by Karen King
‘Apparently not. We weren’t told until this Thursday, which didn’t give us much time to do anything. We kept expecting the tree to be decorated any day, and when we enquired, the council replied that they were dealing with it. Then on Thursday we were told that the tree was too dangerous and would probably have to come down. Some of the branches are dying back and they’re worried that the pressure of the lights and decorations might cause the branches to break and injure someone.’
‘Oh no! That’s awful! Can’t they simply chop off the affected branches?’ Lexi asked in dismay. The huge fir tree was an important feature of the village. She couldn’t bear to think of it being chopped down.
‘I don’t know, dear. There were a couple of men looking at it last week – I think they must have been tree surgeons; one of them was on one of those mobile platform things and checking out the branches at the top of the tree. He must have declared it unsafe,’ her mother said. ‘Everyone’s really sad about it. There’s talk of moving the carol service to the square, but it won’t be the same.’
This was awful, Lexi thought. The carol service around the Lystone Christmas tree was such a big part of Christmas. People came from miles around to take part. And it was such a shame for it to happen this year, too, when Jay was coming over from Canada. It was their first family Christmas for years and it would have been lovely for them all to attend the traditional ‘lighting the tree’ carol service together, just like they used to do.
Surely there was something they could do to save the tree.
Chapter Five
Thankfully, the walk had tired Sweetie out and, to Joel’s relief, after a meal she had gone straight into her basket and fallen asleep. Hopefully he might actually get to sleep the whole night alone in his bed without her fidgeting and snoring beside him. It was fine for Hazel to insist that he had to be kind but firm but that was easier said than done at two o’clock in the morning when Sweetie was whining outside his bedroom door and he had to be up for work at six.
As he sat on the sofa drinking a nightcap, his mind went back to Lexi. She said she’d come down to spend Christmas with her parents so he guessed she was only in the village for a week or so. He wondered if he would bump into her again. She was gorgeous with her soft brown eyes, the cute smattering of freckles over her nose, and long, wavy golden-brown hair. She seemed fun too, he thought, remembering the hat with the double fur ball on the top. The thought that it was a shame she didn’t live in Lystone drifted across his mind and he batted it away. The last thing he needed was to be thinking about getting involved with another woman. It had taken him two years and thousands of pounds to extract himself from his marriage with Toni. All he wanted to do now was concentrate on working and getting himself a new home. Living at Hazel and Al’s for the next six months at a nominal rent would provide him with the chance to get his life back on track. And he had his first commission too – the council wanted him to give them a quote for felling a fir tree on the village green. He was going to take a quick look at it tomorrow but would return with Andy and a hoist on Monday. He’d met Andy at university, they’d worked at the Forestry in Scotland together and had kept in touch, sometimes working on bigger jobs together once Joel moved to Somerset. Andy was based in Exeter, which was pretty central, and they were hoping to form a business partnership together if they could get enough work. Joel had his van and some equipment, including a branch chipper stored in a nearby lock-up and Andy had a truck, other equipment and a platform to enable him to reach the top branches on taller trees. Between them, they could tackle most jobs.
Martin, an old colleague of Joel’s, now worked on the local council and had promised him that if they offered the lowest quote and could do it before Christmas, they would get the job. Although Martin hadn’t come right out and told Joel the other quotes he’d received, he had given him a hint of the price he was looking for, and Joel was confident that they would be able to beat it, providing it didn’t take more than a couple of days to fell the tree. If they could get this job with the council it might lead to more work with them. And right now, Joel needed all the work he could get. He was currently without his own house, or a job. Although, thankfully, the divorce hadn’t completely bankrupted him and he still had some money in the bank.
He had promised to meet Toni, his soon-to-be ex-wife, tomorrow too. He had tried to keep the divorce civil to save on solicitor’s fees, and because he didn’t want to turn the love they had both once had for each other into a cat fight. Toni no longer loved him and wanted out, to be free to live her own life with a new partner. Fair enough. Even though it had come as a shock and broken his heart, Joel had no desire to stay with someone who didn’t love him. It had taken them two years to get to this stage: the house was sold, the Decree Absolute would be through any day now, and they were all set to go their separate ways, then out of the blue he’d had a request from Toni to meet him for lunch on Sunday. He’d wanted to say no, meeting Toni always drained him, but she’d sounded desperate, and he didn’t want anything to hold up the final divorce proceedings, so he’d agreed.
He sighed and looked again at Sweetie snoring softly in her basket. She’d already been out and done her business. If he crept up to bed now, he might actually get a good night’s sleep.
He’d washed, and brushed his teeth, and just pulled back the bedcovers when he heard Sweetie barking and bounding up the stairs. Damn. Maybe he should ignore her a bit and see if she settled down. He climbed into bed and pulled the duvet over his head.
Sweetie started to howl.
Joel threw the duvet back and padded across the floor to open the door. Sweetie wagged her tail happily, then bounded across the room and onto the bed.
Joel sighed. This was going to be a long six months.
‘Well, it’s lovely to have you here, it really is,’ Lexi’s father said when meal finished, they all sat down in the lounge to chat over hot drinks – coffee for Craig and Paula, hot chocolate for Lexi and Granny Mabe. ‘And we’re pleased that you managed to get away earlier than planned, but it means we haven’t decorated your Christmas tree yet. We were going to decorate all the Christmas trees in the bedrooms tomorrow.’
Her parents had always put a Christmas tree in every bedroom when Lexi and her brothers were young, and still followed that tradition whenever any of them came home for Christmas.
‘That’s fine, I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘And I’ll help you with the other trees too.’
Her dad’s face broke into a big grin. ‘That’d be great. Just like old times.’
Her mum nodded. ‘I can’t wait to have all the Forde family back together again.’
There was an awkward silence, and Lexi knew that they were all thinking the same as her: if only Grandpa Huey was here too. It was Granny Mabe who spoke first. ‘Huey would have loved to be here with us, but he’s watching over us and will be happy that we’re all together.’
Lexi knew she was right. Although, she couldn’t help wondering what Grandpa Huey would think about Granny Mabe and her ‘Yarn Warriors’. Had she been yarn-bombing when he was alive? she wondered, or had she only joined the group recently in an attempt to fill her days without Grandpa Huey. Her gran had been devastated when her husband had died, but looking at her now made Lexi feel stronger, more positive. Her granny and grandpa had been together forever, whereas Lexi had known Ben a little over a year. If Granny Mabe could carry on without the love of her life, then Lexi could make a new future for herself without Ben.
They all sat chatting for a couple of hours, sharing family anecdotes and news. Luckily, her parents didn’t ask much about Ben, accepting Lexi’s explanation as to why he wasn’t here. Lexi was amused to see that, although her phone didn’t ping once all evening, Granny Mabe had several texts.
‘Who’s sending you all those messages?’ Craig asked as yet another message pinged in.
‘It’s just the knitting group,’ Granny Mabe announced as she peered at the message and quickly replied.
Paula raised her eyebrows. ‘She’s never off that phone.’
Lexi had to supress a giggle. If only her parents knew what her gran and her knitting group were up to!
Finally, feeling exhausted after her restless sleep the previous night, and the long drive down here, Lexi excused herself and went up to bed just after ten.
‘You’ll have to make up the bed, that’s another thing I was going to do tomorrow,’ her mother suddenly remembered. ‘The bedding is folded up on the bottom of the bed.’
‘No problem. Night, everyone,’ Lexi said.
‘Night, love. No rush to get up in the morning,’ her father told her.
Lexi went upstairs to her old childhood bedroom. She pushed open the door of her room and stepped inside, loving the familiarity of it. Nothing had been changed since she left home ten years ago, after qualifying to be a teacher and deciding to take the job she had been offered in Gloucester. The same red, rose-patterned wallpaper, white shelves laden with books, red fluffy carpet. She’d always loved red. Standing in the corner of the bedroom was a medium-sized white artificial Christmas tree. Her Christmas tree. Every year when she was living at home she had decorated it in a different colour scheme, and every time she had come home for Christmas her parents had put it in her room. She thought of the white Christmas tree back in her flat that she had been planning on decorating with gold baubles and white bows. Today, she remembered. Today was the day she’d been going to make the flat look all festive as a surprise for Ben when he came home. Only it was Ben who had given her the surprise, wasn’t it? Tears sprung to her eyes again.
I am not going to let Ben spoil Christmas!
She glanced over at the windows where the fairy lights were twinkling and smiled at the Christmas-themed curtains hanging there – red with white Christmas trees and reindeers dotted over them. There was a matching duvet cover folded up on the bottom of the bed, and she knew that there would be Christmassy curtains in her brothers’ bedrooms too. Her mum had made the duvet covers and curtains herself years ago, and got them out every December.
Lexi walked over to the window, and peered out into the darkness for a moment, watching the twinkling lights on the tree in the back garden. She wondered how her parents had time to put up a tree in every room, the porch, the front and back garden, and the shop, when they worked every weekday. She knew that they enjoyed doing it, though. They loved Christmas and had gone out of their way to make it as special as they could when Lexi and her brothers were growing up. Their excitement at having the family together for Christmas again, and having Toby – a young child in the house – was evident, and she wasn’t about to spoil it for them by crying over Ben. She closed the curtains and then went over to the double bed. More fairy lights adorned the wall above the bed, as they had done when she was young. She bent down and flicked the switch, smiling as the warm white lights glowed comfortingly. Then she sat down on the bed and pulled her phone out of her bag to check if there were any messages, wondering if news of her and Ben’s split had reached any of her friends yet.
No messages from any of them. Nothing about their split on social media but then she had blocked Ben from all her social media accounts the previous night, not wanting to see cosied-up pictures of him and Rosa. There were a couple of messages from her LexiKnits website and, she was glad to see, several orders from her Etsy shop. Her quirky knitwear was proving to be very popular. It was just a hobby, and she didn’t churn them out, but it gave her a lift when someone ordered one of her own-design hats, scarves or jumpers.
Satisfied, she set about making her bed, then went to the bathroom to wash, and clean her teeth, suddenly feeling very weary. Tomorrow, I’ll decorate my tree and have a longer walk around the village, she decided as she ran her toothbrush under the tap and squeezed on some toothpaste. I’ll see if I can spot any more of Granny Mabe’s yarn-bombings. It was good to be back home and have a family Christmas again, singing carols, playing party games, exchanging news. Wearily, she climbed into bed, her thoughts going back to Christmases when she was young, and the excitement of Christmas Eve, when they had all crowded around the fir tree on the green for the carol service, then piled into the Olde Tavern for mince pies and hot chocolate – or something stronger for the adults.
If only we could still have the carol service around the Christmas tree on the green, she thought. It wasn’t a proper Lystone Christmas without that.
Chapter Six
Sunday, six days before Christmas
Lexi pulled back her curtains the next morning and gasped in delight at the beautiful scene that met her eyes. It was snowing! It had been so cold last night that she’d slept with the electric blanket on all night, but she hadn’t expected to be greeted by the ground covered in snow when she woke up. She felt ridiculously excited, like she used to when she was a child. She and Ryan would go sledging, and build a family of snowmen in the backyard. Sometimes Jay would join in too, but he was two years older than Lexi and preferred to hang around with mates his own age, whereas Ryan, at eighteen months younger than her, would be happy to play with her sometimes. Although, as the two boys got older, they’d often hung out together whilst Lexi had her own crowd of friends.
She quickly pulled on her onesie and hurried downstairs. ‘It’s snowing!’ she announced.
Her mother looked up from the toast she was buttering and grinned. ‘I had noticed. Don’t tell me you’re going out to build a snowman.’
Lexi grinned back. ‘No, but I am going for another walk as soon as I’ve decorated my tree.’
‘I thought that would be the first thing you’d want to do,’ her mum told her. The bakery was always closed on Sundays so they had a well-earned day off. ‘Your dad’s left some baubles in the conservatory for you. There’s an assortment of colours, tinsel and lights. Take whatever you want.’
‘Thanks. Do you want me to do anything before I go for a walk? I could help out at the bakery this week, give you time to get things done here before Jay and Ryan arrive?’ Jay, Sonia and Toby were arriving on Wednesday and Ryan and Nell on Friday.
‘That’s kind of you. We’ve got Claire and Brad so I think we can manage but do pop in for a cuppa and a cake whenever you’re passing. It’d be good to see you, and if it’s quiet, I’ll join you.’
‘I will,’ Lexi promised. She was determined to keep busy so that she didn’t have time to think about Ben. It was working – most of the time. And she had lesson planning to do, she reminded herself. She might make a start on that this evening.
‘Do you want some toast and a cuppa?’ her mother asked, passing the plate over to Lexi’s dad who put it in the middle of the table.
‘I’d love some, but you sit down and I’ll make my own, and a drink. I don’t want you waiting on me, you work hard enough.’
‘If you’re sure.’ Her mum sat down at the table with her dad and picked up a slice of toast, while Lexi put two slices of bread in the toaster.
‘The kettle’s just boiled,’ her dad told her.
Lexi flicked the switch to re-boil it, popped a teabag in a mug, then poured the now-boiling-again water onto it and added milk. She never took sugar in tea. The toast popped up and she quickly buttered it and joined her parents at the kitchen table.
‘So, what are you two up to today?’
‘We’ve got the Christmas trees in the bedrooms to decorate,’ her dad said as he spread jam onto his toast. ‘You choose your baubles first, though, then I’ll do the other trees. There’s plenty to go around.’
‘Do you have any gold ones?’
‘I do.’ He grinned. ‘And some shiny gold stars.’
‘Perfect!’
As soon as breakfast was finished, Lexi went into the conservatory with her dad and rummaged through the boxes of Christmas baubles and decorations there, choosing some gorgeous large gold baubles, some smaller white ones and some gold stars.
‘I thought I’d use all different colours for Jay’s tree and hang some sparkly Santas on it too.
Toby will love that,’ her dad said.
‘These blue and silver ones would be nice for Ryan and Nell.’ Lexi pointed to the box of baubles. ‘We could hang some silver bows on it too. Do you want me to do it later?’
‘Thanks, love, but we’ve got it covered. Your mum is doing the tree in Ryan and Nell’s room and I’ll do the one in Jay, Sonia and Toby’s.’
‘Okay, well, I’ll leave you to it.’ Lexi carried the box up into her room, propped her iPhone up on the stand she’d brought with her, and told Siri to play some Christmas carols. As the music filled the air she felt her mood lighten, and as she hummed away, she started decorating the Christmas tree.
She was really pleased with it when she’d finished. It looked so pretty and the star lights twinkled delicately. Feeling much happier now, she had a shower, pulled on a long, grey cable-knit jumper and skinny jeans, put a bit of make-up on her face, brushed her hair so that it was bouncing loosely around her shoulders, and she was ready to go.
Suddenly, her phone pinged in her pocket to announce an incoming text. She took it out and looked at the screen, surprised to see that it was Ben. Well, she wasn’t even going to open the message. She wasn’t the slightest bit interested in what he had to say. She put her phone back in her pocket and went downstairs, where Granny Mabe was putting a roast in the oven, her dad was peeling potatoes, and her mum was putting washing into the dryer.
‘I’m off for a walk now. Do you need anything from the corner shop?’ The shop sold all the basics and was always open on a Sunday morning.
‘No thanks, love. Enjoy your walk. You look a bit peaky. I think you’ve been working too hard. A few days’ rest down here will do you the world of good,’ her mum said. ‘Lunch will be about three.’
‘I won’t be late,’ Lexi promised. She grabbed her coat from the hall and pulled on her boots and scarf, before opening the door and stepping outside.
