Home for Christmas

Chapter 17

I had discovered that one of the most valuable skills to develop to ensure a life was well lived was fine-tuning the art of processing, by which I meant carefully digesting both the good and the bad. If something joyful happened, then celebrating to mark the occasion would make it even more unforgettable. If something tragic occurred, then leaning into the emotions as they surfaced would pay dividends for well-balanced mental health in the long run.

I wasn’t sure which category Jude’s departure fell into, but I was determined, after I’d heard him close the house door for the last time, that I was going to be kind to myself when it came to dealing with him flitting back out of my life as speedily as he’d landed in it.

I might have now been able to get back into the house and put the decs up, and I might have been almost convinced that my feelings for Jude had started to ebb away, but I wasn’t going to deny that I had felt them. Properly felt them, which was something completely unique for me and therefore warranted the time I was willing to allow myself to comprehensively move on. Taking my time over moving back downstairs, as opposed to rushing to do it, was doubtless going to facilitate that, and that was what I decided to do.

‘Come on, then, Tink,’ I said, once I’d dressed, eaten breakfast and felt ready to face whatever awaited me on the rearranging and cleaning front downstairs. ‘Let’s tread lightly, with just a little bit of housekeeping to kick things off.’

Just as Jude had said, there was nothing to do beyond what I would usually do on a regular housework day, and he really had followed my requests in the handbook to the letter. I couldn’t deny that I felt something stir when I swept up the bed linen and it smelled intensely of him, but I bundled it all into the machine and set it on a hot wash, then opened all of the windows to let the cold winter air rush through and take the last traces of his seductive, masculine scent away with it.

By the end of the day, I’d returned the house to the exact condition it had been in when Jude had rolled up earlier than expected a few weeks ago. It wasn’t Christmas-ready, but it was once again back to how I preferred it either side of the seasonal celebration – colourful and just on the right side of full up.

There was now room to manoeuvre in the hall again, too, with my work boxes dotted about the rooms where I wanted them. Looking around, it was as though the last month had never happened. Well, that was what I kept telling myself – and was still telling myself when someone knocked at the front door.

I knew I hadn’t quite succeeded in making myself believe it when I rushed to answer the door, immediately thinking (and secretly hoping) that it was Jude coming back for some unfathomable reason. Clearly more processing time was needed.

‘I’ve got a parcel for Bella Bailey,’ said a delivery guy I hadn’t met before. ‘I was going to just leave it in the porch, but I saw the car on the drive and wanted to say how lovely your lights look. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Oh,’ I said, looking at my and Jude’s handiwork and feeling a pang over our one and only kiss, ‘no, I don’t mind at all. Thank you so much.’

I was truly touched that the guy, who doubtless had a van stuffed full of parcels, had taken the time to tell me that.

‘My daughter would love these,’ he added, pointing at the fairies. ‘She’s fairy mad.’

‘Actually,’ I said proudly, ‘I made those myself.’

‘You’re not “Away with the Fairies” Bella, by any chance, are you?’ he surprised me by asking.

‘Yes,’ I laughed, thinking that that description was currently right in more ways than one. ‘That’s me.’

He nodded and smiled as he pulled out his phone.

‘My little Victoria takes this everywhere with her,’ he said, showing me a photo of a little girl dressed in tulle and carrying a fairy I recognized from a collection I’d made earlier in the year. ‘She won’t believe it when I tell her I’ve met you. You’ve made my day.’

‘And you’ve made mine,’ I told him. ‘Give Victoria my love, won’t you?’

‘I call her Plum.’ He smiled again, this time handing me the parcel I couldn’t remember ordering. ‘I’ll tell her you know her name now, and she’ll think that’s magic.’

‘Thank you!’ I called after him, before ushering Tink back inside with the biggest smile on my face.

When I walked back into the house, I realized how cold it was and quickly closed the windows before opening the parcel. There wasn’t so much as a lingering hint of Jude now, and I knew that was for the best. At least, there hadn’t been any hint of him until I opened the parcel.

The contents made my heart lurch.

‘Saw this and thought of you,’ I whispered, swallowing over the lump which had formed in my throat as I opened the novelty kitchen timer and read the accompanying note.

It wasn’t a chicken-shaped one like Jude’s nan had had, but a plump and very jolly-looking Father Christmas, complete with shiny red nose and big white, bushy beard. It was perfect and I loved it. I set it on the kitchen worktop next to where the hot chocolate station would be going and glanced over at the clock.

I wondered if Jude was still with the Connellys at Wynthorpe Hall. If I set off immediately, I might just be able to catch him and thank him for the timer in person. I lunged for my keys, then realized how ridiculous that would look, chasing after someone when we’d already said goodbye.

‘Come on, Tink,’ I said, putting the keys down again and attempting to further close the space in my heart that Jude had started to fill, ‘let’s go and get ready to watch the Muppets.’

It did feel a little strange watching the film and reading A Christmas Carol upstairs in the apartment, but I had decided I wouldn’t move properly into the house until I’d put the majority of the decorations up the next day. However, when I climbed out of bed on Monday morning, having spent the night tossing and turning, I realized that I wasn’t going to enjoy decorating the rooms because of a worry that had landed in my head during the long, dark hours. The Wynthorpe Hall Festive Fair was happening at the weekend, and I was beginning to feel stressed about my stock levels because they were running low again.

Knowing a call from Mum was imminent, I messaged and told her I was going to be working all day so could she ring another time, and I also reassured her that she no longer had to worry about me falling for my temporary lodger and getting my heart broken because nothing further had happened between us and he’d left now anyway.

‘Let’s have a quick trip around the block,’ I said to Tink, who was thrilled with the prospect of an early walk, ‘and then it’s down to work.’

Having the house to spread out and work in made a huge difference to my output, and even though I was still making one fairy at a time, it meant I could have all of the components lined up and arranged as I needed them, which sped the whole process up considerably. By late afternoon, I could see I was almost back to the fairy numbers I wanted to have, and if I set aside a few hours each day during the rest of the week to make more, I’d soon have enough.

It would have been useful to know the exact size of the stand I was going to be assigned at the weekend and, as Angus still hadn’t let me know and because he was hard to pin down on the telephone, I decided that a quick run out to the hall was more than justified. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it was the last place in the area that Jude had been, because that would have been ridiculous.

I’d thought about him a couple of times during the day, but not obsessively. He hadn’t responded to the thank you for the timer message I’d sent to his mobile, so I guessed he wasn’t obsessing over or missing me, either.

‘Oh, Bella,’ said Dorothy, an unusual frown etched deeply across her brow when she let me and Tink in via the hall’s kitchen door. ‘We wondered if you might call in at some point. Come in out of the cold, love.’

Tink scampered ahead and quickly joined her friends in the basket in front of the Aga.

‘Can I offer you something to eat?’ Dorothy asked, whipping my coat away almost before I’d shrugged it off. ‘I daresay you got nothing there, did you?’

I didn’t have time to answer before Catherine and Angus came in, and they both looked concerned, too. What was going on?

‘Did they let you in?’ Catherine asked me, wringing her hands.

‘They wouldn’t let me in,’ Angus said grumpily. ‘I’m not sure if it was really because I’m not a relative or because I’d previously had a run-in with the—’

‘Will you let the girl speak?’ Catherine cut in.

Angus looked chastened and sat down.

‘How did you find him?’ she asked me more gently.

I looked between the three of them, wondering what on earth they were referring to.

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I frowned. ‘I’ve just called in to ask Angus what size table he’s assigned me for the fair at the weekend.’

‘It was listed in the notes I emailed,’ he told me.

‘I haven’t had an email,’ I said, shrugging.

‘Oh, Angus,’ Dorothy tutted.

‘As it turns out, I don’t think this fiasco is down to Angus,’ Catherine responded, taking both Dorothy and me by surprise.

‘I absolutely did send them,’ he insisted.

‘I know you did,’ Catherine said with a nod.

‘So where has the information got to?’ Dorothy asked.

‘I’ve just spoken to Jamie, and he reckons we must have had a Wi-Fi hiatus, which meant some of the emails didn’t send,’ Catherine carried on. ‘Or something like that, anyway. You’re not the first stallholder to get in touch, Bella, and I daresay you won’t be the last. From what I can gather, potentially half of the list didn’t go out. Jamie is going to send the notes to everyone again.’

‘But you did pick up the message I left on your phone last night, didn’t you?’ Angus asked me.

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I haven’t had a message from you, Angus. Or anyone else, for that matter.’

‘On your mobile,’ he said more seriously. ‘Not the house phone.’

I unlocked my phone and checked my messages, just to be doubly sure.

‘No,’ I said, ‘there’s nothing. Why? What’s happened?’

I wished they’d hurry up and tell me, because the looks on all of their faces suggested that it wasn’t going to be good news.

‘You said you’d let Bella know!’ said Catherine, snatching Angus’s phone up from the table and scrutinising the screen. ‘You’ve messaged Bunty,’ she said, almost grinding the words out. ‘You messaged Bunty instead of Bella .’

‘Oh dear,’ said Angus, plunging a hand into his already messy hair. ‘Their names must be next to each other on my contact list. Whyever hasn’t Bunty responded?’

‘Because she hardly ever looks at her phone,’ said Catherine, thrusting Angus’s mobile into his hands. ‘And she probably couldn’t work out how to reply, even if she wanted to.’

Any desire Catherine had previously felt to shift the blame over the unsent emails disappeared in view of this latest blunder, whatever it related to.

‘Never mind Bunty,’ Dorothy said impatiently. ‘Don’t you think you’d better tell Bella now?’

‘Yes,’ I said, pulling out a chair and sitting heavily on it. ‘I wish you would. I’m starting to panic. What is it? What’s happened?’

‘It’s Jude.’ Catherine swallowed, clasping her hands together again. ‘He left here quite late last night and was involved in a car accident.’

My heart suddenly felt like it was going to burst out of my ribcage.

‘I thought I’d left you a message explaining what had happened,’ said Angus, sounding upset, ‘and that you had come here to tell us how you found him at the hospital.’

‘Oh my god,’ I gasped. ‘No, I haven’t been to see him, because I had no idea what had happened. Has he been badly hurt?’

‘We don’t know for sure,’ said Catherine, ‘but he’s in the local hospital rather than King’s Lynn or Peterborough, so he can’t be that bad.’

‘From what we can make out, he’d stopped on the road to let some deer cross,’ said Dorothy, furnishing me with the few details they had cobbled together, ‘but there was a car either heading towards him or approaching from behind that was going too fast, and it was that that lost control and ploughed into Jude’s car.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ I said, feeling both sick and faint as I imagined the scene in all its terrifying detail. ‘Whyever didn’t you keep ringing until I picked up, Angus?’ I demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, sounding desperate. ‘I wish I had now.’

‘So do I,’ said Catherine bluntly.

‘So who let you know?’ I asked, wondering why no one else had been in touch.

If Tim, or even one of his mates, had been on duty at the fire station, then surely he would have told Jeanie, who would have then called me.

‘It was Jake from Skylark Farm,’ said Dorothy. ‘I don’t think it happened all that far from his place, and he got caught up in the rescue traffic on his way home from town. A couple of the deer were injured, too, and sadly had to be…’

‘I see,’ I said shakily as her words trailed off.

I felt desperately sorry for the deer and didn’t like the sound of there having been rescue traffic. That hinted at carnage rather than a shunt or slight prang.

‘Here,’ said Catherine, spooning sugar into a cup, then adding tea. ‘Drink this, Bella. Your hands are shaking.’

‘I’ll make a fresh pot,’ said Dorothy, whisking the teapot away. ‘That one must be stewed by now.’

‘I feel a bit foolish for reacting like this,’ I said, looking at my hands as my lip began to tremble.

‘Well, you shouldn’t,’ Angus said softly. ‘From what Jude told us, we know you’d grown very fond of each other.’

I wondered what he had told them.

‘So,’ I said unsteadily, ‘he’s been in the hospital all night and for the whole of today and had no one with him.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Angus. ‘Unless the hospital has managed to track down Jude’s family. That is, assuming he has any. We never talked about his private life.’

I didn’t think it would be very likely that he’d want his parents there, but then he might not have been in a state to say either way. I wished we knew what injuries he’d sustained and how bad they were.

‘I wish I’d lied about being related to the dear boy now when I went to the hospital,’ Angus carried on, making a wish of his own as I jumped up. ‘I might have actually got on the ward then.’

‘Until the ward sister spotted you,’ Dorothy said, sniffing. ‘Unfortunately, your reputation for hospital hijinks precedes you, Angus.’

‘I need to go,’ I said, reaching for my coat. ‘I’ll pretend I’m a relative. They’ll have to let me in then.’

Angus shook his head.

‘It’s too late now,’ Catherine said, with a nod to the clock. ‘It’s gone eight, and that’s the cut-off on the wards. They’re sticklers for keeping to the visiting hours.’

‘And if that ruddy old ward sister is still on shift…’ Angus muttered, but he was silenced by another stern look from his wife. She usually bore his madcap behaviour and mistakes with good grace, but this had clearly pushed her patience with him to the very end of its limits.

‘But these are exceptional circumstances,’ I said urgently. ‘Poor Jude hasn’t had a soul with him for twenty-four hours.’

Dorothy returned the teapot to the table.

‘I daresay everyone thinks their circumstances are exceptional, Bella,’ she said softly.

She was right, of course.

‘What if I telephone the hospital instead?’ I suggested eagerly. ‘I’ll say I’m Jude’s partner and that I’ve only just received the message about the accident.’

‘You’ll be lucky if you get anyone on the ward to pick up,’ Angus pointed out.

‘The staff are always rushed off their feet,’ Catherine sighed. ‘They haven’t got time to answer telephone queries from relatives, genuine or otherwise.’

I felt bad for suggesting it.

‘In that case,’ I said, ‘I’ll be ready for the start of visiting hours in the morning.’

‘It’s from ten o’clock, I think,’ said Angus.

‘I’ll be there at nine forty-five, then,’ I said firmly.

I couldn’t bear the thought of Jude being on his own in the hospital, no matter what state he was in.

‘Why don’t you leave Tink here tonight?’ Catherine suggested kindly. ‘That way, you won’t have to worry about how long you’re going to leave her for at yours. And once you’ve seen Jude, you can come back here and fill us in and have a meal with us.’

‘That’s an excellent idea,’ Dorothy agreed. ‘I’ll make it a moveable feast, so it won’t matter what time you get here, there’ll be something for you to tuck into.’

‘And I can come with you to the hospital, if you like,’ Angus offered.

Given that he’d already hinted that he’d had cross words with the nursing staff, I didn’t think his presence would be any help at all, but it was kind of him to offer.

‘Yes, please, to Tink staying,’ I said, ‘but no to you coming with me, Angus.’

He nodded resignedly.

‘As I’m already in town and halfway there, I might as well go in on my own,’ I added, trying to make him feel better.

I knew the message he’d muddled would still be playing on his mind and didn’t want him feeling bad now that I did finally know what had happened.

‘You can help Jamie double-check that all the stallholders have got the notes they need ahead of the fair at the weekend, Angus,’ Catherine said decisively. ‘That will be a much better use of your time.’

‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘We’ll leave Jude to Bella, then. I’m sure he’ll be much happier in her capable hands.’