Christmas at Hope Cottage

by Lily Graham

  Evie gave another fake cough. ‘Hem. N-o.’

  Emma rolled her eyes. ‘It’s just a few hours away,’ she pointed out. Once again.

  ‘What’s that, dear?’ said Evie, eyes wide and innocent.

  Emma gave her a pointed look.

  ‘My university. It’s only a few hours away and I’ll be coming home every weekend, if I can.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?’ said Dot, raising her own brow.

  ‘This is not about that – is that what you thought?’ said Aggie, the picture of innocence. ‘Can you believe that?’ she asked her sisters.

  ‘Like we would ever be so – so…’ Evie searched for a word.

  ‘Obvious?’ suggested Emma, crossing her arms and giving them the squinty eye. ‘You wouldn’t, just for example, hide my acceptance letter away from me in Pennywort’s food bin – for over a week – for instance?

  ‘Us? Never!’ cried Aggie.

  ‘We would never be so deceitful,’ said Dot.

  ‘Where’s the trust?’ said Evie, shaking her head, and getting back to work on the sink.

  ‘Really? Just like you wouldn’t tell me that you were feeling rather poorly yourself and in desperate need of someone to mix your paint for you?’ she asked Aggie.

  ‘Not just the paint. Those canvases don’t carry themselves.’

  ‘Ha ha, nice try.’

  Aggie harrumphed. ‘Why do you have to go anyway?’ she said, giving up the pretence.

  ‘I want to learn, make something of myself. See a bit more of the world. I mean I grew up in London, but I hardly remember it, and this is a great opportunity for me—’

  Evie set the wrench down again, and scoffed. ‘You grew up here.’

  ‘With us,’ said Dot.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ said Emma, feeling a sudden stab of guilt. ‘I’ll be coming home all the time, you’ll see.’

  ‘Look,’ said Aggie, ‘we support you, you know we do. But does it have to be in London? Couldn’t you go to the local one instead? I mean, we couldn’t help noticing that you decided on that university shortly after young Jack and Stella got together over the summer.’

  ‘That has nothing to do with it!’ protested Emma.

  They all shared a look. Surely it had everything to do with it. There had been no talk at all of her attending university in London till then. She’d applied, of course, they’d all encouraged her to try all her options, but it wasn’t until news broke that Stella Lea and Jack Allen were together that Emma had announced, the day after, that she would be going to King’s College in London.

  Emma sighed. ‘I just want a bit of a change, it’s not for ever,’ she said.

  They nodded. Evie glanced at The Book, a thoughtful look on her face. Emma saw it.

  ‘No recipes! I’ve made up my mind, don’t try and change it and please don’t fight me on this.’

  * * *

  Of course Emma’s decision to go to King’s College had everything to do with Jack Allen – and her desire not to be subject to the sight of him dating Stella Lea. While she was there, she made a decision to put all thoughts of him firmly from her mind.

  Still, there were times in a lecture room when she’d glance round, sure that she’d seen a boy with familiar hazel eyes, only to find they were not familiar at all; or she’d see a boy with dark blond hair in the corridors and her heart would begin to race, before she could remind herself that she was done thinking about him.

  She focused instead on her studies, which she rather enjoyed. Here she sought and found other explanations for the things she’d witnessed as a child, things that made her think that perhaps there was a chance that she was normal, after all. And perhaps, deep down, that just maybe there was hope for her and Jack one day too – if an alternative explanation for her family existed. Where, for example, if a recipe from The Book was said to ease aches and pains and it contained at its heart a compound of ginger, which helped to ease inflammation, surely that was the real reason it worked? Not because of anything else?

  In time, she convinced herself that what her grandmother and her aunts did was nothing more than a big bowl of myth and lore, all sprinkled with rumour and speculation and a town that really should know better by now.

  She convinced herself of a lot of things. If she was feeling down it had nothing to do with the smell of cocoa or wood fires or roasted marshmallows, scents that always reminded her of Hope Cottage. It was simply, she was sure, because she needed an earlier night for a change. If she found herself getting tears in her eyes while she stared at a book with a pale blue cover in the cookery aisle, it wasn’t because she missed that old swollen tome back home, it was because she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a while.

  There were other things too, that she could explain. Like how grinding her teeth at night wasn’t to stop herself from suggesting a remedy or thinking of the perfect recipe when someone complained of an earache or a fall-out with a friend; it was simply stress, a common ailment of life.

  In fact, after a while, Emma became so good at convincing herself that something was blue when it was green, she barely noticed the effects any more.

  Learning about the history of food and writing about all the weird and wonderful lore that came with it, she told herself, was almost as good as the real thing. Better perhaps, because this way she could be just like any other young woman in the city.

  If some days her fingers itched for the feel of flour or the curve of a wooden spoon, she distracted them by typing up notes and paging through old-fashioned books that spoke of the art of cooking. Somehow, she couldn’t quite bring herself to make anything, didn’t trust herself not to get sucked back in some way.

  During the last month of her final year of study, while she was still making up her mind about what to do once she was finished – make the move to London an official one or look for work somewhere close to home? – her Aunt Aggie had her first art exhibition in several years.

  Emma came home to attend the exhibition, still undecided. There was a job going as a lifestyle editor for a weekly paper based in York who seemed interested in the articles she’d sent through. And in London, she’d gone for a promising interview at the Mail & Ledger about a potential food column, but she hadn’t yet heard anything from either of them on the night she attended Aggie’s exhibition.

  Aggie’s large, black and white ‘shadow’ paintings, which, she had explained to Emma once, ‘reflect the shadow selves we all hold inside of us’, had a small but loyal following, Emma included.

  This first exhibition in years coincided with her seventieth birthday and was held in the remodelled Whistling Art Gallery, a converted old building that doubled up as an art and design school during the day. It had a loft space for the gallery on the tenth floor. As the occasion was also celebrating a more-than-forty-year career, there were quite a few loyal fans like Emma who’d made the trip to Whistling.

  Emma stared at her aunt’s latest collection, the curious, almost ethereal shadowy shapes, which were somehow both whimsical and slightly vintage looking, yet at the same time modern and alluring. A bit like the woman herself, she thought. To strangers the images of the shadowy faces of women, bending over a book, a table laden with food or a child with a dog in her lap, could be anyone, but Emma knew they were of them, the Halloways. Some, however, were so abstract they could have been flowers or butterflies, yet somehow the feeling they conveyed was the same: hope, heartache, love. You felt it all when you looked at one of Aggie’s paintings.

  ‘They’re beautiful,’ she told Aggie, eyeing one of a little girl whose hair was flying out from her head as she swung on a swing, a shoe fallen on the grass beneath her feet.

  Aggie kissed her hello, then shrugged. She painted what was in her heart. ‘I remember, when I was a bit older than you are now, my agent at the time suggested I try using colour, and attempting more of an art deco sort of style – it was the fashion then, you see, but I couldn’t do it. What’s the point?
Should you sell a few more paintings or do what matters to you? Of course, Stan, my first husband, disagreed, he wanted me to chase the money.’

  Emma frowned. Took a glass of pink champagne from a passing waiter, and asked, ‘Was this the one who moved to Vegas to become a professional poker player?’

  Aggie had had three husbands; sometimes it was hard to keep up with who was who.

  Aggie shook her head, took a sip of her champagne and stifled a laugh. ‘No, that was Michael, the second one.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Emma, with a grin.

  It was then, while she was holding back a giggle, that she looked up and saw him across the crowded room. Jack Allen.

  He was standing next to a group of students from the art and design school, his dark blond hair longer than she’d ever seen it. He was dressed in dark jeans and a black knitted jumper. When he saw her, his eyes widened in surprise, but he held her gaze. Emma tore hers away, trying and failing to tune back in to what Aggie had been saying.

  ‘You all right, love?’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ said Emma, taking a sip of her champagne, her heart thundering in her chest.

  She didn’t concentrate on much else after she’d seen Jack; she stood helplessly alone while Aggie went off to mingle with a group who’d approached her, launching into an explanation about the techniques she’d used or what inspired each painting.

  Emma looked up and saw Jack looking at her, wondering what on earth he was doing here, at an exhibition for a Halloway, of all places.

  As if to answer her question, he walked over to her, and she had to fight an urge to run away. It had been some time since she’d stared into those familiar hazel eyes, but the feelings they brought were just the same; butterflies launched inside her stomach as her face flushed with a mixture of excitement and mild anger that, after all this time, he still had the same effect on her.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, almost shyly.

  She made to take a sip of champagne, but found to her chagrin that her glass was empty.

  ‘It’s nice to see you again,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, and you.’

  ‘So, um, I heard you’ve just finished uni – is that right?’

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, this last week.’

  ‘I’ve still got another week myself – I took a gap year first, did some travelling…’

  She frowned, and then remembered something. ‘So you did study graphic design, then?’ she asked, realising that was probably why he was here tonight.

  ‘Yeah, the college moved into this building a couple of months ago, it’s been great.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought that you’d come to my aunt’s exhibition. With, you know, everything…’ she said, alluding to the tension between their families.

  He ran a nervous hand through his hair. ‘Oh, we’re supposed to show support to all the exhibitions, help out, hand out flyers, that sort of thing,’ he answered.

  She nodded.

  He was staring at her, so she looked away, swallowing slightly, wishing she had another glass of champagne to steady her nerves. Wishing he’d stop staring at her.

  He moved closer, and she could smell his aftershave, fresh, spicy, sandalwood. ‘So, um, does that mean you’re back?’

  She felt her stomach flip. Did he want her to be back? She cleared her throat, took a step back. ‘I’m not sure. I haven’t really decided yet.’

  He touched her arm. ‘Well, it would be great if you were.’

  The breath caught in her chest; where he touched her seemed to burn. ‘Would it?’

  ‘Yes, it would. I-I’ve missed you.’ He ran a hand through his hair, then coloured slightly, as if he hadn’t meant to say that. ‘Missed just hanging about with you, you know.’

  She closed her eyes. It didn’t change the fact that the last time they tried ‘hanging about’ as he called it, it had ended with him telling her that he couldn’t see her any more, because of a stupid two-hundred-year-old family feud, one that made her wish she came from a different family.

  ‘Yeah, well.’ She gave a thin smile. ‘I’m not sure me going to uni was what stopped that, Jack, but anyway, I um, I’ve got to go – Evie’s waiting for me,’ she lied, turning on her heel and, without a goodbye, leaving Jack standing staring after her, his mouth open slightly.

  Emma made for the nearest lift, stepping over a piece of paper that had fallen on the ground in her haste, not bothering to see what it was as she shrugged it off her shoe. The lift doors were just beginning to close when Jack put his arm through the gap and bolted in beside her.

  She sucked in air in surprise. Her heart started to race and, as the doors came to a close, Jack standing next to her, she hit the button for the ground floor.

  ‘Are you following me?’ she asked, crossing her arms and moving as far away from him as she could.

  ‘Of course, I am,’ he said, a furrow between those hazel eyes.

  She turned to look at him in exasperation as the lift started to descend.

  ‘Why?’

  He looked at the ground and then back at her. ‘Em – come on, you know I still c—’

  But he didn’t get to finish what he was saying. Just then the lift juddered to a very wild and rocky halt, making an alarming screeching sound, like nails on a blackboard.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Emma, her heart jack-knifing in her chest. She lost her footing for a second and her elbow hit the side of the elevator, making her wince in sudden pain.

  ‘Oh shit!’ said Jack, turning pale and closing his eyes for a beat. ‘I didn’t even think – shit, this lift is out of order, oh fuck.’

  Emma’s heart was in her throat, and she had to fight every nerve in her body not to give in to her sudden panic and claustrophobia. She wasn’t good with small spaces. Not good at all.

  She blinked. ‘It’s out of order?’

  He gave a short nod. ‘What happened to the sign?’

  She just gazed at him in horror. ‘What sign?’

  ‘There was an out of order sign on the door – didn’t you see it?’

  She shook her head. She was beginning to panic now, her head swarming. She vaguely recalled stepping over a piece of paper on the ground just before she got in, but she’d been in too much of a hurry to think of picking it up. ‘I stood on something outside the lift, maybe it fell on the floor.’

  He closed his eyes. ‘Shit, sorry – I should have remembered myself. I wasn’t thinking.’

  Emma was only half listening to what he was saying as she tried to calm her breathing, feeling dizzy. There were white spots in her vision and her extremities started to tingle as if she might faint. There was an emergency bell, which she rang, repeatedly, while looking for an emergency number; but she couldn’t see one as the sign was so badly scratched and worn.

  Jack phoned someone at the party to tell them they were stuck, and Emma heard him say, ‘Okay, well, I suppose we have no choice.’

  He turned to her now. ‘They heard the alarm – thank goodness – and someone will be on their way. That was Ben, he was stuck in this lift a couple of weeks ago, he’s a friend from college. Anyway, he said it could take anywhere from a half-hour to a couple of hours,’ said Jack taking a seat on the lift floor, obviously about to get comfortable for the time being.

  Emma slid down beside him, her face pale, palms sweating. He took one of her hands and gave it a squeeze, ‘It’ll be okay, Ems.’

  She swallowed, gave him a nod, squeezed his hand back. Whatever she might feel about Jack Allen, right now she was simply grateful that he was here and that she wasn’t alone.

  She put her head back against the lift wall as the panic started to mount. Her vision doubled, and she felt like she might throw up.

  ‘Christ, you’ve gone really pale,’ said Jack.

  She opened her eyes. ‘Small spaces,’ she said. ‘Freak me out.’

  He nodded, then scooched closer, putting his arm round her. Part of her wanted to tell him to stop, but it was the part of her brain that was not
stuck in a lift that could plunge them to their deaths, so she ignored that voice and was grateful for the small comfort Jack’s arm afforded.

  ‘Well,’ he joked, ‘if there was any one person I wouldn’t mind being stuck in a lift with, it’s you.’

  She gave a short laugh, then closed her eyes again; she’d glimpsed the metal walls, and her heart started to race again.

  He rubbed her back, and it was such a small, sweet gesture that she couldn’t help giving him the first real smile she’d given him all night.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For looking after me.’

  ‘Course.’

  After a while, she started to calm down. His fingers on her arm went from soothing to gentle tickling and she became conscious of how close they were, the warmth of his body, how she fitted so easily against him, his scent, fresh and spicy, inviting.

  She looked at him, saw his eyes, so full of concern for her, and swallowed. This time it had nothing to do with her fear of being stuck in an enclosed space.

  He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and a sudden shiver went down her spine.

  ‘Jack, I don’t think this is a good idea,’ she said, butterflies launching again in her stomach.

  He gave her a half-smile. ‘Like that’s ever stopped us before,’ he said, his fingers tracing the edges of her face, and then he leaned over and kissed her. Her head swam as she sank into the kiss, her hands in his hair as she pulled him closer.

  * * *

  When the maintenance crew came to get them out an hour later, Emma blushed. Her lips were bee-stung swollen from having been kissed so thoroughly, and she could only imagine the state of her hair, which had come out of its low knot.

  Jack stood apart from her as he thanked everyone for their help, and she felt suddenly cold, missing the warmth from his body, which had been so close to her only moments before. In the crowd of onlookers she saw Aggie looking at her, a bit too knowingly.

  She smoothed her hair as best she could, and then looked at Jack, who smiled at her, his eyes full of promise, as she said goodbye.