a darling fizz of a man who had completed a long journey. But it was Jack who intrigued him most. He seemed off-kilter with the world, as if he didn’t quite understand it, but wanted to. Maybe that’s why he was such a good businessman, because he devoted his time to where he was best placed. But that didn’t necessarily make him a happy man, or one that could see the fruits for the taking in front of his eyes, because those eyes were too focused on attaining the illusion of the horizon. A fruit in the guise of the so proper and so very capable Mary.
‘There’s an empty branch for the angel, my dear,’ Charlie pointed out.
‘Yes, Charlie, but we have one nearby. I need a robin there, I think.’
‘Someone call?’ said Robin, scooping out some ash from under the fire and putting it in a metal bucket to cool.
‘Get back to the housework,’ said Charlie.
‘Are you intending to sit on top of the tree yourself or is there a prettier big fairy in the box?’
Charlie gestured towards him while addressing Mary.
‘Do you see what I have to put up with?’
Mary chuckled. She was well on the way to adoring Robin and Charlie. That they cared for each other deeply was clear as the crystal angel she was about to add to the tree.
All eyes then turned to the opening door. Jack walked in dragging sacks like a bright orange Father Christmas, Luke in his wake.
‘Good God,’ said Bridge, feeling the blast of cold air from outside as she sat at a table constructing a paper chain.
‘Oh, Bridge, we’re old friends, just call me Luke,’ he said, which Bridge ignored.
Jack’s eyes fell on Mary standing on the stool, decorating the Christmas tree, taking care to do it properly, he had no doubt. But then that was Mary all over. Whatever she did was right, even down to the coffees she brought him in. Never a spill in the saucer. She made a capable job of everything. No one so proper, so capable… so Charlie had said about that woman in the Jane Austen book.
‘Good to be home, it’s bad out there,’ said Luke. And a part of him genuinely did feel that relieved to be back in the inn. He only hoped that Carmen was okay in the bosom of her family and that there was nothing for him to worry about. He hadn’t been away from her for as long as this before and he was feeling their separation keenly. Especially now.
The inn was an oasis of contentment. Charlie was happily acting as Mary’s assistant, Robin was tidying up around the fireplace and Bridge was making her chain. Radio Brian was playing Doris Day singing ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’. It could have been a scene ripped from the pages of a 1940s magazine.
Jack and Luke emptied two of the sacks, arranged some of the wetter logs on the hearth to dry out, banked up the hungry fire, which started tucking into the woody fodder with the zeal of Charlie tucking into the mince pies. Doris finished crooning and Radio Brian commenced talking in his best toothless tones.
‘Anyway, I’m going to have some snap now,’ he said. ‘It’s well past lunchtime isn’t it? I think Mrs Brian Bernard Cosgrove has got something meaty in store for me.’
‘I hope he puts his teeth in if he’s having a steak,’ tittered Bridge.
‘…Maybe a glass of mulled wine and why not,’ Brian went on. ‘So I’ll leave you with a little-known radio show that always makes me chortle even though it’s quite a few years old now: Sir Colin of Castle Street, and this is the Christmas 1952 special. I’ll be back later, everyone. Don’t go anywhere.’
‘Fat chance of that,’ said Bridge to Mary. ‘Never heard of Sir Colin of Clifton Street or whatever he said.’
But Mary was smiling with recognition. ‘Then sit and listen to it. My dad used to love radio plays; he’d split his sides at Sir Colin – it’s very funny. People have fallen away from radio shows but I think they’ll have a renaissance. Audio books are big business these days, I gather, so I reckon it’s only a matter of time. I don’t think we ever lose the childish joy of listening really, it just gets buried under adult stuff.’
‘Jackanory,’ said Robin with fond remembrance. ‘How I loved that as a boy.’ As if a lock had been sprung on a box, his head