The Christmas Surprise (23 page)

By the time Rosie got home, Stephen already knew the gossip. Oddly, it seemed to have cheered him up.

‘Insurance job!’ he announced, pulling open the door with Apostil in his left arm. Rosie thought how carefully they had handled the brand-new baby, just weeks ago, whereas now they hauled him everywhere. In fact, he loved being jiggled up and down and thrown about; he would giggle when Stephen pretended to drop him. Rosie would inwardly wince a little bit but wouldn’t let it show. She knew children needed to be toughened up by their dads. And after all, she was the one who’d nearly dropped him up at Lipton Hall.

‘I can’t believe how quickly gossip passes through this town,’ grumbled Rosie.

‘Well, aren’t you pleased nobody was hurt?’

‘Someone was, actually,’ said Rosie, explaining Tina’s meltdown. Stephen’s brow furrowed when he heard, and Rosie couldn’t bear to mention Tina’s idea, not right now. They’d had about a bellyful already. Tonight they were going to put Apostil to bed nice and early, cuddle up and do their best not to think about practicalities, or families, or anything other than the joy and warmth of being together, their baby sleeping peacefully, their own little world small, cosy and safe.

The next week passed peacefully enough – they didn’t see Henrietta or Pamela at all. But the cottage was growing colder and colder every day. It simply wasn’t suitable. Rosie started looking at houses online in Derby. The ones in their price range were pretty grim – long terraces on busy roads – but they had three bedrooms and central heating. She didn’t dare mention it to Stephen again. They were going to have to make some very tough decisions. An estate agent came over from Carningford to have a look at the cottage, and made some very approving noises about saleability and weekenders, which Rosie did not enjoy one bit and certainly wasn’t going to mention to Lilian. But he mentioned too that he could quite possibly rent it out for the summer season, which she thought might be more attractive. Not
quite so devastating for her great-aunt as selling the only home she had ever known; her last remaining link to what had once been a busy little place, with her brothers thundering up and down the little steps; her father, tending the roses; Lilian herself, a funny, angular little thing, skinny and dark, running the sweetshop, looking after the house after her mother died, never marrying. Rosie didn’t want to sell any more than Lilian would.

One morning in early December, the children came rushing to the school gates to meet Stephen as he walked down the hill with his cane. Mr Dog liked to accompany him about halfway, then go and have a sniff around Malik’s Spar shop, in the unlikely event that Malik was throwing out any unwanted sausages. After that he would pad back home on his own.

Normally, particularly on clear sunny mornings like this one, when their breath blew cloudy on the frosty air, the children would be charging about at full pelt in the playground, cheeks pink, wrapped up in huge duvet coats that turned them into tiny Michelin men, the occasional stray mitten hung up on the climbing frame, the sound of laughter and hubbub in the air cheering the farmers passing through the village, who had already been up in the cold and the dark for several hours, and who required a steaming cup of tea, sixty-five pence
from the bakery, before making their way up to Rosie’s for some mint cake to see them through.

Today, however, they were lining the gates, and as soon as Stephen hove into view they yelled his name.

‘Mr Lakeman! Mr Lakeman!’

Stephen looked at them enquiringly.

‘We got pictures! We got pictures from our other school!!!’

Stephen walked straight into the classroom, letting the children follow for once, even though the bell hadn’t rung. Sure enough, up on the wall were photographs.

Mrs Baptiste put her head round the classroom door.

‘Hello!’ she said. ‘I hoped to get these done for you as a surprise before you came in. Unfortunately, SOME nosy parkers’ – Clover Lumb, the nosiest girl in the school, looked totally unbowed – ‘peered through the window and made it impossible. We got an email from your friend with the funny name …’

‘Faustine,’ smiled Stephen, looking around. The photos were wonderful: pictures of the village children smiling, waving, showing off the little slates they shared one between ten. The tired-looking young, heavy female teacher, the beaten-down shed with more than sixty children crammed into it; even the scrawny pale-coffee-coloured cow who put her head through the gaps in the walls from time to time; they were all there. The contrast between the shimmering heat and arid plains of
Africa and Derbyshire’s rolling fertile hills and frosted landscape filled with plenty and variety was striking. But so was the thing that didn’t change at all: the smiles on the faces of the children, both there and here. There was no difference between them whatsoever.

For fifteen minutes that morning, before work could begin, Stephen took lots of pictures of the children: reading in the little library corner; playing on their climbing frame; next to the whiteboard or clustered round the vivarium with their sad lizard, Blizzard, sitting inside. The huge disparity between what these children had and what there was in Apostil’s village was utterly compelling. After that, they all moved into the gym and Stephen hosted a Q&A session about his trip to Africa, about what it was like there and even, briefly, on how they had brought back Apostil.

‘So,’ said Emily, Tina’s daughter. She was normally quiet as a mouse, so when she spoke, people tended to listen. ‘So they don’t have books in their school?’

‘Not many,’ said Stephen. ‘People don’t have much there.’

‘So we should send them some of ours,’ said Emily. Lots of agreeing noises went round the room. ‘And,’ she added, ‘maybe we could send them some money to help them buy more books.’

Stephen nodded.

‘I think maybe we should try and raise a little money for that.’

‘Yay!’ said the children.

Rosie, meanwhile, was not having anything like as good a morning. Apostil had been grizzly, the bathwater had got cold almost immediately and there appeared to be frost on the insides of the windows. She needed to do a shop, which meant she had to scrape the insides of the tin for Apostil’s morning bottle, and he had looked at her in a very grumpy fashion as if he blamed her for that, then pooed twice in quick succession, so the entire downstairs smelled bad. She had an order list a mile long to get done with the wholesalers – frankly, if you ran out of Mars Bars, you didn’t really deserve to call yourself a sweetshop – and she was conscious that even by Lipton standards her hair was becoming an absolute disaster area (although it would have surprised her to learn – and she wouldn’t have believed it – that Stephen much preferred it loose and soft around her shoulders rather than lacquered and tonged into reluctant submission. He didn’t really understand the concept of ‘frizz’, he just thought it looked nice).

So when the doorbell rang sharply and she still wasn’t quite zipped into her long-sleeved dress (there had been a few jokes from Lilian about when she was going to lose
the baby weight, none of which she appreciated), she cursed loudly under her breath. She did get the occasional person begging her to open early, normally on Christmas Eve or Valentine’s Day, but this was a perfectly normal December Monday morning.

‘Yes?’ she hollered, leaving Apostil on the floor and glancing at him to make sure he didn’t roll over. He couldn’t, not yet, but his strong left arm was constantly flailing that way and occasionally he made it almost on to his side. He thought this was a hilarious joke whenever he managed it.

‘Stay!’ she said, smiling at him. His huge dark eyes crumpled up in adoration. Even your worst day, she thought, with a baby in it has its ridiculous moments of joy.

The bell rang again. Frowning, and remembering she hadn’t brushed her hair, she opened the door a crack.

In front of her stood a large woman in a too-tight trouser suit, with short hair, a large pair of bright red glasses, and an iPad nestled in the crook of her elbow.

‘Hello?’ said Rosie. The air coming in through the door was absolutely arctic, and the fire was only embers. She didn’t want to let in any more than was absolutely necessary.

‘Joy Armstrong?’ said the woman, without glancing up from her iPad. ‘Derbyshire County Council? You’re expecting us?’

Rosie’s heart skipped a beat in panic. She tried to think back over all the reams of paperwork they’d read and completed, piled up and filed on the tiny kitchen table. The council had mentioned that they would be sending someone round, but did they have a meeting arranged? She absolutely couldn’t remember.

‘I’m so sorry, I don’t have you in my … diary,’ she said lamely.

Joy let out a short laugh.

‘No, we don’t tell you exactly when we’re coming,’ she said, as if this were totally obvious. ‘We need to see you in your normal environment. May I come in?’

Rosie swallowed.

‘This isn’t an ideal time. I’m just leaving for work …’

‘Ah,’ said Joy, a concerned yet slightly pleased look stretching over her face. ‘Are you finding things a struggle?’

‘No,’ said Rosie, and threw open the door. ‘Come in.’