‘Is that right?’ She took her coat from the hook and said, ‘I’ll be off now, if you don’t mind, Annie. The cake should be done by one-thirty. I’ve set the timer. Just stick a skewer in the centre and if it comes out clean you can take it out.’ She put on her gloves, found her car keys and picked up a bag laden with treats for the invalid. ‘I’ve made vegetable soup for lunch. Just help yourself.’
‘Can I do something about dinner?’ Annie asked.
George, giving her a look that suggested she was kidding herself, said, ‘Why don’t I get a takeaway?’
‘Oh, great!’ Xandra said, sorting through the tinsel and finding a heavy strand in shocking pink and throwing it around herself like a boa. ‘Can we have Chinese? Please, please, please…’
‘Annie?’ he asked, turning to her.
‘I couldn’t think of anything I’d like more,’ she said and got a quizzical look for her pains. She ignored it. ‘I hope Mr Saxon will be feeling better today, Hetty.’
‘Can I come with you?’ Xandra asked. ‘I could decorate his bed. Cheer him up.’
‘I don’t think they’ll let you do that. Decorations would get in the way if…’ Her voice faltered momentarily before she forced a smile. ‘And what about this tree you’ve bought? You can’t leave your father to put it up by himself.’
‘Trees. We bought two, but they’ll wait until the morning.’
‘Will they? But if you come with me you’ll be stuck in the hospital all day. And, besides, Granddad will want to know why you’re home. I don’t think it’ll do his heart any good if he finds out you’ve been suspended from school, young lady.’
‘He wouldn’t care. He thinks Dower House is a total waste of money.’
‘Your grandfather always did believe that education is for wimps,’ George said. Then, clearly wishing he’d kept his mouth shut, he said, ‘Go with your grandmother-’
‘George-’
‘I’ll pick her up when I’ve finished the Bentley,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘Three o’clock? Be waiting outside. I’m not coming in to fetch you.’
‘Congratulations, George,’ Annie said when they’d gone. ‘You came within a cat’s whisker of behaving like a father for a moment, but you managed to rescue the situation before you could be mistaken for anyone who gives a damn.’
Furious with him for missing such a chance, she crossed to the stove, took the lid off the soup and banged it on the side.
‘Pass me a bowl if you want some of this,’ she said, sticking out a hand.
He put a bowl in it without a word and she filled the ladle with the thick soup, only to find her hand was shaking so much that she couldn’t hold it. She dropped it back in the saucepan and George grabbed the bowl before she dropped that too.
‘Damn you,’ she said, hanging onto the rail that ran along the front of the oven. ‘Would it have hurt you so much to spend a few minutes with your father? Have you any idea how lucky you are to have him? Have a mother who cares enough to make your favourite food?’
She turned to face him. He was still wearing the tinsel and he should have looked ridiculous. The truth was that he could have been wearing a pair of glass tree baubles dangling from his ears and Xandra’s Santa hat and he’d still melt her bones.
That didn’t lessen her anger.
‘What did he do to you?’ she asked. ‘Why do you hate him so much?’
‘It’s what he didn’t do that’s the problem, but this isn’t about me, is it?’
He reached out, touched her cheek, then held up his fingers so that she could see that they were wet.
‘Why are you crying, Annie?’
‘For the waste. The stupid waste…’ Then, dragging in a deep, shuddering breath, she shook her head and rubbed her palms over her face to dry tears she hadn’t been conscious of shedding. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve no right to shout at you. I know nothing about what happened between you and your father. It’s just this time of year. It’s just…’
She stalled, unable to even say the word.
‘It’s just Christmas,’ he said. ‘I saw the way you reacted when you walked into the kitchen. As if you’d been struck. Spice, nuts, fruit, brandy. It’s the quintessential smell of the season. And scent evokes memory as nothing else can.’
She opened her mouth, closed it. Swallowed.
‘You think you’re alone in hating it?’
She shook her head. Took a long, shuddering breath. Then, realising what he’d said, she looked up. ‘Xandra said you hate Christmas. Said she knew why.’
‘I came home for Christmas at the end of my first term at university to be met with the news that Penny was pregnant. My father was delighted, in case you’re wondering. He thought I’d have to give up all thought of university and join him in the business. He was going to build us a house in the paddock, give me a partnership-’
‘And you turned him down.’
‘Penny thought, once we were actually married-and believe me, there’s nothing like a shotgun wedding to add a little cheer for Christmas-that she could persuade me to change my mind.’ He managed a wry smile. ‘I’ve never eaten Christmas cake since.’
She stared at him, then realised that he was joking. Making light of a desperate memory. She wondered just how much pressure-emotional and financial-he’d endured.
‘You didn’t have to marry her. People don’t these days.’
‘It was my responsibility. My baby.’
She reached out to him. Touched his big, capable hand. Afraid for him.
If Xandra had inherited just one tenth of his stubborn determination, she feared they were heading for the kind of confrontation that could shatter any hope of reconciliation.
‘What happened to you, Annie?’ he asked. ‘What are you really running away from?’
‘Apart from Christmas?’
‘There’s no escape from that,’ he said, ‘unless, like Lady Rose Napier, you can borrow a palace from a friend.’
How ironic was that? She’d sent Lydia to a Christmas free zone, while she’d found herself in tinsel land.
‘How is it on a Californian beach?’ she asked in an attempt to head off the big question.
‘Sunny, but it’s not the weather, or the decorations or the carols. The trouble with Christmas is that, no matter how high the presents are piled, it shines a light into the empty spaces. Highlights what’s missing from your life.’ He curved his palm around her cheek. ‘What’s missing from yours, Annie?’
His touch was warm, his gentle voice coaxing and somehow the words were out before she could stop them.
‘My parents. They were killed a week before the holiday. They were away and I was fizzing with excitement, waiting for them to come home so that we could decorate the tree, but they never came.’
There was an infinitesimal pause as he absorbed this information. ‘Was it a road accident?’
They had been on a road. Four innocent people who, in the true spirit of Christmas, had been taking aid to a group of desperate people. Food, medicine, clothes, toys even. She’d sent her favourite doll for them to give to some poor homeless, starving child.
She wanted to tell him all that, but she couldn’t because then he’d know who she was and she’d have to leave. And she didn’t want to leave.
‘They were passengers,’ she said. ‘Two other people with them died, too.’ She never forgot them or their families, who went through this same annual nightmare as she did. ‘They were buried on the day before Christmas Eve and then everything went on as if nothing had changed. The tree lights were turned on, there were candles in the church on Christmas morning, presents after tea. It was what they would have expected, I was told. Anything else would be letting them down.’
And then there had been the Boxing Day shoot.
She looked up at George. ‘Every year it’s as if I’m six years old,’ she said, trying to make him understand. ‘The tree, church, unwrapping presents. Going through the motions, smiling because it’s expected and every year that makes me a little bit more-’ she clenched her fists, trying to catch the word, but it spilled over, unstoppable ‘-
