Page 18 of Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle

She hesitates for long enough that I assume this is something she hasn’t told Ollie and is hoping I won’t either. ‘I’m an old-fashioned gal. I think honesty is always the best policy in every situation. Secrets like this have a habit of getting loose, no matter how far he’s willing to go to prevent that happening.’ She waves a hand towards me, indicating that I am a step too far. ‘His bosses would understand, and if they didn’t then so be it. Sometimes I think the best thing he could do is lose that bloody job anyway.’

I’m seconds away from choking again when she realises she can smell burning and rushes back across the kitchen to the stove, leaving me to finish my cereal with minimal hazards to my throat health, and a head full of thoughts about Ollie and this job he’s trying so hard to keep.

When I take my empty bowl back across the kitchen, intending to wash it up, she takes it from my hands and physically blocks the sink like a particularly petite rugby player, silently threatening me with a tackle should I try to get past.

I look at the fridge instead, a huge double-doored thing that’s vastly taller than either of us. There’s all sorts of magnets and info stuck to it, including the much-needed Wi-Fi password, which I gratefully take a photo of, and a few magnetic notebooks, covered in lists with three different sets of handwriting. Ollie’s, Hamish’s, and Nancy’s. One is a list of ‘jobs that need to be done’ and another has a list titled ‘things we need’, and the list is so long that someone’s torn off a couple of sheets and stuck them separately to the fridge with normal magnets, and it makes me realise again that Ollie really is putting so much into this, in both effort and expense.

‘I’m told I need to show you some Christmas decorations?’ Nancy’s soft Scottish accent comes from behind me as she peers over my shoulder.

‘Yes! That is my job, after all.’ It’s easy to get sidetracked with the whole wife thing, but my main job has to be to decorate the castle, and I’m more than a little daunted by the thought of it.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, after I’ve showered, got properly dressed and thrown my hair up in a tufty ponytail, Nancy is escorting me to the third floor and to one of the storage rooms Ollie pointed out last night. I should probably have left his cardigan behind, but it’s so warm and cosy that I couldn’t resist putting it on again, and no perfume I own will ever be as good as the scent of the aftershave that infuses it.

‘Here we go. Welcome to the ghosts of Christmases past.’ She unlocks the door and then slips the key off her keyring and hands it to me, almost like she’s glad to be rid of it. ‘You’ll be needing that more than I will, my love. Lord knows what you’re going to find in there. I run the mop over the floor every so often, but most of those boxes haven’t been touched for a decade and a half.’

The door creaks as I push it open and step into what looks like a glittery time capsule, complete with a layer of dust so thick that it could be mistaken for grey snow, and row upon row of neatly labelled boxes, some on shelving, some probably a lot more haphazardly stacked than they once were as the cardboard has started disintegrating over time.

Nancy hovers in the doorway. ‘Ollie hasn’t bothered with Christmas since his parents passed. Hamish always used to make sure there was a wee tree in the entrance hall, but since he joined Galligan & Brenton and started going away for their annual Christmas getaway, there’s not been any point. Christmas is a difficult time when you’ve lost people who should be here.’

The smell is one of a room that’s been shut away for a long time and needs some fresh air let in, although the only hint of daylight is coming through a curtained window on the other side of the room with far too many boxes between here and there to even contemplate reaching it, and the general mustiness competes with the metallic tang of old tinsel and ghostly cinnamon from years ago.

It’s one of the saddest rooms I’ve ever been in. Decades of Christmases gone by, lost to time, filled with memories that aren’t mine but are so strong that I can almost feel them clamouring to be released.

I run my fingers across the front of a box labelled ‘outdoor lights’ in neat lettering. ‘What happened to his parents?’

‘They died in a car accident,’ Nancy replies softly.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. That’s awful.’ I look back at her. ‘Ollie said you’d been friends forever too.’

‘Indeed. Their loss… left a big hole right through this place. That boy was twenty-five, full of life and rebellious in the cheekiest way possible, and in the blink of an eye, he went from being a happy-go-lucky wee laddie to being an adult with a legacy on his shoulders.’ She holds her arms open, indicating the castle around us. ‘All while battling through insurmountable grief. This castle was his playground when he was younger, but it’s easy to be young and carefree when your parents are taking care of everything. He had to take on sole responsibility in an instant. He hasn’t loved this place in the same way since they passed. I was surprised by his accidental invitation this year to the bosses and that dreadful co-worker, but maybe it’ll be a good thing in the long run. One last time, so to speak.’

‘And he’s okay with me going through this stuff and putting it up? There must be a lot of memories inside these boxes.’

‘That’s what he’s said.’ She raises her shoulders in a shrug. ‘I’m not sure how much use it will be though.’

‘Me neither.’ I pull a box towards me and the cardboard starts to collapse under my fingers.

‘Christmas was important to Ollie’s parents, their favourite time of year. A time to catch up with friends and family and invite everyone to share the magic of Hollybrae Castle over the festive season. It’ll be nice to see a semblance of that return this month.’

Nancy leaves me to it as I peer into a tangled snarl of green-wired lights. The wires are sticky where the plastic has started breaking down, and they still have tiny baggies containing spare bulbs taped to them, the kind you haven’t been able to buy for years now.

In the notebook I brought with me, I scribble down that the lights all need replacing with energy-efficient LED ones, and move to another box. I brush against a garland on a shelf and a shower of glitter rains down, embedding itself into Ollie’s cardigan forevermore. The adhesive that once kept glitter where it was supposed to be has long since dried out, and every shimmering decoration in here will undoubtedly have met the same fate.

Cobwebs bridge the gaps between boxes as I uncover collections of heavy tablecloths and the ‘good’ Christmas dinnerware, clip-on birds, holographic crackers that must have been put back with the intention of pulling them one day, and that sadness pervades the air again. One day that never came. No wonder Ollie hasn’t bothered with Christmas in recent years.

There are boxes of lovingly packed tartan-wearing festive teddy bears, potpourri that was probably strong once but now smells of nothing and crumbles into powder under my fingertips, and definitely not flame-retardant foil garlands that would never pass modern-day safety standards.

Velvet ribbon with wire edges, perfect for making perky decorative bows, now flattened with the wire poking out in places. There’s snow-frosted green tinsel that’s crusted with yellow flocking, and in one corner, a stack of fibre-optic trees from the boom of the early 2000s. They once were white, but have now turned the colour of old newspaper, and their fibre filaments are brittle and curling, undoubtedly never to work again even if I was brave enough to risk plugging one in. Rusted metal stars and bells, oversized signs with bulbs through every letter, spelling out words like ‘JOY’. Peering down from upper shelves, covered in spiderwebs and dust, in its current context, it’s more threatening than joyful.

Each box is like digging into a different geological layer of festive history, and it’s nearly lunchtime when I finally reach the window and yank back the dusty curtain and fight with the window frame that hasn’t been opened for so long and clearly never expected to be again. I push against it until it finally gives way and opens so fast that I nearly tumble out with it.

I straighten myself up and breathe in much welcome cool air. Apart from a quick glance out of my bedroom window while getting dressed this morning, it’s the first time I’ve really been able to appreciate the grounds to the rear of the castle. Leaf-strewn paths wind between curved lawn areas, each one with a tree that has a circular flower bed around its trunk that I can imagine bursting with flowers in the spring.

‘Ahoy there!’

In the tree nearest the window, there’s a greying red-haired man at the top of a ladder that’s resting against its trunk. He’s wearing a tam o’ shanter hat and a tartan gilet. The only thing that could make him look any more Scottish would be if he was wearing a kilt, which he thankfully is not.