Chapter One
Little did I know, when the Christmas tree in the lobby of my mother’s hotel attacked me, that it was a metaphor for how the next week of my life was going to unravel.
There I was, minding my own business, heading for the door, when a jingling swarm of itchy green branches descended upon me. Throwing my hands up as shiny white baubles and silver bells showered down, I still wasn’t quick enough to stop the ceramic angel landing with a decisivethunkon my head and bouncing off.
‘I’m so,sosorry,’ my mother called out, her strawberry-blond hair just visible through the foliage. I searched for the metal trunk of the artificial tree and gave it a good shove towards being upright again while my mum came around the side to help. ‘Oh, thank God for that, it’s just you.’ Her panic-stricken expression cleared when she realised it was her one and only child and not a guest preparing a case to sue her.
‘Yeah, I’m fine thanks, Mum.’ I rubbed at the tender spot on my forehead where the angel had head-butted me.
She tilted her head to the side examining me, tiptoed up and pressed a quick kiss to my forehead.
‘You’ll survive.’ She patted my shoulder, and then picked up the angel from the parquet flooring and pouted: its cherubic cheeks and nose were caved in, wings hanging off. ‘More than I can say for her. Are you going down into the village?’
‘That was the plan.’
‘Could you pop into Lydia’s for a replacement, please? She had some nice angels on the counter the other week.’
‘Well…’ I pretended to think about it ‘…I suppose I could squeeze that into my busy schedule…’ I swiped at the glitter now dusted all over my jeans and jacket ‘…butonlyon the condition that you stop fiddling with the decorations after that. They look fine. They’ve looked fine for over a month.’ When I arrived at the beginning of November, with my hastily packed holdall – after the argument that finally ended mine and Peter’s four-year relationship – my old bedroom had been floor to ceiling with boxes of decorations, labelled and numbered ready to dress the hotel for Christmas as soon as the last sparkler on bonfire night went out. She didn’t like to waste a moment of the festive period.
‘Thank you.’ She scooped up a couple of the escaped baubles and started examining them for defects too. ‘But I just want to make sure everything is right before the last guest arrives tomorrow.’
‘Are we fully booked now?’
‘Yep, last-minute booking.’
‘Did you warn them the high street will be blocked off from mid-morning because of the Christmas fayre?’
She nodded, her focus back on the tree as she searched for the perfect spot to place a bauble that had escaped damage. I started for the door thinking there was no more to be said now she’d returned to the Christmas-tree-zone.
‘Could you be back by two o’clock, Beth?’ she called after me, proving that – as always – Rosie Keenan was paying more attention than she appeared to be. ‘I need you on reception this afternoon.’
‘Sure, see you in a bit.’
I stepped outside, pulling up the hood on my jacket and zipping it right to the top, burrowing my chin inside the collar. There were fairy lights wrapped all around the pillars of the porch to the hotel and lining the long gravel driveway, dripping from tree to tree in delicate arcs. They glowed valiantly through the drizzly rain, despite it being early afternoon. As far as I knew, the only time the Christmas lights were turned off in December was between two and five o’clock in the morning. If you stood still for too long near my mum at this time of year, there was a high likelihood she would wrap you in tinsel and pop a star on your head.
I checked the time on my phone as I walked through the grounds: just gone one o’clock. I had no real errands of my own to run in the village, although I probably should’ve been trying to buy Christmas presents but, with the exception of the bookshop, there was very little in the village that a person with my meagre budget could afford to get friends and family for Christmas. Loganbury was very pretty, all ramshackle Tudor buildings leering like drunks over pavement barely wide enough to fit one very small person and their handbag, which was great for tourists – and therefore my mum’s hotel – but it was genuinely like living in a time warp. In addition to the bookshop, there was an art gallery and an antique shop aimed at the more affluent visitors, one of the oldest pubs in Britain, a tea room, a greengrocer and Lydia’s florist shop. You know, all the essentials.
Before I put my phone away, I decided to risk a look at my notifications. Two of my best friends from London had been tagged in a new photo. In contrast to the soggy grey landscape surrounding me, Geri and Lisa were on a white, sandy beach, with an eye-achingly blue sea behind them. Geri was down on one knee…
I almost tripped over my own feet.
She’d finally done it!
I’d gone with Geri to find the ring months ago, scouring boutique jewellers for something that Lisa would like. We finally found a slim silver band with an enamel heart, a swirl of pretty colours that encapsulated Lisa’s optimistic personality. Geri bought it and then promptly chickened out of asking.
To begin with I’d tried to give her encouragement to go ahead and propose – I knew there was no way Lisa would turn her down. But my own issues with my (then) fiancé Peter distracted me. Over the last eighteen months of our relationship small problems – things that had been niggling at me but which he assured me weren’t issues – became big problems. And those rapidly morphed into illusion-shattering revelations.
I doubt I will ever forget that moment, standing at the head of a table full of perfect strangers, when he’d called me stupid and told me that I couldn’t be trusted with anything, all because I’d served a dinner to his client that had given him an allergic reaction. I’d already felt awful – even though I hadn’t beentoldthe man had allergies – and Peter, who was supposed to love me, hadn’t thought twice about humiliating me in front of everyone.
I’d heard that word ‘stupid’ like an echo of all the times he’d insulted me like that before. As soon as the guests had left (they’d hot-footed it out the door pretty quickly after that scene), we’d erupted into an argument ofEastEnders-level proportions and every ugly truth of our relationship had been aired. It’s funny how the phrase ‘cheated on’ refers only to a significant other having sex with someone else…because there area lotof ways people can cheat on you.
I wish I could say that I still felt excited for Geri and Lisa, as a good friend should have done, but that afternoon I just felt numb and it was nothing to do with the icy rain.
Still, one beautiful thing about social media is that I was able to hit the heart button and type ‘congratulations’ without the sentiment being ruined by the existential crisis written all over my face.
When I got to Lydia’s I stood on the doormat inside, shaking off all the drips and wiping my face. The intense perfume from all the different flower displays infiltrated my lungs and made me feel like I was breathing in my childhood. After getting off the bus from school, I would often come straight in here to wheedle hot chocolate and a biscuit before I walked back up the hill to the hotel.
A radio played softly out the back and not a soul manned the shop but they didn’t really need to. Loganbury wasn’t exactly rife with master criminals planning to make off with bouquets of carnations. A bunch of decorations were set out on a round table near the counter but there was only one angel left. I picked her up and was surprised by how heavy she was. She was wearing an off-white crochet smock, like a repurposed doily, and she had a round white face with very red cheeks and an old-fashioned butterfly kiss of a mouth, giving her a rather shocked expression. I guess I’d look shocked too if my purpose in life was to spend the majority of December with a Christmas tree shoved up my dress. She was a misfit angel, last to be picked for a festive team, and I kind of liked her all the more for it. Mum would think she was hideous.
