The Night Before Christmas (18 page)

‘It doesn’t work!’ Lydia said, her cheeks blazing,
furious that she’d let herself be drawn in by those dark eyes.

‘Probably the burner just needs cleaning.’ Will handed her his empty mug. ‘Now, make me another warmish coffee, woman, while I do my third job for free.’

‘It’s working?’ Katy stared at the Aga, her hands clasped together like a little girl who’s just found a puppy in a shoe box.

Will patted the Aga, and checked his watch. ‘Yep, it should be ready to use at around eight tomorrow morning. ‘If you’d had a whole turkey, you’d have needed to brown it in the roasting oven first and then slow cook it for eight or ten hours in the simmering oven, which means you wouldn’t be eating Christmas dinner until midnight. So it’s lucky really that Lydia mutilated it beyond recognition. When you think about it, she did you a favour because now you can probably cook the whole thing in the roasting oven for four or five hours.’

‘Oh my God, I love you!’ Will froze as Katy threw her arms around him and kissed him on the lips for about ten more seconds than was seemly.

‘Fuck, no one said we were swinging,’ Joanna said as she appeared. ‘If we’re swinging, I want a turn on Will next.’

‘Please say you’ll stay and have Christmas lunch with
us,’ Katy invited Will as she released him, looking more than a little shell shocked. ‘That is, if you’ve got nothing else planned?’

‘I normally have Christmas lunch in The Royal Oak with the whole village,’ Will said, stuffing his hand in his pockets, as if he’d just noticed he was surrounded by unpredictable women. ‘It’s sort of a tradition. We all bring something, stick it all on a table and get horribly drunk. I’ve got a Yule log.’

‘Oh, oh well, that sounds very nice,’ Katy said, her enthusiasm slightly dimmed. ‘First I’ve heard of it, but still … how nice. The whole village getting together for Christmas. Wouldn’t it be lovely to be part of something like that?’

‘No reason why you couldn’t come down,’ Will told her. ‘Everyone’s welcome.’

Tilly and Jake arrived, pushing their way between the legs of the grown-ups.

‘Mummy, Aunty Lydia forgot to cook us eggs when she blew up the cooker,’ Tilly complained. ‘I’m still hungry.’

‘Ah well.’ Will crouched down to meet Tilly’s eyes. ‘Want me to show you two how to cook eggs in a coal shovel, on an open fire?’

‘Yes, please!’ Jake said enthusiastically.

‘Won’t it taste of coal?’ Tilly asked.

‘Best bit,’ Will said, grabbing a box of eggs and plate from the side, as Tilly and the ever-hopeful Vincent
followed him out. ‘I was practically raised on coal, never did me any harm.’

‘I think my ovaries just palpated,’ Joanna said. ‘I love that man.’

‘Back of the queue,’ said Katy firmly, ‘
I
love that man. He got my Aga working.’

‘May I be the voice of reason.’ Alex lumbered into the kitchen. ‘Joanna, you allege that you are in love with that hunky American you’ve been giggling with all morning. And Katy, judging by your massive shag hair, you love your husband much more today than you did yesterday. Lydia can’t possibly love him because she’s on the rebound, from Stephen. So it’s official. If he’s cooking breakfast, I love him, and I’m going to name the baby after him, even if it’s a girl.’

Chapter Thirteen

To her shame, Lydia had been so caught up in the drama of the morning that she almost forgot about Stephen until she found him sitting on her bed when she went back to her room to find an extra pair of socks for an unexpected expedition. After delighting everyone by cooking eggs on a coal shovel, Will suggested that he could go back to the village and fetch his Calor gas oven, as there was no other way of heating food until at least tomorrow.

‘Seriously, mate, any chance you could be a bit less dashing?’ Jim asked him. ‘You’re making the rest of us chaps feel most inadequate.’

‘Just trying to help out,’ Will said modestly. Lydia pressed her lips together to suppress a smile, as she watched all the women swoon, and Jim and David perk up as they realised another possible expedition to the pub was on the cards. But their hopes were dashed.

‘Want to come with me?’ Will asked Lydia, who checked over her shoulder to see if he was talking to someone else. He wasn’t.

Lydia could see it was taking all of Joanna’s willpower
not to say. ‘Ooooh, get you,’ so she answered quickly. ‘Er, yeah. Yes, why not?’

‘Seems a shame for you not to see the landscape properly, while you’re here,’ Will said, as if he needed to provide an explanation.

‘There are windows.’ Alex raised a brow.

‘What about me? It’s a shame I haven’t seen the landscape either,’ Joanna said, pouting.

‘You’ll need proper boots, and at least one more pair of socks,’ Will instructed Lydia quite seriously, ignoring Joanna. ‘And a proper coat, gloves and that. It’s not far, but it’s cold out there. Always best to be prepared.’

‘Prepared, totally.’ Lydia nodded. ‘Like a boy scout.’

‘Well, go on, then.’ Will ushered her away with a flick of his hand, and, whirling about, Lydia found herself crashing into Jackson’s chest.

‘Oh, sorry,’ she said, rubbing her nose.

‘You okay?’ he asked her in a tone just soft enough to make Alex glare at her and Joanna come and drape a proprietorial arm over his shoulder. Lydia had run all the way upstairs and was quite out of breath when she found Stephen in her room.

‘You didn’t sleep here last night,’ he said, nodding at the perfectly plumped pillow.

‘No,’ Lydia said, guiltily. ‘I crashed out on the sofa with the dog. Did you sleep?’

Stephen nodded. ‘I was dead drunk. Look, I don’t
remember much about last night, but I’m sorry if I showed you up.’

‘You didn’t.’ Lydia sat down next to him. ‘You’ve been brilliant. You could have made life hell for everyone, and no one would have blamed you. But you’re not that sort of man, are you, Stephen?’

‘I think,’ Stephen said, ‘the worst thing about breaking up with someone who doesn’t love you any more is that they aren’t sad.’

‘I am,’ Lydia insisted. ‘I am sad, really sad.’

‘No, you’re not. I mean, you are sad that you’ve hurt me, because you care about me. But you’re not sad that we aren’t together any more and, well, that’s okay. It sort of helps, actually. I feel like I’ve had the stuffing kicked out of me, but looking at you now, with your eyes all sparkling and some colour in your cheeks, makes me realise that it’s pointless pining over you for too long.’

Lydia reached out and covered his hand with hers. ‘Oh, Stephen, you just need the right woman. The woman who makes you stop long enough to realise how much you need her, the woman who is more important to you than work or a cause ever would be, one who you want to spend every spare minute with, even if you can’t. You need to be with a woman who you miss even when she’s in the next room. And if you’re honest, I was never that woman. I could never get you to stop for more than about a minute.’

Stephen nodded. ‘I know, and so I just wanted to say that I’m okay. Don’t let this spoil your Christmas. I want you to have a happy one, although I’m now a bit short of a gift …’

‘What about you? Will you be able to have a Happy Christmas?’ Lydia asked.

‘Yes.’ Stephen nodded. ‘I’m going to get very drunk and eat so much food that I’ll have to drive home with my trousers unzipped. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to listen to ‘Last Christmas’ and all the other Christmas break-up songs I can think of on my iPod.’ He paused in the doorway. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Into the village, with Will, to get a camping stove,’ Lydia said, fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve as if she were somehow betraying Stephen.

Stephen nodded. ‘All you girls seems rather taken with Will. Is he really that amazing?’

Lydia laughed. ‘Amazing? No, not at all. Whatever gave you that idea?’

For some reason, Lydia had thought that Will inviting her to accompany him to fetch his camping stove and see the scenery meant that he might want to talk to her, but they had trudged through the thick drifts of snow for at least twenty minutes in total silence. For a good while, Lydia busied herself with looking around at the stunning scenery, breathing in the cool air, and trying to keep up with Will, which was difficult. She
was well wrapped up, as ordered, in Jim’s outsize coat, Katy’s snow boots and a quite small, pink, glittery knitted bobble hat that sat on her head at a rather precarious angle, and which she suspected might belong to Tilly.

‘It feels like there might be no one else alive in the whole world, doesn’t it?’ Lydia said, giving in to the urge to break the silence. ‘It’s so quiet, there are no planes in the sky, no cars on the road …’

‘No people wittering on,’ Will added.

‘Sorry,’ Lydia replied, wryly. ‘I didn’t realise I had to take a vow of silence when I agreed to come with you. You’re normally quite chatty.’

‘Chatty?’ Will stopped and looked at her.

‘Yes, chatty. So why have you gone all strong and silent now?’

Will frowned, marching on once more for several paces before replying. ‘I thought I might be able to give you the stove to bring back by yourself, but you’d probably just break a nail, get lost and die in a ditch, and then I’d feel responsible.’

Lydia chuckled. ‘I’m sure that if the idea of going back to Heron’s Pike horrifies you so much, I could find my way back on my own. I mean, I just have to follow this road, right? I don’t have to track tiny otter paw prints, or navigate by the stars?’

This time it was Will’s turn to smile. ‘You’ve got a lot to say for yourself,’ he said, which in the absence
of any expansion on the statement, Lydia decided to take as a compliment.

‘It’s my job. As a barrister, I sort of have to talk for a living. Argumentatively, usually.’

‘Ah.’ Will nodded. ‘Makes sense.’

‘Sense? Of what? That I don’t just agree with everything you say like a proper girl should?’

‘No.’ Will smiled. ‘Posh girl, posh job. Makes sense.’

‘Posh!’ Lydia gasped. ‘I’m not posh. Just because I don’t mispronounce vowels like the people round here, it doesn’t make me posh, you know.’

‘Whoa, touchy.’ Will held up his gloved hands.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lydia said. ‘It’s just that I don’t come from money, or anything like it. My parents never had any money when they were married, and even less after they split up. Until she remarried, my mum rented a house next door to funeral home, because it was cheap, and Dad lives in his latest wife’s house. I wasn’t supposed to do anything. I wasn’t supposed to get A levels or go to uni, and I certainly wasn’t supposed to spend so many years studying to become a barrister. I was supposed to get a job at the age of sixteen and pay my way, but I didn’t. I was stubborn. I worked my way through law school, waitressing, bar work, temping – once I even dressed up as a Mexican cow girl and followed a giant Taco round Leicester Square. I did anything to earn money, well, nearly anything. It wasn’t easy, but like I said, I’m stubborn. I wouldn’t give up my dream.’

‘So why a barrister?’ Will asked her.

Lydia stopped walking and looked thoughtfully at Will, who’d carried on a couple of steps and then turned to wait for her. Over the years she’d been asked this question time and time again, and she always came out with a trite or flippant answer: I love the stylish outfit, she’d say, or the money, or the status or the challenge. But there was something about Will that made her want to tell him the real reason she’d struggled and scraped to get where she was today; something that made her think she could trust him.

‘Do you promise not to laugh?’ she asked him.

‘Okay.’ Will nodded.

‘Or scoff?’ Lydia added. ‘Cynical scoffing is not permitted.’

‘Go on.’

‘For most of my childhood, I felt like was caught up in a whirlwind that I had absolutely no control over. Parents ripping each other to shreds, even after the divorce, shunted around from house to house, whether or not I wanted to go, whether or not I was even wanted. I didn’t have a say about anything and, most importantly of all, I didn’t have anyone on my side, to speak up for me or to defend me. No one to say this has got to stop, this isn’t right. I felt, I
was
, helpless.

‘Then, one Saturday afternoon when I was about fourteen, I found the film
To Kill a Mockingbird
on TV. You know, the one with Gregory Peck in it, as Atticus
Finch. He’s noble, so strong and more importantly he won’t let anything or anyone stand in the way of doing the best for his client. He had the guts to say this is not right and this has to stop. And I decided then and there that I wanted to be Gregory Peck, well, Atticus Finch. Or at least as close to it as a little English girl in a crummy seaside town can get. I wanted to be the person that would be there, just when life seemed to be at its very worst, the person who is on your side, no matter what.’

Lydia faltered into silence, suddenly feeling very self-conscious about pouring her heart out to a near stranger in the middle of the snow, wanting him to know what she had never told another soul, for reasons that she didn’t fully understand.

‘I suppose that sounds pretty ridiculous,’ she added at last, half laughing.

Will took a step back towards her. ‘No, far from it,’ he said gently. ‘It sounds pretty amazing, as it goes.’

‘Oh, well.’ Lydia felt herself blush. ‘I can’t pretend the money isn’t good, and that I don’t enjoy the drama of it, and the wigs are fabulous …’

‘Hey, listen.’ Will stopped her with a smile. ‘You don’t have to pretend with me. I know you’re not as shallow and as flippant as you like to make out. I can see it in your eyes. You really care about what you do, it means to the world to you, and I really respect that. I’ve not known you long but you’re different from most girls.’

‘Different?’ Lydia asked him, not sure if it was a compliment or not. ‘How?’ she asked him tentatively as his black eyes looked intently into hers.

‘Don’t ask me,’ Will said, a deep furrow between his eyes. ‘Right now, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Yes I do, I’m going – we’re going – to the village to get the gas stove. We’d better get a move on, else we’ll get frozen to the spot.’

‘So why
did
you ask me to come with you?’ she asked him, a little confused. ‘Why not one of the boys?’

‘Because they are all idiots,’ Will said. ‘Nice blokes, and all. But idiots.’

‘Oh, and I’m not an idiot?’ Lydia brightened.

‘I just thought you’d rather have a bit of time out of the house,’ Will said. ‘You’ve been stuck in there for days.’

‘Nice of you to care,’ Lydia said. ‘You make me sound like a dog that needs walking.’

‘I don’t care, I …’ Will stopped himself. ‘I just know what it’s like. Breaking up with someone. I was engaged for a bit.’ Will marched on with even more determination, leaving Lydia standing for a moment in the snow.

‘Wait!’ she called after him breathlessly. ‘Will, hold on. Look, you can’t just drop a bombshell like that and then run off.’

‘I wouldn’t call it a bombshell,’ Will said, stopping to wait for her until she caught up. ‘I was engaged and then I wasn’t. So I know that you probably could do
with a bit of space to sort you head out. Which doesn’t normally require chatting.’

‘But, what happened? Who was she?’ What did she look like? Lydia thought but didn’t ask. ‘Did she dump you?’

Will’s brows knitted together in a deep frown. ‘Why do women always need to know everything?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t, I suppose. I’ve shared with you; I thought maybe you’d like to share with me. After all, you brought it up,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just I don’t know how I’m supposed to be feeling right now. I mean, this was the most serious relationship I’ve ever had, so I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be feeling the way I do.’

‘Which is?’ Will asked her.

‘Relieved,’ Lydia said. ‘And right now … happy. Happy to be out here, in the snow, with these amazing surroundings. I feel exhilarated. Which makes me sound very callous, doesn’t it?’

‘Or it shows that you made the right decision.’ Will shrugged. ‘Her name was, is, Rachel,’ Will said as he walked on, holding out a hand to help her through a particularly deep drift. ‘She was pretty, nice. Read a lot of books but still, you know, funny.’ Lydia reluctantly let go of his hand as she privately seethed about this beautiful, literate comedienne called Rachel. Boring name anyway, Lydia thought. ‘We’d known each other a long while. She had a gift shop in the town. I’d see
her on her bike, riding into work every morning. We’d stop and chat.’

Lydia wondered when they were going to get to the breaking up part.

‘I’m not the sort of bloke who goes in all guns blazing. I suppose I don’t give much away,’ Will said. ‘It’s hard for me to let a lass know I like her. I was building up to asking her for a drink when one day she just asked me right out if I fancied her, just like that. I said yes. That was that, we were going out.’

‘And then what happened?’ Lydia asked him, almost sorry to see, some way ahead among the trees, the tip of the village church spire come into view.

‘We went out,’ Will said. ‘For two years.’

‘But you must have loved her if you asked her to marry you?’ Lydia persisted.

‘Not sure I actually asked her,’ Will said, looking genuinely perplexed. ‘We were out in the town, I’d just sold on this place I’d done up in Keswick, made quite a bit on it. Rachel said we should do something really mad, really spontaneous. We were standing outside this jewellery shop when she said it. So I bought her a ring, caught up in the moment, you know. And then we were engaged. I’m not sure I knew about it until afterwards, and then I sort of just went with it.’