Chapter 29
Nell glared at a tacky plastic Santa that sang ho, ho, ho in an overly cheery voice every time anyone came within breathing distance. In an overheated and busy garden centre a month before Christmas, that was far too often. Santa needed to put a sock in it, or she’d do it for him.
Angie tsked at the price tag on a set of six festive table mats and put them back on the shelf. “Any idea yet what you’ll be doing for Christmas?”
Wasn’t that the million-dollar question?
Not knowing the answer was partly to blame for her fractious mood.
“Mattie and I spoke about it last night, and I invited her to stay at mine, but she’s going to get back to me.
Something about her brother and his family.
And the work schedule, of course.” Their virtual call had been in lieu of the long weekend they’d planned to spend together in London.
Instead, Mattie was on location in Norway but had managed to grab some time to talk from her hotel room.
Angie stopped to smell a festive candle. “Cloves. Yuk.” She wrinkled her nose. “So I guess you won’t say anything to your family yet?”
“There’s no point rocking the boat until I know what’s happening.
They’re presuming I’ll turn up as usual, sans partner.
” Nell smiled at the self-deprecation in her tone.
Maybe she should out herself to them regardless of where and with whom she spent Christmas.
It could be a present to herself: claiming her identity.
She followed Angie into the next aisle. It shimmered with rows upon rows of shiny coloured tinsel. Nell flared her nostrils. “I hate tinsel. It’s so gaudy. That’s one of the few things my parents and I agree on. No tinsel in the house. We have a small and tasteful Christmas tree in the parlour.”
Angie laughed. “Parlour? What century is this?”
“Ha ha. In the front living room then, is that better?” She shook her head but grinned anyway.
“Our tree always had an angel on the top of it and then, one year, one of my three brothers defaced it with black marker pen. There was uproar. They never confessed, but it certainly wasn’t me or Caroline.
The nearest my sister and I got to rebelling was to change the words in ‘Jingle Bells’ to ‘Batman smells and Robin flew away.’” A sudden stab of longing made her close her eyes.
She wanted to share memories like these with Mattie.
Did she go the whole hog with Christmas decorations?
Baubles, fake snow, and garlands of tinsel everywhere?
She could get used to that, for Mattie. Nell picked up a snow globe that was supposed to depict the stable scene with the three kings but looked more like three badly dressed drunk men who’d robbed a bank.
“Confession time. I don’t own any Christmas decorations. ”
Angie looked scandalized. “None at all?”
“Not one bauble.”
Angie narrowed her eyes. “I can’t call you Scrooge, because you’re far too generous and compassionate.”
“One of my brothers calls me the Grinch.”
“No way. The Grinch was just as bad as Scrooge. Except green.” Angie contemplated a twenty-piece set of festive cookie cutters. “How’s Mattie managing with the new role? I know it’s a new adventure, but she’ll have taken her old baggage with her.”
“Holding it together, from what I can tell.” Nell shrugged. “It’s easy to put on a front when you’re chatting on a video call. And Mattie is expert at it.”
Angie frowned. “I’m trying desperately hard not to pry, but I’m worried about you, Nell. You haven’t been your usual self for the last week or two.”
“My usual self or the self I’ve become since I met Mattie?”
“Both.”
Angie had a point. Everything had been going around and around Nell’s head, and it had become distracting.
She poked at a Frosty the Snowman exhibit.
It was more fragile than it looked. She knew the feeling.
“This long-distance thing? It’s not easy.
” She fixed her gaze on the gold tinsel.
“The Christmas Shop at the Garden Centre is hardly the place for a heart-to-heart.”
“I disagree. It’s so much easier to talk honestly while doing something else. Even easier if you can’t look at each other,” said Angie. “Rosie came out to me while I was driving up the M5. It’s a good job I’d already guessed, otherwise I might’ve crashed.”
“That’s so Rosie.” Nell’s laugh fell away.
“Everything between me and Mattie feels so vague. We might do this, we might do that. I’m in limbo the whole time.
” God, sharing feelings like this was so difficult.
She turned away from Angie’s sympathetic look and back to the tinsel.
“I’ve fallen so hard for her, but she’s…
I don’t know, holding me at arm’s length.
I get the idea I’m way more invested than she is.
And it would be so easy for her to meet someone else. ”
Angie ran her fingertips over the tinsel. “Is that what’s scaring you?”
“Among other things. She’s confident, expansive, and gregarious. All the things I’m not.” Nell’s vision went a little blurry. “I don’t know what to do with myself when she’s not around, which is most of the time.”
“I know you like your own company, but sometimes I think you’re lonely, which is very different from being alone,” said Angie.
“It wasn’t a problem before I met Mattie.” Nell plucked at the tinsel. Bits of gold foil stuck to her sweaty fingertips. “I thought of joining a walking club, but most people want to chat the whole way, and they’ll either walk too slowly or tackle it like it’s a military campaign.”
Angie rescued the tinsel garland before Nell could pull it to shreds. “There’s always that book club Rosie mentioned.”
“I’ll think about it.” She really might too. “Are you all packed for your holiday?”
Angie and Graham closed the B&B for two weeks every December to go on their own holiday. This year, it was a break in the Caribbean, starting in Antigua and moving on to the British Virgin Islands. Had Mattie been there? It would go top of their list if she hadn’t.
“Packed, yes, but Christmas present-buying is nowhere near finished.” She grimaced. “That means I’ll have to fight the hordes in the shops when we get back.”
They walked to the end of the aisle and braved the next one.
A larger-than-life inflatable Santa Claus wobbled on his voluminous backside.
“Why can’t a garden centre just sell garden stuff?
Plants, and seeds, and lawnmowers,” she said in mock grumpiness.
She peered at the label on what she thought was a tablecloth but turned out to be luxury polyester curtains with a festive fireside theme.
But the crowning glory was the Christmas festive toilet lid.
She laughed. “What fresh hell is this?” Possibly she asked too loudly because a garden centre employee wearing a red and green elf’s hat looked at her with disdain.
Angie tucked her hand into Nell’s elbow. “Come on, let’s get some hot chocolate and cake from the cafe before you turn into the Grinch after all.”
Nell refused to buy anything remotely Christmas-related until Mattie had given her answer.
Instead, she bought two dozen tulip bulbs, all of which she ought to plant as soon as possible, so they could establish roots before the first frost of winter.
The borders at the top end of the garden would be the ideal place for them.
However, the box of bulbs sat by the back door until the following weekend, when the rain finally let up.
She wrapped up in her old, padded coat and a beanie.
Most likely, she’d be shedding a layer or two once she’d warmed up from digging.
She stabbed the spade into the ground and used her booted foot to push the metal down.
The earth was thick and heavy with clay, and it clung to the blade of the spade.
She added some home-grown compost and sand into the border to help drainage.
Then she planted the bulbs, taking care to make sure their pointed side faced upwards.
“There you go. You can sleep until spring,” she said, when she’d finished covering them up with soil.
And then she rolled her eyes. She’d started speaking to herself and to inanimate objects.
That’s what lonely people do. She jammed her hands into her coat pockets.
Planting bulbs hadn’t taken long. Not long enough, if she was honest. There were still plenty of daylight hours left.
She glanced over the fence at Cove House.
Angie and Graham had flown to Antigua a couple of days ago, otherwise she would’ve suggested a walk.
Nell’s phone vibrated in her pocket. Mattie?
She was still in Norway, but it was possible she’d have an answer about Christmas.
Nell opened the notification and scowled at the reminder for her next dental appointment.
She shoved the phone back into her pocket and glowered at the garden.
What other jobs could she do? There was a lot of preparation work to do if she wanted to have a good crop of vegetables next summer.
So far, she’d cleared the weeds and the remains of last season’s crops from the vegetable plot at the bottom of her garden.
Next was the process of digging over the cloying soil and mixing in compost. Now was as good a time as any.