Page 49 of The Secret Christmas Library

Mirren squawked almost as loudly as the duck and jumped backwards. Bonnie shot her a look.

‘Come on! This is Quackers. Don’t startle her, you’ll make it worse.’

‘You know this duck?’ said Mirren.

Bonnie ignored her. ‘Jamie, could you . . . ’

‘Can’t Esme do it?’ said Jamie, walking over and reluctantly holding the bottom half of the duck. ‘Didn’t you want to do this outside?’

‘No, they’ve unionised,’ said Bonnie.

‘Are you going to . . . what are you going to do to the duck?’ asked Mirren.

‘Oh, God,’ said Bonnie. ‘I really don’t have time to explain the countryside. Jamie . . . Jamie . . . ’ she said in a warning tone of voice. ‘Would you stop being soft. Esme! ESME!’

Esme, as it turned out, was heading in, dressed in a sleek trouser suit. ‘Yes, yes, no need to holler,’ she said, then grinned. ‘Oh, God, is my brother being pathetic again? You’ll still eat it.’

‘I know,’ said Jamie. ‘I just don’t . . . ’

‘Come on, Bonnie, we’ll do it outside.’

‘Maybe the larder . . . ’ said Bonnie reluctantly.

‘Out!’ said Esme, opening the door, and letting the full force of the wind in.

It wrenched the door open, smashing it all the way around against the wall.

In the commotion, Jamie dropped his end of the duck, which took immediate advantage of the situation, pecked Bonnie hard on the arm and flapped out into the dark snowy sky.

They sat around the table.

‘The thing is,’ said Bonnie, ‘it took me half an hour to get hold of that duck. And now it will fly back and warn the others and they’ll all be in a flap.’

‘You are so pathetic,’ said Esme to Jamie.

‘I know,’ said Jamie.

‘If you can’t catch it or kill it, you shouldn’t eat it.’

‘That wouldn’t work for Jamie,’ said Bonnie. ‘He thinks plants get upset when you pick them.’

Jamie went red. ‘Shut up,’ he said.

‘Well, anyway, that was our Christmas Eve supper,’ said Bonnie. ‘I’ll have a look in the morning, but I’m not going out there again tonight.’

‘Quite right,’ said Theo, who had joined them and was finally looking rather better.

‘I’ll cook supper,’ said Jamie, suddenly. ‘I’m sure there’s stuff in the larder.’

‘Well, yes, obviously,’ said Bonnie. ‘We’re managing fine without refrigeration, amazingly.’ She bustled out; Jamie got up and headed over to the larder and returned, as the others settled around the Aga, and Mirren filled them in on the letters.

Esme, as predicted, was not happy about it.

‘Run towards joy?’ she said, sceptically. ‘That sounds like something someone would have on the wall of their new-build in Slough!’ She shivered.

‘You are such a snob!’ said Mirren, whose mum had Live Laugh Love up and Mirren didn’t mind it in the slightest.

‘Yes,’ said Esme. ‘Thank God somebody is, or we’d all be sitting round here eating Super Noodles.’

Jamie was chopping garlic, rather efficiently, on a very old board.

‘What does it even mean?’ said Esme. ‘If I ran towards Tiffany’s, they’d catch me and then they’d say, thanks, Lady Esme, we’d like some money now please. This is a really bad show, Grampa.’ She frowned and leafed through the letters again. ‘Thanks for your legacy of total failure.’

Jamie added a little butter to a huge old pan, heated it, and let the garlic sizzle into it. The smell was instantly intoxicating. Mirren remembered she was absolutely as hungry as she had ever been in her life. Starving, in fact.

Bonnie pushed open the door.

‘Time for gin and tonics?’ she said, carrying a tray.

‘Oh, God, yes. YES. Can I have one so strong that it will basically make me pass out?’ said Esme.

‘You want a tonic-flavoured Martini?’

‘That is exactly what I want.’

Bonnie smiled indulgently. She even had ice cubes.

She had also baked some little cheese puffs, warm from the oven and light and delicious as clouds.

Despite their dead end, Mirren couldn’t help being delighted.

Jamie had chopped a bunch of misshapen tomatoes that had obviously been grown in the grounds, and added them gently to the garlic with a sprinkling of ground chilli, and Mirren’s stomach growled.

The wind howled round the house and there was a crashing noise.

Mirren, who had been feeling woozy, and Theo, who was making good headway with his G and T, both started. Nobody else moved at all.

‘What the hell was that?’ said Mirren.

‘Another tile off the roof,’ said the others, almost at the same time.

‘The snow weighs them down,’ said Jamie, looking up.

‘I know I didn’t come here to do quantity surveying,’ said Mirren, ‘but this place really is falling down, you know. We’d probably condemn it.’

Everyone laughed, but Mirren frowned. There surely wasn’t a book in the world that could save this place.

The big water pot boiled, and he emptied some pasta into it.

‘Be careful you don’t harm that pasta!’ said Esme. ‘Oh, no! I’m getting all hot and bendy! ’

‘Shut up, Esme!’

‘I think you’re hot and bendy,’ said Theo.

‘You shut up,’ said Esme, but she smiled.

This is joy, Mirren found herself thinking suddenly, completely out of the blue. Sitting in this kitchen with these odd people, and a warm oven, and a gin and tonic, and food on the way. This is joy, and it’s nearly ended.

It was such a simple meal – rich, garlicky pasta with a squeeze of lemon; a leafy salad from the greenhouse; Bonnie’s heavy sourdough bread with thick salty butter; red wine that tasted as old and deep as mined jewels – but it was one of the best Mirren could remember.

Jamie persuaded Bonnie to join them, and for once she acquiesced, pointing out that she would have to, as he had done for her roast duck; and they all reminisced about Christmases past, when dozens of people would come to the castle, when great braziers would line the driveway for the carriages, or cars with chauffeurs, or just people driving drunk, as they did in the country in those days.

Bonnie could remember stories of how downstairs, in the old days, they would have to put up the visiting maids and footmen, and how there was all sorts of funny business.

And of course then there was Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, when the staff got their boxes, or gifts, and had a day off to spend with their own families after waiting on the great house.

It felt so long ago. And yet, so close: in the walls and the floors and the endless rooms for guests and staff and dogs and horses and noise.

Now the castle felt so empty; people preferred mod cons, and hotels, and the distractions of a city, or ready access to the internet.

Mirren thought of her own little studio in London, so far away, so near to so many people, their noise, their cooking smells, their fuss, but still feeling so alone.

Whereas here – she felt so much freer. And it was true: she had barely been alone for a second.

But great homes like this, off the beaten track – built before there was even a track to be off – what would become of them? Of all of them?

As everyone chattered away, and Bonnie brought in a beautiful Yule log cake, Mirren looked at the storm outside and grew wistful.

She wouldn’t see these people again. Jamie had a new road to plough, in the Botanic Gardens, she supposed.

Esme would vanish back into her glamorous world, hoping to marry well.

Theo might have to up his game if he wanted to keep hold of her, Mirren thought, but, now, without rancour. Bonnie would be fine, she sensed.

And she, Mirren . . . She glanced at Jamie’s reflection in the window, only to see, with a start, that he was looking back at her. Their eyes met. When she turned back to the table he was glancing down again. Esme had dragged out Scrabble, much to Theo’s protests.

‘No,’ said Jamie. ‘No. I’m done. No more word games.’

His face looked sad suddenly.

‘I hope you guys . . . I’m so sorry. I hope the snow stops soon and you can get home.

I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out. I’m glad you came, though.

It has genuinely helped me decide a few things, even if it doesn’t feel that way.

Thank you. Thank you all.’ He raised his glass. ‘To running towards joy.’

‘To running towards joy,’ they all repeated, raising their glasses.

‘What’s that about joy?’ said Bonnie, pushing open the door from the larder.

‘Oh, we’re meant to run towards it,’ said Theo, frowning. ‘Grandfather James turned out just to have left some kind of hippy bollocks of advice. He’s probably laughing his head off up there.’

‘But why does he mention Joy?’ said Bonnie, looking annoyed. ‘What’s she got to do with it?’

‘What’s who got to do with it?’ said Jamie.

‘Joy,’ said Bonnie, as if he was being particularly stupid. ‘My grandmother!’