Carmen went back into the main house and through the rest of the old Christmas decorations, discarding the crumbling and irretrievable, but there was a surprising amount of good-quality little gold-coloured candlesticks, a beautiful ceramic nativity set, some brass angels and, loveliest and strangest of all, a doll’s house which looked not unlike Sofia’s house, with its steps up, and with perfect little rugs and beds and the dearest patterned arm chairs, blankets and curtains, but instead of little people inside were little dressed toy mice, perfect in every way, with fur and whiskers and little bright beady eyes, wearing waistcoats and spectacles, aprons and bustles. Carmen had to suppress something in her that would very much have wanted it for herself.
Then followed a rather jolly afternoon of splashing out on artificial snow and tiny strands of lights at the happy, busy Poundworld. As Carmen worked on both windows – trains on one side, doll’s house on the other – more and more people stopped by to see what they were doing, and several popped in and bought books.
Finally, at around 4 p.m., everything was ready, and Carmen stood back. She flicked the switch and suddenly, at last, the shop was alive: the lights of the train and the stations and the little lamp-post that came with the house glowed golden and beautiful, as did the working fairy lights that she had hung in the tiny windows of the house itself. And the little train, now with a tiny holly wreath round its front engine, tootled on towards the tunnel before the station, and at last, on the busy thoroughfare that is Victoria Street at Christmastime – at last, there was a crowd outside their shop.
Carmen put up a sign – ‘Children’s Story Time: 4 p.m. on Wednesday’ and for once was happy as she locked up the shop (she had decided to take over the keys, given Mr McCredie’s rather lackadaisical approach).
‘Goodnight,’ she said.
Mr McCredie shook his head.
‘What? Oh,’ he said, mumbling slightly.
‘What?’ asked Carmen. ‘Well. I have always loved my books. But … I don’t think I have ever enjoyed being a shopkeeper before.’
Which sent Carmen home in such a good mood that it made it even odder that that night she had the dream.
That night, bundled in the single bed at the bottom of her sister’s house. Carmen had the oddest dream. She was on a train.
It was an old-fashioned sort of train, with compartments rather than everyone sitting in the open, and she was sitting on a long seat, covered in a dusty, carpet-like material, with straps above and a mesh luggage rack.
Outside the old window, which was also covered in mesh for some reason, she could catch a glimpse of the snowy woods the train was hastening through, with a clickety-clack on wooden rails that felt oddly comforting.
She realised suddenly that she wasn’t alone in the carriage and looked up sharply. A woman wearing a pink hat so close to her head it appeared to be moulded on looked up too and smiled sweetly. She was wearing pink lipstick and reading a book calledUp on the Rooftops.
‘Tell him,’ she said pleasantly, but as she spoke Carmen knew they were growing closer and closer to a tunnel, even as the snow fell more and more thickly and the train sped up and the woman opened her mouth wider so she could speak above the shrill sound of the whistle blowing as the tunnel got closer and closer and the noise got louder and louder and the woman’s mouth got wider and wider and she was saying something, screaming something, but they crashed into the tunnel, and Carmen jolted and woke up, completely confused and unable to recognise where she was, frozen. It was pitch-black outside, but according to her phone it was after 7 a.m.
She sat up in bed, keeping the duvet pulled around her.
Oddly, she wasn’t terrified. It hadn’t felt exactly like a nightmare, or that the train was going to crash or the tunnel was going to swallow her: she had been frightened, but not terrified. And she felt sad, somehow, a deep sadness down inside her somewhere that she hadn’t understood whatever it was that the woman was trying to tell her.
The dream faded from her like brushed-off sand as she headed to the bathroom, already aware of Skylar’s performativeohmmmming morning meditation coming from next door, and by the time she had unpacked the book for the Brazilian student – it was huge, very heavy, dense with diagrams and not a single line was comprehensible to Carmen in any way – and saw the pleasingly large turn-out for the story time, she’d practically forgotten it altogether.
It was Sofia’s doing of course – she’d got on the mums’ WhatsApp group, an extraordinary source of power in Edinburgh society, so the little shop was heaving with buggies and small children looking expectant and absolutely delighted at the train set. Rather too delighted in fact: Mr McCredie was hopping from foot to little foot, looking anxious.
‘Don’t touch,’ said Carmen hopefully, then: ‘And there are candy canes for after!’
‘Yayyy!’ went the children.
The mothers made extremely dubious faces.
‘But it’s all right: I’ve brought enough satsumas for everyone,’ said Sofia with a smile which made Carmen slightly want to stab her.
She sat down on a little stool, wishing she wasn’t quite so much on view, held up the beautiful glowing picture of a little girl who was wearing very few clothes in the snow – in contrast to the children, who had so many layers of arctic-ready Puffa jackets on none of them could raise their arms above their head – and theyoohed andaahed agreeably. Carmen began:
Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening – the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet …
She was gratified at the widening eyes and the children edging in closer to hear.
‘NAKED FEET?’ said one of the boys.
‘It just means bare feet,’ said Carmen, as some sniggering started.
‘Yes, please be quiet,’ said Pippa, and for once Carmen was pleased at the girl’s ability to give everyone a solid telling-off, as she certainly couldn’t have done it – all these blonde women were making her feel slightly intimidated as it was.
She carefully led the children through the lighting of the matches – the amazing goose, the wonderful Christmas tree, the angelic grandmother. After the student’s fascination, she had dug out a Rackham edition – the child haunted, the Christmas tree a glistening, extraordinary apparition – and the children paid rapt attention.
But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with rosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall – frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the child there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. ‘She wanted to warm herself,’ people said.
