Page 57 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Bella

Bella padded downstairs in her bedsocks.

It was early—still dark—but the paperboy who delivered her Saturday newspapers was earlier.

Liam was fast asleep upstairs. In her bed.

It still felt unreal to have him there with her.

She’d stayed awake most of the night, unable to sleep, just wanting to look at him, afraid that if she went to sleep, she’d wake to find it was all a dream, after all.

She scooped up the papers and headed to the kitchen to make coffee.

Saturday mornings had always been hers; it was her little routine, time to herself before the aunts woke up, to sit and read and ease into the day.

She hoped that one day, when the newness of Liam’s presence had settled into an easy way of being, they would share these mornings together, reading the papers, drinking coffee, doing the crosswords; it was the simpler pleasures that she yearned for, these days.

Her “life with Liam” fantasies when she was younger had always been hectic and dizzying, and though they were currently experiencing a satisfyingly frenetic period of lovemaking, her desires for their daily life had matured into simply wanting to be together, to be near him, to share thoughts, to have her soul deeply melded with his; to know that they belonged to each other.

With a mug of coffee steaming in her hands and the Saturday papers spread out across the table, she began her ritual. It was in the second paper that an article caught her eye. It was an opinion column, and the title piqued her interest.

The Christmas Counter-attack

Calling the bluffer’s bluff

by Tilly Mason

As a lifelong foodie I make it my business to eat as much of the good stuff as I can and live vicariously through those who are eating in places I am not.

So, when a new food writer popped up in a well-known competing paper last week, I was curious to see what he had to say; nothing good, as it turned out.

If he is to be believed, there is a town in Scotland that is wholeheartedly committing crimes against food.

My cynical mind put his rhetoric down to the equivalent of “acting up for the cameras.” But not everyone is as suspicious as me, and I felt sorry for those poor restaurateurs if indeed they were caught up in an ambitious man’s folly.

A few days later, while idly scrolling TikTok—I can’t help myself, it’s my guilty pleasure—a series of videos popped up of that very same town.

An elf who works for Hallow-Hart Christmas Crackers—you couldn’t make it up—was running around the prettiest streets you ever did see, interviewing the owners of the very restaurants in Pine Bluff that had been maligned by said food writer.

So, I took one for the team and caught the train up there for a flying visit, to see for myself just what in the cranberry sauce was going on.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that, in my opinion, the new self-styled “Mister Nasty of Food” is also nasty by nature.

Dear reader, I ate in every restaurant cited in the article and was gastronomically sated on every score; the food was delicious, and the families that own the restaurants were delightful.

There was also a Christmas market to rival those in Europe, a wild coastline, and a high street full of independent shops.

So, with Christmas just around the corner, and in the spirit of giving, I offer this wisdom: don’t believe everything you read; make your own informed decisions; and if you have the chance, always choose kindness over spite.

Merry Christmas, one and all.

Bella’s hand was still hovering over her mouth in delighted shock when Liam walked in, sleep-grizzled and bursting out of the seams of her William Morris dressing gown.

“Mmmm,” he growled, looking her up and down, and Bella found she didn’t at all mind being looked at like something he wanted to eat.

“Morning,” she said, brightly.

Liam kissed her, before going to make coffee. “Good morning to you, my Bella.”

My Bella . She swooned inwardly. It sounded every bit as sweet on his lips as she’d always imagined.

“I really need to fetch my gear from the pub. As much as I enjoy the smell of your dressing gown on me, it does nothing for my figure,” he said, smiling. “Ooh, good, you’ve got the morning papers, the perfect way to start the weekend. Fancy doing a crossword with me?”

Bella smiled, feeling dreamily content, and sighed happily. “Pull up a chair,” she said.

Her initial thought was to rush upstairs and wake Fred, to show her the article. But she decided to let her sleep a little longer. Maybe she’d just sit and drink coffee for a while and do a crossword with the love of her life; she’d earned it.

As they sat, side by side at the old battered table, the sun came up, lighting the windows outside by degrees and turning the world a pale yellow.

Soon the aunts would bustle through, in their Wellington boots and nightgowns, bringing the cold morning with them as they clucked about the kitchen like chickens.

And then Fred would emerge, bleary with sleep and some new thought about how to put the world to rights, which she needed to share urgently, and this little oasis of calm for two would melt away.

But Bella didn’t mind, not one bit; she welcomed it all, the chaos and the quiet, because all those elements made up this life that she had been gifted.

And for the first time in many, many years, she didn’t want to change a thing.