by Hilary Boyd
“Oh, Sophie, I’m so sorry.” Karen got up and went to embrace the girl.
Sophie allowed Karen to hold her for a moment, then pulled back, her dark eyes wide and bewildered. “Mum said it was peaceful in the end. Nanu’s hardly been awake this past week, so I suppose it’s a mercy she didn’t linger any longer.”
“Your poor mum.”
Sophie sat down at the table and let out a long breath. “Yeah, she sounded really tired. It’s been pretty full-on. Nanu’s not the easiest of people on a good day.”
“Weren’t they close?”
“Oh, nobody was that close to Nanu. She made it her business to fall out with people for no apparent reason. I think she enjoyed the drama.”
“Even you?”
“No, she was good to me. But I didn’t see her enough. We usually went out in the summer, but I haven’t been for a couple of years now . . . I should have, but it was always such a nightmare because there were only two bedrooms and one was filled with junk. So me and Mum had to sleep on sort of camp bed things in the living room. And Mum and Nanu bickered about everything, all day long. She was scary, Nanu . . .”
“Still, it’s sad.”
“I’m sad for Mum, really. Sad she didn’t have a better relationship with her.” She took a sip of her wine. “I’ll have to go out there tomorrow, help Mum with the funeral and everything.”
“Are you OK with that?” Karen knew Sophie hadn’t been outside the village for months.
“I guess I’ll have to be,” she said, with a wry grin.
“I’ll come with you if you like,” Karen offered.
Sophie’s eyes welled up at Karen’s offer. “Thanks . . . thanks so much . . . I’ll be fine.”
“Well, at least I can take you to the airport.”
“You don’t need to. I can leave the car in the long-term car park. I won’t be there more than a week, I hope.”
“Sophie! Of course I’ll drive you. Don’t be ridiculous.”
And the girl slowly nodded her agreement.
*
Bonfire night came and went without incident. November dragged on, down into the darkness.
Johnny rang to harangue Karen about coming to Canada for Christmas and called her “stubborn” when she refused.
Sophie stayed on in Athens. “It’s complicated,” she whispered to Karen when she called to check how things were going. Clearly Theresa was close by.
Meanwhile Karen felt as if she were existing in a sort of suspended state. She didn’t feel sad or lonely or anxious, but neither did she feel any sort of optimism for the future. She was merely plodding from day to day, waiting. And if anyone had asked her what she was waiting for, she would have been quite clear: William. It wasn’t even remotely rational, but that didn’t matter to her.
It was the waiting that sustained her and stopped her from plummeting into despair.
“I’ve got some incredible news,” Sophie told Karen three weeks later, when they were on their way back from the airport. “Nanu left me everything. Her apartment, her money, the lot.”
Karen gave a quick glance round at her stepdaughter. The girl looked exhausted but there was a look of hope in her eyes that Karen hadn’t seen before. “That’s brilliant.”
“Mum thinks the apartment could be worth as much as a hundred and fifty thousand euro, although the market’s flat at the moment with the economy still in such a mess. And then there’s some cash as well.”
“Was your mum upset not to get any?”
“I think she was. It’s a sort of psychological thing rather than a financial thing, I think—Mum’s got money. Like Nanu not loving her enough. I offered to give her some of my share, but she won’t hear of it. Anyway, we’ve cleared the worst of the stuff, it would only need a bit of tarting up to make it nice. Then I can rent it out or sell it.”
“That’s such good news, Sophie.”
“Yeah, isn’t it? But it’s been really hard on Mum.”
They were silent for a while.
“Maybe I’ll take a course with the money, learn how to do something profitable. Mum’s always pooh-poohed education, said college was just an excuse to doss for three years. Which is a joke considering I’ve been virtually dossing for ten years at least.”
“Good idea. What would you like to do?”
“Don’t know, but something I can really get involved in.”
Karen felt a sudden lightness of spirit hearing Sophie talk on about her future as they drove home.
The dark pall of the girl’s despair over recent months had hung over the house and over Karen, allied to a constant nagging worry about her stepdaughter’s state of mind, her actual safety. But now there seemed to be a tentative sea change in Sophie’s psyche.
Part Three
Chapter Seventeen
Christmas again. Decorations went up in the windows of the village houses. The fairy lights on the huge spruce, situated on the village green by the duck pond, twinkled reassuringly in the darkened evenings.
“I wish I didn’t have to go,” Sophie said as she stood in the hall, a small wheelie case beside her, gray parka on, a red scarf hanging loose around her neck.
“It’ll be good to see your mum.” Karen tried to encourage her.
Sophie pulled a face. “I’ve only just seen her. And there’s sod-all to do up there, it’s right bang in the middle of nowhere. No pub, no shop even. Worse, no mobile signal to speak of. And if this weather keeps up it’ll be knackeringly cold.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, God, I hope I don’t get snowed in . . .”
“It’s only for a few days.” Karen laughed, reaching to kiss the girl goodbye.
“Will you be OK on your own?”
“Of course. I’ve had three invitations to Christmas lunch already, and I’m sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” Karen didn’t add that she had no intention of going to any of them. She liked Christmas normally, and Harry had always thrown himself into the festivities with an almost childlike zeal. But Harry wasn’t here now. The thought brought a pang of nostalgia for her husband, for the companionship, the friends, most of whom had faded away over the year as Karen made no effort to engage with them.
Sophie laughed. “Yeah, that’s the upside of village life, you’re never alone . . . and the downside, of course.”
“Listen, you’d better get off.”
They said goodbye, Karen and Largo watching from the door as Sophie drove off into the wet morning mist.
“Just you and me now,” Karen told the dog, ruffling the hair behind his ears.
*
Christmas morning dawned. Karen had, as she’d intended, excused herself from all the invitations to lunch. If Patrick had asked her, she might have felt more enthusiastic—she could be herself with the old actor—but he and Volkan had taken off to Mauritius ’till after the new year.
It’s just another day, she told herself, deciding to read and walk and watch bad TV, avoid any people in the village, go to bed early, pretend she was not so alone. She texted Sophie Christmas wishes, with little hope that the girl would get them, given the lack of mobile signal in the Cumbrian hills. Then she texted Mike, who was spending the day with his daughter and the “thug.” She would call Johnny later.
But as she lay there, summoning the energy to get up and get dressed, suddenly there was a burning imperative to do something quite different with the day. And before she had time to consider it more carefully, she had showered, dressed, eaten a slice of toast and marmalade, gulped a cup of black coffee and jumped into the car—with the dog—setting the satnav for Hastings. Instinct told her that William would be there today, at the soup kitchen, making Christmas lunch for the homeless people, along with Sue and his friend Alistair. She was as certain as she’d ever been about anything in her whole life.
The roads were empty this early in the day. Later, no doubt, there would be scores of families setting off to visit relatives, but now there was an almost eerie absence of cars and people as she passed throug
h the gray, windswept Sussex towns, the strung lights and trees bright in the dull winter morning. She felt like some lone adventurer off on a quest. And she was as excited and nervous as if it were a real quest.
This was what she had been waiting for. Today I will see him, she kept telling herself. Today I will talk to him, find out once and for all.
Find out what, she wasn’t sure, but she was sure that things would be instantly clarified as soon as she looked into his eyes again. There was no part of her that worried William wouldn’t be where he was supposed to be.
Parking the car near the church, she arrived just after eleven. Light was spilling through the stained-glass windows and she could hear the rumble of the organ, the sound of raised voices singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Suddenly nervous, she sat in the car for a while, not knowing how she would explain her presence to Sue, not least if Alistair wasn’t expected today. For all she knew he had gone to Mauritius too, taking William with him.
Pull yourself together, she told herself firmly. You’ve come all this way, don’t fall at the last fence. Steeling herself, she got out of the car and knocked on the door to the annex before she lost her nerve.
Another woman answered the door. Very thin and very tall, she wore a jumper with a reindeer on the front and a red Christmas hat with a white trim and bobble over her short gray hair.
“Happy Christmas,” she said, before Karen had time to speak. “We aren’t open for another hour or so. If you could come back after twelve thirty.” Her smile was slightly forced, her accent with a hint of something European, Karen thought.
“Umm . . . I haven’t come for the lunch,” Karen said, amused she was being taken for a homeless person.
“Sorry, I just assumed . . .” The woman looked embarrassed.
“I was hoping to see Alistair Fisher . . . are you expecting him later?”
“Alistair? Yes, he’ll be round after the service,” the woman said, stepping back from the doorway. “Come in and wait if you like.”
Karen thanked her and went to fetch Largo from the car. She left him pottering about in the main room, which contained a large tree in the corner with multi-colored lights, the six tables laid with red paper cloths and decorated with baby gold and silver tinsel trees, a pyramid of crackers at each end. The kitchen was hot and steamy, fragrant with mouth-watering smells of roasting bird, the central island covered with three large baking trays of potatoes and various smaller ones containing ranks of chipolatas and extra stuffing waiting to go in the oven.
The radio was playing “Deck The Halls,” volume high, and Sue was singing along in a croaky voice as she chopped a vast pile of carrots on the draining board. She turned as Karen came in. “Oh, hello,” she said, knife poised. “Karen, isn’t it?”
“Well remembered.” Karen felt the eyes of the two women on her and knew she had to offer an explanation.
“Happy Christmas,” Sue said, coughing. “Sorry, got a bit of a chesty thing going on.”
“And to you. I . . . er, I thought maybe Alistair would be here today . . . and your friend said he was coming later . . . I could help while I wait.”
Sue grinned. “That would be marvelous. This is Ursula, by the way.”
Neither woman queried Karen’s presence. But then they were used to dealing with a transient community and perhaps didn’t think it particularly odd that she should turn up out of the blue, on Christmas morning, to see someone whom Sue, at least, was aware Karen barely knew.
Karen was delegated to take over the carrot-chopping, while Sue got on with the bread sauce, Ursula taking the enormous turkey out of the oven to baste, and clucking as the steam misted up her glasses. For a while all was quiet, just the radio belting out Christmas favorites as the women worked.
“The service should be over in a minute,” Sue said, looking at her watch. “We’ll need to get those sausages in soon.”
“I have nowhere to put them until I take the turkey out,” Ursula said.
“Is it nearly ready?”
“Another twenty-two minutes.”
Sue laughed, blowing out her cheeks, which were bright red from the heat. “Very precise, Ursula. Thank God for the microwave, otherwise we’d have six puddings steaming on the stove and nowhere to put anything else. Don’t know how we’d have coped.”
Karen was relieved to be in the stuffy, congested kitchen redolent of so many past Christmas lunches, with people she didn’t know, the radio making conversation unnecessary. It stopped her thinking too much about William. But every few seconds she would glance toward the door, waiting, her nerves jangling with anticipation. With her back to the room, however, as she mixed a ton of custard powder with milk to a smooth, yellow paste in a Pyrex bowl, she did not hear William’s mentor arrive. She was only aware that he was in the kitchen when she heard Sue greet him enthusiastically. She turned just as Alistair Fisher noticed her.
His expression was almost shocked. “Karen . . .”
“She’s been helping us out,” Sue said. “It’s been a godsend, having an extra pair of hands.”
“Good,” Alistair said, taking off his brown tweed overcoat and hanging it on one of the hooks behind the door with the other coats. “Glad you could be here, Karen,” he added, as if he had been expecting her all along.
She didn’t know what to say, so she just smiled and got on with the custard.
There would be no time to talk privately to him in the hectic run-up to lunch, and anyway, it wasn’t Fisher she had come to see. Where was William? Had she got it wrong after all? She was aching to ask the man, but instead she worked alongside him and the two women, putting the finishing touches to the turkey meal.
Later, when both she and Alistair were in the main room, carrying through the trays of roast potatoes, she began to speak, to ask him where William was.
But he interrupted her. “It’s wonderful that the Church can give everyone a proper celebration at Christmas,” he said, turning away, back to the kitchen.
*
Karen counted nineteen men and two women around the tables. Plates piled high, they were tucking into the dinner with gusto, many of them with a paper hat perched on their heads, not talking much, just listening to the radio. Largo was a big hit, making his way around the tables to be patted and made a fuss of, accepting tidbits from anyone offering.
Sue, Ursula, Alistair and Karen sat together at one end of the table by the kitchen. All of them were hot and exhausted, but so happy to have pulled it off and be able to relax for a minute with their own lunch, before the next stage of the meal had to be dealt with.
“I think we did pretty well,” Sue said, her gold cone hat skewed on the back of her head, the string digging into her double chin.
“You did brilliantly,” Karen agreed, glancing over at Alistair, still waiting for him to make some comment on her being there, which he seemed determined not to do.
Would he warn William not to come? She hadn’t seen him making a call since he’d arrived, but he could have done. Her previous conviction about William was slowly waning as the hours ticked by. It was only just after two thirty, but if he were intending to help with the lunch he would have been here hours ago.
The first chance Karen had to talk to Fisher without being overheard was when Sue delegated them to organize the tea. Alistair was piling mugs on to a tray as Karen waited for the two kettles to boil, the large white teapot and an equally large brown one standing by. She was furious with him. He must know she wasn’t here on some philanthropic mission; he could have taken her aside hours ago and told her what she needed to know.
“So is William coming today?”
Fisher stopped what he was doing and looked at her. He didn’t reply at once, just seemed to be turning things over in his mind.
“This is awkward for me, Karen—” he said, then stopped.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake! I just want to know if he’ll be here today. I’m not asking you to betray your country, Alistair, just tell me if I can exp
ect William to walk through that door. Or am I wasting my time?”
“I honestly don’t know if he’ll come or not.”
“But he said he might?”
Fisher nodded reluctantly.
She let out an exasperated sigh. “See? That wasn’t so hard. What do you think I’m going to do, exactly? Come at him with a meat cleaver? Anyway, it’s none of your business, you aren’t the guardian of William’s soul. Or mine.” She turned back to the kettles.
Her heart was thumping with indignation, her breath short in her throat. The man was infuriating with his smugly protective attitude toward William. It’s as if he’s an anxious parent, she thought, her hand quivering as she picked up one of the kettles.
There was silence behind her.
Then Fisher said, “You make me sound like some Svengali. I’m not, as you seem to think, controlling William in any way. He’s perfectly capable of making his own mind up about what goes on in his life.”
“So are you worried he’ll think this is a set-up? That you told me he’d be here and he’ll feel betrayed?”
She hadn’t realized she was raising her voice, but Ursula, who was just coming into the kitchen, looked quickly from her to Fisher.
“Everything OK in here?”
“Fine, tea’s nearly ready,” Karen said briskly, pouring the boiling water in a steady stream on to the tea bags in the bottom of the pots.
A few minutes later she and Fisher were alone in the kitchen once more.
“Listen, Karen. We seem to have got off on the wrong foot, you and me. But we’re both on the same side. We both care a great deal about Will . . .” He paused, smiled at her. “Can we be friends?”
Karen pursed her lips. “I’m too annoyed with you at the moment, but I’ll think about it.”
Which made Alistair laugh, his face lighting up with real delight. Karen could see his charm suddenly and held out her hand.
*
The afternoon wore on, seamlessly morphing from turkey to pud to tea and Christmas cake—courtesy of Ursula—to cracker-pulling and more tea. The men were in no hurry to leave, the wild wind and rain that had sprung up during the day no incentive for someone with only a dismal hostel to go to.