Chapter Forty-One
Julia had put a plea out for decorations on the village WhatsApp, and by the time Jen arrived at the school there was already a crowd of people trickling into the hall. Ted was there, huddled into his wool coat, welcoming them.
‘Jen,’ he said when he caught sight of her, the relief in his voice palpable. His eyes lit up, filling with warmth. He leaned in as she reached him, his lips almost brushing her cheek as he spoke. ‘Do you really think we can pull this off?’
‘Of course,’ she said, making sure her voice carried a confidence she didn’t feel. He glanced around, and she could see the doubt in his expression.
She unwound her scarf and immediately got to work.
The hall was full of people – Pat and Matt, Lauren and Emma, Gloria and Bob, Gillian.
All walking purposefully around with armfuls of decorations they’d brought from home.
Reverend Pauline was standing with her hands on her hips, instructing Lauren, who was up a stepladder, on where to hang a particularly blingy strand of tinsel.
‘Up on the left, up a bit, up, up!’ she called, her voice booming around the hall as Lauren obediently reached and stretched. ‘No, other left, that’s right, up, up, yes, you’ve got it! That’s the ticket.’
‘Oh wow, look at all this!’ Jen said, gazing around at the positive hive of cheerful activity. ‘Amazing. I can’t believe everyone’s chipped in like this.’
Ted smiled. ‘That’s Babblebrook.’
‘Right, well. Let’s get going then.’
Jen busied herself setting up tables around the edge of the hall for Marnie’s food to go on, as well as the tombola Ted had organised and her own craft activities. Ted was busy putting the finishing touches to Santa’s grotto, which was in the classroom next door.
By the time Marnie and Andrew arrived with the food, the hall was decorated to the nines, looking like a glorious winter wonderland of various mismatched decorations – the school tree still stood in the corner, but now every surface was covered with tinsel, fairy lights, paperchains and streamers.
Giant baubles, shiny Santas, red-nosed Rudolphs and Christmas fairies hung from every possible place.
It was like a Christmas fairy had sneezed over the hall, covering it with glitter and tinsel. It was not subtle. The children were going to love it.
Everything was ready just in the nick of time.
Either Marnie had been up baking all night, or she had some magical capacity to produce great quantities of delicious Christmas treats out of nowhere – Jen wouldn’t put it past her.
Either way, she and Andrew soon had the tables covered with Christmas-themed tablecloths and were busy laying out trays of mince pies, candy-cane cakes, salted caramel cupcakes and various savoury pastries, from a traditional sausage roll to a walnut and stilton wrap.
Matt had a table filled with iced biscuits in the shape of stockings, trees, Santas, snowmen and more.
‘These look amazing,’ Jen said, and his cheeks flushed pink. ‘The children will love them! Did you make them all? You must’ve been up all night.’
‘Oh, not really,’ he said, smiling. ‘I just knocked them up last night when Marnie asked me to, and iced them this morning. They dried just in time.’
‘Thank you so much. I think you’ll be the most popular stall!’
He laughed, and eyed Marnie’s hot chocolate stand next to him. ‘I’m not sure about that.’
Pat was busy organising a band of volunteers in the kitchen who were going to be providing tea, coffee and squash.
Jen had given up on the bar, but she had warned Gillian that there might be an influx when the fair ended.
She’d just laughed. ‘There’s always an influx after a village event – the nativity service, the Easter bonnet parade, the village fête, the carol singing – you name it, it ends up at The Plough. ’
Jen laughed. It seemed that Gillian was well prepared for the sudden demand for mulled wine and beer that would inevitably take place that evening.
‘Wow,’ Ted said, appearing at her shoulder and gazing round the hall. ‘This is – something!’
Jen smiled. ‘Not quite the sophisticated soirée I had in mind, but I think the village WhatsApp did us proud in the end.’
He was staring up at the decorations. ‘Yeah, Babblebrook doesn’t really do sophisticated, if I’m honest. This is perfect.
’ He looked at her, full of warmth and admiration.
Her heart gave a little skip. She was just pleased that she’d proved herself to him, that was all.
‘You’ve really pulled this off,’ he said.
She smiled, looking into his soft brown eyes and feeling, as she always did in his presence, safe and solid and happy.
When everything was ready, Alan Wood approached her, wearing wellies and a Santa hat.
‘The uh – reindeer are here,’ he said, jerking his head to indicate the cows that were standing patiently in the playground. The snow had at last stopped falling, and the day had turned sunny and clear.
Jen hurried out, retrieving the makeshift antlers she’d made from branches and attaching them to the patient animals’ heads.
They stared at her with their doe eyes, calmly chewing the hay Alan had brought.
He’d set up a little fenced-off area for them, while Barbara was all set to manage the queue of children who would no doubt soon gather.
‘What’s this?’ Ted had come to see what the commotion was about. His shoulders were shaking with laughter.
Jen grinned. ‘Reindeer! Obviously, Mr Piper.’
‘Obviously,’ he said. His gaze on her was full of affection, his smile wide and gentle. Her heart swelled. ‘You really have thought of everything, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘You know, I really . . .’
‘Ho, ho, ho,’ a voice boomed, and they turned to see Andrew, dressed in a Santa outfit, his stomach plumped out with a cushion and his blue eyes sparkling.
‘Oh great! The guest of honour’s here,’ Ted said. He glanced over to the crowds that were starting to gather outside the school gate. ‘Time to get this party started!’
She watched as he greeted everyone, giving a short and funny speech.
‘And, if you can indulge me for one moment longer, before you go on to enjoy the food, crafts, Santa’s grotto, real reindeer –’ he wiggled his eyebrows at this point and the parents, who had all seen the ‘reindeer’ on the way in, laughed – ‘and then the disco, please could we all take a moment to thank my great friend, Jen Ward, who has organised this whole thing, despite being sabotaged by the weather, and without whom Babblebrook Primary would not be hosting its first Christmas fair!’
He beckoned to her, and Jen joined him at the front of the hall, laughing and nodding at the round of applause and loud whoops that came from the direction of Julia and Dan.
There was extra cheering from the corner, and she glanced over to see Lou and her husband, each holding one of the twins, and Rich and his family.
Lou smiled as Jen waved enthusiastically; of course they were here.
The school that Lou worked in and the school Rich’s children went to were local.
They’d probably hosted the Christmas fair in previous years.
‘That’s my auntie Jen, that is,’ Amy said.
‘And my Train Lady,’ added Lottie.
The hall filled with happy, noisy children and parents, and Jen spent the next hour busily supervising the craft table. Lou and Rich brought their children over, and they were soon having a happy, messy time creating handprint reindeer decorations.
‘This is amazing,’ Lou said. She hugged Jen across the table, squeezing her extra tight; Jen had filled her in on Anthony’s betrayal. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this, Ted told us that you saved the day.’ She looked genuinely impressed.
Jen gently fished a soggy pompom out of a toddler’s mouth. ‘Oh, I don’t know about that!’
‘No, really,’ Rich said. ‘The roads were a nightmare, they only started clearing in the past hour or so, I can’t imagine how you pulled all this together. We didn’t even know if we were going to make it.’ He eyed his children, now perfectly content as they worked. ‘Big drama.’ He rolled his eyes.
‘I’m glad you did,’ Jen said. ‘It’s great to see you both.’
‘You too.’ Lou smiled. ‘Although I’m sure you’re horrified at being stuck in Babblebrook for so long!’ She pulled a sympathetic face.
Jen smiled. ‘You know what? I’ve realised that Babblebrook isn’t so bad.’
The time passed in a cheerful blur, and Jen could feel that she was in her element, encouraging and patiently helping the children as they worked on their creations.
The familiar polish-and-wood smell of the school, and the boards on the wall that displayed the pupils’ work, felt like home.
And she knew that this was where she was meant to be.
She could no longer run from her calling. She loved this, she was good at this, and it was what she wanted to do. She needed to go back to teaching.
And she realised, with a sudden clarity, that there was only one person she wanted to share this with. One person who would understand, one person whose opinion mattered.
The realisation hit her just as they lowered the lights, and Reverend Pauline and her trusty karaoke machine began the disco.
She soon had ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ blasting out and was encouraging the children to dance along, demonstrating by doing, for some reason that Jen couldn’t fathom, the birdie dance.
Soon the hall was filled with little children in Christmas jumpers flapping their arms and wiggling their bottoms, and Jen knew with absolute certainty that Reverend Pauline had been the perfect choice to replace the band.
She glanced up and met Ted’s eye; he was watching her from across the hall. The warmth of his gaze made her stomach flip.
Surely that feeling couldn’t be butterflies.
Her lips parted and her heart began to pound. The memories of what it felt like to be in his arms, to be in the safest and most exciting place in the world, crashed through her. Across the sea of children, their eyes were locked together.
He was looking at her as he had so many times over the years. It was only now that she saw in it the tenderness, the depth of care and understanding, that had always been there.
It was only now that she understood what it meant.