Five Winters(30)

“Are you crying, Beth Bailey?” Mark teased me, and I gave him a watery grin.

“Might be,” I said, and Jaimie laughed.

“We have a convert, Grace!” he said.

“There you are, you see, Beth,” she said. “I told you so, didn’t I?”

With the magic of the song still upon me, not even smug Grace could kill my mood. “You did indeed, Grace. You did indeed.”





11


The folk festival was a distant memory on the Saturday before Christmas, as Jaimie and I got ready to take the girls to see Father Christmas. Both of them were beside themselves with excitement—even Emily, who usually liked to play it cool—and it was catching. I was really looking forward to it as we donned our coats and hats in the hallway, and I’m not actually a Father Christmas fan.

I hadn’t got anything against him personally, you understand, or I wouldn’t have had if he were real. But he wasn’t real, and I’d always loathed the whole spinning-an-elaborate-web-of-lies-to-children aspect of Father Christmas. All that magical-sleigh, flying-reindeer, and coming-down-the-chimney crap. It seemed so wrong to spend all year encouraging children to be honest only to totally deceive them. If I had a child of my own, I just didn’t think I could do it. But when I’d said that to Rosie once, she had pointed out that everyone else would tell them about it. That I’d take my son or daughter to the school Christmas fair, and there would be Santa, giving out presents and ho-ho-hoing, and if I didn’t let my little one join the queue, they’d be left out and devastated. It was a total dilemma.

Anyway, Olivia and Emily had been well and truly hoodwinked by the big FC scam long before I came onto the scene, so there was no point in me trying to exert my principles or stand on any moral high horse. A trip to see the bearded man was a highly anticipated event on the pre-Christmas agenda, so I might as well get into it. And if nothing else, it was another potential bonding opportunity. The girls were bound to be in a good mood, and if they were in a good mood, maybe I’d have more luck getting close to them.

As we set off in the car, Olivia was so excited she could hardly keep still in her seat. Or at least she was excited until Jaimie drove right past the turnoff for Cambridge and headed in the opposite direction.

“Daddy,” cried Olivia. “We missed it!”

“No, we didn’t,” said Jaimie. “We’re going to see Father Christmas somewhere different this year.”

“But Mummy always takes us to Cambridge,” she said tremulously.

“We like Cambridge,” Emily added.

Jaimie’s smile stiffened. “Well, you’ll like seeing him at Thursford too,” he said. “I promise. There’s a magical wonderland to walk through on the way to see him, with dancing penguins and everything.”

In the side-view mirror, I could see Olivia’s worried expression as she weighed whether seeing a dancing penguin was worth it.

“How far is Fursford?” she asked.

“Not far. Just over an hour or so. It’s in Norfolk.”

The girls hated travelling any distance. When we’d gone on holiday to Greece, they’d moaned and complained all the way to Stansted Airport, and that was twenty minutes closer to Ely than Thursford.

I knew why Jaimie was doing this, of course. Because he wanted to outdo Harriet. To put all Harriet’s trips to see Father Christmas into the shade, so the only way she could outdo him next year was to fly the girls to Lapland. And I had a sneaking feeling that if she didn’t fly them to Lapland, then Jaimie would do so when his turn came round again. Even though Emily would be ten then and surely sceptical about Father Christmas at that age, if she wasn’t now.

I felt a bit like an alien from another planet when we reached Thursford. An alien who’d been suddenly sucked up into a giant, shaken-up snow globe. I hadn’t been anywhere like this since I was Emily’s age. No, I had never been anywhere like this. Because places like this hadn’t even existed when I was a kid.

If they had, I had no doubt I’d have been as excited as Olivia obviously was, standing there with her mittened hands clenched into fists, open mouthed at all the amazing illuminated creatures and palm trees as far as she could see. This part of the Thursford experience was billed as an “Enchanted Journey of Light,” and it was certainly living up to its name.

Maybe I hadn’t been anywhere like this before. Maybe I didn’t have much experience with children. But I had been a child once. I had experienced the magic and anticipation of Christmas. And Thursford was magic and anticipation by the dumper truckload. All I had to do was dive in.

“Olivia,” I said, pointing. “Look at that giraffe! Shall we go and see it?”

She took off at a run, and I laughed, running after her. But by the time I reached the giraffe, she was already running on towards a lion. “Wait for me!” I cried, laughing.

“Don’t go off on your own, Olivia,” Jaimie called after us. “We need to keep together.”

When I joined the lion, Olivia was still there. She pointed. “Look, Beth, the mummy lion’s got a baby,” she told me.

I crouched down next to her. “So she has. Isn’t it adorable? D’you think it’s a boy or a girl?”

“A girl. She’s called . . . Lexie.”