Читать книгу The Present: The must-read Christmas romance of the year! - Charlotte Phillips, Charlotte Phillips - Страница 7

‘What the hell happened to you?’

Rod walked into the kitchen on the dot of seven, put his keys in the dish on the dresser, and stopped in the act of kissing Lucy’s cheek when he caught sight of her leg. She glanced down at the supersized sticking plaster she’d used to re-dress the graze on her shin. She’d changed into shorts and a T-shirt after a monumental shower to get rid of all the plaster dust.

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ she said. ‘I just scraped it getting some stuff out of Gran’s loft. No biggie.’

Probably best not to mention the gaping hole in Gran’s bedroom ceiling; she’d had quite enough of making a knob of herself in front of people today. Jack had assured her he would fix it in the next couple of days, and Rod could stay none the wiser.

She gave the schedule attached by a magnet to the fridge door an unnecessary check as she opened it, because knowing it was Wednesday was enough to know it was stir-fry night. In the same way that Monday was meat-free, and Friday was a takeaway.

Life ran better when it was organised. If Rod had a personal credo, this would be it. And it was one she wholeheartedly agreed with. There was something extremely reassuring, she had found, about knowing what was happening day to day, and especially longer term. She had known when she met Rod that they were on the same page in that respect. She’d contacted him to see if he would give an interview following the Budget five years ago: his accountancy firm’s take on the effects for local people, that kind of thing. He’d provided her with a projected schedule of costings, a comprehensive overview, and a list of tips for savers that would have got the nod from Martin Lewis. And an offer of dinner that turned into a series of dates that turned into a relationship. His private life was as ordered and planned as his work had been. And she always knew where she was with him. With Rod she had a future that she could count on. He would never disappear on impulse because he fancied a change of scenery.

‘Coming along well at the house, then?’ he said, leaning past her to turn on the extractor hood above the cooker. All mod cons in their new-build rental, nothing like Gran’s inefficient rambling dinosaur of a place. Steam began to curl up from the wok as she added chicken and vegetables to the pan. ‘Good to hear. I called the agent, and if we can get it shipshape we can have the valuation done and it can go on the market as soon as Christmas is out of the way.’

Her stomach gave an involuntary lurch at the thought. What would it feel like to know she was never going to see the old place again? What would it feel like for Gran? She couldn’t expect Rod to feel sentimental. He hadn’t lived there. He hadn’t built dens out of blankets and sticks in the garden in summer. He hadn’t learned to make fairy cakes in the kitchen, which was always warm, no matter what time of the year because of the range cooker. The thought must have shown on her face because Rod put an arm around her shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze.

‘We’ve been over this again and again,’ he said gently.

She moved away from him and grabbed a couple of plates from one of the neat cupboards.

‘I know,’ she said through gritted teeth. She served the stir-fry up grimly.

‘It’s the upheaval,’ he went on soothingly. ‘It’s bound to be unsettling. That’s why we need to really consider all the options.’

She knew where this was going.

‘Really, I think a residential facility might be the best possible thing all round.’

He tucked into his rice and chicken, not looking at her while he ate. Just the terminology he used made it sound like a prison.

‘I am not putting Gran in a home,’ she said. ‘I want her with me.’

‘I’m just saying, let’s not rule anything out. You don’t know yet what her recovery is going to be like. Moving in with us, into established routines … it’s bound to be difficult for everyone. I’m only saying, it might be better all round, to leave the care to the professionals.’

Correctly anticipating her next comment would be argumentative, he reached distractingly for the box at the end of the table and pulled it towards him.

‘What’s this?’ he asked.

‘I found them in Gran’s attic,’ Lucy said. ‘I brought them home to show you.’

He lifted the lid of the box and took out one of the wrapped decorations at random. A perfectly carved and painted top hat. Ten lords a-leaping, she thought automatically.

‘Nice,’ he said indifferently, putting it back and resuming eating.

‘It’s a set of Christmas tree decorations. I think they might be antique.’

‘One missing,’ he remarked, pointing to the space in the middle of the box with a chopstick. ‘Incomplete set, so it won’t be worth much. Honestly, Lucy, just whack all this tat on eBay. Whatever you get for it will be a bonus, the main thing is to crack on and get the place cleared. We need to get the house ready for the family. This is the first year we’ve done the Carmichael Christmas, and we are going to be the best.’

Christmas was the pinnacle of one-upmanship in the Carmichael family. Rod was the middle child of five overachieving siblings. Last Christmas, as run by eldest sister Josephine, had involved a professionally decorated house in St John’s Wood, a champagne breakfast, three different kinds of roast meat, and a children’s entertainer. The year before that, his uber-successful stockbroker brother Don and family had rented a cabin in the Lake District for a no-tech, no-phone-signal, back-to-tradition Christmas that had filled the teenage family members with despair, featuring log fires and mulled wine and carol singing around a piano, and family games and frosty walks in the stunning countryside. This year, Lucy was hostess, and Rod’s expectations set the bar extremely high. She needed enough food to feed hordes of people, there were rooms to get ready, Christmas decorations to put up, a festive day to deliver that would impress or at the very least not disappoint his bloody perfect family.

No pressure.

‘We’ve got the works’ Christmas drinks coming up,’ he carried on, as if what she really needed now was a shedload more stress, ‘and we need to focus and make a decent impression. This promotion would be a big step towards partnership, and decisions will probably be made in the next couple of weeks even if they’re not announced until the New Year. Eye on the prize.’

Her place was at his side during work social functions. The accountancy firm was family run, and Rod liked to fit in with that image, no impression was too much trouble in the path towards partnership. She liked it. She liked being part of a couple. And of course, by implication, his future was also her future. She pulled the box back towards her, and he caught her hand in his. She looked up at him.

‘I know you’re under a lot of stress, honey,’ he said. ‘I’m right behind you, I really am. I just meant that it’s easy to lose sight of your own goals in a situation like this. It’s important for Olive that you and I keep ourselves grounded, so we can support her and stay organised and in control. Especially with Christmas, my family, and all the extra stuff that brings with it.’

‘I know, I know.’

He squeezed her hand, pressing the point.

‘Who knows what could happen if this promotion comes through? With all my family in our home, it would be the perfect time to make special announcements.’

He winked at her. She squinted back. Had he just used a plural? Was he hinting that more than promotion could be on the cards?

‘The best thing to do is just get this clearance done and out of the way as quickly as possible,’ he swept on. ‘Like ripping off a plaster. Then we can absolutely do what’s best for Olive.’ He held up a hand as she opened her mouth to protest against yet another predicted mention of care homes. ‘And that includes her moving in with us if that’s truly the best option. We just need to stay objective.’

She felt a rush of love for him, and a spike of excitement at what was surely a hint about popping the question. Wasn’t it? He really was committed to her, he had her best interests at heart, she was just being oversensitive. And he did have a point. Christmas was her favourite part of the year, she had been looking forward to spending time getting the house to look perfect, and all the preparation associated with it. Cooking ahead, making plans. She really hadn’t made the slightest dent in that yet. And if Gran was able to come out of hospital for Christmas – and she really hadn’t given up hope of that – Lucy wanted everything to be perfect for her. She had to keep focused. Gran had to be the priority here, and if she let every bit of history in that attic distract her, she’d still be sorting out the house clearance next bloody Christmas.

‘No need to worry,’ she said. ‘You’re completely right. I’ll storm through the house tomorrow, and then I’m going to visit Gran in hospital and check on her progress, see if I can get some information out of the doctors about when we might be able to bring her home.’

She closed the lid on the box of decorations and shelved her curiosity.

Six hours later, Lucy stared at the bedroom ceiling and tried to ignore her curiosity, which at – she checked the LED display on the bedside clock – two-thirty in the morning, was refusing to be shelved. And since the alternative to getting up and sorting her curiosity out was lying here and elbowing Rod every five minutes to keep his infuriatingly rhythmic snoring at bay, she might as well throw in the towel on sleep and go downstairs.

Sitting bleary-eyed at the kitchen table, she pulled the box of Christmas decorations towards her and unwrapped one, turning it gently in her fingers. A tiny swan. Perfect in every detail. She unfolded the note that was wrapped with it.

Do not settle for less because it is easy. Do not give in to pressure. Wait for me through this hard time and it will be worth any challenge we face.

She frowned. What did that mean? What would Gran be settling for? Or was it a who? Who had sent these to her? The mystery nagged maddeningly. Just where the hell to even start. Wide awake, Lucy grabbed her tablet from the kitchen worktop and did an Internet search on Christmas tree decorations that was rewarded with page after page of pictures of predominantly garden centre tat. Refining the search to World War Two brought up a collection of make-do-and-mend war effort items. Paper chains. Cardboard Christmas lanterns. Jack’s first instinct today had to be right, there was no way the decorations were from that time period. Moving the dates further back, it was obvious they predated the war by some decades. She ran her hand over the smooth cool wood of the box. Whatever they were, they were undoubtedly special. Whoever had sent them to Gran, one a day with a note for twelve days in the run-up to Christmas 1944, they must have cared for her very much.

She racked her brains for the slightest mention of that time in Gran’s life, but came up blank. Gran had simply never talked about it. She ran a finger over the slightly indented holly carving on the lid. How could she just chuck this on eBay without trying to look into it even the tiniest bit? But where to start?

She grabbed a tote bag from the cupboard and eased the box gently into it. The best place to start was most definitely not eBay. The logical thing to do would be to hang on to these for a while. The answer could be just waiting for her in the mountain in Gran’s attic. And technically, she would still be working on the house clearance; she would just have a bit more of a purpose in mind than to just lob the whole lot in a skip.

Jack held his tongue until he could take it no longer.

Since the attic currently sported a hole big enough to stumble through, which then progressed through to a gaping hole in Olive’s master bedroom ceiling, it had overnight shot to the top of the list of cosmetic tweaks he had been tasked with to make this house as saleable as possible. Engaged in cutting boards to size and nailing them across the gap in the attic, it became slowly clear to him that it was simply a matter of time if Lucy carried on the way she was going, before disaster struck a second time in as many days. She had been here even before he arrived this morning, and there was, in his view, a lot more sorting through and reading going on than there was house clearance. Every so often she would finish with the contents of a box or bag, and it would be taken down the loft ladder and presumably spirited away downstairs to be disposed of. If she carried on at this current speed, Olive would still be living here in five years’ time. Then he remembered their conversation yesterday, and wondered if that might actually be the point of the go-slow.

He managed to rein it in until she teetered towards the loft ladder with a box balanced on each arm and a cloth bag looped around her neck. Downing tools, he crossed the attic in a couple of strides. She stopped in surprise.

‘For God’s sake give me one of those boxes,’ he said, taking one from her before she had the chance to protest. ‘In fact, give me both of them before you fall down that ladder.’

She held the second box aloft before he could take it.

‘I am perfectly capable of hefting a few boxes about,’ she said. ‘I do not need your superhero powers today.’

‘You piss about with basic common sense safety rules often enough, and you will break something, probably your own head. Simple fact,’ he said, exasperated. ‘And it is not going to happen on my watch. Stop arguing, and give it here.’

He held her obstinate gaze until she gave in with an eye roll and handed over the second box.

‘It’s just a couple of bits,’ she called after him as he negotiated the loft ladder in half the time and none of the danger.

‘Where do you want these?’

‘Just in the kitchen, please. I’ll get on with the next lot.’

Exactly what he was afraid of. He dumped the stuff on the ground floor in record time and arrived back in the attic just as she was poking about next to a teetering stack of boxes and junk.

‘Look, anything you want shifting, just ask will you? That mountain of stuff is one wrong move away from burying you.’

She looked up at him in surprise, obviously lost in thought, and he tried to disconnect his brain from the thought that, for some reason, on her, scruffy looked alluring. She was dressed for the dust today, no expensive jeans in sight by the look of it. Her wavy hair was caught up in a ponytail from which it was already escaping. She wore a faded pink T-shirt, jeans with paint marks on them, and an ancient pair of Converse.

‘Okay,’ she said, looking the mountain of stuff up and down. ‘Thanks. I hadn’t really thought of a good way to dismantle all this.’

‘No kidding.’

‘I’m trying to find something that will give me a lead on the Christmas decs. There must be something, right? So far I’ve found a ton of teenage photos of me – STRAIGHT in the bin. Old clothes. A load of old saucepans. Nothing from anywhere near as far back as the decorations. The thing is, I’m going one box at a time here, and I haven’t a clue what I’m really looking for.’ She flipped the top open on the nearest box and peered inside. ‘I could still be here next bloody Christmas at this rate.’

She glanced up at him, and somehow managed to combine a smile with a frown. For no good reason, he decided on impulse that the attic floor could wait an hour. What the hell, he had time on his hands, and an hour was hardly going to affect his usual policy of getting the work done so he could make his good next escape. He still had a week before he needed to get ready for his next excursion. Snowboarding in Austria.

‘Sounds to me like you need a system,’ he said. He leaned past her and took the highest box down from the next row, the one that had been most on the brink of falling on her head, and put it down next to her. Slit the top open with his Stanley knife, and turned back to lift down the next one.

‘Here you go,’ he said. ‘Have a quick check what’s in them, and if it looks like it might be in the ballpark, we investigate further. If it’s nothing, then you can deal with it later. I’ll just shift the boxes around and we can narrow it down between us. And if it happens to be your baby photos, I’ll just have a coffee break while I check through them.’

She laughed.

‘I’m surprised Gran hasn’t already subjected you to them over coffee.’

‘Actually, she has. You had a great line going in crazy hair.’

He dodged sideways as she threw an old cushion at his head. It landed on the floor behind him and sent up a cloud of dust.

Fifteen minutes later, and things had speeded up considerably.

‘How come you do this kind of work?’ she asked, pulling a couple of garish orange table mats out of a box. ‘Bloody hell, look at these. Like a seventies’ acid trip.’

As she checked and dismissed them, he stacked boxes to the side of the loft hatch, and every so often took a few at a time downstairs to free up space.

‘House and garden maintenance? Because it can be picked up and put down, and I can make money doing it wherever I happen to be,’ he said.

‘I was kind of expecting something more like “I like working outside, and the creative side is great”,’ she said.

He shrugged.

‘It maybe was that when I started out. The garden design was more of a thing back then. Things change over time; you know how it is.’

The initial satisfaction of building up a successful business from scratch, doing the work he loved, had gone into a nosedive when Sean died, from which it had never really recovered. She was looking directly at him now, sitting cross-legged next to the most recently discarded box. A lock of hair had escaped from her ponytail, and as he watched she blew it out of her face. He avoided her gaze. He had absolutely no desire to get into his work-life balance, with her, or anyone else.

‘Most people say, because I had a talent for it at school,’ she persisted. ‘Or because carried on from when I was doing a summer job, or because I like working with my hands and running my own business.’

He stopped work for a moment and sat down on one of the joists.

‘My father is a carpenter,’ he said, ‘so I kind of fell into that trade because of him. I wasn’t crazy on school, and I loved watching him work when I was a little kid. He used to take me out with him on jobs in the school holidays. It kind of slotted into place when I finished school, I went out with him, learned on the job. And the garden stuff is like a natural add-on to building fences and decking and sheds. I did like being outside, you’re right, and for a while I was really flying with the regular hours, I built the business way up, I had more work than I could cope with.’

‘For a while?’ she said. ‘What about now?’

She had gone back to sorting through some old junky-looking ornaments now, not looking at him. The business had been the last thing on his mind since Sean had gone. Beyond the fact that it funded the distraction he needed, his interest in it was pretty low.

‘Now it’s more about what I do in my own time. I’m not going to lie on my deathbed thinking: I wish I’d fixed a few more fences. Not when every day could be my last. So I work from one trip to the next. I’ve got a few local clients like Olive, and I have a guy who covers for me when I’m away. And I pick up other work ad hoc. I can do that anywhere I go, people always want house maintenance work doing, it’s a good source of instant cash if you get stuck.’

‘You mean you work to pay for your holidays?’ she said. ‘That’s no big deal, we all do that.’

Not to the degree that he did.

‘When I finish one trip, I think that’s it for a while, but before I know it I just get restless and start looking for the next thing, the next place, or whatever. I work for a bit, and then get away again.’

Get away really was the right description. The distraction just never lasted long enough.

‘And what kinds of places do you go to?’

Anywhere that doesn’t make me look back and make comparisons.

He pulled down a couple of black bin liners and added them to the to-be-checked stack next to Lucy.

‘Just new places. I don’t usually go back to places I’ve been before. I do some sports stuff, marathon running, diving. Stuff like that.’

‘And you go with friends?’

Sean flashed into his head. The need to get her off this subject.

‘Yeah, sometimes. Anything yet?’

‘Nothing yet,’ she said. ‘Maybe there isn’t anything, and all this will have been a waste of time.’ She sighed. ‘And I’ve got a to-do list for Christmas that would have Mary Berry in tears.’

She opened the next box and pulled out a stack of postcards.

‘Travel isn’t really my thing,’ she said conversationally.

He hadn’t counted on this. Hadn’t counted on small talk. He didn’t answer. Didn’t want to encourage her to probe him for his life story. She was a journalist, incessant questions were probably part of her actual psyche.

‘I like being at home too much,’ she went on. ‘Having a base, you know. Family.’ She glanced up at him and he nodded noncommittally. ‘I mean, constant itchy-footed travel is fine as long as you don’t have responsibilities or ties.’

‘Responsibilities can hold you back, to be fair,’ he said. ‘You only get one life, right? I just kind of realised that I didn’t want to waste too much of it on work.’

She stopped what she was doing and looked at him, and he was sure he caught an eye roll.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Nothing,’ she replied, closing the box and pushing it to one side. ‘Just that I totally get it now.’

‘Get what?’

‘Why I’ve seen you out in town maybe half a dozen times in the last six months, in that wine bar on the high street or whatever, and not once have I seen you with the same girl. And why Gran used to say all your relationships are five-minute wonders.’

She looked at him with mock disapproval, so he winked at her.

‘They’re actually more of a five-hour wonder,’ he said. ‘On occasion, an all-night wonder.’

This time the eye roll was massively exaggerated.

‘For goodness’ sake. There is more to life than living minute-to-minute,’ she said. ‘Having goals to work towards, proper security, knowing what the future holds, building a family.’

‘But all the time the future might not hold anything at all,’ he said. ‘You ever think about that? Ever think about just doing whatever fun thing you want to in the moment just because you can? It could all be over tomorrow, and any amount of planning ahead doesn’t change that basic fact. And when it is, I will have the comfort of knowing that I lived every second to the fullest that I could, and I didn’t waste a moment more on work than I needed to.’

‘Well, if you want to clock off for the day, don’t let me stop you,’ she said. ‘I mean I’m really grateful for your help, but this stuff isn’t part of your job description, is it?’

‘I wasn’t actually seeing this as work,’ he said. ‘The quest for a school photo of you has real comedy appeal.’

An exasperated laugh. She looked around her, pretending to search for something else to throw at him.

He hauled another box across to her while he pondered how lovely her laugh sounded. She looked up at him from where she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a half-smile still on her face.

‘I didn’t mean to sound critical,’ she said. ‘If I did, I mean. About the responsibility thing. It’s up to you what you do with your life, and if you don’t have responsibilities then hey, good luck to you.’ She slid her fingers under the cardboard flap of the box. ‘It just reminded me for a second of someone I know who’s free spirited travel-wise, and they could do with being a bit more organised and up to speed with their family responsibilities for a change.’

Clearly not her boyfriend. The email he’d had from the guy had smacked of responsibility and organisation of exactly the kind he avoided like the plague.

‘My mother,’ she supplied. ‘She doesn’t really do reliable. Reliable doesn’t really sit well with travelling abroad pursuing a delusional singing career.’ She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t bother me, I’m well past caring. I just think she could rock up and spend a bit of time with Gran, especially now.’

‘I’ve not met her,’ he said.

‘You wouldn’t have. Not unless you happened to like hanging out in jazz bars at holiday hotspots in the Med. Hang on …’

She’d been rummaging through a box while talking, and suddenly pulled out a stack of papers, tied together with an ageing ribbon.

‘I think I might have found something.’

She tugged at the ribbon until it fell loose, and she flipped quickly through the papers.

‘They’re the right time frame,’ she said. ‘Letters and postcards by the look of it.’

Her face was alight with excitement. She stood up and hefted the box into her arms.

‘I can’t see properly in this light, I’m going to take it down to the kitchen and have a better look.’

He stood up next to her and grabbed the box out of her hands before she could protest.

‘No you’re not. I’ll bring it down. You can make the coffee.’

In the kitchen, Lucy unpacked the box carefully. A collection of papers. Some old black-and-white photographs. She picked one up. How small it was. A young woman with her hair tied up in a scarf sitting on a fence, smiling and shielding her eyes against the sun.

‘Look,’ she said, moving close to Jack. She was suddenly aware of how tall he was as he leaned in to check the photo out. ‘That’s Gran, right?’

‘It’s definitely her,’ he agreed. ‘The exact same grin. Where is she, some kind of farm?’

There were chickens pecking at the foot of the fence, tufts of grass.

‘I haven’t a clue.’

She turned the photo over.

‘Cheshunt 1944,’ she read aloud.

‘Hertfordshire,’ Jack said. ‘She must have been living in Hertfordshire.’

‘She’s lived here in Canterbury for as long as I can remember. Her whole married life in this house. My mum was born in the living room, right through there.’ She nodded through the open kitchen door and down the hallway. ‘And I’m sure Gran grew up around here. She’s one of those people who’ve lived in the same area their whole life.’

She could absolutely see the appeal of that.

She flipped slowly through the papers in the box. Old letters, a few postcards. And then a folded piece of yellowing typewritten paper. She picked it out and unfolded it carefully, and in an instant she understood. The farm picture, Gran in overalls with her hair tied up, chickens all over the place. Women’s Land Army, it said at the top in capital letters. It was addressed to Olive Bratton, at an address in Canterbury that Lucy didn’t recognise, but which she supposed must have been Gran’s childhood home.

‘I have pleasure in enclosing your full Land Army uniform,’ she read aloud. ‘Then there’s a list of stuff … dungarees, breeches, gumboots.’ She stared down at it in amazement. ‘Jack, she was a Land Girl in the Second World War. How did I never know this?’