I ducked my head. ‘No one.’

  ‘Your boyfriend?’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend. Stop changing the subject. You’ve only got a few minutes to fill me in on what I’m supposed to be doing.’

  Henry stared at me for a long moment. I suspected various options were being rapidly processed behind the blank expression.

  ‘I’ll only let you do it if I can buy you a pizza afterwards.’

  ‘Perfect. Come on, then, Great Henrico, our audience are waiting.’ I snatched his hat and stuck it on my head as we walked out.

  He was right, the trick was terrible. Fortunately, I was even worse, so most of the attention was focused on me, as planned. I pretended to fluff my lines, tripped over the robe that I’d donned, leaving Henry in plain black trousers and a white shirt, and blew the big reveal. From our point of view, it was a complete success.

  ‘I owe you a pizza and a stiff drink,’ he whispered, appearing out of nowhere after I’d gone on to play piano while Nana Joy sang and then found a discreet spot at the back of the hall. ‘Mum said I can borrow her car and drive us into Mansfield.’

  ‘Okay.’ I didn’t especially want to go out for pizza with Henry Fairfax, but I was still intrigued by this new side to his personality, and I also didn’t want to hang around here.

  ‘To be honest, I probably owe you a full three-course meal…’

  Before I had a chance to answer that no, a pizza and a pint of cider would be fine, we were drowned out by the sound of the audience clapping and the first few strums of a guitar. The stage lights went up to reveal Adam, looking every inch the rock star, his old school band in the background. My heart leapt.

  He then began to perform a new song that I’d never heard before. It was called ‘Wannabe idiot’ and the lyrics were all about how he’d been an idiot by putting fame above the girl he loved. Bea rhymes with a lot of different words. I think he managed most of them.

  It was a lovely song. Just right for the evening – heartfelt yet upbeat, not taking itself too seriously but full of real emotion, and Adam sang it like a pro. During the last chorus he ditched his guitar, jumped off the stage and started walking straight down the centre aisle to where I stood, every nerve trembling. When he dropped to his knees, begging me with the final line to give him another chance, the crowd erupted.

  ‘Hey.’ He offered a sheepish grin, one hand pushing the chin-length hair off his face.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘I missed you.’

  I took a deep breath. The crowd were still clapping, so no one could hear my reply. ‘I missed you too.’

  ‘Wanna get out of here?’

  The second I nodded he stood up, grabbed my hand, gave the rest of the room a wild wave and dragged me out of the doors and off into the night.

  And that was the last time I’d seen Henry until the Coach House dining room the night before.

  7

  I found everyone in the kitchen, warming post-snowball-fight hands on mugs of hot chocolate and devouring home-made raisin toast dripping in butter.

  ‘Ah, Bea, how lovely of you to join us,’ Mum said, with a brusque pat on my arm. ‘It looks as though you were right about the snow.’

  That was as much of an apology as I would get, but, given what I was about to say, I accepted it. Bracing myself against the worktop, I got straight to the point.

  ‘I have some news.’

  Mia gasped. ‘You’re pregnant?’

  ‘You’re not ill?’ Dad asked, his face turning pale.

  ‘Have the BBC let you go?’ Mum said. ‘I know you’ve not got the allure of that morning girl, but honestly, I don’t know what things have come to when a national institution opts for beauty over brains.’

  ‘No!’ I cried. ‘To all of them! Why on earth would you think…? This is good news!’

  ‘Then why are you doing that face?’ Daisy asked, pulling her mouth down and lowering her eyebrows in a comically exaggerated frown.

  ‘It’s good news for me, but means some slightly not-so-good news for you.’ I straightened my shoulders, trying to force my eyes to look at Mum before giving up and opting for Dad instead. ‘I’m going to Scotland for a couple of days.’

  ‘What?’ Everyone stared at me, open-mouthed. I might as well have told them I was off for a ride on Santa’s sleigh.

  I briefly explained about the last-minute email, before adding a deliberate deflection.

  ‘Henry’s driving, so you don’t have to worry about me getting there safely.’

  ‘Henry?’ Mum glanced at where he stood in the kitchen doorway. I had hoped her delight at me and Henry spending so much time together would override the upset at it not being here.

  I was wrong.

  ‘Henry’s going too?’

  ‘We’ll be back on Christmas Eve, Mum. It’s only two days.’

  ‘You promised you’d be here for Christmas this year!’

  I expected Mum to be annoyed, but she was distraught, twisting a tea towel up in her hands, her eyes filling with tears. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw my mother cry. I waited for Dad to dispel the tension with a warm comment about me knocking Baxter Bigwood dead, but instead he came over to Mum and put his arms around her.

  Turning to Jed and Mia, thinking that they would surely have something rational to say, instead I found my brother glaring at me, Mia’s mouth a thin line.

  ‘Really? You think I should stay here, play board games, and watch films we’ve all seen a hundred times before?’

  ‘It’s more than that, Bea, and you know it,’ Jed retorted.

  ‘More than the job opportunity of a lifetime?’ I snapped back. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Actually, yes. Very. Armstrongs don’t put their jobs above family.’

  ‘Well, that’s very easy to say, when all of you already have your perfect jobs!’ I tried to keep from raising my voice in front of the children, but I was livid. With every second I was more determined that I was going to this interview, no matter what my family thought.

  ‘I’m so sick of you not taking my career seriously. I know you don’t get why I would want to work in forecasting, but I wouldn’t be going if this wasn’t really important to me. Why can’t you try to understand that?’ I sucked in a fierce breath. ‘Why can’t any of you, just once, try to understand me?’

  ‘No, Bea,’ Mia said. ‘You’re the one who doesn’t understand.’

  ‘Mia,’ Jed replied in a warning tone that sent my heart galloping.

  ‘Doesn’t understand what?’ I was virtually yelling now. ‘That you rate not disrupting the ridiculous Armstrong Family Christmas for a couple of days above my career, which happens to be every other day of the year? It’s Christmas, for goodness’ sake, there’ll be another one next year.’

  ‘That’s the point, though, isn’t it?’ Mia said. ‘There probably won’t be!’

  ‘No Christmas?’ Daisy and Frankie squealed in horror.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked, even as Mum, Dad and Jed started to protest.

  ‘You might as well tell her,’ Mia said, waving her arms about. ‘She’s already spoiled your perfect plans.’

  There was a charged silence. Mum leant on Dad’s shoulders, a tear trickling down one cheek. Jed’s face was solid concrete. Nana Joy sat at the table and sipped her hot chocolate, surreptitiously sliding the last piece of toast onto her plate.

  ‘Will someone please tell me what’s going on?’ I asked, voice trembling.

  Eventually, Jed spoke. ‘We might have to close Charis House.’

  ‘What?’ I sank back against the worktop, my brain refusing to compute this information. Jed should know though – as well as teaching English and performing arts, he handled all the school finances.

  ‘Two more major donors have died in the past couple of years. Another one went bankrupt.’

  While the council provided funding to run an alternative provision school and my parents sourced additional income where they could – for example the Christmas Spectacular – it wasn’t enough. Without generous regular donations from a group of Nana Joy’s old showbusiness friends, Charis House could never have opened, and certainly wouldn’t have survived this long. The emphasis was on ‘old’, though. Every time one of them either passed away or had to cease giving for other reasons, it left a bigger hole in the budget.

  ‘We need a new roof, and the heating system isn’t going to last much longer. With ongoing maintenance, it’ll cost hundreds of thousands just to keep the main house open. Let alone run a school on top of it.’ Mum’s shoulders slumped in defeat for what was probably the first time ever.

  ‘There must be other people you can ask.’ I looked desperately to Dad. ‘Aren’t there trusts and places where you can apply for grants?’

  ‘We’ve tried,’ Dad said. ‘No one thinks that spending all that money on a roof is a good use of funds.’

  I didn’t even suggest they look for a more economical, robust location. Charis House was the Armstrong family home. Without the house, there would be no school. And then what would my parents do? The thought of Mum living in the Coach House while the main house stood empty was too awful to contemplate.

  ‘What’s going to happen?’

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ Jed replied. ‘We still have a couple of avenues to explore. But, well. It isn’t looking great. If it comes to it, if we can sell the house then at least it won’t fall into ruin.’

  Dad rubbed Mum’s back as she stifled a sob.

  ‘Why did nobody tell me this?’

  ‘This is why,’ Mia said, gesturing at Mum and Dad. ‘Cora wanted one last, perfect Christmas to remember. Not hushed conversations and everyone feeling sad because we might never get to do this again.’

  Now it all made sense. The itinerary, the compulsory participation. Every spare minute crammed with Christmas.

  ‘And I thought all this fuss was because I’ll be dead next year!’ Nana Joy announced, around a mouthful of toast.

  ‘Mother!’ Dad exclaimed, before faltering over what to say next.

  ‘Nothing lasts forever,’ she added, pointing the remaining chunk of toast at each of us in turn. ‘Each for its own time. We’ve lived our dreams. It’s Bea’s turn, now. Give her your blessing for this interview. Why should she stay here pretending not to be miserable, just because you lot are?’

  I scanned the faces of my family, hoping that they would tell me to go and give it my best shot, even as I wrestled with wanting to stay for solidarity’s sake.

  ‘And if this handsome young man is driving – well! If she doesn’t take him up on the offer, I might have to instead!’

  We were forty-five minutes behind schedule by the time we left. It had been all hands to the shovel to clear the end of the driveway. Thankfully, Henry’s car was parked by his flat, on the far side of the main house, leaving a much smaller area to clear than if we’d set off from the Coach House.

  We dumped our suitcases in the back of his Honda along with winter-weather supplies including blankets and a torch. Mum handed me a bag with enough ‘wholesome’ snacks to get us to the North Pole, and a flask of tea. Dad gave me a hug and told me to just be ‘your wonderful self, Sweet-Bea,’ and I then found myself sitting in a car with Henry Fairfax, with the disconcerting knowledge that I was going to be in this position for a long time.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked, slipping on his anti-glare glasses.

  ‘As I’ll ever be.’

  Five minutes later I was feeling a lot more ready, as the car inched around the curve of the driveway.

  ‘On second thoughts, maybe I should walk. It’ll definitely be faster.’

  ‘But also colder,’ Henry replied, eyes fixed on the icy gravel. ‘And not so safe on the motorway.’

  ‘Okay, fine, but can you speed up at all?’

  ‘Would you like to drive?’ he asked, face an innocent mask.

  Deciding to call his bluff I said yes, and to my amazement he stopped the car (it didn’t take much) climbed out and walked around to the passenger side.

  I could hardly back down now, so I slid across to the driver’s seat and started the engine, wondering whether I should mention that I hadn’t sat behind a wheel in years.

  Two minutes later, as we skidded across the last few feet of the driveway, spinning in a slow arc until lurching to a stop facing back up towards the house, I blurted it anyway. ‘I’m so sorry, I haven’t driven in years!’

  Henry said nothing, instead clambering out of the car and walking carefully back to the driver’s seat. I slunk back into my rightful place, waiting for the smug recriminations followed by a maths lecture about the impact on stopping distances per millimetre of snow. Instead, he steadily manoeuvred the car around, before turning to me and saying, ‘Full speed ahead?’

  Once we’d crunched down the forest lane, with no further protests from me about how slowly Henry was chugging along, the main road was, as we’d predicted, much clearer.

  ‘Some music?’ I asked, not sure how else we were going to pass the ensuing hours. Henry clicked a button on the steering wheel and the car filled with classical music.

  ‘Or not,’ I added, after a full twenty seconds of one lone clarinet’s mournful toots, plugging my phone into the music system.

  ‘Please, no.’ Henry grimaced over the first few bars of Wizzard’s Christmas hit. ‘Anything but that.’

  ‘Anything but this song, or anything but Christmas songs?’ I might have chosen my Christmas Classics playlist as another test of Henry’s current state of Henry-ness, but if he’d been prepared to participate in an Armstrong Christmas, he couldn’t possibly hate all seasonal music.

  I flicked onto the next song, ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’.

  ‘Anything but these types of Christmas songs,’ he not-so-helpfully clarified.

  ‘What does that mean? Happy ones? Ones that mention Christmas?’

  ‘Ones that any old chump who picks up a guitar can thrash out and end up winning a talent show.’

  I looked at him, taken aback. ‘Are you making a dig at Adam?’

  He continued to face straight ahead, making it hard to discern his expression, but the tips of his ears were definitely tinged pink. ‘I sat through enough Charis House Spectaculars listening to teenage boys destroy the same three chords to never want to hear them again. Although Adam was the exception in managing to make them sound half decent.’ He paused to check the rear-view mirror. ‘When it comes to talent it was nothing compared to, say, someone playing an original piano piece in the key of F minor.’

  ‘You think I should have beaten Adam that year?’ Henry’s robot memory was disturbing. I couldn’t even remember the key that song was written in, and I was the one who wrote and performed it.

  ‘Yes.’

  I shook my head. ‘Adam’s band were incredible. I was surprised to come second.’

  ‘Adam’s band were good.’ Henry slowed to a stop for a red light, giving him the opportunity to glance over at me. ‘You were better.’

  He picked my phone up from where it rested between the seats and started scrolling through the playlist, selecting a song just as the lights changed and he needed to start moving again.

  ‘Really?’ I asked as the opening line of ‘White Christmas’, the song that won us the quiz, wafted through the car. ‘This is what you like?’

  Henry said nothing, but as he gripped the steering wheel in the exact ten-to-two position, I could see the hint of a smile twitching at his lips.

  ‘I need to talk to Jed,’ I announced about half an hour later. I’d been trying to focus on preparing for my interview, which so far had consisted of eating two banana oat bars while wittering about whether we could make it to Scotland on time. However, it was impossible to concentrate on my ideas for how to take weather presenting into the digital age when the bombshell about Charis House was still rattling about in my head.

  Henry must have pressed something, because the music faded to a faint background murmur.

  ‘How bad is it really?’ I asked, once Jed had answered his phone.

  There was a slight pause. ‘Remember Dad’s patchwork dungarees?’

  ‘How could I forget?’

  One of our students had produced the most horrific outfit in their fashion design class, which Dad then insisted on wearing almost constantly as a means of encouragement until it mercifully fell to bits due to the poor construction.

  ‘It’s that bad.’

  ‘And there are really no other options?’

  His reply was thrumming with frustration. ‘If there were, don’t you think we’d have come up with them by now?’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’ I had to force the words past the lump of dismay clogging up my throat.

  ‘We knew we couldn’t rely on Nana Joy’s contacts forever. She’s barely left the house in the past few years.’

  ‘What about Mum’s family? Some of the Armstrongs must be rolling in it.’

  ‘Even if they were, Mum inherited all the land. The rest of them don’t feel especially inclined to help pay for its upkeep.’

  ‘They never did like her converting the ancestral home into a school.’

  ‘Her cousin Tildy offered us a cricket set and a chipped microscope.’

  ‘What about Dad’s family?’

  ‘What about it?’ I could hear Jed’s frown. ‘You know Nana Joy’s family had nothing.’

  I hesitated for a moment. ‘But what about his dad?’

  Jed was silent.

  ‘There’s a chance he could be somebody.’

  ‘There’s a far bigger chance that he’s not alive any more, even if he was.’

  ‘You never know. She always did love a younger man.’

  Joy Papplewick had been associated with many a leading man in her time, the majority of them several years younger than her. She had always refused to name the father of her child, insistent that she wouldn’t drag him into the scandal of an illegitimate baby. This had led to wild paternity speculations ranging from Elvis to a seventeen-year-old theatre usher. While it was a forbidden topic of conversation whenever our parents or Nana Joy were around, Jed and I had debated every possibility from a doomed affair with a married man to her simply not knowing for sure. In all likelihood, our unknown grandfather was probably an actor or musical director who Joy hadn’t wanted to be tied down to.

 

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