Jonathan was now kneeling by her side. ‘It’s just me, Jonathan Hathaway, Kelsey’s… boyfriend.’ He’d never used the word before, not in front of Kelsey anyway, and their eyes widened and met for the briefest moment of smiling surprise before turning back to Blythe who was now a picture of poise again.
‘You two had better get going if you’re to make the most of the daylight. The days are so short now midwinter’s here,’ she was saying, running her napkin over the invisible toast crumbs on her muted gold pleated skirt.
Blythe always dressed as though she were expecting company – Burton and Taylor perhaps – and she’d stepped her dressing up a notch for the festive season by matching her cream blouse, cardigan and pink river pearls with a winter-white fur stole which Kelsey just knew was as old as the hills and definitelynotfaux. Her crystal earrings glittered in the light and her smile said she’d pulled off a spectacular recovery from her little moment of discomfiture.
‘Go on, off you go. Don’t want to stand in the way of young lovers. Besides, they’re showingLawrence of Arabiaat ten and I like to see my old pals at Christmas time. Oh, Peter O’Toole was a lovely man, such a twinkle in his eye and always a delight at parties.’
Jonathan was looking warily at Kelsey who was staring, concerned, at her neighbour, uncertain quite what was happening. Blythe was always dramatic, but this morning she was off the charts.
‘Before you go, give that cloth a tug, will you?’ said Blythe, and Kelsey was surprised to find she kept an ancient television in the corner covered over with an embroidered cloth as though it were a mouthy parrot in a cage.
‘Lovely, dear. Toodle-pip.’
‘Umm, OK, well, merry Christmas?’ said Kelsey, only to be met with Blythe’s studied silence. She was jabbing at a clunky-looking remote control.
Jonathan had better luck. ‘It sure was nice to meet you, Miss Goode,’ he said in his charming Tulsa accent. Blythe nodded courteously at that and let him take her hand, but there was a hint of unsteadiness in the way she held her head when she looked at him.
It had taken another ten minutes of reassurances from an increasingly annoyed Blythe to get them out the flat, both of them clutching three jars of gin jam to their chests.
‘Do you think she’s OK? She looked like she’d seen a ghost,’ Jonathan said as they dropped the jars off in the bedsit upstairs.
‘She’s not normally like that, she must have got a fright when you came in. She was busy telling me about how she’s practically housebound. It can’t be easy for her to let her guard down, she’s so proud, you know? If I ever see those grandsons of hers I’m going to have a stern word with them. She needs someone to take her in hand.’
Jonathan laughed. ‘I met her for precisely fifteen minutes and I can already tell she’d not make that easy for anyone. She’s feisty as hell.’
Kelsey laughed and locked her bedsit door.
‘She’s obviously not completely starved of company. There were Christmas presents there, and she mentioned a son? I heard you talking when I arrived,’ said Jonathan taking Kelsey’s hand on the stairs.
‘She has a family, yeah. I don’t know much about them though.’ Kelsey’s words tailed off into silence as she tried to tamp down the thoughts rushing in.Was Blythe startled by Jonathan’s similarity to Wagstaff? Had she seen the resemblance too? How else could that reaction be explained? And those grandsons Jonathan mentioned so casually could be his own relatives if my half-baked theory’s right and Wagstaff really was Blythe’s lover twenty years before Jonathan’s poor mum was seduced by the old rogue… if indeed, that’s what happened.
Down in the hallway Jonathan pulled her close. ‘Now you’re the one freaking me out. You’re so pale. What is with everyone today? Come on, let’s go chill out in town, see some sights. It’s been an intense few days; I feel like we’ve barely had a chance to draw breath. What say you just hold my hand, walk beside me, and we’ll have a proper date to make up for all the ones we missed over the autumn?’ His kiss sealed the deal and they walked out of St.Ninian’s and through the chill winter winds towards town.
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite’
(Romeo and Juliet)
One of the many things Kelsey loved about Jonathan was how he was exactly the right height to deliver forehead kisses and that’s just what he was doing now as they stood, hands clasped in the small of each other’s backs through cosy layers, smiling dopily at one another in the middle of the bustling Christmas market by the riverside while a group of buskers with guitars and a keyboard sang about chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
Jonathan crooned along and between lines he’d dip his head and press kisses along the smooth spot between his girlfriend’s brows and her bobble hat.
A Father Christmas ringing a bell and holding out his collection tin smiled at them indulgently as he Ho-Ho-Ho’d past them, no doubt seeing what everyone else could see; two young people stupidly in love, getting in everyone’s way, totally unaware of the world outside their love bubble.
‘Me-rry Christ-ma-as, to yoo-oo-ooo,’ Jonathan sang, really going for the big finish, and Kelsey grinned helplessly up at him as the last-minute shoppers bustled by and the band burst into a Mariah Carey Christmas number complete with jingle bells ringing.
‘We should probably, like, look around at these stalls?’ Jonathan said, still planted to the ground holding Kelsey close, and they grinned at themselves for being like this.
‘We really should move along,’ she agreed.
It took another few moments of gazing and at least twenty soft kisses at her temples for them to link hands and start walking, still more absorbed in each other than they were in the beautiful scenes around them. The Christmas lights high above the market were shining even though it was only ten in the morning and the sky was a dark, looming grey. Blythe had said earlier on it looked like it might snow but so far not one flake had fallen.
Rich foody smells swirled in the cold air from the pulled pork stall, a candyfloss machine, and a van with a queue snaking right down to the river’s edge popular with visitors hungry for foot-long unpronounceable German sausages.
