Doesn’t look as if anyone’s there now, the day before Christmas Eve. The house is locked up and dark. The street is treeless. The few bare bushes and the road are covered with ice and mud and old snow.
To get in, Mia finds a key under one of the plant pots in the front yard. Inside there’s no light. The electricity has been turned off for the winter. No one thought they’d be coming back to Blackpool until June. Julian and Mia blunder around the kitchen until they find matches and some candles.
There’s a note for Mia on the table. It’s from her mother. Mia reads it out loud.
Mia, my love, my dearest darling! Nothing would make your mum happier to know you read these words, because that would mean you were all right and safe. I haven’t heard from you in over a month. Last I heard you met a new fella. The news from London has been so bad that your silence is crushing me. I am sick with worry. We went with Wilma to Morecambe Bay to her father-in-law’s to spend Christmas and New Year’s.
If you come home for Christmas, and you get this in time, please take a train if they’re still running to Morecambe and walk 4 miles to Danvers Lane. Send word to the Morecambe telegraph office to let me know you’re all right. I go every day to check for news from you. If I don’t hear from you by New Year’s, I’m returning to London. I can’t take your silence anymore. I left you some of my ration tins in our secret cupboard in the pantry off the kitchen, you remember where. So many empty houses have been burgled. There’s Spam, tinned peaches, milk, tomatoes. There’s even a tinned pudding. I know how you like those. I luv ya, my angel, God be with you, kia ora, have life, be well, and Happy Christmas.
Your Mum.
Julian frowns. “Why did your mom say kia ora? How does she know the Maori greeting?”
“I was born in New Zealand,” Mia says. “How do you know it?”
“You were?” He is drunk but astonished.
“Yes, in McKenzie county, north of Dunedin. We returned to Blackpool when I was a baby, so I don’t remember any of it. My mum’s family is from here.”
“What year were you born?”
“1912.”
He stares at her deeply, deeply, deeply. Shae died at the end of 1911.
“What’s your mum’s name?”
“Abigail. Abby. Why?”
It doesn’t ring a bell. But there are no coincidences. If he has a chance to meet her mother, he can ask Abigail if she’s ever heard of Agnes or Kiritopa or the Yarrow Tavern in Invercargill. “What do you think? Can we get to Morecambe in time for Christmas Eve?”
Mia shakes her head. “I can’t,” she says. “I’m tired. I don’t feel well.” It’s the first time since they’ve met that Julian has heard her admit that. “I’ll walk with you to the sea tomorrow, but that’s about it. There’s no direct train to Morecambe from here, anyway. We’d have to return to Preston.”
“No,” Julian says. “We are not going to do that.” He has brought her home. And look what it took. They’re not going anywhere.
“Right. Everything closes early tomorrow, and stays closed for Christmas and Boxing Day.” She steps closer to him. “If I tell her I’m here, she’s going to try to take the first train down. And then we won’t be alone anymore.” She doesn’t lift her arms, but she presses her face against his coat. “I want to feel a little better so I can be with you again, before they descend on us. My family is like locusts. There are so many of them, and they never stop chirping.”
The house is cold. They decide not to sleep upstairs. Their legs can’t carry them up and down. Julian builds a fire, goes up once to bring down some blankets and pillows and makes a bed for them on the floor in the parlor room in front of the fire. Together they lie down, though neither knows how they’re going to get to their feet tomorrow.
“I long for fish and chips, for biscuits and tea,” Mia says like she’s already dreaming. “What about you?”
“Palm trees and highways, the ocean, and music in the lit-up mountains.”
“Where is this magical place,” she murmurs before falling asleep, her forehead at his arm.
The next morning she wants to go to the boardwalk.