Page 51 of So This is Christmas

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Chapter One

MALLORY

Mallory thanked the kennel assistant and closed the front door behind her.

She scooped her dog, Cedella, into her arms. ‘I missed you. It’s good to have you home.

Did you have fun at the boarding kennels?

I bet you did, ten whole days with your doggy friends.

’ She sounded like a loon but it was either that or bawling her eyes out and she’d cried so much over the last week and a bit that she could really do with a break.

She also needed to hold it together for when Jilly came home.

Her teenage daughter had been staying with a friend while Mallory was away on what her daughter thought was a course – it wasn’t, but she couldn’t share the real reason for her absence, not yet.

‘You’ll have to do for cuddles for now,’ she whispered into Cedella’s white fur. She’d better not mention Jilly by name or the dog would be leaping all over the place, far too excited. They’d save that for when Jilly came in through the front door.

Mallory sat down on the sofa with Cedella on her lap. Jilly would be home from school soon, and reality and normality would resume.

Except how could it? Everything had changed, the extent of which she hadn’t really known until a couple of days ago, when her world had changed forever.

She thought back to the relatively carefree existence she’d been living up until that life-changing moment.

She thought about the wonderful weekend break in the Cotswolds with her cousin, Penny, celebrating their fiftieth birthdays, just five days apart from each other.

The person she’d been then, only four weeks ago, felt like it was someone else entirely.

Penny wasn’t only Mallory’s cousin, but her best friend too, and despite the family tension and their mothers’ estrangement that could’ve easily kept them apart, they’d only grown closer over the years.

Mallory wasn’t sure what she’d do without Penny and vice versa, and that weekend, the champagne, the good food, the laughter and the memories they’d created, had been wonderful.

But almost as soon as Mallory returned home, reality had hit with a bang she hadn’t heard coming. And she was still ricocheting from it.

Funny how she’d thought she had so much to worry about before – last year, in the final year of her forties, the signs of ageing creeping up on her, Mallory had worried about her appearance.

She’d whitened her teeth to brighten her smile and get rid of discolouration, probably due to too many coffees in an attempt to stay awake on shift as a rheumatology nurse.

She’d had her hair coloured to cover the few greys that were creeping in – she didn’t want to look old just yet!

And she’d not been happy until she’d lost the three kilograms she put on after a holiday in Florida.

How stupid, the things she’d obsessed about back then.

Those were the little things.

As if they really mattered.

They didn’t, not any more, not now this boulder of a worry had come along and threatened to destroy everything in its path.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and Jilly’s voice calling out, ‘Mum, Mum! You’ve got to look at this!’

She went out into the hallway, careful not to let an over-excited Cedella trip her up.

Thirteen-year-old Jilly had hold of her phone and her long dark ponytail swished as she let her school bag drop from one shoulder onto the floorboards, then swished again as she let the holdall on her other fall to the floor too.

Whatever was on her phone that she couldn’t tear her eyes away from was even distracting Jilly from Cedella and nothing ever did that.

‘I’m not looking at anything until I get a hug from my girl.’ Mallory held open her arms for Jilly to step into. Jilly, her beautiful girl, whose life was about to be detonated beyond belief when Mallory told her the horrible truth.

Jilly beamed. ‘I’m glad you’re home.’ But she giggled soon enough. ‘You’re squeezing me a bit tight. And I think Cedella is getting annoyed.’

The little dog was most perturbed that she wasn’t the centre of attention for once and Jilly passed Mallory her phone to free up her arms to make a fuss of Cedella. ‘Did you miss me?’

‘I did,’ said Mallory, knowing full well she was asking the dog.

‘Mum, look at what’s on my phone.’

Mallory lifted the phone to check the screen. ‘Okay, what am I looking at? Wow, nice dress.’ She was looking at a social media post of a woman wearing a beautiful wedding gown. ‘Whose Instagram post is this?’

Jilly rushed through her answer as though that was secondary to what she’d found – she followed a singer slash actress whose mum had been very famous in the sixties, seventies and eighties and had been in ‘a ton’ of movies before she passed away a few months ago.

‘Mum…’ Jilly pressed on urgently. ‘Look closer.’

She did.

‘It’s not just any dress,’ said Jilly. ‘Mum, the actress Norma Monroe wore Granny Gigi’s dress in a movie!’

Mallory frowned and looked closer at the famous actress in the black and white shot of a movie scene. The wedding dress certainly looked a lot like her mother’s. In fact, it was uncanny. But why would this actress be wearing Gigi’s dress? It didn’t make any sense.

‘Jilly, there are a lot of wedding dresses that must look just like Granny Gigi’s.

’ But she humoured her daughter and looked at it some more.

She swiped right to see the actress in the same dress, this time walking away from the camera and turning her head over her shoulder.

The back detailing certainly looked the same too.

She tried to pass the phone back to Jilly but Jilly urged her to look again.

‘Read the wording below.’

Mallory wasn’t in the mood, she didn’t want to read a tribute to someone who had died. But she would do anything for Jilly so she read the blurb accompanying the photographs.

The write-up covered an overview of the life of Norma Monroe, a famous actress whose career began in the sixties.

The first movie she’d been in had shot her to fame apparently, so a lot of the focus was on that time period.

The actress talked about the dress saving the day after a terrible storm ruined the filming company’s costumes for that particular movie.

But it was next part of the write-up that told Mallory there was every possibility this was the same dress her mother had made, the same dress Gigi had worn to marry Mallory’s late father, Hector, the same dress that was still boxed up in the attic of her mother’s house.

The movie had been filmed in Saxby Green and Norma Monroe’s daughter was quoted as saying that her mother never forgot the generosity of two sisters from the quaint English village who provided the dress for one of the most important events of her entire life.

The date the film was made also coincided with the time Mallory knew Gigi had lived in the village with her sister, Rose. All the details seemed to fit.

Mallory took Jilly’s phone over to the framed photograph of her parents that sat on the windowsill.

She compared the images of the dress side by side.

Reminiscent of the 1930s era, the cream, ankle-length heavily sequinned gown with tulle sleeves and hand sewn details was one of a kind, a thing of beauty.

‘Is it the dress, Mum?’ Jilly urged.

‘I think it is.’

‘So they made it together? Granny Gigi and her sister, Rose?’

‘It looks that way.’

Eighty-one-year-old Gigi had always batted away any questions about her older sister, Rose, and to this day Mallory had no idea why.

She had always told Mallory that she’d made the dress, which was true, but it sounded as though Rose had been integral to its creation too, which made sense given Aunt Rose still lived in Saxby Green and owned a wedding dress boutique.

Mallory’s mind rushed with information, too much information today, she felt on overload. Gigi had always been so tight-lipped about the falling out and so had Aunt Rose, Penny’s mother, because if Penny knew about this she never would’ve kept it from Mallory.

Now she’d seen the Instagram post, Mallory had a growing suspicion that the sisters’ estrangement had a lot to do with the dress.

She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

‘Did you comment on the post, Jilly?’ Letting her teenager have social media was something Mallory would’ve liked to refuse but given all her friends were on it, she had had to settle with monitoring what Jilly did when she was on there and keeping her aware of the risks.

‘No.’ Jilly shook her head. ‘I really didn’t, Mum. I just follow the actress. I saw the post when I was walking home and came straight in to tell you about it.’

‘You should put your phone away when you’re out and about. I’ve told you that.’

‘Sorry.’

Mallory hugged Jilly. Telling her off about anything right now felt impossible. She kissed the top of her head. ‘Do me a favour – don’t mention anything to Granny Gigi about this.’

She frowned with confusion. ‘Okay.’

‘I mean it, this is important, and delicate. I need to work out where to go from here so we don’t upset anyone unnecessarily.’

‘Fine. Now can I get something to eat? I’m really hungry.’

Mallory, distracted, didn’t answer straight away.

‘Food. Mum, I need food.’ She was already on her way to the kitchen.

Mallory snapped out of her trance and called after her, ‘There’s a fresh loaf of raisin bread in the bread bin.’

While Jilly was out of the room, Mallory picked up the phone to call Penny. She had to tell her what she knew.