Page 1 of The Secret Christmas Library
1
It was not London’s fault, because London was looking beautiful in the frosty start of the festive season: huge red ribbons on display; little snowy houses that lit up in the shop windows; the great Norwegian-gifted tree in Trafalgar Square glittering mightily.
Each dark early evening, fogged-up pub windows showed people inside in the warm, chattering and laughing and toasting the season; men in black tie and women in beautiful jewel-coloured dresses alighted from black cabs in clouds of perfume on to wet pavements reflecting the shining fairy lights above them; skaters flew around the ice rink in the ancient cobbled confines of Somerset House.
No. It wasn’t beautiful, glitzy, shining, expensive London, Mirren Sutherland knew, that was making her feel so down. It was her. And this time of year.
London turning sparkly and shiny and exciting just reminded her of other people’s wonderful Christmases. Whereas her mum was working, her siblings were refusing to commit to anything and she had made a stupid mistake by pretending to her friends that she was totally fine and had loads of plans and now it was too late to backtrack. Because last Christmas had been terrific, and this one was going to blow monkey chunks.
Mirren was a lifelong book obsessive, who never felt she had quite enough books, who could really only feel secure with half a dozen unread paperbacks propped up by her bedside table, three library cards, two Kindles, and an emergency set of Douglas Adams in the bathroom, in case the lock broke.
She had spent the previous Christmas on the trail of a book her Great-aunt Violet had remembered from childhood and begged Mirren to track down at the very end of her life. Joined by the devastatingly handsome Theo Palliser, who worked for an antiquarian bookseller, they had searched bookshops up and down the country, before she had finally found it all by herself, hidden in her great-great-uncle’s kit bag.
The book had turned out to be a priceless original, written by Robert Louis Stevenson and illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, and its real owner, her great-aunt’s childhood best friend June who was related to Beardsley, had decided to donate it. There had been a fancy handing-over ceremony when it went on display and Mirren had even received a small finder’s fee, which everyone had told her to use as a deposit on a studio flat.
Theo hadn’t come to the ceremony. Mirren had really thought they’d had something. But as soon as all the excitement had died down, he had ghosted her completely. Mirren had gone back to her job as a quantity surveyor, where nobody cared about books at all; her great-aunt had died, and frankly life now was much duller than it had been before her big adventure.
She had even had daydreams where she and Theo travelled the world, tracking down books together . . . but of course he had gone back to his posh world of hushed libraries and expensive first editions, and she had gone back to measuring up rat-infested warehouses for yet more student housing. There were not, she had discovered, a lot of job openings for book finders. Having such a breathtakingly large mortgage on hertiny new studio meant it was difficult to even think about doing something else.It was childish, she knew, to wish for something magical to happen at Christmas.
Work was quiet, so she decided to take her lunch break early, and found her steps straying – as they often did – from her nondescript office on the Euston Road, across the heavy thoroughfare of traffic, past the gleaming white hospital and escaping into Bloomsbury, home of the British Museum, which in turn was home of her precious find; her most shining moment. The vast building took up an entire city block. Oh, how she loved Bloomsbury, the elegant area of London devoted to learning and books and study. It was stuffed with universities, libraries, publishing houses and archives; beautiful squares and manicured gardens – and, everywhere on ancient buildings, blue plaques indicating the famous writers who had once lived there – J.M. Barrie, Virginia Woolf, W.B. Yeats, H.G. Wells, Charles Dickens . . . it went on and on.
Mirren examined the Christmas displays in the tiny shops she passed, many selling books and antiques, and cut through ancient cobbled passageways where stood great tall houses with large brass door knockers that were old when Dickens was young. It was raining, of course, and she tucked her curling chestnut hair under her mustard-coloured beanie and prayed it wouldn’t frizz too much. She passed groups of happy shouting people on the way, heading into old timbered restaurants or wearing party hats. She wasn’t looking forward to her own office party. They had had a very quiet year, and all the fun people who didn’t have vast new mortgages had left. It would probably just be her and the accountants in the staff room with a packet of ginger nuts.
The museum, with its columns and vast steps at the front, supporting its iconic dome, was busy as ever. She loved thevastness of the museum, the overflowing nature of it. Locked doors with pictures of lions on them were full of precious items that must be saved in the event of a fire; there was a deserted Underground station beneath the building where they stowed even more. Tourists, keen to visit the mummies and the Anglo-Saxon burial ship, were getting their bags searched out front, and there were glittering Christmas trees standing by the tall entrance. Inside were more trees and lights, as well as great swags of holly and ivy hanging around the top of the famous Round Reading Room in the Great Court, the enormous glazed white atrium that sat at the very heart of the museum. Mirren nodded to the security guards, who had got to know her as a regular.
And in the very heart of it, up in the viewing gallery in the circular reading room, was her very contribution; her very own book. Well, the book she had found. Visiting it always reminded her, rather wistfully, how happy she had been last Christmas; it gave her a feeling of pride, before she went back to her sad office and contemplated spending three days on her brother’s sofa this Christmas while everyone felt sorry for her and her mum fretted. Here was one thing she had.She hopped nimbly up the wide old stone steps, worn smooth by two hundred years of visitors, her scarf trailing behind her.
2
Once inside, Mirren made her way quietly to a side room. Even though she came here often, it never ceased to impress. It was a cool, temperature-controlled space, in near-total darkness, where you could walk in – where, amazingly, anyone in theworldcould walk in – and see some of the most extraordinary books ever made.
A Shakespeare first folio. A fourth-century bible.Middlemarch, written out by hand. It was a book-lover’s paradise. And there, right at the end, sometimes with a huddle around it, was her book, on display:A Child’s Garden of Verses, with original illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley.
She took a seat on one of the red hexagonal stools and waited for people to come and have a look. There were some bored children, of course, being hauled around museums for their supposed improvement, but she wasn’t interested in them; she was interested in the people who genuinely were excited to see it; who oohed and aahed over the fine line of the beautiful drawings; the notes scrawled in the margin by Stevenson himself. She had not gone looking for treasure, but she had found it, and when things were difficult, as they were at the moment, it gave her a lot of pleasure to see other people enjoy it. There was even a sign – there it was, in tiny letters:Kindly donated by June Wilson, great-niece of Aubrey Beardsley: found, Mirren Sutherland, London 2024.
On this particular day, a tall, sandy-haired man in rather scruffy clothes – not, it had to be said, an unusual sight in the British Museum – was staring closely at the book. She smiled happily to herself, liking the man without knowing a thing about him, just because he was appreciating it. He turned suddenly and beckoned an attendant.
‘When it says “found” . . . ’ he said in an unusual accent Mirren struggled to place. She was eavesdropping furiously.
‘Yes?’ said the attendant, who, unlike the security guards, never noticed Mirren coming and going, or, if she did, never let on to the pale girl with the large grey eyes and russet-brown ringleted hair who was so often in the room.
‘How did they find it?’
Mirren was surprised. Nobody had ever asked aboutherbefore. They normally asked if they had any of Beardsley’s other work, by which they usually meant the naughty paintings.
‘It was in an attic.’
‘Oh,’ said the man, sounding disappointed. ‘It’s just, it says “found”, as if they were searching for it.’
The attendant shrugged. ‘Dunno. Maybe it was a really big attic?’
The man paused and looked at the book for a long time. Then he took out a phone that looked as old as a BlackBerry. The attendant gave him the Paddington Bear stare she reserved for everyone on their phone in the library exhibition, but he didn’t notice.
‘Ugh, you can’t Google . . . him? Her?’ he said. ‘Apparently Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland made tons of films together.’
Mirren’s heart leapt suddenly. Wait. He was . . . he was Googlingher?She blinked rapidly, feeling more like an eavesdropper than ever.
‘Um . . .?’ she said quietly, clearing her throat. Neither of them turned round and she sank back into the gloom.
