The Night Before Christmas (13 page)

‘You’re more than a builder,’ she accused him with a smile. ‘You’re an artisan.’

‘If you say so!’ He laughed out loud with sheer delight, and Lydia couldn’t help but join in with him, finding his pleasure in the building contagious.

Will smiled as his eyes met hers, and Lydia returned his look with warmth, caught up with his enthusiasm. He had a musical voice, and like a balm, it soothed Lydia and slowed her beating heart as she listened to him talk about something as real as bricks and mortar, finding it utterly refreshing to meet someone who was obsessed and passionate about something other than themselves, or the latest cause.

‘Whatever cowboy Jim got in knew nothing about how this house should have been renovated, the layout, the colours, the paper. All of those things are mostly from completely the wrong period, typical London types trying to make everything Georgian because that’s what the suits like. It might look pretty enough, but
it’s totally wrong for this old girl. Still, the money’s spent now. Perhaps Jim will let me do the rest and save himself a few bob.’ There was perhaps a minute’s silence as they both gazed into the now still and silent night, the snow having ceased, for now at least.

‘I’m sorry I said you were a bit of a shag,’ Lydia said suddenly. ‘I was quite drunk and it was very rude.’

Will chuckled. ‘It’s better than saying I’m a right gowk, I s’pose.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Lydia asked him.

‘Ugly bloke,’ he said, grinning.

‘It’s practically like another language,’ Lydia said, laughing.

‘Ah, not so much, these days. You still hear the dialect round and about now and then, among the old folk, but mostly I just trot it out to impress pretty girls or baffle the tourists.’

Lydia was still trying to decide if Will was flirting with her when they were interrupted.

‘There you are!’ Joanna appeared in the doorway, with a bottle of wine in her hand. ‘What are you two doing out here? Sorry, Will, I need a quick word with Lyds, is that okay?’

Will raised his eyebrows at Lydia, in commiseration, and taking a deep breath made his way back into the house.

‘Darling, please tell me what’s wrong?’ Joanna asked her. ‘Why did you get so uppity with me before? I was
just being me … you of all people know what I’m like. I’m just having a bit of fun with Will, that’s all.’

‘Yes, I do, I know, it’s just …’ Lydia faltered to a stop. ‘Jo-Jo, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong me.’

‘I think I do,’ Joanna said, her expression still and serious.

‘You do?’ Lydia caught her breath, guiltily.

‘You’re not sure if you want to marry Stephen, are you?’ Joanna asked her, more dismayed than Lydia would have expected. ‘He’s got the ring, and the pressure’s on, and now you’re not sure about it. I should have spotted it sooner, but I was too busy being all loved up. I’m sorry, Lydia, I got all caught up in my own excitement, I should have seen what was going on with you. You know you don’t have to say yes, don’t you?’

Lydia didn’t speak. After all, Joanna was mostly right. Only, she wasn’t just sure that she didn’t want to marry Stephen, she was now quite certain that she couldn’t stay in a relationship with him at all, no matter how much she cared about him. How could she, after what had happened? After Jackson had kissed her just a few hours earlier and told her he still had feelings for her? It didn’t matter that she didn’t know if she still had feelings for him, or if he even meant what he’d said. What mattered was that the moment she’d recklessly kissed Jackson back, she knew she didn’t feel the way she ought to about Stephen. If you were meant to
marry a man, you simply wouldn’t kiss another one, no matter who he was.

And yet here they were, right on the brink of Christmas,
Christmas
, the one day of the year Lydia had always longed to be perfect, just as it was for those few precious years before her parents split up. When she was a very little girl and her mum used to read her
The Night Before Christmas
as she tried to settle down to get some sleep, eventually drifting off dreaming of hearing sleigh bells sounding somewhere in the sky. But since her father had moved out and both of her parents had remarried, that perfect time had never come again. All the to-ing and fro-ing, all the back and forth between houses, one incomplete miserable Christmas lunch followed by another, always with something missing.

Lydia had thought that this year she’d cracked it; this year, in the perfect place with the perfect people, she’d feel again the way she had used to about this time of year that meant so much to her. How naïve, she thought bitterly; she should have known that was impossible. Even here, with her very best friends, amid the beautiful snowy landscape and in the house that looked like a wedding cake, there was still something missing.

‘So what are you going to do?’ Joanna asked her.

‘What
can
I do?’ Lydia asked desperately. ‘It’s Christmas in a couple of days, everyone’s stuck here
because of the snow. I can’t say or do anything now, I’d ruin everything.’

‘Perhaps you’re right, but what if he proposes in front of all of us and you have to say no? Or what if you wait until you are back in London and then you break up? He’ll know all this was just you pretending everything was okay when it wasn’t.’ Joanna shivered, pulling Lydia back into the relative warmth of the kitchen, and sloshing two large slugs of wine into a pair of mugs, before handing one to Lydia. ‘Sometimes I think it’s better to know the truth, even if it’s painful, rather than find out later that you were the last to know, do you know what I mean?’

Lydia looked at her old friend, who was trying so hard to help her. If there was ever a moment to tell her the truth about Jackson, then this was it. She steeled herself for the fallout.

But Joanna interrupted her gathering bravado. ‘The thing is, Lyds, I will be there for you, I promise, however you decide to handle things. But please, be nice to Jackson. It’s so important to me that he likes my friends and that you like him, because, you know, if you don’t like him, I won’t be able to marry him.’

‘Don’t be so silly,’ Lydia said. ‘If you truly both feel that way about each other, then what we think doesn’t matter!’

‘But it does, it does,’ Joanna told her. ‘You know that you and the girls are the nearest thing I have to family.
Oh, I know I swan about acting like I’m the bee’s knees, but honestly, Lyds, without knowing that you three are always there, no matter what … I’d be lost.’

‘And I’d be lost without you, too,’ Lydia said.

‘Good, come here and hug me, and let’s go back in there and see how long it takes to make that handsome Will blush.’

Chapter Nine

Lydia brushed her teeth for a very long time, in the hope that, after the large amount of wine and food Stephen had consumed, he would be asleep by the time she came out of the bathroom. The rest of the evening had passed quite pleasantly. She could see Will sitting quietly in the corner, sipping a whiskey, taking in the conversation, resigning himself to at least one night snowbound with a load of offcomers. Joanna calmed down considerably after her talk with Lydia, contenting herself to curl up on Jackson’s lap, like an over-indulged cat, while he stroked her hair, careful not to meet Lydia’s eye. Alex and David excused themselves early, for ‘back to front’ sex, Alex whispered in Lydia’s ear as she kissed her goodnight, and the hours slipped gently away until the clock on the mantel chimed eleven and Jim snored in his chair.

Lydia had almost nodded off herself when the sitting-room door creaked slowly open, and a small girl’s tousled head appeared around it.

‘I’m scared,’ Tilly said in a trembling voice.

‘I’ll go,’ Lydia said, before Katy could get up. ‘I’m beat, so I’ll settle Tilly and then get to bed myself.’

‘Thanks, Lyds,’ Katy said with a yawn. ‘I think this is the first time I’ve sat down all day.’

‘I’ll come too, then,’ Stephen said. ‘You two young ladies should definitely have an escort.’ Lydia smiled, as Stephen lifted Tilly into his arms, kissing her on the forehead. He was such good man, so kind and sweet. He could be a little vain sometimes, a little too self-absorbed and worthy, and sometimes a little thoughtless, but no more or less than anyone else, especially herself. Why did she have to fall out of love with him, without even noticing?

Maybe, Lydia thought to herself as she smoothed moisturiser over her neck and face, maybe she never had been in love with him? After all, they’d only met a few weeks after Jackson had returned to New York. Perhaps being with Stephen was just easy, a quick fix to the hurt she was feeling when Jackson left. He was so effortless to be with, loving but undemanding. He understood her work, her hours; he didn’t mind coming second to her career, because he felt the same way about his. It was fine that they kept odd hours, barely seeing each other most days, because, Lydia realised, they didn’t need to see each other every day. They didn’t long for the time when they could be together. If anything, she sometimes got the feeling that Stephen felt he was at a stage in his life when he ought to settle down, and that Lydia was as good a candidate to be his wife as any he was likely to meet. They fitted together so
perfectly, everybody said so; a match made in law school. Unhappily, Lydia couldn’t help but feel that the easy falling into step alongside another person had far more to do with convenience than it did with love.

After carrying Tilly to the foot of the stairs, Stephen had handed her over to Lydia and gone up to their room. Lydia took Tilly, her warm little body curled up in her arms, through to the back of the house where the family bedrooms could be reached by a separate staircase to the rear of their private living quarters.

‘What a lovely room,’ Lydia said, as she set Tilly down and looked around her at the floral-papered room illuminated with soft-pink fairy lights. ‘It’s very pretty and cosy.’

‘I don’t like it,’ Tilly said. ‘I keep thinking Mad Molly is going to come and get me.’

Lydia thought for a moment. ‘When I was a little girl, I used to be scared of a glove puppet that my dad got me for my birthday. It was a Punch puppet, you know, like Punch and Judy, with a wooden head and pointed chin and nose, and evil little eyes. I hated it, but I didn’t want to say anything to Mum and Dad because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. So I buried it at the bottom of all of my toys in the toy cupboard. But I couldn’t get to sleep at night, because I thought it would push its way out and come and get me. A glove puppet! Silly old me!’ Tilly giggled, drawing her quilt up under her chin. ‘The only way I used to
feel better was to get all of my soft toys, every single one, and pile them up on my bed, because everybody knows nothing scary can get you if you’ve got your animals protecting you. Would you like to try it?’

Tilly nodded, chuckling merrily as Lydia set about gathering various teddies, bunnies, puppies, kittens, lambs, chicks and even one rat from the four corners of Tilly’s bedroom and covering the little girl’s bed in them, until only her heart-shaped face peeped out between the plush.

‘There, now all of your friends are looking after you, and you will be totally fine.’

‘Promise?’ Tilly asked.

‘I promise.’ Lydia nodded once, bending over to kiss the tip of the child’s nose, as Tilly snuggled down into her soft-toy army. ‘And if you sleep extra well tonight, then I’m sure that when Father Christmas visits you on Christmas Eve, he’ll leave you a little extra gift.’

‘Really?’ Tilly’s eyes widened. ‘Like what?’

‘Like … perhaps a lipstick or slightly used bottle of perfume,’ Lydia said, wondering what she had in her bag that she could give away.

‘Wow!’ Tilly breathed, clearly impressed by the promise of cosmetics. ‘I could spray Vincent with it.’

‘You could! But you know what you need to do now, don’t you, sweetie?’

‘Go to sleepy bye-byes,’ Tilly told her solemnly, before turning on her side, tucking her best teddy under
her arm and inserting her thumb in her mouth. ‘Night, night.’

On her way back to her room, she paused outside Jake’s door, peering in to see him clutching his bear, arm flung above his head, flat out. Perhaps, at least tonight, the pair of them would let their mother have one rare good night’s sleep.

Stephen had been lying on top of the covers wearing his dressing gown when Lydia entered their room, a glass of the brandy Katy had left in a decanter for them cradled in his hand.

‘Hello, darling,’ he said, holding out his hand to her. Obediently, Lydia had gone to him, letting him pull her into a hug. ‘I’ve been a crap boyfriend, haven’t I?’ he asked her.

‘No,’ she said into the thick towelling of his dressing gown.

‘I have, I moaned about coming here, even though I knew you really wanted it. I fell asleep on you … got all grumpy and stupid. I’m sorry, Lydia.’

He rolled her onto her back and kissed her briefly on the lips, his rather bleary eyes roaming her face. ‘Let me make it up to you now.’

Lydia stopped his hand, venturing under the hem of her top, with her own. ‘After I’ve brushed my teeth,’ she said, pushing him off her.

‘That’s not very romantic,’ Stephen complained, as she clambered off the bed and headed for the bathroom.

‘Yes, but neither is my garlic breath,’ Lydia said, shutting the door, wondering if he’d realise they hadn’t eaten any garlic that night.

After some more teeth brushing, just to be on the safe side, Lydia peered out of the bathroom door and spied Stephen lying like a starfish in the middle of the bed, snoring gently. Gingerly, she tiptoed across the floor and ever so slowly slid herself under the covers to occupy what tiny slither of bed was left. Reaching out to turn off the lamp, Lydia looked into the darkness. She heard the sound of Joanna’s voice next door, the shutting of doors, footfalls on the stairs, the ancient timber creaking and settling as the heating switched off, all the noises of a house going to sleep, and Stephen slumbering next to her. Her mind was spinning as she tried to make sense of everything that had happened to her that day.

Did Jackson really mean what he’d said? Had he really come back from New York and found her with Stephen, or was he just adding his own spin to their story, trying to save face? She knew how all-consuming grief could be, but surely he could have made some effort to get in touch with her after his father’s death. And what about now? She wasn’t sure how she felt about anything. Did he really have feelings for her still? And if he cared as much about Joanna as he seemed to, what the hell was he doing kissing another woman?
More importantly, what the hell was she doing, letting him?

Perhaps she and Jackson were meant to be together. It was certainly one radical twist of fate bringing them back together this way. If he did still have feelings for her and she for him, then this could be their last chance to work things out. But at what price? Lydia seriously doubted Joanna would be as understanding about her taking Jackson from her as she was about sharing a pair of shoes or some earrings. It was far more likely that Jackson was just a serial romantic, a drama queen, unable to resist complicating a complicated situation just a little more, addicted to making women love him. One thing Lydia knew for sure was that she didn’t know anything about the real Jackson Blake at all, and she wasn’t sure it would be very sensible to try and find out.

As she laid there, any chance of sleep seeming impossible, Lydia noticed a flickering against the wall opposite the window, like a butterfly of light, coming and going, rising and falling in the darkness. Perplexed and intrigued, she got out of bed, her toes curling on the cold floorboards, and went to look out of the turret-room window, pressing her nose against the glass. She was just able to catch a glimpse of the light disappearing into the boathouse at the bottom of the garden on the shore of the lake. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and Lydia gasped as the dirty narrow
window of the boathouse was illuminated with the same unearthly glow.

Without thinking, she pulled on her socks and a sweater over her pyjamas and headed downstairs, feeling like the naughty little girl she had once been, long ago, creeping down the stairs in the early hours of Christmas Day, desperate to catch Santa or at least open her presents before the sun was anywhere near up. The smell of the tree brought back memories, kneeling on the patterned carpet, with pine needles scratching between her toes, ripping through the cheap, waxy sort of paper that her mum always used to buy in bulk, the anticipation of what she might find beneath always outweighing the reality.

Lydia felt like she was walking in a dream as she found her coat and, careful to tuck her pyjama bottoms into the boots that she borrowed, advanced into the silent night to look for the light. The moon was huge in the sky, casting an eerie light over the lake that shimmered in a silvery greeting, and gliding over the tops of the mountains with an ethereal glow. If ever there was a night to see the ghost of Mad Molly, Lydia thought, this was it. It was the perfect night for a Christmas ghost story.

The crunch of the frozen snow beneath her wellies seemed to echo around the mountains, seeming loud enough in the hushed landscape to wake the dead. Which, now she came to think of it, wasn’t such a good
idea. Still, if there were an actual ghost to be found, Lydia thought it was her duty to be the one to find her – for Tilly’s sake, at least – and perhaps to ask it, ever so nicely, to go away.

She held her breath as she approached the old rundown boathouse, with its ancient rotting timber, still standing precariously on crooked stilts that somehow held it up above the water. Steeling herself, she put her hand on the rough, mossy door and pushed it open, gasping at what she saw before her.

Will Dacre, artisan builder, was sitting huddled in a leaky-looking rowing boat, drinking from a silver flask, a little Calor gas lamp flickering at his feet, as he gazed up at a broken skylight.

‘Fucking hell,’ Lydia exclaimed with a laugh, flooded with relief and a sense of stupidity as she realised just how much she’d been caught up in her expectation of meeting Mad Molly. ‘You’re not a ghost!’

Will looked quizzical. ‘A ghost? Don’t be a divvy. No such thing.’

‘Tell that to the kids, they’re sure the lady buried in the back garden’s going to get them.’

Will observed her for a moment and then held out his flask to her.

After a moment’s hesitation, Lydia took it and sipped from the metallic-tasting neck.

‘Just so you know, I’m not an alcoholic,’ Will told her. ‘I couldn’t sleep, for some reason. It’s a long time
since I’ve been in this house, and, well, this place used to be quite important to me.’

‘The boathouse?’ Lydia asked, accepting his hand as she climbed uncertainly into the boat, looking dubiously at the slick of water that covered its bottom.

‘Aye, when I were a lad I used to go out with the girl that lived here,’ he told her, nodding in the direction of the house. ‘I was fifteen, she was a year older.’

‘A toy boy!’ she teased him. ‘How scandalous!’

‘Prettiest girl in Aldersbeck, in Keswick, too. All the boys liked her, with her long black hair and skin that shone. And boobs.’ Will’s boyish grin took Lydia by surprise. ‘She had great boobs.’

‘You rake,’ she said with a smile.

‘We went out for a whole summer. Her dad would be working the farm, as it used to be back then, so he’d be out most of the day and her mum was always busy running the B&B next door. They owned both houses but kept them separate. So we’d more or less have the whole place to ourselves.’

‘Is this where you … became a man?’ Lydia was uncharacteristically coy.

That crooked smiled again, and Will shook his head. ‘No. I told all the lads we did it all the time, but she wasn’t ready and, in truth, neither was I.’ He hesitated, his eyes reflecting a treasured memory. ‘But she was my first love, and I mean love. I could have just looked at her all day long and that would have been enough.
But she let me kiss her and … a bit more. One night, I just couldn’t wait for it to be morning so that I could see her again, so I came up to the house from the village and threw pebbles at her window. I don’t know how I got away with it, but she came down. And we lay here, maybe even in this very boat, in each other’s arms, looking at the stars through that broken skylight. Nothing has changed here; it’s like time’s stood still. This is still the perfect place to bring the girl you love.’

Lydia followed Will’s gaze up and saw the black square in the ceiling, beautifully framing the magnificently starry night.

‘How romantic,’ she breathed, catching Will smiling at her as she looked back at him. ‘Like Romeo and Juliet.’

‘It ended badly,’ Will said, suddenly serious. ‘Really badly.’

‘Oh no, what happened?’ Lydia asked him, on the edge of her damp little seat. ‘Did she die unexpectedly, leaving you heartbroken and never able to love again?’