Christmas at Hope Cottage: A Magical Feel-Good Romance Novel(4)

‘I thought it would be easier for you to be down here rather than having to face the stairs,’ she said, putting Emma’s case down on top of a pale lilac quilt.

Emma nodded. It made sense. Stairs wouldn’t be easy with her crutch.

A noise from behind made her turn, and what she saw made her smile in sudden delight. An old bulldog named Pennywort snuffled forward, his bottom waggling, his face split in a wide, doggy grin.

‘Penny!’ she cried, bending down to touch his soft, dappled brown and white fur. She took a seat on the edge of the bed, and Pennywort jumped up to settle his considerable bulk in her lap.

‘He’s missed you,’ said Evie, giving the old dog an eye-roll for his soppiness. ‘I’m no substitute, apparently,’ she added with a grunt. Then she grinned. ‘But Sandro’s a firm favourite now. I dare say you’ve finally got a bit of competition at last.’

Emma patted the dog, and then frowned. Before she could ask who Sandro was, Evie touched her arm and said, ‘I’m sorry about Pete.’

‘Me too.’

Evie didn’t say what Emma knew she was thinking – that he’d never been right for her. None of them had ever really got her decision to date Pete.

‘It’s not just that’s he’s about as exciting as a can of PVC paint,’ her great aunt, Aggie had said a few months before, when they’d all come for a visit not long after she moved into her flat in Catford. They had pulled faces at the tiny space that smelt a bit like the kebab shop below, a factor that she couldn’t help any more than she could mask the sounds of her neighbour’s naughty films creaking through the parchment-thin walls. Right then they could hear a gruff, American voice drawling, ‘You like that, huh? You like that?’

He kept asking, so Emma thought that perhaps she didn’t.

‘It’s, erm, lovely,’ said Dot, glancing around at the place with wide eyes, her handbag clutched beneath her armpit.

Plump, with a kind face and flyaway silver hair, and nail polish that was always chipping, her great-aunt, Dot Halloway, was a terrible liar.

It was the first time Emma had seen them in several months. They’d decided to take matters into their own hands and come down to see her after she’d excused herself too many times from visiting Hope Cottage.

‘No, it’s awful, but that’s not what’s concerning me,’ said her other aunt, Aggie, who always told things as they were. She was tall and stout with short black hair and the family’s piercing blue eyes. She gave Emma her customary hard stare now. ‘I mean, look at you,’ she said, concerned.

‘What?’ she’d said, looking down at her pale chinos and smart white shirt with a puzzled frown.

Dot, Evie and Aggie shared similar looks of worry.

‘It’s like you’re starting to fade away, like you’re trying so hard to be just like him – or what you think you’re meant to be like, really – that you’ve started to rub yourself out.’

‘I… what?’ she’d spluttered, outraged, turning to Dot and Evie for support. ‘I’m not trying to be somebody else – this is who I am!’

Evie shook her head, sadly. ‘No, ‘tisn’t, love. Trust me, when you try to let go of who you are well – that’s the result,’ she said turning Emma around to face the mirror in the hallway.

Dot frowned. ‘When was the last time you even cooked something?’

As if that solved anything.

Still. Staring at herself, Emma had no choice but to see her wan face, her lank, once bright hair now the colour of pale rust, and her listless, dull blue eyes staring back at her. She shook her head. ‘I eat, trust me,’ she said, though she knew that wasn’t what Dot meant; but she wasn’t about to admit how much she missed cooking. They’d simply read too much into it.

‘I’ve just been busy that’s all – it’s the column, my freelance work. I’ve given a few lectures at the university on Victorian baking as well, so that’s meant some late nights lately, I don’t get time for much else, really, none of this has anything to do with Pete. I mean, I know, he’s not exciting, but—’

There was a snort from Aggie, who muttered, ‘You can say that again,’ beneath her breath, though Emma heard her nonetheless.

Emma crossed her arms. ‘But he’s very sweet and kind, which is all that matters to me.’

‘Of course he is,’ said Evie, in placating tones. ‘And you’re right,’ she added.

‘About what?’ asked Emma.

‘That it has nothing to do with Pete.’

Emma turned to her with a look of suspicion on her face, waiting for the ‘but’. Evie shrugged. ‘It has everything to do with you – and what you need to face.’

‘What I need to face?’ she echoed with a frown.

‘Yes. Why you’ve run away.’

Evie, Dot and Aggie all nodded.

She looked at them all and shook her head in exasperation. ‘I haven’t run away. I live in London now, where I have made a life – a good life – for the last four years! I’m – I’m happy.’

Aggie snorted. ‘Yeah. You look it. About as happy as someone facing the noose, love.’

She’d been upset with them for ages after that. They simply didn’t get the pace of life in London – didn’t understand that her Catford flat, despite its less than savoury appeal, was a mark of her independence. Besides, it wasn’t called a rat race for nothing, and she’d been working really hard lately just to keep on top of things. Her part-time lecturer post had helped; it would mean that she could just about manage her rent for the next few months. The extra work had meant juggling a crazy schedule, working sixteen-hour days, but it had helped to bring her head above water, as there had been times when she had seemed to simply live on credit before. And things with Pete had been good – they’d been talking of finally moving in together in the New Year, looking for a nicer flat, somewhere far away from a kebab shop and pervy neighbours – till he ended it. Really, looking back, things had gone downhill since she’d run into Suze while she and Pete were having coffee, a few weeks before. Suze was a colleague from the Mail & Ledger.