‘Good point,’ Sascha concedes. ‘Geoff’s busy this afternoon or I’d get him to take you.’
‘I can take you,’ Ben interrupts. We both look at him. ‘I mean, if you’d like me to.’
‘You can leave as soon as Abi gets here to take over the café,’ Sascha says before I have a chance to say anything.
And that’s how I end up driving to the Christmas tree farm on the cliff road with Ben in his silver Audi.
*
‘I sense a reluctance to decorate the café,’ Ben says as we pull into the car park at the Christmas tree farm.
‘The café has a certain look,’ I begin.
‘An Instagrammable look,’ Ben says with a grin.
‘Exactly, and Christmas decorations are just a bit messy. Plus I’ll be sweeping up pine needles until the new year, which is why I wanted to order one online but I’m never going to be able to get away with that now!’
‘Is Sascha always that bossy?’ Ben asks.
‘Always, but we love her for it. She gets things done in the Bay.’
‘I can imagine.’
We get out of the car and start walking across the car park. It’s a beautiful clear still day, sunny with big blue skies, but freezing and I wrap my coat more tightly around me.
‘Is that the only reason you’re reluctant?’ Ben asks. ‘Because it’ll mess up the café aesthetic?’
‘It’s not the only reason,’ I admit. ‘What I said about Mum’s birthday is true. It’s ridiculous really – she’s been dead for a decade and for five years before that I spent every Christmas in Sanderson Bay with my aunt and uncle who love Christmas and this year decorated their bungalow in mid-November but…’ I trail off.
‘But you always think of your mum at this time of year,’ he says softly as though he understands and I nod, thinking again about how he always clams up when his father is mentioned. ‘That’s not ridiculous,’ he says.
‘When I lived in York I never decorated the flat until after her birthday. Not that I ever went all out like my aunt and Sascha do because I’d always came to Sanderson Bay for Christmas even then.’
Ben stops walking and stands slightly in front of me.
‘Can I ask you something?’ he says. ‘And please do tell me if this is none of my business.’
‘OK,’ I say slowly.
‘Did you ever find out why your parents always sent you to Sanderson Bay at Christmas, why you never saw them?’
I think back again to that first Christmas with James and Miranda, remembering how scared I’d been, convinced I must have done something wrong. Convinced, as young teenagers often are, that everything was my fault.
‘Not really,’ I reply. ‘Looking back at it now I think there might have been some problems in their marriage. Up to then everything had seemed fine and we had the most wonderful Christmases together in Paris – it would be so quiet because so many people left the city for the holidays and sometimes it felt like we had Paris all to ourselves.’ I pause, looking away from Ben. ‘But something definitely shifted,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure what it was though. I know they wanted another baby but the baby never came and I know sometimes in the summer when I went back to France and we all travelled down to Provence I’d sometimes find my mother crying when she didn’t think anyone was looking and then my father married again. I don’t really know though.’
A few weeks after that first Christmas in Sanderson Bay, once I was back at school, Maman had come to visit me. She flew in to Manchester airport and navigated her way across the Pennines in a rented car. She waltzed into my school, the first time I’d seen her since the previous September, looking like a film star and took me to a café in nearby Harrogate. Over tea and cream cakes she told me how much she loved me and how sorry she was that we hadn’t spent Christmas together.
‘Papa is unhappy,’ she’d said. ‘He wants to leave Paris and I don’t know what to do.’ I hadn’t known what she’d meant at the time. I had seen the tears in her eyes but I hadn’t really understood anything. I have no idea why I’ve never asked my father about any of this. Perhaps because I don’t want to know the answer.
Ben squeezes my shoulder briefly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. It’s just…’ He stops and looks down at his feet.
‘What?’ I ask.
He looks as though he’s about to tell me something but then he closes his eyes and shakes his head.
‘Nothing really,’ he says. ‘I just wanted you to know that I get it, that Christmas isn’t always joyful and fun. Sometimes it’s…’ He pauses.
‘Complicated,’ I say.
He doesn’t reply but he does look up at me, meeting my eyes again and I know then that whatever happened to him to make him feel that way about Christmas, he genuinely does understand.
‘Shall we get this Christmas tree?’ he asks, changing the subject.
Conways Christmas Tree Farm has opened every November for as long as anyone can remember. My aunt and uncle always get their tree from here – I suspect, judging by how early their tree went up this year, that they were one of the Conways first customers this year. I wonder if Ben’s family came here when he was a kid too, but I don’t want to ask him, not after what he’s just said. Perhaps that’s why he’s really come back here – to face his demons.
‘We used to get our trees from here when we lived in Sanderson Bay,’ Ben says, answering my unasked question. ‘Another thing that hasn’t changed a bit.’
‘This is actually the first time I’ve been here,’ I confess. ‘I was always at school or in York when the Christmas tree was bought.’
‘Well take your time to browse.’ Ben laughs. ‘Choose the tree that speaks to you!’
‘Speaks to me?’
‘Sorry, that’s what my mum used to say – it just means you’ll know which tree is yours as soon as you see it.’
‘Aren’t they all the same?’ I ask.
‘Philistine,’ he replies. ‘Of course not – every tree is an individual.’ He strides ahead of me pointing out the different trees – the pyramid-shaped Douglas fir with its rich pine scent, the smaller, conical balsam fir, the magnificent Norway spruce.
‘You might not want that one though,’ Ben says. ‘It sheds.’
We walk through the row upon row of Christmas trees and I inhale the pine scent, the definitive smell of the season. I’ve never seen Ben so animated or talkative and I’m glad that coming back here hasn’t brought back whatever sad memories Christmas brings up for him. His mood bolsters me as well and I find myself excited to buy a tree for the café where before I had felt I was doing it under Sascha’s duress.
‘This might be your best bet,’ Ben says stopping in front of some Scotch pines. ‘Not too tall, not too wide—’
‘The Goldilocks of Christmas trees,’ I interrupt.
He ignores me. ‘Sturdy branches for decorations and the pièce de résistance…’ he pauses dramatically ‘… long-term needle retention.’