“Next year,” she said. “I promise, I’m coming to Snowsly next year. I’m putting aside a little every month.”
“You’d love it so much.” I set my hot chocolate down on the two turtledoves coaster, which was one of twelve on my kitchen table, and switched on the lights of the Christmas tree that sat on the countertop. Even if I was only here for ten minutes, it wouldn’t hurt to feel as Christmassy as possible.
“Christmas in New York is pretty nice as well.”
“But I’m not there, so how good can it be?” I asked, fiddling with the angel on the top of the tree that always seemed to look as if she’d had one too many gins.
Lemon laughed. “True. It’s just I’d love you to come and see it for yourself.”
I collapsed into my favorite yellow kitchen chair. I’d done the calculation about seventeen times since Carl left. There was just no way I could afford to go to New York for Christmas. Although I loved Christmas in Snowsly, I’d have happily skipped it this year to get away from the memories of last year. But if I couldn’t escape, I was going to make it as good as it possibly could be. A kiss from Sebastian definitely didn’t hurt.
“So how’s it going there?” Lemon asked. “Any more disasters?”
“It depends how you categorize me getting kissed under the mistletoe.”
Lemon shrieked. “Someone kissed you? Who? Please tell me it wasn’t Howard?”
I laughed at the idea that I’d be kissing a married man who was at least double my age. “You know I told you about Ivy’s grandson coming up to help?”
“Is that even legal? Isn’t he like, fourteen or something?”
“Yeah, no. He’s not fourteen.” Everything about Sebastian was grown up.
I switched to speaker and reached for the laundry basket of clean washing on the blue chair next to me that was waiting for me to take it upstairs and put it away. I started to change. I wanted to spend as much time as possible in the adorable reindeer pajamas I’d found online. The antlers were furry and one of them had a red nose that squeaked if you pressed it.
“It’s happening,” she said. “You’re moving on.”
I glanced over at the bin bag of Carl’s things that I still hadn’t thrown out. He’d taken a couple of suitcases and told me he didn’t want anything else. He’d left gifts I’d given him. Books he’d read, clothes, toiletries. He’d even left his Star Wars duvet cover. It was like he wanted to be purged of any memories of our relationship. I’d gathered his things and tossed them into a bag, expecting to put them out for the bin men that week. But somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do it. As much as Carl wanted to purge me from his life, I wasn’t ready to bleach out the memories of him.
“I’m not sure I’m moving on, but Carl isn’t the last man to have kissed me.” It was a relief, but painful at the same time.
“So, has this Sebastian thing got legs?”
“He’s got legs.” Long ones. Lean, muscular, lovely legs. Or so I imagined. “But he and I don’t have legs. He’s some sophisticated businessman from London—”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Who hates Christmas.”
I could have heard Lemon’s sigh across the Atlantic even if she hadn’t been on the phone. “That’s a problem.”
I laughed. “It is. But I don’t need him to be the one. It just feels . . . like a part of me has woken up.”
“About time. Have you gotten rid of that nasty Star Wars duvet cover yet?”
I’d hated Carl’s duvet cover for so long. We’d had numerous rows about it. No grown man should have an image of Darth Vader on his pillow. The argument would always take a swift turn to the “Christmas invasion,” as he called my love of seasonal decoration. And I always ended up relenting.
“Not yet,” I confessed.
“Celia, don’t you think it’s telling that it was Darth Vader and not Yoda or Luke that he had on his pillow?”
I laughed. “Carl wasn’t evil.”
“Wasn’t he? He left you on Christmas Eve. Only the worst kind of person does something like that, let alone to someone who loves Christmas as much as you do.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” The buzz of excitement that had been with me since Sebastian’s kiss was swept away by the memories of this time last year. Carl had said he’d wanted to be in charge of dinner on Christmas Eve. I had an inkling that he might be up to something that involved my left ring finger. He’d checked about one hundred and twenty-two times that I hadn’t signed up to man the decoration-making station at the market on Christmas Eve. Then when Lemon told me he’d asked about my ring size, I’d been completely certain we were going to get engaged—at my favorite time of year no less. It was going to make Christmas even more special to me than it had been before.
And then rather than ask me to marry him, he announced he was leaving me.
Since then, it was as if I’d spent nearly an entire year waiting for him to reappear and decide he wanted his things and our relationship back. I couldn’t bring myself to part with his stuff—even the stuff I’d hated when we were together. Part of me had been holding out hope that he’d come back as abruptly as he’d left and want our lives together to go back to the way they’d been before. It would be like he’d never been gone at all.
But he was gone.
He’d been gone a long time, and he wasn’t ever coming back.
But Sebastian was here. He was here, and he had kissed me, and I’d bet good money he didn’t sleep under a Star Wars duvet.
Nine
Sebastian
I never expected the Snowsly Christmas market to be so busy. Cars were almost parked on top of each other all around the village, hordes of people were gathered around the hot chocolate stand, and a coach full of tourists had just pulled up. No wonder this village did most of its business in these few weeks.
The small, subdued lights threaded through the branches of the beech trees that circled the green and then the more dazzling lights of the Christmas tree in the middle offset the gray sky overhead. The cold wind that was so biting when I’d gone around the back of the Manor to take out some rubbish, seemed to skip over the green completely. Maybe it was the chestnuts roasting on the far side, or the pumpkin and ginger soup in crunchy sourdough bread bowls being sold at the bakery’s stall. Whatever it was, the air carried a delicious scent and everyone was so damn happy. Even the Christmas music playing from discreetly positioned speakers didn’t dent my mood.
As I walked up the high street, I could see it wasn’t just the stalls that were overrun with customers—the shops themselves were teeming with people. Not just the Christmas shop, but the bakery selling Christmas cakes and puddings and gingerbread; the sweetshop, which I couldn’t believe had survived the decade since I was last here, had a queue out the door; and even the art gallery couldn’t fit anyone else inside. Granny’s call to me and Celia’s stress about things going wrong had been well-founded. If not for the Christmas custom, I wasn’t sure how some of these businesses would make it through the rest of the year.