Page 66 of The Secret Christmas Library
‘Keeps witches away,’ said Esme coming down behind them in a chic black mini-dress.
‘Witches,’ said Theo. ‘I’ll add it to my list of things to be terrified of around here.’
‘There’s a big freeze tonight,’ said Jamie. ‘Better fill up the baths in case the pipes go. Might keep the kitchen one running; I’ll tell Bonnie.’
‘How can this possibly still be the UK?’ said Mirren, shaking her head.
‘Excellent question,’ said Esme. ‘Come on, Theo, come to the cellar with me.’
Mirren looked to see what he would do. To see whether his behaviour towards her last night had just been time wasting for him, again. Or whether he would keep pressing her with as much ardour as he had then. He glanced over at her, and Mirren sat, pink cheeked and very still.
Esme blew her cheeks out impatiently. ‘Are you coming or what?’
And it seemed that she was asking for rather more than just some company in the cellar. It felt to Mirren that Theo was having to choose. There was a space next to her by the fire. She looked at him. For a second Theo said nothing. Then Esmemade to move, and Theo got up and followed her, in her tiny dress, straight out of the door.
The strangest thing of all was how Mirren felt about it: uplifted.
Not at all what she would have expected. Relieved. All that time spent wondering what she had done wrong, whether or not it was a good idea; all that worry and fretting and headspace and thinking about it. All completely wasted. She had not, in fact, been in danger of passing up the love of her life with one wrong move. She was not trying to land a good thing. She had been expending energy in the wrong direction, completely: a handsome, charming, fundamentally weak man who could never fully be there for her – or, she suspected, for anyone else. She prodded her heart, but even then all she could feel was clarity, and relief that she hadn’t fallen deeper in, lost her pride even more. It was okay. It was done.
‘What are you smiling about?’ Jamie asked, as Theo and Esme clattered out.
She shook her head. ‘Oh, things that used to matter but don’t any more,’ she said, cuddling Roger.
‘Oh, good,’ said Jamie. ‘I would love to have things that didn’t matter any more.’
Roger pushed his muzzle under her chin so she would pet him more.
‘It’s because you’re stretched out on the rug. Roger thinks you’re another dog.’
‘Or maybe,’ said Mirren, ‘Roger knows a sympathetic person when he sees one.’
Roger looked at Jamie as if to say,Why am I not in here every night?and Jamie nodded briefly.
‘Hungry?’ he said.
‘Incredibly,’ said Mirren, with some surprise, only just realising it. ‘We had a good day, don’t you think?’
‘I think so,’ said Jamie, cautiously. ‘But who knows where it’s all leading? It might just be on and on and round and round.’
‘Well, the poem comes to an end, doesn’t it?’
‘It does,’ he said. ‘Yeah.’ He looked around. ‘I think he did like us here at Christmas. My grandfather. Even if we moaned about his stupid treasure hunts.’
‘It’s a shame he’s missing this one when you’re doing so well.’
‘Mmm,’ said Jamie.
Mirren leaned closer. ‘Do you think he really was just so unhappy?’
‘It seems so, doesn’t it? Sad at school. An unhappy love affair . . . it feels like he wants to explain his life to us. Well, to me. Why it all ended so badly.’
‘In a field, all alone,’ said Mirren, sadly. Now she was here, it felt even sadder, his lonely death.
‘Yeah,’ said Jamie. ‘In a field all alone.’
They were quiet for a while.
‘You never think grown-ups are unhappy, do you?’ said Jamie. ‘When you’re a kid. It never crosses your mind. You think they’re having the best time.’
