It was Christmas Eve in Peasebrook.
From early in the morning its streets were thronged. There were queues snaking out of the butcher as people came to collect their turkeys and their geese, and Peasebrook Cheese was busy selling wheels of Cheddar and wedges of Stilton and boxes of vacherin. A choir sang lustily around the Christmas tree in the marketplace. The air was crisp and cold, the blue sky filled with plump white clouds.
“There’ll be snow before the day’s out,” said Jem, gazing up with a knowing look in his eye.
The promise of snow added a sense of urgency to the day. Eyes were bright, noses were pink, and smiles were wide as people hurried through the streets to finish their errands and head home.
In Nightingale Books, Emilia hadn’t drawn breath since turning the sign to OPEN at nine o’clock and she’d been nearly trampled in the stampede. She had no idea how people had the nerve to wait so late to buy their presents, but she didn’t complain. They were buying with gusto. Thomasina had made gallons of mulled wine to hand out to customers as they browsed, and the air hung heavy with the scent of cloves and cinnamon. She and Lauren had also made gingerbread men for any stray children to nibble on while their parents shopped.
Bea was in charge of the wrapping station. Books were such a pleasure to wrap, with their satisfyingly straight edges and sharp corners, but perfectionist Bea took it to a higher level. The books were covered in the plain brown paper Julius had always used, and tied with red ribbon, then carefully stamped with “Merry Christmas from Nightingale Books” in one corner.
June and Emilia were kept busy helping customers with recommendations: they were easily identifiable by the red velvet elf hats Bea had made them. Emilia sold The Cat in the Hat and Enid Blyton and Thomas the Tank Engine and Flower Fairies gift books, Sherlock Holmes compendiums and gardening encyclopedias and Agatha Christie box sets, endless cookery books and biographies and atlases.
A dashing man in a navy cashmere coat came in needing a book recommendation for his wife. Emilia imagined a pretty woman in a beautiful Georgian house and sold him the Cazalet Chronicles, on the basis that no one she had ever met who had read them had ever disliked them.
And at four o’clock, suddenly the shop was emptied as if by magic. Emilia put on her coat, shut the door, and turned the key. She thought of all the books they had sold, and imagined them being opened the next morning, and people being transported as they sat on the floor surrounded by wrapping paper, or curled up on a sofa with a glass of champagne, or sitting by the fire while the chestnuts roasted.
And she turned and Marlowe was there, smiling.
“Ready?” he asked, and she nodded, and hooked her arm through his.
They walked up the high street toward the church as the rest of the shops in Peasebrook shut their doors. And then, in the coldness of the night air, with the crushed-velvet sky above them, she saw a bright star. And although she knew it was nonsense, she couldn’t help feeling it might be Julius, smiling down and feeling proud of them all. And she let herself believe it was him, and she tipped her face up to the sky to smile back, and she felt an overwhelming sense of warmth and joy and belonging.
“What are you grinning about?” asked Marlowe.
“I feel happy,” she said. “I didn’t think I would, because this is my first Christmas without him, and of course I wish with all my heart he was here, but . . . I feel happy.”
Marlowe put his arm round her and squeezed her into him. She didn’t need to explain that he was one of the things that made her happy, because he knew without being told, and that was one of the reasons. Marlowe always knew.
The church was bursting at the seams, but Emilia saw June’s red gloves waving at her, and they wove and wormed their way past seated knees to a space near the front, whispering apologies and smiling hellos at the people around them. The Basildons were in the front row, of course: Sarah in a fur hat next to Ralph, then Alice leaning on Dillon, who was looking slightly overwhelmed at being in such a conspicuous position.
The church was as quiet as a mouse as Mick Gillespie took the lectern and read “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” his unmistakable timbre tinged with Kerry holding the congregation rapt.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky
The flying cloud, the frosty light . . .
Next to her, Emilia saw June’s eyes fill with pride and fondness. With his hair now white, and his spectacles on the end of his nose, Mick was a million miles from the bright young star she had fallen for, but he could still hold an audience in the palm of his hand as Tennyson’s words resonated around the church.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more . . .
Emilia felt Marlowe squeeze her arm and loved him for once more just knowing. She looked over at Sarah and wondered how she was feeling. In her pocket she could feel the soft package she was going to give her later. She’d found it in a drawer in the office when she was emptying it out. She was sure it was meant for Sarah and that it was her duty to make sure she got it, even though it would mean mixed feelings, both joy and sadness.
She watched Mick leave the lectern and make his way back to June’s side and watched her whisper well done to him, and she loved how he smiled his thanks and appreciation even though he was an Oscar-winning actor who didn’t need to be told he was brilliant. And she felt pride that in some small way she had been responsible for bringing them together.
And there were Jackson and Mia and Finn, and she knew that among all the footballs and skateboards and Nerf guns Finn was going to get the next day, there was also his first Harry Potter, and she hoped that late on Christmas afternoon Jackson and Finn would curl up together and begin the journey to Hogwarts.
Everywhere she looked she saw familiar faces.
Afterward she and Marlowe went to Peasebrook Manor for Christmas Eve drinks in the great hall. There was the biggest Christmas tree by the stairs, reaching up two floors, and a roaring log fire, and Ralph rushing round with a bottle of wine in each hand making sure everyone was kept topped up.
Emilia slipped away from the party and found Sarah in the kitchen, pulling sausage rolls out of the Aga and tipping them onto a silver tray.
“I found something,” she said. “In the bureau. I’m certain it’s for you. And I know my father would want me to give it to you.”
Sarah stood up, holding the tray in both hands. Her eyes were wide with uncertainty.
“Oh” was all she said. Then she put the tray down and wiped her hands on a tea towel.
“I can just leave it here . . .” Emilia indicated the kitchen table.
“No. Please. I’d like you to be here. While I open it.” Sarah looked around to see if there was anyone listening, but it was quiet here, away from the hubbub of the jollity. She took the little package. Emilia had stuck fresh tape on it after she’d opened it, but Sarah slid her finger under it carefully and took out a scarf: a long velvet scarf in midnight blue, with silken tassels.
She nodded, as if in recognition that this was exactly what Julius would have chosen for her. She held it to her face and felt its softness on her cheek.
Her voice was slightly cracked as she spoke. “I feel as if he’s going to walk into the room any minute. And tell me he chose it because of my eyes.”
Emilia could imagine her father in the shop, comparing colors and fabrics, holding the scarves up to the light until he had found the right one.
“He was the most brilliant present chooser.”
“Thank you for finding it, Emilia. Thank you for bringing it to me.”
Sarah folded it back up and tucked it back into the tissue just as Ralph appeared in the doorway.
“Sausage rolls, darling? Everyone’s ravenous. They need something to soak up all the booze.”
Emilia turned around with a smile and Sarah picked up the tray. “Just coming.”
The two of them walked out together into the melee, then drifted apart among the throngs. They would always have a tie, because of their secret, but it didn’t need to be vocalized. They knew they would be there for each other, if they ever wanted to share a moment’s reflection, or memory, and they would give each other comfort.
It was an unusual situation, thought Emilia, but then—what was usual? The whole point of life was you couldn’t ever be sure what would happen next. Sometimes what happened was good, sometimes not, but there were always surprises. She smiled to herself as she scoped the room and spotted Marlowe standing by the fire, chatting up a pair of sprightly elderly ladies who were surveying him as a pair of foxes might a chicken who’d escaped its coop.
“Oh look!” someone cried. “It’s starting to snow!”
Everyone rushed to the windows and gazed out at the almost luminescent snowflakes twirling round in the golden glow of the garden lamps. Faster and faster they fell, tiny ballerinas in the spotlight.
“Do you think we should go?” Emilia asked Marlowe. “We don’t want to get snowed in.”
“Let’s,” said Marlowe. “I feel as if I might be eaten alive any minute.”
They slipped away as discreetly as they could—endless good-byes and Christmas wishes would only hold up the jollity. Marlowe started up the car and turned on the heater, then drove carefully through the unexpected blizzard, windscreen wipers at the double. The carol service from King’s College, Cambridge, played on the stereo. It was as if they were in a cozy bubble, tucked away from the outside world.
“A white Christmas,” sighed Emilia as the landscape around them transformed into a winter wonderland. Their first. She smiled to herself, and thought about waking up in his cottage the next morning, and the stocking she had filled for him hanging by his fireplace.
As they came into Peasebrook, Marlowe stopped the car just on the hump of the bridge, and Emilia looked at Nightingale Books, the light from the windows still glowing inside, the roof already covered in white, and in her mind she said Merry Christmas, Dad, and then the car rumbled down the other side of the bridge and up the high street into the oncoming snow.