Five Winters(14)
Because it was Christmas, there was very little traffic on the roads, and it was a straightforward journey along the A10 to Ely pretty much all the way. By the time I was halfway there, I was starting to feel resigned, if not quite hopeful. Grace may have been cruel, but she’d also been right. I did need to move on. All my instincts had told me it wasn’t a good idea to spend Christmas at Richard and Sylvia’s this year, but I’d ignored them because I didn’t want to upset anyone. And in the process, I’d upset myself. God, I was so glad I wasn’t still there, pretend smiling over a board game, forcing myself to eat a turkey sandwich I didn’t want. It had been fun chatting with Jaimie on the phone these past few weeks, and it would be good to see him in the flesh again.
It was dark by the time I approached Ely. Jaimie had told me to look out for the floodlit cathedral. He’d said when I saw it, I’d be only a few miles away. When it came into view, standing out like a beacon across the dark fields, I couldn’t help but gasp out loud. It was so magically pretty with its silver spires stretching up into the night sky—like a fairy castle. Somehow the beauty of it cheered me and gave me hope.
Unmuting the satnav, I followed the directions past a superstore, stopping after I’d turned left at the roundabout to sort out the mess of my makeup with the aid of a wipe and a hand mirror. Then I continued on, turning left down the next street and heading for the end of a close of twenty houses until I reached Jaimie’s home.
He must have been listening out for me, as he had the front door open almost before I got out of the car.
“Come in, come in. Did you have a good journey?”
Something about his polite enquiries reminded me we were virtually strangers. Had it been a mistake to rush over here like this? What did I know about Jaimie after all? Not much, really. And here I was, spending what was left of Christmas Day with him. It wasn’t the kind of rash thing I normally did.
“Welcome to my humble abode. Can I get you a coffee? Something stronger? I’ve got wine I can mull somewhere. Or a bottle of cava I can put into the freezer for a fast chill. Or perhaps you want a snack after all that driving?”
Perversely, Jaimie’s nervous chatter relaxed me. It wasn’t as if I’d driven across three counties to meet an axe murderer. This was Jaimie—Coleslaw Crash Jaimie. And he really was rather sweet with all that curly hair and his little-boy-lost expression.
“A coffee would be lovely,” I said, taking my coat off. “But no snack, thanks. I’m not hungry.”
“Okay, I’ll pop the kettle on. Do make yourself at home while I make it.”
He went off to the kitchen, and I wandered through the door he indicated, finding myself in a sitting room dominated by the biggest Christmas tree I’d ever seen in an indoor setting. It was so huge, it must have been an almost impossible task to get it into the house, and I wondered who’d helped him do it. The tree was festooned with decorations. When I went to take a closer look, I saw that many of them had been made by children—presumably, his girls. The fingerprinted paint and clumsily applied glitter were somehow very poignant. My gaze travelled upwards to where a fairy doll with weirdly staring eyes was crammed on the top of the tree, her tiara almost brushing the ceiling. In addition to a wand grasped in her outstretched hand, ready to create magic, there were angel wings, crafted out of what looked like a silver doily, attached to her back.
Beneath the tree, stacks of presents were waiting to be opened—piles and piles of them, all beautifully wrapped in gold-and-silver paper with elaborately tied red bows. No magic the tree fairy could wield would make their intended recipients able to open them until tomorrow, though.
Jaimie came in with the coffee and caught me looking.
I smiled. “Your girls will be so excited when they arrive.”
He pulled a face. “Hopefully. Although I guess it could all be a bit of an anticlimax, as they’ve already done all that today.”
“How could it be an anticlimax? Look at all that treasure.”
He put the mugs down on the coffee table, smiling ruefully. “I have gone a bit overboard, I suppose. But they took so many of their toys with them to Harriet’s new house.”
There were dark smudges beneath his hazel eyes. I wondered what the rest of the day must have been like for him, waking up alone in an empty house when he was probably used to his daughters leaping onto his bed at some ungodly hour, desperate to start the day.
“What time are they arriving tomorrow?”
“About nine o’clock.” He smiled apologetically. “I’d ask you to stay and meet them, but, well, at the moment they don’t know anything about you.”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t expect that. Don’t worry; I’ll be out of your hair by then. I can even go home this evening if that’s best.”
Jaimie smiled, reaching out to stroke my cheek—an intimate gesture which created a ripple of instant reaction through my body. “I’d much rather you stayed and we set the alarm clock,” he said, and the next moment we were kissing.
It was ages since I’d kissed anybody properly. Turns out you don’t forget how to do it. Within seconds the temperature had risen by about a billion degrees.
“Would you care for a tour of the first floor?” It probably ought to have sounded cheesy, but the tremor in Jaimie’s voice was a clue that he hadn’t made love to anyone since his split from his wife.