Christmas at Willoughby Close (Return to Willoughby Close Book 3)

by Kate Hewitt

  “I had a dentist appointment this afternoon,” Helena answered with a grimace. “Two fillings. I took the rest of the afternoon off.”

  “And rightly so,” Lindy agreed with a commiserating smile. “Are you ready to samba?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”

  Lindy couldn’t help but notice how dejected the young woman looked, and she didn’t think it had to do with her dentistry. “Is everything all right?” she asked gently. The waspish jealousy she’d first felt upon meeting Helena had thankfully subsided to sudden pulses of anxiety that she did her best to suppress. Roger hadn’t responded to Helena’s overt friendliness, which Lindy was honest enough to admit was a relief, and she was still determined that they were friends and friends only. But she didn’t enjoy seeing Helena look so flat.

  “Yes, it’s all fine,” Helena said on a sigh. She picked at a ragged thumbnail before giving Lindy a guiltily embarrassed look. “I think I’ve just been a bit of an idiot, is all.”

  Lindy tensed even as she tried to relax. “I think we’ve all been that once or twice,” she answered lightly. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Helena paused, and then said slowly, “You know Roger?”

  “Yes.” Of course she knew Roger. Lindy focused on setting up the speaker for the music, conscious of the need to give Helena a little space, and also not trusting the expression on her face.

  “Well, I came to this class because of him,” Helena confessed in a rush. “Which is so stupid, I know. I’ve tried talking to him but I think I just annoy him.”

  “I’m sure you don’t,” Lindy said, refraining from adding that Roger could sometimes seem as if everyone annoyed him.

  “I probably do. I seem young and silly to him, I’m sure. I told him about my A levels and he looked at me as if I were crazy.”

  A levels? She had to be younger than Lindy had thought. “Well, there is quite an age gap,” Lindy allowed, and Helena gave her the most incredulous look she’d ever received.

  “Well, of course there is.”

  Lindy stared at her in wary confusion. “So…”

  The penny dropped for Helena first, and she started to laugh, covering her mouth to suppress her giggles. “Wait…did you think I was interested in Roger? Like, romantically?”

  “Er…” Lindy had a feeling she was about to be embarrassed, and she’d been the one trying to act like the mature, listening ear. “I suppose?” she hazarded and still laughing, Helena shook her head.

  “No way. I mean, he’s ancient.” She bit her lip. “Sorry…”

  “He’s older than me, so don’t worry,” Lindy said a bit tartly. Roger had let it slip on their walk that he was thirty-eight, hardly ancient. “So if you aren’t interested in him that way,” she asked, “why were you coming to the class just to see him?” She felt as if she’d definitely missed something there.

  “Because he reminds me of my dad,” Helena said, and for a few seconds Lindy could only goggle.

  “Your dad…?”

  “He left when I was fifteen.” Helena pressed her lips together and Lindy experienced a shaft of sympathy for the pain she knew the younger woman was struggling to contain. “Right before my GCSEs. I flubbed them all, and decided not to do A levels. I’m taking them now, but…” She drew a ragged breath. “For a while it really sent me spinning. He just upped and left. Found a new wife, a new family. Didn’t care to maintain any contact, or at least not much. I see him once a year, if that.”

  “Helena, I’m so sorry.” Lindy touched her arm. “I can’t imagine how difficult that all must have been. But…Roger reminds you of him?” Lindy couldn’t imagine someone less likely to remind someone of such a tosser.

  “He wears the same sort of clothes,” Helena explained, “and has the same aftershave. I don’t know, when I saw him at work, it brought it right back. My dad. And I just, sort of, liked to pretend…” She let out a sniff, and it felt entirely right and natural for Lindy to put her arms around her while Helena tried not to cry.

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “So sorry.”

  She knew what it was like to lose a parent, but in some ways, Lindy thought, Helena’s experience felt worse than her own. At least her mum and dad hadn’t chosen to leave her.

  “Hello…” Ellen called out cheerily, only to falter as she saw Helena enfolded in Lindy’s arms.

  Helena immediately bolted, scurrying to the bathroom downstairs, and Ellen gave Lindy a conciliatory look. “I’m sorry. Was I interrupting something?”

  “No, don’t worry. It’s fine.” Lindy smiled reassuringly at her. “Just a bit of a moment, that’s all.” She glanced at Roger, who was looking severe, which Lindy was starting to realise was how he looked whenever he was unsure about a social situation, which was pretty much every single one.

  Ellen looked wan, her wrists poking out of her jumper seeming like twigs. Roger had told Lindy during their Saturday walk about how Ellen wouldn’t eat, and how he tried to buy or make whatever she fancied.

  “Like four cheese scones?” Lindy had surmised, and flushing slightly, Roger had nodded. It would have been the perfect time to apologise for that dratted unsuitable comment, which she was almost certain he’d heard, but the words had bottled in her throat. They were having such a lovely time, and she didn’t want to ruin it.

  “So, I have some exciting news,” Lindy told Ellen and Roger now, figuring she should give Roger at least a heads-up before she dropped her bombshell on the class. “And I know at least one of you will be pretty thrilled by it.”

  “Ooh, goody,” Ellen said, rubbing her hands together, while Roger gave Lindy one of his no-nonsense looks.

  “I presume I am the person who will not be so thrilled,” he stated, and Ellen let out a laugh.

  “Of course you won’t be, Roger, but I’m sure it will be something that’s good for you.”

  “Vitamins,” Roger replied, “are good for me.”

  It sounded as if they’d had this exact discussion before, and it filled Lindy with affection for them both. “It’s the possibility of a performance,” she stated. “At Willoughby Manor, during the Christmas ball.”

  “Ooh…” Ellen squealed, while Roger stared at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. She probably was.

  “What’s this I hear about a performance?” Maureen barked as she came into the room, and Lindy explained again. “As long as it’s the tango,” Maureen stated, “it’ll be worth the pain.”

  Helena returned then, slightly red-eyed, and then Simon and Olivia came in, holding hands. Lindy explained it all over again, and to her surprise everyone was more or less on board—except Roger. She should have known. She had known.

  “Absolutely not,” he stated flatly. “One hundred per cent no.” He glanced at his mother, looking apologetic and yet completely implacable. “I’m sorry, but I simply cannot do it. This is as far as I go.”

  “You’ve done so much already, Roger,” Ellen murmured, but she looked crestfallen. Lindy knew it meant a lot to her, just as she knew a public performance had to be Roger’s worst nightmare. She decided to leave it, at least for now.

  “Let’s start the class,” she told everyone. “And we’ll discuss a possible performance during our tea break.” She glanced at Roger, who was looking stony-faced. “Not everyone has to be involved, of course,” she added diplomatically, although she still hoped Roger would be, even if his mother had to guilt-trip him into it.

  With a swirl of her scarlet skirts—she always wore red to do the samba—Lindy went to switch on the music and then show her class the first steps.

  “It’s all about the knees,” she said as she partnered an imaginary man. “Bending the knees.”

  “This isn’t going to be good,” Maureen stated with relish. Lindy knew she loved a challenge; they would all hear the creak of her joints as she shimmied.

  She glanced again at Roger, who had taken position with his mother. Ellen was doing her best to bend and wigg
le, and Roger was moving around the floor like he was a statue being pushed. Lindy suppressed a sigh.

  She wanted Roger to take part in the Take a Twirl Extravaganza, and she knew Ellen did, as well. It was just a matter of how they could get him to agree.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was—well, almost—a go. Lindy had, a bit nervously, proposed the idea of the performance at the Christmas ball to the primary school’s head teacher, a lovely man in his forties named Dan Rhodes, and he’d agreed in principle, assuming that all the safeguarding assessments and forms could be completed.

  When Lindy mentioned the possibility to her twenty-eight Year Sixes, the majority of them had looked thrilled. A few had seemed quietly appalled and several had guffawed incredulously, but Lindy had assured them that no one who didn’t want to had to take part. She’d said as much to Roger on Monday, and he’d taken her at her word. When she’d cautiously broached the topic again during their tea break, he had remained immovable.

  “You have most likely realised that attending this class was something I did with great reluctance,” he informed her stiffly. “And I continue to do it, for my mother’s sake, because she has always wanted to learn how to dance. But I cannot perform publicly.” He stated it as immutable fact.

  “It would be in a group—”

  “I cannot,” he repeated, his tone utterly final, and Lindy fell silent. When she looked at Roger’s steely expression, she felt she had no choice but to drop it. And yet she was still hoping she could talk him around somehow, in time.

  The idea of the extravaganza had taken hold and fired her with purpose. She loved the prospect of so many people of different ages and different abilities coming together to strut their stuff. She’d put feelers out on the WhatsApp group for the Twinkle Toes parents, and had been rewarded with four exuberant thumbs-up emojis, as well as a request for them all to go out for drinks. Can Ollie wear his tuxedo? Will had texted, and laughing, Lindy had texted back, I’m counting on it.

  Over the next two weeks she spent countless hours planning routines for her different classes, picking music, watching videos for inspiration, and generally feeling both optimistic and daunted. It was only two months until the Christmas ball, just before the actual holiday—really, not long at all to get a bunch of beginners up to performance standard.

  The weather had turned colder and crisper, winter closing in as November loomed. Despite Roger’s continued reluctance, Lindy was feeling determinedly buoyant. Toby had settled in well, the behaviour specialist who had come to assess him four weeks after she’d picked him up from Blue Cross was happy, and life felt good.

  She’d gone out for drinks with the whole Willoughby Close gang save Ellie—Harriet, Ava, Alice, Olivia, and Emily—and had a riotous time and fortunately no nosy questions about Roger and his supposed unsuitability.

  At the end of the month, she went on another walk with Roger and Toby; she’d texted to ask him and he’d agreed with pleasing alacrity. They walked along the river path, the yellowing leaves gathering in drifts, and Lindy managed not to talk about the performance, as much as she wanted to, at least until the walk was almost over.

  “Would anything make you consider it?” she asked a bit desperately, pausing in their walk as they came to the quaint little wooden bridge that crossed the Lea River. Roger sighed as he gazed out at the pretty, pastoral scene, his hands deep in the pockets of his parka, his eyes narrowed against the late afternoon sunshine. It was only four o’clock but the sun was already sinking towards the horizon, sending long, golden rays along the meadows bordering the river.

  “This is not about me being stubborn,” he said, and Lindy raised an eyebrow.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”

  “Then what is it about?” She realised she was curious; Roger seemed very sure of himself in this. Very…resigned.

  He sighed again and then kept walking, leaving her no choice but to follow him over the little wooden bridge, the river burbling with cheerful fury below them.

  “I know my mother wants me to do it,” he said at last. “I am well aware of her wishes in this matter, although she’s tried not to push me into anything. And if it were simply an issue of going along with what she wants and in so doing make her happy, then I would do it. Of course I would. In a heartbeat.” He turned to look at her, his expression so grimly sincere that Lindy had to believe him.

  “So what is the problem?” she asked after a moment, her tone gentle. She sensed Roger was struggling with something, but she didn’t know what it was. He remained silent for a long moment; they’d crossed the bridge and were walking the narrow, wooded path through the forest, a carpet of damp, mulchy leaves beneath their boots as they headed back to Willoughby Manor.

  “The problem,” he finally said, “is that it won’t make my mother happy in the least. Quite the opposite, in fact. It will make her feel worse.”

  “How?”

  He gave her a look of exasperation, as if she should be getting it; he shouldn’t have to spell it out for her.

  “I’m sorry,” Lindy said with an apologetic grimace. “I’m not taking your meaning here.”

  “I think it would be obvious enough,” he replied, and Lindy shook her head slowly.

  “Not really.”

  “My mother has certain…aspirations for me. She always has, since I was a child, although of course they’ve changed over the years. Even though I’m nearing forty, she’s still hopeful that I’ll find a wife, have children, settle down. All that.”

  Lindy’s heart felt as if it were bumping in her chest. “That’s a fairly normal aspiration for a mum to have,” she pointed out reasonably, trying not to imagine little Rogers running around, or his arm around a lovely young woman who found him as endearing as she did.

  “Yes, of course it is, but it must be obvious now that I’m not normal.” He spoke matter-of-factly, but Lindy was still startled by his tone, as well as his words.

  “Roger,” she said with an uncertain, little laugh, “you’re normal, as normal as anyone is.”

  “I’m not completely off the radar in terms of normality, I grant you,” he stated in that same matter-of-fact voice. “I am employed in a position of responsibility; I am able to make social niceties on occasion; I own a house.” He ticked them all off on his fingers as if there was a checklist as to what comprised a normal person. Perhaps for him there was. “I am indeed a functioning member of society in all those respects.”

  Lindy smothered a laugh that she knew would not be helpful in this situation. She wanted to believe Roger was joking, but she sensed he was as deadly serious as he always was, and it tore at her heart. “Surely you can aim a little higher than that,” she protested.

  “Can I?” Roger gave her a questioning look. “I’m not sure that is an accurate statement. For example, I don’t really have friends.”

  “I’m your friend,” Lindy returned quickly.

  Roger nodded his agreement. “You are indeed an anomaly.”

  She hesitated, feeling her way through the words. “Why do you think you don’t have any friends?”

  “I assume you are asking the reason for the lack of friendship in my life, rather than why I feel as if I don’t, considering the factual reality is surely obvious.”

  “Yes, I suppose…”

  He shrugged. “I’ve always had trouble making them. School, frankly, was a nightmare. I was bullied until Sixth Form, and then I just studied hard and kept to myself.”

  Lindy’s heart ached at this brutal assessment, yet she realised she’d been much the same. She hadn’t had any friends growing up save for her parents and the strangers they encountered on their travels, and Sixth Form had pretty much been a nightmare for her, as well. “Why were you bullied?” she asked.

  He gave her an incredulous look. “Why do you think? I have a habit of blurting out awkward statements, that while factually true, tend to be inappropriate in the moment, some
thing that unfortunately doesn’t occur to me until after it has passed.” Lindy was silent for a moment, absorbing that information, and Roger gave her a shrewd look. “What? You didn’t think I was aware of this unfortunate quirk of my personality?”

  “Well…not really. But I suppose that goes to show how normal you are.”

  “Being aware of one’s abnormality does not make it less so.”

  “Still, it’s not…it’s not a game changer, is it?” They’d left the wooded path and had come out onto a pristine green lawn that led to the lane back to Willoughby Close. Shadows were lengthening, night drawing in. Toby tugged at his lead, eager to get back to the warmth of his home and bed.

  “I suppose,” Roger answered, “it depends on what game you’re playing.”

  “All I mean is,” Lindy insisted, warming to her theme, “is that everyone has got something.”

  He glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. “Such as?”

  “No one’s normal, Roger. We’re all just different versions of weird. Some people hide it better than others.”

  He was silent for a moment, and Lindy let herself believe she’d convinced him. “The definition of normal,” he stated as they crossed the wide lawn and headed down the lane towards Willoughby Close, “is ‘conforming to a standard, usual, typical, or expected.’ That is the adjective, and I am not any of those things.”

  “Neither am I,” Lindy retorted. “And I wouldn’t want to be.”

  He smiled at that, if only a little, before shaking his head. “Stop arguing with me.”

  “I just don’t see why you have to pigeonhole yourself so much.”

  “I’m merely being realistic.”

  “Says every cynic, ever.”

  “Why do you care so much?” Roger challenged. “Is it just because of this performance?”

  Lindy had completely forgotten about the performance. “So what does this have to do with that?” she asked. She scrolled back through the conversation to its prickly starting point. “You said your mum had aspirations for you, and so I’m guessing those are somehow tied up with the performance?”