‘Hmm, I’d say that evidence suggests otherwise,’ Niall remarks as Stan mooches away, head dipped, back into the house.
Theo looks around for his mother. However, it’s his father who appears, excitedly brandishing an Ordnance Survey map. ‘What d’you say we go for a nice big walk, Theo? Just me and you, let Mummy have a rest?’
‘Where to?’ The child glowers.
‘Well, I thought we could climb that big hill there?’ He points in some seemingly random direction.
‘What’s there?’ Theo peers over as if there might be something he would like to see.
‘Well, it’s just a hill, but?—’
‘There’s nothing there!’
‘Yes but we could climb it and see the amazing view?—’
‘No.’
‘Or just… walktowardsit?’ Roger says brightly. ‘So we could look it?—’
‘No.’
‘Well, how about we just go to the end of the lane?’
‘What’sthere?’
‘You know, just sheep and things. This is the countryside, Theo?—’
‘I want to go to Happy Castle,’ Theo announces.
‘Oh, there is a castle,’ Pearl announces. ‘You’d probably need to drive there, but it’s not too far. We could pack you a picnic…’Get you off the premises for a while, dog molesting little monster.
‘It’s not a real castle,’ Theo growls.
‘No, it is,’ Pearl insists. ‘It’s hundreds of years old. A proper historical castle with a moat and?—’
‘Erm, the one Theo’s talking about isn’t a real castle.’ Roger grins apologetically. ‘Happy Castle is a soft play centre near where we live.’
‘Can we go there?’ Theo brightens.
‘Not today, darling.’ Roger pats his shoulder. ‘But we’re going home tomorrow, so very soon?—’
‘Hurrah!’ Theo punches the air.
‘I’ll second that,’ Niall murmurs as he and Pearl leave father and son in intense negotiations over what to do next, while Mummy ‘rests’. ‘I mean, for them,’ he adds as they step back into the cottage. ‘I could happily stay here for longer, couldn’t you? Although I realise this is hardly the kind of break you’d planned…’
‘No, I love it here,’ Pearl says. ‘And it’s fun, you know, helping to run this place, even just for a weekend. Like nothing I’ve ever done before.’
‘That’s good to hear,’ he says with a smile.
She stops and looks at him. ‘And I really needed to get away. Wealldid.’
Niall nods, and she knows that, for whatever reason, he did too. And later, as they amass what’s needed for dinner from the woodshed freezer, he tells her a little more about his life in Derbyshire, and the cottage he’s bought there and is doing up. And in turn, Pearl finds herself telling him a little of her own story. How Dean was the love of her life, and how, over the past eleven years, she has tried to build a different kind of life. And how that life now includes Abi.
Later still, as they fetch more wood for the fire in the lounge, Niall fills her in on why he’d decided to do Christmas alone this year. ‘So, my wife and I split up a year ago. She’s French and her parents still live in Rouen, where she grew up. And last year she decided to go over on a pre-Christmas visit with the kids…’
‘You have kids?’ Pearl isn’t sure why this surprises her.
‘I do, yes. A boy and a girl. I couldn’t go – I had a work assignment to finish – and Helene didn’t seem to mind.’ He pauses as the new firewood catches light. ‘In fact she seemed quite pleased that I couldn’t join them. She just needed a break, she said. A little break from…’
