Last Christmas
Julia Williams

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Julia Williams 2009

Julia Williams asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9781847560865

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007343751

Version: 2018-06-27

Dedication

For Ann Moffatt and Rosemarie Williams, Granny Dreamboats both.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Part One I Gave You My Heart

Last Year December 22

This Year Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Part Two You Gave it Away

Last Year December 23

This Year Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Part Three To Save Me From Tears

Last Year December 24

This Year Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Part Four Someone Special

Last Year December 24/25

This Year Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Christmas Tips

Excerpt: A Merry Little Christmas

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

Prologue

Marianne sat back in the comfort of Luke’s brand new BMW M5. Every inch of its sleek leather interior screamed luxury, while the latest technogizmos pronounced its top-of-the-range, worthy-of-praise-from-Jeremy-Clarkson status. She glanced at Luke, who oozed confidence with practised ease as he drove with one hand on the wheel. Marianne sighed happily…

‘What?’ he said, laughing at her.

‘Just pinching myself,’ she replied. ‘I still can’t believe all this is real.’

‘You are daft,’ said Luke grinning, before he accelerated into the wind.

It wasn’t the first time she’d had to pinch herself since she and Luke had got together. His charm and looks had entranced her from the start, even though she had felt thoroughly out of his orbit. In fact, Luke was so far removed from the sort of man she tended to fall for, the strength of her feelings had taken her by surprise. But there was something mesmerising about the combination of hazel-brown eyes and fair hair, which swept back off a strong, classical-looking face.

Under normal circumstances Marianne would never have met someone like Luke, but, thanks to Marianne’s two rich friends, Carly and Lisa, who still seemed to earn ridiculous amounts of money in the City, even with the credit crunch, she had found herself on a skiing trip during February half term. Her teacher’s salary wouldn’t usually have stretched to that, but at the last minute Carly had pulled out and generously donated her space to Marianne, who then spent a dizzyingly intoxicating week hitting the slopes and revelling in an après-ski environment she could hardly have imagined being part of in her normal life.

She’d met Luke on the first day when, overcome with nerves, she’d fallen flat on her back in front of a group of more experienced skiers. Their laughter hadn’t been unkind, but Marianne was already feeling like a fish out of water in the company of these sophisticated beautiful people. She was so far removed from her own world, and they knew it. Now she felt that she’d proved herself for the ugly-duckling klutz she undoubtedly appeared to them.

Luke was the only one who hadn’t laughed. Instead, he’d swept her up in those strong arms and offered to teach her to ski. Throughout that week he’d treated her with tenderness and affection, combined with infinite amounts of patience at her obvious lack of skiing ability. Marianne had been hugely grateful for his kindness. The fact that Luke was incredibly good looking, charming and clearly fancied the pants off her had also been a great help. He made her feel like a graceful swan, even though she knew the ugly duckling was hidden away somewhere, underneath the ski gear. Being with him was a magical, dazzling, life-changing experience.

Since then, Marianne felt like her feet hadn’t touched the ground as Luke whisked her into a world so completely alien to her own. He took her to Henley for the Regatta, to Wimbledon for Finals Day, to Silverstone for the Grand Prix, for weekends away in the country at exquisite hotels where she felt like a film star. Every day with Luke was an adventure, but today he had surpassed all her expectations.

He’d rung the previous night. ‘Fancy a weekend at my parents’ place in the country?’ had been his opening gambit. Marianne’s heart had leaped with anticipation. With Luke it was always feast or famine—he was either frantically busy at the weekends, or impulsively spiriting her off somewhere exciting. Which was wonderful but sometimes Marianne wished they could put their relationship on a bit more of an even footing.

Did this mean that finally he was going to introduce her to his family? He’d met her parents twice now. She’d been nervous as hell on both occasions, but Luke was his usual charming self, and professed himself delighted by Marianne’s rather tame suburban home. Her parents had been charmed, and her mum, who was desperate for grandchildren, had to be restrained on at least one occasion from asking outright when Luke was going to join the family.

Marianne had expected a reciprocal invitation, but so far it had been unforthcoming. Luke, it seemed, was happy to meet her family, but evasive about his own. She knew he’d got money, knew he worked for the family firm in property development—‘building eco towns’ was how he put it—but, apart from that, the crumbs of information he’d scattered had been few and far between. Perhaps if she weren’t so dazzled by his brightness, she would have asked more questions earlier. Besides, if he wanted to tell her things, she surmised, he would. She didn’t want to pry.

They were driving through winding country lanes, the late summer sun warming the car and casting long shadows on fields ripe with corn and bursting with abundance. Cows wandered contentedly through fields, and birds sang in hedgerows. It was the countryside of her dreams. Of her imagination. As a child Marianne had been obsessed with stories about children having adventures in the countryside: The Famous Five, Swallows and Amazons, the Lone Pine Club all seemed to lead much more exciting lives than she did in the dull North London suburb that she called home. Marianne’s favourite television programmes, The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie, provided further confirmation that her ideal future involved a cosy country cottage, being married to a man who adored her, having several rosy-faced children and, of course, heaps of animals. Their square handkerchief of a garden not allowing for pets, Marianne had been determined to make up for that as an adult.

Growing up in a grey London street, Marianne had always felt stifled and hemmed in by the city. She was never happier than when she was out on a long country walk, breathing in the fresh air and feeling at the mercy of the elements. It had long been her dream to live somewhere like this.

‘This is fabulous,’Marianne said.‘What a wonderful place to live.’

‘It’s okay, I suppose,’ said Luke dismissively. ‘But I get a bit bored being a country bumpkin.’

‘Really?’ Marianne was incredulous. She couldn’t understand why anyone coming from here would ever think about leaving.

‘Nearly there now,’ said Luke, manoeuvring the car round an incredibly slow tractor, before putting his foot down and racing through the lanes at an exhilarating speed. The wind whipped back her hair and the sun shone bright on her back. It felt fantastic to be alive.

And then, suddenly, there it was. They came round a bend, and there before them, in the middle of a vast lawn—across which peacocks were wandering—was an imposing Tudor house, complete with two wings, Elizabethan towers, black and white timbering and pretty gables. Marianne felt her jaw drop. Finally she was seeing Hopesay Manor, home to the Nicholas family for generations, and where Marianne’s future might lie.

‘This is the family home?’ she squeaked.

Luke glanced across at her in amusement.

‘Didn’t I say?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Marianne. She’d imagined Luke living in a huge house, of course. But she’d thought it would be a rockstar kind of house, with its own pool and tennis court in the back garden. But this, this was a mansion. Vast didn’t quite cover it.

‘Well, it’s not technically where I grew up. My parents have a pad a bit closer to Hope Christmas. Hopesay belongs to my grandfather. Not that he’s here much. Silly old sod still insists on globetrotting, even at his age. I don’t think he’s been back here for more than a day or two for years.’

Luke said this with unaccustomed savagery and Marianne was taken aback by his sudden vehemence.

‘Don’t you get on with your grandfather?’

Luke smiled. ‘Oh, the old bugger’s okay, I suppose. He’s just a bit blinkered about the way the world works these days. Insists we have duties to our people, as he puts it. He likes to think we live in some bygone feudal age, when everyone doffs their cap to Sir. He can’t see the world’s changed.’

‘What does he think about your eco towns then?’

‘He doesn’t know anything about them,’ admitted Luke. ‘I’m the only one interested in the business side of things in this family. My mum and dad are more into playing bridge and drinking G&Ts than anything else. They’re pretty shortsighted too. I run the show in his absence. If he doesn’t like the way I do things he should turn up at board meetings more.’

He swept the car into the circular gravel drive in front of the house and they got out and crunched their way up the path to the house. The large oak door was about twelve foot high and looked immensely imposing. Marianne could just about make out an inscription carved in stone above the door. Something about being happy and owing it to God.

‘What does it say?’ she asked, squinting up to try and see better.

‘Oh, nothing important.’ Luke dismissed her question with a careless wave, and lifted the brass door knocker and banged it really hard. That, too, was unusual, Marianne noted, as it seemed to depict a man—or was it a man?—wearing some kind of long robe and crushing a serpent underneath his feet. Marianne wanted to ask but, put off by Luke’s evident lack of interest in anything remotely connected to the house, she fell silent. Luke impatiently banged the knocker again, and eventually a rather dusty-looking retainer, who could have been any age from fifty to a hundred, came and opened the door.

‘Ah, Mr Luke, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while.’

‘Hello, Humphrey,’ said Luke. ‘This is my friend, Marianne.’Why doesn’t he say girlfriend,Marianne thought, with a disappointed lurch of her heart. ‘I just thought I’d show her round the old pad before we go to see the folks.’

Humphrey nodded, and disappeared somewhere into the bowels of the house, while Marianne stood and looked at the vast hallway in awe. Compared to the suburban London semi that she called home, this was massive. The hallway was panelled in dark oak, and pictures of people in old-fashioned dress lined the stairs, which swept upwards to an imposing landing above. The black and white tiled marble floor echoed as she walked on it. She felt fantastically overexposed in such a huge space. Marianne’s stomach contracted. This was so different from where she grew up. How could she possibly ever fit in here? Surely now Luke had her on his home territory it was only a matter of time before he saw it too?

‘Jeez, it’s dark in here,’ said Luke, and opened some shutters to let in the evening light. Motes danced in the beams cast by the setting sun, dazzling Marianne as she stood, silently drinking it in.

‘Well, what do you think?’ said Luke.

‘It’s fantastic,’ murmured Marianne.

He drew her to him, and her heart thumped erratically as he kissed her on the lips. Marianne felt a familiar flutter in her stomach. She had never desired someone as strongly as she desired Luke. It terrified her how much she wanted him. Suppose he didn’t want her as much?

‘There’s a four-poster in the master bedroom,’ he said mischievously.

‘We can’t,’ she protested. ‘Not here.’

‘There’s no one here but us,’ said Luke. ‘Who’s to know?’

‘Er—your butler?’ She went out with a man who had a butler? This felt so surreal. Any minute she was going to wake up.

‘He won’t say anything. Besides, he’s as deaf as a post so you can be as noisy as you like,’ said Luke, with a grin on his face that was impossible to resist.

He dragged her giggling by the hand up the stairs, pointing out various ancestors en route: ‘The original Ralph Nicholas, went with Richard I to the Holy Land; Gabriel Nicholas, hid in the priest hole under Edward VI and lived to tell the tale; Ralph II saved Charles II at the battle of Worcester, nada, nada, nada…’

‘How can you be so dismissive?’ said Marianne. ‘I mean, in my family the height of historical interest is the time when Great Aunt Maud stood next to George VI at Windsor Park. I come from a noble line of labourers and serfs. This is…just…incredible. I’d love to have this kind of ancestry.’

‘You wouldn’t if you knew my family,’ said Luke, with a grimace.‘With power comes responsibility,manners maketh the man. We have a duty of care. We even have a Latin family motto, Servimus liberi liberi quia diligimus, which translates as: “Freely we serve, because we freely love”. Having that shoved down your throat from birth is pretty stifling.’

‘Oh,’ exclaimed Marianne. They had come to the landing, and Luke flung open the window shutters to reveal a landscaped lawn complete with fountains, walled gardens and, in the background, a deer park. ‘This is amazing. You’re so lucky.’

‘I am lucky—to have found you,’ he said, and her heart skipped a sudden beat. This was why she was with him. For the way he looked at her as if she was the only woman in the world. For the way he made her feel so incredibly special. All her doubts and anxieties disappeared as Luke took her hand and knelt down. ‘I wasn’t going to do this now, but seeing you here looking so incredibly sexy, I can’t resist.’

Oh my God, Marianne thought, was he going to…?

‘Hang on, I’ve forgotten something…’ Luke ran over to a set of curtains which was lying in a corner and unhooked a curtain ring. He came running back, fell back down on his knee, and said, ‘Now, where were we?’

Marianne stood motionless as he kissed her hand, slipped the curtain ring onto her engagement finger, and said, ‘Marianne Moore, will you marry me?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. She didn’t have to think for a second; this was what she’d wanted her whole life, to be with a man she loved and live in a wonderful place like this. ‘Yes, of course I will.’ And suddenly she was in his arms, and they were running through the house shrieking with delight.

A sudden slam of the door brought them both to their senses.

‘What was that?’ said Marianne.

A bell rang impatiently from the hall, and they ran to the banisters to look down.

A smallish, elderly, dapper man stood in the hallway looking rather cross.

‘Grandfather?’ Luke’s face was a picture of shock and dismay.

‘Luke, my boy, is that you?’ the man said. ‘I can see I haven’t come home a moment too soon.’

Part OneI Gave You My Heart

Last YearDecember 22

Sainsbury’s was heaving. Catherine, already feeling hypocritical that she was here at all, felt her heart sink as she saw the hordes of people ravaging through the supermarket, frantically grabbing things from the shelves as if they were in the last-chance saloon and they might never have the chance to shop again. For God’s sake, she felt like saying, as she saw people staggering past with trolleys full to the brim with hams and turkeys, mince pies and brandy butter, and the inevitable bottles of booze, it’s not like we’re all going to starve, is it? Then she berated herself. After all, she was here too, wasn’t she?

But only for the necessary items, things she’d forgotten, like brandy butter and Christmas pud. Mum had promised to make both, but uncharacteristically for her had forgotten, so Catherine was grumpily facing the seething hordes, all of whom looked as miserable as she felt. She wondered if she should give up and try and make them herself. It’s what the bloody Happy Homemaker was always telling people to do.

No, Cat, she admonished herself. There were still presents to wrap, a turkey to defrost, vegetables to prepare, a house to make ready for the guests (and one which would unscramble itself as fast as she tidied)—she really didn’t have time to make a Christmas pudding. Not even that one from her Marguerite Patten cookbook, which could actually be made the day before. The Happy Homemaker could go stuff herself.

‘That sounds like an eminently sensible idea to me.’ A little old man in his seventies, wearing a smart gabardine coat, doffed his hat to her as he walked past with a basket under his arm.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Cat looked at the man in astonishment. She must have been wittering on to herself again. She had a bad habit of doing that in supermarkets.

‘I was just observing that you could for once let yourself off the hook,’ said the man. ‘Christmas isn’t all about perfection, you know.’

‘Oh, but it is,’ said Catherine, ‘and this is going to be the most perfect Christmas ever.’

‘Well, I certainly hope so,’ said the man. ‘I wish you a very happy and peaceful Christmas.’ And with that he was gone, disappearing into the crowd while Catherine was left pondering how on earth a complete stranger seemed to know so much about her. How very, very odd.

Catherine took a deep breath and ploughed her trolley into the fray. Christmas muzak was pumping out, presumably to get her into the spirit of the thing. Not much chance of that, when she had felt all Christmassed out for months. Bugger off, she felt like shouting as a particularly cheesy version of ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ blared out. Look at all these people. Do any of them look bloody merry?

Christmas seemed to start earlier and earlier every year, and, now she had children in three different schools, Catherine had been obliged to sit through as many Christmas performances (one year she really was going to get Noel to come to one of these things if it killed her), which varied from the sweet but haphazard (her four-year-old’s star turn as a donkey), through the completely incomprehensible (the seven and nine-year-olds’ inclusive Nativity, which had somehow managed to encompass Diwali, Eid and Hanukkah—an impressive feat, she had to admit), to the minimalist and experimental concert put on at the secondary school her eleven-year-old had just started. One of the reasons Catherine had wanted a large family was so she could have the big family Christmas she’d always missed out on by being an only child. Catherine had always imagined that she’d love attending her children’s carol concerts, not find them a huge chore. And no one told her how much work it would be preparing Christmas for a family of six, let alone all the hangers-on who always seemed to migrate her way, like so many homing pigeons, on Christmas Day.

‘Next year, remind me to emigrate,’ Catherine murmured to herself, as she propelled herself through the mince pie section. Bloody hell. Once upon a time people had bought (or most likely made) mince pies. Now Sainsbury’s had a whole section devoted to them: luxury mince pies, mince pies with brandy, mince pies with sherry, deep-filled, fat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, probably mince-free for all she knew. The world had gone mad.

‘Me too.’ The woman browsing the shelves next to her gave a wry laugh in sympathy. She looked at Catherine curiously. Oh God, no…

‘Aren’t you—?’

‘Yes,’ sighed Catherine, ‘I’m afraid I am.’

‘I’m such a huge fan,’ said the woman. ‘I keep all your recipes. I don’t know what I’d do without your lemon tart.’

‘Thanks so much,’ said Catherine, guiltily hoping the woman wouldn’t notice what she had in her shopping trolley, otherwise her cover as the provider of all things home-made was going to be well and truly blown. ‘I’d love to stop, really I would, but unfortunately I’m in a tearing hurry. Places to go, people to see. I’m sure you’ll understand. Have a wonderful Christmas.’

Catherine felt terrible for rushing off. The poor woman had seemed nice and it was churlish of her to react like that. But couldn’t she have five minutes’ peace just to be herself and not the bloody awful persona who seemed to be taking over her life? She went to join one of the many huge queues that had built up as she’d wandered round the store, and caught sight of the latest version of Happy Homes by the tills. There she was resplendent in a Santa costume and hat (why, oh why, had she let herself be persuaded to do that shoot?), next to a headline that bore the legend, ‘The Happy Homemaker’s Guide to the Perfect Christmas.’

Any minute now someone in the queue was going to make the connection between the Happy Homemaker and the harassed woman standing behind them, and realise she was a big fat fraud. Catherine didn’t think she could stand it. She glanced over at the serve yourself tills, where the queues looked even more horrendous, and people were indulging in supermarket rage as the computers overloaded and spat out incorrect answers or added up the bills wrong.

Catherine looked in her trolley. She had been in Sainsbury’s for half an hour and all she had to show for it were two packets of mince pies, a bag of sugar, a Christmas pudding, and no brandy butter. At this rate she would be queuing for at least half an hour before she got served, by which time every sod in Sainsbury’s would probably discover her alter ego.

Furtively looking each way up the shop, Catherine pushed her trolley to the side of an aisle and, feeling rather as she had done aged fourteen when she used to bunk off to smoke behind the bike sheds, she abandoned it. They could manage without brandy butter for once. And no one liked Christmas puddings anyway.

As she fled the supermarket, ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ was still pumping out. Bah humbug, she thought to herself.

Gabriel sat in the lounge, head in his hands. The fire had long gone out and, as the wintry evening drew in, dark shadows were springing from every corner of the normally cosy room. He should make up the fire again. Warm up the place before he went to pick up Stephen. Never had his family home felt so cold and barren.

Stephen.

Oh God. What was he going to tell Stephen? Thank goodness he’d been at the rehearsal for the Village Nativity all afternoon. Thank goodness he hadn’t witnessed the latest painful scene between his parents. Gabriel had tried to protect Stephen from the truth about his mother for the best part of seven years, but even he would have had difficulty today.

‘You don’t understand. You’ve never understood,’ Eve had said, her eyes hard and brittle with unshed tears, her face contorted with pain. It was true. He didn’t understand. How could he understand the pain she went through every day, the mental anguish of feeling forever out of sorts with the world and unable to deal with the reality of it?

It was her very fragility that had drawn him to her in the first place. Eve had always seemed to Gabriel like a wounded bird, and from the moment he’d met her all he wanted to do was to care and protect her. It had taken him years to see that, whatever he did, he couldn’t protect her from herself. Or from the painful places her mind journeyed to.

‘Please let me try,’ Gabriel had pleaded. ‘If you always shut me out, how can I help you?’

Eve had stood in the house that she had always hated with her bags packed and ready—she’d have been gone without a scene if he hadn’t popped back because he’d forgotten to tell her that he was taking Stephen round to his cousins’ house after the rehearsal for the Village Nativity, to help decorate their tree—and looked at him blankly.

‘You can’t,’ she said simply. She went up to him and lightly stroked his cheek. ‘You’ve never got that, have you? All this,’ she gestured to her home, ‘and you. And Stephen. It isn’t enough for me. And I can’t go on pretending it is. I’m sorry.’

Tears had pricked his own eyes then. He knew she was right, but he wanted her to be wrong. For Stephen’s sake as well as his own. Gabriel had spent so many years trying to reach Eve, it was a default way of being. He hadn’t wanted to face the truth. There were no more excuses. He was never going to be able to give Eve what she needed. She was a world away from him, and always had been.

‘What should I tell Stephen?’

Eve stifled something that sounded like a sob.

‘You’re a good man, Gabe,’ she said. ‘Too good for me. You deserve better.’

She kissed him on the cheek, and fled the house towards the waiting taxi, while Gabriel stood in stunned silence. He’d known this moment had been coming from the minute he took her under his wing. She was a wild bird, and he’d always felt that eventually she would fly away and leave him. But not like this. Not now. Not just before Christmas.

Gabriel had lost track of the time while he sat alone in the gathering gloom. It was only now that he was beginning to notice how cold it had suddenly got. How cold it was always going to be now that Eve had gone. He wondered what he was going to do. Whether he’d ever see her again. And what the hell he was going to say to their son…

Noel Tinsall stood nursing a pint at the bar in the tacky nightclub the firm had booked for this year’s Christmas party, listening to Paul McCartney blasting out what a wonderful Christmas time he was having. Noel was glad someone was. He wondered idly when it would be decent to leave. Probably not wise to go before Gerry Cowley, the CEO, who was strutting his deeply unfunky stuff on the dance floor, leering at all the secretaries. It was only eight o’clock. The party was barely started yet, and already he could see some of the junior staff had drunk more than was good for them. He wouldn’t be surprised to find a variety of embarrassing photos doing the rounds on the Internet in the next few days. What was it about the office Christmas party that made people behave so idiotically? Bacchanalian excess was all very well when you didn’t have to face your demons at the water cooler the next day.

‘Hey, Noel, you sexy beast, come on and dance.’ It was his secretary, Julie. Or rather, not his secretary anymore. Not since that jumped-up toerag Matt Duncan had got his promotion. Now Noel had to share a secretary. A further subtle means of making him feel his previous high standing in the office was being eroded. Time was, when people jumped to his beat. Now they jumped to Matt’s. Perhaps it was time to get a new job.

Noel hated dancing, but also found it nearly impossible to be rude to people, so before long he found himself in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by sweaty, writhing bodies, and unable to escape the feeling that everyone was laughing at him.

‘You’re dead sexy, you know,’ Julie was shimmying up to him, and grabbing his tie. ‘Much more than that silly tosser Matt.’

No, no, no! They had always had such a professional relationship, but she was clearly pissed and coming on to him. Not that she wasn’t incredibly attractive or anything. And not that Noel wasn’t sorely tempted for a moment. Would Cat even know or care if he were unfaithful? Sometimes he didn’t think so. Julie was lovely, uncomplicated and she was available. It would be so easy…

What on earth was he thinking? Noel shook his head. Definitely time to go.

‘Sorry, Julie, I’ve got to get back,’ Noel said. ‘Catherine needs me. Kids. You know how it is.’ Catherine probably wouldn’t care if he were there or not, judging by the notice she took of him these days, but Julie didn’t need to know that.

Ducking her alcohol-fumed kiss, Noel made his way out of the club, and into the welcome crisp air of a London December evening. It was still early enough for the third cab he hailed to be miraculously free, and before long he was speeding his way towards Clapton, secure in the knowledge that, despite the amount he’d imbibed, he’d got away without making an idiot of himself.

The cab drew up outside his house, an imposing Edwardian semi down a surprisingly leafy street. The Christmas lights he’d put up with the kids the previous evening flickered maniacally. One of them had no doubt changed the settings again. He bounded up the steps and let himself in to a scene of chaos.

‘I hate you.’ Melanie, his eldest daughter, came blasting past him and flung herself up the stairs in floods of tears, followed swiftly by his son, James, who shouted, ‘I so hate you too!’

‘Nobody hates anyone round here, I hope,’ he said, but he was ignored and the house rang to the sound of two slamming doors.

‘Don’t want to go to bed. Don’t WANT to!’ his youngest daughter Ruby was wailing as Magda, their latest inefficient au pair, tried to cajole her off the floor of the playroom where she lay kicking and screaming. Noel noted with a sigh that the bookshelf had fallen down again. He wasn’t quite sure he was up to dealing with that, so he poked his head in the lounge and found Paige, his middle daughter, surreptitiously scoffing chocolate decorations from the tree.

‘Where’s your mother?’ he asked.

‘She’s on the bloody blog,’ said Paige calmly, trying to hide the evidence of her crime.

‘Don’t say bloody,’ said Noel automatically.

‘That’s what Mummy calls it,’ said Paige.

‘And don’t steal chocolate from the tree,’ added Noel.

‘I’m not,’ said Paige, ‘Magda said I could.’

‘Did she now?’ Catherine came down the stairs looking frazzled. ‘Come on, it’s your bedtime.’

She kissed Noel absent-mindedly on the cheek before going into the playroom to calm down not only the howling Ruby, but also a semi-hysterical Magda, who was wailing that these children were like ‘devils from hell’.

Noel stomped downstairs to the kitchen, got himself a beer, and sat disconsolately in front of the TV. Sometimes he felt like a ghost in his own home.

‘Angels! I need angels!’ Diana Carew, formidable representative of the Parish Council, flapped about like a giant beached whale. It was hard to see how someone so large could actually squeeze through the tiny door of the room allocated for the children to sit in while they awaited their turn to go on stage, but somehow she managed it.

Marianne suppressed the thought as being bitchy, but it was hard to take her eyes from Diana’s enormous bosoms. Marianne had never seen anything so large. And it gave her something to smile about while she sat freezing her arse off in this godforsaken tiny village hall watching the Hope Christmas Nativity taking shape, knowing damned well that any input from her was not actually required. In the weeks leading up to the nativity, Marianne had become grimly aware that she was only on the team because every other sane member of the village, including her colleagues at the village school, had already opted out.

Everyone, that was, apart from the very lovely and immensely supportive Philippa (or Pippa to her friends). Marianne had only got to know Pippa in recent weeks, since she’d been co-opted into helping on the Nativity, but she was fast becoming Marianne’s closest friend in Hope Christmas and one of the many reasons she was loving living here. Pippa was bearing down on her now with a welcome cup of tea and a barely suppressed grin. Together they watched Diana practically shove three reluctant angels on the stage, where they joined a donkey, two shepherds, some lambs, Father Christmas and some elves, who were busy singing ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ as they placed gifts at Mary and Joseph’s feet.

‘I have to confess,’ Marianne murmured, ‘this is a rather, erm, unusual retelling of the Nativity. I can’t recall elves from the Bible.’

Pippa snorted into her tea.

‘I’m afraid the elves are here to stay,’ said Pippa. ‘Diana does a slightly altered version every year, but the elves always feature. It dates back to when she ran the preschool in the village. And it’s kind of stuck. Everyone’s too frightened of her to tell her to do it differently.’

‘Are there actually any carols involved in this?’ Marianne asked. So far, on the previous rehearsals she’d been roped into, the only thing remotely carol-like had been ‘Little Donkey’.

‘Probably not. At least this year she’s dropped “Frosty the Snowman”,’ said Pippa. ‘Mind you, it took the Parish Council about three years to persuade her that really, it didn’t actually snow in Bethlehem on Christmas Day. She loved that snow machine.’

Marianne hooted with laughter, then quietened down when Diana hushed her, before continuing to marshal the children into order and berate them when they’d got it wrong. She was quite formidable. And her version of the Nativity was sweet in its way. It was just…so long. And had so little to do with the actual Nativity. Marianne liked her festive season—well, festive. There was a purity about the Christmas story that seemed to be lacking in everyday life. It was a shame Diana couldn’t be persuaded to capture some of that.

The natives were getting incredibly restive and parents were beginning to arrive to pick their offspring up. Diana looked as if she might go on all night, till Pippa gently persuaded her that they still had the dress rehearsal to have another run-through of everything.

Marianne quickly helped sort the children out of costumes and into coats and scarves. The wind had turned chill and there was the promise of snow in the air. Perhaps she might get a white Christmas. Her first in Hope Christmas, with which she was falling rapidly in love. Her first as an engaged woman. This time next year she would be married…

Nearly all the children had been picked up, but there was one small boy sitting looking lonely in a corner. Stephen, she thought his name was, and she had a feeling he was related to Pippa somehow. Marianne hadn’t been in the village long enough to work out all the various interconnections between the different families, many of whom had been here for generations. Marianne didn’t teach him, but the village school was small enough that she’d got to know most of the children by sight at least.

‘Is your mummy coming for you?’ she asked.

The little boy looked up and gave her a look that pierced her heart.

‘My mummy never comes,’ he said. ‘But my daddy does. He should be here.’

Poor little mite, thought Marianne. Presumably his parents had split up. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven. Perhaps she should go and let Pippa know he was still here.

Just then she heard a voice outside the door. A tall man entered, wearing a long trenchcoat over jeans and a white cable-knit jumper. A thick stripy scarf was wound round his neck. This must be Stephen’s dad.

‘Daddy!’ Stephen leapt into his dad’s arms.

‘Woah,’ said the man. He turned to Marianne and looked at her with deep brown eyes. Soulful eyes. She shivered suddenly. There was such pain in those eyes. She felt she’d had a sudden glimpse of his soul. She looked away, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

‘Sorry I’m so late,’ he said. ‘Something came up.’

There was something about the way he said it that made Marianne feel desperately sorry for him. He looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

‘Is everything all right?’ Marianne nodded at Stephen who was clinging to his dad’s side for dear life.

Stephen’s dad stared at her, with that same piercingly sad look his son had.

‘Not really,’he said.‘But it’s nothing I can’t handle.Come on, Steve, I’ll race you to your cousins’. I think it’s going to snow tonight.’

‘Can we build a snowman?’

‘Of course,’ said his dad. He turned back to Marianne. ‘Thanks again for looking after him.’

‘No problem,’ said Marianne, and watched them go. She wondered what was troubling them so deeply, then dismissed it from her mind. Whatever their problem was, it was no business of hers.

This YearChapter One

Marianne stood in the kitchen fiddling with her drink, looking around at the shiny happy people spilling into Pippa’s cosy farmhouse, an old redbrick building with a slate roof, oozing tradition and country charm. Marianne had fallen in love with this kitchen and its wooden beams, battered old oak table and quarry-tiled floor. It was all so different from the pristine newness of her family home, and exactly the sort of house she’d hoped she and Luke would live in when they were married. When they were married. What a distant dream that now seemed.

If it wasn’t for Pippa, who had been like a rock to her this last week, she’d never have come. She wondered how soon she’d be able to leave. It was strange how numb she felt, as if she was detached somehow from those around her. There was ice running through her veins. The life she had hoped for and looked forward to had fizzled away to nothing. She had no right to be here, no right to join with these happy relaxed people. Her new year wasn’t a new start but a reminder of everything she’d lost. How could her life have altered so abruptly—so brutally—in just a week? She should be in Antigua with Luke right now, just like they’d planned. Instead…

Don’t. Go. There. Marianne had been determined not to cry tonight. She knew she was the subject of a great deal of gossip. How could she not be in such a small place? It was the downside to country living of course, and one she didn’t relish now. But Pippa had persuaded her to hold her head up high and come out tonight to her and Dan’s annual New Year’s bash. So come she had. She wouldn’t have done it for anyone but Pippa, but the way she was feeling right now, Pippa was the only good thing left about living in Hope Christmas. Not that she was going to stay here much longer. Not after what had happened. As soon as school started next week, she’d look for a new job and go back to London where she belonged.

Marianne watched the crowds surging in and out of the comfortable farmhouse, which seemed Tardis-like. Pippa and Dan had the enviable knack of making everyone feel welcome—Dan was on hand pouring bubbly for all the guests while Pippa worked the room, making sure that the grumpy and irascible (Miss Woods, the formidable ex-head teacher of Hope Christmas primary, who had stomped in with her wooden stick, declaring her antipathy towards New Year: ‘Never liked it, never will,’) were mollified with mulled wine; the shy and retiring (Miss Campion, who ran the post office, and Mr Edwards, who played the organ in church) were encouraged to fraternise; and the party animals (including Diana Carew, those enormous bosoms taking on a life of their own on the dance floor) had room and space to throw some shapes in Pippa and Dan’s new conservatory.

‘More fizz?’ Dan was suddenly at her side refilling her glass. Was that her third? Or fourth? She probably should eat something. She hadn’t eaten properly all week, and the bubbles were going straight to her head. She was starting to get a slightly surreal floating feeling. Perhaps she was going to be all right after all. No one had paid her any attention yet, so perhaps she wasn’t the hot topic of discussion she imagined.

Or maybe not. Marianne wandered into the hall, where three people in animated conversation suddenly went silent as she approached. Feeling uncomfortable, she left, only to hear one of them cattily hissing, ‘Well, to be honest, it was never going to work was it, the lord of the manor and the teacher?’

Blinking back tears, Marianne knocked back her champagne and grabbed a bottle from Dan, who looked rather taken aback. Marching up to Pippa, she said, ‘Fancy getting absolutely bladdered?’

‘Are you sure that’s such a good idea?’ said Pippa cautiously.

‘Never been surer,’ said Marianne as the strains of ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ filled the room. ‘My mum always says hold your head up high and sod the consequences. Come on, let’s dance.’

An hour later, all danced out, and having moved on from champagne to vodka and orange, Marianne’s emotions had lurched from deep misery to a wild ecstasy that bordered on the unhinged. So what if her engagement was over? She was young, free and single again, it was time she took control of things. There must be some decent men at this party.

Having worked her way around the entire confines of Pippa’s house and discovering that, no, there really weren’t any decent men there, Marianne’s cunning plan to start the New Year was beginning to look a little shaky. Perhaps it was time for plan A—an early night. Marianne was heading for the hall when the doorbell rang. No one appeared to be taking any notice, so she went to answer it. Standing there was a dark-haired man who looked vaguely familiar. He had the most amazing brown eyes.

‘You’ll do,’ said Marianne, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him into the conservatory.

‘Er, I’d better just tell Pippa and Dan I’m here,’ he said, before she could get him onto the dance floor.

A wave of sobriety suddenly hit Marianne. What was she doing? She never ever behaved like this. What must this stranger have thought of her? But a more reckless side of her said, so what? It was New Year and her life was in tatters. She quickly brushed her embarrassment to one side, grabbed herself another vodka and orange and started dancing wildly to ‘I Will Survive’.

Someone shouted, ‘It’s nearly midnight.’ Suddenly, without warning, her sense of joyous abandon deserted her. Midnight. The countdown to New Year. Everyone singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Suddenly Marianne couldn’t bear it. She stumbled out into the garden, barely noticing that the temperature was below freezing. The alcohol coursing through her veins was keeping her warm. She sat down on a bench, and stared up at an unforgiving moon. The Shropshire hills loured out of the darkness at her, appearing gloomy and oppressive for the first time since she’d been here. She looked back into Pippa’s warm, friendly house, full of bright lights and cheerful people. Everyone was having such a good time and she was out here in the cold on her own, sobbing her heart out.

The back door opened and a shadowy figure came towards her.

‘Anything I can do?’ it said.

‘10, 9, 8…’

‘Nothing,’ sobbed Marianne. ‘My life is a disaster, that’s all.’

‘7, 6, 5…’

‘Well, if you’re sure. Only…you seemed…sorry, forgive me. None of my business. I’d better go in. You know.’

‘4, 3, 2, 1…HAPPY NEW YEAR!’ Screams and shouts came from inside. Marianne suddenly felt hatred for all these people she didn’t know who were having such a good time, and suddenly she couldn’t bear this stranger’s kindness. She didn’t want kindness. She just wanted Luke.

‘Yes, you’d better,’ she spat out.

‘Oh.’ The man looked slightly put out.

‘I hate everything,’ said Marianne, attempting to stand up, before falling back in the rose bushes. Her unlikely hero came to help her up. She sat up, looked into his deeply attractive brown eyes, and promptly threw up on his feet.

Noel sat at his desk wading through emails, most of which were completely irrelevant to him. Did he really need to be on the Health and Safety Committee’s minutes list? There were emails about three leaving parties at the end of January, he noted, people yet again leaving for ‘personal reasons’. The credit crunch was hitting his industry hard; building was always the first thing to go. And without anyone buying all those shiny flats in city centres, there wouldn’t be any need for new eco-friendly heating systems designed by the likes of him either. Gerry Cowley had been muttering under his collar for weeks before Christmas about the business needing to be leaner and trimmer. In the past, Noel felt he could have relied on his reputation as the brightest engineer GRB had ever employed, but then Matt had joined the firm. Matt, with his lack of dependants, bright-eyed young-man’s energy, and brown-nosing abilities. There was someone heading for the top if ever anyone was. And Noel had a nasty feeling that it would be at his expense.

No point thinking about what might never happen. Noel could almost hear his mother’s voice. It had been her favourite phrase when he was growing up. Way back when they’d had some kind of relationship, before she’d turned into the mother-in-law from hell and, according to the kids, Granny Nightmare. Not that he’d ever had an easy relationship with his mother. Noel had spent most of his childhood feeling that somehow he’d disappointed her. Particularly after his younger sister was born, who apparently could do no wrong. He envied Cat her relaxed relationship with her mother, Louise, who was Granny Dreamboat in every way possible.

Cat. Something was happening to them. He felt like the sands were shifting beneath him, and the world was changing without him. Ever since Cat had started the blog, and the Happy Homemaker thing had taken off, Noel felt Cat had had less and less time for him. All she seemed to focus on was her work and the children. The money it brought in was undoubtedly welcome, particularly when his own job was looking increasingly dodgy. But when a whole week had gone by and he’d barely seen Cat, let alone spoken to her, he wondered if it was all worth it. Sometimes Noel wondered if there was any place in Cat’s heart left for him anymore. And, after the way he’d behaved on Christmas Day, he wasn’t sure he blamed her.

This was no bloody good. Time he pulled himself together and got on with some work. Noel started to check through the plans he’d drawn up before Christmas for the air-con system at a nearby leisure centre and sighed as he saw the notes from the architects querying why he couldn’t match their exact specifications. When would they learn that the real world didn’t operate in shiny boxes and out of plush offices but in the mathematical parameters that physical laws allowed you?

A head popped round the corner. Matt Duncan, looking mighty chipper with himself.

‘Have you heard?’

‘Heard what?’

‘Davy Chambers has copped it.’ Matt drew a finger underneath his throat, with barely concealed glee.

Shit. Dave Chambers was going? Dave was part of the furniture at GRB. If he was going, no one was safe.

Noel shivered. January seemed to have set in both chill and drear. He had a feeling a cold wind was blowing over the horizon.

So, Christmas over, turkey stuffed, cooked and eaten, house full of plastic toys—mainly broken—children back at school. It’s time for a spring clean. Yes, I know, technically we’re still in winter, but post-Christmas, full of New Year’s Resolutions, is as good a time as any to clear out the rubbish and it’s always good to start the year as you mean to go on…

Catherine stopped typing and looked idly out from her eyrie-like study at the top of the house as a half-starved crow flapped and flopped its way across the frosty attic roof. Bloody blog. Bloody Happy Homemaker. Some days she wished she’d never started it. It had begun as a piece of fun, posted between Ruby’s feeds, something to keep her sane while she worked out what to do about her career.

Catherine,whose idea of domesticity involved the minimum amount of cleaning compatible with reasonable hygiene requirements, had struck on the idea of an ironic take on the life of the twenty-first-century housewife—or homemaker, a term Catherine utterly loathed. She’d sat down and typed sarcastically:

So, here you are, once a busy, successful businesswoman, tied to the home with a squawling baby and a stroppy toddler. Is it possible to be a twenty-first-century homemaker and survive, sanity intact? By applying the same management skills to your home life that you did to your work, I believe that not only can you survive, but that you can actually embrace the challenges being at home throws you. A happy home is one organised with military precision, which is why every Sunday evening we sit down as a family and work out our timetable for the week. A colour-coded copy sits on the freezer, so I can keep track of Kumon lessons and French club and when the baby needs her next set of jabs. I’ve even perfected my own clocking-in system. It works for me. It can work for you.

So had the Happy Homemaker been born and, to her astonishment, had been an instant hit. Unfortunately a lot of her readers failed to get the irony and took her far too seriously. Somehow she had stumbled into some kind of zeitgeisty thing where women appeared to be sitting at home with their offspring, willing to be lectured at by a complete stranger about how to run their homes. Soon she was getting several hundred hits a day, and achieving a massive following. Her blog became so popular it even got mentioned in the broadsheets, much to Cat’s wry amusement.

Before she knew it, she was doling out domestic advice on a near daily basis, and soon the Happy Homemaker was attracting attention in the wider world, not least from Bev, her old boss from Citygirl magazine, where she’d been features editor till the arrival of Ruby had finally convinced her that her home/work balance was all wrong. Bev rang her one day and offered her a regular feature at Happy Homes magazine, which involved both time in the office and at home. Coming as it had at a moment when Catherine had been worn out with the demands of a toddler and going stir crazy on the school run, she had jumped at the chance. She’d organised herself an au pair, an office at the top of the house, and had looked forward to reclaiming part of her old life.

If only things were that simple. No one else at Happy Homes, including Bev, had the domestic ties she did. A couple of the girls had one kid certainly, but four? No one she knew apart from her and Noel had four children. They must have been quite insane.

Initially Cat had thought that going back to work now that the kids were older was going to be a piece of cake. But as the success of the Happy Homemaker grew, so did the pressures. She was constantly in demand in the media, writing articles for the broadsheets, appearing on radio shows, and even making the odd TV appearance. If she had no domestic ties this wouldn’t matter. But while she enjoyed the attention her newfound success was bringing her, not to mention the cash, particularly after years of feeling like a second-class citizen who got pocket money, Cat was struggling with balancing it against her family responsibilities, and was particularly conscious that she was giving Noel a lot less attention than he deserved.

And although the kids were older now, they seemed to need her more than ever, particularly Mel, who was struggling to make the transition from primary to secondary school, and Ruby who had started her first day at school without her mum holding her hand—that bloody Christmas edition photo shoot had put paid to that. Catherine had always managed to take her children on the first day of school, but in Ruby’s case she’d failed. In fact, she felt she was failing Ruby a great deal. She never had time to read with her (though, thankfully, Paige was a good substitute) and she’d only just scraped into her (admittedly dreadful) Nativity just before Christmas. When she worked late, she missed Ruby’s bedtime. Her children were growing up and, at the moment, it felt like they were doing it without her.

And in the meantime she lectured others on how to run their homes, bring up their children and generally cope with day-to-day living. How ironic that she couldn’t manage to retain the slightest bit of control over her own situation…

Gabriel held Stephen’s hand as they walked down the frosty lane on a crisp clear January morning.

‘Look, Daddy, a robin!’ said Stephen excitedly. Their breath blew hot and steamy in the cold sharp air. It was a shock to the system to emerge from the warm cocoon of family and friends that Pippa and Dan had been providing him with for the last fortnight. He would have been lost without them. Gabriel’s parents, who were his default support network when trouble brewed with Eve, had set off on a much anticipated round-the-world trip to celebrate their retirement. Ironically their retiring had been what had brought him back to Hope Christmas, to take over the farm and try to expand the business with Dan and Pippa who were setting up a service to provide organic farm produce. And it was coming to live in Hope Christmas that appeared to have triggered Eve’s latest depression.

Gabriel sighed. He still didn’t know how he was going to face the future, but he supposed it was a good thing to be forced back into the real world now that Christmas was finally over. Not that sheep were always that accommodating about the Christmas season. He and Stephen had spent a large proportion of the previous week checking on the pregnant ewes. Luckily Stephen saw going out in the snow as an adventure, and being busy had given Gabriel less time to brood.

Gabriel sincerely hoped that going back to school would be a good thing. Eve hadn’t contacted them now for nearly a fortnight and, though Stephen had stopped mentioning it, he knew by the way that he would sigh sometimes, or wander off in the middle of a game, that his son was hurting deeply. He only wished there was something he could do beyond the practical to make it better.

‘He’s got you,’ Pippa had said. ‘And us. He knows his mother isn’t steady, but he also knows you are. So long as you can provide security and love, he’ll be fine.’

Wise, wonderful Pippa, with more than enough troubles of her own to cope with, but always there to catch you when you fell. Gabriel would have cracked under the strain if it hadn’t been for the support of his favourite cousin. Although Pippa was more like a sibling than a cousin, growing up as they had on neighbouring farms, spending a blissful childhood scrumping and fighting and fording streams together. Pippa, a year older, had always been the grown-up, there to bandage his wounds or salve his wounded pride when he’d come off the worse in a playground fight. And she was still doing the same thing. He’d be lost without her.

The robin hopped away and Stephen ran on ahead down the lane, pretending he was an aeroplane. It was good to see him so carefree for once. He was far too solemn usually, and Gabriel continually worried about the effect that events would have on him. Whatever Pippa said, it wasn’t going to be easy for him coping without his mother. Flaky and all as Eve was, she did love Stephen, and it was clear that he missed her badly.

As indeed Gabriel did. He felt a sudden constriction in his throat. If only he could have done more for her. If only she’d let him. If only…But one of the things he was coming to realise with painful clarity was that, however much he loved her, it wasn’t enough, it was never going to be enough. Eve’s problems were too big for him to mend. Sometimes if you loved someone, you just had to let them go.

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