her. Mince pies, Christmas lunch, crackers, silly hats, wine that made Nan sleepy, carefully selected gifts. Mum cooking, Dad carving, Rob supplying drinks. Villagers dropping in. There would be turkey and tinsel in Middledip too – but a hell of a lot more. Warmth. Laughter. Love. Caring. Her people. Her place.
It was too much to give up to avoid Nico and the painful truth.
She about-faced. Instead of fighting her, now the wind supported her and made retracing her steps easy. When she reached the right spot, she turned onto the scrubby grass and saw the pea-soup green bulk of The Bus.
Just waiting.
Hannah and The Bus rumbled into Middledip at eight that evening and parked outside her parents’ house where fairy lights glowed all around the garden like a swarm of fireflies. All the windows were illuminated. Her parents were at home.
Everything about Hannah ached, from her heart, which seemed to know it might be near Nico, to her bum, on which she’d sat in endless strings of traffic as everyone headed home for Christmas. Her stomach rumbled as if it scented home cooking, then the door opened and Mo was there in fluffy slippers and an apron depicting lugubrious reindeer. Hannah clambered stiffly from The Bus.
‘We’d just about given you up.’ The tremor in Mo’s voice didn’t come from the arctic wind blasting up the garden path.
Eyes burning, Hannah dived into her mother’s arms to be hugged and hugged like nothing else mattered. Mo murmured, ‘Let’s get you upstairs. We’ve got the neighbours in.’
Hannah stumbled into the hall as Jeremy emerged from the sitting room, shutting the door on laughter and conversation, and hugged her every bit as tightly as Mo had. ‘I’ll bring your stuff in. You go with your mum.’
She was home.
Upstairs, Mo didn’t ask a single question. ‘We’ve got a buffet going but if you don’t want to see anyone ping me a text and I’ll bring you a plate up.’
Hannah sniffed. ‘Nico’s not downstairs, is he?’
Mo looked surprised. ‘No, pet.’
Jeremy puffed up with Hannah’s case and a glass of red wine. ‘Here you are, my darling.’
Hannah was wordlessly, pathetically grateful. She even, after an hour to shower and dry her windswept hair, went down and joined the neighbours she’d known for years in scoffing pork pies and mini quiches and another glass of wine. After days of self-imposed exile it was bliss to hold hands with Nan, who had two weeks till her cast came off, and bathe in the light of a Christmas tree that, amongst elegant shop-bought baubles, sported decorations she’d made at school.
If she left the chat to others, nobody minded.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Christmas morning. Hannah could hear Mo and Jeremy chatting cheerfully downstairs against the background of ‘Silent Night’ on the radio. The choir’s exquisite voices reminded her of Lucia in Älgäng church but she refused to let tears fill her eyes. In her childhood room she may be but she was an adult. Her wobble was over. Christmas was a good time for new beginnings.
Her phone lay in her hand like a ticking time bomb. Should she read her messages? There would probably be words from Nico like ‘explain’ and ‘sorry’ and ‘goodbye’.
Not today, she decided. Today her smile was going to be as bright as Christmas lights. She refused to spoil anybody’s day.
Dumping her phone on the dressing table she showered, dressed in a turquoise top and black trousers that would survive the odd splash of gravy and whisked her hair up into a glittery slide. She ran downstairs. ‘Merry Christmas!’ she cried, giving each of her parents a hug.
‘Merry Christmas!’ Their arms were strong and warm and they beamed with love and joy.
Mo said, ‘Just go get Nan, will you, dear? She can’t walk with her parcels and her arm. She’s coming for breakfast so we can do presents after.’
‘No problem,’ Hannah breezed. She checked the parcels she’d left beneath their tree last weekend, flinching to see Mo had apparently not found time to pass on those for Nico and the girls.
She didn’t glance in the direction of Little Lane as she bowled her mum’s car down to Rotten Row but bounced into Nan’s house calling, ‘Merry Christmas!’
‘Merry Christmas, duck.’ Nan was dressed in her posh frock and just needed to be zipped up, then they drove straight back to her parents’ house, Hannah lugging in Nan’s black bin liner of gifts.
The morning passed in a welter of preparing food, eating food and exchanging gifts to the accompaniment of a carol