Chapter 36

36

CHRISTMAS DAY

Perhaps it’s the way the sun shines brightly onto the snow, making everything sparkle. Or just being here all together in Shore cottage, on Christmas Day; unexpected, yes, but surely there are worse places to be. Pearl looks around the table laden with a vast breakfast, and what she sees gives her a little jolt of surprise.

Everyone, she realises – even Frida! – looks happy. Niall is topping up coffees and Lena is making Buck’s Fizz and a lemonade version for Theo. The kitchen is filled with chatter and there’s something else in the air, Pearl realises. A sort of charge, like static. She keeps catching Niall’s eye and is enjoying the frisson between them. It’s so liberating, Pearl decides, being 500 miles from home. Of course she misses her son but this is something just for her: a flirtation at least. ‘You deserve some fun,’ Lena said firmly when Pearl told her friends about the kiss last night. They’d made hot chocolates and whispered and giggled at the fireside like the young women they once were.

However, now they are firmly in practical mode, clearing the breakfast table as Theo lays out the spoils from his Christmas stocking. ‘Look at all this!’ he commands, and everyone coos over the gifts that were hastily assembled and stuffed into one of Niall’s thick red walking socks. There’s a paper ‘fortune teller’, of the type Shelley used to make for Martha, when Martha was perpetually glued to her side. Pearl made a little story book, entitled Stan of the Highlands , in the way that she’d made books for Brandon when he was little. Shelley had found paper in a box stashed under the coffee table, plus felt tips, a kid’s paint set and glittery snowflake stickers, presumably a rainy-day kit for young guests. Her heart snagged at the thought of Michael putting this together. When Lena was shovelling away snow at the front door she found a toy racing car, presumably left by a previous guest. Niall made a little garage for it from a cookie box and Roger’s offering was a whittled stick to be used for toasting marshmallows, should the opportunity arise. And Frida’s contribution had been to pick out Theo’s favourites from the Celebrations tub.

‘I’m so glad you like your stocking,’ Shelley says now.

‘Yeah.’ Theo grins up at her. ‘So when are we getting the real presents?’

She laughs tightly and turns away, and after a flurry of dishwasher loading she pulls on wellies and FaceTimes Joel in the garden.

‘Happy Christmas, darling!’ He beams at her.

‘Happy Christmas, honey. I’m missing you all…’

‘Missing you too,’ he says. ‘So how are things up there?’

‘Actually pretty good,’ she says. ‘It’s not what we planned but we’re still having fun…’

‘I’m so glad to hear that,’ he enthuses.

She smiles. He’s in the kitchen and, as with their last call, she finds herself having to adjust to his newfound buoyancy. ‘So the turkey’s in the oven? You remembered to get up early?—’

‘I’ll have you know I was up at seven to put it in,’ he teases, radiating pride.

Shelley studies his face on the screen, bright eyed and flushed, presumably from the morning’s exertions. He looks different, she decides. And he’s wearing a black polo neck sweater that she doesn’t remember seeing before. Joel isn’t a polo neck kind of guy. ‘So I guess your mum and dad’ll be arriving soon?’ she remarks.

‘Yep, they’re on their way.’

‘Great. Well, I hope the kids are helping,’ she adds.

‘Yeah, they’ve been brilliant so far. Peeling, chopping, making pigs in blankets…’

‘Wow! That’s… amazing.’ Shelley is stunned by this. It’s great, of course it is. But why can’t Martha and Fin be willing and eager when she’s around?

‘I know,’ Joel agrees. ‘They’ve been really, really amazing. Marth peeled tons of potatoes…’

‘Have you drugged them?’ Shelley exclaims, laughing now.

‘Haha, no. They’re just high on life, I guess. High on Christmas!’

She blinks at him. She hasn’t seen him this happy and excited since he won a design award in 2015. ‘I’m so glad to hear that,’ she says. ‘So you haven’t done presents yet?’

‘Actually, we have,’ Joel admits with a small wince of discomfort.

‘Oh, really? Why’s that?’ The tradition is that they always wait until Joel’s parents arrive before opening presents. Every year, it’s a sticking point with the kids: Why do we have to wait? No one else does! But that’s how things were done when Joel was growing up. Presents sat under the tree, not to be touched until his aunts and uncles arrived. Shelley knows Joel’s parents will be disappointed that the great unwrapping has happened, without them being there to witness it.

‘Just thought we’d change things up a bit this year.’ Joel seems to have developed a twitch in his jaw. He tugs at the polo neck.

‘Right,’ Shelley remarks, ‘so I’m out of the picture and everything’s different!’

‘Haha, yeah…’ He laughs uncomfortably.

‘I wonder what else you’ve been up to while I’ve been away?’ she teases, and his cheeks blaze.

‘Nothing!’

‘Joel,’ she exclaims. ‘I’m joking , okay? And it’s up to you how you manage the day. It’s your parents who’ll be horrified that the best part’s already over?—’

‘D’you think they will be?’ Now he looks positively frightened.

‘ I don’t know.’ She smiles. ‘And to be honest, I don’t blame the kids for wanting to tear into their presents first thing. I always thought it was a bit…’ She wants to say ‘joyless’ but holds back. ‘Anyway,’ she adds, ‘sounds like it’s all going great, so?—’

‘It is. It’s really, really great. And thanks for the guitar amp, honey. Honestly, what a present! You shouldn’t have…’

‘You’re welcome.’ Shelley brushes off the fact that he chose it and sent her the link.

‘Your presents are all waiting for you here,’ he adds.

She remembers the John Lewis voucher he gave her last year, which hardly filled her with festive cheer. Petulantly, she spent it on a non-stick frying pan. ‘Can’t wait,’ she says. Then he passes her on to Martha – ‘Thanks for my presents! They’re amazing. Love you, Mum!’ And then comes Fin, who despises FaceTiming. There’s still that look of abject horror as if he’s defending himself at the Old Bailey. But he tries at least. ‘Happy Christmas, Mum! I love my stuff. Yeah, all of it. We miss you!’

It’s all so unexpected that after their call, Shelley has to take herself away, down to the end of the garden, just to absorb what’s happening.

She chose to run away to Scotland in the week before Christmas and now she’s stranded here. Joel isn’t angry or accusatory; in fact, she believes now that he’ll rise to the challenge and that this unplanned situation might make things so much better between them.

She watches as one of the russet hens potters out of the hen house and takes a drink. Her heart seems to swell as she pictures her family, rallying to prepare for Christmas Day without her. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she pauses, and then texts Joel.

Shelley

Thank you darling for managing everything at home. I love you. Sxxx

Immediately Joel’s message pings back.

Joel

Love you too

Back inside the cottage, she shows it to Pearl. ‘D’you think it’s really him?’ she jokes.

‘Maybe you should go away more often,’ Pearl chuckles, on something of a cloud herself after a blur of happy Christmases with Brandon and Abi, despite Abi reminding her that the loo seat is still broken. They’ve seemed fine each time she’s called, if a little unforthcoming until today. But this morning Brandon was full of how they were preparing Christmas dinner together, and if the kitchen is trashed in the process, well, Pearl can handle that.

Now Harry and Pam’s chickens are roasting in the Aga, along with potatoes, and the cottage is filling with delicious aromas. Soon stuffing will be added, improvised with breadcrumbs and onions and whatever herbs they can find in the pantry. Niall is busily doing something with carrots and butter and honey on the hob, and Roger is announcing, ‘I don’t want to boast but my gravy’s really something, isn’t it, Frida?’ No one seems to care that there aren’t any sprouts or cranberry sauce. In the absence of Alexa or any means of accessing Spotify playlists, Shelley has got to grips with Michael’s rather antiquated stereo, and now a festive complication CD tinkles away in the background.

‘Oh my favourite!’ Frida enthuses when ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ comes on.

‘The last time I heard this was when I was out Christmas shopping with Joel,’ Shelley remarks.

‘Ahh, how romantic,’ Lena teases, feeling pretty loved up herself after an exchange of affectionate texts with Tommy.

Lena

Happy Christmas darling. I know you’ll be busy getting ready for your parents so let’s call later ok?

Tommy

Yes sweetheart, happy Christmas to you my love. I adore you xx

‘I actually wanted to kill him that day,’ Shelley chuckles. ‘But now there he is, manning the fort in a black polo neck like some sixties jazz guy?—’

‘Wow.’ Pearl laughs. And now, with heat rising in Shore Cottage’s kitchen, Lena opens the front door and steps outside. The sky is clear blue, the air sharp and crisp and everything is sparkling white, as if lightly glittered. Lena inhales, fixing her gaze on the snowy mountain tops, until she feels fortified enough to call her mum and dad in Manchester. They want to know all about the Highlands, and make jokes about bagpipes, and has she been chased by any haggis yet? Her heart seems to twang at the sound of all the jollity there.

‘We miss you, Lena,’ her dad announces.

‘I miss you too, Dad. I’ll be up straight after New Year, okay? I promise.’ Then she’s passed around to speak to her brothers and sisters and by the time the call has ended she feels quite dizzy.

So when she sees Daisy’s Instagram she thinks, Oh, that picture must be from years ago. God knows why she’s put it up now. Still, it’s unsettling to be faced with a festive scene of this kind. Of Tommy sitting next to Catherine at a lavishly decorated Christmas table. And there’s Daisy looking stunning in a deep blue dress, and Tommy’s parents, William and Annabelle, grinning and raising glasses to the camera.

Then it dawns on Lena that this isn’t an old photo. Because this isn’t how Daisy looked a few years ago. It’s Daisy right now.

She blinks at it, feeling sick to her gut. What’s going on? Why aren’t Tommy and his parents at her flat in Hackney? Lena doesn’t understand. For one mad moment she thinks: Is this real? Or AI generated? Is it a joke? There are other people too – Catherine’s brother, she thinks. And that must be her sister-in-law and their kids. But as soon as she registers these other people, they seem to melt away. And all Lena can see is the two people in the centre of the picture. Tommy and Catherine, beaming happily on this Christmas Day, 500 miles from her. And as she reads Daisy’s caption, her heart seems to freeze.

Christmas Day with the fam. Love them so much!!!!!