Christmas at Hope Cottage

by Lily Graham

  When she saw Emma’s face, her mouth pulled down. ‘Bad one, was it?’

  That was Aggie, she just let you be. It was a comfort not having to pretend otherwise. Emma nodded, taking a chair by the window of Aggie’s studio, which had a view of the village square below and the clock tower. She could see people milling about doing their autumn shopping, baskets under arms.

  Aggie poured them both a sherry. ‘Medicinal,’ she said with a wink.

  Emma took it with a small smile. ‘I’m starting to understand why my mother ran away,’ she said glumly, as Aggie went back to painting an enormous, shadowy feather using swirling black paint.

  Aggie dabbed her brush into her palette, and said, ‘Has Evie ever spoken to you about that?’

  Emma shrugged. ‘Sort of, she just told me that my mother turned her back on Hope Cottage, and that the day she left, she said she was going to burn The Book.’ She sighed; even now, she could sympathise. ‘It’s funny, when I first came to live here, you and Dot said something about how hard it was to be a Halloway and a teenager.’

  ‘Yeah – well, it was hard, especially for your mam, I mean you have to deal with Stella, who is nasty enough, but she had Janet Allen in her year, can you imagine?’

  Emma’s mouth fell open. ‘Janet Allen was in the same year as my mother?’

  Aggie nodded. ‘Oh yes – though her last name was Cairn then. Not that it made a difference, she grew up in the Lea household.’

  Emma’s eyes bulged. ‘She grew up with the Leas? How come?’

  ‘Adopted, apparently. The vicar’s best friend from Scotland passed away when Janet was about twelve. There was no other family really, I believe, so they took Janet and her brother Gordon in.’

  Emma looked at Aggie in surprise. ‘Scotland?’

  ‘Aye, it’s how your mother met your dad – it was the year she turned twenty, Gordon’s old school friend, Liam McGrath, came to stay the one summer, and they met at some dance or something – and fell for one another.’

  ‘What!’ she exclaimed. ‘My mother met my father through Janet Allen?’

  She sat thinking hard. She’d heard, from her Uncle Joe that her father had come to Whistling all those years ago to visit his friend, a friend who’d moved away now, but her uncle had never mentioned that he was the brother of Janet Allen.

  ‘Yes. Though from what I heard, Janet wasn’t too happy about it – she tried to split them up, and caused a real ruckus.’

  Emma frowned. ‘But why? Why try splitting them up?’

  ‘Well, I suppose the real issue was that Janet despised your mother because she believed that Neil Allen – the boy she was in love with, Jack’s father – had a crush on her.’

  Emma’s mouth fell open. ‘Did he?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think it was like you and Jack but I think it was part of the problem, and of course she was raised as a Lea so she also believed that your mother was a witch, you know? She didn’t want her brother’s best friend to end up with her so she tried to break them up, told him all about the family, all the worst sort of rumours – like that we were frauds and crooks. I believe, looking back, it was worse because your mother was pregnant at the time with Liam’s child, so she felt even more betrayed by Janet, who had always made her life a living hell at school.

  ‘When your mother told Neil about how Janet was trying to poison Liam against her, Neil took Janet’s side. I think he said something about your father having a right to know the sort of family he was signing up for. After that, Margaret just snapped, she tried to burn The Book, then she and Liam ran away, and from what you’ve told us, she just sort of gave up on being a Halloway, I guess.’

  Emma looked down. It was the first time she’d ever really thought that, maybe, she was a little like her mother after all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Present day

  * * *

  ‘How does that feel?’ asked Dr Norton, touching Emma’s hand, now finally free of its cast, which lay abandoned like a snakeskin on the carpeted floor.

  She’d almost passed out when he took the pins out, but it was more from the shock of the thing than real pain.

  ‘A little tender, but okay.’

  ‘You’ll have to go easy on it – practise the exercises I showed you. I won’t lie, they may hurt, but they’re worth it if you want a full recovery.’

  She nodded. She’d do anything just to feel like herself again. ‘If only the rest would hurry up,’ she said. She was tired of having Evie do everything for her, tired of feeling like a burden. Even now, Aggie had to take time out from her day to drive her to York to the doctor, because there was no way she could manage the two bus exchanges with her scrambled senses and broken leg. After six weeks, she just couldn’t help feeling despondent at how slow the progress had really been.

  He had large, thoughtful eyes, and a bushy beard that hid a kind smile. ‘The rest will just take time, be patient with yourself.’

  Patience. It had never been her strong suit.

  He looked at her, seeming to read her thoughts. ‘It’s common with this type of injury to have feelings of sadness, even depression. You don’t need to suffer through it. I could refer you to someone if that’s the case.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ she said.

  He was staring at her, his face clearly showing that he didn’t believe her. She sighed, and everything that she’d been trying to suppress came bubbling up: ‘I just want to feel like me again, I just wish I could know for sure when or if I was going to get better. I mean – I can deal with this,’ she said, indicating her injured hand. ‘It’s not great, it’s sore and I wish to God I hadn’t fallen on my writing hand, but there’s an expected date for recovery, you know? It’s not knowing when the rest will get better that just drives me a bit… mad. I just want to smell something, anything. Even my dog’s bad breath. Taste something, even if it’s rubbish – it would be heaven if it were rubbish, because it would be so much better than nothing. Yesterday my aunt told me that I was getting too thin. I hadn’t even noticed I was. At the beginning of the year I tried for ages to shift a few pounds – and now I just look sick, and frail. I’m twenty-eight, but I feel like I’m an old woman. I nap three times a day. I haven’t had a proper shower in six weeks, and…’ she thought of how she sometimes snapped at those around her, when they were just trying to be kind, ‘I’ve become mean at times.’

  Dr Norton’s eyes were sympathetic. ‘Well, it’s easy to be nice when you’re not in pain. The people in your life love you and they will understand, especially if you explain. You may need to face that for a while this is the new normal. And, I think you need to be careful not to get in your own way.’

  Emma frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Measure your progress since the accident, see that as ground zero, and don’t compare it to what you were before – it won’t serve you, not now. The brain is a remarkable organ, capable of so much, but we’ve got to help it along by being kinder to ourselves. If we’re constantly beating ourselves up we’ll see that effect on our bodies, so it’s vital to look for small moments of happiness we can glean where we can – even if that just means being grateful for the people who can help us.’

  Emma nodded. She knew he had a point, but when you couldn’t taste or smell anything and your sense of touch was so confused, it was hard to look on the bright side sometimes, especially as she felt like a burden most days.

  Perhaps he was reading her thoughts again, because he asked, ‘You’re a food columnist, yes?’

  She gave him a puzzled look. ‘Yes?’ Wondering what that had to do with anything.

  ‘What about cooking?’

  She blinked. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Well, that shouldn’t be too strenuous – in fact the movements would be quite good for your hand. I know you can’t taste anything yet, but there’s always a bit of joy in making things for others—’

  ‘I don’t cook,’ said Emma shortly.

  His grey eyes widened. ‘
You don’t? That’s curious – I mean, you write about food for a living, don’t you enjoy it?’

  ‘Ah,’ began Emma. ‘Well, I used to…’

  She hadn’t, not for years. It was all so entwined with how she felt about the food the women in her family made, and all the trouble it had caused her over the years. She just couldn’t approach it lightly, even if she wanted to; but still she’d never been able to properly abandon her love for it. It was such a deep part of her, which was why she channelled her love for it into her columns instead. In many ways her columns and articles had been a way of trying to make sense of it all.

  Dr Norton didn’t notice her distress.

  ‘I think it would be good, the gentle movements will be good therapy for your hand, and I mean, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you,’ he laughed, ‘but I’ve always found that there’s something about cooking that really feeds the soul.’

  Emma looked at him, at a loss for words. ‘Did my family put you up to this?’

  ‘Pardon?’ He looked a bit taken aback.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said with an attempt at a casual smile. ‘It’s just, I don’t see how cooking would make any real difference to my situation.’

  ‘It couldn’t hurt, could it?’

  She looked away. Oh yes it could.

  * * *

  They were driving back to Whistling, the windows fogged from the heaters. Outside, snow was beginning to fall, and her breath billowed out in little puffs. Aggie looked over at her with a concerned frown as she stared out the window, a glum look on her face as she peered at the world through her hazy eyes. ‘You don’t look all that happy to have your cast off, I would have thought you’d be chuffed to bits,’ she said, as she changed lanes, her blue eyes puzzled.

  ‘I know,’ sighed Emma, who was annoyed at herself for the black mood she couldn’t shake. ‘Ugh, I know. I should be – and I am – but well, it’s just… this is the first time I’ve been out of the cottage in weeks and I thought, I don’t know… I thought that by now, there would be some real progress, you know?’

  Christmas had always been her favourite time of year, and yet she dreaded the idea that it would come round and she would feel no differently, unable to enjoy any of it.

  Aggie frowned. ‘But you got the cast off your hand – surely that is progress?’

  Emma nodded. ‘It is, and I’m grateful, it’s just slow, that’s all, especially all the other things – there’s been no real progress with that, beyond not having to read people’s lips any more. I thought that by the time the cast on my hand was off, I’d be able to write again, feel a little more like me really, but I’ve still got to do a lot of therapy. And even then, it’s not like I can see things straight, or taste or smell anything.’

  ‘Tell you what, love, come back to my place for a bit – have a glass of wine, it might do you some good, change of scenery, you know?’

  Emma gave a small smile. That did sound good. ‘Okay. Thanks Aggie.’

  She was glad to step into Aggie’s flat on the high street, with its weathered beams and stark white walls, its dark wooden furniture and colourful prints, throws and rugs in shades of orange, turquoise and coral.

  Upstairs, her art studio was still filled with stacks of her black and white canvases, and shelves full of paint. Emma had always loved these paintings, since she was a child and had come to Aggie’s studio to watch her work. While Dot was the gentlest of the lot, and Evie the wisest, Aggie was feisty, and loyal to a fault. There had been times, particularly when Emma became a teenager, when she had sought out Aggie because she just didn’t judge when Emma came round and sat in the studio with a ‘monk’ on, as they said in these parts. Aggie would let her rail about the Leas or Janet Allen, often throwing in a healthy dose of venom at them herself. Aggie didn’t say things like, ‘Cheer up, love’, which Emma appreciated; it was good to be around someone who just let you feel what you felt, without feeling the need to put on a ‘happy face’. Emma looked at Aggie now, realising how much she’d missed her while she’d been in London.

  Emma braved the steps, sweat pooling in her hair as she dragged herself up with several hops, her elbow grazing the wall even with Aggie’s help, till finally she made it to the top and her aunt led her to a red leather chair by the window in her studio, from where Emma could see, despite her hazy vision, and the pounding that had started again behind her temples, the village square and, in the distance, the clock tower.

  Aggie poured her a glass of Merlot and took a seat across from her. She had strung fairy lights on the beams, and in the corner of the studio, Emma could see the bleached driftwood tree that Aggie had made, which come the first of December would be filled with her tiny willow sculptures.

  Seeing it, Emma couldn’t help feeling her spirits lift. Some things never changed. She took a sip of the wine and looked out of the window. ‘I can almost see the clock tower in focus if I do this,’ she said, squeezing one eye shut. ‘Almost.’

  Aggie gave her a sympathetic look, took a sip of wine. Then she frowned. ‘Hang on, you’ve reminded me. I’ve got something for you,’ she said, getting up and rummaging in her art desk, moving aside sketchbooks and the usual found objects she used as inspiration for her art – strange feathers, pebbles and used ticket stubs. ‘Aha!’ she cried when she found what she was looking for, buried in one of the drawers. It was a piece of folded-up newsprint, from what Emma could see.

  ‘I thought this might be interesting for your column – well, if you ever wanted to do something on our history. The Whistling News ran the story as part of a heritage piece about the town a few months ago, and I saved a copy.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Emma, taking the article from Aggie, squinting and then handing it back to her with a sigh. The print darted across the page like moving insects, no matter how hard she squinted at it. She sighed again. ‘Still can’t read.’

  Aggie shook her head. ‘I know that. You don’t have to read it – look at the photograph.’

  Emma frowned and looked, holding it back from her face so that she could try focusing her eyes. Written in large black copperplate, the article’s title was ‘Whistling Celebrates its Bicentenary’. Underneath this was the byline of Jessica Flynn, who presented the six o’clock news every evening on the local radio station as well. The article was accompanied by a large sepia photograph, clearly from the nineteenth century, that revealed a man standing in the middle of two women next to the clock tower in the centre of the village.

  He was wearing a top hat, and had his arm around one of the women, the younger of the two. Both women had hair that parted rather severely down the middle.

  ‘It was taken to celebrate the inauguration of the clock tower,’ said Aggie. ‘That’s Grace Halloway,’ she went on, pointing to the older woman.

  Emma’s mouth popped open. Grace had dark hair, and a serious expression on her face. The other woman was younger with lighter hair, her expression more festive, cheerful. ‘And that’s Alison Halloway.’

  Emma looked. It was hard to really make out the photo with her impaired vision, but she tried her best. ‘Who’s that with his arm round her?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought that might interest you – that’s John Allen.’

  ‘John Allen?’ said Emma in surprise.

  ‘Geoff Allen’s son.’

  Emma frowned, trying to piece the story together, remembering the legacy of the failed recipe – the one that had ended the friendship between the Halloways and the Allens. ‘Was he the one who owned the printworks?’

  ‘That was his father, Geoff. John was the one with the gambling problem.’

  Emma looked up. ‘The one who came to Grace for a recipe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, this must have been before it all went bad, then?’

  Aggie nodded. ‘It must have, though look at Grace’s face. I’ve seen photos of her before – she’s not usually that stern. Something tells me she wasn’t too pleased about something – maybe it was the fact that he had hi
s arms all round her daughter?’

  ‘Maybe,’ breathed Emma. ‘I mean – things were different then, nowadays the first thing you do when you’re in a photograph is throw your arms round the person next to you and smile, but back then that would be quite taboo, unless…’

  She looked at Aggie in complete shock. ‘They were a couple?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hope Cottage, 2005

  * * *

  ‘Evie hasn’t been feeling all that well, have you dear?’

  Evie, who had been lying under the kitchen sink, tightening a pipe with a wrench, paused her grunting and sat up. She pushed back the red bandana that was attempting to keep her wild, salt and pepper hair at bay, frowned, then suddenly nodded as she saw her sister’s pointed look, and gave a faint little cough. ‘Hem. Not for days. I didn’t want to say anything…’

  ‘She looks positively feeble,’ said Dot, eyes wide with worry.

  ‘Barely moved a muscle,’ Aggie agreed.

  Emma rolled her eyes. ‘Yesterday, Evie hefted that big chest up the stairs all by herself, went on a nature walk with Mrs Brimble until late in the evening and still had energy enough to chop all that firewood when she came home,’ she said, pointing to a sizeable log pile in the corner.

  Dot didn’t look fazed in the slightest. ‘It’s just the surge, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘The surge?’ spluttered Emma, raising a brow.

  ‘Y-e-s,’ said Dot, nodding her head wisely. ‘I saw it on Grey’s Anatomy. The dishy one – McSteamy?… well, it happened to him, it’s all so dreadfully sad, the surge, it’s the last bit of energy someone gets, you know…’ she whispered, sotto voce, ‘just before they pop their clogs.’

  Emma’s lips twitched. ‘Pop their clogs! What am I going to do with you lot? Evie is perfectly fine.’ She looked at her grandmother, her expression softening. ‘You are, aren’t you?’