Page 69 of It Always Snows on Mistletoe Square
So while we wait for the moon to work its magic on the Christmas tree decorations, Ben and I steal flirty glances at each other, like two teenagers in a school classroom. Glances that I’m sure don’t go unnoticed by Estelle and Angela.
The moon soon makes an appearance from behind the clouds. It shines through the window down onto a decoration in the shape of a snowflake, making it sparkle and shine as it hangs on the tree. And for the first time I wonder how the moon is able to shine through the same window every evening. Shouldn’t it move a little further across the sky each night and therefore away from the front of the house?
But I don’t have long to ponder this thought, as suddenly we’re catapulted once more into the past, as Estelle’s sitting room begins to transform to its former self, almost sixty years previously.
Nineteen
MistletoeSquare,London
Boxing Day 1962
Let it Snow
‘Before you ask,’ Estelle says, looking around her. ‘Yes, I do still live here.’
‘And so do I!’ Angela announces to my surprise. ‘You’re going to meet me for the first time tonight too!’
‘Calm down, Angela,’ Estelle says. ‘We’re not at that bit yet. We need to set the scene.’
I’m not sure what I expected when Estelle said we were heading back to 1962. A retro-looking room with bold sixties flower-power prints, or some chrome and pastel-coloured plastic furniture perhaps. But what we find as some of the furniture fades away and is replaced with its sixties equivalent, is a strange mix of antique old and retro old. As though the owner of this room doesn’t want to give up the past, but has had to bow slightly to the modern trends of the day.
Still remaining is some of the furniture from previous visits – the sideboard, the china cabinet and the table the men were playing cards around. I notice the cocktail cabinet has disappeared again – perhaps who lives here now doesn’t drink all that much? But interspersed among this are touches of the decade we now find ourselves in – the open fireplace now has an electric fire installed into it. Above the fire, hangs a gold and wood sunburst wall clock. A large shiny green cheese plant stands in a bright-orange-and-brown pot in one corner of the room, and, in another corner, where the wireless had been on our last visit here, there now stands a boxy-looking television set with a wooden surround. The wallpaper, curtains and floor covering still lean towards the more traditional, but the cushions that are scattered on the brown leather seats and sofa are covered in the bright colours and bold prints so synonymous with the sixties.
A green velour curtain still separates the front room from the back like it had in 1936, but this time it’s pulled across the opening that joins the two rooms.
And as always, since our Victorian Christmas, a large Christmas tree stands in the window of the room. It’s decorated with colourful lantern lights, proper silver tinsel for the first time, and a mix of some of the traditional decorations I’ve noticed in previous years, along with a few more bold and gaudy baubles that befit the decade we find ourselves in.
‘To give you a quick heads-up to what’s going on, I live here in these two rooms,’ Estelle explains quickly. ‘My bedroom is behind the curtain there. The rest of the house I rent out to earn some money. I share the kitchen and two bathrooms with my tenants, many of whom are students.’
I look at Estelle to see if she’s at all embarrassed by this revelation. But she seems perfectly matter-of-fact about it.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Elle. It was quite commonplace back then to rent out rooms in a big house like this. There was no shame in it.’
‘I didn’t think there was,’ I say hurriedly. ‘I’m just surprised, that’s all.’
‘I needed the money, and it was a quick solution. As I told you before, my marriage didn’t last long and after I became a widow, it was just me and Mother in the house. Father had frittered away most of Mother’s money before his death, and any money I’d been left by Teddy didn’t last long with neither Mother nor I working. Mother had got worse and needed constant care, so I made it my mission to nurse her for as long as she lived.’
She goes over to the fire and gazes lovingly at a photo on the mantelpiece of Clara, the same one Estelle has hanging in her hall today. ‘Mother died peacefully in her sleep in 1958. She was pretty bad towards the end, so really it was a blessing. I didn’t see it that way to begin with, though – I was angry for both of us. While I worked my way through my grief, I became pretty much a recluse. For the first time ever I found myself totally alone in this house – it was a strange mix of freedom and loneliness.’
Estelle pauses as she remembers. She looks wistfully around the room and her gaze falls upon the Christmas tree once more and suddenly I get it. The Christmas tree is the only thing that doesn’t change in this house, which is why it’s so important to her. It’s the one constant. The one thing that can be relied on to appear every year in a slightly different guise, but always in the exact same place.
‘Then one day I had a bit of a revelation,’ Estelle continues. ‘Perhaps it was a mid-life crisis, who knows? But I decided I needed to get out into the world and see some of it while I still had the chance, and before I got too old. So, I rented out Holly House next door, which we still owned, to a fashion house of the time as a design studio and offices, and then as many rooms as I could in this house to tenants, and with the money I managed to travel the world for eighteen months. It was one of the happiest times of my life.’
Estelle is positively glowing at the memory.
‘It wasn’t as easy as it is now to travel the world – especially on your own as a woman. But I never felt I was in danger. I simply felt free for the first time in my life.’
‘Why did you stop?’ I ask. ‘Was there a reason you came back when you did?’
‘She met me,’ Angela says a little ruefully. ‘I was the end to her freedom.’
‘Now, Angela, it wasn’t exactly like that, was it?’
We hear someone putting a key in the front door.
‘Here we come!’ Angela says, rushing through to the hall.
‘Shall we?’ Estelle says, gesturing for us to follow. ‘The story is about to begin.’
