Page 113 of All I Want for Christmas

Within a few minutes, as she turned right and then left, she could feel the breeze pick up and the tall masts of the boats in the marina came into view above the low roofs. She passed a chandlery and an ice cream parlour, some boarded-up cafes. It always felt poignant visiting a place during its hibernation, as if life had been suspended:Please come back later.

But Darcy wasn’t trying to imagine the town as it would be during its summer peak; she was trying to see it as it might have been a hundred years ago. Had this tree been here? That house? What had Lilja Madsen seen as she walked along the sand, mourning her child, while her own parents were trapped over a distant border? Had she missed her husband, sent abroad to build upon the company’s fortunes while she grieved here alone?

Almost to her surprise, she found herself standing on the coast road. The town ended abruptly, fronting onto a wide, golden beach. Across the water were the distant mountains of Sweden, just purple shadows from here.

To her right she could see the fishing boats in the harbour, sleek yachts, and a large, grand hotel squaring over the marina. It had a modern edge with cafes and restaurants, chalked blackboards and boutiques, and she knew it was the beating heart of summer living here. To her left the beach spun away in a vast arc, empty and timeless, with shallow sloping dunes at its back. Her long hair was blown back off her neck as she watched the white horses gallop over a battleship-grey sea, indolent waves slumping on the shore, long grasses bent low in prostration. It had always been like this. It would always be like this. It was the view Lilja would have known, the one that had restored her – for a time, at least.

Until it hadn’t.

Darcy walked slowly, shivering as she tried to take in her first moments here. She couldn’t say exactly why she had wanted to come, only that she had felt compelled to make the journey. Otto didn’t understand it; his academic stance was dry and factual – dates, places, achievement – but Darcy needed more than that. She had to see the characters she studied as living people; she had to find their pulse to capture their soul. And if Lilja’s likeness was about to be revealed to the world after almost a century in the dark, the very least Darcy could do was shine a light into the deepest corners.

She saw two figures on the sand in the distance and what appeared to be a dog chasing after a ball; they were little more than black dots from here and Darcy watched, seeing them enjoy this simple pleasure as the man threw the ball and the dog chased it. Humans, for all their advancements, were stillsimple creatures, repeating the same behaviours of their forebears: walking barefoot on beaches, shouting secrets into the wind. It had all been done before. And as she saw, in her mind’s eye, Lilja’s body rolling in the shallows, she knew there was nothing unique in that either. Humans were really quite predictable, when pushed.

It was the same, but different. The sea lay at Darcy’s back, closer than she had imagined, as she stood at the brick pillars and looked in at the garden that had become so familiar to her eye in recent days. Of course, the trees were stiff-fingered and bare of their leaves, no flowers in bloom at this time of year, but the dense clusters of narrow silver birch trunks – affording glimpses of the land and house beyond – were still the same. The estate sat a short distance from the town, enclosed within woodland. She imagined the villagers and tourists gathering here to admire the famous gardens, the bow-armed orchard trees heady with blossom, flower beds thick with scent and colour, butterflies weaving through the long meadow grasses speckled with poppies and clover and drifts of forget-me-nots.

She saw the gracious curve of the drive meander left and up towards the house, a sleek dark grey car sitting in front of a garage to the left. It wasn’t the car Christoff had driven her home in, or in which she’d travelled with Max the day of the Christmas market; this was sportier, smaller, low-slung.

She took a few steps in, feeling herself caught in a tension between now and the past. Her mind wanted to stay on Lilja: what she must have seen and felt as she walked barefoot and bereft on the grass. Had she been happy to see Lotte, her sister-in-law, as she looked up from talking with Old Sally, that day on the lawn?

But there were lights on in the house, and Darcy couldn’t pretend she wasn’t distracted knowing that Max was in there. Was he waiting for her? Was he looking out?

The house came into view as she moved past the trees. It was a handsome red brick, diagonally strapped with black timbers and topped with a thick thatched roof with five humped gables. Smoke was puffing sedately from a chimney, another sign someone was inside. It was a large, substantial house, yet it had a comforting feel too. It was homely, not grand. She could see exactly why Lilja would have loved it here.

The car, she saw now, was an Audi R8. What had sat here in its place when Lotte and Henrik had come to stay, or when Casper had returned from London? She remembered a pony trap that had just edged into view in some of the pictures. Had Lilja enjoyed going out for rides on that?

A door opened – not the front door, but one at the side – and Max appeared. Saturday Max. Jeans, another cashmere jumper. Socks.

‘You found it, then.’

No hello. Obviously.

‘Yes. I had a nice walk along the beach,’ she said, drawing closer.

‘Nice? If you say so,’ he said, looking out at the dreary weather. ‘...Were you warm enough?’ He looked sceptically at her short jacket.

‘Yes,’ she lied.

‘You should wear a hat.’

‘...Okay, Dad.’

She stopped in front of him and there was a moment in which they both hesitated as the tension – from the meeting last night, the other morning, last weekend – lingered. Then he allowed a reluctant half-smile.

‘You’d better come in.’

She followed him in, through a brick-floored boot room with deep blue-grey wainscoting – coats hanging on pegs, welly boots on sticks – and into the kitchen. It had pale wooden strip floors that looked to be original, black wooden cabinets and open shelving. The walls were lime-washed and a large black range that looked like an Aga, but wasn’t Aga, dominated the back wall. There was a large old prep table in the middle of the space with copper pans underneath, but unlike in Max’s Copenhagen house, here there was only a small round dining table, set before double doors that opened onto the garden. No island. No bar stools. It managed to be somehow both a period room and contemporary at the same time.

‘Oh,’ she breathed as her gaze cast around. ‘...It’s so lovely.’ Instinctively she walked over to the doors and looked out. The lawn swept down and away from the room, like a bridal veil fanning from a tiara. The deep flower beds flanked the doors, pushing out in ergonomic curves as if jostling for more space.

Ah, that’s what it is, she thought to herself.

‘What?’ Max was standing by the back counter, watching her, one ankle crossed over the other.

She realized she’d spoken out loud. ‘I was just thinking about how there are no straight lines out there. Everything’s curved and natural...It’s what makes the garden feel so soft.’

‘Soft?’ Max considered her words. ‘...I guess so. I’ve never thought of it that way before.’

She turned back into the room, embarrassed by her observation.

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