My heart sinks at the endless thread of gushing support below this: hearts and crying faces, a torrent of love and enthusiasm mixed with the odd few incredulous people to whom the love storySeems Fake;but overwhelmingly, it’s positive. Then there’s the inevitable speculation. One comment, I notice, reads:My great aunt was from the Cotswolds. I’ll ask her.Another makes the claim:This is where I went to school. Will try to find out.
As I scroll further, the comments turn to hashtags#FindAlexiThorneand#SaveWheatonHall. There are hundreds of them.
‘I asked if you minded me using some of the cine footage for the fundraising pages,’ Fern says to Izz, whose eyes are fixed on the phone. She’s saying nothing.
‘Did she agree to you using this particularangle?’ I press. ‘This is really personal stuff.’
I can already see Fern’s distraught with panic. Her eyes dart from her film to Izz’s face.
Izz pins her with a glare. I’ve never actually seen her glare. It’s extremely disconcerting, and I’m not even the one on the receiving end.
‘Why would you force open a can of worms like this?’ she says at last. ‘I have no idea where Alexi is or what he’s doing. What if he reunited with his wife? What if he has a family of his own? What will they think of this? What if he never forgave me for spoiling his marriage? Or for his mother chasing him out of Wheaton? He could hate me all the more for this. What if he’s… what if he’s…’ Izz tails off, and I can see she’s fighting back tears.
‘I can delete it,’ Fern tells us. ‘Only, there’ll already have been loads of shares, and remixes, and reaction videos, and we won’t ever know how many screen grabs and downloads.’
Both Izz and I stare blankly at her.
She goes on. ‘I’m saying that even if we delete the original, it’s already out there. Copied.’
The meaning of this revelation falls around us and we both gape and gasp, not knowing what to do.
‘I’m going home now,’ Izz says. ‘Please just let me be.’
That’s how the longest, saddest, most fraught day of my life ends, with Izz shuffling off home in a state, leaving me to comfort Fern in tears by the school gates while a planning application to take away our village hall for good is no doubt being rushed through whichever processes lie in Scrimengor and Carruthers’s way. There’s nothing for it but to make my way home to bed and hope that the catalogue of Christmas disasters that is my life lately is closing.
Chapter Fifteen
Saturday 16 December: The Spectacular
Welcome to Dunham Gravey Christmasannounces the huge digital billboard as we make the turn for the car park.
I’d been surprised Patrick still wanted to go through with this, given everything that’s happened, and I gave him an ‘out’ by saying I was so tired, I didn’t mind just staying home and taking a long bath, but he was having none of it and arrived at my door at four on the dot.
A young lad with a high-vis jacket and walkie-talkie waves us straight through without taking any money.
‘Ooh, am I getting the VIP treatment?’ I say, wishing I wasn’t so unnecessarily nervous.
It’s only Patrick, I remind myself. I wasn’t nearly this giddy for my Countryside Cupid dates, not even when Rusty the Rural Lady Romancer was flirting so convincingly over the dim sum. I’ll need to keep this in check in case I make an even bigger fool of myself than I did in Birmingham. Getting giddy always leads to trouble for me.
‘It’s all free for us if that’s what you’re asking,’ jokes Patrick. ‘But I have arranged a few added extras that the general public won’t get, yes.’
We park in an unlit bay: an area designatedStaff Only. I wait in the car while he nips into a Portakabin where there are lots of green gilet people on breaks clinging to steaming mugs.
This is the first of me fully realising what it means for Patrick spending his evenings outside in the wintry cold. Another reminder of how selfish I’ve been, thinking only of the grotto losing its Santa when he’s busy working two difficult jobs. It hardly matters now the grotto’s kaput, but still, when he gets back to the car, I’ll apologise again.
Except, when he pulls my car door open, he’s carrying something that makes me forget all about sorrys.
‘For you,’ he tells me, and I stumble out of the car. He presents me with a fresh posy of wintry blooms.
‘They’re glorious,’ I say, shoving my nose in amongst the waxy greenery.
‘They’re all cut from the Dunham Gravey estate.’
‘Are you supposed to pick the plants?’
He shrugs. ‘Most of them are wildflowers. Look, there’s holly. It wasnoteasy finding some that still had red berries on; I had to fight the blackbirds for that sprig. There’s early witch hazel, some winter flowering jasmine.’ He points to the little cluster of yellow stars. ‘And these pink ones? They’re my favourite.’ He smiles as I sniff the blushing cluster appreciatively. ‘They’re viburnum.’
‘And that’s mistletoe?’ I ask, even though I know full well that the little bracts of silvery green leaves and milky berries are definitely mistletoe.
