Chapter 6
I hadn’t realised how tired I was until I wake up to the sound of ‘Joy to the World’ being sung from somewhere below and have to squint in the sunlight coming through the curtains I forgot to draw last night.
I get out of bed in my Christmas pyjamas and shrug the borrowed cardigan back on and wrap it around me like a dressing gown as I head downstairs, glad the castle is cosy enough to find my way around without the aid of a map.
‘Ahh, you’re awake, my love!’ A woman in her sixties with short greying hair turns around from the stove when I push open the kitchen door, like she was expecting me at any moment. ‘I said you’d be tired after such a long day of travelling, didn’t I?’
She stops what she’s doing and marches across the kitchen and envelops me into a hug that I have absolutely no choice about. ‘I’m Nancy. I’m so pleased to meet you, Lula.’
‘You too.’ I wheeze from the tightness of her hug, but she doesn’t let go until I’m mere moments from suffocation. ‘Please, call me Lu.’ I rub my throat, trying to encourage my airway to re-open.
‘How did you sleep?’
I go to answer with my usual answer – restlessly and constantly woken by the sound of sirens – but things are different here.
I wasn’t woken by anything except the morning calls of seabirds, and if I woke up at all during the night, I don’t remember it, despite the unfamiliar place.
‘Amazingly, actually. I didn’t even know eighteen-tog duvets existed.
I’ve never slept under anything so cosy. ’
‘Not much choice in an old place like this. It gets chilly,’ she says, and I can already feel the coldness of the kitchen floor seeping in through my socks.
Nancy wraps her hands around my upper arms and marches me over to the table and pushes me into a chair. ‘Now, what’ll you have for breakfast? I can make some toast, or a fry-up, or bake something, or anything else that takes your fancy, you just say the word.’
‘Cereal?’
‘Yes, there’s plenty of that. I didn’t know what you liked so I got a selection.
Put your favourites on the fridge list and I’ll be sure to get them next time I go shopping.
’ She goes across the kitchen and returns with an empty bowl, a spoon, and a bottle of milk, which she puts on the table in front of me, and then goes back again and peers into a cupboard while calling out cereal options.
‘I can get—’ I go to get up and get my own, but she turns around holding a box of corn flakes and looks so severe that she might be about to batter me with it.
‘I won’t hear of it.’
‘I’m staff, if anything,’ I protest. ‘I’m not actually the lady of the house.’
‘Oh, I don’t care about that, it’s been such a long time since I had a lovely young lass to dote on.’
I’m torn between smiling because she seems serious, even though she doesn’t know me and I could be the worst young lass she’s ever met, and blushing so hard that I singe a hole in the table.
She brings the box of corn flakes over and thankfully lets me pour them out myself.
She sits down in the chair next to me. ‘What did you make of the master of the house?’
‘He’s lovely,’ I say without thinking. ‘He seemed really… genuine. Warm and kind.’
She evidently recognises his cardigan, so I add, ‘A real gentleman.’
‘That he is, indeed. A handsome one too, am I right?’
I wish I hadn’t chosen that exact moment to swallow a mouthful of corn flakes because I promptly choke on them.
‘No one can deny he’s very handsome,’ I say carefully when I can speak again. I don’t know if this will be repeated to Ollie, but at the same time, he has mirrors. It’s not like I’m stating an unknown fact by agreeing that he’s nice-looking.
I’ve never been scrutinised while eating cereal before, but she’s not trying to make me uncomfortable. Instead, I feel like she’s trying to get a measure of me in the least intrusive way possible.
Eventually she reaches over to pat my arm and concludes, ‘I’m glad you’re here. He needs someone like you around.’
I’m intrigued by that, and only partially because she met me five minutes ago and has no idea what I’m like. I chomp through corn flakes in a rush to ask her what she means, but she continues without prompting.
‘He’s lost himself in recent years, and he needs to be reminded of what really matters at Christmas… and in life, even though I have no idea how the two of you are ever going to pull this off.’
From what Ollie said yesterday, I’d assumed that she and Hamish were completely on board, especially given that their grandchildren are involved. ‘You don’t approve of his plan?’
She hesitates for long enough that I assume this is something she hasn’t told Ollie and is hoping I won’t either.
‘I’m an old-fashioned gal. I think honesty is always the best policy in every situation.
Secrets like this have a habit of getting loose, no matter how far he’s willing to go to prevent that happening.
’ She waves a hand towards me, indicating that I am a step too far.
‘His bosses would understand, and if they didn’t then so be it.
Sometimes I think the best thing he could do is lose that bloody job anyway. ’
I’m seconds away from choking again when she realises she can smell burning and rushes back across the kitchen to the stove, leaving me to finish my cereal with minimal hazards to my throat health, and a head full of thoughts about Ollie and this job he’s trying so hard to keep.
When I take my empty bowl back across the kitchen, intending to wash it up, she takes it from my hands and physically blocks the sink like a particularly petite rugby player, silently threatening me with a tackle should I try to get past.
I look at the fridge instead, a huge double-doored thing that’s vastly taller than either of us.
There’s all sorts of magnets and info stuck to it, including the much-needed Wi-Fi password, which I gratefully take a photo of, and a few magnetic notebooks, covered in lists with three different sets of handwriting.
Ollie’s, Hamish’s, and Nancy’s. One is a list of ‘jobs that need to be done’ and another has a list titled ‘things we need’, and the list is so long that someone’s torn off a couple of sheets and stuck them separately to the fridge with normal magnets, and it makes me realise again that Ollie really is putting so much into this, in both effort and expense.
‘I’m told I need to show you some Christmas decorations?’ Nancy’s soft Scottish accent comes from behind me as she peers over my shoulder.
‘Yes! That is my job, after all.’ It’s easy to get sidetracked with the whole wife thing, but my main job has to be to decorate the castle, and I’m more than a little daunted by the thought of it.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, after I’ve showered, got properly dressed and thrown my hair up in a tufty ponytail, Nancy is escorting me to the third floor and to one of the storage rooms Ollie pointed out last night.
I should probably have left his cardigan behind, but it’s so warm and cosy that I couldn’t resist putting it on again, and no perfume I own will ever be as good as the scent of the aftershave that infuses it.
‘Here we go. Welcome to the ghosts of Christmases past.’ She unlocks the door and then slips the key off her keyring and hands it to me, almost like she’s glad to be rid of it.
‘You’ll be needing that more than I will, my love.
Lord knows what you’re going to find in there.
I run the mop over the floor every so often, but most of those boxes haven’t been touched for a decade and a half. ’
The door creaks as I push it open and step into what looks like a glittery time capsule, complete with a layer of dust so thick that it could be mistaken for grey snow, and row upon row of neatly labelled boxes, some on shelving, some probably a lot more haphazardly stacked than they once were as the cardboard has started disintegrating over time.
Nancy hovers in the doorway. ‘Ollie hasn’t bothered with Christmas since his parents passed.
Hamish always used to make sure there was a wee tree in the entrance hall, but since he joined Galligan & Brenton and started going away for their annual Christmas getaway, there’s not been any point.
Christmas is a difficult time when you’ve lost people who should be here. ’
The smell is one of a room that’s been shut away for a long time and needs some fresh air let in, although the only hint of daylight is coming through a curtained window on the other side of the room with far too many boxes between here and there to even contemplate reaching it, and the general mustiness competes with the metallic tang of old tinsel and ghostly cinnamon from years ago.
It’s one of the saddest rooms I’ve ever been in. Decades of Christmases gone by, lost to time, filled with memories that aren’t mine but are so strong that I can almost feel them clamouring to be released.
I run my fingers across the front of a box labelled ‘outdoor lights’ in neat lettering. ‘What happened to his parents?’
‘They died in a car accident,’ Nancy replies softly.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. That’s awful.’ I look back at her. ‘Ollie said you’d been friends forever too.’
‘Indeed. Their loss… left a big hole right through this place. That boy was twenty-five, full of life and rebellious in the cheekiest way possible, and in the blink of an eye, he went from being a happy-go-lucky wee laddie to being an adult with a legacy on his shoulders.’ She holds her arms open, indicating the castle around us.
‘All while battling through insurmountable grief. This castle was his playground when he was younger, but it’s easy to be young and carefree when your parents are taking care of everything.
He had to take on sole responsibility in an instant.
He hasn’t loved this place in the same way since they passed.
I was surprised by his accidental invitation this year to the bosses and that dreadful co-worker, but maybe it’ll be a good thing in the long run. One last time, so to speak.’