Page 49 of One More Christmas at the Castle
‘So I see,’ I said, looking at the cupboard spilling its contents on to the floor.
‘That one just sort of exploded in a paper avalanche when I unlocked it.’ He sighed again. ‘I’ll have my lunch and then I’d better take Plum for a quick walk, whether he wants to go or not.’
Plum, who was now snoring, didn’t look as if he’d moved from the sofa since I last saw him.
‘I could give you a hand when Henry gets back. I’ll have time before I need to get tea ready,’ I offered. ‘We can at least get the stuff off the floor and on to the pasting table, ready to sort.’
‘Would you? That would be a real help, though won’t you want to have a walk, or rest or something, instead? I don’t want to take up your free time.’
‘I’ve had more than enough fresh air and exercise for one day and I’m not at all tired. Besides,’ I added, ‘I love organizing things! It’s why I’m so good at my job.’
‘If it’s your idea of fun, then I accept,’ he said gravely.
‘I’ll be back as soon as Henry returns then,’ I said. A thought struck me: ‘You don’t think Mrs Powys will mind if I help you?’
‘I don’t see why she should. You aren’t going to read any private papers, just help me transfer everything on to the table for sorting.’
‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘And I’ll dust and clean the cupboards and shelves when they’re empty.’
‘I’m hoping Sabine will give me another half-hour of her time after tea, so I can record some more of her memories. Whatever she says, she’s integral to the biography. At the moment, I’m fleshing out her life before she met Asa, and although I knew her mother died before she was eight, I hadn’t really thought about how much that must have affected her.’
‘She did tell me and Henry that she wanted to try and recapture the kind of Christmas she had as a child, when her mother was alive … so no pressure there,’ I said. ‘But we’ll do our best to instil a bit of magic into the proceedings.’
‘I’m hoping to hear about her Oxford student days next, and her first meeting with Asa, just after she’d taken her final exams. She got a First and had already set her sights on a career in archaeology. Once she married Asa, she became just asfascinated by marine archaeology as he was and they were … like twin souls, Grandpa used to say.’
I remembered that YouTube clip of the glowing, golden couple standing in the prow of a boat, vibrantly alive and with a future full of promise, and knew what he meant. They’dbelongedtogether.
14
Cleaned Out
The first thing I did when I left him was go and put my hair up again, feeling a lot more dignified and professional once I’d done so.
Henry came in soon after the cleaners had driven off and, although he’d had lunch in a café, still wolfed down the spare sandwich I’d made for him, just in case.
While I was making coffee, he said he’d fetch things in.
‘Then I had better move the van round to the back again. There isn’t much to carry in – the wine merchant’s delivering the bulk of the order on Friday.’
There still seemed to be several boxes containing bottles, though, including, I was glad to see, my dry cooking sherry, brandy and dark rum.
The rest of the shopping was mostly things from my list: small, good quality Christmas paper napkins for drinks and nibbles, two dozen Marwood’s Magical Crackers and an assortment of other odds and ends.
‘That’s board wax, you don’t want that,’ he said, removing a box with a picture of a snowboard on it from my hand. ‘I got this great beanie hat, too, and took a selfie by some old tower.’
‘It looks like a green squid has landed on your head and is waving its tentacles in the air.’
‘Yeah, it’s supposed to. When that goes on the vlog, everyone will want one.’
‘I hope you didn’t pay a lot for it!’
‘Six squid,’ he said happily, and went out again, this time reappearing empty-handed, though I’d heard him moving the van.
‘I took the pasting tables straight to the study – I got two of them, because they were dirt cheap – but Xan wasn’t there.’
‘He said he was going to take Plum out. Then I’m going to help him in the study,’ I amended. ‘I’ll have about an hour till I need to get tea ready.’
Henry raised an eyebrow at me, though the effect was somewhat lost, since he was wearing the squid hat.
