I'll Be Home for Christmas: A heartwarming feel good romantic comedy

by Karen Clarke

  Play was an odd word – his granddaughter had to be an adult. Maybe something had got lost in translation. ‘That’s good,’ I said, feeling as if I’d engineered some sort of family reunion, as well as opened a possible can of worms with the discovery of the letters. ‘You really need some Christmas decorations.’ His granddaughter would appreciate them, even if Gérard wasn’t keen, but he gave an eager nod.

  ‘Maggie, she always went… à la mer.’ He mimed a diving action.

  ‘Overboard?’

  He smiled. ‘Jacqueline will help,’ he said. ‘We will decorate together. But I wonder, if you have time, if you would also have a little tidy-up of my spare bedroom, so my granddaughter can sleep over.’

  Walking back to the café much later, I still had a smile on my face, in spite of the cold and the fact that I’d left Dolly’s hat behind, but the rustle of letters in my coat pocket had a sobering effect. I might have unwittingly done Gérard a favour, but I’d also (probably) uncovered an affair between his father-in-law and my great-grandmother – the romance Dolly had wondered about, and one that could change everything she thought she knew about Augustine.

  Eight

  ‘Nice walk?’ Dolly poked her head out of the kitchen as I came through the back door, stamping snow off my boots. ‘You’ve been gone ages.’

  ‘I stayed and had some lunch with Gérard,’ I said, deciding not to mention I’d ‘bumped’ into Ryan – or the letters I’d found. Face-to-face, it suddenly seemed too far-fetched to be true. I needed to read them properly, search for clues.

  ‘Did you see anyone else while you were out?’ She sounded deliberately casual and I wondered whether Ryan had sidestepped the question too.

  ‘There were a few people on the beach.’ I kept my voice vague, jumping when Mathilde suddenly emerged, fastening a cape at her throat like someone from a Dickens novel. I moved aside as she pushed her feet into a pair of pointy black boots and threw me a suspicious stare, before lighting up in a smile when Charlie materialised in his padded coat.

  ‘Time to escort you home, Madame Bouvier?’ he said, crooking his elbow for Mathilde to hold, and she gave a girlish giggle at odds with her crow-like appearance. ‘Nice walk?’ he said to me, but Mathilde was clearly keen to get going and yanked him outside with surprising strength. ‘Talk later,’ he called, as Dolly gave them a wave and pushed the door shut.

  ‘What’s her problem?’ I said.

  ‘She hasn’t quite forgiven me for not keeping her grandson on.’ Dolly made a face. ‘I gave him a job here in the summer, but we didn’t need him after the season ended.’

  ‘I thought she was going to put a curse on me.’

  ‘I think she’s given that up now.’

  Sometimes, it was hard to tell whether Dolly was joking.

  ‘How was Gérard?’ she said.

  ‘He seemed fine.’ I was aware of her scrutiny and wondered whether I looked different. I’d never been very good at hiding my feelings. ‘I left the hat you lent me at his cottage.’

  ‘He phoned,’ she said.

  ‘About the hat?’

  ‘And to tell me what you did.’

  ‘Ah.’ I fiddled with the cuff of my jumper and wondered whether everyone in the village now knew I’d tided Gérard’s front room. I’d almost forgotten what village life was like after living in a city for several years. Though our farm was several miles from Appleby, the nearest village, the residents had a good working knowledge of our business, and Mum and Dad knew a surprising amount about theirs.

  ‘Oh, he was over the moon, love.’ Dolly clasped her hands beneath her chin. ‘You’ve made his year, never mind his day.’

  ‘Oh?’ I gently stepped back, unused to so much praise. ‘Well, that’s nice to know. Did he say anything else?’

  She cocked her head. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Oh… nothing.’ I blinked. ‘I think Hamish enjoyed his walk.’

  Dolly smiled. ‘So did Bon-Bon,’ she said. ‘Ryan came down for a bite to eat and said he was planning to write this afternoon.’ It was clear she couldn’t resist mentioning his name. ‘You should pop up and say hello.’

  ‘Hmm?’ I tried to pull my mind away from William and Augustine. ‘Isn’t Frank helping out today?’

  Unfazed by the change of topic, Dolly said, ‘He’s doing some DIY,’ with a note of pride in her voice. ‘He’s not just good with his hips.’ She swivelled her own, and I hoped she was referring to their salsa activities. ‘He’s pretty good with a tool.’

  ‘Just the one?’

  ‘Silly.’ She swiped at me playfully. ‘He’s making me a walk-in wardrobe.’

  ‘Frank sounds great.’

  ‘He is.’ She said it with heartfelt sincerity. ‘You will come over for dinner this evening, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course!’ I smiled. ‘I want to meet the man who’s made my aunt so happy.’

  She winked and patted my arm, just as Stefan called her from the kitchen. ‘I’d better get back to work,’ she said with obvious eagerness, and I made my way upstairs, thinking how lucky she was to be doing a job she loved.

  Television voices floated down the landing and I hovered for a moment outside my bedroom before making my way to the living room and sticking my head round the door.

  Ryan was at the table near the Christmas tree, tapping away at his laptop. The tree lights had been set to flash on and off in an annoyingly random sequence, but he was completely engrossed and didn’t seem bothered. The television was on too, and I wondered how he could focus with it so loud, an anguished-looking couple arguing and gesturing wildly.

  As I made to close the door, he turned and stared in an unfocused way, as if in the grip of a dream. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, seeming to come back from wherever he’d been. Amazon, I noticed, glancing at the screen.

  ‘Just wondered what all the noise was about.’ I gestured at the TV. ‘I think they can hear it from space.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He rose and rotated his shoulders as though they’d stiffened up. He looked strong and capable in jeans, and a cable-knit jumper a shade darker than his eyes – as though he should be outdoors, chopping wood. ‘I like it being on, it helps me concentrate.’ He stretched his arms over his head, and I slid my eyes away from a glimpse of lean stomach where a trail of black hair led beneath the waistband of his jeans. ‘I was doing a bit of online Christmas shopping.’ Lowering his arms, he gave me a half-smile that did something odd to my insides. ‘It’s not a bad show, actually.’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘The show.’ He nodded at the television screen, where the couple were now kissing as though their lives depended on it. ‘It’s about the residents of a working-class neighbourhood in Marseille. A bit like Neighbours or an upmarket EastEnders.’

  ‘And you can understand what they’re saying?’

  ‘Hardly a word.’ He sat back down, fingers absently stroking his laptop keyboard. ‘But it’s pretty easy to work out what’s happening.’

  ‘OK, well, I’ll leave you to it,’ I said.

  ‘You can come in, if you like.’

  ‘No. I mean, thanks, but I’ve got stuff to do.’

  ‘What sort of stuff?’

  Turning back, I thought I detected a sceptical twist to his mouth.

  ‘Oh, you know. Checking my bank account to see how much money I’ve got and planning more revenge on my ex… that sort of thing.’ I threw him a syrupy grin as I pulled the door shut, hoping his laptop would melt and he’d be forced to go back to England.

  In my room, I removed my coat and took the letters out of my pocket, then sat on the bed to read them with an uneasy mix of guilt and anticipation. It felt wrong to be reading words meant only for William, even with Gérard’s blessing, but surely if he’d meant his affair to remain a secret forever, he’d have destroyed them.

  The letters weren’t long, but it was clear the relationship was punctuated with absences, as it appeared that William had been a radio operator in the Navy, away for long stretch
es of time.

  I think of you at sea, so handsome in your uniform, and can’t help wishing that you were here with me.

  Any doubts that it might be a different Augustine dissolved when I read the words,

  I am writing from the bedroom overlooking the church, and the sky is as blue as your eyes.

  It was definitely the house in High Wycombe, where she’d grown up after her parents moved to England; the house she inherited after they died and where Dolly’s mother was born. Augustine had lived there through her married life and beyond, until it became too difficult for her to live alone and Mum brought her to the farm for her final years.

  I dream of you, the smell of you, the touch of your hands. Never did I think I could feel like this, she’d written in rather flowery language, clearly in the throes of first love. Unless she’d met William after she was married, and realised she didn’t care that much for my great-grandfather after all.

  I checked all ten letters for dates, but apart from one dated 24 July in the corner, there was nothing to indicate the year, and frustratingly little about her life and daily routine to give a hint of which decade they were in. She talked about a busy period at the department store where she’d worked for many years that had made her feet ache – if only you were here with your magic fingers! – and the sentence I made your favourite seed cake, thinking of you and wishing you were here to eat it, made me sit up straight.

  It was a reference to her love of baking, but according to Dolly, she’d been making cakes since she was old enough to hold a wooden spoon. There were some other interesting snippets, but nothing that suggested any particular time frame. She mentioned a friend called Jean, who’d had a ‘bust-up’ with her husband and thrown all his clothes out of the window. I simply cannot imagine feeling such anger towards you, my darling. You only ever make me smile, make me come alive, and without you by my side the world is pale and uninteresting. It was so hard to reconcile the distant memories I had of brisk, no-nonsense Augustine, always with her hands in a bowl of flour – or so it had seemed at the time – insisting Ben and I talk to her in French (though Mum said she’d rarely spoken her native language when she and Dolly were growing up), with this passionate woman, pining for her lover. There were no references to children, or a husband, or anything clandestine… until the last letter I picked up.

  Charles is a good man and I haven’t heard from you in so long, William. I need to talk to you about something and I don’t know what to do. Please, please, write if you can.

  It was such an impassioned plea I found myself looking on the back of the letter, as if there might be more, then reread the rest, checking I hadn’t missed a mention of my great-grandfather before.

  What had she needed to talk to William about? Did she want to end their affair because she’d met my great-grandfather, or was she planning to leave Charles for him? Had William replied? Perhaps he’d fallen for Maggie’s mother and had done the old-fashioned version of ghosting Augustine – simply not bothering to reply to her letters, hoping she’d get the message. Maybe she’d married Charles on the rebound, then spent her marriage pining for William. And what if the something she’d wanted to talk about was that she’d fallen pregnant – either with Dolly, or Mum?

  I had so many questions flying around my head, but I couldn’t ask Dolly for answers she might not have and that would make her doubt everything she thought she knew about her beloved grandmother. And Gérard had told me his father-in-law never talked about the past, so it was unlikely he knew anything either.

  I knew I should let it go, but it was such a coincidence, finding the letters so unexpectedly and so far from home – it felt like it meant something, and Gran’s favourite saying drifted across my mind. Perhaps it was meant to be. But for what purpose, if I couldn’t share them with Dolly?

  Deciding I should sleep on it, I slipped the letters into the drawer of the bedside cabinet and picked up my notepad – the one where I’d neatly written the rules for setting up a travel blog, and hadn’t looked at since.

  Be real

  Be useful

  Be unconventional

  Be yourself

  Be honest

  Be an expert

  The seventh was a deviation from all the ‘be’s’.

  Don’t start a travel blog before you’ve travelled.

  I sighed, and looked at the rules again through narrowed eyes. It had all seemed so simple when I was doing the course, brainstorming ideas with the other participants, scribbling things like Off the beaten track. Be reckless!! Intimate travelogue? Tips and tricks and hacks! Diary?? and underlined in capitals BE UNIQUE. I tapped my teeth with my pen and tried to recapture the enthusiasm I’d felt, but half an hour later, all I’d written was ‘cultural differences?’ and developed a nagging headache. I’d think about everything later, I decided. After I’d had a nap.

  Nine

  ‘Come in out of the cold, Nina,’ Frank greeted me, wrapping a paw-like hand around mine and shaking it firmly as I stepped inside the cottage with a bunch of flowers I’d picked up from the florist’s in the village. His Yorkshire accent was a surprise, even though Mum had told me he’d lived in Whitby before moving to Chamillon permanently. ‘It’s good to meet you at last.’

  ‘You too.’ He was instantly recognisable from the wedding pictures Mum had shown me on her phone: medium height and build, with a gentle, friendly smile and dark, sparkly eyes. It was easy to see why Dolly had chosen to marry him – he was the opposite of Charlie’s dad, for a start.

  ‘I ate a clock yesterday,’ he said.

  I’d been about to unwind my scarf with my free hand. ‘I’m sorry… what?’

  ‘I ate a clock,’ he repeated with a very Dolly-like wink. ‘It was pretty time-consuming.’

  I smiled. ‘Nice one.’

  ‘That’s his little icebreaker.’ Dolly appeared at his side, looking unusually glamorous in a fitted black dress, her hair crimped into little waves. ‘Ooh, are those from Dee’s?’ she asked, taking the flowers from me and burying her nose in the petals. ‘The florist next to the gift shop,’ she added, when I looked at her blankly.

  ‘Oh, yes. They caught my eye, and I thought you’d like them.’ I draped my coat and scarf over a wooden coat stand by the door, while Dolly handed the flowers to Frank to admire.

  ‘How did your photo session go?’ she said, and I remembered I’d said I was going to take a few pictures before coming over, determined to get some material for my travel blog.

  ‘Great!’ I shoved my fingers through my hair. ‘I’m sorry I’m a bit late, I got carried away.’ After I’d been to the florist, I’d taken a slow walk in the twilight, along the snowy beach, and the colours of the setting sun and the wintery scene were stunning. Unencumbered by Hamish, I’d managed to take a few shots, and got so wrapped up in the view that I’d lost track of time.

  ‘You’re here now, that’s the main thing.’ Dolly gave me one of her bone-crushing hugs, then stepped back and eyed me up and down. ‘What’s this?’ she said, noting the silvery, swishy skirt I was wearing with my Doc Martens.

  After a quick shower, I’d been loath to put on the jeans and jumper I’d been wearing to meet Dolly’s new husband, so I’d wriggled into the skirt from her wardrobe, surprised to find it fitted. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’ I gave the fabric a self-deprecating tweak. ‘This is a pyjama top,’ I confessed, brushing my hand down my dusky pink velour top. ‘But I thought it went well with the skirt.’

  ‘I’d never have thought to wear black tights with it, either.’

  ‘They’re actually leggings.’

  ‘Well, you look lovely, and I really like that top with the skirt.’ Dolly circled me, like a judge at Crufts sizing up a Dalmatian. ‘It looks better on you than it does on me.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Frank, who looked like a fifties Chicago-style gangster in his black, pinstriped trousers, with red braces and big-collared shirt. ‘Though you do look lovely,’ he amended.

  ‘The
top makes the most of your bust.’ Dolly did a shoulder wiggle. ‘You take after me and your great-gran,’ she said. ‘Your mum doesn’t have a lot going on in that department.’

  ‘Dolly!’ I tapped her hand away, my heart seizing at the mention of Augustine. ‘The size of a bosom does not maketh the woman.’

  Frank, eyes pinned to Dolly’s chest, looked as though he vehemently disagreed but wisely kept quiet.

  ‘Doesn’t maketh the woman.’ Dolly chuckled and squeezed my arm. ‘You always were my favourite niece.’

  ‘I’m your only niece,’ I said, smiling. It was impossible to be mad with Dolly, even if her views on women’s attributes were outdated. ‘I like your light.’ I pointed to a modest chandelier hanging from one of the ceiling beams. ‘And your decorations.’ The entrance was hung with tiny fairy lights and there was a holly wreath on the door. ‘It’s very subtle, for you.’

  ‘I’m putting my own stamp on the place.’

  Frank nodded his approval. ‘It needed a woman’s touch,’ he said with obvious pride, still holding the bouquet like an Olympic torch. ‘I didn’t even have curtains when we met.’

  Dolly gave him a loving hug. ‘Come on,’ she said to me. ‘I hope you’re hungry.’

  ‘I know I am.’ Frank patted his admirably flat stomach. ‘I’ve been starving myself all day.’

  ‘He means he was working upstairs and forgot the time,’ Dolly corrected. ‘He’s been installing the shoe shelf in my walk-in wardrobe.’

  ‘How many pairs have you got?’ I imagined Oprah Winfrey’s closet, with footwear in every style and colour invented. She even had a television in there – I’d seen a picture in a magazine at the dentist’s.

  ‘I’ve a pair for dancing, and two pairs for work that I alternate so my feet don’t get smelly.’