by Karen Swan
The
CHRISTMAS
SECRET
KAREN SWAN
PAN BOOKS
For Sally, Mhairi and Muirne.
My three graces.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Christmas at Claridge’s
Christmas in the Snow
Christmas on Primrose Hill
Christmas Under the Stars
The Rome Affair
Prologue
Kilnaughton Bay, Islay, west coast of Scotland, 30 April 1932
Out there.
The first time he had escaped death was out there, in those treacherous waters that stretched from here to the coast of Ireland. But from these cliffs, on this day, when the sea was stretched pale and smooth like a bolt of cerulean silk, there was no sign of the horrors of that long-ago night – when force ten winds raged above the surface and missiles were fired beneath it.
She stared out to the horizon, the wind in her face as though blowing breath into her, bringing her back to life. He felt closer here and she thought, if she prayed hard enough, she might see his footprints in the sand, detect his scent on the breeze. Oh, but for this tiny isle to have held something of him in its embrace; the landlady of her lodgings had told her the seeds of the bright yellow gorse bushes that dotted these moors could remain dormant in the soil for forty years, and still germinate. Could she not hope for just such a trace?
But hope was lost and had been for many years. Death had been chasing him, snapping its jaws at his ankles for a second time, refusing to let him get away. He had fought so hard, they said, these kind strangers with their rich, rolling vowels and still eyes. Several times they thought he was lost, only for him to break through the fevers like a ghoul from the mist, hollow-cheeked and panting from the chase.
He had strong fibre, they said, a tender smile; eyes that whispered, hands that danced. Even so many years later, he was remembered here, he had been admired.
And to think he had been hers . . .
She closed her eyes, letting the breeze buffet her. There was indescribable comfort in that simple truth: he had been hers and Death – though triumphant on its third attempt – could not cleave it from her.
A sound – a voice? – carried over to her ear and she looked around to find a woman hurrying towards her. Though the wind played with her hair like a kitten after string, she moved with ease and grace. Her frame was slight and quick, with intelligence in her eyes, breeding in her bones. But if her beauty was delicately spun, there was nothing fragile about her. She looked strong and resolute. Formidable.
‘Are you the American?’ the woman asked with a clear-eyed directness.
‘Yes.’
The woman gave a single exhale and a nod. ‘They told me I could find you here. I thought I had missed you.’
‘What is it?’
‘Before you leave . . . there’s something you should know.’
But she already did. Instinct told her.
He had been hers too.
Chapter One
Mayfair, London, Friday 1 December 2017
‘Alex Hyde’s office.’
Louise Kennedy’s clipped voice pierced the silence of a thickly carpeted room whose still air was only otherwise punctuated by perfumed wafts from the snowball peonies.
‘No, I’m sorry, she’s not available. Who’s calling, please?’
Her French-manicured fingertips hovered, poised, above the keyboard, the cursor on the screen flashing as she awaited the name. On the right side of the keypad, a red light was flashing. Another client, incoming; she was like an air-traffic controller managing the perpetual flow of aircraft coming in to land: rack ’em, pack ’em, stack ’em.
‘I will need a name if she’s to—’ She was careful to avoid exhaling into the mic of her headset as the caller prevaricated, not believing her, not used to being told no. Her fingers twitched in the air as though twiddling a pen, restless to get on. The red light was still blinking. She had to pick up within the minute. One never knew when it could be urgent and at this level, urgent meant exactly that: jobs, fortunes, very lives could be on the line.
‘No, that isn’t possible.’ One threaded eyebrow arched as the caller’s voice became more strident. ‘Because she’s in New York.’ Her eyes fell to the red light again. ‘That’s confidential,’ she said more briskly, more than used to dealing with self-importance. It was probably the single most common defining trait of Alex’s clients; it was probably what enabled them to become one of Alex’s clients in the first place. ‘But I can ask her to call you. Does she know what it’s in regard to?’ Her fingers twitched again.
Outside, the blue lights of an ambulance whirled past the mink-grey slatted windows, the woolly white sky tumbled thick with rain clouds. People in heavy coats walked past in profile, heads bent to their phones, the pavements still slick from the last cloudburst a few minutes earlier.
Her lips pursed as the man talked. She had thought as much. ‘I see. So this is a new client enquiry.’ His presumptive tone had suggested deep personal acquaintance but in all likelihood they had perhaps shaken hands at a cocktail party, or Alex’s name had come up at a celebratory dinner, murmured in hushed tones and passed over with the same furtive secrecy as a Mason’s handshake.
‘I’m afraid we operate a waiting list and Ms Hyde doesn’t have any openings before May.’ Her eyes glanced across to the red light. Still there. Just. Ten seconds . . . ‘Would you like me to book you in and we’ll be in touch nearer the time?’
Her eyebrows buckled as presumptive became didactic; he perhaps didn’t realize that no one got to Alex without first going past her, and she was paid to vet the clients, as much as to diarize them. ‘Well, as I said before, Ms Hyde is not in the country at the moment and I’m not at liberty to tell you when she’ll be back. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other clients trying to get through. You are very welcome to call back at your convenience if you change your—’ Her finger hovered over the disconnect button, her eyes on the flashing red light.
Three, two, o . . .
Her hand dropped to the desk as though shot down, the words still ringing in her ears as though every single one had exploded down the line with a bang. She leaned forward on her elbows, concentrating harder as she stared at the flashing cursor on the still-blank screen, the red light now gone. Completely forgotten, in fact. There was a long pause.
‘I’m sorry, could you repeat that?’ she said finally, an uncharacteristic waver in her cut-glass voice. ‘I don’t think I heard you correctly.’
New York, same day
Alex Hyde stared down at Wall Street. It was teeming with ego, pulsing like a muscle as people ran into the traffic – lat
e for meetings and seemingly armour-plated against the flood of yellow cabs that hooted furiously, red tail lights blinking – and wove a bravura dance from one side of the road to the other. At street level, their signifiers of status would be both discreet (the colour-threaded buttonhole of a hand-stitched suit, perhaps) and overt (a Rolex Oyster, a Caribbean tan) but from this height, these people looked like nothing more than metal shavings on a magnetic board, darting this way and that as though propelled by an outer force, all desperately trying to get somewhere. Get here, in fact. Up here on the 98th floor was where they wanted to be, and the man she was talking to was who they wanted to be. A master of the universe; a power hub – the source of all energy, all money.
But none of them would ever make it this far. They didn’t see themselves from her perspective. They couldn’t see themselves from two paces away, much less two hundred metres high. Even their own reflections in the mirror wouldn’t reveal to them what she saw because they didn’t know they had to understand that ambition wasn’t enough, talent wasn’t enough, hunger wasn’t enough. And if they didn’t even know that they had to know this, how could they possibly expect to climb the stairs that led to this vaunted position in the sky?
The man behind her knew it, but then he had been lucky enough to meet her when he was a newly appointed president of Bank of America and the best career move he had ever made had been not just to realize, but also to admit, that he was out of his depth. She turned her back on the hard December sun throwing a white slant down the street and faced him again. Apprehensive blue eyes stared back at her from a lined face as she walked slowly back into the room.
‘Howard, do you remember in our last session we talked about edge?’
He watched her as closely as an antelope tracking a lion in the long grass. ‘Yes.’
She returned to sitting in the chair opposite him, her lean figure discreetly flattered by the ivory crêpe Phillip Lim dress, her mid-length chestnut-brown hair tumbling artfully at her shoulders thanks to this morning’s blowout – God, she loved this city’s blowout bars – and wearing only the lightest slick of make-up, her olive skin still glowing from last month’s mindfulness retreat in Costa Rica. ‘What did we say, can you tell me?’ She tilted her head empathetically, her expression soft although her deep brown eyes retained a quizzical expression.
‘You said that in order to have edge, there needs to be a coming together of the whole person?’
She nodded. ‘That’s right. We need to have the blend, to get the edge.’ She smiled. ‘It sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? Blend, edge – surely they’re opposite terms? But only when the four areas of our lives – the physical, the mental, the social and the spiritual elements – are in balance, can we expect to perform concordantly. And when they are, because it’s such a rarity, that’s when you have the edge to see things more sharply, to make smarter decisions, to act with clarity and confidence. But –’ her expression changed – ‘we neglect any one of these aspects of our psyches at our peril. How can we possibly expect to be flexible in our thoughts if we’re not reading or learning anything beyond the confidential memos circulating in the bank? How can you absorb the stress of making your targets if you cancel on your trainer? You cannot let the body become weak, the mind mechanical, your emotions numb or your spirit insensitive. You cannot operate in a vacuum. Not at this level. The air is too thin up here, Howard.’
He sighed, knowing what she was getting at. ‘You’re telling me to give her up.’
‘You know I never tell, I simply advise,’ she demurred, feeling the single silent vibration of her phone on the arm of her chair. ‘But if there’s no longer anything there, if what’s between you is just –’ she shrugged – ‘dead energy, then you need to ask yourself whether you’re getting the correct blend.’
Howard’s knuckles blanched slightly as he gripped the armrest, a look of incredulousness dawning. ‘You mean, Yvonne?’
‘Well, let’s examine the idea,’ she said, spreading her hands, invoking awakening. ‘Is it simply obligation that’s making you stay?’
‘Ob-obligation?’ he stammered. ‘We’ve been married thirty-four years! That’s a lot of life to share with someone.’
‘Yes, it is. Has it been too long, would you say? Do you think with hindsight you should have moved on sooner?’
Howard looked scandalized. ‘It’s not that easy. We’ve got four kids.’
‘Four grown-up kids, who are all married with families of their own,’ she nodded calmly. ‘You know, guilt can’t change the past, Howard. And anxiety won’t change the future. This is a big decision, but perhaps it’s the one we’ve been avoiding confronting.’
Howard looked down and then back at her, apprehension and insecurity creasing a patrician face that featured in the Wall Street Journal at least twice a week, that had been papered all over the city as the lead financial advisor to the mayor during the previous election campaign. ‘But last time we met, you said it was Kayleigh I should leave.’
‘No, I never told you to leave anyone, Howard,’ Alex said firmly, resting her chin on her thumb and index finger. ‘I told you to look at the blend, remember? And back then, you said Kayleigh was “acting crazy” – making unreasonable demands that you leave Yvonne for her, threatening to turn up at your house, to go to the press. You said you couldn’t sleep, you couldn’t concentrate on your work. Now, that clearly wasn’t an equilibrium you were going to be able to maintain going forward and you recognized you couldn’t deliver an edge for as long as all that was going on. So, we discussed the idea of you giving her up.’ Alex twirled her hand out. ‘On the other hand, you’ve just spent the past forty-five minutes telling me you can’t stay away from her; in spite of all the crazy behaviour, she makes you feel alive.’ She shrugged. ‘So if that’s really the truth, then don’t – don’t give her up. If she makes you feel that good, then maybe it’s time to rethink the equation. Maybe this change is what you need to achieve the perfect balance for now. People change, Howard, our needs mutate. What worked for you thirty-four years ago isn’t necessarily what works for you now. We need to be brave and face up to that. Too many people let themselves get stuck in the rut. They allow themselves to be straitjacketed by bourgeois conventions. But you’re not one of them, Howard, you’re not one of the little people. Those rules don’t apply to you. You can do what you want and if Kayleigh makes you feel alive, feel awake, then go and be with her.’
‘But . . . what about all that stuff she did? The threats?’
‘She only did those things because she wanted you to be with her; if you leave Yvonne, she’s got no reason to act crazy.’
She sat back in the chair, her chin dipped, one leg swinging lightly. There was a long silence.
‘I don’t know,’ he hesitated.
Alex leaned forward in the chair, her elbows resting on her knees, hands clasped together out front. ‘She makes you feel young again, doesn’t she?’ she asked intently.
He nodded.
‘Invincible. Powerful. Virile. The man you used to be.’
He nodded again.
‘She’s your key to getting back to being that man again, Howard.’
Howard blinked. ‘But what about . . . I mean, she broke into my house for Chrissakes. I think she might be unstable.’
‘Listen, forget all the reasons why something may not work. You only need one why it will. And you two are crazy about each other; you told me yourself, she’s a hunger you can’t satisfy. That’s all the motivation you need.’
The phone vibrated again but Alex kept her gaze on Howard. She could see the doubt in his eyes, the outright fear that came with bringing fantasy into the real world. ‘This is exactly what we’ve been exploring in our previous sessions – if you want to keep the blade sharp, you have to promote growth and change in your life. Now, initially we were working to achieve that through the charitable initiative in Angola and the attempt on K2 –’ she sat back up again – ‘but if Kayleigh is the answer, th
en let’s embrace it. Let’s not be rigid or fixed in our views, Howard. Keep in mind that whatever makes you feel whole, benefits the bank. Perfect the blend and you sharpen the edge.’
‘But Yvonne—’
‘Is a big girl. And I’m sure you’d honour your thirty-four years together by looking after her financially. You’re a gentleman, after all.’
Howard blinked. ‘I’m not sure this is—’
‘This is about you, Howard. It’s about what makes you feel whole.’ She smiled. ‘Do you know what’s the most common lie? The one that millions of people tell every single day?’
He shook his head.
‘“I’m fine.” That’s what they say, all the time, when they’re not – especially when they’re not. Are you fine, Howard? Is your life how you want it to be when you’re with Yvonne? Or is it how you want it to be when you’re with Kayleigh? Who are you with when you say, “I’m fine”? Where are you living the lie? Because it’s with one of them. I think we can say we’ve fairly established that you can’t have both; your attention is too divided – and besides, you’re too good a man for that sort of compromise, Howard. You’ve got principles, honour, pride.’ She inhaled deeply. ‘All of which means you’re standing at a crossroads. It’s decision time. Get this right and you’ll get your edge back.’
Her phone vibrated for the third time – the signal that it was urgent. She smiled and rose. ‘Look, I can see it’s a lot for you to absorb. Change can be daunting. Why don’t you take a few days to let it all settle and we can work on strategy for implementing this next time we meet?’
Howard rose too and nodded. ‘Settle, yes. Okay.’ He looked stunned, as though caught in the electric grip of a taser.
Alex walked him to the door. ‘I’ll get Louise to follow up with Sara and book something in your schedule. Lunch, perhaps? Maybe we should actively go out and celebrate this exciting new change.’
Howard fiddled with the buttons on his jacket as she opened the door. ‘Lunch? I’m not sure. I think I’m pretty booked—’
‘Of course, everything gets crazy in the run-up to Christmas, doesn’t it? No problem, we can leave them to sort out the logistics between themselves.’ She held out a hand, shaking it firmly. ‘It’s been a great session, Howard. I think we’re on the cusp of the change we’ve been reaching for. Mull everything over and let’s regroup when you’re ready.’