He looked at her with concern. “Don’t take offense, but you look like hell; and right now you’d be about as much help as a chocolate teapot. The best thing you can do is make yourself a brew and spend a bit of time in contemplation. That’s what I do when I’ve got a problem to wrestle.”
She nodded forlornly. “Thanks for looking at my car, Mr. B. And for being kind, even though I don’t deserve it.”
“Oh, now don’t go beating yourself up,” he said kindly. “Get off with ya, I’m a busy man.”
—
Fred made acup of tea. Maybe Mr. Bishop was right; she’d spent all morning flapping around like a panicked pheasant. She needed time to contemplate, and to do that she needed to be where other people weren’t.
The door to the attic was kept closed, to keep the chillout of the hallway. A red-and-white striped draft excluder in the shape of a candy cane lay across the bottom of the door. She nudged it aside with her foot and pulled the door open. A shock of cold air whistled down the steep staircase, and a not unpleasant scent of old leather and dusty books filled her nostrils. She pulled her cardigan tighter around herself, then climbed up the stairs. A large room; almost the entire footprint of the house was spread out before her.
The floorboards were old but firm. The peculiar light that only comes with snow spilled in through small round windows overlooking the front and back gardens. It was reasonably tidy, considering it had been a dumping ground for the Hallow-Hart women’s personal archives since the time the house was built.
A chair was pulled up beside a battered suitcase resting on an old davenport desk, and Fred guessed that this was where her mum had found inspiration for this year’s cracker paper designs, in among the correspondence of their ancestors. Maybe they would inspire her, too, although it would take more than a few old Christmas cards to get her out of the mess she was in. She placed her mug down and unbuckled the straps on the case, flipping the lid back, then she took a seat and began to sift through the contents.
The paper envelopes had matured to a shade of buttery shortbread, except at the edges where they looked as though they’d been dunked in tea. She was careful to replace the contents of each envelope when she had finished with it. Far from the perfunctory efforts of today, these cards were epistles, often containing more detailed letters tuckedinside them, which relayed the news of the women’s lives; all were written by hand.
On the surface they seemed to hail from a more innocent time, though she knew the writers would have experienced the fear and horrors of not one but two world wars. Even the most outwardly simple of lives contained a raging tempest of sensibilities beneath the surface.
Her fingers continued to move through the mess of envelopes. A card with a picture of an angelic-looking child, dressed all in red with blonde bouncing ringlets and a snowy forest behind her, caught Fred’s eye. Inside was a short letter.
My dearest friend, Hazel,
I cannot tell you what a delight it was to receive your letter. You are too kind. It has been a trial, but your kind words and generous offer have brought some light into the darkness. Little Felicity and I will catch the train on the fifteenth of December using the tickets you enclosed. What a joy it will be to see your face again and to spend Christmas with you at Hallow House. How I have longed to be back in Pine Bluff these many months. Since this war began, I confess I had begun to associate letters with only bad news, but yours has restored my faith that good things, too, can arrive by post.
Yours affectionately,
Grace
“Well, Granny, you were clearly a better Hallow-Hart than I am,” she said to the card.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
Fred jumped so high she tipped the chair, and it clattered backward on to the floor. “Ryan! You scared me, I didn’t hear you come up.”
He was standing at the top of the stairs, a vision in a red bomber jacket, baggy jeans and boots, and her heart ached.
“You were in your own world,” he said, his hands stuffed into his pockets.
“Better there than here; nobody hated me in the past.” She stared down at the letters, unable to look him in the eye. “I hadn’t had the chance to fuck everything up yet.”
“Is that what you think you did?” His voice was kind, but she didn’t dare believe it.
“Didn’t I?” She chanced a glance up, and looked away quickly.
“Maybe not everything.”
A sob hiccupped out of her. “Really?” Her hope was a raw, desperate thing.
“I’m sorry about this morning. Someone sent me the article online; it was the first thing I saw when I woke up, and I was angry and still tired after everything last night…I shouldn’t have sent you a shitty message and then blanked you, you didn’t deserve that. That’s on me.”
She was annoyed by how free-flowing her tears were. As fast as she rubbed them away with the heels of her hands, more streamed down her cheeks after them. “I thought youhated me…” Her voice was squeaky, like someone doing an impression of what a talking mouse might sound like.
“Of course I don’t hate you. I never could.”
“I didn’t know Warren would do that. It wasn’t the version he showed me.”
“I know that,” he said, placatingly. “Do you mind if I come over there and hug you, because your tears are breaking my heart.”
