Poor Richard and Sylvia. They must have been saints. Either that or very good at hiding their true feelings.
Mark may have moved on from practical jokes when he discovered football, girls, and cars, but I knew he’d still laugh his head off if anyone tried to trick him with fake dog poop. Some things never changed.
At the interval, Mark and I headed for the bar together to get more drinks, leaving Grace and Jaimie chatting animatedly about Jaimie’s latest renovation project.
“Why d’you think Jaimie and Grace didn’t get together when they were at uni?” I asked Mark as we waited to get served.
“Didn’t Jaimie meet Harriet very early on?” he said. “I think they were just all in the same group of friends. Besides, Grace was fated to meet me, wasn’t she?”
I knew that, as a mathematician who frequently got his mind blown about the origins of the universe, Mark would never really believe in such a thing as fate. But I was slightly fuzzy headed from drinking beer before lunchtime. Enjoying being in Mark’s company. So I teased, “Did an astrology expert see your meeting with Grace in the stars, then?”
He nodded. “Yep, that’s right. By the way, talking of stars, did you know there are two hundred billion trillion of them in the universe?”
I considered his question. “I think you’ve told me that before once. Only I’m pretty sure last time you said it was two hundred billion trillion and one.”
He laughed. “You’re right. I apologise. God, it’s so good to see you. You can’t imagine.”
I bloody well could.
“Rosie asked me to check up on you. Make sure you’re happy here. So are you?”
The question sobered me up instantly. It ought to have been straightforward to answer. After all, Mark had just told me how much happier Jaimie was since I’d moved here. But somehow I couldn’t help thinking of the day I’d actually moved away from Dalston. My churned-up feelings as Jaimie drove the hired van away from my flat. The way I’d craned my neck out the window to try and catch a last glimpse of my plane tree. It was still hard to accept I would never enjoy that garden again, not properly.
But then, what good was a garden on your own, really?
“Yes, I am,” I said. “The girls can be a bit hard work sometimes. But we’re getting there, slowly. I do miss some of the things I left behind, though. You lot, for one.”
I’d had every intention of saying that casually, but my voice went and cracked. And as we hadn’t been served yet, I didn’t even have a glass of beer to hide behind.
Mark was staring at me. “We miss you too,” he said, pulling me in for a hug. “But nothing’s changed really, has it? Not really. We’re still family. We still love you.”
Bloody hell. I was going to start crying in a minute.
I tried another smile—more successfully this time—and put some space between us. “I know you do. And I am all right, honestly. Tell Rosie that.”
“All right. But if you ever need to talk . . .”
God, I couldn’t smile again. “Thanks. I appreciate that. Look, you couldn’t bring my beer for me when you get served, could you? I’ve just thought of something I need to tell Jaimie.”
Sweet, waggy-tailed Jaimie, who didn’t deserve to have been discarded by Harriet for no good reason at all.
“Sure.”
I found him on his own in the music tent, Grace having popped to the loo. He looked a bit forlorn, and I guessed he’d probably been thinking about his girls.
I sat down next to him and gave him a big kiss.
“What was that for?” he asked, holding me.
I smiled back, shrugging. “No reason. Just because,” I said, and kissed him again.
Then I settled down to give folk music a better try than I’d done before. And sometime during the afternoon, a man with the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard sang a song called “Carrickfergus.”
“Oh,” I said, after it was over. “That was so beautiful. The words, the tune, the voice—everything.”
“Are you crying, Beth Bailey?” Mark teased me, and I gave him a watery grin.
“Might be,” I said, and Jaimie laughed.
“We have a convert, Grace!” he said.
“There you are, you see, Beth,” she said. “I told you so, didn’t I?”
With the magic of the song still upon me, not even smug Grace could kill my mood. “You did indeed, Grace. You did indeed.”
11
The folk festival was a distant memory on the Saturday before Christmas, as Jaimie and I got ready to take the girls to see Father Christmas. Both of them were beside themselves with excitement—even Emily, who usually liked to play it cool—and it was catching. I was really looking forward to it as we donned our coats and hats in the hallway, and I’m not actually a Father Christmas fan.
I hadn’t got anything against him personally, you understand, or I wouldn’t have had if he were real. But he wasn’t real, and I’d always loathed the whole spinning-an-elaborate-web-of-lies-to-children aspect of Father Christmas. All that magical-sleigh, flying-reindeer, and coming-down-the-chimney crap. It seemed so wrong to spend all year encouraging children to be honest only to totally deceive them. If I had a child of my own, I just didn’t think I could do it. But when I’d said that to Rosie once, she had pointed out that everyone else would tell them about it. That I’d take my son or daughter to the school Christmas fair, and there would be Santa, giving out presents and ho-ho-hoing, and if I didn’t let my little one join the queue, they’d be left out and devastated. It was a total dilemma.
Anyway, Olivia and Emily had been well and truly hoodwinked by the big FC scam long before I came onto the scene, so there was no point in me trying to exert my principles or stand on any moral high horse. A trip to see the bearded man was a highly anticipated event on the pre-Christmas agenda, so I might as well get into it. And if nothing else, it was another potential bonding opportunity. The girls were bound to be in a good mood, and if they were in a good mood, maybe I’d have more luck getting close to them.
As we set off in the car, Olivia was so excited she could hardly keep still in her seat. Or at least she was excited until Jaimie drove right past the turnoff for Cambridge and headed in the opposite direction.
“Daddy,” cried Olivia. “We missed it!”
“No, we didn’t,” said Jaimie. “We’re going to see Father Christmas somewhere different this year.”
“But Mummy always takes us to Cambridge,” she said tremulously.
“We like Cambridge,” Emily added.
Jaimie’s smile stiffened. “Well, you’ll like seeing him at Thursford too,” he said. “I promise. There’s a magical wonderland to walk through on the way to see him, with dancing penguins and everything.”
In the side-view mirror, I could see Olivia’s worried expression as she weighed whether seeing a dancing penguin was worth it.
“How far is Fursford?” she asked.
“Not far. Just over an hour or so. It’s in Norfolk.”
The girls hated travelling any distance. When we’d gone on holiday to Greece, they’d moaned and complained all the way to Stansted Airport, and that was twenty minutes closer to Ely than Thursford.