Page 28 of A Miracle on Hope Street
‘You’re standing there like a little guard dog,’ he says moments later from behind the huge, ancient artificial Christmas tree that has been in my family sitting room every December for as long as I can remember. ‘I don’t bite, I promise. Now, where do you want this?’
Looking at it brings back the sounds of laughter that used to accompany its erection, the way they’d joke every year that they’d buy a new one but never did.
Michael plonks the base of the artificial tree down on the floor tiles of the hallway, then we both go to catch it when it almost tips over and I get flashbacks to my mum and dad doing the exact same thing when I was so much smaller and the tree seemed like it was the size of the whole house. It’s still big, but not as overpowering as I remember it to be and we both sneeze at the dust and the musty smells that cling to it.
‘How long has this bad boy been around?’ asks Michael, looking at the tree quizzically.
‘Years and years and years,’ is all I can answer. ‘I have no idea how old it is and that’s the truth. It goes in the drawing room near the window. I’ve cleared a space for it already. Come, I’ll help you in with it.’
Michael lifts the bottom of the tree and I clutch its centrepiece and lead him past the dining room which is just down the hallway and to the left. We squeeze past the long shining mahogany table and the eight mahogany chairs with their cream velvet seats – all the furniture in this house is old and made of mahogany if it’s at all possible – and we stand the tree up beside the front window. The bouncing flames in the hearth warm the atmosphere in what sometimes can be a very cold room when it hasn’t been used for a while and I try not to visualise how things used to be here, before it was just me and a stranger who I know virtually nothing about.
In my mind I hear my sister’s laughter as she and I used to sit as children by the hearth in our fresh new pyjamas, our hair still damp from the bath and Dad would play festive tunes on the piano while Mum decorated the tree, each of them sipping on sherry. Ally and I would stir marshmallows into huge mugs of hot chocolate, dreaming about Santa and what he might bring, year after year. Such memories remind me that I have had such magical times in this house and I do feel like it’s a part of my very being. If only it didn’t feel so lonely to be here now. If only I can just get through Christmas then I can let it go.
‘It’s like a National Trust property inside this house,’ says Michael as we stand the battered old tree into position, he too obviously thinking just like I am about our surroundings. ‘Everything is so timeless, so ornamental and so—’
‘Old?’ I suggest.
‘Well, yes, I suppose. Old,’ says Michael. ‘But really interesting at the same time. Has it always been your family home?’
‘My father was a university lecturer,’ I tell him, straightening out the branches on the tree that aren’t as bushy as they once were. ‘He bought this house before he met my mother and he loved old furniture and old books and wanted this room to be a bit like a library as well as a drawing-cum-dining room, so yes, it’s always been my home. My mother hated how he gathered such clutter.’
‘It must be a very big decision to sell up then,’ he says.
‘It is,’ I reply, unable to believe that I actually mentioned her. I never mention her in conversation like that.
‘Did you say your mother hated it?’ he says and I wish I hadn’t opened my big mouth. ‘Is she gone too?’
I nod. I can’t talk about her, I just can’t.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says to me. ‘I didn’t realise that you’d lost both your parents. Gloria told me about your father but that’s awful to hear you've lost your mother too.’
We put the tree into position and continue to straighten out the branches and I wonder where his own mind must be as he thinks of his own Christmases past and how things used to be in his life, just like I’m thinking of mine. I don’t explain how my mother isn’t dead, but more missing in action.
‘I have to admit I’ve always hated Christmas,’ Michael says to me. ‘I hate the fuss, the rushing, all the pressures that come with it and trying to please people who can’t be pleased.’
‘Ah, come on. Really? That’s a bit “bah humbug”.’
He shrugs.
‘I’m sorry but I don’t have a lot of happy memories of this time of year,’ he tells me. ‘Put it like this, I wasn’t spending Christmas in a room like this, that’s for sure, especially not last year when I was almost freezing to death.’
I catch his eye. He looks away.
‘Anyhow, enough about me and my miserable childhood,’ he says with a forced laugh. ‘Tell me about your father. He must have been a very fine man to create such a beautiful home for you and to leave you with it all. That’s quite an inheritance.’
‘An inheritance, or a burden?’ I say in return. ‘I can’t decide which. But my dad, yes, he was a truly wonderful man. Look, I feel so rude just letting you get stuck in as soon as you got here and we haven’t really talked much. Do you fancy a cuppa and then we can attempt some decorations as I tell you all my crazy plans?’
‘I think we’re both ready for that,’ says Michael, dusting off his hands, and he smiles that same smile that he did earlier in the café before he realised he was being so off-guard. That handsome face . . . that dark-eyed, mysterious-looking face with just enough lifelines to tell that he has truly lived a life before this one he is living now. How on earth could someone who looks so damn perfect have ended up so impoverished and alone?
I go and prepare a pot of tea in the adjoining, open-plan scullery type kitchen, as Michael walks around the drawing room, in awe of my father’s extensive art on the walls and book collection that lines the shelves.
‘He played the flute too?’ he asks me, lifting an instrument and putting it back in its place immediately, as if he’s afraid of doing any damage. ‘Sounds like he was a very talented guy?’
‘He was indeed,’ I say, finding my inner glow as I see the opportunity to boast about my father’s many capabilities. ‘He spoke Italian and French and he could quote Shakespeare like no one else I’ve ever met.’
‘ “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day”,’ says Michael.
I stop.
