Chapter Four
She needed to make a to-do list. That was the only way she was going to manage this Christmas charade; treating it as a set of concrete tasks to be completed would take the emotion out of it and ensure everything would be ready by the time Lenore and Nancy arrived.
Finishing off her salad wrap, she retrieved her iPad from across the desk. Time for a little lunchtime research.
Okay, so what do you need to get organised for Christmas?
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard of her iPad but sadly, no neurons fired in her brain.
It shouldn’t be that hard, but somehow she’d managed to erase any memories of her own family’s annual celebration.
As an adult, she’d avoided anything and everything that held a remote glimmer of the festive season so …
Google.
She typed the question and watched the magic happen. AI was useful for something!
How to Plan for Christmas: 5 Top Tips.
1. Choose a Christmas tree
2. Select a decorating theme
3. Create a menu
4. Make a list of gifts to purchase
5. Start your own tradition
None of that sounded too onerous. All she had to do was begin at the top of the list and work her way down.
Starting with the tree. A real tree, not one of those fake silver or snow-covered abominations.
Something that showed true commitment. Hadn’t there been a sign in town somewhere about trees for sale?
The scout hall? Or maybe the community centre.
Crystal had her finger on the town pulse, she’d be sure to know.
The woman was turning into quite the asset, had reorganised the online filing system and streamlined the appointments calendar.
Her wage was money well spent, even if she could be a little on the eccentric side.
Behind the reception desk, the font of all Yarrabee wisdom was hard at work. What more was there to do? At least she wasn’t shirking.
‘Crystal, can I ask you a question?’
A set of cat-green eyes looked up from beneath the voluminous red bun, a spill of curls obscuring her forehead. ‘Of course.’
‘Would you happen to know where I might be able to get a fresh Christmas tree?’
Crystal pinched her cherry lips together.
‘The scouts always have a sale, but those trees are snapped up in thirty seconds flat on December first so that ship has sailed. There is a farm about forty minutes northwest. The road’s a little rough but it’s doable.
One of those pick-your-own-type places. Somehow survived the fires. They might have some left.’
A full-sized Christmas tree would absolutely not fit in the boot of her CRV, but it might go on the roof racks.
‘Sounds good. Do you know the name of the place?’
‘Uncle Willy’s Tree Farm.’
‘Uncle Willy.’
‘Mmm-hmm.’
‘As in the man who runs it is named Willy?’
‘Sure is. He has a manager running it for him.’ Crystal’s mouth curled at the corners. A curious glint flickered in her eyes. What was that about? ‘Would you like me to find the address and send it through to you?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ It might be a personal matter rather than a business task, but it would only be churlish to reject the offer.
‘I’m on it.’ As Crystal started typing, the croon of Michael Bublé’s ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ filled the room. Her face fell as she picked up her ringing phone. ‘Sorry, I kind of need to answer.’
‘By all means.’ Personal calls during office hours weren’t ideal but based on Crystal’s stricken expression, this one couldn’t wait.
‘Hi, Mumma. Remember I told you I can’t take personal calls at work?’
A call from Mum. But at least Crystal was trying to shut it down.
‘You don’t need to go to the shops. I made your lunch and it’s in the fridge, all ready for you.’ Crystal’s tone was more like one you’d use with a small child than a parent. ‘That’s right, and I’m going to bring something home for dinner after work.’
She still lived with her mother?
‘No.’
The rebuke was so loud it made Hannah flinch. She really shouldn’t eavesdrop, but the note of alarm in Crystal’s voice was concerning.
‘Do not turn on the stove or the hotplate. Chicken sandwiches don’t require any heating. Just open the cling wrap and they’re ready to eat. I have to go. I’ll see you this afternoon.’
A shadow fell over Crystal’s face as she ended the call. She gave her head a shake, chasing it away. ‘Sorry. My mum. She has early onset dementia and gets a little confused. I freak out every time I hear a siren, thinking she might have burnt the house down.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. It must be hard.’ Hannah had had patients who were full-time carers for people with similar issues and it was no picnic. ‘Do you live with her?’
‘No. We have help come in, and my brother and I tag team visiting her each day and cooking for her. We’re trying to keep her out of care for as long as possible.
She’s only fifty-nine.’ Crystal shook her head and wriggled her shoulders.
‘It’s stressful at times but she’s my mum and she raised us on her own after our dad ran off with the neighbour.
So now it’s our turn to look after her. It’s why I needed to work part time.
My old boss wasn’t exactly sympathetic.’ Resting her elbows on the desk, she leaned forward and peered over the top of the computer, a light sheen glazing her emerald eyes. ‘How about you? Close to your parents?’
A chill shivered through Hannah’s limbs. She inhaled, waiting for it to dissipate. Nothing more than a cortisol surge in response to a perceived threat. ‘Not really.’
The door opened. Her next client. Perfect timing. She flashed Crystal what was hopefully an apologetic smile and turned back to her office. Sharing heart-felt family stories was most certainly not on her list of action points.
Watching the video on the website link Crystal had sent was like immersing herself in an alien landscape: bright happy faces wearing ubiquitous Santa hats jumping out from behind pristine green pines, row after row of them stretching into the distance beneath a sunny blue sky.
She scanned the FAQs: no need to book an appointment, just show up, choose your own tree to fit the height of your ceiling, water regularly for a guaranteed three week–plus lifespan, no deliveries but visit any time between nine and five, seven days a week.
She glanced up at the wall calendar. December 4, exactly three weeks until Christmas Day, and only a week until Lenore and Nancy arrived.
Between now and then, a jam-packed work schedule, including a two-day online conference this weekend.
If she was going to do this she may as well bite the bullet and get the damned tree.
Double-checking the website, she typed the address into the maps app on her phone. At least it wasn’t too far away, and the drive would be pleasant. As long as she didn’t think about the destination or what she would be bringing home.
Crystal wasn’t wrong about the road.
Navigating the potholes took every ounce of concentration.
There was no way the CRV would be its usual pristine white after this little expedition.
She made a mental note to schedule in a wash and detail as soon as possible.
A large part of her had resisted even getting in the car to make the trip but she’d pulled on her big girl pants, reminded herself it was a necessary part of creating a celebratory atmosphere for her guests and pushed through.
Despite the length and depth of their friendship, Hannah had never given her old mentor even a cursory summary of why she so vehemently resisted the whole Christmas tradition.
Somehow, they’d never been in the same place at the same time at the end of the year so she’d never had to make excuses.
She’d been able to quietly disappear sometime around the 22nd and emerge from her bush escape on Boxing Day.
In a way, camping over Christmas had become a tradition in itself, albeit a solo one. And it had worked faultlessly.
Until now.
She would not think about why this Christmas had to be different and she would not think about what that would mean for her as the dreaded date approached.
Instead, she’d look out the window and focus on the scenery.
Towering eucalyptus trees stretched skywards on either side of the road, their trunks disappearing below the verge on the downhill side where it dropped into the valley, branches twisting across the canopy, in places forming magnificent archways across the road.
Around one corner, a glimpse of majestic Pigeon House Mountain with its distinctive cone-shaped top, the memory of its steep sandstone walls still embedded in her calves like the marine fossil she’d found on its summit.
Around the next corner, a lyrebird scurrying across the road with its road-runner style gait and vanishing into the bush, its tawny feathers providing immediate camouflage.
Her heart skittered, the way it always did when she spent time in the wilds.
Driving was nowhere as good as walking when she could be completely immersed in the landscape, but a satisfactory second best. So far she’d only sampled the hiking trails on the southern side of town, many of them still blackened, but this part of the world offered a whole new treasure trove of escapes.
The way the fires had scorched some parts of the bush and left other sections unscathed was a total mystery.
And now, barely ten months later, the new growth was nothing short of miraculous.
Yarrabee had taken a battering and lives had even been lost but both nature and the community were on the way to recovery.
According to the map on the dashboard, the tree farm was just around the next bend.
She eased her foot onto the brake, rounded the corner and there was the sign: Welcome to Uncle Willy’s.
Below the green type against a brilliant red background, a cheeky cartoonstyle Santa stood beside a pine tree brandishing an axe.
Hopefully there’d be an actual worker to do the felling and she wouldn’t have to do the deed herself.
A small parking area sat at the end of the drive, with only one parked car and a sign with instructions by the gate that led to the trees.
Even from a distance she could read the first point: Wear your boots.
Damn. She’d changed out of her work clothes into knee-length denims and a tank top but hadn’t given any thought to her footwear.
She glanced down at her white sandals with a shrug.
Surely she wouldn’t be traipsing through virgin bush.
The trees were right there, just beyond the sign, an ocean of them, green pinnacles piercing the brilliantly blue afternoon sky.
It would be fine. The rest of the instructions were straightforward: take a name tag; find a tree; tag it; report back with the tree location number; have the tree cut and netted.
Life was so much easier when everything was explained clearly and logically.
Apart from some particularly annoying flies, she was apparently on her own.
Hopefully the pretend Uncle Willy would appear at some point but in the meantime she could go find a tree.
Tag and Texta in hand, she walked in the direction the arrow pointed, took a left turn and meandered along the trail.
Trees a head smaller than her lined either side of the path, their scent already swamping her senses.
If nothing else, having one of them in her living room would make the house smell fresh.
These ones seemed a little small. If she was going to do this tree thing, it may as well be a decent size, maybe six foot or a little more.
She branched off onto another path into an area where a few trees had already been razed.
All that was left were bare stumps, sitting like amputated limbs in between their full-bodied cousins.
Her stomach contracted. Tree-felling was hardly ethical.
The world needed more of them not less, but this was for a good cause and the farm website said they were a sustainably run operation. So …
And there it was. A perfectly shaped specimen.
Branches evenly spaced. The top spike prime real estate for a sparkling silver star, like the one they’d had when she was a kid.
Nope. Not going there. Every frond green and healthy, not a brown patch in sight.
This was the one. She scribbled her name on the tag and hooked it over the closest branch. Now what?
Ah yes, the tree location. It had been on a flag at the entry to the row. Tracing her way back, she took a photo of the aisle number, returned to the entrance and pressed the buzzer by the sign. Pretty easy so far. Now she just had to get it home.
Voices murmured in the throng of trees at her back and she turned towards the sound.
A couple in very sensible footwear emerged, followed by someone carrying a tree that obscured almost his entire body, including his face.
The man and woman gave her a cursory smile as they followed the woodchopper to the far end of the car park, where he fed the tree into a giant metal funnel.
With the man, woman and net machine in the way, the farmer’s face was hidden but like his customers, he was well booted, wearing long sleeves and a hat.
He hoisted the netted tree onto the roof of their car and raised his hand in a farewell gesture. Good, old-fashioned service.
He turned to walk in her direction and lifted his head, eyes invisible behind his sunglasses. And yet that tell-tale tingle in Hannah’s loins started up in a nanosecond.
No. It couldn’t possibly be him.
She blinked. Blinked again, as if the action might make the man ambling towards her, a wry grin parting his lips, disappear in a puff of smoke.
But this man was no mirage.
He was, in fact, Cole Harrison.