Page 6 of Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
“Yes, it is. How does Thomas know?”
“They’ve ordered all sorts of flower garlands for the staircases and arrangements for the tables, hundreds of loose blooms and greenery too. Shelley’s doing extra shifts, but you know it’s hard for her with the boys as well. I remember trying to manage you two and the business, especially at Christmas with all the castle displays. I was going to cut my hours back before Christmas, but there’s not a chance with all this going on as well as our usual orders. Thomas thought he recognized the name on the order sheet—Pippa something, I think. You used to be friends with a Pippa, didn’t you?”
“Yes, that is my friend Pippa.”
Pippa had the kind of job that would send Nory’s dad into atailspin: She was a house stylist. People with excessive amounts of money paid her to go into their houses and create floral arrangements in every room and garnish their sideboards with the correct objet d’art to make them look effortlessly stylish. It didn’t surprise Nory that Jenna would have hired their friend to “dress” the castle. In her real life, Jenna didn’t have quite enough money to have a house stylist on the payroll—though she had aspirations for the future—but she would be pushing the boat out for the wedding.
“Will you be there? At the castle for the week? I know you’re going to the wedding, but I didn’t realize there was a holiday first.”
“I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make the house party. But as it turns out, I will be there, yes.”
“Oh, how lovely! Make sure you come and see us. You can’t be so close and not come to say hello, I couldn’t stand it. Will Ameerah be coming too?”
Ameerah had been “adopted” by Nory’s parents in Nory’s first year at Braddon-Hartmead when they discovered that Ameerah’s parents wouldn’t be in the country for Christmas and Ameerah would be staying at school over the holidays. That was to be the first holiday of many for which Ameerah’s parents wouldn’t be around, so she had been assimilated into the Noel household. Ameerah’s relationship with Nory’s family was far less complicated than her own.
“Yes, Ameerah will be there.”
Her mum squealed over the phone and then began to talk to her dad, while Nory hung on the phone, half listening, half watching an old episode ofMidsomer Murders.
“Jake! Jake!... Guess what?... Nory and Ameerah are going to be at that house party Thomas was talking about... Iknow... Yes, I told her they have to come down to see us... Hang on, I’ll ask... Dad says will you be bringing one of your Tory capitalist boyfriends with you?”
Nory rolled her eyes. As far as her dad was concerned, any man earning a living in London must be a Tory capitalist.
“No, tell him not to worry, no boyfriends this time.”
Nory had given up introducing boyfriends to her dad. He was a fiercely proud working-class man, originally from Yorkshire, and no matter how left leaning Nory’s boyfriends were, somehow, they never measured up to her dad’s standards. Even if their politics aligned with her dad’s own views, the dinner table discussions would soon become a competition of who was more working class. (Her dad always won.) Unless Nory could produce a man who strode into the kitchen with a pickax over one shoulder and hands callused to the point they resembled tree bark, they were unlikely to impress her dad.
“Do you want Thomas to pick you and Ameerah up from the station?”
“No thanks, Mum, we’ll make our own way.”
Ameerah had a brand-new Mini Countryman sitting in the garage below her apartment block in Mayfair that saw very little use, since parking in central London was horrific and you could get everywhere you needed to faster by Tube.
“Okay, love. It’ll be lovely to see you. And then it’ll only be a few weeks till Christmas, and we’ll see you again! What a nice treat.”
London was less than two hours by train from the small village of Hartmead, but it might have been another country as far as her mum was concerned. Her parents rarely visited Nory, and each time they did, her mum marveled anew at how tiny her flat was and the enormity of her rent.
“It’ll be lovely to see you too, Mum.”
“I’ll tell Thomas he was right about that Pippa. Jackson lost a tooth last week, did Thomas tell you?”
“Erm, no he didn’t, Shelley sent me a photo.”
Shelley was her sister-in-law and the only person with the power to make her sullen brother smile, or maybe he smiled at everyone and reserved his scowls for his kid sister.
“Bless him, you can see the new tooth already, it looks like a big one, I think he might have buckteeth like you did before your braces. Do you remember Thomas used to call you Bugs Bunny?”
“Yes, Mum, I remember.”
Occasionally he still called her Bugs even now. Nory and her brother’s relationship was equal parts affection and low-level resentment. There were times when she just couldn’t be arsed to deal with the latter.
“Won’t it be lovely to be together with all your old friends again, love?” her mum said. “Well, not all of them, but you know what I mean,” she added. Nory did know.
Her eyes wandered over to a framed photograph on the windowsill. A picture of the leavers picnic on the very last day of sixth form. Eight smiling young faces, excited to be moving on to the next chapter of their lives. Tristan sat between Nory and Pippa on the picnic blanket, an arm casually slung over each of their shoulders. He was laughing. Happy. Nory waited for the familiar ache to settle and smiled back at the image.
“Well anyway,” her mum carried on, “I’d better leave you to it. Vera’s about to start on ITV3. Say hello to Andrew for me. Love you!”
“Love you too, Mum. Bye.”
