Page 42 of The Secret Christmas Library

All trussed up, Jamie flung open the boot room side door on to the gravel driveway. Esme looked at the sky, then at her still-buried, now-frozen car, and sighed.

Jamie hefted up a bag, and stomped out, without his snowshoes today, just thick boots.

‘We need crampons really,’ he said.

But actually, the thick layer of ice that had formed on the snow was both fairly straightforward to walk on – certainly easier than the thigh-deep snow – and oddly satisfying, as it crunched beneath their heavy boots.

The sun made all the difference, though it was now straight in front of them, blinding them. Theo reached into a pocket and brought out a pair of sunglasses, which made the girls laugh. And suddenly, in the very far distance, they heard something.

‘Sshh, listen!’

It was very faint – and not their church – but the bells were ringing, and the day was so still that the sound had carried all across the valley.

‘That must mean some people have made it to church,’ said Esme.

‘Don’t make me feel guilty,’ said Theo.

‘No, it means some roads must be passable! If they’re ringing the bells. I mean, ours won’t, but other people can’t be in such desperate straits.’

‘Are they real bells?’ said Mirren. ‘Not just recordings?’

‘Recordings?’ sniffed Esme, as if she’d never heard anything more ridiculous.

‘Well, if it were recordings,’ said Jamie, comfortingly, ‘that would mean their power was back on. Which would be great too.’

It was rather lovely, to hear the sound of the pealing bells bouncing off the crackling white world as they began to scrunch their way across the lawn, in a direction Mirren and Theo hadn’t been before.

With the sea behind them, the forest ahead, they bore far to the right.

Again Mirren turned back, trying to imprint the house, outlined in ice and sun, into her memory, in case she never came here again .

. . Well, of course she would never come here again, she remonstrated with herself.

Why would she? She should consider herself happy that she found it, and saw it.

And met . . . him. She looked at Jamie, marching out, in his element on the difficult ground, perfectly at home.

They passed the low settling of outhouses on the side, with smoke coming out of one chimney.

‘What are those?’ asked Theo.

‘Oh, the farm cottages – abandoned now,’ said Esme, airily.

‘That one isn’t abandoned.’

Jamie tutted. ‘It’s Bonnie’s, obviously.’

‘Oh, yeah, of course,’ said Esme.

‘Didn’t you know?’ said Theo.

‘I’ve never been in those buildings,’ said Esme.

‘You have buildings on your own property you’ve never been in?’

Esme shrugged. ‘Do we have to go through the whole “raised in a castle” thing again?’

‘Have you been in them?’ Mirren asked Jamie, not sure she wanted to know what the answer was.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Jamie. ‘When I was small. Bonnie’s gran, Mrs Airdrie, lived there. She was really kind to us. Bonnie’s mum worked up in Aberdeen – still does – so old Mrs Airdrie raised Bonnie, really. Her dad was a ghillie, moved on . . . ’ His face twisted. ‘Bit of a theme.’

‘Isn’t it?’ said Mirren, with some feeling. ‘So, you guys played together?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah. Mrs Airdrie was an amazing baker too. Bonnie got it all from her.’

Mirren frowned, crunching on. ‘When . . . when did you and Bonnie realise, though. That you would own the house, and she would work in it?’

Jamie smiled at the memory. Theo and Esme were hanging behind; Esme had conjured up a vape from somewhere and they were sharing it.

‘When we were about nine or so? She went mental. I can see that wee face now.’

‘So what did you do? What did people say?’

‘Oh, my mum didn’t care, didn’t know why I was hanging around with her in the first place, and of course everyone – we all – assumed Bonnie would leave, go to college, so it didn’t matter.

Nobody thought she’d grow up to work in the house; that was a ridiculous idea in this day and age.

But Mrs Airdrie was very good. She pointed out that they own their house outright – they do, and it’s all stipulated to Bonnie.

And that she could go to college too if she wanted.

And we had a stupid big cold house, and they had a small cosy house and Pot Noodles and a big telly.

’ Jamie smiled ruefully. ‘I think we both knew she had the better end of the bargain. I practically lived in there.’

‘What changed?’

‘I got sent away to school,’ said Jamie. ‘And then . . . it was different after that.’

‘Why does she stay working here?’ said Mirren, still wondering if the answer to that question was standing right in front of her.

‘I genuinely don’t know,’ said Jamie, in a way that made Mirren’s heart pound.

Either he was telling the truth – in which case, they had never dated – or he was the biggest cad of all time.

And she didn’t think he was. Mind you, she had been wrong about Theo too.

She wasn’t the best judge of character. ‘She nursed her gran all through her last illness. There’s nothing keeping her here now. ’

‘You guys are close,’ ventured Mirren.

‘We were when we were children,’ said Jamie, then trailed off and seemed unwilling to say any more.

He glanced up as Mirren was wishing she had brought her sunglasses too; the sunlight on the ice was blinding. But, inside, hope was leaping in her heart.

‘You’re easy to talk to,’ said Jamie, shyly.

‘Enough with the crazed flattery,’ said Mirren, and he smiled. ‘Maybe she just loves the house that much,’ she suggested, looking back at the house, sparkling in the bright multifaceted frosted morning. ‘I could see why.’

‘Maybe she does,’ said Jamie. ‘And she doesn’t need to find a way to pay for the roof.’ And the frown was back.

They left the cottages behind and crunched down a path.

The snow was nearly level with the old stone walls.

London snow was thin and wet and never lasted – it never even turned up till March, usually, and plenty of years it didn’t turn up at all.

This was the real thing: huge slabs of icing, not made grey by lorries or murky by feet.

It was pure white, spoiled by nothing but tiny bird footprints and occasional glancing hooves.

Roger was plocking along behind them, his claws clacking on the icy surface.

‘What’s up here – the maze?’ said Mirren.

She was enjoying being out of the gloomy castle, enjoying the sun on her face, swathed in every layer she could dig up, old wool made for the low temperatures.

When you were warm enough, and you didn’t have a wind blowing straight in your face, it was genuinely glorious, the only sound the crunching on the icy surface; the giggling of Theo and Esme some way behind them; the skritch skritch skritch of Roger’s paws.

‘No,’ said Jamie, smiling and taking down his rucksack. ‘There’s a loch. You go round it to get to the maze.’

‘Okay,’ said Mirren.

He pulled something out of his rucksack. It looked like a weapon of some kind . . . old steel.

‘What’s that?’

He handed it to her. It was a pair of ice skates, with a metal blade underneath, but the tops were simple wooden frames, designed to be buckled on top of the shoes you were already wearing.

‘Oh, my God,’ said Mirren. ‘You are kidding. These are death traps.’

‘Neh, they’re fine,’ said Jamie. ‘They just take a bit of getting used to and they don’t go as fast as modern skates, but speed isn’t really of the essence.’

‘No, I mean, you are stark raving crazy,’ said Mirren. ‘You’re going out on . . . ’

They had reached the swimming hole now. As Jamie had said, it wasn’t very big, and it had frozen, end to end. It looked absolutely solid.

‘No,’ said Mirren. ‘I’ve read Little Women. Don’t be an idiot.’

‘That was on a river,’ said Jamie. ‘This is a tiny loch. Completely different situation, believe me.’

As if to illustrate matters, Roger ran out on to the ice.

‘No!’ shouted Mirren. ‘Roger! Come back! Come back, sweetie!’

Roger wagged his tail furiously as if to say, thanks so much for mentioning my name, I’m fine. Then his back leg gave out from under him, Bambi-style, and his face took on a comical expression as he scrabbled back to the safety of the white-frosted fronds surrounding the water.

‘Okay, it’s still a definite no,’ she said.

But Jamie had perched on a rock and was tying on the skates. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s perfectly safe.’ As if to illustrate this, he bent down, grabbed a rock and hurled it on to the middle of the water. It bounced off as if he’d thrown it at the wall. ‘I’ve done it all my life.’

‘I can barely skate on the Christmas rink at Somerset House,’ said Mirren. ‘And there they have people who push you around on a penguin.’

‘So, you’re trained,’ said Jamie.

Esme was behind them and was pulling out her own skates from Jamie’s bag – she had proper black, professional-standard ice dance boots.

Mirren felt Esme’s scorn – she didn’t even bother trying to persuade Mirren to come with her.

She didn’t give a toss either way, Mirren realised.

And Theo, naturally, would absolutely have to ape the poshest people in the place at any point, so he was strapping up his shoes as well.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Mirren, grumbling, as Jamie, with a smile, proffered the buckle skates again.

‘This is like when your mother says would you jump out of a window because all your friends were doing it, except in this case it’s would you sink to an icy freezing agonising death because your boss gave you something from a hundred years ago when they were all totally used to icy freezing agonising deaths. ’

‘Your boss?’ said Jamie.

Esme and Theo were clanking noisily towards the rink. Theo had gone rather pale; Mirren wondered if he was going to throw up.

She looked at Jamie. ‘Just being literal,’ she said.