Belinda Missen - One Week ’Til Christmas

The bell above my head chimed as I stepped inside from the cold. My hair stopped whipping around my face and I loosened the belt of my coat. The reassuring clack, clack, clack of my suitcase followed me over the tiles like a trusty steed.

‘Here she is!’ Alfred looked up from behind his glossy red coffee maker, tapped the portafilter on the bench and dangled a takeaway cup in the air. ‘Good to see you again.’

‘I’m just like Halley’s Comet,’ I teased. ‘Only I show up more often and I’m not as bright.’

‘I won’t hear a word of it.’ He laughed. ‘How long are you here for this time?’

‘An entire eight days.’ I dug my purse out of my backpack. ‘Well, seven and a half now, I suppose. I’ve just dropped the hire car at Heathrow.’

‘Hire car? You mean you’ve been here long enough to have a road trip, and this is the first I’m hearing of it?’ He feigned disgust. ‘You awful woman.’

‘I probably shouldn’t tell you about Belfast, then?’ I smirked.

Alfred clucked his tongue.

I guess the first thing you should know about me is that I love to travel. There’s nothing more thrilling than the thrust of an aeroplane the moment the wheels leave the tarmac. It says, ‘Here you are, welcome to your next adventure. Enjoy your stay, make sure your tray table is upright, and tip your wait staff accordingly.’

In my decade as a travel writer, I’ve been to places I never thought possible. I’ve been smeared in coloured powders during the festival of Holi in India, bumbled my way through hymns inside St Mark’s Basilica, and watched the Northern Lights on a night so cold it felt like I’d found the dark side of the moon and decided to dance the jig in a polka-dot bikini.

But above all that, I’ve made friends in every corner, crevice, and back alley of the globe. Like a sailor (allegedly) has a girl in every port, so too do I have a bed in every city. It might be a couch, sofa bed, or bunk in a shared room, but it’s the unspoken pact of international friendship. The front door is always open. The keys are yours. You just have to get here.

Right now, here was London – ooh, and a text message.

If you’re at Alfred’s, can you grab a fresh baguette? Like The Proclaimers – I’m on my way.

I smiled at Estelle’s message and slipped my phone back into my pocket.

Estelle was one of those friends. We met during a sweltering summer in Japan ten years ago. It was my first assignment with the Melbourne Explorer , and her fifth with the magazine she wrote for. Like that scene from Forrest Gump , the only seat left on a crowded bus to Furano was next to her.

Our friendship was pieced together in the following weeks aboard tour buses and bullet trains. We gazed at rainbow ribbons of flowering fields, were rendered speechless at the haunting beauty of Hiroshima, and puffed our way up Mount Fuji with nothing but a bottle of water between us. By the time we said farewell in Sapporo, I knew I’d have a friend for life.

She’d since left journalism in favour of life as curator of Check-1-2 Gallery , a Chelsea art gallery. It kept her busy, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous intent on expanding their collections of priceless pieces. It paid well enough that it afforded her a perfectly modern maisonette off the high street full of modern appliances and retro furniture, and me a warm bed whenever I was in town. When I wasn’t here, I missed her and our late-night wine-soaked chats dearly. More than once, we’d mused over how much fun we’d have if I lived a few thousand miles closer, rather than in Australia.

‘So, what’s the plan this time?’ Alfred asked, weighing a gingerbread person in one hand and fruit cake in the other. He was a regular scale of gastronomical justice … I pointed to the cake.

‘Nothing but Christmas,’ I said. ‘I’m getting my yuletide on.’

When my boss had first floated the idea of ‘popping over to the UK’ (his words, not mine) for a few weeks in December to report on a refreshed Game of Thrones tour and a new distillery in the Cotswolds, I’d leaped at the chance to swap the endless summer nights of Melbourne for the icy British air. I’d even managed to wrangle a few extra personal days into the deal so as I could experience all the snow-white beauty of Christmas in London.

‘Speaking of Christmas, I’ve been playing around with almond milk eggnog,’ Alfred said as I readjusted my backpack. ‘You want one to go?’

‘For you, I’ll be a willing guinea pig but I also need your best baguette to go with dinner.’ I wrapped my hands around the piping takeaway cup he handed to me as the aroma of vanilla swirled with cinnamon in the steam of the drink. Warmth radiated into my fingers and seeped across my palm. And if it smelled divine, it tasted even better. I let out an appreciative groan after my first sip. ‘This? This is amazing.’

‘Good, am I right?’

‘You know, I could have done with that a week ago when I was buried in cold showers and mud.’ I took another sip of my drink. A trip to the Giant’s Causeway was a lesson in wearing better shoes on my adventures. Finn McCool or not, it was an uncomfortably soggy trip back to Belfast after stumbling into the North Atlantic. To add insult to injury, the hot water in my accommodation had taken its own holiday.

‘Consider it on the house,’ Alfred said, handing me my change and a crusty baguette. ‘The drink, that is.’

‘You’re amazing. Thank you so much,’ I said. ‘See you soon!’

‘Don’t leave without saying goodbye!’ he called after me as I used my shoulder to shove past the dangling tinsel Christmas trees and through the door.

Drink in hand and baguette tucked under my arm, I pulled my coat tighter against the icy breeze and made my way towards the bus stop. Estelle’s was close by but, with slippery footpaths and a light drizzle, it wasn’t near enough that I wanted to walk the whole way. When the lights at the crossing changed, I skipped across the road with the crowd.

Passing an M&S, I veered into oncoming pedestrians to avoid a well-dressed man who’d burst from the doors like a long-held breath with a phone to his ear and newspaper in his hand. He fell into step behind me.

‘Is this article your doing? I’ve just picked up this rot you pass off as a newspaper,’ he stammered, his voice dropping a few notches. ‘Secret love affair … what? Are you kidding me? Who thinks of this? I was having coffee with her. To assume I’m now in some kind of sordid love affair is ridiculous.’

I resisted the ticklish urge to turn towards the scandal. Quick extrapolation told me he was either a politician or a celebrity, especially if his love life had hit the papers. A brief look at his face as he walked along behind me registered nothing but his outfit: dark trousers, a blue-knit pullover, shirt and long coat. Classically nice in that take home to Mum for Sunday roast kind of way. I fumbled about in my pocket for an Oyster card.

‘You have to do something,’ he pleaded. ‘You can’t just leave it like this! I’ll be tarred and feathered by the morning. Or was that the whole point?’

I winced. That sounded painful. My breath came in clouded puffs as I dodged another puddle. I was relieved to see the bus stop up ahead. It was beginning to feel like I was eavesdropping on something that both I and the rest of the city really shouldn’t be privy to.

‘What am I doing?’ he asked incredulously. ‘You actually want to know what I’m doing? All right then, well, I’ve just left Marks & Spencer’s, where I very contentedly bought a single-serve meal, because that’s what I am, a single, solitary man. Neil Diamond even wrote a song about it. One person, like that lone mouldy apple no one wants to buy, or that one lost Tupperware lid, or that random sock you find under your bed that you were sure ran off to jump over the moon with the aforementioned Tupperware lid.’