A Merry Little Christmas

Chapter 8

Merry

‘You’re going to be amazed by how much the house has changed since you last visited.’

Merry gripped the door handle of the car as Astrid rounded the bend without slowing down. It was a good job her midwife, Pip, hadn’t had prior knowledge of Astrid’s skills behind the wheel when giving her blessing for this afternoon’s jaunt.

The two women were on their way to visit the new Robinson family home. Strictly speaking, Merry was supposed to be resting, but she’d reasoned with the midwife that as the new house would soon be their home, she ought to be allowed to go, as long as she didn’t do anything dangerous.

Astrid, her former art teacher and the closest thing she’d had to a mother figure, was dramatic in every aspect of her life: from her velvet cloaks in every hue, and the many bracelets which jingled on each wrist, to driving with one hand on the wheel and the other painting pictures in the air as she talked. Normally, Astrid’s driving style didn’t worry Merry, but now that she had to hold the seat belt away from her stomach, she was forced to keep her feet braced against the sides of the footwell to stop herself bouncing about.

‘I’m not so sure, Schatz .’ Astrid’s eyes twinkled with mischief. ‘You have been a little ball of energy since you first came into my art class as a teenager and wanted to learn to draw. When you put your mind to something, you have a way of making it happen.’

‘I’m doing my best to chivvy the house renovation along so that we can bring the new baby home from hospital to this address,’ said Merry determinedly. ‘Being induced on the twenty-eighth does make it tricky, I admit.’

‘If anyone can do it, it’s you,’ Astrid said. ‘I know I say this often, but I am so proud of the woman you have become, mein Liebling . You have had to work hard for everything you have, I am looking forward to seeing the progress in your new home.’

‘Thank you, Astrid, you say lovely things.’ Merry felt herself glow with pride.

At a time when she felt as if she was doing everything wrong: upsetting Nell, arguing with Cole, and feeling guilty for her waters breaking, it felt good to be praised for once.

They turned into Oakwood Lane and Merry’s spirits started to lift as they always did. It was a quiet residential street, leafy in the summer, but strung with elegant Christmas lights now. It had an eclectic mix of homes, from smaller terraced houses at the top, a short run of incongruous seventies-built bungalows in the middle and finally a delightful row of Victorian detached properties which, on one side of the road, backed onto hedgerows and green fields.

It was one of these, Meadow View, which Merry had come across in the summer when the previous inhabitant moved into Springwood House where her dad lived.

She and Cole had had their offer accepted before the house had even been officially photographed by the estate agent.

Astrid pulled up onto the drive and Merry let out a happy sigh. Sometimes she felt like pinching herself that her name was on the deeds for this beautiful house. For a girl who’d grown up with virtually nothing to her name, it seemed almost impossible that she was now a homeowner.

Before she had a chance to get out of the car, she heard her phone ring. She looked at the screen: Springwood House. Her stomach plummeted: Please let it not be bad news …

‘Merry Robinson speaking,’ she said tentatively.

It was one of his carers. ‘Your dad isn’t feeling well, and he wanted a quick word, Merry. Can I put him on?’

‘Oh dear, thank you, of course.’ She looked at Astrid, who nodded encouragingly.

There was a series of muffled noises, and then he was on the line.

‘The car’s gone, love. Looked out this morning and it wasn’t there. The keys have gone, too.’

According to Emily, he hadn’t owned a car for several years. But, despite that, the theft of it was one of his recurring worries. The sisters had learned to simply go along with it, rather than correct him; he’d forget about it soon enough.

Merry’s heart stuttered, his voice was frail and croaky. ‘It’s OK, Dad, don’t worry. The car has gone to be mended, that’s all. It’ll be back later.’

‘Oh. I didn’t remember. Thank you, silly me …’ He broke off then and had a coughing fit. She wasn’t sure he even heard her when she promised to come in and see him soon. The carer came back on the line and ended the call.

That cough sounded nasty. Merry chewed her lip. She really wanted to go and see him, give him some reassurance, but with her own health in jeopardy, even she could see that it wasn’t wise.

‘Come on,’ said Astrid, patting her knee. ‘Show me this home of yours.’

‘Home sweet home,’ Merry said, giving herself a shake. She gazed up at the front bedroom which would soon have her, Cole and the new baby sleeping in it. ‘Or it will be before long.’

‘It is a nice feeling,’ Astrid agreed, wistfully, ‘to find somewhere you belong.’

‘Apart from mine and Mum’s little flat where I spent the first few years of my life, I’ve never experienced home in the true sense. But maybe I will here.’

Astrid reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘You know, you have already put down roots in Wetherley and established yourself among a community in which people care for you. You don’t need a house to achieve those things.’

‘I know that. As soon as I fell in love with Cole, I felt as if I’d come home. But I want more for this baby,’ she said, glancing down at her bump. ‘This house will be its sanctuary. A place to feel safe and to always know love. I want this house to be a constant in my child’s life, somewhere he or she knows they can always return to, always be welcome.’

‘You want your baby to have what you didn’t,’ Astrid summed it up perfectly. ‘That’s natural.’

‘A forever home,’ Merry murmured under her breath, her eyes roaming over Meadow View, so named because of the vista across the fields at the rear. ‘I can’t imagine ever wanting to leave.’

‘Can I tell you something?’ Astrid lowered her voice.

‘Of course,’ said Merry.

‘It’s about Germany.’ She gripped Merry’s hand with her other one so that Merry’s fingers were sandwiched between hers.

Long artistic fingers, Merry had always thought. Though Astrid had retired from teaching two decades ago, she still loved to be creative and always had oil paint under her fingernails. How often had Astrid held her hands to comfort her over the years, she wondered? From the days of art classes when Merry had to call her Miss Beckermann, through her early years of living independently after the care system had spat her out into the world at eighteen. And through the many ups and downs of life ever since. Astrid had always been there for her.

‘I made my home in England forty years ago. And for the last thirty of those, I don’t think I’ve thought about ever living in Germany again.’

‘But now?’ Merry’s heart began to pound. She wasn’t thinking of leaving, was she? Astrid had been a touchstone of advice and support and love for so long. Merry couldn’t contemplate not having her in her life.

‘I’m conflicted.’ Astrid shook her head, her gaze drifted and Merry sensed that her thoughts were hundreds of miles away in the forests of Bavaria.

‘Before receiving this inheritance, I felt as if I had nothing to link me to my home country. My family is all gone. But now a strange thing has happened.’ She tapped a hand on her chest. ‘It feels as if home is calling me.’

‘And?’ Merry prompted. ‘Are you thinking of answering that call?’

Her old friend sighed. ‘I’m torn. Fred would not want to live in Germany. His home is here, and his family of course.’

‘I can only imagine what it feels like for your heart to yearn for a particular place. I hope that one day I’ll feel that way about this house, once I have raised a family here. I guess you have to decide whether it’s more important for your home to be with the people you love or in the place that you feel connected to.’

Astrid smiled weakly. ‘A lot to think about, and thank goodness I have your husband to give me his peas of wisdom.’

‘I think you mean pearls,’ Merry smiled.

‘ Genau . Exactly. So,’ she said, nodding to the house. ‘Enough of me, today is about you and your home.’

Merry made a mental note to bring this subject up again. Of course, Astrid should move back to Germany if that was what she truly wanted. There was something lovely about returning back to your roots; the full circle of life, she supposed. But after forty years? Surely it was better to stay here, where she already had a full life, surrounded by people who loved her? And, selfishly, Merry wanted Astrid to have the role of grandmother that nobody else could come close to fulfilling.

‘It has such a nice face, don’t you think?’ Merry said, drinking in her new home.

It was a substantial symmetrical house built from yellow stone, twin-fronted with bay windows flanking the porch. Above, three slender Gothic arches formed the bedroom windows either side and a smaller version sat directly over the front entrance. The pitch of the roof was steep, hiding wonderful attic space which Merry intended to use to create a grown-up room for Harley. There were four chimneys in total, one on each corner, all with slightly different brickwork, which always made her think of Mary Poppins for some reason, and her favourite feature was the run of lacy white wooden fascia boards which finished off the perimeter of the roofline like bunting.

‘A lovely welcoming face,’ Astrid agreed, turning off the engine.

‘I knew you would understand.’ Merry smiled at her. ‘Cole can’t see a face at all. He sees bricks which are difficult to match, mortar which needs repointing and roof tiles which have slipped.’

‘And that is why you two make a good team.’ Astrid leaned behind her seat to collect her bag. ‘Now, you sit there until I open your door, the ground is icy, and I do not want to have to scrape you up off the ground.’

Merry decided to do as she was told for once. She’d agreed with Cole that she wouldn’t go into Merry and Bright today, and she had promised that she wouldn’t drive anywhere on her own. But as long as she was careful, she didn’t see what harm a trip to the new house would do, especially if she was accompanied by Astrid.

‘We’re so close to being ready to move in. One last big push and …’ She held on to her friend’s arm and took a couple of steps towards the house when she realised something was missing and frowned. ‘Oh. There are no vans here.’

‘Lunch break, perhaps?’ Astrid suggested.

‘They usually bring food with them and eat here.’

Once inside, it was clear that none of the workmen had been there all day. There were no tools left out, no obvious work in progress.

Merry went from room to room downstairs, taking in the exposed brickwork on the internal walls where the plaster had been stripped off. ‘I don’t understand,’ she murmured. ‘These should all have been plastered by now.’

Upstairs, Astrid was shouting down to her about the incredible light and how she would be able to see both sunsets and sunrises from up there.

But Merry wasn’t listening, she was calling Cole.

‘Darling, I’m at Meadow View and there is no one on site,’ she said without preamble.

‘What are you doing at the house?’ Cole exclaimed. ‘There are trip hazards everywhere, Merry. Please go home.’

‘I’m fine. Astrid is with me,’ she said defiantly.

‘What did the midwife say?’

Pip had paid her a house visit this morning after hearing about her trip to the hospital and had made Merry promise to call her night or day if anything untoward were to happen between now and her induction date.

‘Baby’s heartbeat fine, blood pressure stable, temperature normal, so nothing to worry about, I promise. Cole, there is not a plasterer in sight. I thought I should let you know.’

‘I already knew. The plasterers aren’t there because I cancelled them for this week.’

‘What?’ She was horrified. ‘Why would you do that? It’s three weeks until Christmas. You said we needed to leave it as long as possible to decorate after plastering to give it time to dry out.’

‘We do,’ Cole replied. ‘But the walls can’t be plastered until the first fix of the electrics has been done.’

‘Oh.’ Merry was confused. How had the schedule slipped so far without her knowing about it? ‘So why hasn’t that been done?’

‘Well, um, long story.’

She could almost hear him squirming from across town. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Because they had to do another job.’

‘That is not on,’ she fumed. ‘Call them up and tell them they’re in breach of contract. We’ll fire them and get someone else.’

‘Darling,’ Cole cleared his throat. ‘You’ve done a fantastic job designing the kitchen, the bathroom layout and selecting colour schemes for the bedrooms.’

‘Except that none of that can be finished off yet,’ she countered. ‘Because the walls aren’t plastered.’

‘I know, I know. But the building work is my area, please leave it to me to sort.’

She looked around her kitchen; there were wires protruding from the walls and ceiling, pipes in place in preparation for the sink to go in, drains for the dishwasher … it was a building site, there were no other words for it. Her plan to be in before the baby came felt like a pipe dream.

‘I have left it to you,’ she argued, her hand rubbing her bump automatically. ‘Until now. But we’re running out of time. One of us needs to get shirty with them, and if you won’t, I will. A heavily pregnant woman is a very scary prospect.’

‘I know, believe me. OK, fine!’ She heard him draw in a breath. ‘We can’t fire them because the other job they are on is for me. I’ve got a client desperate to be in for … in for …’ His voice petered out as presumably he realised the massive hole he’d dug for himself. ‘Christmas.’

She was so angry that for a few seconds she couldn’t speak. ‘You deliberately took them off our job to make someone’s Christmas moving-in plans a reality? I don’t believe it. Cole, what were you thinking?’

‘Merry—’

She didn’t wait to hear his excuse, she cut the call and stared at the dead phone. He’d made her a promise and now he’d broken it. She felt completely let down. And this was why no one, not even her darling husband, could be relied on – no one but herself.