Alice’s car might have had a recent service, but it really wasn’t up to dealing with the ‘beast from the east’, as the papers were dubbing this weather system. The heater of the tiny MG was barely making any difference against the freezing conditions as she drove south out of London. The song on the ancient crackly radio was about driving home for Christmas, but Alice was seriously worried that, at this rate, she wasn’t going to make it at all.
Sitting forward, she gripped the black steering wheel, her teeth chattering, as she peered through the vortex of slushy snow coming towards her as the motorway gave way to the A23. Agatha, oblivious to everything, slept soundly on the passenger’s seat, tucked up beneath Alice’s scarf. The flashing lights of an AA van up head blinded her momentarily as she passed a slewed lorry, which had crashed into a car.
‘Oh God. Poor people,’ she muttered, gripping the wheel even tighter and glancing anxiously in the rear-view mirror.
The back seat was crammed full of her bags, presents and a teetering pile of Tupperware boxes containing all the Christmas food. She’d had such a bad hangover yesterday after her Christmas lunch with Jinx, which had gone on late into the evening, that she’d had to cook all of last night and her eyes now pinched with tiredness.
The visibility got even worse once she’d turned off into the winding country roads, so much so she almost missed the turning for Hawthorn. She tensed, knowing there was a terrifyingly steep bit of hill to come.
She changed gear into first and put her foot down, willing the car to the top of the hill. She only just made it and veered dangerously left, the back tyres slipping out beneath her on the black ice as she turned into the last lane that would lead her home. The jolt woke Agatha who barked, immediately alert, and Alice reached behind her to stop the boxes tumbling. God only knew if her plum pudding had made it intact.
‘Almost there,’ Alice reassured Agatha, who now had her feet on the dashboard, her tail wagging. The snow was battering down in thick flakes, the little windscreen wipers struggling to keep up.
The car clanked as Alice navigated the potholes, fretting that they were going to get stuck at any moment. She knew the trees in this lane like the veins on the back of her hand, but in the dark, everything seemed unfamiliar, and it gave her a little shock when she arrived at the drive.
When Pop-Pop and GG were alive, the large wrought-iron gates, with their swirls and spikes had always been locked, the key hidden behind a brick in the small gatehouse. In her parents’ day, they’d always been closed but kept unlocked, mainly because there were too many visitors going back and forth. But now the old gates were rusty and off their hinges altogether and propped up against the stone pillars. There was the start of what looked like some wiring work going and she remembered Jasper talking about an elaborate plan for electric gates. Another project that had clearly been abandoned.
Alice turned into the drive and drove past the high privet hedges, which had once been splendidly sculpted, but were now overgrown and unkempt.
The front part of Hawthorn – or ‘the money shot’ as Jasper crudely liked to call it – had been built in 1652. With snow covering the mossy tiles on the roof, it looked picture-perfect, and Alice’s heart gave a little leap ofjoy when she saw the lights on behind the familiar latticed windows. She exhaled dramatically and tickled Agatha’s ears. They’d made it.
She stopped the car outside the front door and got out, her legs shaking from having been cramped in the cold. Agatha trotted over to the iron boot scraper. With no security, there was no way anyone inside would have realised Alice had arrived and she took a moment to turn her face up into the snow and enjoy the distinct smell of Hawthorn – fresh air laden with a tang from the tall pines and ancient yews. She did a girlish twirl. Snow in London was one thing, but here in the country it was an altogether more exciting affair.
She grabbed her handbag from the car and walked up to the iron-studded oak door, noticing that the wreath on it was gaudy and modern, with … plastic ivy? Alice peered in closely at the aberration. With the fields lined with hedgerows, Hawthorn was a Christmas wreath-maker’s paradise according to Mrs Doulton. But that was Sassy all over. She rarely saw what was beneath her nose.
Alice resolved not to be critical, or at least not verbally so. She rapped the large iron knocker with her signature rat-a-tat-tat and, a few moments later, the door opened.
Sassy, who tried to always live up to her name, was wearing skinny white jeans and black high heels, and her face was plastered in full make-up. Her honey-blonde tresses hung in waves over the shoulder of her fitted red Christmas jumper.
‘She’s here,’ she shouted, pulling Alice towards her onto the doorstep and enveloping her in a cloud of pungent perfume. Alice winced, not least of all because Sassy’s surgically enhanced breasts crushed into her like pound bags of flour, but also because she always felt so shabby by comparison.
‘You made it then. Come in,’ Sassy said it as if there’d been speculation that Alice might not have. When had she ever not done exactly what she said she would? Alice thought, cautioning herself not to take everything Sassy said the wrong way.
Agatha sniffed the doorstep suspiciously, before hopping over the threshold and past Sassy, nose snootily in the air. The door closed and Alice stamped the snow from her boots on the mat.
‘There she is,’ Jasper boomed, coming out of the library door. His cheeks were ruddy. He was four years younger than Alice but looked a decade older. He was dressed as a 1950s country squire might – in tweed trousers and a jacket, with a maroon jumper and clashing red cravat. He strode over, embracing her in bear hugs, lifting her up off the floor as he always did. He’d inherited their mother’s tall genes and red hair, whilst she was petite and dark, like their father.
‘Oh, God, put me down,’ she managed. She hated it that he always picked her up like a child.
‘Boys,’ he boomed, looking towards the wooden staircase, almost deafening her. ‘Aunty Alice is here.’
‘They won’t hear you,’ Sassy tutted, before confiding to Alice, ‘They have these new headsets and, mercifully, it keeps them quiet. Except when the internet drops out. Which is all the time,’ she added pointedly, shooting a withering look at her husband. ‘Another thing on our list that Jasper has promised he’ll fix.’
And that I’ll have to pay for, Alice thought, although she couldn’t voice it. Sassy didn’t have the first clue that it was Alice keeping her whole lifestyle afloat. She’d been tempted on so many occasions to blurt out the truth, but Jasper had begged her not to let slip. He had every intention of returning everything he’d ever borrowed from her, he’d repeatedly promised – with interest … twice over.
But these assurances were running thin. And she’d already firmly impressed upon him that the last time had been the last time. What she’d not yet told him – probably out of pride as his older sister – was that she’d been forced to secure this final chunk of money from a private lender at hideous interest and with the threat of escalating late payment penalties, which was still a worrying possibility. She needed to have ‘the chat’ with Jasper about exactly when he was paying her back.
But now, as they walked to the kitchen and Jasper put his arm around her, their financial relationship was clearly the last thing on his mind. She let herself be cajoled by his cheeriness, keen to hold onto the flutter of Christmas cheer that was building up inside her. But then, she stopped in the doorway, her mouth falling open.
The kitchen at Hawthorn Hall had always been her happy place. The place she most associated with Mrs Doulton. The place she’d learnt to cook. But the familiar cupboards and surfaces had been replaced by a modern kitchen in an ugly brown melamine, which didn’t go at all with the grey flagstone floor.
‘Isn’t it wonderful!’ Sassy exclaimed, leaning forward in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘We got it …’ she mouthed the next words silently, fanning out her hand with their long red gel nails, ‘for free.’
‘Someone was throwing out a whole kitchen. In the manor up the road. And it’s virtually brand new,’ Jasper added, with a delighted guffaw. ‘Can you imagine? Chucking out a perfectly decent kitchen?’
‘It’s elephant’s breath,’ Sassy added, as if Alice might know what that meant. Although to Alice’s mind, now realising she must mean the colour, she decided it might be much more readily associated with the other end of the aforementioned beast.
‘What happened to the old kitchen?’ Alice asked, trying to recover.
‘Oh, that old thing,’ Sassy said, waving her hand and laughing, her cleavage bulging up and down beneath the V-neck of her jumper. ‘We had to pay someone to take it to the dump.’
Alice fought down another lump in her throat. Those antique wooden butchers’ blocks, and marble slabs were probably worth a fortune. She stared at the cast-iron range. Probably too heavy to move. So at least they hadn’t got rid of that.
‘Chop chop. Open the champers, darling,’ Jasper ordered, and Sassy trotted over to the fridge.
‘Look! American style,’ Sassy said, with a giggle. ‘An icemaker and everything.’
Alice could really have done with a cup of tea after the long drive, but something stronger might get her over this feeling that something precious had been lost forever.
‘Boys,’ Jasper bellowed. ‘Boys!’
A moment later, Alice heard her nephews bounding down the stairs, scuffling as they did so.
Woody, who was holding his brother Baxter at arm’s length, came in laughing, clearly having won some sort of race. He was fourteen and already as tall as Sassy in her heels, and was sporting bumfluff and spots. Sassy got hold of his chin, turning him to face Alice.
‘Can you believe this one?’ she said. ‘Look at this acne. And Alice, a moustache!’
He broke away to hug Alice.
‘I’ve grown one too, but don’t tell anyone,’ she whispered and he laughed.
Darcy, the family’s fat grey and white cat, darted into the room, hissing viciously at Agatha, who quickly hid behind Alice’s legs, quaking.
‘Oh, don’t mind Darcy,’ Sassy said. ‘She’ll get used to Agatha.’
Baxter put his arms around Alice’s waist and squeezed her tightly and she hugged him back.
‘Hello, you,’ she said, her heart swelling with love. He was nearly twelve and yet to have the growth spurt of his brother. She kissed his mop of strawberry blond curls. He’d always been a cherub and it made her happy that at least there was one person in the house that was smaller than her.
‘Come and help with Aunty Alice’s things,’ Jasper said.
‘Did you make Christmas cake? The proper one?’ Baxter asked.
‘Of course.’
‘Hurrah,’ Jasper said, clapping his hands.
‘And plum pudding?’
‘It is Christmas, isn’t it?’
‘You’re a marvel, Alice,’ Jasper said. ‘What would we do without you?’
Sassy wrapped her hand with its flashy red nails around the champagne cork.
‘Give it here,’ Jasper said, making to grab it.
‘Too late,’ Sassy laughed as the cork popped. ‘Let the festivities begin.’