Christmas at Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop

by Jenny Colgan

  “Did you?” said Stephen.

  “But . . .”

  “Jake’s been working on it on the sly for weeks,” said Moray. “It was just the final push last night and today really, positioning the Portakabin. We kind of hoped we’d have it done in time to move the concert.”

  “Yeah,” said Stephen. “We held on as long as we could, but you know there’s hell to pay if we keep them in too late. Not least from my ruddy mother.”

  Hetty was examining the new school with a sense of great satisfaction.

  “Well, quite,” she said.

  Mrs. Baptiste looked as if she couldn’t quite believe it.

  “Well, is it okay?” she asked. “Will it pass its legal tests and fire regulations and all of that?”

  “Done already,” said the local fire officer, smiling. “Jumped the queue. I don’t want to send Danny and Fran to Carningford any more than anybody else did.”

  Tina flung her arms around Jake.

  “You are the best man in the history of the world,” she said. “Oh, I wish you’d heard Emily sing.”

  “I want to sing again,” said Emily standing by her mother.

  Tina looked at Stephen. “Can she sing again?”

  Stephen looked at Mrs. Baptiste.

  “I can’t think of a better way to christen the new building than with a song.”

  She did, however, first have to get through the front door by cutting a huge red ribbon as everyone clapped. Now most of the village really was here (with the notable exception of Roy Blaine), and they filed into the building with good will, despite its chill from not having the boiler back on. The children lined up in the assembly hall—­with a proper stage this time—­and Mrs. Baptiste tried to keep her fingers warm enough to play the piano as everyone joined in, Emily’s solo providing an excuse, if one was needed, for a myriad of quiet tears to be shed for one reason or another.

  Chapter 17

  ROSIE SENT TINA home with the children and went back to Lipton Hall to tidy up the stall and help Stephen. He was buzzing with adrenalin.

  “Look at you,” she teased gently. “You look like you’ve just won The X Factor.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said with a smile playing on his lips.

  It felt like a truce.

  “You know. That show you watch all the time on Saturday evenings while pretending to be reading a big newspaper.”

  “Oh yes. The newspaper I cut the eyeholes out of.”

  “The very one.”

  “Come on,” said Stephen. “Aren’t you thrilled? The school is saved, therefore the sweetshop is saved, and Roy Blaine will be spitting even more venom into his pink dentist water than usual. You can’t say today wasn’t a success.”

  “I know,” said Rosie. “I know.”

  But what she was also thinking was: six more days till Angie leaves.

  “Come here, you,” said Stephen, putting his arm round her. “What’s up?”

  She looked at him.

  “Do you really not know?” she said. He shook his head.

  “You don’t think it worries me . . . that I am giving up my entire family, my mum, my little nieces and . . . nephew, and everything . . . for what? To hang around here being patronized by your mother and treated as second fiddle by you?”

  Stephen was completely stunned. Rosie was instantly terrified. She had gone too far.

  But on the other hand, if she didn’t say what was in her heart now, how would it get any better down the line? If she didn’t find out now, she would never find out. She would never know.

  Stephen’s face had fallen.

  “I didn’t know that’s how you felt,” he said. “Have you been feeling like this for a long time?”

  “No,” said Rosie. “But for a little while, maybe.”

  “Well, don’t I feel stupid?” said Stephen, bewildered. Rosie closed her eyes. This was horrible.

  “I’m sorry,” said Stephen, turning away. “I’m sorry. I thought I was enough for you.”

  “You are,” said Rosie. Then she thought about it again. “No,” she said. “You are everything, and I love you. But I don’t see why I can’t have what other ­people have. A wedding, a family. All of that.”

  She looked at Stephen’s face; he seemed stunned. Tears sprang to her eyes. Stephen looked around the room.

  “Do you even know what it means for me to get married?” he said. “I have to inherit. I have to take on this bloody place. I have to spend my entire time with lawyers and my mother and, of course, unless I marry someone with money, I have to spend the rest of my life completely encumbered, completely skint, and bowing and scraping to anyone who wants to come here and have some tacky wedding in my back garden. . . . Oh Rosie, I just don’t think we’re in the same place. I . . . —­”

  “I see,” said Rosie. “Okay. I see.”

  Stephen stopped short suddenly.

  “I need to get away for a bit,” said Stephen. “Sort my head out.”

  Rosie’s heart plummeted, and she stared at him in utter dismay. The silence was broken by Cathryn charging out of the front door.

  “Have you seen him?” she said, her normally implacable face totally white and horrified.

  “Seen who?” said Rosie, furiously wiping at her eyes, her brain still trying to take in the implications of their fight.

  “James Boyd,” said Cathryn. “He’s vanished.”

  Chapter 18

  THEY BOTH INSTANTLY sprang into action. Rosie called Jake to get him to round up a posse. Stephen directed Mrs. Laird through the house, but there didn’t seem to be a trace of him anywhere.

  “He can’t have gone far,” said Rosie. “He’s so old.”

  “He’ll be in the grounds,” said Stephen, hurrying past.

  “Dementia patients often roam farther than you think,” warned Cathryn. “Oh, I can’t believe I took my eye off him for one second. There was just so much commotion . . . Oh dear.” Her hands fluttered to her face, then down again.

  “Okay, let’s get organized,” she said, more determined. “I’ll give it five minutes before I call the police.”

  She looked out over the white gardens, the balustrades of the formal terrace completely hidden under the snow, then blew out her fringe and put on her coat. She glanced briefly at James’s coat, still hanging on the coatstand.

  “I’ll call Edward,” she said. “Now, can everyone else stay here?”

  Hetty strode in, back from the village. “We’ll have tea,” she said. “You must all stay for tea. I am so happy to be rid of all those snotty-­nosed brats that I feel we ought to celebrate.”

  NIGHT WAS ALREADY coming in—­Rosie realized with a start that it was the twenty-­first of December, the shortest day of the year. Stephen was covering Lipton Hall, Jake was coordinating the efforts in town, and Moray was going to meet her in the middle to cover the road.

  Stephen hadn’t said anything to her, merely handed her a large torch. She had taken one of Hetty’s coats, too, to protect her against the weather, and now she was going to need the torch. She shouted for James, but her voice sounded like nothing against the wind. And snow was starting to fall again; it was bitterly cold. She could barely remember now how excited she had been when the land was first covered in its soft whiteness.

  She couldn’t think about the sting of Stephen’s words. She would have to deal with that later. There was a great block of ice in the pit of her stomach that had absolutely nothing to do with the weather.

  She would have given a lot to be on an Australian beach right at that moment.

  STEPHEN MARCHED OUT into the back of the house, completely furious, beside himself. He picked up a stick and battered it against the side of a tree. A massive clump of snow fell out and landed on the back of his neck. This is so stupid, he thought; he had to get
a grip on himself.

  He thought of the sadness and pain in Rosie’s eyes. How could he hurt her like that? It wasn’t unreasonable of her, after all, was it? But did she really know what she was asking of him?

  All his life he’d bucked against doing the expected thing, settling down in the path his family had been treading for hundreds of years. He wanted to travel the world, inspire young minds, not worry and fret about heating bills and gardening staff and spend his life dealing with his bloody mother in stifling little Lipton where everybody had known him since he was a little boy.

  But Rosie didn’t stifle him, did she? When she wasn’t being all funny about everything . . .

  He shone his torch on the ground. Fresh snow was falling, but it hadn’t covered up the ground just yet, and animal tracks from birds and dogs were clearly visible. Nothing human, though, so he headed over to the outbuildings.

  Suddenly a horrible thought struck him. She couldn’t . . . When she had mentioned visiting Australia, she couldn’t possibly mean for a long time, could she? She wouldn’t leave?

  All his conflicting feelings about settling down, about having to follow the family path, suddenly paled into utter insignificance. Rosie in Australia . . . it was like a punch to the gut. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t leave him. Surely not. God, he just needed to get out of bloody Lipton for a bit.

  The search took on a new level of intensity. The howling wind was absolutely freezing.

  DOWN IN THE village, the local constable, Big Pete, was trying to coordinate matters. He looked serious.

  “Is he wearing a coat?” he said.

  “No.”

  Cathryn was trying her best to maintain a calm atmosphere.

  “We’re going to fan out and search every back street, every back garden, knock on every door, okay?’

  The men of the village, already tired from their night’s work at the school, looked haggard in the arc lights still set up from the building work, but they set to with a will. “James!” could be heard on every breath of wind, echoing up and down the street, the old stone houses looking empty and inhospitable in the chill of the night.

  MORAY HAD LILIAN in the car and picked up Rosie at the bottom of the driveway. She looked beside herself, and her teeth were chattering.

  “We’ll find him,” said Moray, although he was more worried than he let on. James was a very old, confused, senile man. In this weather, even if they found him, bronchitis, pneumonia . . . the complications were frightening, painful and distressing. Well, they would deal with that as and when.“Don’t worry,” said Moray, squeezing Rosie gently.

  The car’s warmth was welcome to her, but it made her want to start crying, and she didn’t have time for that.

  “Why did you leave Lipton Hall?” she asked Lilian crossly. “You shouldn’t be out on a night like this.”

  She squinted.

  “And are you wearing fur?”

  “Yes. Things were different then,” sniffed Lilian. “Better. And in answer to your ridiculous question, two reasons. One, because Hetty’s house is colder on the inside than the outside. And two, because I know where he is.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Rosie.

  “I know where he is.”

  “James?”

  “His name isn’t James,” said Lilian. “Really, nobody ever pays attention to the old.”

  Moray glanced at her.

  “Where am I going then?”

  “The churchyard, please.”

  Chapter 19

  THE SEARCH PARTY hadn’t yet reached the churchyard. As soon as Lilian stepped out of the car, she barely noticed the cold. Moray followed her with his big heavy-­duty country torch. Rosie followed dumbly behind.

  “Once upon a time,” said Lilian, striding confidently ahead, sprightly for a woman of her age. The moon had risen, and she hardly needed the light from the torch.

  “Once upon a time there was a woman called Lilian Hopkins.”

  “That’s a coincidence,” said Moray, shouting ‘JAMES!’ ”

  “Ssh. And she was in love with a young man called Henry Carr.”

  Rosie and Moray traded looks.

  “But he got some slapper up the duff.”

  “Ida Delia,” said Rosie. Lilian sniffed.

  “Then he got called up.”

  “But he died,” said Rosie gently, suddenly terrified that her great-­aunt’s mind had turned. “He died, Lilian. A long time ago. In North Africa, remember?”

  “There was a lot of confusion in the war,” said Lilian, a touch of steel in her voice. “Lots of things got mixed up. Don’t forget that.”

  She made a sharp turn to the left, then right again, then left.

  “Aha,” she said. “Yes.”

  And there, in the shade of the old churchyard tree where they had once spent hours together, kissing and talking and planning for a future that would never come, lay nestled the long body and white head of an old, old man.

  MORAY PULLED OUT his phone immediately to alert the authorities and call in the helicopter. Rosie immediately tore off her coat and put it around the old man, and Moray shouted harshly at Big Pete to bring blankets and hot tea. Then he knelt down. There was a faint pulse, very slow. He put his arm around the man, Rosie too.

  “Come on, old fella,” said Moray. “Come on.”

  Lilian—­very carefully and painfully because of her dodgy hip—­knelt down.

  “When I was young,” she went on in the same eerily calm tone of voice, “which was yesterday, or last week or thereabouts, I knew a boy with curly hair. He used to tease me mercilessly. He worked in the fields with the sheep, and the back of his neck was brown as a nut, and his nose took freckles in July when the sun shone all day.

  “When I was sad because my brother had died, he held me every day and did his best to make everything better, and when we were happy we walked the lanes and the field paths of Lipton together, and he would hold my hand and tickle me with a wheat sheaf, and we would talk about the cottage we were going to have, with the white roses, because I like white roses, even though they are neglected most horribly by my grandniece, after all the trouble I went to to cultivate them around the bower gate.

  “And then something happened and I lost him and that was a bad business, and then he went away to war and I knew nothing of him after that.”

  She leaned in close to him.

  “Henry, my love,” she whispered. “Was that you?”

  FOR A MOMENT in the churchyard all was silent and white, the snow falling without a noise, a great hush on the world. Rosie was holding one of the man’s hands and trying to rub some life back into it.

  Then something: a twitch, a quiver of the eyelids. Then the eyes blinked, slowly, a film of tears on them.

  “Well done,” said Moray. “Well done. Up you come.”

  He struggled to sit up a little, and Moray put his anorak around him to get him away from the cold, wet ground.

  “My name,” the old man croaked, “Is Henry Ishmael Carr.”

  “I know,” said Lilian.

  Rosie’s mouth dropped open.

  Then all was commotion and bright lights as the search party charged into the churchyard, and a great thundering noise cut across the sky, and the sweeping beams of the helicopter poured over them, bathing everything in boiling yellow light, and no one could hear a thing after that, and Henry gently closed his eyes again.

  I SHOULD GET a flat in this bloody hospital, thought Rosie. She’d brought Lilian in the next morning, as soon as they’d gotten the news that Henry had woken up and was ready for visitors. She had a stonking hangover, seeing as once Henry had been dispatched and the old ­people returned to the home, there seemed to be only one thing to do which was for everyone to dispatch to the Red Lion to chew over the astounding events of the day. Dorothy Isitt and Ida Del
ia had been informed, which would be interesting, as well as Edward Boyd. For once, quiet, tranquil Lipton, where nothing ever happened, had turned into a soap opera, and no one could quite believe it.

  All the way back to the home Rosie had just stared at Lilian.

  “But how did you know?” she said. “How could you possibly know?”

  Lilian shrugged. “I recognized him straightaway,” she said.

  “So naturally I thought it was me who was going completely insane. As if Henry Carr would walk into my life again. I thought I wasn’t long for this world.”

  Rosie shook her head. “It’s not possible.”

  Then something struck her.

  “Oh my God, is that why you kept mentioning Australia? . . . I thought you were encouraging me to go.”

  Lilian shrugged. “You seemed to miss your mother and, yes, I didn’t think I had long, with all the hallucinations and what not. I reckoned I was going gaga and I’d soon be so scatty I wouldn’t even notice you were gone.”

  “It’s amazing.”

  “Remind me of how you came across him again?”

  Rosie thought back. “Well, he and his son were driving through the village . . . and he had a funny turn when he saw the shop.”

  “Hmmm. Why do you think that was?”

  “Amazing,” said Rosie. “I mean just amazing.”

  “It’s not in the least bit amazing,” said Lilian. “He could have driven through this village at any time in the last sixty bloody years, prompted his memory, and we could have taken it from there. Did you know he’s been a widower for thirty years?! I could do a swear.”

  But the excitement in her eyes gave away her happiness.

  Rosie had asked Moray if he was going to be all right, and he had shrugged and said he didn’t know, but stranger things had happened.

  “Not much stranger, though,” he’d mused on his third glass of Les’s very indifferent red wine.

  STEPHEN HAD INTENDED to go to the pub but had been at home looking up something online when he’d come upon the window that Rosie had (intentionally? he wondered) left open on the laptop they shared. Quarantine arrangements for taking dogs to Australia. He had stared at it for a long time, then picked up Mr. Dog from his comfy position in front of the fire and hugged his fur.