Nothing.
‘Mr Hallissey!’ Mum barks again.
‘No.’ The cloud of blackness in the corner finally speaks, muffled from under the baseball cap and scarf. Just the one word, which to be fair, is more than he’s ever spoken before.
Mum gasps into the microphone. ‘No?’
He doesn’t respond, but he looks like he’s hoping to make himself so small that he’ll simply disappear.
‘But Mr Hallissey,’ Mum booms into the microphone, but she’s making things worse. This is obviously not a man who wants to be the centre of attention. I can sense the discomfort pouring off him in waves. ‘Your father would’ve loved a project like this. Won’t you at least consider it?’
He gets to his feet, pulls his cap up and his scarf down, and looks around the room. ‘It’s impossible. You’re insane.’ His gaze falls on me and lingers for a moment. ‘No. No, no, and no. And in case it wasn’t clear the first time – no.’ He sits back down with a clunk, refolds his arms, pulls his scarf up and his cap back down.
A man of few words. Joseph Hallissey has always been an odd one. His father, Joseph Senior, was the life and soul of town meetings, always throwing around ideas and meeting challenges with spark and enthusiasm, but he died a couple of years ago, and Joseph Junior moved into town and took over Hallissey Construction. He comes to every meeting, like his father used to, but he sits silently in the back corner and offers no input or opinion. He never even bothers with the free tea and biscuits.
The room is silent, like everyone’s unsure what to make of having heard him speak for the first time, and I realise my mouth has gone dry from having his attention on me.
‘Okay, well, we can’t win ’em all,’ I stutter, trying to get everyone’s focus back to the task at hand. ‘I’m sure there are plenty of builders who’ll be willin—’
‘Your father would be ashamed of you!’ Mum bellows into the microphone.
The whole room turns to look at Joseph again.
‘Mum! You can’t say tha—’
‘No, I will say it. We all knew Joseph Senior, much-loved friend and neighbour that he was. He’d be mortified to see such rudeness from his son. You are an embarrassment to your father’s good name!’
‘Mum!’ I try to cover the mic with my hand. My cheeks have gone red on Joseph’s behalf.
She’s still wrestling the mic away from me when Lynette pipes up. ‘Hear, hear!’
‘Joseph Senior was the kindest man,’ Mr Chalke from the shoe shop says. ‘Would’ve done anything for anyone. He loved this town and he loved Mistletoe Gardens.’
Joseph’s father was the kind of loud and overbearing Welshman who made himself a friend of everyone. There was no one who didn’t know him. A nice man, of course, and quite clearly the opposite of the one currently looking like he wishes the ground would swallow him whole.
‘Look, no one has to help us,’ I say loudly into the mic, sending whistling feedback reverberating through the room. ‘People are busy at this time of year. I can find someone else, it’s no bother.’
‘You shouldn’t have to! Not when there’s a builder right here who doesn’t even have the decency to offer advice.’
‘Oh, I’ll offer some advice all right.’ Joseph Hallissey gets to his feet again. ‘You can’t build a house out of gingerbread and you definitely can’t do it in three weeks. Don’t be so stupid.’ His eyes fall on me again, and then he turns around, jams his cap so far down that it looks painful and stalks out. The room is stunned into a silence punctuated only by the loud swinging of the door behind him.
‘Well, I never…’ Mum says. ‘No wonder he doesn’t speak to anyone if that’s how rude he’s going to be.’
‘You were rude to him! You can’t use someone’s dead father to shame them into doing something they don’t want to do. He isn’t obligated to help with this – no one is. That was unfair.’ I’m half-tempted to run after him and apologise, but what would I say?
‘We can find someone else,’ I say instead, but it falls on deaf ears as they all start muttering about Joseph. My mum has never had much of a filter with words, but even she must’ve been able to see that someone crossed a line there, and it wasn’t him.
‘If I may?’ Mervyn Prichard rises from his seat next to Santa. ‘You’re all missing a fairly important point here. You can’t build a life-size gingerbread house.’
I turn to him, glad of someone getting the conversation away from the unpleasantness with Joseph. ‘Do you mean that from a legal standpoint or because you believe it’s impossible?’
‘I don’t believe it’s impossible, Miss Browne – it is impossible.’
‘Nothing’s impossible at Christmas.’ I give him a grin. ‘Do we have your permission to use the bandstand in the park?’
He ums and ahs, twisting his fingers together, but he eventually answers. ‘If you want to waste your time, effort, and presumably a great deal of money on ingredients, then the council will have no legal objections to your project. Mistletoe Gardens will be razed to the ground in January. What you do with it in the meantime is up to you.’
‘Hurrah!’ Santa cheers and stands up too. ‘The only thing we need is a little belief in Christmas magic!’
‘We can do this,’ I tell everyone. ‘I just need a couple of days to work out a plan and find a builder. Hallissey Construction are not the only builders in the universe. As soon as I get home, I’m going straight online to find a whole slew of builders who will jump at the chance to do something so fun. There will be millions of them. We’ll be holding builder auditions by the end of tomorrow. It’ll be like a Bob the Builder set around here!’ Let’s hope none of them know Bob the Builder is an animated programme most favoured by those under three years of age.
I smile broadly at the sea of faces looking back at me, hoping the doubts don’t show on my face, because internally, I’m wondering what I’ve got into here. It seemed like such a good idea at the time, but Joseph Hallissey’s reaction and Mervyn’s ‘impossible’ comments have left me feeling overwhelmed and like I’m grasping at straws.
I can bake gingerbread until the cows come home, but I don’t know where to begin when it comes to building a house with it. There’s a good possibility I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, in more ways than one, and this cannot be another ‘big idea’ that turns out to be a big mistake.
We hope you enjoyed this exclusive extract. The Gingerbread House in Mistletoe Gardens is available to buy now by clicking on the image below:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you, Mum. Always my first and most important reader! I’m eternally grateful for your constant patience, support, encouragement, and belief in me. Thank you for always being there for me – I don’t know what I’d do without you. Love you lots!
Marie Landry, my best friend and my absolute favourite spectacular nut! There are so many in-jokes and nods to us in this book, but none is more intentional than the line Cleo says to Marnie – “Thank you for being the best best friend ever.” I am so lucky to get to call you my best friend and I’m grateful every day to have you in my life! I love you to bits! A huge thank you also to Nancy Landry for the constant love and support, even from half a world away!
Thank you to Bill, Toby, Cathie, and Bev for your continued love and enthusiasm. Thank you to Jayne Lloyd and Charlotte McFall for being such wonderful friends, and an extra special shoutout to Kirsty Oughton for always being so lovely!
I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who I chat to on social media, who I’ve connected with thanks to books, and to all of you who show me so much support and kindness on a daily basis. A big shoutout to some Facebook groups who support me tirelessly and are an absolute pleasure to be part of. A huge and heartfelt thank you to all the members and admins of Vintage Vibes and Riveting Reads, The Friendly Book Community, The Spirituality Café, Chick Lit and Prosecco, Book Swap Central, and Fiction Addicts at Socially Distanced Book Club. If you’re a booklover looking for somewhere to brighten your day, lift your spirits, and make you feel like you’ve found a group of people who understand why we always buy more books even though we need scaffolding to hold up our current to-read pile, please find your way to these groups! You will be glad you did – although your to-read list may not!
