What with one thing and another, it was soon December, and the book club Christmas party. Although, with the challenges now complete, we would be reverting to being a boring old temper-fizzing, insult hurling, food-throwing book club.
My third Christmas of the year was looking to be the best yet. I had joined the Camerons on their annual trip to fetch a tree straight from the forest, smothering it in gluey, glittery stars and recycled paper chains. I had clapped until my hands were sore at their church nativity, giving an extra cheer for the three mini-warrior angels despite their inability to resist performing an unscripted fight scene. I had helped write dozens of Christmas cards for Maddie’s class postbox, and dropped off a nervous but excited Dawson at his school Christmas disco. I had also joined Ellen in distributing food hampers and gift boxes for vulnerable families and those with no family to speak of whatsoever. It meant more than I could say that, by some miracle, my Christmas would be spent with a family like this one.
Frances was in hospital, due to what she called ‘pesky stomach mischief’, and what we called three days of uncontrollable vomiting. To Edison’s delight, Florence moved into The Common Café, where the attentions of a small boy would hopefully ease the pain of missing her owner.
‘Must be getting a little crowded upstairs,’ Lucille remarked, as we lounged on the café’s sofas, clustered around the crackling fire, red and white Scandi-style bunting hung along the mantelpiece. ‘First Jamie, now a dog.’
Jamie levelled his gaze at her, no less serious even when topped off with a pair of antlers. ‘On the rare occasions I make it upstairs, we all fit in just fine.’
‘You’ve not moved in, then?’
‘Not until we’re married.’
‘You’re getting married?’ Ashley blurted, nearly toppling backwards out of her chair into the bushy tree, which had been covered in baubles made out of miniature Christmas jumpers.
‘First I’ve heard of it,’ Sarah said, standing frozen stiff with a tray of mulled wine.
Jamie shrugged. ‘I told you, I’m not staying over without Edison knowing it’s permanent.’
‘I thought the answer to that was that you didn’t stay over.’ The glasses on the tray rattled. ‘Is this a proposal? Because you could’ve picked a better time, like when I’m not wearing a snowman apron and I’ve had time to get my roots done.’
Jamie calmly took the tray from her and placed it on the table. He’d come a long way since the Tough Muck. ‘I’m not proposing now. But when I do, I won’t give a crap what you’re wearing or what your hair’s like. And I’ll be doing it with your son present, not a load of gawkers. Okay?’
He waited, ever patient, while Sarah summoned up the ability to reply. ‘Okay.’
‘Hurry up, Jamie.’ Ashley took a glass, the ends of her tinsel hairband dangling dangerously close to the winter-spice candle centrepiece. ‘You don’t want to keep a woman waiting too long.’
‘It’s been four months!’ Sarah blustered, fooling no one.
‘Well, moving on from Jamie and Sarah’s personal business,’ Ellen said, ‘we have a book-club timetable to plan.’
‘Here we go.’ Jamie grimaced, grabbing a handful of nuts.
‘And before that,’ Ellen replied, ignoring him, ‘I have a letter to read. From our absent member.’ She unfolded the letter, cleared her throat, and read:
‘“I wanted to say this in person, but the despicable cancer has been up to its tricks again. However, Ellen has promised to write this down and read it to you later, so listen up:
Thank you.
Thank you for what you have done, and how you have done it.
Thank you for not treating me like a doddery old woman but a friend who still has a functioning brain, albeit a little foggier than before.
Thank you for listening as you wiped my face and laughing as you helped me balance on the loo.
Thank you for still telling me your troubles, and your silly little stories while warming my soup and dabbing cream on my sores. The ups and downs of your days may seem small in comparison to mine. But they are not. They are light in a ferociously vast darkness.
You have all been a light to me. Your kindness. Your time. Your respect.
I am not afraid of dying, as you know. But I have at times been terribly afraid of what it may entail.
I am a little less afraid of that now. Because God has sent me an army of angels.
I hope you have all learnt something these past few months. Something important. About yourselves. About each other. About what matters.
This is what I have learnt: my adventures were fun. Exciting. But fun and excitement is fleeting. What lasts, what matters, are the people you get to share your adventures with, talk and laugh about them with. The people who will remind you of the beautiful moments when your bones are screaming and your throat is raw and you are so tired and frustrated and blooming well peed-off you can’t bear another second in your own body. The people who can turn the light on. It is the people we love – and, if you haven’t figured it out, I love you all like the children I never had.
I hope you keep sharing your stories, and learning from them. I hope you remember this year, and your batty old friend, when you are eighty-five and life can seem more of a burden than a gift. This is nearly the end of my story – this chapter at least. Thank you for being part of it. Now, you can get on with arguing which book you’ll be reading next. What a relief Hillary West has writer’s block so you won’t have to listen to Ashley whinging on about reading his for a good long while. And please don’t forget to give Florence a piece of cake. Two pieces – she can have mine.
May all your days be merry and bright,
Frances.”’
Florence poked her nose above the tablecloth at the mention of her name, tongue out expectantly.
‘Cinnamon or pumpkin spice?’ Sarah rubbed her silken ears. ‘One of each? Go on, then, if your mistress says so.’
We opened our cheap, cheerful and downright cheesy secret Santa gifts, ate and talked, laughed and sang along to ‘White Christmas’, hoping our old friend wasn’t too uncomfortable or lonely, even as we went through our diaries and promised to do what we could to help her last days be merry and bright, too.
Around nine o’clock, Ellen made another attempt to get us back onto books.
‘Ashley, are you quite all right?’ she asked, a snippet of irritation creeping in as Ashley, increasingly fidgety and distracted, twisted to peer out of the bunting-covered window for the tenth time in a minute.
‘Yes. I just thought… I’m… no. Actually, I wanted to… no. No. It’s nothing. Please, carry on.’ She shuffled her chair back, and stuck on an expectant smile.
‘Right. If everybody’s ready, I’ve no idea where we are with the rota, so—’
‘Yes!’ Ashley shouted, having been unable to resist one last peek. ‘Yes. Thank goodness. I thought he’d stood me up.’
‘You have a date?’ Lucille sniggered. ‘And you invited him here?’
That had better not be her date, I thought in a rush of startling aggressiveness, as he opened the café door with a blast of icy air and stepped in, stomping his boots on the mat.
Ashley let out a stream of high-pitched giggles, her Santa earrings swinging. ‘Of course it’s not a date.’ She pressed a hand to her flushing chest. ‘It’s the completion of my challenge. Finding Hillary West was only the first bit. If you remember, getting her – him – along to the book club was the end goal.’
‘How could we forget?’ Lucille muttered, but she winked at Ashley as she did.
Kiko got up and dragged a chair over as our guest author joined us, greeted by Ashley flapping about as he unwrapped his scarf and tugged off a chunky bobble hat.
‘I’m so glad you came!’ she squawked.
‘Glad to be here.’ He didn’t especially look it. ‘Sorry I’m late. I tend to get submerged when I’m reaching the end of a book and lose all track of time.’
I’d seen him a few more times since his return, but so fleetingly it was nearly as bad as him not being here. When our paths had crossed – in the café morning-coffee queue, my advance apologies for noisy workmen, another bonfire, and one evening when he’d ended up staying for a curry – Mack had been friendly, but definitely nice-neighbourly, not I-think-about-you-all-the-time friendly. We’d talked about the cottage, Dawson’s comics, family, the whole Fisher situation. But then he would check his watch and make his excuses, too soon. Way too soon. I’d begun to hate that book and its stupid deadline, his greedy, selfish publisher. I was more jealous of that book than I had been about Sienna.
There had been a couple of moments, when the conversation had fallen silent, or our eyes had met across the picnic table in the twilight. Ending up squashed together in the crowd watching the Christmas lights being turned on at the village green. The morning someone had knocked into me in the café and he’d flung one arm around my waist, grabbing the coffee-cup.
Okay, there had been quite a few moments. On my side. But I kept remembering Richard, and how I’d scooped up every smouldering glance, fallen for every last-minute request, been so utterly, completely wrong when it had come to love, lust and plain old lechery. The messages Mack and I exchanged every few days felt intimate to me, like the kind of conversation a couple would have. But they weren’t that different from the texts I exchanged with Kiko, or Sarah. I had no idea where the lines were drawn. And I wasn’t about to risk losing my friend again.
So, when Mack took a seat, nodded a hello to everyone, then crinkled his eyes at me, I hadn’t the foggiest what that meant, beyond it making my heart sprout wings and do a loop around the Christmas tree. I hoped nobody had noticed, but, from the smirks and the raised eyebrows, I might have been kidding myself.
Ashley rambled a welcome. I didn’t hear a word of it. Glancing at Mack, I found him looking straight at me. Embarrassed to be caught glancing, even though he was the one staring, I gulped down some water, praying I wasn’t getting sweat patches on my top. Despite the freezing temperatures outside, it seemed to be growing hotter and hotter by the fire.
There was a subdued round of applause, and Mack cleared his throat.
‘Ashley asked if I’d tell you about my new book. I don’t want to give too much away, and at this point anything’s liable to change, but I can tell you it’s my favourite yet.’
‘Is it set in Sherwood Forest?’ Ashley asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘And…’ Mack grew quiet. I risked a peek and found him gazing at the star-shaped lights twinkling amongst the bunting. He picked up his phone and fiddled with it, put it down again. Looked at me quickly, then back at his phone. ‘It’s different from the others, because it’s written from a male point of view.’
‘Tell us about this male,’ Ashley breathed.
‘Well, he’s a bit of a chump, to be honest. He’s made a monumental mistake, and instead of taking it on the chin, dealing with it, he’s decided the best response is to wimp out on life, and hide away feeling sorry for himself. He justifies it by saying this way he won’t mess up again, and won’t get hurt. And, importantly, he won’t hurt anyone else. He’s spending every day in a mindless grey funk and wondering why he can’t work any more – he’s a songwriter, by the way. And then, one day, this woman turns up.’
I didn’t have to move my eyes off the table to know every single person swivelled their head towards me.
Was it possible for a human woman to roast in her own hormones?
‘And she’s the opposite of him in every way – life has thrown her the biggest dungball, and she just pushes it off, dusts herself down and fights back with all this energy and bravado and determination. And she grabs this guy by the scruff of his neck and drags him out of his cave, back into the world.’
You have got to be kidding me.
I cannot breathe.
I managed to suck in one final, strangled breath. It turned out final breaths sounded like a hippopotamus hugging a windy warthog.
‘Anyway.’ Mack let out a shaky laugh. ‘You’ll have to read it to find out more.’
‘Oh, we can’t wait, can we?’ Ashley said. ‘It sounds simply incredible. Now, questions. I’ll go first. Where did you get your inspiration from for this story, and was it you and Jenny?’
Excuse me? I opened my mouth to protest. Then I remembered I was desperate to hear the answer, so I shoved one of Jamie’s mini mince pies in instead.
‘Maybe, in parts. She is an inspiring person to know.’ He coughed. ‘Also, my parents. The Neil Diamond songs they play while cooking dinner. My sisters’ families. The reintroduction of beavers into the UK. A conversation I overheard in the queue to buy a newspaper. And, as always, everyone I’ve ever met, and everywhere I’ve ever been, somehow mashing together inside my imagination and eventually congealing into something vaguely coherent. For starters.’
‘Is it a love story?’ Sarah asked.
Those naughty women. I begged a sinkhole to appear and swallow me up right there. While at the same time my ears nearly strained off the sides of my head.
‘Yes. Falling in love with life again, mostly.’
‘Mostly, but not completely?’ Ashley needled.
‘Put it this way. I don’t think my regular readers will be disappointed. And that’s all I’m saying. You really have to wait and read it.’
The conversation moved on as Mack answered more questions. I assumed they were about his other books, or his career in general. I’d given up listening, due to the more pressing issue of struggling to breathe. That, and my own wild thoughts careening about my head waving their hands about and screaming, ‘Mack thinks I’m an inspirational person to know. That has to be a good thing, right? Can you inspire someone in a bad way? She inspired me to write a book about avoiding a disastrous rebound relationship with an annoying neighbour. HOW DO I INSPIRE YOU, MACK?’
‘Right, well, if there’s no more questions, I’d best get back,’ I vaguely heard Mack say, as if from the end of a very long tunnel.
Mack stood, his features in silhouette as he hovered on the edge of the glow cast from the candles. Tension crackled. Nobody moved or spoke.
Which seemed a little rude, considering he’d interrupted crafting his latest blockbuster to come and visit a village book club, and now nobody even offered a thank you, good luck or please come again when the book is finished.
Lucille sneezed, swiftly muttering, ‘Damn, I’m so sorry,’ as she fumbled for a tissue.
Kiko thrust a napkin at her. ‘Shh!’
Mack rubbed a hand over his messy hair before carefully putting his hat on. He cleared his throat. Twisted his body round to look at the door, turned back.
‘Can I walk you home?’ he asked.
‘I think he means you, Jenny,’ Ellen stage-whispered, leaning closer. ‘It would make sense, you being neighbours.’
I scrabbled my wits together, took the deepest breath I could, and jabbered out a sort of ‘yes’.
So while the others finally offered appropriately enthusiastic goodbyes, I shrugged into my coat and hat, patting to check my keys and phone hadn’t miraculously climbed out of the pocket, and we set off into the frosty night.
Walking. With Mack. In the dark.
Oh, boy.