Chapter 27
They went to the bar after all the plates were washed up.
Roo volunteered to be on drinks duty. She mixed an excellent pink gin and tonic for Elizabeth and a snowball for Jane and then she mixed one for herself because she knew its sweet frothiness would hit the spot.
Frank must have kept the ice bucket topped up, she decided, because it was full to the brim.
She reckoned his pub, The Salty Cockle, would be a great place to visit.
She’d always found the sea very healing, which is why she’d thought Whitby might be a good idea.
Then again, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d been going there to heal.
Outside, the snow was falling but in tiny feather flakes. Inside, they were all sitting in companionable silence in the same places they were in when they first sat down on the train, breathless, cold and covered in snow. Was that really only yesterday?
Roo had lit their Christingles which would burn out soon enough, but there was something about candles and their light that brought much more comfort and warmth than the capacity of their small flames would suggest.
‘Well, I am now leaving you for the evening,’ said Brian.
‘Mrs Cosgrove has prepared all the vegetables for tomorrow. I’m very partial to a parsnip, I have to say, and we only ever have them at Christmas funnily enough.
Why is that? We are going to relax with our game of Monopoly and no doubt I will be bankrupt in an hour.
Let’s hope I can get out of jail when I need to. ’
Heads swivelled to Henry who was oblivious to what Brian was saying because he was too busy savouring the malt whisky in his crystal tumbler as if it were nectar delivered from the gods.
‘So until tomorrow, the exciting big day. I’m going to leave you in the capable hands of the Andrews Sisters, who also were sisters like the Beverley Sisters but not like the Toomey Sisters.
I’m sorry again for that song I played earlier and if you are lonely this Christmas, remember that there are worse things.
Better to be alone than with the wrong person.
Alone and lonely can be two very different animals. Goodnight, everyone.’
‘You listening, Roo?’ asked Jane.
Elizabeth was listening too. Being alone wasn’t something she would be worried about; in fact she quite liked the stress-free periods with her own company.
She often looked on Rightmove, fantasising about moving out of the cold, clinical flat above the offices and into a crumbly little cottage somewhere out in the sticks.
It wasn’t lost on her that she fantasised more about this than moving in with Gregory and she fought against analysing it too hard because it could be very telling of the state of their relationship.
‘That’s more like it, Brian,’ said Grace as the Andrews Sisters started to sing about Christmas candles and their light being reminiscent of the light of the star that led the kings and shepherds to the stable.
‘Do you think it happened?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘Jesus and the stable and Mary? I hope it did.’
‘There was a historian called Flavius Josephus who was born only a couple of years after Jesus was said to have been crucified, and he knew people who had seen and heard him, and recorded it. He describes a man who did amazing deeds and was condemned to death by Pontius Pilate, and I believe Tacitus also was convinced of his existence.’ Jane then explained her knowledge.
‘My late husband took a great interest in the history after his… experience.’
‘But you remain unconvinced?’ asked Henry. He knew about Clifford’s changed beliefs, as Jane had told him when they were here earlier, enjoying each other’s company after his big reveal. They’d covered quite a lot of ground.
‘I remain… intrigued,’ she answered him. ‘I believe there are germs of truth in old myths, but as to how big those germs are…’ She shrugged, expressing her uncertainty.
‘Faith transcends all evidence,’ said Henry and Jane’s head snapped round to him, because he sounded exactly like Clifford in that moment, even down to the exact words he had used to her.
Roo licked her lips. She’d made a good job of her snowball. She didn’t want to finish it but she’d put five cherries in the bottom of it as a consolation prize for when she did.
‘You looked right at home behind that bar, Roo.’ Frank stuck up his thumb at her.
‘I think I’d enjoy being a barmaid more than I enjoy being a skivvy,’ she said, wrinkling up her nose.
‘Maybe I need to change my life up in the new year. I don’t want to live there and bump into Mr and Mrs “Urine”, and I don’t want my so-called friends avoiding me because they’re frightened to pick sides… ’
‘Sounds like they’ve already picked, Roo.’ Tim put his big meaty paw over hers. ‘You deserve better, love.’
‘You absolutely do.’ Frank clapped his hands together as if he meant business. ‘So… tomorrow then. I thought about two o’clock for lunch, that work with everyone? I can fit in with your plans if you were thinking about visiting relatives in the morning.’
He’d said it to be humorous and then realised that also could be open to misinterpretation by Grace. He didn’t even glance at her to see if such a thought was registered in her expression.
Jane yawned and set off a chain reaction.
‘Goodness, it’s hard work doing nothing, isn’t it?’
The song on the radio ended and cut to silence. Brian would be playing Monopoly now with his Cath. Roo thought he sounded like the sort of bloke who wouldn’t buy the hotels because he’d feel guilty about charging her the rent. Cath, however, would have no such qualms.
Roo couldn’t really imagine growing old with Aaron and him getting out a Monopoly board.
He liked games, but computer ones, he was obsessed by futuristic shooting games and killing zombies.
How often had she moaned to Amber about the time he spent loading up his virtual guns?
And Amber had said it was pathetic, but Amber must have been banging him at the same time.
She shook her head, hoping to dislodge thoughts of him, although she did allow herself to imagine him leaving the marital bed to sneak in a crafty game of Hitman, as he did with her sometimes.
She’d really thought that the only rivals she’d ever have to worry about were animated ones.
Pathetic indeed. She was better off without him, without them both, she knew this.
It was just that her heart needed to catch up with the knowledge that her brain was way ahead of.
They talked a little while they were finishing off their nightcaps, nothing deep, nothing serious, flotsam and jetsam words.
They were all weary, as if their stresses and strains had caught up with them and were forcing them to power down.
Frank was last to say his goodnights. Grace didn’t linger behind to claim her kiss, or even a word, but went to the cabin when Jane did.
He was oddly okay about that because today had been the start of the end of them, he’d felt it, and no doubt it would hit him like a ton of bricks soon enough, but for now he was conveniently numb.
He bent to pick up a coin on the carpet outside the bathroom in ‘Sigismund’.
Weird thing, with YES on one side and NO on the other.
He’d ask around tomorrow to see who it belonged to but he could do with a magic version of that coin to tell him what to do.
‘Should I end my marriage?’ he asked it in his head and flipped it in the air, caught it on the back of his hand and slapped the other hand quickly over it.
He couldn’t bear to see the answer, so he pushed it in his pocket for the morning.
He made his way to the head of the train to check everything was okay, just making sure things were secure and as they should be.
The odd feeling of being watched had disappeared, he realised, as he entered ‘Yongle’.
But then it would have, now that Henry Smith was part of them and no longer a hidden presence in the shadows.
Luck really had been on his side, getting him to the train.
Frank hoped it continued to stay with him for all he had to face with the authorities.
He filled a hessian sack full of logs for the fire while he was there; it seemed daft to waste the trip.
He caught sight of his reflection in a window as he was returning and he reminded himself of Santa with the haul over his shoulder.
Grace had made him a Santa suit years ago and he used to dress in it, sneak into their son’s bedroom on Christmas Eve.
He’d never done it quietly because he secretly wanted Billy to wake up and see him, but his boy never had.
He wondered if it was still there in the loft, though Grace wouldn’t have thrown it away, he knew that, because she’d kept his childhood in boxes: his school reports, his drawings and paintings, every card he’d sent her – every card Frank had sent her for that matter too.
She’d always clung on to the past as if one day scientists might discover such things were a ticket to travel backwards in time.
Twenty years ago tonight was the last time he’d worn that suit.
And though Grace had accused him many times of moving on where she couldn’t, she didn’t see that given the chance to go back to that night, he’d pay the price to do so – whatever the cost.