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He was talking to Andrew but his gaze was fixed firmly on Juliette. She’d often felt that in the hustle and bustle of London, everyone was virtually anonymous. It seemed as if in this village no one could be a stranger.
“Rudy, this is Juliette my work colleague. This is the person I will be attempting to cook a turkey with.”
Rudy? No way. With a red nose like that…
“Pleasure to meet you, Juliette. I’ve sold Andrew plenty of sausages and bacon over the years but good luck actually trying to get him to cook a meal.” He gave her a cheeky wink. “Feel free to train him up and send him back for my finest fillet and sirloin steaks.”
She laughed. “Oh, I think the training will be pretty even. I’m as useless at cooking as he is.”
Rudy finished wrapping the meat and put it in a carrier bag. “Well, if I see black smoke billowing from Garnock Hall around three o’clock tomorrow, I’ll know to put out two extra plate settings.”
Her imagination was running riot. Maybe she’d imagined Kenny telling them they had to work Christmas due to the clause in their contract? She was most likely at home, tucked up in her bed sleeping. Dreaming about a Christmas village dusted with snow and where the residents were secretly Santa Claus, Mrs Claus and Rudolph. Add in a haunted old house and a very handsome, but slightly sad, hero and she could have a Hallmark movie.
And she was buying right into it by purchasing the Christmas tree lights. But the plastic bag she was scrunching between her fingers felt real. The smell of Andrew’s aftershave drifting towards her felt real, and the tingle of her skin where he’d touched it earlier felt very real.
“Merry Christmas, Rudy. Thanks for sorting out the turkey for us.” Andrew nodded towards the door. “Ready, Juliette? Have we got everything we need?”
She nodded and stepped outside onto the street. The light had grown even dimmer. Darkness came quickly in the winter in Scotland. A few flakes of snow landed on her cheeks. This could be every girl’s Christmas fairytale.
They walked back to the ancient Land Rover, which, if possible, looked even more rickety than before. “How on earth does this thing still go?” she asked as she climbed inside.
“Sshh,” he whispered, tapping the roof of the car. “You’ll hurt her feelings.” He climbed into the driving seat next to her.
“Your car is a she?”
He started the engine which spluttered for a few seconds then fell deadly silent.
They looked at each other.
“Does she have a name?”
He turned the key again. “Come on, Harriet. Get us home.”
“Harriet?” She let out a laugh. “How posh is that?”
The car gave a shudder and finally started. His face broke into a smile. “What’s wrong with Harriet? Haven’t you ever known a Harriet?”
She shook her head. “No. They didn’t have any Harriets at the state schools.”
He shot her a sideways glance as they pulled out of the village street and back on to the country road. “What? You think I didn’t attend state school?”
“I don’t know. Where do Scottish Lairds go to school? I’ve never met one before.”
“I went to the village primary, then on to the local secondary.”
The heating hadn’t started in the car and her breath was still coming out in little plumes around them. “That must have been hard.”
He frowned and took his eyes from the road for a second. “Why?”
“When your brother died. Everyone knew you. Everyone knew him. It must have been hard.”
She heard him suck in a breath. There was a tiny change in the timbre of his voice. An almost indistinguishable tremble. “It actually made it better. It’s amazing how resilient children are. It’s also amazing how accepting. Douglas was eight when he died. The other kids in his class knew he was sick – some of them visited him at our house – then, when he died. I can remember being in the school playground the day after the funeral and one of the kids came over and said, ‘Douglas died? Sorry. Want to play football?’ and that was it.”
She leaned back into her seat. “Wow.”
Andrew kept driving, his eyes fixed on the darkening road, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Life just moves on for kids. They accept things in a way that adults don’t. Depending on their age, even the most hideous of things become matter-of-fact.” He gave the slightest shake of his head. “But what people don’t talk about, what they don’t say, is that for adults, it actually gets worse instead of better.”
She was almost scared to ask. “What do you mean?”
“Well for adults every milestone in that child’s life becomes a milestone missed. The time they would have started secondary school. Every 16th birthday, every 18th, every 21st. When they would have attended university, when they would have got their driving licence. Their first girlfriend, their first job, first home.” He shrugged. “First child, then first grandchild. I saw it on my mother’s and father’s faces every year. It got harder. I’m sure that’s why my dad’s heart finally gave out. Every year brought another memory of what they missed. And by then, the rest of the world has forgotten. Not because they mean to. But just because their life has moved on. Time has passed.”
“I’d never thought about it like that.” Guilt was sweeping over her. “I’ve never really had reason to think about it. When you say it like that, it just seems like something that you’ll never get over.”
He turned down the driveway towards Garnock Hall, which now had a few warm lights glimmering in the distance. “The sad fact of life is, that parents just shouldn’t outlive their kids. No other way to put it. When people lose a child, if they have other kids, they go into automatic pilot, try and make life ‘normal’ for their other kids. When the truth is, everyone knows it will never be normal again. As for parents who don’t have other kids?” He gave a little shudder. “I have no idea how they do it. No idea at all.”
A wave of emotions was crashing over her. This was Andrew. A guy she’d worked with for the last two years. She had no idea he’d experienced any of this. None at all. And from these few simple sentences she could tell what the impact of losing his brother had had on him. She reached over and covered his hand with hers.
And left it there.
Neither of them said anything. He only slid his hand out from under hers as they slowed on the approach to the house. He turned the engine off and gave her a tight smile. “I guess it’s time to cut down a tree.” He gestured towards the forest which only lay twenty feet from one of the sides of the house.
“Do you need some help?”
He shook his head. “I’ve done it before. It won’t take long and I’ll take a wheelbarrow with me to drag it back. Why don’t you unpack what we’ve got?”
She nodded and climbed out the car. “Oh, Andrew? You said there might be Christmas decorations somewhere in the house – where should I look?”
He hesitated, his eyes glancing towards the dark windows upstairs. “Further along, on that side,” he said, pointing with his finger. “I think they’re in one of the rooms near the end. If you want to wait, I’ll get them. There are only a couple of boxes. Mainly old Christmas tree decorations. I’ve no idea what state they will be in.?
??
She collected the bags from the back of the car. The turkey was much heavier than she’d thought. “No worries. I’ll see what I can find.”
He gave a little nod and unlocked the front door for her, flicking on lights as she walked towards the kitchen.
Christmas Eve in Garnock Hall. Who knew what that could bring?
*
He changed quickly into the oldest clothes he had hanging in the cupboard, pulling an old fleece on top and grabbing the gardening gloves from the garage, along with the axe, power saw and wheelbarrow.
He hadn’t been in these woods for years. Occasionally, he’d cut up a tree that had fallen and was leaning on others. But, for the longest time, he’d really had no purpose for going in the woods. The Nordman firs, Fraser firs and Norway spruces all grew in lines. Perfect for Christmas trees. He’d probably make a fortune if he ever tried to sell them. But that wasn’t in his nature. The trees here had always been for family use, or tenant use only. That was the way he liked it.
It didn’t take long to find the perfect tree. The Norway Spruce was wider than other real Christmas trees, perfect for one of the main windows in the house and around thirteen feet tall.
He lifted the power saw and paused. The job would be over in thirty seconds. Would get him out the cold and back into that house with Juliette.
Juliette. The girl who asked questions he hadn’t been asked in years. The person he would share the next few days with in Garnock Hall, where a whole host of unexpected emotions had been whipped up inside him.
It wasn’t just the loss of his brother. It was everything else.
It was the loss of the family – and the family home. He hadn’t really wanted to spend much time at Garnock Hall after Douglas had died. As a teenager he’d rushed to get into Edinburgh University and had happily stayed at the other side of the country for three years. Then, he’d looked for a job anywhere but near to home.
He’d been neglectful of his mother’s early-onset condition. He’d been neglectful of Garnock Hall and the hours and hours of maintenance that the traditional house needed.
