Page 62 of Christmas Is All Around
Charlotte shook her head. “It’s not. It’s a Halloween movie with a bit of Christmas mixed in—because no one wants a Christmas movie with Halloween mixed in.”
“Ido,” Lizzie insisted, which was fair enough, Charlotte supposed.
It was midafternoon on Christmas Eve; Graham had driven down to Hampshire that morning, but Charlotte had felt that some display of family holiday spirit was required, so she’d spent the morning with Ava and Simone, going out for pastries and taking Alice on a long walk, while Kit and John had labored mysteriously—and, occasionally, alarmingly noisily—in the kitchen. After lunch, Charlotte had caught the train to Upper Larkspur—which, even with a connectingtrain, took only about an hour and a half—and then a taxi from the train station to Eden Priory. The film screening was due to begin at three, and at half past two, the crowds were already flooding in.
Deciding to change tack, Charlotte glanced down at the potted plant she held. “I brought a poinsettia?”
Lizzie visibly brightened at this, and reached out to claim it. “Ooh! I’ll take you to the kitchen. I think Eloise wanted to speak to you for a moment.”
“Should you be abandoning your post?” Charlotte asked, eyeing the headlights farther down the gravel drive, a sure sign of moreChristmas, Trulywatchers on the way.
Looking untroubled by this, Lizzie unceremoniously ushered Charlotte inside and closed the heavy wooden door. “Waiting in the cold will heighten their anticipation!” she informed Charlotte cheerfully, and Charlotte decided not to argue with this extremely dubious logic.
She followed Lizzie into the house, weaving her way around happily chattering families in the entrance hall (and smiling gamely in response to the occasional “Tallulah!” called in her direction). They were screening the movie in this room, to fully lean into theChristmas, Trulyvibes, and a giant screen had been set up against one wall, most of the floor space having been taken up with folding chairs. (The settee next to the Christmas tree was currently mobbed by people taking selfies sitting on it, most of them pretending to write letters, whichwasfunny, Charlotte had to admit.)
There was a table bearing paper bags of popcorn at the base of the stairs, and Graham was currently stationed behind it, handing popcorn to parents and hastily snatching a bag back from a small child who was attempting to stick it under her sweater. He glanced up, as if sensing Charlotte’s presence, and met her eyes with a smile; Charlotte waved at him, but he was quickly distracted by a second childjoining the first would-be thief with similarly larcenous intentions, and Charlotte trotted to catch up with Lizzie.
Lizzie led her through one of the doorways marked PRIVATE and into the kitchen, where the rest of the Calloway family was currently located, and which smelled, at the moment, overpoweringly of popcorn.
“Mum, Charlotte’s brought us a plant!” Lizzie said. “I’m naming it Gertrude, just so we’re all clear on that.”
“Why’ve you never named any of the flowersIbrought you from my garden?” Eloise asked, sounding vaguely disgruntled as she filled a paper bag with popcorn from the enormous popcorn machine currently set up on the kitchen island. She added the bag to what looked to be a tea trolley that had been repurposed for popcorn-carting duties.
“Those are cut flowers,” Lizzie said, sounding extremely unimpressed. “Flower corpses, basically.”
“Lizzie,” Mrs. Calloway said, sounding a bit shocked. She was standing at the stove, stirring an enormous pot filled with what Charlotte suspected was hot chocolate, based on the smell. “That’s a rather dark way of looking at it, darling.”
“I’m just speaking my truth, Mum,” Lizzie said with a shrug, before absconding with the poinsettia and vanishing through a doorway.
“Can I do anything to help?” Charlotte asked; the kitchen was not a place she tended to feel at home, but she at least had the basic skills required for the current tasks. She hoped.
“Mum, if you want to wheel this cart out to Graham, we can start pouring the hot chocolate,” Eloise called to her mother, who happily relinquished her place at the hob. Eloise took over the stirring, directing Charlotte to find a bag of paper cups hidden in one cabinet. Once these had been procured, they commenced a fairly seamless operation of cup filling, with Charlotte carefully placing the filled cups onthe counter while she waited for Mrs. Calloway to return with the cart.
“It seems like a good crowd,” she said, handing Eloise an empty cup.
“Yes!” Eloise said brightly. “We had a lot of people sign up after—well—”
“After I told Graham to shamelessly cash in on my child stardom?” Charlotte asked dryly, and Eloise looked sheepish.
“Well, yes,” she said, trading a full cup for an empty one. She bit her lip as she carefully ladled another serving of hot chocolate, looking more uneasy than Charlotte had ever seen her in their brief acquaintance.
“What’s wrong?” Charlotte asked warily, accepting the full cup and lining it up next to the others on the counter.
“I’m feeling a bit like a horrible person,” Eloise said, handing her another full cup and waiting while Charlotte reached for another empty one.
Charlotte froze in the act of reaching for the empty cup. “Why?”
“You and Graham seem so happy!” Eloise burst out. “And after Francesca, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see himhappylike this again.”
Charlotte blinked. “And that’s… a bad thing?” She handed Eloise the empty cup.
“No, no,” Eloise said, ladling out more hot chocolate. “I just feel bad because I nearly ruined it!”
Charlotte accepted the cup and set it down slowly, frowning. “What do you mean?”
Eloise set down the ladle and wiped her hands on a tea towel, then turned to face Charlotte directly. “I recognized you, the day of the lights switch-on.”
“Okay,” Charlotte said slowly, trying to remember their initial conversation in the car.
