Page 55 of Christmas Is All Around
“Nope,” Ava said, at least bestirring herself enough to open the fridge and begin unpacking the bag that was overflowing with various cheeses. “He’s wrapping presents. It’s like Santa’s workshop in there. Full of secrets. We’re not allowed anywhere close.”
“What can hepossiblybe wrapping that’s making so much noise?” Charlotte asked curiously as she attempted to rearrange the contents of Ava’s cabinets enough to allow room for more canned goods.
“The collection of erotic garden statuary I found for Simone, probably,” Ava said, putting a carton of milk in the fridge door.
Charlotte blinked, opened her mouth, and then decided it was probably best not to reply. “You remember that I won’t be home for dinner tonight, right?” she said instead.
“Yes, yes,” Ava said absently, frowning down at the packet of extremely expensive French butter in her hand. “You’re going to a sexy ornament workshop.”
“No,” Charlotte said severely. “I’m going to a very professional work opportunity that I am being compensated for. Not sexy in the least.”
“Hmmm. Being compensated for at your normal rate?” Ava asked slyly, to which Charlotte had no good reply. “As I thought. The rest of your fee is being rendered inother services.”
“Ava, for god’s sake.” Charlotte was torn between exasperation and the insane desire to laugh. At that moment, at the exact same time, there was a third, even more ominous thump from the bedroom, what sounded suspiciously like a yelp of pain from Kit, and, as predicted, a shriek from Alice that veered suddenly from delighted to enraged.
“Charlotte?” came Kit’s sheepish voice from the hallway. “Could you fetch me a plaster?”
As Ava wafted away into the living room to retrieve her baby, Charlotte rummaged in a drawer in the hallway bathroom until she found a box ofBluey-themed bandages (Alice was not permitted screen time yet, but Kit had gotten weirdly hooked on the show, which Charlotte found both worrying and adorable at the same time), which she carried to Kit, who was hovering just outside his bedroom door, holding one hand in the other, trying not to drip blood on the rug.
“I’m about to leave for Eden Priory,” Charlotte told him, taking a bandage out of the box and unwrapping it for him.
“You’ll miss all the fun!” Kit said earnestly, looking distressed. From the living room, Alice’s howling grew louder, mingled with the sound of Simone singing her what Charlottethoughtmight be, mystifyingly, a sea shanty. “My dad’s just off buying a blowtorch, and then we’re going to try our hand at making crème brûlée this afternoon!”
Charlotte, privately, could not think of a less wise idea than introducing complicated French cooking and open flames into a situation that already involved one (1) demon-possessed baby, and one (1) mother of said baby who was currently in an altered state, as well as one (1) father of said baby who was bleeding copiously from his right hand, but she decided that this was not going to be her problem today, and instead offered a smile and a nod as she waved him off and went to her room to grab her coat and bag.
When Graham knocked on the door and she opened it, she informed him, quite seriously, “It will be a miracle if anyone in this flat is still alive when I return tonight. Ready to paint some ornaments?”
Eden Priory was in a state of frenzied activity when they arrived. Eloise and Lizzie were both present, but Charlotte barely had the chance to say anything beyond the briefest of hellos to them before Lizzie was swept off to the kitchen, where there was some sort of large-scale shortbread-making operation in progress. The ornament workshop was due to start in an hour, but there had evidently been some delay with the arrival of the supplies—“I don’t want to tell you how long I spent on the phone dealing with it yesterday,” Graham said darkly—and so things were being set up at the last minute.
Eloise beamed as Graham left Charlotte with a squeeze of the handto go off in search of his mother, who was evidently looking for him. “I’ll show you where we’re setting up.”
Eloise led her into a room that Charlotte thought might have once been used as a ballroom, but which now had been cleared out and was arranged with several smaller tables clustered in a loose circle. The room itself was spectacular: high-ceilinged, with a wood floor that looked to have been recently polished to a shine; enormous windows allowed the weak winter sun to pour in; bunting and fairy lights were strung from the ceiling. A tree—smaller than the iconic tree in the entrance hall, but still enormous for a regular-sized house—was strung with lights and beautiful glass ornaments, and unseen speakers were piping in (sigh) Christmas carols.
The workshop had been only partially set up thus far: boxes of ornaments, paints, and paintbrushes had been scattered around but not yet unloaded; along one wall, a couple of battered chests of drawers had been repurposed into refreshment stations, covered in platters offering a number of cakes, shortbread, and some sort of delicious-looking pastry that smelled strongly of cinnamon. There were a few cut-glass bowls laid out, presumably awaiting mulled wine and other drink options, and there were mismatched teacups and tumblers to choose from.
Eloise made a beeline for the boxes now as Charlotte set her bag down behind a chair at the front of the room and unloaded the sample ornaments she’d carefully wrapped in newspaper for the journey down, having spent the past couple of days practicing various designs on a pack of cheap ornaments she’d found at a craft shop in London. She then crossed the room to help Eloise finish unloading the boxes, setting up an array of craft supplies at each table.
“This is pretty casual,” Eloise explained as they worked. “Nancy—our usual instructor—is just a lady in the village; we’ve known her for ages. She’s lovely, but she’s got to be at least eighty by now, and is a bit scattered. She tends to spend most of her time during the workshop downing mugs of wine—most of the people who show up for thisare just looking for an afternoon out, so you don’t need to worry too much about teaching propertechniqueor whatever to anyone.”
“Got it,” Charlotte said, setting a last cup of paintbrushes on one of the tables and stepping back to survey the room. “I did make some sample ornaments, though, just in case anyone wants to use those as examples.” Eloise scampered over to look at the ornaments in question and squealed in delight.
“These areincredible; gosh, maybe we should have had you teach a proper course or something—”
“Too late now,” Charlotte cautioned, and Eloise laughed.
“I’m just glad we didn’t have to cancel it—the tickets don’t cost that much, but Graham would’ve been stressed if we’d had to refund people their money. More than he’s already stressed these days, I mean,” she clarified with an eye roll. “We also had loads of messages from people at the last minute, saying they were going to come!” Eloise added happily. “I think it was your face on the Instagram post I made yesterday that did it.”
Charlotte blinked. “My… face?” she asked a bit cautiously.
Eloise beamed, distracted, as she whipped her phone out to take a few photographs of the room. “Yes! Graham told me that you were willing to help us advertise the film screening, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to use you for this, too! So I posted that the star ofChristmas, Trulyherself would be running the workshop—that’s when I started getting messages from people asking if they needed to book tickets in advance, that sort of thing.”
She sounded delighted by this, which made Charlotte feel guilty about the swooping feeling of dread in her stomach. Shehadtold Graham that they could use her to market theChristmas, Trulyscreening, after all; was this really so different? Why should this bother her so much?
Because, said a petulant voice in her head, the one that represented the darkest, worst parts of herself,it’s my art, the thing I’m actuallygoodat, and now that stupid movie is ruining that too.
But she didn’t want to listen to that voice—not today, not when she so desperately wanted this to go well, for Graham’s sake. So she shoved it—and all of her misgivings—aside, and offered Eloise the best smile that she could manage, determined thatChristmas, Trulyof all things was not—not—going to spoil her day.
Graham found her later, as she was packing leftover supplies into the boxes they’d arrived in.
