Page 23 of It Always Snows on Mistletoe Square
Sadly for me, Estelle was spot on last night. If I did leave Mistletoe Square, where else was I going to go right now? With Christmas fast approaching it wasn’t going to be easy to find somewhere else to live, or someone to stay with. Not somewhere I wanted to be, anyway. Part of me thinks I should get out of there as fast as possible. It’s clear something strange is going on. But part of me – my journalist’s nose, as I like to call it – smells a story, and not simply one of Estelle’s strange tales. I find myself intrigued by Estelle and Angela and their large Georgian house. How can they afford to live there, when all the other houses in the square have been sold off or rented out to businesses wanting a fancy Bloomsbury address? Why do they live there together, and what exactly is their relationship – friends, colleagues, employer and employee? I desperately want to know more about them.
But it’s not just that, I realise, as I walk past the British Museum with its majestic frontage of Greek-style temple columns, the renowned Great Ormond Street children’s hospital, and a number of other Georgian squares, similar to, but not quite as pretty as, my new home. I’ve grown quite fond of Estelle and Angela in the short time I’ve known them. There’s something I really like about the two of them and their quirky relationship. They both made me feel so welcome in their home, and it’s been a long time since I felt so comfortable or so wanted.
A warm feeling spreads through me, even though the temperature out here can’t be more than three or four degrees. For some reason the thought of spending this Christmas with Estelle and Angela makes me happy. They clearly adore this time of year; perhaps some of their festive cheer will rub off on me if I allow it to?
I smile to myself as I walk. There are a lot of strange things going on in Mistletoe Square, but nothing would be stranger than if I suddenly started liking Christmas.
I glance at the Christmas decorations I pass in office and shop windows, and the flats above them. Everywhere is decorated or lit up in some way with tiny twinkling lights in the shape of stars and angels. Reindeers whose noses glow red, and Santas who wave at me as I pass. Christmas is everywhere right now and there is no getting away from it. But then most people don’t want to get away from it, do they? Most people love it. They’ve probably loved it from when they were small children.
But I’m not most people, and I really can’t remember a time when I did like Christmas. Perhaps when I was very young I had, or perhaps I never liked it at all.
But then why would I? When your parents don’t have time to celebrate Christmas with you, what reason would you have to enjoy it if you’ve never made any happy memories at this time of year?
I walk around Brunswick Square with the usual small garden in the middle and black wrought-iron railings around the outside, quickly forgetting all about my negative Christmas thoughts as I pause outside a large building. But this time it’s not the architecture that makes me stop walking, it’s the yellow sign outside.The Foundling Museum, it says in bold black font.
Foundling – that’s what Estelle called the little boy that Celeste and Nora were forced to give up.
‘You should go in,’ a man walking a dog says as he passes by on the pavement behind me. ‘It’s very good. Much better than some museums I’ve been to. This one has some meaning, some heart, you know?’
‘Thanks,’ I tell him, looking up at the building again. ‘I might just do that.’
The man carries on his way with his dog, and I head up the steps.
Inside the building, which I quickly discover once originally housed a children’s home, is a museum dedicated to telling the story of the foundling hospital, and the children who once lived here. After I pay my entrance fee, I walk through wood-panelled galleries, admiring the many works of art that have been donated to the hospital over the years. I’m intrigued to find that famous and not so famous artists of their time have donated art in support of the hospital. There are works by William Hogarth and Thomas Gainsborough; even Handel’s last will and testament is on show. I’m also surprised to discover as I wander that the charity is still in existence today, but it now runs as a successful adoption charity, placing children with a family who will love and care for them as they grow. A fate most of the children who lived here in the early years of the hospital’s existence sadly didn’t ever get to experience.
But by far the most moving part of my visit is when I come to the galleries telling the stories of the foundling children who lived in the hospital. There are accounts written in their own voices of their daily lives, photographs of the stark dormitories they once shared, and the tiny austere wrought-iron beds they would have slept in. There are stories of what happened to some of them if they were able to be traced, and, perhaps the most moving of all, some of the actual tokens that were left with the children, usually by their mothers, in the desperate hope that one day they would be reunited again.
As I gaze at the many tokens pinned up in a large display cabinet, I’m touched by the vast diversity of things that were used as a possible way of identifying one child from another. There are tiny pieces of fabric and coins, thimbles and playing cards, jewellery and medals. A small walnut has been engraved by one mother with a message to her child. It’s clear that very few of the children who ended up here were unwanted by their parents – they were simply incredibly unlucky to be born into difficult circumstances that led to them being orphaned in this way.
I think about what I saw last night, the desperation and grief etched in not only Celeste’s face as her grandchild had been taken from her, but in Edith’s too.
Children should be with people who love them, I think, as I wander further through the museum.Whether that be their actual family, or someone who is willing to give them the love they deserve. They should never be somewhere like this.And for the first time in ages, I think with fondness about my own parents. Did I experience the best upbringing? Perhaps not. But at least I was loved and cared for, even if it was in a slightly unusual way.
After I’ve spent a couple of hours wandering around the museum, I decide to make my way back towards the house. I still have many things I want to write about from last night, and after my visit to the hospital there’s now so much more detail I can add.
I buy a takeaway coffee from a stall just outside Mistletoe Square, with the intention of drinking it on one of the benches inside the gardens before I go back inside.
‘You want marshmallows on that?’ the vendor asks me. ‘Christmas special?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Cream?’ He holds up a can ready to squirt on my coffee.
‘No, just as it is thanks.’
‘Sure.’ The vendor shrugs at me. ‘Nothing wrong with a simple coffee. Especially when it’s as good as mine!’
I take my coffee and walk along the path that cuts diagonally through the centre of the garden. I gaze up at the bunches of mistletoe that so many of the bare trees have at their tips. My mind is still partly on what I saw and read about in the museum as I walk, so I’m not really concentrating enough on what’s around me.
‘Careful!’ I hear, right before I collide with a man out jogging. I feel our shoulders catch each other, and I have to steady myself to avoid spilling my coffee.
‘I’m so sorry!’ I say automatically, as I turn round. ‘I didn’t see … Oh, it’s you. Gosh, are you all right?’
Ben looks very different today to when we first met. Whereas before he was wearing smart office clothes, today he’s wearing running shoes, a sweatshirt and jogging bottoms as he picks himself up off the path.
‘Yeah, no harm done,’ he says, brushing some leaves off his trousers. ‘You caught me off guard or I wouldn’t have gone down. Perils of wearing these things,’ he says, removing a pair of white Apple AirPods from his ears. ‘I should count myself lucky you didn’t spill your coffee down me, I suppose.’
‘I’d never spill my coffee,’ I say with a straight face. ‘I’m a bit of a caffeine addict.’ I lift my coffee cup and take a sip.
