LITMIR.BIZ

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get the iTouch. And for Libby? One of the silver tabby kittens she had seen advertised in the local paper just days ago. She would phone as soon as she got to the office. For the first time since Nick had died, she had a chance of giving them a Christmas to remember. This year, 25 December was on a Sunday so the timing of everything was perfect. The show would be off air from Friday the twenty-third, and they didn’t go back until ten days later on Tuesday, 4 January: the first proper holiday they’d had since she started. She couldn’t wait. She was going to do her utmost to recapture the magic of those family Christmases, especially the last one they’d shared with Nick, which she still remembered so clearly.

       Christmas at the Lynches’ with Maureen and Mel became a tradition. Ma and Pa never left Scotland now. Ma was getting increasingly forgetful and confused and Pa preferred to stay with her.

       If Christie had known it was to be their last, would she have spent a bit more on Nick and the children? They were certainly rich in love and Christmas fun, and when she looked back at her own childhood Christmases, it wasn’t the presents she remembered but the games she’d played with her father and the fights she’d shared with her sister. That last Christmas morning, Nick had brought her tea in bed, and in the mug, right at the bottom, there had been a simple diamond eternity ring.

       ‘We can’t afford this!’ She sucked the tea off it then held it out to look at it properly.

       ‘Charming! And happy Christmas to you too, my darling.’

       Nick, it’s wonderful and special and I love it but …’ She slipped it onto her finger and stretched out her hand to show it off.

       ‘If it makes you feel better, I could tell you it’s paste.’

       ‘Is it?’

       No.’ He laughed.

       ‘I love it! Thank you.’ She reached up and pulled him down onto the bed to kiss him.

       ‘Bundle!’ shouted a small voice from the door and Fred jumped on top of them, followed close behind by Libby. She couldn’t have asked for a more loving start to their last Christmas together.

       After Nick’s death, Christie had considered selling her engagement and eternity rings, but she couldn’t. She had some vague idea that the bank loan Nick had taken out to help his father might have died with him. In fact, because it was in their joint names, she was now held responsible. The bank manager was very clear about her financial situation. The mews house in Chelsea was her only asset, and even if she sold it, she wouldn’t have enough to pay off the loan, and certainly not enough to buy another house.

       Nick’s partner in the law firm where he’d worked was more helpful. Nick had taken out a life-insurance policy, which would pay out three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Might she consider selling the mews house, paying off a bit of the loan and using the insurance money and what was left to downsize and move out of London? Good advice. But she had blown it by falling for the draughty money-pit she now called home – and she still had to pay off the loan.

18

      Mel’s flight had been due in at five that afternoon, the day before Christmas Eve. A taxi would have dropped her at the house a couple of hours ago, so Christie was rushing home to see her. Because Mel had changed her plans at the last minute and extended her latest exotic shoot into a Caribbean holiday, the sisters hadn’t spoken to each other for weeks. And before that, work, the children and the builders had overshadowed everything else in Christie’s life as she journeyed back and forth between them, always preoccupied by one or another.

      They had occasionally emailed each other, Mel waxing lyrical about the delights of St Lucia and about the photographer on the shoot, Jean-Pierre, who, at equally short notice, had taken the same two weeks as holiday. Funny, that. They had been holed up in Rodney Bay, having a high old time. In return, Christie’s replies had been brief, only hinting at the events in Rillingham. She was dying to tell Mel all about what had happened with Sam, but she deleted the message time and again because she couldn’t manage to convey the exact mood of the evening. What she didn’t want was Mel to misinterpret it and to cast Sam as a chancer (which he was, of course, but in the most charming way) and her as pathetically desperate (which she absolutely wasn’t). Instead she resorted to teasing her sister with veiled suggestions about a mystery man, which she knew would have her fizzing with desperation to know what had really gone on.

      Neither had she told her about Libby, about their visit to Dr Collier and the subsequent appointments with Angela Taylor, the private family therapist he had recommended. Despite her initial reservations about sharing her family’s intimate problems with a complete stranger, she had been impressed by the way Angela had encouraged Libby to open up, even at their first meeting. She had also found some release herself by talking things through on her own. Angela said little but what she did say was perceptive and cut to the heart of a concern, pointing her towards new ways of looking at her own and Libby’s reaction to Nick’s death. Angela was quiet, non-judgemental and, after only three appointments, had given Christie hope. But these were stories best saved for a long evening with a bottle of wine, when she could explain everything going on in her head without Mel drawing the wrong conclusions. And, at last, this might be the evening. She hoped it would be the first of many, as they all hunkered down for a fabulous Christmas together at home. No work. No Julia. No worries.

      Approaching the house, Christie could see the Christmas-tree lights, a blaze of colour in the sitting-room window. To the left of the door, the kitchen window was almost obliterated by Fred’s cotton-wool snowscape where an unevenly plump Father Christmas and his sleigh descended to the chimney of a house that, with a bit of imagination, was something like theirs. Brightly coloured squares of presents flew off into the sky behind him. He had no means of steering since her and Libby’s scissor skills had stopped short when it came to the reindeers’ legs and harnesses. The faded red paper lantern, bought on honeymoon in a strange Christmas shop she and Nick had found in the backstreets of Naples and brought out at Christmas every year since, hung in the ox-eye window above the front door.

      She took the presents that she’d been storing in her studio dressing room out of the boot of the car and rushed them upstairs to be hidden in her study without anyone catching her. The smell of burning cheese confirmed Mel’s presence in the kitchen. She tiptoed downstairs, wanting to surprise everyone. Just as she turned at the bottom of the stairwell, something lurched at her out of the darkness. She grabbed at the end of the banister to steady herself.

      ‘Gotcha!’ Fred clung to her like a monkey, his lips pressed to her cheek. She hoicked him up to her hip – before he broke her neck – and, breathless with surprise, kissed him back.

      ‘Look up, Mum. Auntie Mel and me put it up there.’ He pointed an ink-stained finger towards a bunch of mistletoe tied to the light fitting. ‘She’s been here for hours and hours. And she put some presents under the tree. Can I … ?’

      ‘No, no, no.’ She unhooked his arms and lowered him to the floor. ‘You’ve got to wait until Christmas Day.’

      ‘But …’ He was fidgeting with excitement, pulling at her hand.

      ‘No.’ She knew exactly what he was going to say. ‘Not even one. Come on, let’s see what’s for supper.’

      To her surprise, she heard a man’s voice in the kitchen – Richard. What was he doing there? Then she heard Libby laugh, followed a second later by Mel.

      ‘God, I’m hopeless. Rich! I thought you said if I kept stirring it wouldn’t go lumpy.’

      Rich! Since when had the two of them been on such close terms?

      ‘For God’s sake, woman! Pass me the pan and I’ll do it.’ Christie could hear the amusement in his voice.

      ‘Not

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