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‘What have you two terrors been doing?’
‘Making gingerbread men. Mum said it was all right for us to cook.’
Jamie chuckled. ‘Oh, she did, did she? I’ll be having a word with your mother if she’s left a mess. Did you make one for Uncle Jon?’
‘Yes!’
Jon had been watching, still a little reserved around the children. He broke into a sudden smile, and Jamie put the twins back down onto their feet. ‘Why don’t you show him, then?’
Ben, the more reserved of the two, hung back, but Thomas took Jon’s hand, pulling him into the house. Jamie smirked, pleased with the welcome, and Anna followed him inside. Coats were taken off and piled onto the hallstand, and Jon was propelled through the hallway and into the kitchen.
There was a mess, along with the smell of cooking, but Jamie didn’t heed it. Caroline was doing her best to get icing out of her baby son’s hair, while Jess had a stack of fine china plates in front of her, none of which matched, and was clearly deciding which plate went best with which gingerbread man.
‘That one’s yours, Uncle Jon.’ Thomas waved his finger towards a figure with a large yellow splodge of icing around its chest. ‘We made a guitar.’
‘That’s great.’ Jon was all smiles now.
‘Did you make one for Anna?’ Jamie asked Ben, and he nodded.
‘Of course we did. You’re the one with the yellow icing all over your head, Anna.’ Caroline grinned at her. ‘A bit like Joshua. The twins reckoned it was a good idea to ice him as well.’
‘Go and sit down, I’ll make the coffee while Jess finishes putting out the plates.’ Jamie smiled at his niece, who grinned back at him.
‘No, I need to clear up a bit...’ Caroline protested, but Jamie was shooing everyone out of the kitchen.
‘I’ll do that. It’s easier when no one’s making icing-sugar footprints all over the place.’
‘Oh! The carpets... Thomas and Ben, take your shoes off,’ Caroline wailed, and Anna bent down, helping the twins with their shoelaces.
Order was restored, and Jon lowered himself into an armchair, seeming tired after the journey. The children were left to play by the fireplace, and Anna had a moment to look around.
Jamie’s sitting room was...different. The room had obviously been stripped back at some point, but no effort had been made to cover the cracks in the brickwork over the fireplace, they’d just been filled. The old polished floorboards were pitted and stained from years of wear, and the deep brick fireplace had obviously seen many years of use. But above it the long wooden mantel was pristine and gleaming, with glass lamps at either end. The sofas and chairs were all spotless, and the book cabinets and furniture gleamed. It was a suffusion of old and new, comfortable but with a lot of character.
?
??Nice, isn’t it?’ Caroline had seen her looking around.
‘It’s lovely. If I’d known that not decorating could be so effective, I wouldn’t have gone to all the bother at my place. Although I imagine that quite a bit of thought went into this.’
‘Yes, it did. When Jamie bought this place, it was pretty run down. He decided that anything you touched would be new and clean. Anything you didn’t touch would be left as it was. I was a bit sceptical, but my husband Harry’s an architect and he got it. I do now too, I think it works.’
As long as you had the eye to pick out furniture that didn’t match but which went together well. Chairs and sofas that were all different but were upholstered in complementary colours, dark reds and russet tones. It seemed artless, but there was a cohesiveness of thought behind it all.
Jessica appeared, carefully holding two plates, each with a gingerbread man on it. She gave one to Jon and one to Anna, and Anna thanked her for choosing the prettiest plate for her. Jess confided that it was her favourite too, then disappeared back into the kitchen for the next two. Jamie brought the coffee, and the twins were persuaded to sit down in a couple of wooden children’s chairs that stood by the fireplace.
‘So...why have I got green hair?’ Jamie was regarding his plate with a smile.
‘The green icing was meant to be for your eyes.’ Caroline shrugged. ‘Call it artistic licence.’
‘Yes. Of course.’ Jamie bit the leg off his gingerbread man. ‘They taste great, Jessica.’
Jessica gave him a little smile, obviously pleased that her part in it all hadn’t gone unnoticed by her uncle.
‘You’ve done a lot here since I saw it last.’ Jon was looking around the sitting room. ‘It looks great.’
‘You want to see the rest?’ Jamie asked diffidently.
‘Yes, thanks. That would be great.’
