Christmas on Rosemary Lane

The pitted road rose sharply from the village, cutting between steeply sloping fields, then curving through the woodland that Kenny still owned, although it was only minimally tended these days. The shed his father had built, in which to store Christmas trees ready for purchase, was rotting badly and should probably come down at some point. It was almost impossible to believe how successful they had been, back in the day, when numerous garden centres offered not only a variety of firs but vast selections of Christmas gifts too. The fact was, quite simply, that Kenny Halsall’s Christmas trees had been the best around.

As his father’s house came into view, standing alone on a muddied stretch of lane, James noted that the living room light was on, which reassured him a little. Illogical, perhaps, but it suggested that Kenny was home, at least. He had always been pretty diligent about switching off all of the lights before he went out. While his heart was still beating he would never waste a single watt of electricity.

James climbed out of his car. He knocked briefly on the front door and pushed it open. ‘Dad?’ he called out.

‘Who’s that?’ his father boomed from the living room.

‘It’s me – James.’

‘What? Who is it?’

‘It’s me, Dad. Hi!’ He stepped into the room where his father was sitting in an armchair with a newspaper spread out over his lap, gawping up at him.

‘What are you doing here?’

I’m your son, not the bailiff, James wanted to say, but instead he feigned a bright smile and perched on the sofa. ‘Just thought I’d come a bit earlier than planned for Christmas,’ he said, wondering how best to broach things. He wasn’t afraid of his father – not anymore – but he was keen to avoid conflict as far as possible so he could locate his brother and have some kind of discussion of what to do next.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Kenny asked.

‘Dad, I’ve tried to call but you never pick up the landline. And I’m not sure what happened to that mobile Rod bought you.’

‘Oh, I lost that,’ he muttered.

‘Right – okay. So, how are things?’ James asked, taking care to maintain a cheery tone.

‘Um, all right, I suppose,’ Kenny replied.

‘So, where’s Rod at the moment? Any idea?’

‘I’m … not sure.’ His gruffness had subsided a little.

‘Erm, Dad,’ James ventured, ‘Reena called me today. You know, Reena who owns the yellow house?’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘Well … she sounded a bit worried. She said there’d been some kind of business at the cottage?’

Kenny frowned. ‘Oh, she’s a nuisance, that woman. Always sticking her bloody oar in.’

‘She’s always seemed perfectly pleasant to me,’ James said quickly. ‘She was just concerned that you’d been over to the house, and her guests said you’d, um …’

‘Is that why you’re here? To check up on me?’

‘Of course not,’ James replied, his jaw tightening.

‘What would I be doing at her place?’

‘I’m just telling you what Reena said.’

‘Well, I don’t know what she’s on about,’ Kenny muttered.

How to proceed from here? They fell into silence, and Kenny scratched at his beard and flicked his gaze down to the newspaper. While he looked reasonably presentable in a navy cable-knit sweater and brown corduroys, the facial hair was always a worry. On previous occasions James had noted all manner of food residue clinging to it. Beards were like dogs, he often thought: if you were going to have one, you had to be responsible for it.

As it was, Kenny owned two obese cats, Horace and Winston, who were currently snoozing on the matted hearthrug. James cast his gaze around the low-ceilinged living room with the faded rose-patterned wallpaper and the dimly flickering open fire. The room reminded him of one of those pubs you’d only ever find yourself in by accident; the kind where there’d be no food on offer apart from some out-of-date pork scratchings, and the barman would look at you with mild disdain as you walked in, as if you had no business being there.

James had grown up in this house, and while his mum had still been there, until he was six, it had seemed forever sunny, filled with her giddy laughter as she tossed her mane of glossy dark hair and cooked up pots of her funny hippie food. When James thought of Evelyn – which he tried not to too often – he remembered glinting green eyes and the sweater dresses she made for herself on her bewildering knitting machine, and often wore with wellies (a look he imagined not many women could have pulled off). It was so long ago, he was sometimes surprised he could remember her at all. But although the images were disjointed – like a handful of random snapshots grabbed from a box – they were still vivid to him. Sometimes, he could almost smell her musky perfume that she kept on the dressing table.

As if he had forgotten that James was there, Kenny snatched the remote control from next to his slippered feet and turned on the TV. Rather than sitting there, trying to communicate, James went through to make two mugs of tea in the kitchen. A quick scan of the fridge revealed that, although the milk was drinkable – just – the only other items in it were two open tins, one partly filled with baked beans and another containing a residue of rice pudding. James had long suspected that Kenny pretty much existed on tins and frozen ready meals. It took him less than one second to weigh up whether to remind his father that opened cans weren’t supposed to be refrigerated, before deciding against it. Kenny didn’t respond well to household hints.

Hoping his dad wouldn’t notice, James binned the tins and made a mental note to do a grocery shop first thing in the morning. At least there was a reasonably fresh loaf on the counter.

Back in the living room, he handed his father a mug of tea. ‘So, how long are you thinking of staying?’ Kenny asked as he took it without thanks.

‘Just thought I’d play it by ear, Dad,’ James replied vaguely. ‘So, um, when did you last see Rod?’

Kenny shrugged. ‘Yesterday, I think it was. He went out.’

‘Where to? Did he say?’

‘To a meeting or something. That’s what he said.’

James frowned. At least they were now communicating civilly, for which he was grateful. But what kind of meeting went on for a whole night and late into the next evening? ‘D’you know who he was meeting?’ James ventured as he sank into the doughy sofa.

‘Probably someone important,’ Kenny said, adopting a lofty tone now and turning back to the TV, as if that had settled the matter. They drifted into one of those evenings when Kenny would channel-hop randomly, whilst James sat there in bleakness, wondering how long he would have to stay here and feeling tremendously guilty for having such thoughts.

By ten-thirty p.m., his father was showing no signs of wanting to turn off the TV, not when there were life-enhancing documentaries about people-trafficking and migrant workers kept in inhumane conditions in a leaking caravan. To escape the grimness, James went through to the kitchen again, with the intention of washing up the dirty crockery that lay in the chipped Belfast sink.

A mouse scuttled across the kitchen floor. Clearly, the cats were pretty ineffective at keeping them at bay. James checked his phone and tried Rod yet again; he still didn’t pick up. It occurred to him that he could call Phoebe, but since Rod’s ex had reputedly taken a hammer to his beloved childhood train set, battering the hell out of not only the locomotives but all the tiny buildings and delicate figurines as well, he thought it best not to trouble her with any mention of his brother’s name.

James looked around at the scuffed cupboards and reassured himself that it wasn’t too bad in here. Perhaps it would have been fine to pop over just for Christmas Day itself.

On numerous occasions he had made an impassioned plea for his father to sell up and move to Liverpool, so he’d be closer – not that James wanted him close especially, but it would have been easier then to keep an eye on him. He had even found the perfect flat, in a new block with a lovely courtyard garden, which his father could have easily afforded – but no, he wasn’t having that. ‘I’m not moving for nobody,’ he’d thundered.

Perhaps, James mused, his brother would come back tomorrow from wherever he’d been, and everything would be fine? Feeling more positive now, he washed up and looked around for a tea towel that didn’t look as if a badger had given birth on it. He checked various drawers and cupboards, and finally the tall closet in the hallway where miscellaneous items had always been stored: bicycle parts and broken umbrellas – all those bits and bobs that, apparently, it was against the law to throw out. Only now, such items were no longer visible as every one of the six shelves was entirely crammed with pre-packed supermarket sandwiches.

James stared and felt his stomach shifting. Through their clear plastic packaging it was obvious that many of them had been festering there for some time. His worry about open tins being stored in the fridge seemed suddenly rather pathetic. Clearly, Kenny wasn’t ‘just a bit ditsy’ these days. Of course, James would have to dispose of the stash – but how? Would he tell his father that they had simply ‘gone’, or that he’d been burgled?

‘What are you doing?’ Kenny called out from the living room.

‘Just looking for a tea towel,’ James replied brightly.

‘They’re not in there.’ Now Kenny had appeared in the hallway and was glaring at James, his small gold hoop earring glinting in the dim overhead light.

‘No – I can see that.’ James moved away from the open cupboard as if he’d been caught prying amongst his father’s personal possessions. ‘Um, Dad,’ he ventured, ‘I think you might’ve forgotten about these sandwiches. Look – there are way more than you need here …’ In fact, you actually need none of these, as they are in various stages of decay and would no doubt poison you.

Kenny frowned. ‘They’re for the winter. You know I can get cut off up here.’

‘Yes, but there’s an awful lot, and I think some of them might have been hanging about for a quite a while, like, um, maybe longer than they should have, ideally …’ James sensed himself growing clammy and wished any kind of confrontation with his dad didn’t reduce him to this nervous, sweating state. He was forty-one years old, for goodness’ sake, not four.

‘I don’t believe in all that use-by date stuff,’ Kenny retorted.

‘But these are sandwiches, Dad. They’re bread—’

‘I know what sandwiches are made of,’ he snapped.

‘And they’re all egg and cress,’ James added as Horace, the larger of the cats – Christ, what did his father feed them? – wandered into the hallway and mewled fretfully around Kenny’s ankles. The animal’s close proximity seemed to placate his father, and he scooped up the cat, holding him close to his chest. With a sharp kick, Kenny shut the cupboard door on the sandwiches and stalked back into the living room, muttering, ‘They’re not all egg and cress, are they, Horace? Some are cheese.’

Chapter Eight

Five bedtime stories, Lucy had read. At a quarter to eleven, she rubbed at her scratchy eyes and shut the last book firmly. ‘Okay, that’s it for tonight,’ she said wearily, kissing Sam and tucking him in, then coaxing Marnie through to her own room.

‘I wanted Dad to see my costume,’ she announced, radiating disappointment. Marnie wasn’t a moany girl usually; she was cheerful and sunny, if a little bossy at times, brimming with energy and ideas.

‘You can show him tomorrow,’ Lucy reasoned.

‘But it’s wet. It got rained on.’

‘Yes, sweetheart – but if I put it on the radiator it’ll be dry for the morning.’

‘I’m not tired yet, Mummy.’

‘Love, it’s so late. You really do need some sleep …’

Where’s Dad?’ Sam yelled from his own room.

‘He’ll be on his way,’ Lucy called back, trying to keep her voice light despite underlying worry that had been niggling her since they’d come home. At least the bedtime routine had been useful in keeping her occupied: bath, pyjamas, drink and biscuit, teeth, stories … the whole rigmarole she had been through zillions of times. But now there was nothing left to do but worry – and wait.

She had called Ivan yet again, but his phone still kept going to voicemail. Surely he hadn’t decided to go out with colleagues in Manchester tonight, without letting her know? No – that wasn’t Ivan at all. He loved his working life, the thrill of being in the midst of a huge project again, but he was also a caring husband and father, keeping in touch with daily calls while he was away. He’d never failed to show up as expected at the end of the week – and this was no ordinary Friday night either. It was the start of his holiday. Lucy was aware of a sharp pang of missing him as she tucked in Marnie and kissed her before padding quietly out to the landing and going to check on Sam.

‘I don’t want to go to sleep,’ Sam muttered from his bed.

‘Darling, it’s really late now. I’m going to bed soon—’

‘I feel sick, Mummy.’

‘Oh, Sam. It’ll be all those sweets. I did say don’t eat so many.’ She hurried towards him just in time to see him sit up abruptly and throw up all down his front. ‘Sam, honey!’ Lucy exclaimed. He started crying and scrambled out of bed. Splattered PJs were stripped off, and a naked Sam was ushered through to the bathroom where he was showered, then wrapped up in his favourite dressing gown – the cream one with teddy bear ears, which was far too babyish for him really, but which he needed to wear now, very much.

Back in his bedroom, Lucy bent to cuddle him as he slumped on his bean bag, then stripped his bed and made it up with fresh linen. ‘Marnie, please go back to bed,’ she muttered as, naturally, his sister had come through to observe the spectacle.

‘This room stinks.’

‘It’ll fade away in a minute,’ Lucy fibbed, aware of tiredness pressing down on her now. She was no longer conjuring up images of red wine, but of her own bed, freshly made up as was her custom on Friday nights, with candles ready to be lit on her bedside table. Not that there would be anything terribly thrilling going on in bed tonight, she thought irritably – not after Ivan had worried her so much.

Finally, the children were back in bed. There was a noise at the front door, and she hurried through from the kitchen towards it. But it wasn’t Ivan; in fact there was no one there. The wind had got up, and the door was rattling, that was all. Lucy freed her long hair from its ponytail as she strode back to the living room and checked her phone in case she had missed a call.

When she heard a knock, ten minutes later, she wondered if she might ignore it, as who could it be at this time of night? It was near midnight, and no one local would dream of calling. Something clenched inside her as she made her way through to the hallway to see who it was.

Lucy’s breath caught in her throat as she opened the door. Two police officers – one man, one woman – were standing there, and that was the moment when Lucy’s whole life changed.

Ivan never saw Marnie’s elf costume, or Sam in his reindeer onesie. He never saw his wife or children again because, on his drive home from Manchester on that dark, wet night, Ivan had been killed in a head-on collision twelve miles from Burley Bridge. He hadn’t been on the motorway but a winding B-road, which was unusual. It wasn’t his normal route at all. The other car’s driver survived, with serious spinal injuries; Ivan had seemingly skidded on the wet surface and ended up on the wrong side of the road.

It was no one’s fault. That was the official conclusion that came out months after the event. It was the fact that water had pooled there on the road surface. But Lucy couldn’t stop thinking that perhaps she was to blame for being so insistent about making a new life here in Burley Bridge.

You and me will always be a team, Ivan had said.

As the days and weeks somehow continued without him, Lucy would find herself playing his words over and over as if some terrible loop tape had wedged itself in her brain. And although she knew it was crazy, she couldn’t help feeling furious that he had left her this way.

He hadn’t kept his promise at all.

Chapter Nine

James had been at his dad’s for two weeks now, trying to knock the place into shape and take care of the basics. Christmas had come and gone with Kenny showing little enthusiasm for the roast dinner James had made for the two of them, even though he had cooked his father’s preferred beef. ‘I don’t want some dried-up old turkey,’ Kenny had instructed. ‘I’ve never seen the point of that bird.’

He hadn’t seen the point of having a Christmas tree, either, but James had insisted on cutting one down from the woods and bringing it into the house. He had even unearthed the box of fragile hand-painted glass baubles his mum had collected, and which he remembered from childhood. Of course, his dad’s Christmas tree business was long gone, but the sight of the small, squat pine strewn with tinsel at least cheered the place up. Crucially, James had also managed to dispose of the stash of supermarket sandwiches by flinging them into bin liners and sneaking outside with them while Kenny was watching a young man being apprehended by airport border security on TV.

The man’s stash of advent calendars in his suitcase had turned out not to be filled with chocolates, but cocaine. ‘How festive,’ James had remarked as he came back inside, but his dad had merely cheered on the diligent customs officials (this was rich, considering Kenny had been fond of a gnarly-looking joint well into middle age). Fortunately, Kenny didn’t seem to notice that his sandwiches had gone. Perhaps he’d forgotten he’d even bought them.

Meanwhile, James had kept trying to get hold of Rod. He had gone AWOL on several occasions before, during particularly rocky patches in his marriage – otherwise James might have considered reporting him missing to the police. Finally, after a fortnight of his phone just ringing out, Rod finally answered his brother’s call. ‘D’you realise I’ve been trying to get hold of you since before Christmas?’ James exclaimed. ‘Christ – I thought you were dead!’

‘Sorry,’ Rod said. ‘Things have been … a bit complicated.’

‘You didn’t even call Dad on Christmas Day. Even he was worried, and you know he’s never particularly concerned about us—’

‘Yeah. I’ve just been off-grid for a while.’

‘Off-grid?’ James spluttered. ‘What d’you mean? Where are you?’

Rod paused, and James heard a female voice in the background. ‘I’m, uh … in Switzerland right now.’

‘What?’

‘I’m skiing,’ Rod added curtly, as if it should be obvious. ‘Well, not right now – right now I’m talking to you. But I came out for a bit of a break.’

James rubbed at his short dark hair, his breath forming white puffs as he exhaled. In order to conduct the conversation in private, he was pacing about on the scrubby ground behind his father’s house. ‘Fine,’ he said, keeping his voice steady, ‘but couldn’t you have let me know? I mean, what about Dad?’

‘Hmm, well, maybe you could have a go at trying to live with him for a while?’ Rod remarked with more than a trace of bitterness.

James leaned against the dry stone wall, aware of his father’s two cats eyeing him keenly from the living room window. ‘I know Dad’s not easy,’ he conceded.

‘You can say that again.’

‘And of course I don’t expect you to stay here indefinitely—’

‘Well, thanks for that,’ his brother snapped. ‘That’s hugely generous of you.’

James cleared his throat. ‘Okay, I realise you’re pissed off. I wish you’d said something, though. Who are you with, anyway?’

‘Just a friend …’

So, how long d’you plan to be “off-grid”? We really need to get together and talk.’

‘No idea,’ Rod murmured.

‘Right, okay.’ James paused. ‘But are we talking a few more days, or weeks, or what?’

‘It’s kind of open-ended at the moment,’ Rod replied, infuriatingly.

On that note, the woman – whoever she was – called out for Rod, and they finished the call. Keen to eke out a few more moments alone, James pulled himself up and sat on the wall, gazing out over the valley. It was one of those sharp winter days, blue skied with clear sunshine. Everything seemed incredibly sharp-focused. It was beautiful here, James reflected. Naturally, he’d never noticed quite how stunning it was when he’d been growing up; to him, the hills that swooped so gracefully were just there. He’d taken it for granted that there were rivers to wade in, his dad’s very own woodland in which to build dens, and those long, virtually endless days to fill with adventure.

Now James was a dad, and, naturally, he’d never want to be too far away from Spike in Liverpool. But he still had a fondness for this part of Yorkshire – which was just as well, as his father was adamant that he planned to stay here for the rest of his days.

Something had to be done, James decided later as he cleared up after dinner. Although he was no expert, he was aware that if Kenny was showing early signs of dementia, then things were only likely to get worse. James could stay here in the short term, making sure there was food in the house, that the place was reasonably orderly and Kenny didn’t harangue Reena’s houseguests again – but he couldn’t just relocate here permanently. He needed to be close to Spike, and then there was his work, specifically the narrowboat he had started to fit out, and whose owner was being incredibly patient. But he would have to get back to work at some point fairly soon. He had people waiting and a living to earn.

Once again, James looked up sheltered accommodation in the Liverpool area and tried to coax his father into coming around to the idea by showing him the alluring pictures on his laptop. But Kenny wasn’t having any of it. It was clear now that getting some kind of help – via his dad’s GP, the social work department, or even a private carer if it came to that – was paramount.

There was one thing for it, James decided. He would have to persuade his dad to go to the surgery for something fairly uncontroversial, in the hope that he could sit in on the appointment and somehow communicate telepathically with the GP (‘Do you think my father might be showing the early stages of dementia?’) while Kenny sat there, oblivious.

‘Yes, I think you might be onto something there,’ the doctor would transmit back. ‘But don’t worry, I shall arrange all the help he could possibly need.’

A few days later, James broached the subject. ‘Dad,’ he started over breakfast, ‘I wondered if it might be a good idea for you to, um, have a few tests sometime?’

‘What kind of tests?’ Kenny asked with a mouthful of toast.

‘Just a few medical things. Blood pressure, cholesterol, the stuff everyone gets checked out from time to time …’

‘Are you saying I’m falling to bits now?’ Kenny asked, frowning.

‘Of course not.’ James was struggling to keep his tone level.

‘Why not shove me over a cliff and be done with it?’

Tempting, James thought – but something must have sunk in as, later that day, his father grudgingly agreed to grace the surgery with his presence. The way things were right now, that seemed like something of a victory.

They went together the following week, finding themselves sitting side by side in the starkly decorated waiting room of the medical centre in Heathfield. There was no surgery in Burley Bridge, and for that, James was thankful; he wouldn’t have relished bumping into anyone his father knew.

Kenny’s name was called, and James sprang up from his chair as his father stood up. ‘What are you doing?’ Kenny asked.

‘I thought I’d come in with you, if that’s all right?’

‘What d’you want to do that for?’ His dark eyes narrowed. Across the waiting room, an elderly woman and a thin, pallid teenage boy – the only other people waiting – were clearly pretending not to be paying rapt attention.