’
