‘More “on”?’ remarked Frank, Della’s husband, as he wandered into the shop.
‘Yes. That’s exactly what Ivan called it.’ Lucy laughed. ‘“I’m not like you,” he kept telling me. “I can’t be on all the time.”’
‘I guess running a B&B isn’t everyone’s cup of tea,’ Frank added. ‘Cutting the toast into perfect triangles—’
‘Oh, I’m a stickler for that,’ Lucy chuckled, ‘with my ruler and set square.’
‘You are a natural at it, though,’ Della added, handing Lucy a coffee from the percolator. ‘Frank, how many times have Lucy’s guests told us how much they’re loving their stay?’
‘Tons,’ he said. ‘You’re obviously doing something right.’
‘I’m glad to hear that,’ Lucy said, and she caught Della’s eye and grinned. She knew her friend was delighted to see her childhood home lavished with care and attention after decades of neglect.
Having chosen a vintage French cookbook, Lucy strolled through the village to pick up Marnie and Sam from school. It was true that she missed Ivan, and by Friday afternoons she was desperate to hear his car pulling up outside the cottage. But they were still a team, just as he’d said when he’d dropped the bombshell about the job last month. Ivan wasn’t a man to break a promise. Lucy had known that, instinctively, on the day they’d met, on that Euston-to-Manchester-Piccadilly train.
She wasn’t normally one for chatting to strangers on journeys. Usually, she preferred to read or simply enjoy watching the landscape sliding by. But that day she’d fallen into conversation with the cute stranger in glasses sitting opposite. When a sudden heavy snowfall caused a two-hour delay, she had been a tiny bit pleased.
Actually, extremely pleased. The weekend at an old college friend’s in London had been fun, but meeting Ivan on the journey home had been the icing on the cake. He had made her laugh, fetched them wine from the buffet carriage and they’d got tipsy together. They were at a standstill, not yet halfway home. While other passengers were moaning loudly to each other, and venting their frustrations to the train staff, Lucy had barely noticed time slipping by. We’re sorry about this continued delay, came yet another announcement. We’re hoping to get moving again very soon …
‘I hope we don’t,’ Ivan had said with a smile that caused her heart to flip. ‘I’m enjoying this journey.’
‘Me too,’ Lucy had said. His eyes were lovely, she’d noticed; dark as espresso with long black lashes. She could hardly tear her gaze away from them.
‘So, what d’you do for a living?’ he’d asked.
Bingo! ‘I work in lingerie,’ she’d replied.
‘Really?’ His eyebrows had shot up. ‘And I thought my workplace was relaxed.’
She’d smiled. ‘It’s a lingerie retailer, although sometimes I think it’d be better if we only sold knickers—’
‘Then you could say, “I work in pants”?’
‘Exactly.’ That – or perhaps the wine they’d been sharing – set them off sniggering, and by the time they’d arrived at their home city they had swapped numbers and vowed to meet.
That had been over thirteen years ago. Three years later, she and Ivan were married, and a couple of years after that she was pregnant with Marnie, then Sam followed. Pre-Ivan, Lucy had never lived with a boyfriend or even had anything particularly serious. She’d had wild crushes and the odd, fairly short-lived relationship, but there’d been no one she’d remotely imagined a future with. Thank God for freak snow, she’d often thought. And now, as the softly weathered village primary school came into view, Lucy decided Ivan had been right in that their weekends would now feel more special. While there were often guests to look after, they were usually out during the day – and Lucy and Ivan seemed to appreciate each other like never before.
They were so lucky, she reflected as she spotted her new friends clustered by the school gate. She and Ivan had lost a baby, but they had Marnie and Sam and, of course, each other. Now, with Ivan working flat out during the week, it seemed as if they were conscious of making the most of every day they had together.
A few weeks later, when Lucy recalled thinking this, it chilled her to the bones.
By the time winter took hold, bookings had started to thin out. Lucy had expected this to happen; after all, only the brave-hearted were inclined to hike into the hills with ominous clouds overhead. As the end of term approached, it had rained for what felt like weeks, and she was looking forward to Ivan taking a break over Christmas. Life had been hectic, especially since he had been working in Manchester, and they needed some family time together.
Although Lucy’s mother had pushed for them to spend the festive season at theirs, Lucy had put her foot down this time. For years now, they had alternated between going to Ivan’s parents’, where it would be terribly restrained, with a foot-high tinsel tree sitting primly on a side table, and her own parents’ place, which would be decked out in full, extravagant finery.
‘But it’s our turn this year,’ her mother had argued.
‘Yes, but we’d love to spend it here for the first time,’ Lucy explained. ‘Why don’t you and Dad come to us?’
‘Are you sure, darling? It seems like an awful lot of work …’
Lucy smiled, knowing her mother was merely reluctant to relinquish control. ‘It’s a lot of work for you too, us lot all descending. And we’d love to do it. I don’t think Rosemary Cottage will feel properly like our home until we’ve had Christmas here.’
Reluctantly, Anna had agreed (Lucy’s father, Paddy, never had any say in such matters). Ivan’s parents had been invited too, but they tended to view visiting Yorkshire as akin to traversing the Arctic tundra, and had politely declined.
And so Lucy propelled herself into preparing for Christmas, scribbling lists and bringing in holly and dark, glossy foliage, plus crispy seedpods and branches with which to create festive arrangements throughout the house.
Although she had enjoyed her run of looking after their guests, it was a relief to block out some time in order to ready the cottage for her parents’ arrival on Christmas Eve. In amongst the foliage in the house, she dotted cream tapered candles, red velvet ribbons and silvery fairy lights. Although she had a vague memory that her childhood friend Hally’s dad had sold Christmas trees, she gathered from asking around that the nearest source these days was a farm several miles out of the village. So she drove out there with the children and selected a seven-foot Scots Pine, which was delivered later to great excitement. As soon as it was set up in place, scenting the cottage and shimmering beneath an explosion of multi-coloured baubles, it felt as if the festive season had properly begun.
By now, the entire village was strewn with twinkling decorations. A huge tree glinted with jewel-coloured lights, and shop windows were filled with glowing nativity scenes and fuzzed with fake snow. Only an appearance of the genuine stuff could have made Burley Bridge look more festive. Lucy threw herself into every event going, from
