Page 47 of The Secret Christmas Library
‘Yeah, you will, I’m very frightening.’ He headed off.
‘Are you okay?’ said Mirren to Jamie.
Jamie shrugged. ‘Och, yeah.’
‘We’ll figure it out, you know,’ she said. ‘I’m very confident. Don’t lose the bits of the bird.’
‘I won’t,’ he said, shaking his head. Then the frown line was back. ‘Why,’ he said. ‘Why are all the men in my family such fuck-ups? This is just insane.’ He glanced up at her. ‘What kind of crazy mind does this, then goes out into the snow to die?’
‘He got disorientated,’ said Mirren. ‘That happens with old people. And the puzzle – maybe he thought it would be fun for you.’
‘Maybe,’ said Jamie heavily. ‘Or maybe being crazy runs in families.’
‘You seem very sane to me,’ said Mirren. ‘But also, everyone’s family is completely crazy.’
‘Is that true?’
‘So, so true,’ said Mirren, thinking of her mother fretting about candied peel.
‘But here I am, sitting in front of the fire in the middle of a vast pile I can’t keep afloat, down to the bones of my arse, trying to chase down some binary code printed on to a swan to stop the council repossessing my home,’ said Jamie. ‘Is thisyournormal Tuesday?’
‘Mirren, I can’t keep up this bat pose for much longer!’ came a voice from the end of the corridor.
‘Off you go,’ said Jamie. ‘Don’t keep him waiting, for goodness’ sake.’
Mirren wanted to say something more, but didn’t know what would be appropriate. And now he was brushing her off, his gaze returning to deep in the fire.
‘Okay,’ she said. And then, as she turned to go, carrying the candle in her hand, she paused.
‘It wasn’t my normal Tuesday,’ she said. ‘It was much, much better.’
‘WARRRGH!’
‘Stop it, Theo, you’re being ridiculous,’ Mirren said, but she couldn’t help laughing. Theo had tugged his dinner jacket over his face like a cape, his handsome face laughing back at her. Mirren didn’t want to admit that, actually, advancing up the corridor lit only by a candle, with the house creaking and settling all around, the weight of the snow hemming them in and the air freezing, she had felt very frightened indeed, wonderingconstantly if she could feel unearthly footprints behind her. Passing closed door after closed door, not knowing what was inside, draped in sheets, shut away . . . The dying notes of the music on the wind-up gramophone still played in her head, conjuring images of other people, long dead, who must have danced through this house, full of conviction that they were living in the very latest way, that life would go on as it always had, not for one moment anticipating the house being filled to the brim with mouldering old books, crumbling away underneath their feet. She would have loved to see it in its heyday, bright-painted and bustling, filled with people, running like clockwork. But now, in its crumbling dotage, it was a frightening thing. And knowing someone was about to jump out on her also didn’t help.
‘Come on!’ said Theo. ‘How often do you get to rampage around a stately home at night!’
His eyes were so dark in the candlelight they were impossible to see.
Mirren thought briefly of Jamie, staring into the fire, far too young to seem so sad.
Theo opened a door she wouldn’t have noticed, behind a curtain, and sure enough it was the turret stairs. It was even colder here than it had been before; the windows were only single-pane, and none too new at that. They might as well have been outside.
‘It really is freezing,’ said Theo, as they ascended the stairs, Mirren trying to shield her candle and hold her tartan throw around herself at the same time. ‘If only one of us knew some way to warm up. At bedtime.’
‘Theo,’ said Mirren reprovingly. ‘We’re here for work.’
Theo shrugged and looked straight at her. ‘Actually, we’re snowed in and off the clock.’
‘You’re incorrigible,’ said Mirren.
‘Thank you,’ said Theo, and pushed open a side door, then led them down another side of the building, and sure enough they were back on the bedroom corridor. It was annoying how he’d managed that.
At her door, she stopped. He stopped too and stood over her. They were intensely close. Once again Mirren could feel her pulse beating. It had been so long. She ached to be touched, to be held, to be wanted. She felt a flush rise in her cheeks. But she wouldn’t fall for it again, she told herself. She wouldn’t.
She hesitated. Too long; he backed away. She looked up at him in agony. If he had grabbed her, kissed her, right then and there . . . she didn’t know what she would have done. Instead, taking her silence for a lack of assent, he took a step backwards, into the shadows.
‘Well. You know where I am,’ he said, quietly. ‘If you need anything.’
