Read the book: «The Present: The must-read Christmas romance of the year!»

Chapter 1

Clearing out Gran’s attic had seemed pretty straightforward right up until the point at which Lucy Jackson fell through the floor.

Okay, so there was the amount of stuff. Turned out there was a simple reason why Gran had kept such a tidy home that had nothing to do with housekeeping skills of a bygone age. It was because there was seventy-odd years’ worth of clutter filling the bloody roof. Stack after stack of boxes, an old clothing rail hung with dust covers, black bin liners bulging with who-knew-what, odd bits of furniture. From Lucy’s vantage point, currently waist deep in a hole in the attic floor, she could see a pile of photographs spilling from a nearby box, the topmost one of a smiling toddler in the arms of a skinny young woman in shorts and a halterneck top. They shared the same honey-coloured curly hair. Typical. There must be a few hundred pictures in this loft, and she had that one in her sightline, like what she really needed right now was a reminder of her mother, currently AWOL somewhere in the Mediterranean while Gran was struggling in hospital. Despite the jaw-dropping size of the tat pile, which spoke of a serious hoarder, it had, right up until ten minutes ago, been just a simple matter of transferring it all from the top of the house to the bottom.

If it hadn’t been for the box.

Even in the dim light from the one dusty bulb, it had looked expensive. A wooden box with a curved lid, the kind of box that might organise a jewellery collection, the kind of box that Gran would surely have given pride of place in her bedroom instead of shoving it away up here out of sight. It had been sitting all by itself in the furthest cobweb-filled corner, in a place where the sturdy attic floorboards ended and where the thin board between the wooden joists looked as if it might not hold the weight of a thirty-year-old who was half a stone short of reaching her target weight but who had abandoned dieting because Christmas, with all its cheese and crackers, was only a few weeks away. She had taken a tentative step towards the box, and added her weight slowly. She had stretched her arm out, and her fingertips tantalisingly brushed the lid, drawing soft lines in the dust that coated its polished surface. There had been a small creak, but nothing serious, it was obviously going to hold, so she relaxed and lunged forward.

The room disappeared from view in a cloud of dust and plaster as she plummeted through the attic floor with a yell and a splintering crash.

As the dust cleared, she could see the box, still sitting smugly just out of reach in the dusty corner. While she was now stuck waist deep in the floor. Unless she could muster up some kind of help she would most likely still be here come teatime. Gran had been in hospital for a week, and Rod wouldn’t miss her for hours yet, not until he arrived home from work on the dot of seven and wondered where – her mind automatically scrolled through their weekly meal plan – the chicken stir-fry was.

What the hell was she doing thinking about food? She must be in shock. Mentally slapping herself, she suddenly remembered Gran’s handyman, last seen half an hour ago through the window as she climbed past it on her way up the loft ladder, outside shoring up the garden fence. Not her first choice of rescuer. With a build like Tom Hardy and a trail of adoring girlfriends in his wake, Jack Marchant was perfect for admiring from afar while smugly knowing you’d bet on the safe and dependable option who would never break your heart. Gran was forever gossiping about Jack’s latest conquests. Having bet on the safe option however, didn’t make it palatable to look a total numpty in front of the hot option, and so she did a quick mental run-through of all her other choices, of which there really were none. The joist she was leaning on gave a warning creak, and, discarding her pride, she gathered all her strength together, took a deep, dusty breath, and yelled at the top of her voice.

‘HELP!’

She waited and listened. Absolutely nothing. Nothing but another creaky, splintering sound as she shifted her weight a little against the joist. The unpleasant fact crossed her mind that she could probably shout as long and as hard as she wanted to, but she might still be stuck fast for hours. She opened her mouth to yell again, this time adding in some real top-of-the-lungs volume, just as Jack Marchant’s head and shoulders appeared through the loft hatch. He had tousled dark hair, strong cheekbones, and eyes that crinkled a little at the corners, as if there was the slightest amusing thing about her current situation. It was too late to stop the yell, and he screwed his face up as it echoed through the attic. Even her own ears rang with the force of it.

‘I’m not sure they heard that in Central London,’ he said, pulling himself up easily and sitting on the edge of the hatch.

She made an apologetic face.

‘Sorry. I went for full volume because I thought I’d be stuck here for ever.’ Her face felt hot underneath its coating of plaster dust. He looked as if he’d walked off a film set, with his tool belt and his work-shirted broad shoulders, and she suddenly felt very stupid, buried in the floor. ‘I didn’t expect anyone to turn up in the first two minutes. What are you, a superhero?’

He winked at her.

‘I could be.’

For goodness’ sake.

‘I also do gardens and building care. I just save the world in my spare time.’

She stared at him, and he grinned back at her.

‘I came in from the garden to fix that dodgy window in the kitchen, so I could hear you crashing through the floor.’

He made it sound as if she were a baby elephant.

‘You need to keep your feet on the joists, or make sure you stay on the boards at that end.’ He jerked a thumb to the other end of the loft where the lifetime’s worth of clutter was piled up.

‘I know that,’ she said, nettled. ‘I’m not a complete idiot. There’s a box over there in the corner, balanced on that joist. I was trying to snag that. I honestly thought that if I was careful there wouldn’t be a problem.’

‘Without the boards put across, these places just aren’t made to bear that kind of weight.’

Losing patience with the general implications that she was heavy, which he was doing absolutely nothing to dispel, she made another futile attempt to pull herself up, struggling to free her legs. Bits of wood and plaster splintered and chipped, and something gave underneath her, making her squawk in fright.

‘Stay still for heaven’s sake,’ he said. ‘The whole thing could go at any moment.’

He stood up quickly, and balanced on the joists, his head bent to avoid the ceiling.

‘If you’re trying to get me to stay calm, you need to work harder,’ she squeaked.

‘Just don’t bloody move, and you’ll be fine,’ he said, moving carefully, keeping his feet on the cross-joints.

‘Do you think you can get me out of here?’ She could hear the edge of panic in her voice. ‘It’s Jack, isn’t it?’

He nodded.

‘’Course I can. Just let me work out how best to do it.’

‘I’m Lucy.’

‘I know,’ he said. He walked around her, effortlessly sizing up the situation. She looked up at him from the floor feeling totally foolish. ‘Your gran talks about you all the time.’

Oh, just bloody great. She hadn’t considered that gossip worked both ways. Lucy could just imagine Gran making him a brew and forcing home-made cake on him while she held up his work, chatting non-stop about her granddaughter. She closed her eyes briefly. She badly needed to get her head around the idea of Gran no longer being formidable and full of energy. Her soldier-on façade had been so effective that Lucy had continued to think of her as managing perfectly well for far too long. This most recent fall had made that glaringly clear.

‘I’ve seen you around, obviously,’ she said.

Obviously. He was pretty hard to miss, with his super-fit physique and jeans-and-work-boots combo. As he worked in the daytime and Lucy was generally around more in the evenings, there hadn’t been much opportunity to say much more than a quick hello, but she’d been increasingly aware of his presence over the last year or two. Another sign that Gran, a keen gardener herself, was doing less while he was doing more. Another sign that Lucy should have stepped in earlier.

‘Grab onto me and I’ll haul you up,’ he said, at last, bracing his feet on the joists and leaning forward. Before she could suggest any alternative, possibly one that didn’t involve him being in her personal space, he slid one muscular arm around her waist and snapped away bits of broken wood with his free hand. Her face was pressed briefly into the soft fabric of his shirt. He smelled of wood and furniture oil and warm skin. She clutched at his shoulder as he started to pull her. If he happened to let go now she would go straight through the floor.

‘I’m not going to let you fall, okay?’

There were splintering and scraping sounds as he pulled her up, and then suddenly she was blissfully free of the floor. He placed her down carefully, making sure she put her feet on the joists. She noticed he didn’t rush to take his arm away, supporting her as she found her footing.

‘Are you hurt?’

The right leg of her jeans had a long and ragged rip in it, and her knee throbbed a bit. He crouched and examined her leg gently.

‘Well, there’s my pride …’ she said.

He looked up at her and gave a half-smile, which to a different girl in different circumstances might have been heart-melting, but in her case could only be interpreted as sympathetic. There was dust in her hair, dirt smeared on her clothes, and he’d just seen her at possibly her most undignified.

‘You’ve got quite a graze there,’ he said, standing up. ‘It’ll need sorting out. Let’s get you downstairs.’

‘So you do medical treatment too?’ she said, batting his arm away as he tried to help her across the attic and back to the hatch. ‘I can do it, I’m fine.’

‘I’m a superhero,’ he said. ‘I do everything.’

‘In that case, would you mind grabbing that box without falling through the ceiling?’ She nodded at the wooden box, still nestled safely in the corner among the cobwebs.

No way was she was going through this humiliating experience and still not have the box to show for it.

Jack watched as she negotiated the loft ladder and then walked downstairs, clearly trying to give the impression that she was completely unscathed when the graze on that leg must hurt like a bastard. She clearly had no clue how close she’d come to breaking her bloody neck. The crash had sounded as if half the roof had fallen in. He stood by until she hobbled into the kitchen, by which point he could no longer help himself.

‘Sit down, will you?’ he said, exasperated, taking her firmly by the shoulders and pulling out the nearest chair with his foot. ‘That leg obviously needs looking at, and you’re fooling no one with the gritted teeth.’

She frowned up at him, but didn’t argue. He pulled out a second chair and lifted her foot onto it. Half the right leg of her jeans was hanging off and he could see a bleeding scrape underneath.

‘I can either cut these off or rip them,’ he said.

‘That’s a bit brutal, they’re my favourite jeans,’ she protested. ‘Isn’t saving them an option?’

He held up the enormous ragged flap of denim that was practically hanging by a thread.

‘Seriously?’

She made a huffing noise and sat back, resigned, while he grabbed the Stanley knife out of his tool belt and cut the fabric away. Her shin was one long graze, fortunately not too deep.

‘Where does Olive keep her first-aid stuff?’

She pointed at the high corner cupboard. He found antiseptic wipes and dressings, and she held her hand out for them impatiently.

‘I don’t have time for this, I’ve got tons to do,’ she grumbled as she scrubbed the wound with an antiseptic wipe. ‘That attic up there is like something from “Hoarders: Buried Alive”. I’ve got four weeks off work to sort the house out, and as if that isn’t enough, there’s bloody Christmas to organise.’

Since he didn’t do Christmas, not any more, he couldn’t really relate to that as a major problem to be reckoned with.

‘I was sorry to hear the house is going,’ he said, watching her stick an inadequate plaster haphazardly over the graze. He was, too. Not all of his customers were as long-term or as friendly as Olive Jackson. This had been an easy gig, close enough to his house to fit around his other commitments, happily flexible if he needed to move workdays around at the last minute.

‘We haven’t put it on the market yet,’ she said. ‘How did you know?’

He crossed the kitchen and filled the kettle. Grabbed a couple of cups from the hooks above the sink.

‘Got a list of jobs sent my way last week from someone called Rod,’ he said. ‘Getting the place to look “shipshape for sale”, I think was how he put it.’

He caught her closing her eyes briefly.

‘Rod’s my partner,’ she said. ‘I’ve decided to move Gran in with us.’

He noticed that Rod, whoever he was, apparently wasn’t included in that decision.

‘Obviously care services don’t come cheap, and we’ve had to talk through all the options, but …’ She glanced around the room and out of the window at the frost-covered walled garden, and didn’t finish. He followed her gaze. The house was a beautiful 1930’s detached place in Canterbury. The kind of place they didn’t build any more. Rambling, full of memories and character, with big bay windows, and a mature garden that had been loved for years.

‘But selling it doesn’t come easy?’ he finished for her.

She nodded.

‘I spent a lot of my childhood here,’ she said. ‘I lived with Gran and Grandad on and off right through my teens, only moved out properly about five years ago.’ She nodded towards the kitchen door, held open by a wooden doorstop. ‘On that doorframe over there, my grandad marked my height every year until I stopped growing.’

‘I know. It’s on my maintenance list to paint over it.’

She fell silent at that, and he immediately regretted telling her.

‘There must be other options to selling,’ he said, trying to take a positive spin instead. ‘I mean, I know Olive is getting a bit frail, but her mind isn’t, if you know what I mean.’

‘I know exactly what you mean.’

‘I got the impression she intended only to leave this place in a box. Her words, actually.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Leg-dressing finished, she put her foot down on the floor and leaned forward to pick up a sheaf of leaflets from the corner of the table. ‘She’s been putting up a fight for months. She had a couple of minor falls a while ago, just cuts and bruises, you know.’ She held the leaflets up. ‘This was her latest attempt to fob me off. Stairlifts. Like a stairlift is the bloody elixir of life. The stairs are the least of her problems. She needs to be able to get around everywhere else, never mind the stairs. There’s the outdoor steps. The uneven floors. The tiles in the bathroom are a slip hazard. This whole place is an accident waiting to happen.’ She paused. ‘Except that it already has.’

She looked strained, and he felt a pang of sympathy. The email had mentioned that Olive had fallen and was in hospital, but that was the limit of it. He put a cup of tea in front of her and grabbed the milk from the fridge.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

He nodded.

‘How is she?’

She added a spoonful of sugar to her teacup and stirred.

‘Well, she fell in the hallway onto her right side and broke her arm and a couple of fingers. She’s really badly bruised.’ She bit her lip. ‘They thought she might have broken a hip, but thank goodness she hadn’t. The worst part of all is that she hit her head. She’s not been able to talk very much yet. She’s just so tired and frail.’

‘That’s awful.’

She took a deep decisive breath.

‘The house sale is the right thing. My stupid sentimentality about some bloody doorframe does not affect that decision. She’s going to need someone on hand 24-7. Plus there’s the massive garden, and the house needs tons of upkeep.’

‘What I’m here for,’ he remarked. Admittedly he had to factor his other life into that statement, but with pretty regular trips away he was careful to schedule his work around his travels, and he had a local kid who covered basic garden upkeep if he was away for longer than a few days at a time. ‘And I’ve been keeping tabs on Olive over the last few months. My place is only five minutes away, and I programmed my number into her speed dial.’

She laughed.

‘I’m not sure Gran knows what speed dial even is.’

He grinned at her over the rim of his coffee cup. In that moment of laughter, the stress had disappeared from her face. She was very pretty, he decided, in an unkempt kind of a way, with her messy waves of dark blonde hair, and wide brown eyes. A thin film of grey plaster dust clung to her skin, and, as he watched, she unknowingly rubbed her forehead and smudged it.

‘She does now,’ he said. ‘I put your number in too. And her hairdresser, she asked specifically for that one.’

She was staring at him as if he was some new and interesting life form.

‘Seriously?’

He nodded.

‘Of course, she’s only ever used it to ring me up when I’m feet away in the garden to tell me to come in and eat my bodyweight in cake. She falls in the hallway and I don’t hear a bloody thing from her.’

‘That’s because I was here, thank goodness. It was pure luck; I’d only happened to call in because I had an interview just down the road. Otherwise she could have been there for hours.’ She ran a hand distractedly through her dusty hair. ‘I can’t even go there in my head. What could have happened.’ She smiled at him gratefully. ‘That’s a really kind thing to have done though. Thank you.’

He raised his coffee cup in acknowledgment, feeling mildly awkward.

‘You’re welcome. Anything else I can do, just shout. Only like, maybe not loud enough to wake the dead next time.’

She smiled.

‘You’re a writer, aren’t you? On a newspaper. Olive told me.’

‘Local press,’ she said, in between fast sips of tea. Everything she did had an urgency about it, as if she didn’t have a moment to waste.

‘What’s the rush?’ he said. ‘The place isn’t even on the market yet. I mean, I might be missing the point, but if she’s moving in with you when she comes out of hospital, does it really matter if it takes a few months to sort this place out?

‘Rod wants to get it on the market as soon as possible,’ she said. ‘Once Gran comes out of hospital, which I really hope is in time for Christmas, she’s going to need me a lot, and I won’t have time to sort through all this stuff. There are people you can pay to come in and do it all for you, house clearance, it’s called. Rod suggested it, but I don’t want just anyone going through her things. I mean, don’t get me wrong, probably 90 per cent of the stuff up in that attic is just fit for the tip, but there might be things that are important to her, that she will want to keep.’ She paused. ‘That I will want to keep.’

That one sentence made it clear that sorting through this place was as much about her coming to terms with letting Gran go as it was about the house, and he could understand that need well enough. Before he knew what he was doing he was offering.

‘I can help you with anything you want over the next day or so. I know I’ve got this to-do list anyway, but that’s mainly painting, sorting out any wood that’s rotten or needs replacing, that kind of thing. I’m going to be around. I can help you bring stuff down from the loft if you like, help sort through the shed—’

‘Oh, bloody hell, I’d forgotten the shed!’ she said, clapping a hand against her forehead. ‘I bet that’s full of stuff too. Grandad’s been gone ten years, and it was his hangout. I don’t think I’ve ever known Gran go in there since.’

‘It’s not too bad,’ he lied, knowing perfectly well it was stacked with boxes of tools, gardening rubbish, and old golf clubs that dated back years, but not wanting to add to the stress. He brought his own tools and equipment on the van, so rarely needed to venture in there.

To distract her, he picked the wooden box up from the corner of the worktop where he’d dumped it on the way into the room. It was covered in dust, rectangular, and fairly shallow, with a curved wooden lid that hinged at the back. It looked like the kind of wooden box that might contain an engraved plate, or perhaps a set of cutlery, or crystal glasses.

‘Want to check this out then, before you rush off and crash back through the attic?’ he said, setting it down in front of her. ‘Since it nearly cost you your leg.’

The box! She had almost forgotten it. She sat up. A chat to Jack, and now the stress of the clear-out felt vaguely more manageable. At least she knew she had some muscle she could call on if push came to shove and she ran out of time hefting stuff down from the attic. She blew the dust off the lid in a sneeze-worthy cloud, then followed it with a swipe of her hand, revealing highly polished wood, the colour and mellow glow of a conker. A carved border of holly sprigs edged the lid. Her stomach gave a tiny twist of excitement, and she automatically took a deep breath as she opened it, not having the faintest idea what might be inside. This must be a taste (though on a much more minor scale, obviously) of how it felt when someone gave you a box that could only contain a ring. She could only guess at that feeling, not having received a proposal from Rod yet. That particular event was earmarked in their general life plan to take place after and not before he achieved partnership at his accountancy firm. Partnership itself was targeted at thirty-five, so she probably had a couple more years to wait, although there was always the possibility of it being moved forward if events happened earlier than expected. The wait didn’t matter. The certainty was enough.

The inside of the box was divided up into twelve squares, and in each square nestled a paper- wrapped package. All except for one square in the middle, that one was empty. Tucked inside the lid was a blank envelope, cream coloured, the edges dog-eared and creased as if it had been opened many times. She carefully extracted a thin sheet of paper, smoothed it out.

‘It’s a letter,’ she said, frowning. It was handwritten in faded black ink, a sloping script. She read aloud:

On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me …

That’s how the song goes, and you, Olive, are my true love. Words can’t describe how much it pains me to be called away now, when all I want is to spend every minute of every day with you, my darling.

I am not leaving you though, not really, and to prove to you that even though the world we are in today is full of uncertainties and horrors, I am yours.

For every day of these twelve days of Christmas, I am sending you a present, a part of me, to keep with you for ever, whatever may happen. Look out for their arrival, and know how loved you are. How I am thinking of you this Christmas and for all the days of my life.

J

Curiosity flying now, she scooped one of the packages out with her fingertips. The paper wrapping was tissue thin, perhaps ivory at one point, but now a little yellowed with age. She unpeeled the layers carefully and stared. Lying in her palm was a tiny, elaborately decorated pale green glass ball with two tiny painted birds perched on the top. She could tell just from the smoky opaqueness of the glass and the muted tones of the paint that it was old. A loop of thin, faded gold ribbon was attached to the top. The holly inlay on the lid made sudden sense.

‘It’s a Christmas decoration,’ she said, glancing up at Jack. ‘For the tree. At least I think that’s what it is. I’ve never seen this box before. I mean, I’ve spent probably twenty out of thirty Christmases in this house, and I’ve never once seen it. It’s beautiful. Why on earth was it shoved away up in the attic?’

She turned the box around to show him.

‘What’s this?’ He pulled a slip of paper from the pile of tissue wrapping. It had the same faded black slanted handwriting. He gave it to her.

‘It’s a note,’ she said, putting the glass ball down very carefully on the table and smoothing the piece of paper out flat. ‘“Olive. Remember that sunrise when the new day was ours, how we listened to the birdsong. We are stronger than any time or distance.” That’s gorgeous. What do you think it means?’

‘There’s a date there,’ he said, pointing to the corner of the paper.

She followed his gaze. ‘Twenty-fourth December 1944,’ she read, and looked up at Jack, her mind working. ‘During the war.’ She flapped a hand at him and kicked the chair out opposite her. ‘Come and help me. Unwrap another.’ House clearance and cut leg were completely forgotten in her curiosity. That all-encompassing determination to investigate the living daylights out of this that she rarely felt these days, because working on a local paper meant she didn’t often get to cover anything more interesting than duck races and local fetes.

She lifted another package from the box, and peeled back the paper layers. Jack sat down at the table and did the same. This time a tiny wooden drum sat in the palm of her hand, its faded paint red, gold, and green.

‘This one’s from December the thirteenth, 1944,’ she said, checking the date. She could hear the excitement in her voice. ‘Listen to this, “On this first day of Christmas, do not settle for what is within reach, my Olive. I carry you with me in my heart on this day and every day, no matter how far away I am. I will return. Believe in me.”’

Her heart twisted in her chest. Oh, the bloody delicious romance of it.

‘Look at this one.’

Jack held up a delicate green glass pear, perfect in every way, right down to the tiny painted leaf and stalk on the top. She took it from him and held it up to the light. It twisted this way and that, suspended from the ribbon. The glass was thin and flawless.

He picked up the drum and turned it in his fingers.

‘The carving on this is really perfect,’ he said, frowning. ‘“This first day of Christmas”. These are based on the song, aren’t they? That’s what the letter is talking about. That song where you count down to the pear tree at the end. That must be the pear. And there was some line or other about drummers drumming, right?’

She searched her mind and realised she could only remember bits and pieces of the song, although she definitely had memories of Gran playing it on the piano. The rickety old piano at the side of the sitting room just down the hall. She was all thumbs in her eagerness to unwrap the rest. There was a gold painted glass egg, an ornate swan. A black-and-white painted cow, perfect in every detail right down to its tiny horns. Each decoration came with its own love note, each one more heart-melting than the last.

‘I need to do a web search on the song,’ she said, picking up her smartphone. ‘Maybe the egg is for the geese-a-laying, and I definitely remember there being swans in there somewhere. Not sure about the cow, to be perfectly honest …’ She waved the phone high above her head. ‘No bloody Wi-Fi, is there,’ she said, to his questioning expression. ‘And the signal’s really patchy around here … right, here we go. Twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping …’ He held up tiny carved panpipes. ‘Maids a-milking!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s the cow. Thank goodness, it was going to drive me mad.’