Christmas on Rosemary Lane

‘No pristine babygrows this time,’ a chronically sleep-deprived colleague had laughed. ‘If there’s food on his front, I just pop another T-shirt on over the top. Some days, by bath time, he’s wearing six outfits.’

Lucy liked the idea of being more relaxed this time, and being able to fully enjoy their baby, rather than feeling as if they were merely staggering from one day to the next. She slowed down and turned left into a single-track lane.

Ivan looked at her. ‘Where are we going now?’

‘I just want to show you something,’ she replied.

‘But what’s up here? It doesn’t look like it leads anywhere …’

‘Wait and see,’ she said, trying to suppress a smile. There was nothing at first – just trees on either side of the lane, their boughs joining to form a lacy green canopy overhead. There was an old red phone box, a stone trough at the roadside and a huddled cottage with a pale green front door. Someone trotted by on a pony. Surely, Ivan could see how idyllic it was, compared to their neighbourhood of nondescript terraced streets back in Manchester. Whilst perfectly functional, their house had only a tiny paved backyard and a bunch of party-loving students next door. They had been burgled twice, and last November someone had posted a firework through their letterbox. The joys of city life were beginning to wear thin.

‘What is this?’ Ivan asked. ‘A mystery trip?’

‘You’ll see,’ she replied, glimpsing the high garden wall now, weathered and patterned with lichen and moss. There was the cottage’s whitewashed gable end, the thatched roof, and the wrought-iron garden gate that Lucy, Hally and the Linton kids had charged through in a pack. She could almost hear their plimsoled feet slapping onto the gravel path.

Lucy’s heart was quickening now as she stopped the car. She could see the trees they’d climbed and the old wooden shed that they’d hidden behind, like kids in an adventure story. Her strongest childhood memories were here in this semi-wild garden.

And now there was something else too.

A ‘For Sale’ sign, garish red and white against the cloudless sky. Lucy turned to Ivan.

‘What’s this, honey?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘Just a cottage.’ She was beaming now, unable to stop herself as they climbed out of the car.

They weren’t here by chance. Ever since Max had taken over at Claudine, Lucy had been browsing estate agents’ websites, fantasising about a cottage in the country. This usually happened late at night, after Ivan had gone to bed, and it had become quite a hobby of hers. She had searched this whole area of West Yorkshire, then found herself homing in on Burley Bridge, just out of curiosity at first. When she had spotted that Rosemary Cottage was up for sale, she had almost fallen off her chair.

This was the reason she had suggested staying in a hotel fairly close by. She’d suspected that Ivan would have resisted coming to view the cottage; Burley Bridge was too remote for them to consider moving here while he was working in Manchester. But she hoped that, when he saw it for himself, he would at least consider taking a look inside.

Ivan met Lucy’s gaze, clearly registering her shining green eyes and the flush to her cheeks. ‘It’s a beautiful house,’ he conceded.

She pushed back her thick, long dark hair. ‘D’you think we might be able to just – you know … have a look around?’

His mouth twitched into a smile. ‘What for?’

‘Oh, I’m just curious, you know? I remember it really well. Me and a couple of local kids used to sneak into the garden and steal berries …’

‘You never told me you had a criminal past.’ He grinned at her.

‘Just a few handfuls,’ she chuckled.

Ivan turned back to the cottage. ‘Looks like it needs quite a bit of work, darling.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, but imagine us all being here. Wouldn’t it be lovely? You’ve been saying you’ve had enough of the crazy hours, the endless meetings, all the pressures—’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And wouldn’t the kids love it? Look at the size of that garden! They could have a Wendy house and a den, and the house would be perfect for bed and breakfast …’ While she might have lured him here under false pretences, Ivan did know that Lucy had fantasised for years now about running a country B&B.

‘Luce …’ He paused. ‘Are you serious about doing bed and breakfast?’

She nodded. ‘I know we’d be good at it, you and me together.’

Ivan shook his head and exhaled. ‘But how on earth could we do that with the baby coming?’

‘We’d manage,’ she said firmly. ‘We’d only be talking two or three rooms to let out to guests. How hard would that be?’

‘Yes, but newborn babies are up all night and demand attention every second of the day. You remember how it was …’

‘Sam and Marnie were both sleeping through at eight months,’ she reminded him.

‘But what if this one isn’t?’

She exhaled. ‘I just thought we could have a look around.’

Ivan slid an arm around her waist. When they’d found out she was pregnant, he had agreed that perhaps now was the time to reduce his working hours in order to spend more time with their young family. With her redundancy payment, they could manage for a while, and he had agreed – tentatively – that it could be an opportunity to live their lives differently. Ivan worked full-pelt at Brookes, a Manchester-based branding agency. Although he loved his job, when deadlines loomed he was often plagued by insomnia and even the odd panic attack. Lucy worried about him. At times, he seemed so stressed and wrapped up in his work, he could barely interact with her or the children at all. ‘It’s just modern life,’ he’d said flippantly, when she’d tried to address the issue. ‘No, of course I don’t need to see the doctor.’

‘But she could sign you off with stress. You could have a break—’

‘You know what’d happen then. I’d be edged out of the company, wouldn’t I?’

‘Like me, you mean,’ she’d shot back, knowing he hadn’t meant it that way.

He chose to ignore her remark. ‘She’d only prescribe happy pills,’ he’d muttered – which was Ivan all over: stubborn, dedicated, intent on providing for his young family. And who needed ‘happy pills’, as he called them – annoyingly – when he could knock back the best part of a bottle of merlot most nights?

Lucy was desperate to make a change. What was the point of Ivan slogging away if the children rarely saw him and the work was making him ill?

‘So,’ she said now, ‘d’you like it?’

He nodded and turned to the cottage again. ‘Of course I do, Luce. It’s beautiful.’

As she had half-expected a non-committal ‘it’s okay, I suppose’, this was a pleasant surprise. ‘I know it’s a long way from Manchester,’ she conceded, taking his hand in hers.

‘Yeah, of course it is.’ He nodded thoughtfully and they fell into silence for a few moments. ‘But maybe that’s not the be-all and end-all anymore,’ he added.

She bit her lip as her gaze skimmed the garden. ‘You mean—’

‘I’m not against it, darling,’ he said gently.

She nodded, barely able to believe he was being so positive. ‘If we did B&B, I know the baby’d put things on hold for a while …’

‘Well, yes, obviously … but shall we view it anyway?’

It was all Lucy could do not to yelp with delight. ‘I’d love to.’

‘Okay.’ His dark brown eyes met hers, and he rested his hand protectively on her stomach, even though she wasn’t showing yet. ‘Let’s phone the agent and just see, shall we? We could come back another time—’

‘Well, actually, I phoned already.’

‘What?’ he exclaimed.

She cleared her throat. ‘I told him we’d be in the area today, and he said if you liked the look of it we should give him a call. He’s only local. He said he’d pop round with the keys …’

Ivan stared at her, feigning outrage. ‘You tricked me!’

‘I know.’ She winced. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Hmmm.’ He slid his gaze back towards the cottage, then turned and beamed at her. ‘I suppose not. Now you’ve forced me into this …’

They were both laughing now, and Lucy felt as if she could burst with love as she wrapped her arms around his waist. ‘Okay, darling,’ she said. ‘I’ll give him a call right now.’

Chapter Three

Three months later, as the village sparkled with late January frost, Rosemary Cottage was theirs and ready to be transformed into the B&B of their dreams. Well, Lucy’s dreams really; she was the one driving the project, looking into ways to manage bookings and marketing, as well as overseeing an upgrade of the house. Although it had been spruced up for sale, there was still a substantial amount of work to be done in order to create the kind of B&B she yearned for.

A team of tradesmen set to work upgrading fixtures and fittings. As the days turned milder – there had been no snow so far that winter – they took away the damp-riddled conservatory, and the area where it had stood was transformed into a decked seating space where Lucy planned to serve breakfasts on summer mornings. She was all for dismantling the ancient garden shed, and perhaps building a summerhouse for guests to enjoy – until Ivan and the children made a plea for keeping it. ‘But it’s falling to bits,’ she reasoned. ‘It must be as old as the house itself.’

‘That’s part of its charm,’ Ivan reasoned, so she let it go and he set about making it a hobby shed for himself and the children. Although his spare time was still sparse, at least he seemed to be enjoying it now instead of huddling over his laptop, staring at reports, drinking wine. Sam and Marnie were thrilled to have more of his attention, and they were full of ideas for all kinds of construction projects they could get up to together.

‘Can we make a birdhouse?’ Sam asked.

‘Sure!’ Ivan replied.

‘What about a bird bath and a bird table—’ Marnie cut in.

‘And bird hotel?’ Sam asked, giggling.

‘I’d never have guessed you were a shed man,’ Lucy teased Ivan.

‘I don’t think I knew it myself,’ he said with a grin. Meanwhile, the cottage’s ancient kitchen was refitted in readiness for all the breakfasts – and possibly evening meals – they would be preparing for guests. Gradually, the place started to come together and feel altogether more welcoming.

Lucy had already gathered that the cookbook shop on the village high street had put Burley Bridge firmly on the day-trippers’ map. In fact, Della, who had set it up and still ran it, had grown up in Rosemary Cottage alongside her brother and sister. It had been her mother, Kitty, who had shrieked at Lucy, Hally and the Linton children for sneaking into her garden and stealing her redcurrants.

‘You were brave,’ Della had laughed, when Lucy told her about her childhood antics. ‘Mum was pretty scary – especially when she’d had a couple of gins. Even I wouldn’t have taken berries without asking.’ Lucy and Della soon became friends, and she made other connections through chatting to neighbours, shop owners and mums at the school gate. Unsurprisingly, Della had only a vague recollection of the Linton family in the pink bungalow, who had apparently moved away many years ago. The name Hally meant nothing to her, and Lucy hadn’t really expected it to. Della was a decade older than she was, and would have already left home when Lucy and her companions were running wild through the village.

As Ivan had decided to hang on to his agency job for the time being, Lucy was grateful for these new friendships in the village. His 100-mile round trip was exhausting, but at least it wouldn’t be for too long. The plan was for him to go freelance, and work from home once the major bills for the work on the house had been settled. Now and again, he’d call to say he was shattered and couldn’t face the drive home, and would be staying over with a colleague in Manchester that night. While Lucy had no problem with that, she looked forward to the day when Ivan resigned from Brookes and was here at her side, being part of village life, being with them in every way.

Meanwhile, she took pride in the fact that they had managed the move and Marnie and Sam had settled happily into the village school. It was all going so well, Lucy thought. Too well, perhaps, as one grey March afternoon, she experienced intense cramping whilst out shopping in the village. She made for the bookshop, trying to convince herself that she had just been overdoing things and needed to slow down.

‘You don’t look well,’ Della exclaimed. ‘You’re kind of clammy.’

‘I’m getting these pains,’ Lucy said. ‘Could I just sit down for a moment?’

‘Of course,’ Della said, her eyes filled with concern. She turned to her part-time assistant, Rikke, who was manning the till. ‘Rikke, I think Lucy should go to hospital—’

‘No, I’ll be fine,’ Lucy protested. ‘Maybe if I had a cup of tea …’ But Della was insistent in her rather motherly way, and drove Lucy to Heathfield Hospital. Lucy tried over and over to contact Ivan, but he was in high-level meetings with clients all afternoon and couldn’t be disturbed. Finally, Lucy barked to the receptionist at Brookes that she was in a hospital waiting room and he had to take her call right now.

‘Damn his work,’ she muttered furiously to Della. But it wasn’t his fault – of course it wasn’t. Maybe she’d thrown herself into their project with too much gusto? After all, Marnie and Sam were only five and seven. Keeping on top of family life was challenging enough without trying to furnish the guest rooms and their en suites to an impeccable standard, get her head around health and safety rulings and – admittedly, this part was more fun – figure out what she could offer on her breakfast menu to set Rosemary Cottage apart from the rest.

The late miscarriage rocked them, and Lucy couldn’t help wondering: should they have stayed in Manchester, where life had just been jogging along? It was likely that the pregnancy had been unviable, a kind young doctor had told them. It was no one’s fault. But there was no way of knowing for sure; Lucy had had no tests other than the standard ultrasound, and everything had seemed fine.

At least Ivan had resigned from Brookes now, and was busying himself with putting the final touches to the house as well as starting to establish his own freelance work. Now and again, he’d make slightly disparaging remarks about village life, such as, ‘I’m sure they’re keeping a dossier on us, Luce. I went into the newsagent’s and a woman came over and said, “Oh, I see you’ve changed the colour of your gate!” They seem terribly interested in what we’re up to around here.’

‘Who’s “they”?’ Lucy asked, a tad defensively.

‘You know – just, people …’

‘People who happen to be expressing a friendly interest, you mean?’

Ivan raked a hand through his wavy light brown hair and took off his wire-rimmed spectacles. What was it with middle-aged men and their intolerance of strangers, she wondered? It wasn’t just Ivan. Without exception, all of her female friends claimed that their husbands hadn’t made any new friends beyond thirty years old, and had no interest in doing so. ‘I won’t have room for any more mates until some of these old buggers die off,’ Ivan once joked. In contrast, Lucy relished making new connections and had actively enjoyed arriving in Burley Bridge, with that ‘clean slate’ feeling that came with starting afresh. It was the aspect of running a B&B that appealed to her most – the unpredictable nature of welcoming strangers into their home.

‘Last week, three people stopped me in the street and asked why we’d got rid of the conservatory,’ Ivan went on now, filling two mugs with tea from the pot. ‘Someone actually said it was a waste, and that Kitty had loved sitting out there on summer evenings.’ Exasperation flickered in his deep brown eyes.

‘They’re just curious,’ she remarked.

‘Yes, because there’s not enough important stuff for them to think about—’

‘That’s so patronising,’ she retorted, sensing a wave of fatigue now. The children had just gone to bed and she had a list of chores to rattle through before she could kick off her shoes and relax. ‘This is what it’s like, living in the country,’ she added. ‘People notice all the little things around them. I know that might seem weird and intrusive to you, but it also means they actually care. Look how Della looked after me, when we lost the baby.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ he said hotly. ‘I s’pose I’m just not used to being so … noticed.’

‘What’ve you got to hide?’

‘Nothing!’ he exclaimed.

‘What’s this dossier you’re so afraid of then?’

His face broke into a reluctant smile, as if he had finally realised how curmudgeonly he was being. ‘Come on – country life’s new to you too,’ he added. ‘You can’t say where you grew up was rural.’

‘Well, no,’ she conceded.

‘So you must know what I mean.’

Of course she did. Naturally, they’d had friends in Manchester – but there had also been that relative anonymity that comes with living in a city. There’d been a pretty transient population in their street; it was the first house they’d bought together, before they’d had kids, and was in a more studenty area than they’d have chosen now. Whilst Ivan seemed to miss their life there, Lucy didn’t.

After the miscarriage her new friends in Burley Bridge had showed up with cards, flowers and pot-luck suppers. Women with whom she had only chatted sporadically at the school gate had stopped her in the village and asked if she was okay, suggested a coffee, and given her their numbers in case she ever needed anything. Touchingly, they had also made a point of inviting Marnie and Sam for extra playdates and even days out – as, of course, the children had been looking forward to the new baby coming too.

Burley Bridge was a special place, Lucy felt; even more so since they had lost the baby. Perhaps it had made her put down roots here more quickly than she would have otherwise.

She also knew her husband well enough to realise how stubborn he could be, and that there was no point in trying to force him into feeling entirely settled here. Ivan had agreed to move – and that had been nothing short of miraculous. However, Lucy was also convinced that he would come round, and eventually love the village as much as she did. It would just take a little more time.

Chapter Four

As the days had lengthened and Rosemary Cottage’s garden had started to awaken, so Lucy began to feel stronger again – more like her old self.

‘You’re doing too much,’ Ivan warned as she launched herself back into the business of readying their home for guests. ‘Slow down, darling. We can open when we’re ready – there’s no rush.’ But Lucy didn’t want to slow down. She wanted to get things kick-started and found solace in designing a website and setting everything up for online bookings. It was crucial, she felt, to be up and running in good time for the summer season. Being busy certainly helped her to deal with her grief, and by early May they were open.

For those first few weeks, bookings were sparse. But as the mild spring eased into a glorious summer, the guest rooms were generally full at least on Friday and Saturday nights. As well as looking after their visitors, Lucy had thrown herself into decorating the house with flowers and foliage from the garden. She had always loved having fresh blooms around her at home; back in Manchester, she had grown what she could in tubs and window boxes, but been frustrated by the lack of space. Even as a child, she had loved to snip nasturtiums and cornflowers from her parents’ neat suburban garden to plonk into jam jars and bring into her bedroom. Now, as something new seemed to burst into life every morning, her imagination began to run riot. This was the first time Lucy had ever had a proper garden of her own, and she adored it.

Her beautiful, cottagey floral arrangements started to be noticed by friends and guests. Through word of mouth she was asked to decorate the local church hall with flowers from her garden, which in turn led to her creating table centrepieces for a coffee morning at the village primary school. Several more occasions were in the diary. It was thrilling to her, how she was building this delightful side hustle, using little more than the natural resources around her.

Meanwhile, Rosemary Cottage was starting to become popular with hillwalkers, and her excellent breakfasts – prepared by Lucy while Ivan looked after the children – were proving quite a hit. As well as the traditional full English, she had introduced home-made creamy yoghurts and berry compotes, made from the currants that still grew in the garden, to be served with toasted brioche from the village bakery. There was also home-made granola, paper-thin crepes drizzled with molten dark chocolate, and fluffy vegan banana pancakes served with maple syrup and coconut cream.

It had all taken an enormous amount of thought and planning – but as the summer went on, Lucy was determined to offer something a little more special than the average B&B. She knew from reading numerous blogs that the days of the greasy fry-up served by a belligerent landlady-type were long gone. Guests were no longer thrown out into the rain straight after breakfast. It seemed that the most loved B&Bs combined the style and comfort of a boutique hotel with the personal welcome of a family home.

‘And I thought we’d just be able to throw them some Sugar Puffs,’ Ivan joked late one night, as Lucy prepared a batch of pancake mix for the morning.

From time to time, she still suspected her husband was missing his old life with all those client meetings and glittering ceremonies where Brookes had scooped numerous awards. While she chatted happily with guests, Ivan could be rather reserved and prone to hiding away in the tiny study upstairs. He had his freelance work to crack on with, she reminded herself, and perhaps he was still adjusting to rural life.

They grafted all through the summer, with the children spending much of their time playing happily in the garden with their new friends. Just as Lucy had as a child, Marnie and Sam viewed the garden as being full of hiding places, the setting for their imaginative games. ‘I used to climb over that wall when I was a little girl,’ she told them. ‘The lady who lived here used to chase us out!’

‘We’re allowed to play here any time we like,’ Sam remarked with a trace of pride, his lightly freckled face browned from the sun.

‘Yeah – we’re the luckiest,’ Marnie agreed. Her long, flowing light brown hair had turned golden and, like her brother, she glowed from a summer of playing outdoors. Since school had broken up, Lucy couldn’t remember seeing them wearing anything other than T-shirts and shorts. They had inherited their father’s rangy physique, with slender limbs and skin that turned honey-brown at the merest whisper of sunshine; Lucy was paler and curvier. Both of her children had celebrated their birthdays here in the garden, with vast picnics set out on blankets, bunting strung from the trees and what had felt like the entire village descending for afternoons of games.

It had been a glorious summer so far, and Lucy had grabbed any opportunity to tend to the herbaceous borders and pots of herbs she grew for cooking. Meanwhile, Ivan regarded the lawn as ‘his’ job – much to the delight of Irene Bagshott, a widow in her sixties who lived further down the lane.

‘D’you ever loan him out, Lucy?’ she asked with a throaty laugh as she passed by one August afternoon.

‘I’m sure we could arrange something,’ Lucy chuckled, while Ivan raised a flustered smile. Since she’d met him, he had never seemed aware of his visual appeal, and dressed practically – forever in jeans, a T-shirt or sweater – rather than with any concession to style. In fact, since moving here he was proving himself to be quite the handyman. Whilst Lucy certainly fronted the B&B, Ivan wasn’t averse to fixing guttering, replacing a cracked window or sawing a precarious branch off a tree. Whenever he didn’t know how to tackle a job, he read up on it or studied YouTube tutorials, then got stuck in. It had felt crucial to Lucy for them to make a real go of their business this summer, and they had, very happily, certainly achieved that. Next summer, she felt, they could take things to another level and start offering evening meals too.