Page 22 of It Always Snows on Mistletoe Square
‘I guess we’ll never know,’ Estelle says quickly. ‘Now, I’m feeling a little tired after our story tonight. I think I might have an early night if that’s all right with the two of you?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll help you to your room.’ Angela hurries over to help Estelle up.
‘Goodnight, Elle,’ Estelle says, as she shuffles towards the door using her stick, followed by Alvie. ‘Have a good evening. I will see you tomorrow, and my apologies again if anything tonight shocked you too much.’
‘Goodnight, Estelle. Sleep well.’
‘And you, my dear, and you.’
I watch Estelle, Angela and Alvie leave. Then, not really knowing what to do next, I glance around the room, and my gaze falls once more upon the beautifully lit Christmas tree.
I stand up and go over to examine in more detail the decoration the moonlight had fallen on earlier tonight. ‘If all that can come from one baby in a cradle, I wonder what all you others have in store for me?’ I whisper, looking at the other vintage decorations with interest.
Then I head back over to the chairs by the fire, and tidy up the tea things, loading them onto the tray. ‘My phone!’ I exclaim as I see it still sitting on the little table. ‘And it’s still recording, too. I’ll have some very interesting stuff to write about when I listen back to it later.’ I pop my phone into my pocket, then I lift the tray and head through the hall down to the kitchen. I decide the china tea set is a little delicate for a dishwasher, so I run a bowl of soapy water and wash the cups and saucers by hand. I’m about to head up to my room when Angela appears in the kitchen.
‘You needn’t have done that,’ she says, seeing the cups and saucers on the draining board. ‘But thank you.’
‘It’s fine, I don’t mind helping out. If it’s all right I’m going to go up to my room now,’ I say, wondering what Angela does of an evening when Estelle goes to bed. ‘I’m going to start writing up this first story immediately. Is that okay?’
‘Of course it is. What you do with your free time is no business of mine. I won’t be late to bed either once I’ve let Alvie outside to do his business. Estelle is always an early riser.’ Angela pauses. ‘I’m sorry if tonight was a bit of a shock for you, Elle. It can take a while to get used to Estelle’s storytelling methods. They may seem strange at first, but once you stop trying to make sense of it, and you simply let it happen, it’s much easier to come to terms with, believe me.’
‘Right … ’ I say, not knowing quite how to respond to this. ‘I’ll try. I guess I’ll say goodnight then?’
‘You’re welcome to use the sitting room to write in, if you’d rather?’ Angela suggests. ‘I always enjoy sitting by the fire in the evenings, especially now the Christmas tree is up. But I won’t be tonight. I’m quite tired, so it’s all yours.’
‘I might do that. Thank you.’ I leave Angela in the kitchen and I head up to my room, deciding when I get there that an evening by the fire writing up this first story might be preferable to sitting up here in my room alone. Which, although perfectly warm and comfortable, isn’t anywhere near as cosy as the sitting room with a roaring fire for company.
So I take my laptop, a notebook and my phone downstairs and get settled in a chair by the fire. I open my notebook ready to jot down a few things before I type up the story and then I press play on the voice memo.
I listen to Estelle tell the background of the story about Joseph and Celeste, and Joseph building the house. ‘We join their story on Christmas Eve 1755 … ’ she says. But then the voice memo goes silent.
‘What? You’re kidding me!’ I lift the phone up and adjust the volume, but there’s nothing. I push the memo on a bit to see if it’s picked anything up a bit further along, but still nothing. It seems no amount of fiddling with the memo will produce any sound in the middle of the recording until I hear my own voice say: ‘How is this even possible? It can’t go from one thing to another and back again so fast?’ Then the conversation between myself, Estelle and Angela is recorded until Estelle goes to bed and I go over to look at the Christmas tree.
Hmm … something very odd is going on here, I think as I desperately begin to scribble down everything I can remember about Estelle’s first story in my notebook.And I’m going to find out exactly what that is.
Seven
Bloomsbury,London
20 December 2018
The next morning, I breakfast alone.
Angela tells me Estelle isn’t feeling too well, so she’s going to stay in bed for a few hours and rest in the hope she will be up to telling me another story later.
My hope that Angela will join me for breakfast, so I can ask her more about last night without her fearing what Estelle might say, is also quashed when she says she’s already eaten earlier this morning. ‘Always up with the lark, me,’ she says proudly as she brings me my breakfast at the table. Today Angela is wearing an outfit that could have stepped right out of the 1960s. She’s wearing her hair up again, but instead of the ponytail of yesterday, today it’s piled up into a semi beehive reminding me of Celeste’s hairstyle from last night. Under her apron she wears a black-and-white mini dress with thick black tights and long black boots, and I marvel at how someone of Angela’s age can carry all this off, and still look fabulous.
‘Early to bed and early to rise makes me healthy, wealthy and wise! Two out of three isn’t bad, I suppose!’ she adds with a grimace. ‘Estelle prefers to tell her stories at night, so you’re not missing out on anything. You have the day to yourself.’
After I’ve had breakfast, I decide to take a walk to explore the local area. Even though I’ve lived in London for nearly ten years, the affluent and often bohemian area of Bloomsbury is not somewhere I’ve ever had the occasion to frequent that often.
It’s a beautiful, crisp, cold December day as I wrap my scarf around my neck and head down the steps into Mistletoe Square, wearing my long red winter coat and a pair of long black boots over my jeans.
I take a trip around the square first, admiring the neat, precise Georgian architecture and the tall, elegant houses that surround the little fenced garden in the middle. After last night, I now have a new understanding of what the people who first lived on this square might have been like. Many of the buildings now contain businesses and companies rather than families, and I find myself wondering who else might have lived here when Celeste, Edith and Nora did.
Eventually, I leave the square and head out into the surrounding streets, hoping that a long walk on a cold winter’s morning will clear my head a little and allow me to think with more clarity about Christmas House and the people who live there.
