Chapter 18
Saturday morning, Will and his children went to choose a Christmas tree from the Bigley Country Park shop.
Rather than intrude upon their family outing, Ernest and I set out for home as soon as it was light, winding our way through first fields, then the forest. The snow had mostly turned to muddy mush, with only the open fields maintaining a proper covering.
It was easy enough to avoid the spots of ice and more slippery stretches of path, and our walk was accompanied by a busy pitter-patter as the sun melted the last of the snow coating the trees and other foliage.
After the relief of stepping inside my own front door, I did a cursory check of the main floor, Ernest with his nose to the ground behind me.
I then headed upstairs for a much-needed shower.
Here was the thing – while the house was precisely as I’d left it, it also seemed different.
It was only once I was in the expanse of my vast bedroom that I realised why. I was different.
Two days in a house that was first and foremost a home, full of life and love and food and colour and art ranging from a stunning resin sculpture to a little girl’s crayon drawing, and now my stylish, ultra-modern, professionally styled house felt, well – just that.
Professional. Which I supposed had suited me, when my business was my whole life.
I removed my crumpled tweedy trousers and draped them like an oddly shaped throw on top of my pristine white duvet. I took off my socks and T-shirt and arranged them into eyes and a mouth on my pillow, as though my bed was occupied by a deranged puppet.
I missed my chairs, two of the only patterned objects in the house, now sitting in the middle of Tucker’s.
At that moment, my phone pinged with Darya’s word for the day: NEW.
Well, that was a sign if ever I needed one.
I postponed my shower, searching for the most eclectic, quirky-looking furniture shop I could find and ordering two huge armchairs covered in brightly coloured flowers on a vibrant green background.
They went with absolutely nothing in the rest of my house.
Which was not a problem because I’d finally accepted that I hated most of it, and once I’d helped Merry and Joel fix Tucker’s, this house would be my next project.
After lunch, I drove through the puddles back to Bigley, where Jordan was slouching on the bottom of the stairs, waiting for his dad. His nonchalant posture was betrayed by glowing cheeks and how keen he was to tell me about the escape room they had booked.
‘You’ve got to rescue Rudolph who’s been kidnapped, save Christmas, all that cheese. I think we’re locked in a giant advent calendar thing. Dad’ll probably be rubbish, but, you know, if there’s puzzle games or stuff like that I’m usually okay at them so I reckon we stand a chance.’
He continued rattling off more information until Bonnie barrelled into the hallway.
‘Jordan, stop talking! We’re waiting to start the decorations, and you just keep going on about that stupid space room. Blah, blah, blah. Elves and Santa and Rudolph and blah, blah, boring, blah. Alex has come to see me and Edith, not listen to you talking and talking and talking.’
Jordan’s face flushed. ‘Just because you don’t get to go out with Dad!’
Bonnie straightened up from where she’d been patting Ernest, because, of course, she’d asked me to bring him.
‘I don’t even want to go out with Daddy, I want to stay here with Alex and Ernest because that’s way funner and you’ll probably get locked in the room and can’t get out and have to stay there until Christmas Day!
Hopefully you will because then we won’t have to listen to all your boring talking. ’
‘Bonnie!’ Will came hurrying down the stairs. He wore a mahogany T-shirt the exact same colour as his hair, and grey jeans. He’d not shaved, and along with the stern glare and unkempt hair it made me think of pirates. ‘That’s not an acceptable way to speak to your brother. Or anyone else.’
‘Well, then he shouldn’t have—’
Will interrupted her with one of those parental noises that means, ‘You’d better abort that sentence now and come up with a better one before you get into more trouble.’
Bonnie stopped, huffed, folded her arms and rolled her eyes.
‘Sorry, Jordan.’
‘Anything else?’ Will asked.
‘I hope you have a lovely time in the space room even though it sounds rubbish.’
‘Well, it would be rubbish for you because you wouldn’t understand any of it!’ Jordan said, his voice getting louder.
‘Alex, I think Edith’s waiting for you in the kitchen.’ Will gave me a tight smile.
Taking the hint, I scurried off, finding Edith slicing oranges.
‘Hey,’ she said, looking up through a curtain of hair with a tentative smile that made my heart squeeze. She wore slouchy jogging bottoms with a long-sleeved crop top and looked about three years older than she had in her school uniform. ‘I’m not sure these are the right thickness.’
We were busy loading the perfectly sized slices onto a baking tray when Will came in, Bonnie trailing behind him with Ernest.
‘Girls, why don’t you make a start on the stuff in the dining room?’
Edith threw her dad a withering look. ‘Um, because we need to put the oranges in the oven to dry out first?’
‘Alex will do that. Go.’
‘Are you going to kiss Alex goodbye?’ Bonnie asked, with a sidelong smile.
‘Ugh, Bonnie, that’s gross!’ Poor Edith was almost as mortified as I was.
‘I am not!’ Will barked. ‘I was going to apologise for my children’s rude behaviour and was waiting for you to leave so I didn’t embarrass you.’
Edith shoved Bonnie out the kitchen door before she could respond.
Will rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Sorry. I could make excuses about how what with the snow, no school, Christmas, the momentous prospect of new decorations, everything’s a bit heightened. But, to be honest, it’s hardly unusual for my kids to be squabbling about nothing.’
‘Will, it’s fine. I have siblings.’
‘As for the kissing comment…’ He screwed up his face in anguish.
‘It’s fine. I also have nieces and nephews, remember?’
‘Are you sure you want to spend the afternoon here? I could cancel the escape room, rearrange it for another time…’
‘Go. Now! Before Jordan spontaneously combusts all over the stairs carpet. I’ve a feeling these girls will be a lot more amenable when you aren’t hovering about like an exam invigilator.’
My feeling was mostly correct. We made strings of orange-slice foxes and huge glittery stars to dangle from the rafters.
After wrapping silver and red twine around angel, reindeer and heart cookie-cutters, we decorated the gorgeous spruce tree with them.
I’d gathered some branches and ivy on my morning walk, and once they’d dried out, we arranged them on the mantlepiece, up the bannisters and everywhere else we could think of, adding synthetic berries, candles and strings of lights we found in the bag of old decorations.
Edith showed me how to build up the fire, which Will had lit before he left, and then I suggested we went through the old bag again looking for anything else worth hanging on the tree. That was when the illusion of Christmassy perfection shattered.
‘My mummy made this one,’ Bonnie pronounced, holding up a paper angel that had clearly been scribbled on by a small child.
Edith snatched it off her. ‘Don’t be silly. I made that in year one.’
‘Well, she definitely made this one!’ This time, Bonnie brandished a metal bell.
‘Duh! That was from a shop. You don’t know any of this because you weren’t even born, so just stop going on about it. Alex doesn’t care, anyway. Everyone knows you can’t even remember Mum.’
Bonnie opened her mouth and let out a rip-roaring shriek that startled Ernest awake.
She hurled the bell across the room, where it hit the fireplace with a clang, then snatched up another ornament and launched that one after the bell.
This one smashed into pieces on the mantle, half of which rebounded into the fire.
‘Bonnie!’ Edith screamed. ‘You stupid idiot. That was Mum’s blanket.’
Bonnie’s face turned pale, before she scrambled to her feet and ran out of the room. Edith, meanwhile, hurried over to the hearth, pawing through the broken shards. Her eyes were wild, hands frantic, but when I came to help, it was clear there was nothing but a few bits of resin.
‘We need to put out the fire,’ Edith gabbled, tears streaming down her face. ‘We might be able to save it. Or, or get the poker and see if we can poke it out.’ She lifted her head, eyes imploring. ‘We need to try, at least. Please?’
‘Edith, I’m so sorry.’ There was no way a piece of fabric would have survived those flames. I shuffled close enough to put one hand on her shoulder. For a while, she simply kneeled on the rug, her entire body rigid except for her chest, which shook and juddered as she tried to contain the pain.
‘I’m so sorry,’ was all I could think of to say, until she gave in, sinking onto the floor with a wail that cracked my heart in two.
I had no words of comfort, no consolation; we simply sat there, Edith’s eyes never leaving the fire, until my worry for Bonnie grew too pressing to ignore.
‘I’d better go and check on your sister.’
‘Why?’ Edith slowly sat up, her rough voice dripping with bitterness. ‘She did this. It’s her stupid obsession with Mum that made her throw it.’
‘I’m guessing you might have done a reckless thing before, when really upset or angry about missing your mum.’
‘Even if I did, it wasn’t okay!’
‘No. But did you feel terrible afterwards?’
She stared fiercely at the rug, arms pulling her knees up against her chest.
‘You know I need to make sure she’s okay and hasn’t done anything else she’ll regret.’
‘What, like rip up Mum’s teddy or stamp on her photo?’
‘Do you want to come with me?’
Edith shook her head. ‘I’ll clean up the bits so Ernest doesn’t stand on one and cut his paw.’
‘Are you sure? I don’t mind doing that later.’