‘Actually, Shirley, would you like to stay? We’re playing charades – and I’ve got sherry.’ Lottie had barely finished her sentence before Shirley’s coat was off.
‘I can’t stop long,’ she said, as she scuttled into the drawing room.
Lottie poured Shirley a large glass of sherry, but she was already on her feet taking her turn at charades.
‘What was Mother’s?’ Lottie asked Zach.
‘“Let Me Entertain You”,’ he said.
They watched Shirley mime her four-word book and film. She was pulling at her hair and making horn shapes with her fingers, prancing around.
‘Mad hair!’ shouted Jessie, who was trying to join in but obviously struggling.
‘Hellboy?’ asked Zach.
‘Is it a dinosaur?’ asked Daniel, to much tutting from Nicola. But at least they were in the same room and hadn’t murdered each other; Lottie was buoyed by that. She’d hidden the sharp knives, just to be on the safe side.
‘Dancing unicorn,’ said Jessie, erupting into fits of giggles.
‘Horny goat,’ suggested Scott, and everyone else cracked up.
‘Time’s up,’ called out Emily, and Shirley slumped into the chair by the fire and downed half her sherry in one swig.
‘What was it?’ asked Lottie.
‘The Devil Wears Prada,’ said Shirley, and everyone groaned.
The next hour flew by with everyone enjoying themselves, except for a worrying moment when Shirley almost lost her sherry while Jessie was acting outKung Fu Panda. It had been lovely to see Shirley. She refused to let anyone drive her home or call her a taxi, insisting nothing ever happened in Dumbleford, which Lottie had to agree was true. Lottie had waved her off with the remains of the bottle of sherry tucked safely in her wheelie trolley, singing ‘I’m just a teenage dirtbag baby’ all the way down the drive. Perhaps the answer to a fun Christmas was to invite enough people to dilute the family to a bearable level, mused Lottie.
Lottie found herself standing on the landing looking out of the window at the trees being shaken by the wind. She couldn’t straighten things out in her head. The Joe she had known wasn’t a cruel person, but what he’d done felt unforgiveable. A bedroom door opened behind her, but she didn’t turn around as her attention was held by one of the lower branches on the larger of two birch trees, which looked as if it was going to be wrenched away from the security of the trunk.
‘Hey. You okay?’ It was Rhys. He seemed pretty upbeat, given all that had happened in his family this Christmas.
‘Yeah. I’m okay. How about you?’
Rhys rested the metal detector on the floor for a moment as he pondered. Lottie wondered if she was going to get a deep and meaningful conversation out of him. ‘I’m … okay.’
Lottie smiled at the brief response. ‘As long as you’re sure.’
‘Apart from Nana’s doll collection freaking me out, that is.’ He tipped his head towards the box room. ‘I swear their beady eyes follow me around the room.’
‘Sorry,’ said Lottie. ‘They creep me out too. That’s why I gathered them all up and put them in there.’
‘It’s like a Chucky lookalike convention,’ he said with a laugh. ‘You want to find buried treasure with me?’
She wanted to say no, but there was something about his voice. He didn’t sound like the nineteen-year-old man he was; he sounded far more akin to a child. She felt, despite his earlier response, that maybe this was a sign that he did want someone to talk to or at least a bit of company.
And if it gets my mind away from brooding over Joe, then it will help me too. ‘Yes, Rhys. That’d be great.’
His face brightened and they went downstairs. They layered up and braved the bitter wind outside. Lottie gritted her teeth. He had better want to talk about something, because she didn’t want to freeze her backside off in the dark so he could dig up long lost hair clips. Rhys led the way round to the Italian garden at the side of the house.
Lottie switched the garden lights on and scanned the ground. ‘What’s made you come here?’
‘I’ve done a few patches on the main lawn and found nothing. But then when I thought about it, this side of the house is nearest the road.’
‘Right,’ said Lottie, having no idea what difference that would make. She pulled her woolly hat down over her numbing ears.
‘That’s a Roman road,’ he said pointing left and right.
