Fearing that in her newfound freedom, Elizabeth would eat through everything in Dawn’s cupboards, Julia did the next best thing she could think of: she took Elizabeth for a pint.
Thanking Dawn for her hospitality, she led a swaying, disorientated Elizabeth back down the road to the pub, where they took a corner table near the log fire. Elizabeth claimed to have never drunk alcohol before, so to be on the safe side, Julia ordered her a pint of shandy with the emphasis on the lemonade, and a pint of local ale for herself.
‘I feel like such a man,’ Elizabeth said, staring at the size of the glass. ‘It’s huge.’
‘Women drink pints too these days,’ Julia pointed out. ‘Well, a couple. More than that and you’ll spend most of the night in the bathroom.’
‘Are pub bathrooms safe?’
Julia laughed. ‘It depends how much you’ve drunk and how low the ceilings are.’
‘No, I meant the hidden cameras. The paparazzi.’
‘We’re in the middle of nowhere so you’re probably good.’
‘There’s always someone trying to bring you down.’
Julia shrugged. ‘Maybe in your world. In mine, most people don’t care. They just get on with things.’
‘It must be so nice.’
‘But we don’t get to stay in fancy hotels, ride in limousines, and wear coats that cost the same as an average car.’
Elizabeth stood up. ‘It’s just a coat,’ she said, unbuttoning her coat and pulling it off, to reveal more expensive clothing hugging an enviable figure beneath. ‘I imagine it’ll burn just like a cheap one—’
‘No!’
Julia jumped up and grabbed the coat just as Elizabeth attempted to throw it into the fire. ‘Sure, it will,’ she said, guiding Elizabeth back into her seat with one hand while holding the coat out of Elizabeth’s reach with the other. ‘Of course it’ll burn, but why would you waste something like that?’
‘I don’t want it anymore. It’s everything I hate about my life. Expensive, vacuous, extravagant—’
‘And it looks pretty warm, too,’ Julia said. ‘Look, if you really want to do something useful with it, why not donate it to the village’s charity auction tomorrow?’
‘There’s a charity auction?’
Kelly had mentioned that one might be a good idea as a throwaway comment over lunch, but there was nothing official. Julia had plucked the words out of nowhere, and it felt like a good idea. She had a couple of books in her suitcase she could submit. Perhaps she could have a word with Harry.
‘Yes,’ she said, confident the villagers would go for it. ‘It’s … to save the Christmas tree farm.’
‘What a great idea,’ Elizabeth said. ‘They can have the limousine. And I have nine pairs of Prada shoes in a case. And there’s my perfume, and—’
‘You don’t have to get rid of everything.’
‘But I want to. I need to start over. Everything needs to change. I … hate myself.’
Elizabeth began to cry again. Julia patted her on the shoulder, as Don, now back working behind the bar, gave her a sympathetic smile. He pointed at the spirit optics and raised an eyebrow, but Julia mouthed, ‘Best not to for now.’ Then, to Elizabeth, she said, ‘How can you hate yourself? If what you’ve said is true, that everything you do is for image, you probably don’t even know yourself. Under all that … paint, and all those labels, you’re probably quite nice.’
Elizabeth looked up, wiping her eyes. ‘Do you think that’s true?’
‘Ah … let’s see what we can find out. What’s your favourite colour?’
Elizabeth frowned. ‘Well, I ran a poll on Insta last year—’
‘I don’t care about the poll. What do you think?’
‘Ah … green? No. White. No. Red? I don’t know!’
‘Okay, for now we’ll just say you like rainbows. What about your favourite food?’
‘Lettuce.’
‘No, not the only thing you ever eat. What do you actually like?’
Elizabeth’s face screwed up, and she looked utterly miserable. ‘I once starred in a hamburger advert for TV, and it looked really nice.’
‘You didn’t eat it?’
‘We used dummies on set. They were plastic. I had to bite down on it, and there was this detachable bit which came off, but on the advert they cut to some stock footage.’
Julia raised an arm, getting Don’s attention. ‘I don’t suppose you do hamburgers, do you?’
Don grinned. ‘We’ve got regular, double with cheese, spicy chicken, or the tractor burger.’
‘What’s in that?’
‘Three burgers, cheese, bacon, relish, lettuce, gherkin, grilled aubergine, tomato, and a fried egg.’
‘Sounds fantastic. We’ll have two. Ah … why’s it called a tractor burger?’
‘Because it comes with a free sticker of a David Brown. Plus, you’d probably need one to pull it. Chips on the side? Or do you want a side salad? Lettuce, other green stuff?’
Fearing Elizabeth would take one look at a leaf of lettuce and climb back on the wagon, Julia shook her head. ‘Chips will be perfect. With tons of vinegar.’
‘Coming right up.’
As Don went through a door behind the bar, Elizabeth turned to Julia with a horrified expression on her face.
‘What if I don’t like it?’
‘Don’t worry. I imagine Magnus’ll be along on in minute. He’ll see it as a light snack.’
‘Magnus … I’m so horrible to him. And to X … although I don’t think he understands human emotions.’
‘I’m pretty sure he does.’
Elizabeth leaned forward, her eyes wide. ‘He does? But he’s not—’
‘Human? I think he is.’
‘Really? And I’ve been treating him like an abstract being all this time.’ Elizabeth gripped her head. ‘What’s wrong with me? I feel like I just escaped from a cult.’
‘Perhaps you did. The cult of social media.’ Julia smiled. ‘Welcome back to the real world. It’s nice to have you.’
Elizabeth frowned again, leaning forward. ‘Do you think X has a real name?’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘How?’ Elizabeth wailed, throwing her hands up in the air. ‘There’s no network connection here!’
Julia reached out and took Elizabeth’s hands, pulling them down on to the table. She waited until Elizabeth had stopped hyperventilating, then looked into her eyes and said, ‘Ask him with your voice.’
Elizabeth stared at her for a moment. Then, leaning forward as though about to impart some otherworldly secret, in barely a whisper she said, ‘Do you think that will work?’
Half an hour later, during which time both Julia and Elizabeth had a decent go at eating their way through burgers designed for far bigger—or perhaps even multiple—people, the doors opened and a group came in, shaking off snow, their steamy breath fogging the glasses hanging over the bar. Among them were Magnus, Xavier, and Kelly’s family. As Elizabeth jumped up and began to dizzily apologise to Magnus and Xavier for various misdemeanours, Julia went over to Harry and suggested the charity auction. With an excited grin, he told her they would squeeze it in during the afternoon, between the sledging competition and the group snowball fight.
Everyone seemed in good spirits, having apparently managed to complete the sledging hill and erect the stage to hold most of the events. Julia felt a little guilty for not helping more, but as Elizabeth jumped up and hollered, ‘All drinks on my house!’ to a series of confused cheers, no one seemed to mind. Don wheeled out the karaoke, and Harry put down a tray of freshly baked mince pies on the bar.
‘What on earth happened to her?’ Kelly said to Julia, as Elizabeth, hand in the air, practically begged for first go at the karaoke, dragging Xavier up to the stage behind her as though needing to prove he could actually speak.
‘I think she’s in the process of finding herself,’ Julia said.
‘More like humiliating herself.’
‘It’s Christmas. Isn’t that what it’s for?’
‘I’ll drink to that. What are we singing tonight?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Well, we can worry about that in a minute. I think you need to go and help her out.’
Elizabeth was waving frantically at Julia. As Julia eased her way through the crowd, Elizabeth leaned down from the stage and pulled her close.
‘I don’t know any songs,’ she hissed into Julia’s ear. ‘Nothing longer than fifteen seconds, at any rate. What do I do?’
‘There must be something. Didn’t you listen to music when you were a child?’
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. She gave a little hiccup, then muttered, ‘Oh my. That beer’s gone right to my head. Okay, I thought of one.’
She pushed away from Julia, swaying drunkenly, and said something to Don that Julia couldn’t hear. As Julia headed back to Kelly’s table, Don coughed into the microphone and said, ‘Okay … first up, we have Elizabeth Trevellian and ah … X? And they’re going to sing … ah … Happy Birthday.’
‘It’s my birthday!’ screamed a voice from near the bar. Julia turned to see Edwina O’Fara waving a glass of something pink into the air while Reginald sipped on a pint behind her.
‘… ah … Happy Birthday to Mrs. O’Fara!’
‘Miss! Miss!’ Edwina shouted as people began to call out Happy Birthday. ‘His name is Clutterbottom,’ she said, pointing to Reginald, who gave a sheepish grin and shrugged. ‘O’Fara is a stage name!’
Her protestations were drowned out by Elizabeth’s singing. Holding the microphone far too close to her mouth, whatever tune she might have carried was lost as the volume rose and dipped, feedback squealed from the PA speaker and members of the crowd cried out for her to shut up, even as Edwina O’Fara swayed and clapped along. Xavier, for his part, stood nearby, looking nervous, as though waiting for the ordeal to end.
‘At least that’s something she’s not good at,’ Kelly said. ‘What a racket. It’s going to take some effort for us to top that. You want me to get in the schnapps?’
Julia grinned. ‘It is Christmas, isn’t it?’
They had a couple more drinks, then sang a couple of terrible renditions of classic Christmas songs, before Julia realised she ought to get back to Chapel Cottage. She had asked Don to call Mabel earlier and tell her that they had all eaten already, but it had been a long day and she was exhausted. Half an hour earlier, Magnus, Xavier, and Elizabeth had departed, the two men supporting the girl who seemed caught in a half-life between elation and misery, howling with laughter one minute, sobbing wildly the next.
‘Can’t handle her booze,’ Colin said, then checked his watch and told Kelly they ought to be making a move too.
‘That crazy fool was putting on a movie night for the kids,’ he said. ‘I imagine about now he’ll be getting the sheet out.’
‘Do you want us to walk you back?’ Kelly asked.
Julia shook her head. ‘I’ll be okay. It’s not so far. And with all the Christmas lights, it’s pretty bright now too.’
A few minutes later, still a little dizzy from the alcohol, she left, the cool night air on her face as she left the Deer and Grape a welcome relief after the stuffiness of the pub. It was a little after eight, and she did a circuit of the village before heading back towards the cottage, enjoying the snowy scenery, the lights strung up along most of the hedgerows, the Christmas trees glittering in living room windows and on front lawns. How everything seemed to have changed in just a couple of days. Birch Valley had felt like the end of the world when the train was forced to stop due to the snowstorm, yet now it felt like a magical, secret place, one where if she found herself trapped forever, she really wouldn’t mind. There were definitely worse places to spend your time.
She had walked right to the outskirts of the little village, where a snowdrift marked the end of a road leading out. In the distance she saw lights, heard the hum of an engine, perhaps a snow plough making its way through. It wouldn’t be long now. It had barely snowed all day and the warmer daytime temperatures had started melting off the standing snow. In a couple of days her adventure would be over, and she would be climbing aboard the train again to head back into the real world.
With a sigh, she turned and headed back through the village, but she hadn’t gone far when she heard a familiar voice coming from around the corner of the next house.
‘It must have clipped the edge, Mrs. Green. Don’t worry, we’ll put these back up where they were, and then tomorrow I’ll come down with a bucket of cement and seal it up.’
Joseph.
Julia felt an uncharacteristic flutter of butterflies in her stomach. Convincing herself it was just from the drink—plus a little upset maybe caused by the tractor burger, which she had managed to eat more of than was probably safe—she took a deep breath and carried on, pausing at the turning into the side street beyond the house, where she found Joseph kneeling down beside a pile of rocks that had been knocked loose from a stone wall. An old woman stood beside him, stooped over, fluffy white hair covered by a Christmas hat as she leaned on a walking stick.
‘Joseph?’
He looked up, and the spontaneous smile that appeared on his face made her stomach only flutter more.
‘Julia! There you are. I was just taking a walk with Basil when I bumped into Mrs. Green here.’
Julia glanced around for the dog and spotted him tied to a gate post a little further up the street, sitting patiently. When he saw her looking, he gave a low, gruff bark. Julia smiled then took a couple of tentative steps forward. ‘What happened?’
‘I think a tractor must have backed into Mrs. Green’s wall.’
‘I can’t let Felix out,’ Mrs. Green said. ‘My boy will escape.’
‘Felix is Mrs. Green’s Pekinese,’ Joseph explained.
‘He’ll climb right over and go running off after cars or sheep or bicycles,’ the old lady said, clearly distressed. ‘I can’t bear to lose him after I lost Daphne last year.’
‘Daphne was Mrs. Green’s cat,’ Joseph pointed out. ‘She ran off last summer.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,’ Julia said.
‘She came back,’ Mrs. Green said. ‘But those five hours she was missing … those were the longest five hours of my life.’
‘Five hours? That’s not so long for a cat.’
‘Daphne only has three legs,’ Joseph explained. ‘She’d only gone a hundred yards up the street but she’d managed to get herself stuck in a storm drain by the river.’
‘I thought I was going to die from worry,’ Mrs. Green said. ‘I couldn’t bear it if it happened again.’
‘We’ll get your wall fixed,’ Joseph said.
Julia rolled up her sleeves. ‘I can help,’ she said.
‘It’s alright—’
‘No, I want to. I helped my dad build a stonewalled flowerbed once.’
‘Oh, what a love you are,’ Mrs. Green said. Further up the street, Basil barked, as though to agree.
For the next few minutes she helped Joseph replace the stones knocked free from the wall by the light of a nearby streetlight, as the stars glittered overhead, and Basil occasionally barked his encouragement. Joseph managed to convince Mrs. Green to go back inside, which she did for a couple of minutes, before returning with a fluffy, squat-nosed dog in her arms which she held out to watch the reparation progress.
‘Nearly there, Felix,’ she said. ‘I know you need to do your business, but we can’t have you getting out. You’ll just have to hold it in for now.’
‘That should do it,’ Joseph said at last, standing up as he replaced the last stone. ‘I’ll be down in the morning with a bit of cement just to hold them in place. You should get back inside, before you catch a cold, Mrs. Green.’
‘I’ll just let Felix do his business,’ Mrs. Green said, putting the dog down. Felix, delighted, scampered around in the snow before finding a suitable space in a corner to squat. Mrs. Green looked up at Joseph and Julia and smiled. ‘Thank you both so much. You get along now. Do you live locally?’
‘Ah, Mrs. Green, I’m Joseph from up at Chapel Cottage. Mabel’s grandson. You play bridge together at the W.I.?’
‘Ah, yes, that’s right. Joseph. You’ve grown up so much. You were such a scrawny little boy. It’s good to see you’ve filled out.’
‘My grandmother’s a good cook.’
‘Yes, and so this must be your lady friend. I heard you were getting married. You make such a lovely couple.’
Julia froze. Joseph appeared to go pale beneath the streetlight.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said, giving Julia a brief glance.
‘How lovely. I’m sure you’ll have a long and happy life together. You seem so suited.’
Julia couldn’t bring herself to look at either Joseph or Mrs. Green.
‘Well … we’d best be … getting back,’ Joseph stuttered.
‘Nighty night,’ Mrs. Green said, shuffling back inside. Felix gave a little goodnight bark, then scampered inside with her. The door closed with a soft thump, a key turning in the lock with a gentle click, and then Joseph and Julia were left alone in the silence, illuminated in the glow of the street light.
‘Ah, sorry about that,’ Joseph said. ‘I wasn’t sure what else to say.’
Julia could barely bring herself to speak. ‘What … what do we do now?’
It was Basil that answered with a soft whump of a bark and a thump of his tail against the gate beside him.
‘I think he wants to go home,’ Joseph said.