‘He’s an idiot – did he think he’d never get found out?’
Esme took the wooden spoon from Matilda and started to mix. ‘Sit down, you look shattered.’
‘I’m alright.’
‘You’re stubborn. This is making my arms ache and I have sixty years on you.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ Matilda said, taking a seat and wiping a handkerchief over her brow. She looked pale today, and even though Esme had asked repeatedly if she was feeling under the weather, Matilda had stoically denied any problems, claiming only that she had too much to do.
‘There’s plenty of time to get things ready, and for all the things you don’t have time to make, there’s a Waitrose in Buxton; I’d have been happy enough to drive you there. Honestly, Mum and Dad would barely be able to tell the difference.’
Matilda looked sternly at her granddaughter. ‘I’ve never bought a factory-made pudding in my life and I’m not about to start now.’
‘So you’d rather be in bed the whole of Christmas Day because you’re exhausted than suffer a perfectly decent pudding from a supermarket finest range?’
‘This is too important – everything has to be perfect.’
Esme stopped mixing and smiled. ‘It’s perfect that this Christmas is even happening and you don’t need to stress on my account. We’ll work things out, and whether we do or don’t isn’t on your head.’
‘I wouldn’t want to…’ Matilda paused and Esme waited. It wasn’t often her grandma couldn’t find exactly the right words for a situation but she seemed to be stuck now.
‘I want things to be right,’ she said finally. ‘I would hate to think I was leaving you in a mess with no support.’
‘Leaving me?’ Esme gave a little laugh. ‘Where on earth would you be going? If there’s a world cruise on the cards you’d bloody well better take me with you.’
‘I’m not getting any younger.’ Matilda’s tight smile came and went. ‘Every morning I wake to see the sun rise I count as a lucky extra these days.’
‘Don’t be daft! You’ve got more energy than anyone I know.’ Esme tapped the wooden spoon on the side of the bowl. ‘Stop it now, you’re freaking me out.’
‘I’m being practical. One day you’ll reach the age where these thoughts occur to you too, but you won’t be scared, you’ll just be mindful of all the things you’d like to see done before you go.’
‘Like getting me and Mum and Dad talking again?’
‘Yes.’
‘But that’s not your responsibility.’ Esme pushed the bowl to one side. ‘Where’s the recipe book?’
‘Here,’ Matilda said, brushing her hand across an old leather-bound tome. ‘But I don’t need it to tell you what comes next.’
‘OK, what comes next?’
‘Nothing for now; let it sit. Come and talk to me.’
Esme stood the spoon in the mixing bowl and sat across from her, hands folded over one another on the table. Her cheeks had the bloom of health and she’d put on weight in the weeks she’d been living with her grandma, but, as her grandma had commented, she’d been so thin when she’d arrived back that it was almost dangerous. Esme had rubbished the assertion, of course, but what she hadn’t said was that Matilda had been closer to the mark than she could have imagined. Esme had often felt weak and ill before she’d come back to Little Dove Morton. Warren had been the one constantly telling her she was too fat, even when she’d lost so much weight at his insistence that she weighed less now at twenty-eight than she had as a gangly fifteen-year-old. But he was so pleased each time she’d announced the shedding of another pound and he’d kept telling her how much sexier she’d be, how he’d love her more and how proud he’d be to show her off to the world. What would he say if he could see her now, full of her grandma’s home-cooked dinners and jammy puddings?
‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘You,’ Matilda said firmly.
‘I’ve already told you everything.’
‘Sometimes I wonder if that’s true.’
Esme held in a sigh. ‘Why wouldn’t it be? There’s no reason for me to hide anything now.’
‘I can’t help feeling you’re still suffering from that dreadful episode.’
Esme reached across the table with a smile and took Matilda’s hand in hers, sensing hollow bones beneath paper-thin skin, tendons and veins and frailty, and it suddenly struck her, though the evidence was always in front of her eyes, that her grandma was very old. ‘I’m getting there,’ she said, trying not to think of Matilda’s mortality and, selfishly, of what that might mean for her own future. ‘Thanks to you. I don’t know what I would have done without you.’
‘I hope you would have found a way to get away from him, even if I hadn’t been here.’
‘But nobody would have kept me safe like you have. I’m sure I would have ended up back there, if not for you.’
‘It’s lucky we live in the back of beyond.’
‘It is.’
A cold shudder of doubt crept over Esme at the thought of Warren finding her now. If he knocked at the cottage door today, what would she do? She could sit smugly in her grandma’s kitchen, where the air was warm and spiced and full of hope and say it wouldn’t change a thing, but he had a quality that was like witchcraft, a power over her she couldn’t explain or even understand, and she wasn’t certain that she would be able to resist if they were face-to-face right now. She shook off the thought. Grandma would keep her safe, as she’d always done.
‘So, you see, we’ll be just fine here in our little cottage.’
‘I’d feel happier if your mum and dad were part of your life.’
‘And they will be, as soon as we’ve met up and sorted things out.’
Matilda gave a tight smile. ‘Just see that you do.’
Esme looked towards the window. It was easier said than done, but she was hopeful too. She’d never wanted to be at loggerheads with her parents in the first place – it was a situation she’d been forced into. At least, from where she stood she’d been forced into it. They’d say she’d been the stubborn one, but perhaps there had been a reluctance to compromise on both sides. At least there was dialogue now, and that was a huge development.
She turned back to her grandma with a smile. ‘Remember when you always used to say to Granddad that you wanted to go to that place in Lapland to see the Northern Lights?’
Matilda blinked. ‘What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?’
Esme laughed. ‘But he thought it was the daftest idea he’d ever heard, didn’t he? Couldn’t understand why you’d want to go somewhere so cold.’
‘He said it was cold enough here in the Peaks and to go somewhere worse was madness.’
‘He might have had a point there.’
‘And I never did get to go – miserable old sod.’
‘You loved him really.’
‘More than my own breath. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t drive me mad from time to time and it didn’t mean we always saw eye to eye.’
‘I suppose that’s what true love is about.’
‘It’s certainly what marriage is about. You learn to compromise. I’m not bitter that we didn’t go – we just compromised.’
‘What did you get out of the compromise? He got to stay out of the cold, but what did you get?’
‘A quiet life,’ Esme’s grandma said with a smile. ‘That was good enough for me.’
Esme paused. And then she grinned. ‘We should go.’
‘Where?’
‘To see the Northern Lights in Lapland. Next year or something. It should be our Christmas present to each other.’
Matilda stared at her. ‘I’m far too old to go traipsing around the North Pole now.’
‘You don’t have to go to the North Pole then. I’m sure there are other places you can see them.’
‘It would still be freezing.’
‘You’d be fine – I read about it. They have sleds to take you out into the snow wh
ere it’s perfectly dark and you can sit covered in furs so you’d be plenty warm enough. It would be just like a scene out of Doctor Zhivago.’
Matilda shook her head. ‘You’ve gone mad!’
‘I haven’t!’ Esme laughed. ‘I just think we should go – make some serious memories. I want to take you; please say yes.’
‘I’m far too old for that sort of thing.’
‘You’re only as old as you feel.’
‘Which is very old these days.’
‘I don’t believe that for a minute. You never stop buzzing around the house. Come on, you know deep down you’d love it!’
‘Is this because you want to go?’
‘If it will make you agree then, yes, it’s because I want to go. But I won’t go without you so if you want to make me happy then we have to make it a definite plan.’
Matilda let out an exasperated sigh, but it hid a smile. ‘It’s lovely to see you so much happier. It’s good to see you making plans too – it means you’re really on the mend.’
‘So that’s all the more reason to say yes. Just imagine how disappointed I’ll be if you don’t – and I’m sure you don’t want that on your conscience.’
‘That sounds like bribery to me.’
‘Think of it as encouragement rather than bribery.’
Matilda eyed her warily now, pulling the mixing bowl towards her and taking up the spoon again. ‘I’ll think on it, and I can’t say fairer than that.’
* * *
It had been three years since she’d spent Christmas with any of her family, and while it had been easy to slot back into her grandma’s life, Esme’s parents, Dennis and Coral, were an entirely different matter. Esme had never figured out why, but they’d hated Warren from the start. She’d put it down to silly, old-fashioned ideas about the age gap – Warren was ten years older than Esme and she was an only child who’d been doted on as she’d grown up on the outskirts of the spa town of Buxton, where her dad had moved to for work, just a few miles from her grandma’s home. They’d told her that the age gap had nothing to do with it and it was as simple as the change they’d seen in her as soon as she’d started to date Warren, that she was neglecting her friends and family, that she pandered to his every whim, that she was always where he wanted her to be whenever he called. As far as Esme was concerned, this was love – you made compromises when you were in love, didn’t you? You put yourself out to make your partner happy and you were there for them. Sometimes your life had to change in unexpected ways to make it work. Dennis and Coral didn’t quite see that and couldn’t get past their dislike of Warren.
Esme had eventually hated that they’d hated him and, in the end, when she’d let them down once too often on his account – not turning up for family meals or days they’d arranged to meet, borrowing money that she couldn’t pay back because of some bill he hadn’t been able to manage – things had come to a head. Esme had tried to explain that Warren loved her and needed her and she couldn’t just up and leave him and, besides, she was in love and couldn’t they respect her choice of partner? But her pleas had fallen on deaf ears. They couldn’t show Warren the tolerance and patience Esme was asking for – more to the point, they simply didn’t want to. Things had escalated and before long there’d been bristling animosity on both sides and a chasm too vast to bridge. With vigorous encouragement from Warren himself, Esme had reacted in the only way an inexperienced, gullible, headstrong young woman could react – she’d cut herself off from a support network that she’d later desperately need. Not that it would have been easy to do anything else. Somehow, Warren was certain that he and Esme were always too busy to go and see her family and friends when she’d asked, and when she’d mooted the idea of going alone he’d reminded her of the reasons she’d cut ties in the first place and he’d said that to build bridges with her parents was to betray him. Esme would have to take sides – him or her parents.
None of it was Warren’s fault, she’d reasoned. He wasn’t the one laying blame, he hadn’t asked her parents to hate him, so why should he be the one to suffer? Her parents had each other but Warren needed Esme and he needed her more. If she left him she was certain he’d come to the most terrible harm and all that guilt would weigh on her for the rest of her days. He’d said as much. But that had been before the discovery that would change it all. It turned out Warren had more than just Esme to worry about his well-being.
As these thoughts filled her mind, Esme waited in the car outside Matilda’s house, the engine idling while the heater worked to warm the interior. The thoughts seemed to have come from nowhere, though, in truth, they rarely left her, secreted in the dark places of her consciousness and creeping into the light when she least expected or wanted them. But they were banished again by the sound of tapping at the window and she turned to see her grandma waiting to be let into the car.
‘It’s open,’ Esme called, smiling inwardly. Matilda had had a lifetime to get used to the idea of central locking but apparently the concept had never sunk in. ‘Everything alright?’ she asked as her grandma climbed in, a little breathless. ‘We don’t have to go right this minute. In fact, we don’t have to go today at all if you’d rather put it off.’
‘Oh, I want to go. Better to get it over with. I just had to top up the bird feeder – they go mad if there’s nothing in there.’
Esme raised her eyebrows. ‘Those birds eat better than we do.’
‘I like to do my bit. There’s not much in the hedgerows this time of year.’
‘Can’t they find worms like all the other birds have to?’
‘I expect they’ve got used to not having to.’ Matilda pulled the door and it shut with a dull clunk.
‘Better keep on top of it then,’ Esme said. ‘You don’t want to lose a star on Birdy TripAdvisor.’
‘On what?’
Esme chuckled. ‘Never mind. You’re all good to go now?’
‘Ready when you are.’ Matilda settled in her seat, arms wrapped around the hefty leather handbag on her lap. ‘It’s been ages since I went to Bakewell. I think the last time was when your granddad fell into the river. What year was that…? I think it must have been 1989.’
Esme let off the handbrake. ‘Blimey, it’s been that long? I wish I’d been there to see that! Every time I hear about it I just think it must have been hilarious.’
‘Oh, he was livid. He was just about ready to march after the cyclist who’d spooked him and throw him in the river too – bike and all. He never found it hilarious, even when the rest of us did.’
‘To be honest, it’s been a while since I was there too and I’m looking forward to seeing it all lit up and Christmassy. I’m looking forward to bringing a couple of Bakewell tarts home too.’
‘Dear Lord, don’t call them tarts in the presence of a local! They’re puddings – you’ll get us thrown out of the town by saying it wrong.’ Matilda clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. ‘And you born in Derbyshire too!’
‘Sorry,’ Esme said with mock penitence. ‘I know they’re puddings and I won’t forget. It’s just that I’ve got used to living in places where nobody would know what the hell a Bakewell pudding is. More to the point, tarts, puddings… they wouldn’t care which it was.’
‘They might not care in London but they do in Bakewell. These things are important round here.’
‘I know.’ Esme steered them through the junction that took them onto a broad A road bordered by wild grasses and shrubs and fields left to fallow. ‘It’s hard to believe really that somewhere like Bakewell is in the same country as London – they’re so different that they might as well be on different continents.’
Matilda brushed an imaginary speck of dust from the catch of her handbag. ‘You can keep London as far as I’m concerned. I went once, and only because I had to, because of something to do with a commission for your granddad on a new ship. He left me in a café while he went to see them. He was gone for hours; I’d got to my fourth cup of tea and nobody spoke t
o me once in all that time.’
‘It’s a busy place. I suppose it was back then too. People don’t always have time to worry about what anyone else is doing. I expect they weren’t being deliberately rude; they probably just didn’t notice you.’
‘Well, I didn’t like it. I couldn’t wait to come home.’
Esme cranked the heating up in the car. ‘I liked living there, but it’s very different from being out here. For one thing, it’s hard now for me to get used to the fact that pretty much nothing happens after dark.’
‘Plenty happens – it’s just going on behind closed doors, quiet and private, as it should be.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of a lock-in at The Rock Face,’ Esme said with a chuckle, her mind going back to evenings in the company of the landlords of that establishment, Tony and Jim, who’d both been known to leap onto the table and do impromptu impressions of Shirley Bassey if they’d had enough of the guest ale. Which was more often than not, because almost everyone who ordered a drink in the pub offered Tony or Jim a couple of pounds out of the change with the instruction ‘and have one yourself’, an instruction they were only too happy to follow.
During her teens when her granddad had first taken her in for pop and crisps while he had a pint, he would tactfully usher Esme out if it got too rowdy in there, but when she’d started to visit as a lawful adult, they’d had some great evenings and Esme had been allowed to stay, no matter how rowdy it got. Tony had since died and Jim retired to the coast and The Rock Face had a new landlord now; Esme hadn’t yet ventured in there since she’d arrived back in Little Dove Morton, but now that she thought about it, perhaps she would. It was yet another thing to go on the list of things she’d do with her new freedom.
‘There are other things to do, you know.’
‘I know. You just have to know where to look I guess. In London you can walk down any street and there’ll be something going on – a parade or a demonstration or a party or just someone playing music. Whatever it is, something will be happening.’
Matilda looked beadily at Esme. ‘Do you miss it?’
The Christmas Wish: A heartwarming Christmas romance Page 2