Chapter Three
They had everything planned out.
‘Board games,’ Ted announced as their plan for the first afternoon.
‘Board games?’ Jen failed to hide her disgust. She’d been expecting more in the way of bars and less in the way of retiree pastimes from a reunion with her college pals.
He smiled widely, apparently oblivious to her horror. ‘Yep, at The Village Café, and honestly, the food there is just amazing. Come on Jen, get on board with the plan.’
They all groaned, and Jen couldn’t help softening. He looked so pleased with himself, and they used to play board games at college sometimes, sitting up late into the night, drinking cheap vodka mixed with cheap cola and getting more and more animated as the games became more and more shambolic.
She sighed as she wrapped her scarf around her neck. She doubted that somewhere called The Village Café in a quaint little place like Babblebrook would stretch to anything as exciting as vodka and Coke, and she’d been hoping that they would avoid the village itself altogether.
‘You and your dad jokes,’ she grumbled as they all piled out of the house.
‘I have a Monopoly on them,’ he said.
They all laughed despite themselves, complaining as Ted just grinned and shrugged.
‘Shocking,’ Rich said. ‘I don’t know how Sarah puts up with you.’
‘Oh, she hates my dad jokes,’ Ted said cheerfully. ‘That’s why they’re all coming out now, I’ve been saving them up for you lot.’
‘Lucky us.’ Lou rolled her eyes, smiling at him.
Jen pulled her coat tighter around herself – the sky had turned grey, the warmth of the sun almost entirely gone, and their breath clouded as they walked.
She momentarily missed her hat, as her ears began to feel the chill, but the image of little Lottie cradling it filled her with enough warmth to keep her going.
There were footsteps behind the group as they turned onto the main village street and began walking past a row of cottages that were all sporting colourful lights on their porches.
Jen glanced back, convinced for a moment that Julia was walking behind them, but it was just a girl of about fourteen, walking a little dog and waiting patiently as it sniffed the hedge that lined the village green.
‘Come on, Holly, let’s get home,’ she said.
Holly. How festive, Jen thought in disgust, as she tried to focus on what her friends were talking about.
In fact, it looked like the whole of Babblebrook was going big when it came to Christmas; every house twinkled with colourful lights, every window seemed to display a tree sparkling with decorations.
The village didn’t appear to have got the memo about tasteful candles and muted white lights. It was enough to turn Jen’s stomach.
‘I feel like I’ve stepped into Narnia,’ she grumbled.
‘Oh, here we go! You big old Scrooge,’ Lou said.
‘Well, everything’s gone Christmas crazy here! It’s only the beginning of December.’
Jen eyed the huge inflatable Santa that currently wavered in the chilly breeze as it sat on the Babblebrook Primary School sign.
‘Well, yeah,’ Ted said. ‘I’m learning that we like to do Christmas properly in Babblebrook.’
‘We? You don’t even live here!’
He shrugged. ‘I work at the school, that makes me an honorary resident.’
Jen was liking his apparent attachment to the village, and inevitable proximity to her sister, less and less.
‘Anyway, you’ve got your books wrong,’ Rich said.
They all looked at him questioningly. ‘Narnia – it’s always winter and never Christmas.’
By the time he’d protested against the good-natured accusations of pedantry, they were at the café.
It was a pretty place of golden Cotswolds stone, nestled alongside the sweet shop and post office.
It had a gleaming, red-painted wooden sign.
Like everywhere else in the village, Christmas had arrived in style; colourful fairy lights twinkled through the steamed-up big bay window and iced biscuits in the shape of snowflakes dangled there.
Inside, the warm air smelled of gingerbread and coffee, and a Christmas tree stood in the corner, decorated with robin-shaped baubles and plenty of chocolate treats.
Rich glanced around. ‘This is great, I must bring the kids, they’d love it.’ He looked at the tables filled with people – couples, families, friends. ‘You know, Jen, I wonder if we’ll see your—’
‘There’s a free table,’ Jen said quickly, marching over to the corner where there were spaces. She caught a glimpse of the others exchanging a glance as they followed.
‘Apparently, last year Marnie – she owns the café – she made a gingerbread version of Babblebrook, and everyone took a house to decorate and then it was displayed in the window,’ Ted said, as proudly as if he’d made the gingerbread village himself.
‘Wow,’ Rich said. ‘We make one gingerbread house with the kids every year, and that’s quite enough.’
Lou was nodding. ‘It sounds amazing.’
It sounded over the top to Jen, but she stopped herself from saying so.
As they settled at the table, Ted waved at a smiling woman with dark hair who stood behind the counter. ‘Yeah, I think it was. I wasn’t working here then but the kids at school are all talking about it and wondering whether they’ll get to do it again.’
The woman came over with menus, laughing as she overheard their conversation.
‘Well, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?
’ she said. This must be Marnie, the café owner.
Her dark eyes danced and Jen was pretty sure there would be another gingerbread village in the window before Christmas came.
She wondered briefly whether her niece and nephew had decorated a house to put in there, and whether they’d do it again. She wouldn’t be here to find out.
Marnie gazed at them warmly. ‘Are these the friends you were telling me about?’ she asked Ted.
He nodded and introduced them. She greeted them all and pointed out the board games, stacked neatly on some wooden shelves in the corner.
Ted warned them not to fill up too much on food, he was cooking a cottage pie for them all later, but everything looked and smelled so delicious, it was impossible to resist.
The table was soon full, drinks and treats squeezed onto the red gingham cloth wherever there was a space around the game of 7 Wonders they had spread over the table.
There were mince pies, salted caramel cupcakes and peppermint candy cane bites, pots of tea, Jen’s coffee and a delicious-smelling chilli hot chocolate that Ted ordered.
He looked smug as they all gasped at the sight of the creamy drink and eyed him with more than a little envy. He shrugged, grinning. ‘Marnie’s speciality. There’s a whole menu of hot chocolates, you all could have ordered one.’
‘Definitely having one of those next time,’ Lou said.
Ted took a sip, smacking his lips and sitting back in his seat. ‘Mug-nificient.’
Despite herself, Jen laughed, almost spitting a piece of the chocolate snowflake biscuit she’d just taken a bite of onto the table.
The warm, soft biscuit and crisp icing decoration was heavenly.
Her Christmas aversion aside, she wasn’t going to deny herself a delicious treat just because it was shaped like a snowflake.
This wasn’t what she’d imagined for her birthday celebration.
But, as they played the game, laughing and teasing each other, she looked around at these friends she’d known so long, who were all instantly relaxed in each other’s company, as though they’d time travelled right back to their college days.
She was lucky to have them, and it didn’t matter where they were or how they were celebrating; they were together, and that was the important thing.
The cute café with its festive bunting and vases of flowers on the tables, the atmosphere buzzing quietly as the customers laughed and chatted as they ate, wasn’t her usual Friday night venue. But it would have to do for tonight.
Jen always lost these games when they played. She lacked the killer instinct, unable to plan or muster up any great desire to win. The others all took it far more seriously, but even they seemed somewhat distracted today, focused as much on catching up with news as on the game.
Jen listened as they talked about their lives – kids, partners, schools. Subjects she had nothing to contribute to.
Rich was head of key stage two, his wife a pharmacist, and their lives were a constant juggle of work, childcare and family time.
He was filled with enthusiasm as he spoke about the challenges of his job and the joys of family life, reaching for his phone to show them photos of the family smiling as they walked in forests and paddled in seas and ate picnics. Four freckled, grinning faces.
Lou and her husband shared childcare and both worked part-time, she as the Reception teacher and he as the Year Three teacher, in the same school.
And Ted, now the deputy head of Babblebrook Primary, responsible for the well-being of all those children, and settled into a steady relationship with his girlfriend, Sarah.
They all looked so happy, so confident. So grown-up. Jen thought back to the crazy nights of their college years, carefree days and good times. Some of the best of her life.
And some of the worst. But she never dwelled on that.
She listened to the conversations and didn’t join in.
She had no exciting new job to tell them about, in fact she had no steady job at all.
Her first teaching role had ended in disaster, and she’d never been able to face it again, taking temporary job after temporary job – bar work, waitressing, cleaning, seasonal retail jobs. A list of workplaces. Not a career.
And that was how she liked it. Losing a job was no problem, you could always just get another. Losing a career, well, that was a blow she refused to risk again.
Lou’s face softened as she showed them more pictures on her phone: the twins eating, mashed-up broccoli smeared over their gummy grinning faces; the twins sitting in a sandpit on a lawn; the twins in matching pyjamas, flushed and sleepy.
The latest one, the twins in front of a Christmas tree that was decorated with toilet-roll snowmen and glitter-covered cardboard angels.
Something in Jen’s stomach twisted, and she pushed away memories of a tree with similar home-made decorations, and a little face, wreathed in smiles, blue eyes gazing up at her.
Jen swallowed. She loved her life; she was carefree, she had no ties, no one to hurt her. She could jet off somewhere warm with no notice – quite often did for Christmas. She could eat what she wanted and go where she wanted and see who she wanted. And she loved that.
‘You’ll never guess what happened at work the other week,’ she said.
They looked at her expectantly, the game momentarily forgotten.
Jen glanced around at them, taking a sip of her cappuccino before launching into the story; she was confident this would entertain. She’d been dining out on it for weeks now.
‘This woman came into the pub and she had her support animal with her, popped it right there on the bar, right in among the dirty glasses and bowls of peanuts.’
They were all listening, waiting for the next detail. She glanced around triumphantly. ‘And it was a guinea pig! Can you imagine?’
Lou laughed, and the others looked perplexed.
‘What, she just dumped it on the bar? Was it in a cage or something?’ Rich asked.
Jen shook her head.
‘A lead.’
‘A lead?’ Lou was incredulous now, her eyes rounding out like saucers.
‘I kid you not. She brought it in on a lead and put it on the bar and when the manager told her to move it because, you know . . .’
‘Hygiene,’ Ted said.
‘Hygiene, exactly, she said she couldn’t because it was her support animal.’
Rich was chuckling, and began to wipe his eyes. ‘A guinea pig, though . . .’
‘I know!’
‘Aww, it’s cute though,’ Lou said. ‘I’d like a guinea pig support animal.’
‘It’s the lead though!’ Ted was looking incredulous.
‘I mean, they’ve got tiny little legs, right?
How – how was she walking with it? She must’ve been, like – tiptoeing.
Right?’ The others laughed as he looked around.
‘I mean . . .’ He tapped his fingers on the table in tiny movements, close together, to indicate small steps.
‘I know, right?’ Jen grinned. Their laughter was earning a few good-naturedly curious glances from other customers. She took another sip of coffee, satisfied that her story had entertained them.
Rich sighed as he wiped his eyes, their laughter abating. ‘So, it’s – you’re still at the pub? Is that just part-time, or a, you know. Permanent kind of thing?’
They all fell silent, turning serious gazes on her now. There was something in their expressions, a kind of careful lack of judgement, that set her on edge. She tried to think of another funny story to distract them with.
She shrugged. ‘Oh, you know. It suits me for now.’
A silence fell over the group as they looked at her, nodding, their expressions carefully neutral.
‘Oh well, that’s – that’s good, then,’ Lou said. The mum of the group, ever the gentle one. She would never criticise her friend’s life choices, and yet Jen flushed, feeling defensive.
‘It’s fun, I get to meet some really interesting people. And the hours suit me, you know I’ve always been a night owl!’ She glanced at Ted, willing him to agree with her; they’d spent many a night sitting up till the small hours putting the world to rights when they were at college.
He nodded, clearing his throat and glancing down at the game. ‘So, where were we with this?’ he asked, his leg bouncing up and down under the table.
Politely, they continued with the game. No one asked about her work, or talked of their own, for the rest of the evening.
Jen played half-heartedly, losing as always.
She didn’t know why she felt so hollow. Her friends had made their own choices, and she was glad for them.
They were content with their jobs and relationships, and that was fine, but it wasn’t for her.
She was independent, a free spirit, not reliant on anyone. And she was happy with her choices.