Page 60 of The Secret Christmas Library
I hope youse are having fun in the big city. I know you say it is bad and you miss home, but I cannot imagine that. A fine fellow like you must be having a fine time, you and all your old friends from school. Bullies change, don’t they? And so much going on all the time. You’ll be having fun right enough, won’t give us a thought.
Of course I miss you, my only one. But I want you to be having a good time, don’t I? We were not a possible thing, now, were we? We could not have been, could we now?
So enjoy yourself, in the bright lights, please. I’ll be waiting.
There was no signature. Nothing to give the person’s identity away. No return address. Mirren couldn’t even tell from the blotted handwriting whether the author was a man or a woman.
She picked up the second. The tone was quite different.
I thought when you left for the university everything would change and it would be different and you would forget me and I could forget you.
But seeing you again made that a foolish promise, every bit of it. All I wanted, all I want is you. I will say it, and I should not send this letter and I will deny every word of it if it is ever traced.
But I want you and only you, James.
I want you and only you, James, thought Mirren to herself.
Then, later, dated 1964.
You were so cold to me the day. I understand it, I do. And your friends . . . well, they’re aye loud. I . . . no. You’re alright. Just . . . I want to say that I’ll always be here, but that’s a ridiculous thing to say. I will always. I will. I would . . .
The letter trailed out, perhaps in tears. There was one after Christmas.
I can do nothing without you. To see you and not be able to touch you is torture, and I know you share it, I see it on your face. You think nobody knows you, but I do. All of it. Your funny ways. The way you light up when you see a new book. How much you love Forres, even if you don’t quite know how it works. I know you; I love every part of you. And your father will not let you see me . . . well, I hope it is him. I truly do hope it is him, James, and not you.
There had been, then, a love affair. That had ended very badly. A school that had gone horribly wrong, then a love affair that had ended in disaster, in fact.
It occurred to Mirren, with some trepidation, that this man, who had walked out into an icy field to die alone, wasn’t just leaving them a puzzle. He was telling them everything he hadn’t been able to tell them in real life. A guide to his unhappiness; his eccentricities.
And then, at the very bottom of the hole in the book, a locket – not expensive, Mirren didn’t think, by candlelight. A heart shape, in burnished gold. She held it up to the light to see if there was something engraved on it—
‘What the hell are you doing?’
32
For the second time that afternoon, Mirren let out an enormous yelp.
Jamie had come in so quietly and stealthily that she hadn’t even seen him. Night had descended as she’d become engrossed in the letters, across half a century; the very human pain and yearning written in them, as one might write a feverish Facebook post. Although that would be seen by everyone, and this had just been for one person. And then they had been left here, on purpose, a trail of breadcrumbs, leading straight to his bed.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ repeated the voice. Standing at the end of the bed, like a wraith conjured from the dark, was the tall figure of Jamie, holding his own candlestick.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Mirren. ‘Don’t do that! You look like you’re going to show me Christmas Past! You should creak on purpose. No, then that would make you a ghost . . . ’
Jamie frowned, not listening to her babbling nervously. ‘Why are you inmy grandfather’s bed?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Mirren, carefully setting the book and the letters aside and remembering where she was. ‘Um . . . because it’s freezing?’
‘But that’s hisbed!’
She jumped up and got out. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking around at its messy state, slightly ashamed of herself now. ‘I’m sorry . . . I was so cold, and it . . . it was the only cosy bed I’ve seen in this place.’
Jamie blinked.
‘You should have said “no getting in anybody’s bed”,’ said Mirren, going on the offensive, because she was feeling guilty. ‘I didn’t think anyone would mind.’
‘It’s really weird,’ said Jamie, backing down a bit.
‘Not as weird as you creeping up on me.’
