Chapter 36 Jacob
Jacob
Something had to be done, but Jacob had no idea what to say or who to say it to.
He wandered around Brentwell, trying to decide what to do.
He had forgotten to charge his phone yet again, so couldn’t call Charlotte, so in the end walked right across town to the hospital, where he dropped in on Rita and Nora.
He found Nora sitting up in bed, Roy perched on her lap, Rita sitting beside her bed. Nora stared at him like a stranger, so Rita excused herself and took Jacob out into the waiting room to give him an update.
‘She’s much better,’ she told him. ‘It’s a gradual process, though. It doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to take her back to the USA for Christmas, so my family is planning to come over and spend it here in England. Is there much going on in this town?’
Jacob smiled. ‘There’s a festival,’ he said. ‘Down at the park on Christmas Eve.’
‘Oh, how lovely.’
He forced a smile. ‘I hope so.’
He left Rita to go back to Nora’s bedside, and then headed across town to the children’s home.
The snow was falling again, and with more snow forecast for the rest of the week, it seemed certain that Brentwell would have a white Christmas.
Whether it would be a happy Christmas or not, depended on whether Jacob could somehow protect the festival from James’s nefarious plans.
The children were in the middle of a Monopoly tournament. Jacob joined in with one game, made a few poor financial decisions and soon found himself bankrupt. Lisa offered him a consolatory coffee.
‘Don’t tell me that you’re moping because you just got beaten by two hotels on Mayfair two turns in a row?’ Lisa said. ‘I used to babysit you, remember? You were always rubbish at Monopoly.’
‘No,’ Jacob said, shaking his head. ‘It’s not that.’ How could he bring it up? His stepbrother was about to destroy Christmas for all the children, and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it.
He gave Lisa a brief overview of what he had seen in the theatre. ‘I honestly thought he had changed,’ he said. ‘He hides it so well.’
‘He’s a professional. He’s also a master manipulator. I can remember you getting upset all the time because you couldn’t find your toys. He was moving them about, literally toying with you; excuse the pun. He doesn’t know any different.’
‘What can I do? I could call the police, but I know what Mark will say. He’s not doing anything illegal. It’s a stage show, and the committee asked him to perform.’
Lisa frowned. ‘I have no idea. But you’re resourceful, Jacob. You’ll think of something.’
‘I don’t think I’m resourceful enough to save an entire festival from turning into some demonic nightmare that will destroy Christmas for an entire generation of Brentwell’s children.’
Lisa smiled. ‘You always found your toys in the end, didn’t you? You’ll figure something out.’
It was getting late when he headed home. The wind had got up, the snow driving almost sideways. A couple of times he found himself making wrong turns because it was impossible to pick the street signs out of the snow.
By the time he made it back to his flat, he was exhausted.
He stood outside for a moment, looking up at his lonely window on the first floor above the estate agent.
A closure notice had gone up in the estate agent’s window just this week, which meant he would soon be living above an abandoned business.
He was renting, so there was a possibility the building would be sold out from beneath him.
Still, it most likely wouldn’t happen until the new year, so he would worry about it then.
He was just about to head down the alleyway to the inner courtyard and the slippery outer stairs when he heard a car door open and close behind him.
He paused, taking a deep breath. If this was James, wanting some other confrontation, he was in the right mood for it.
While a punch up in the snow hadn’t been on his radar for this evening’s entertainment, perhaps it would help shake out a few of his frustrations.
He turned around.
‘Jacob?’
He felt his knees tremble. Charlotte stood there, hat pressed down over her hair, cheeks flushed, already covered in snow. Jacob, who had spent the last thirty minutes hiking across town from the children’s home, could only imagine what he looked like.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What a nice surprise.’
Charlotte took a few steps towards him, almost tripping in the snow that rose to the ankles of her boots. She looked lovely, a beautiful summer flower left out in the snow.
‘Thank goodness you showed up,’ she said. ‘I was freezing to death in there, and I thought that I might have got the wrong place. It’s not easy to see in this snow, is it?’
He reached for her, pulling her close, holding her against him. ‘It’s the right place,’ he said. ‘For better or worse. What happened to your car?’
‘I had the engine running, and I ran out of petrol,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I have a coat.’
She felt freezing. He put one arm around her shoulders as he led her through the alleyway to the inner courtyard.
‘I’m afraid I haven’t cleaned up,’ he said. ‘Not that there’s much to clean.’
‘Oh, you live up those stairs?’ she said, pointing at the rickety steel steps leading to the front door. ‘Have you ever tried sliding down the bannisters?’
‘Actually, no,’ Jacob said. ‘The snow hides that all the paint is flaking off. I’d probably get tetanus in my bum. Although you could probably sand them down if you really wanted to try. Here, let me help you up.’
He took her hand and led her up the stairs. At the top, she paused as he started to open the door.
‘You know what?’ she said. ‘This courtyard just needs a Christmas tree. Then it would look just as pretty as the one behind your aunt’s tearoom.’
‘You think so?’
‘Absolutely. All right, don’t keep me waiting. You’ve seen my place. Let’s have a look at yours.’
He paused. ‘Out of interest … how did you know where I live? Did my aunt tell you?’
She smiled and shook her head, as though holding onto a secret she was desperate to divulge.
‘Your mum,’ she said.
‘My mum?’
‘Yes. I just had a lovely afternoon with her.’
‘You did?’
‘There were a few things I was wondering about … but we don’t need to worry about that right now.
’ She reached up and put her arms around his neck.
‘There doesn’t need to be a perfect time, does there?
’ she said. ‘Here, at the top of these stairs, in the middle of a blizzard, it’s just about right enough, isn’t it? ’
Jacob put his arms on her waist. His heart was hammering. ‘At the top of a rickety metal fire escape that could collapse at any moment … with my shoes and socks soaked … so cold I can barely feel my hands—’
‘Perfect.’ She closed her eyes, waiting. Jacob couldn’t let her wait any longer. He leaned forward, planting a delicate kiss on her lips.
They had beans on toast. Jacob managed to find an egg that was questionably still in date at the back of his fridge, so they added milk and a few herbs and scrambled it, eating half each.
Charlotte seemed to find his tiny flat quaint, and liked that he didn’t have a TV, but lots of old paperbacks in a shelf behind the sofa.
‘Oh, I love this one!’ she said, tugging out a tattered copy of The Stand that more closely resembled a dead bird than a book.
‘You like Stephen King?’
Charlotte grinned. ‘I mean, once you’ve read the entire Pippy Longstocking series, you’ve got to move on to something, haven’t you?’
‘I didn’t mean that you weren’t into books … you just come across as a little more light-hearted.’
‘Looks can be deceiving,’ Charlotte said.
‘Except for me,’ Jacob said. ‘What you see is exactly what you get.’
Charlotte cocked her head at him, giving a little smile. ‘I like that,’ she said.
Jacob insisted on sleeping on the sofa, although Charlotte forced him into a game of rock, paper, scissors, which he won from best of five.
When he woke the next morning, however, he found her, still fully clothed, nestled up against him.
He put an arm around her shoulders, holding her close, breathing in the scent of her hair, until he abruptly sneezed, Charlotte woke, and they both ended up in a heap on the floor.
‘So … what’s for breakfast?’ Charlotte asked.
Jacob shrugged. ‘I usually pick up something from Pete in Sycamore Park, or wait until I get to work. Marjorie usually has something she wants me to road test before it goes on sale.’
‘Ooh, sounds good.’ Charlotte frowned. ‘I have to fix my car, though. The battery’s dead. Harry will be desperate to go out.’
‘Shall we walk over to your place? Or maybe take a bus?’
Charlotte pulled back the curtains and peered outside. ‘I don’t think many buses will be running today.’
Jacob at least had coffee, and in the end, they left Charlotte’s car parked against the pavement and walked over to her place.
Eight inches of snow had fallen overnight, and the only vehicles they saw were a few tractors and a council snow plough.
Harry was delighted to see both of them.
While Jacob took him out into the back garden, Charlotte made some phone calls to see who could come out and fix her car.
While he watched the dog nosing about in the snow-covered bushes, Jacob wondered what he could do about James.
Perhaps he could ask the organisers to cancel his stepbrother’s performance?
But then, it seemed like James’s wicked trick to make Father Christmas disappear and replace him with a demonic Krampus wasn’t part of the schedule. He was likely to do it anyway.
When he came back in, he explained to Charlotte what he had seen in the theatre the day before.
‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘He really does have it in for everyone, doesn’t he?’
‘He’s like a juggernaut,’ Jacob said. ‘I don’t know what I can do to stop him.’
Charlotte rubbed her chin. ‘Maybe you can’t,’ she said.
‘All those children will be so disappointed.’
‘He’s planning to prank us,’ Charlotte said. ‘So why don’t we get in there first, and prank him instead?’
‘How?’
‘Well … he’s planning to make Father Christmas disappear, isn’t he? Why don’t we just make the entire festival disappear instead?’
Jacob stared at her. ‘What?’
‘I have an idea,’ she said. ‘Let me make a phone call. It’ll need to be a coordinated effort, so we’ll need to get everyone involved in the festival onboard. How about we arrange a meeting in your aunt’s tearoom?’
Jacob glanced at his phone, on the table, plugged into Charlotte’s charger. ‘Let me give her a call,’ he said.