Page 53 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Fred

Fred knew with a calm certainty that if anyone was deserving of her mum’s love, it was Liam.

Her happiness for them gave her a warm glowing feeling in her chest, like one of the aunts’ special hot chocolates, only this glow wouldn’t give her a raging hangover.

But as she trudged through the deepening snow, around the side of the house, and got back into her car, she was under no illusions about the amends she still needed to make.

She was deeply troubled about Ryan, and the fact that Pine Bluff was an angry mob with her name on its lips.

She turned the key in the ignition. Nothing.

“Are you actually kidding me?” she cried as she tried again.

The engine didn’t even attempt to turn over.

She kicked the door open and climbed out, slamming it shut.

“Why?” she yelled at it. “Why are you doing this to me now?” The motion started off the singing Christmas tree.

“ I’m the happiest Christmas tree, ho-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee… ”

“Right! That’s it!” She picked up the tree and began throttling it as it continued to sing. “Why don’t you just bloody shut up!” she yelled.

“ With a hee and a ho and a hah-hah!…I got shiny bells that jingle… ”

“I’ll give you shiny bells , you little fucker!”

“Now there’s an offer.”

Fred spun round and found Mr. Bishop staring at her, one hand scratching his bushy beard.

“I was going to deliver your extra Christmas trees, but I’m not sure you can be trusted with them.”

She could feel tears pricking her eyes again. “My car won’t start.”

He looked from the bedraggled tree in Fred’s chokehold, which was now singing like it was melting, to the car and then back to her. “I generally find jump leads more effective.”

A snorted cry of laughter escaped her, and she wondered if she was becoming hysterical. “Everybody hates me.”

“Hate’s a strong word. People will calm down and realize it’s not really your fault.”

“Have you seen Ryan?” She couldn’t keep the sob out of her voice.

“I passed him on his way out of town. He was headed north in that clapped-out Land Rover of his.”

At that, Fred dropped the tree and began weeping pitifully. “It’s hopeless! And I’m so hungover! How is it even possible to get that much alcohol into a mug of hot chocolate?”

Mr. Bishop raised a bushy eyebrow. “Listen, you give me a hand with these trees, and I’ll take a look at your car. It’s probably best you leave off going to town for a while anyway. Give folks a chance to cool off a bit.”

“Okay,” she sniffled. “Thank you.”

Fred helped the old farmer unload the trees—after giving her assurances that she wouldn’t cause them mortal harm—and helped him pull them on a sledge around the house and through the garden. The work calmed her.

“I didn’t know that Warren was going to write those things, you know,” she said, stopping to untangle the sledge from some trailing ivy.

“I rather thought not. Not your style.”

“It was supposed to be something good—a great advertisement for the town—not a hatchet job.”

“Sounds like a case of that young man putting ambition above scruples. Everyone knows it’s quicker to accrue fame via notoriety than virtue,” said Mr. Bishop.

Fred looked at him sideways. “You don’t miss much, do you?”

“Not much, no.”

“I wish the rest of the town would give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“You can’t behave like some city slicker trapped in a hillbilly backwater, and then be surprised when people assume you had something to do with an article slagging off the town.”

He was right, of course. When she’d first arrived, she treated being back here like a punishment, a signal of her failure, and by her allusions cast the people who chose to live in Pine Bluff as losers too.

“My problem was only ever with me,” she said, but she knew it sounded pathetic.

“I assume it’s over between you and the journalist in question?” Mr. Bishop asked.

“Yes, it is very much over.”

Mr. Bishop nodded. “Can’t say as I’m sad to hear it.”

They reached the aunts’ cottage and settled the trees into the two large buckets of water set out for them in the porch.

“You go back to the house and get yourself a cup of tea, and I’ll take a look at your car,” said Mr. Bishop.

“Shouldn’t I stay close, in case you need me to pass you spanners and things?”

He looked at her with concern. “Don’t take offense, but you look like hell; and right now you’d be about as much help as a chocolate teapot. The best thing you can do is make yourself a brew and spend a bit of time in contemplation. That’s what I do when I’ve got a problem to wrestle.”

She nodded forlornly. “Thanks for looking at my car, Mr. B. And for being kind, even though I don’t deserve it.”

“Oh, now don’t go beating yourself up,” he said kindly. “Get off with ya, I’m a busy man.”

—

Fred made a cup of tea. Maybe Mr. Bishop was right; she’d spent all morning flapping around like a panicked pheasant. She needed time to contemplate, and to do that she needed to be where other people weren’t.

The door to the attic was kept closed, to keep the chill out of the hallway.

A red-and-white striped draft excluder in the shape of a candy cane lay across the bottom of the door.

She nudged it aside with her foot and pulled the door open.

A shock of cold air whistled down the steep staircase, and a not unpleasant scent of old leather and dusty books filled her nostrils.

She pulled her cardigan tighter around herself, then climbed up the stairs.

A large room; almost the entire footprint of the house was spread out before her.

The floorboards were old but firm. The peculiar light that only comes with snow spilled in through small round windows overlooking the front and back gardens.

It was reasonably tidy, considering it had been a dumping ground for the Hallow-Hart women’s personal archives since the time the house was built.

A chair was pulled up beside a battered suitcase resting on an old davenport desk, and Fred guessed that this was where her mum had found inspiration for this year’s cracker paper designs, in among the correspondence of their ancestors.

Maybe they would inspire her, too, although it would take more than a few old Christmas cards to get her out of the mess she was in.

She placed her mug down and unbuckled the straps on the case, flipping the lid back, then she took a seat and began to sift through the contents.

The paper envelopes had matured to a shade of buttery shortbread, except at the edges where they looked as though they’d been dunked in tea.

She was careful to replace the contents of each envelope when she had finished with it.

Far from the perfunctory efforts of today, these cards were epistles, often containing more detailed letters tucked inside them, which relayed the news of the women’s lives; all were written by hand.

On the surface they seemed to hail from a more innocent time, though she knew the writers would have experienced the fear and horrors of not one but two world wars. Even the most outwardly simple of lives contained a raging tempest of sensibilities beneath the surface.

Her fingers continued to move through the mess of envelopes. A card with a picture of an angelic-looking child, dressed all in red with blonde bouncing ringlets and a snowy forest behind her, caught Fred’s eye. Inside was a short letter.

My dearest friend, Hazel,

I cannot tell you what a delight it was to receive your letter.

You are too kind. It has been a trial, but your kind words and generous offer have brought some light into the darkness.

Little Felicity and I will catch the train on the fifteenth of December using the tickets you enclosed.

What a joy it will be to see your face again and to spend Christmas with you at Hallow House.

How I have longed to be back in Pine Bluff these many months.

Since this war began, I confess I had begun to associate letters with only bad news, but yours has restored my faith that good things, too, can arrive by post.

Yours affectionately,

Grace

“Well, Granny, you were clearly a better Hallow-Hart than I am,” she said to the card.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

Fred jumped so high she tipped the chair, and it clattered backward on to the floor. “Ryan! You scared me, I didn’t hear you come up.”

He was standing at the top of the stairs, a vision in a red bomber jacket, baggy jeans and boots, and her heart ached.

“You were in your own world,” he said, his hands stuffed into his pockets.

“Better there than here; nobody hated me in the past.” She stared down at the letters, unable to look him in the eye. “I hadn’t had the chance to fuck everything up yet.”

“Is that what you think you did?” His voice was kind, but she didn’t dare believe it.

“Didn’t I?” She chanced a glance up, and looked away quickly.

“Maybe not everything.”

A sob hiccupped out of her. “Really?” Her hope was a raw, desperate thing.

“I’m sorry about this morning. Someone sent me the article online; it was the first thing I saw when I woke up, and I was angry and still tired after everything last night…I shouldn’t have sent you a shitty message and then blanked you, you didn’t deserve that. That’s on me.”

She was annoyed by how free-flowing her tears were. As fast as she rubbed them away with the heels of her hands, more streamed down her cheeks after them. “I thought you hated me…” Her voice was squeaky, like someone doing an impression of what a talking mouse might sound like.

“Of course I don’t hate you. I never could.”

“I didn’t know Warren would do that. It wasn’t the version he showed me.”

“I know that,” he said, placatingly. “Do you mind if I come over there and hug you, because your tears are breaking my heart.”

She sniffed. “No, I don’t mind.”

Ryan crossed the attic and pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry for being a cock.”

She snaked her arms around him and held on tight. “I’m. Sorry”—her words were jerky through her sobs—“That I. Wasn’t more supportive. Of your business decision. You were right. To turn Crema down. Of course you were right.”

“Hey, now,” he soothed, rubbing his hands up and down her back.

“I’m sorry for that too. All you did was ask the questions that I’d already asked myself.

I just didn’t like having my own concerns mirrored back at me.

I guess I was feeling insecure about my decision.

I still think I made the correct choice for me, but you were right, it could potentially have given my whole family financial security, and I didn’t know if I’d been selfish by turning it down. ”

She pressed her face against his coffee-scented shirt. “Your family don’t expect you to take care of them.”

He sighed. “I know they’d never say it, but who wouldn’t want to have their money worries wiped out? Anyway, those were my demons to wrestle with, and I should never have taken it out on you.”

“I was the one rude enough to question you on it.” She snuffled into his chest.

He held her closer. “Good. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who didn’t feel they could challenge me on things.”

His words made her dare to hope that she hadn’t ruined things—not with Ryan, at least. She took what felt like her first easy breath since the night before, and held on to him a little tighter.

He kissed her hair.

When he let her go, she said, “I’m sorry about all this crying. On top of everything else I have the most horrific hangover.”

“Cocktails with the aunts?”

“Hot chocolate.”

“ Oof , I’ve fallen foul of their nightcaps before,” Ryan said, with sympathy.

In the absence of a tissue Fred reached into a trunk of old clothes and wiped her eyes and nose on a lace-edged blouse, then sneezed into it three times from all the dust and blew her nose on it, loudly.

“I’d like to kiss you, but you’ve rubbed hundred-year-old granny blouse all over your face.”

She laughed and a snot bubble ballooned out of her nose, so she buried her face in the musty blouse again. “That’s fair,” she mumbled.

“What were you doing up here anyway?” he asked, looking around.

“Hiding. And looking through old Christmas cards.” An idea began to form in her mind. “Maybe I should write letters to all the businesses affected by Warren’s article. They can’t slam the door on a letter.”

“True,” Ryan agreed, sifting through the old suitcase.

“It won’t make up for what Warren’s written about their businesses, though.”

“That’s not your responsibility,” said Ryan, firmly. “Once they’ve read your letter, they’ll know you had nothing to do with it.”

She wasn’t listening. “I need to do something to make it, well, if not right then at least to counteract the damage. A campaign…something that will put them on the map in a good way…something…” Her marketing mind was circulating an idea.

In the last week her Instagram posts and stories—not to mention her liberal use of hashtags for swanky places that stocked their crackers—had gained Hallow-Hart Crackers another thousand followers to add to the five thousand they already had.

What if she extended her ideas for “meet the makers” videos to encompass the local community?

Piggybacked off the momentum she’d already started…

“Okay, I see your cogs turning. Is there anything I can do to help with this master plan?” asked Ryan.

She looked at him and smiled. “You can tell your dad I’d like to take him up on his offer of an elf costume.”

He grinned. “Oh, I cannot wait to see you in that.”

“I will take your ridicule, because it’s for a good cause.”

“I don’t want to ridicule you, I want to perv over you—you’ll look hot in that getup.”

She couldn’t help it, she blushed scarlet.

He began to lean toward her, and she felt the pull of his nearness, drawing her to him. Just as their lips were about to touch, she said, “Wait! What about my granny blouse face?”

He smiled. “I’ll take my chances.”

Their lips met, and for several blissful minutes she forgot about anything and everything that wasn’t Ryan Frost.