What Happens At Christmas... (19 page)

‘Sorry, Stirling, I almost forgot your lunch.' She got up, prepared his bowl of food and set it on the floor. Then she spent ten minutes squeezing the food she had bought into the fridge. When this was all done, she made herself a cup of tea and took a couple of biscuits out of the packet in the fridge. She wasn't very hungry after the cakes at Melissa's house, so this would do her until the evening when she was going out with Justin.

Now that Dolores had left, she decided it would be safe to go and ask Jack about the Christmas tree. Stirling had taken to his bed by this time, so she left him in the house while she went over to Jack's door. She rang the bell and waited. He opened it almost immediately.

‘Hello, neighbour.' He gave her a smile. ‘Tea, coffee, wine?'

She smiled back. ‘Erm, no thanks; I've just had tea. I'm looking for something a bit more substantial. I don't suppose you know of anywhere I could still get a Christmas tree at this late date, do you?'

‘Come on in.' He beckoned and she walked into the kitchen, getting a surprise to see it now festooned with Christmas decorations. ‘Happy Christmas!' He pointed to a seat. ‘I've just made a pot of tea. Sure you won't join me?'

Holly started to shake her head and then weakened. Somehow the idea of spending time with him really did have considerable appeal. ‘Oh, all right then. I've just had one mug of tea, but another won't hurt.' She sat down and waited to hear if he could help with a Christmas tree. He still had his same old jeans, but he was only wearing a t-shirt on his top half, and he looked flushed. For a moment Holly wondered if Dolores had only just left and he was still in a post-coital glow. He soon explained the rather less romantic reason for looking hot.

‘I had Dolores here a few hours ago.' Holly looked up, waiting with dread for a tale of their sexual exploits, but she needn't have worried. ‘Her drains were all blocked up. You know, in the cottage she's renting off me? Well, she wasn't a happy bunny today. She's got some important meeting thing this afternoon and the water was overflowing in her bathroom, so she couldn't take a shower, and she was panicking. Anyway, long story short, she came here with her change of clothes and used my bathroom while I went there with my drain rods and a bucket. I've just come back from spending the best part of an hour lying stretched out on my side with my arm down a drain, trying to unblock it.'

Holly was grinning by now. ‘And did you manage?'

He nodded. ‘Finally, yes. And do you know what the blockage was?'

Holly shook her head, not sure if she really wanted to know the answer.

‘A hedgehog.'

‘A hedgehog? A dead hedgehog?'

‘Bloody right it was dead. What I've been trying to work out is what the hell a hedgehog was doing down a drain. He should have been safely tucked up somewhere hibernating by now. All I can imagine is that the poor old thing fell into an open manhole somewhere along the way and got washed down until his body finally got stuck, jamming the pipe.' He smiled at her and waved his palms in her direction. ‘It's all right, I've been cleaning my hands for the last ten minutes with the stuff I use for washing the kitchen floor and a scouring cloth. I haven't got much skin left, but what's left is definitely clean. Now, about that tea.'

He poured two mugs of tea and joined her at the table. ‘Right, so you're looking for a Christmas tree? Four days before Christmas?' He grinned. ‘Nobody could accuse you of putting the decorations up too soon.'

‘I know. I'm normally really organised. It's just with everything that's been happening lately, I've rather let Christmas slip. I bought a few baubles and some bits and pieces of tinsel this afternoon, but most of the good stuff had already gone, unless you're into glow in the dark Santas and plastic gnomes.'

Jack nodded. ‘I've got a few streamers, but otherwise I use natural stuff.' Holly looked round the room. He had laid holly branches across the tops of the cupboards and hung ivy from the beams. In the corner of the room he had a small Christmas tree. She couldn't see any mistletoe. ‘If you cross the stream on the little wooden bridge, there's loads of ivy and still some holly with good red berries here and there all the way up to the moor. Take a bag and some secateurs and you can collect whatever you want.

Holly pointed to the corner of the room. ‘No presents round the tree?'

‘There's only me. Not a lot of point giving myself a present.' For a moment, his smile slipped and she glimpsed something underneath. Unmistakably, in contrast to his normal outward appearance of good cheer, it was more like sorrow.

‘Are you going to see your family? Where did you say your dad was? Bristol?'

He nodded. ‘My brother and his family are there with him now. They're leaving on Boxing Day and then I'll take over for a few days.' His smile was back on his face now. ‘That way he gets company for longer and I get a whole turkey to myself.'

‘No Dolores?' She had to be sure.

‘Would you stop trying to marry me off to Dolores, please. No, no Dolores.'

Holly was heartened. ‘You shouldn't be alone at Christmas.' She was thinking fast. She was sure Julia and her parents wouldn't mind if she just dropped Julia off at their house on Christmas Day and headed straight back to Brookford in time for lunch. She pointed her finger at him severely. ‘In fact, I forbid it. As it happens, I'm also going to be on my own at Christmas, so you are hereby formally invited next door for Christmas lunch. No excuses accepted.'

‘Actually I was going to invite you. I owe you.'

‘Why do you owe me? You've given me breakfast, brought me wine to drink, and you took me out for lunch the other day.'

He caught her eye. ‘Not that a mushroom omelette and a mug of tea qualifies as a particularly extravagant date. Anyway, I should explain. Your dad and I used to take it in turns to have Christmas lunch together. Last year Christmas was at his place, that's now your place. This year it should be here. It's only fair. That's the tradition.'

Holly took a moment before replying. ‘Well, we can fight about it over the next few days, but the principle is established. We eat together at Christmas. Now, what about a tree?'

Jack glanced at his watch. ‘Leave it to me. I'm playing squash in Moreton at five. One of the guys at the squash club grows Christmas trees. I'll give him a call. I'll ask him to drop it round to you early evening, or if he can't, I'll bring it home when I come. OK?'

When Holly got back home, she checked the time. She had a couple of hours free before having to start getting ready for her dinner date with Justin so she decided to carry on reading her father's letters. She went into the lounge and was just reaching into the box when a thought struck her and she paused. It was a bit tenuous, but if she considered the breakfast at Jack's house the day of the power cut, the mushroom omelette on the north Devon coast, the wine and cheese snack the previous night and the tea with him now, she had already had four sort-of-dates with Jack. That was a rather scary thought, but not as scary as the realisation that she was really looking forward to a fifth, sixth and seventh. Something weird was going on all right and she wasn't sure she could explain it. Under normal circumstances she would have dropped him like a hot coal after the first couple of dates, but not now. Did this mean that her fear of commitment, or so Julia had often described it, was on the wane? She shook her head and turned her attention to the box of envelopes.

After the extra long letter on her eighteenth birthday, the remainder were shorter again until she reached December 2008. By this time, he was writing to her, adult to adult, no longer aiming the content at a little child. In fact, the last few letters had been full of his fears for the world economy in the wake of the banking crisis. Now, however, he wrote about something very different. For the first time since his letter on her eighteenth birthday, he wrote about his second wife.

My dearest Holly

I can hardly put pen to paper for grief. My beloved Lynda is no more. She passed away two weeks ago and I find myself alone on the other side of the world, far from my only other true love. I miss her so much, Holly and I miss you so much.

The letter continued in different ink, presumably written at a later time.

It's taken me so many years, but I've finally decided the time has come. I'm going to come back to England and I'm going to come to see you. I fear, deep down, that you'll hate me and not want to speak to me, but it's something I know I have to do.

He went on to detail the plans for his visit to Britain and the family home for the first time in more than a decade, in the hope of seeing his beloved daughter. His tone was abjectly apologetic that it had taken him so long to summon up the courage to act and, at the same time, it was clear that he was very apprehensive at the reception he was likely to receive.

And so, in February 2009, he returned to Britain. In his letter written in March that year, he described how he had made his way to the old family home in Cheltenham. Holly realised that by then, she was already living and working in London and wouldn't have been there. Unannounced, he turned up on the doorstep and rang the bell. Holly's mother recognised him immediately and gave him a frosty reception, refusing to let him in the house, even threatening to call the police if he didn't leave. He handed over a package for Holly, containing a letter and a small nugget of Australian gold, and then he left. He never tried again.

Holly read the letter twice and then folded it and returned it to its envelope. Her cheeks were wet and her heart was thumping. She had found a misshapen lump of gold-coloured metal in her mother's house that spring, when she had had the painful task of clearing her belongings after her death. She had almost thrown it away, but it was now in a box, somewhere in one of the overcrowded cupboards in her London flat. She sat back on the sofa and breathed deeply. She could understand and forgive her mother almost everything, but not this. In February 2009, Holly would have been twenty-six. She should have been informed of her father's attempt to contact her. Her grief was replaced by another wave of anger that she struggled to control.

Finally she glanced at her watch and saw that it was a quarter to seven. Justin would be here in three quarters of an hour and she still had to take the dog out for a quick walk. She got up and hurried out to the kitchen.

The front doorbell rang at twenty-five past seven. Holly had just finished getting ready, a trail of discarded clothes and towels lying all over the floors upstairs. She had pinned her hair up this evening and chosen to wear a little black dress, along with her best pair of Alexander McQueen heels. Although she was quite sure by now that this was no date, she had always enjoyed dressing up and she felt pretty sure the sort of place Justin would be taking her would be posh. She walked over to the door, conscious that her heels made her sound reminiscent of Stirling on the flagstone floor. She opened the door and found herself confronted by a tree.

‘Good evening, madam. You ordered a Christmas tree.' It was Jack and he had brought a lovely bushy fir tree for her. She found herself beaming at him.

‘Oh, Jack, that's marvellous. How much do I owe you?' He carried the tree in through the door and set it down in the corner of the room. Stirling, seeing his good buddy, leapt out of his basket to greet him.

‘I'll put in on your tab.' He ruffled the dog's ears. ‘A word of warning; it might be worth putting some sort of barrier round the tree for now, until you can pot it up, in case our four-legged friend here decides to pee on it or tear it apart.' He suddenly became aware of what she was wearing. He stepped back and did a double-take. ‘Wow! Are you going out on a date? You look gorgeous.'

‘She certainly does. Good evening Holly. You really do look fantastic.' She looked back over her shoulder to the open door. Justin was standing on the threshold, smiling. Holly glanced back at Jack and suddenly wished the ground could open up and swallow her. She took a deep breath and gave Justin a brilliant smile.

‘Hi, Justin. Jack's just brought me a Christmas tree.'

‘Hi, Justin. How're you doing?' Jack sounded quite normal and Holly began to calm down. She caught his eye.

‘Thanks ever so much for bringing the tree, Jack.'

‘No worries.' He gave her a smile. ‘Enjoy your evening out, you guys.'

‘I'm sure we will. Good to see you, Jack.' Justin stepped aside to let him out into the night. He pushed the door closed and walked across to Holly. He took her hand and twirled her round. ‘You do look absolutely gorgeous. Jack was right.'

‘It's good to see you Justin.' And it was, although it was going to take a bit of time for her pounding heart to slow down and her glowing cheeks to return to a more normal colour. What, she thought to herself, was Jack going to think – seeing her apparently going on a date with Justin, even though she knew full well it wasn't? And, anyway, what did it matter what he thought? It wasn't as if he had indicated any particular interest in her anyway. She felt hot, bothered and confused. She set about arranging some kitchen chairs around the tree, to protect it against any possible assault from the dog. This displacement activity helped her start to regain her equilibrium. ‘So, remind me what's happening tonight.'

‘Now that I see you dressed in all your finery, I'm beginning to think I should have chartered a plane and whisked you off to Paris or Rome, but, as it stands, the reservation's at the Bricklayer's Arms just outside Moreton.' He grinned at her. ‘Doesn't quite have the same ring to it as the Tour d'Argent, does it?'

‘The Bricklayer's Arms sounds delightful. Just bear with me for a minute or two while I sort Stirling out. I'll be right with you.' Holly put the finishing touches to the barricade and set about preparing the dog's evening meal. Hastily, she set the bowl down on the floor, turned on the television and picked up her coat.