Christmas on Rosemary Lane

Ivan raked a hand through his wavy light brown hair and took off his wire-rimmed spectacles. What was it with middle-aged men and their intolerance of strangers, she wondered? It wasn’t just Ivan. Without exception, all of her female friends claimed that their husbands hadn’t made any new friends beyond thirty years old, and had no interest in doing so. ‘I won’t have room for any more mates until some of these old buggers die off,’ Ivan once joked. In contrast, Lucy relished making new connections and had actively enjoyed arriving in Burley Bridge, with that ‘clean slate’ feeling that came with starting afresh. It was the aspect of running a B&B that appealed to her most – the unpredictable nature of welcoming strangers into their home.

‘Last week, three people stopped me in the street and asked why we’d got rid of the conservatory,’ Ivan went on now, filling two mugs with tea from the pot. ‘Someone actually said it was a waste, and that Kitty had loved sitting out there on summer evenings.’ Exasperation flickered in his deep brown eyes.

‘They’re just curious,’ she remarked.

‘Yes, because there’s not enough important stuff for them to think about—’

‘That’s so patronising,’ she retorted, sensing a wave of fatigue now. The children had just gone to bed and she had a list of chores to rattle through before she could kick off her shoes and relax. ‘This is what it’s like, living in the country,’ she added. ‘People notice all the little things around them. I know that might seem weird and intrusive to you, but it also means they actually care. Look how Della looked after me, when we lost the baby.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ he said hotly. ‘I s’pose I’m just not used to being so … noticed.’

‘What’ve you got to hide?’

‘Nothing!’ he exclaimed.

‘What’s this dossier you’re so afraid of then?’

His face broke into a reluctant smile, as if he had finally realised how curmudgeonly he was being. ‘Come on – country life’s new to you too,’ he added. ‘You can’t say where you grew up was rural.’

‘Well, no,’ she conceded.

‘So you must know what I mean.’

Of course she did. Naturally, they’d had friends in Manchester – but there had also been that relative anonymity that comes with living in a city. There’d been a pretty transient population in their street; it was the first house they’d bought together, before they’d had kids, and was in a more studenty area than they’d have chosen now. Whilst Ivan seemed to miss their life there, Lucy didn’t.

After the miscarriage her new friends in Burley Bridge had showed up with cards, flowers and pot-luck suppers. Women with whom she had only chatted sporadically at the school gate had stopped her in the village and asked if she was okay, suggested a coffee, and given her their numbers in case she ever needed anything. Touchingly, they had also made a point of inviting Marnie and Sam for extra playdates and even days out – as, of course, the children had been looking forward to the new baby coming too.

Burley Bridge was a special place, Lucy felt; even more so since they had lost the baby. Perhaps it had made her put down roots here more quickly than she would have otherwise.

She also knew her husband well enough to realise how stubborn he could be, and that there was no point in trying to force him into feeling entirely settled here. Ivan had agreed to move – and that had been nothing short of miraculous. However, Lucy was also convinced that he would come round, and eventually love the village as much as she did. It would just take a little more time.

Chapter Four (#ulink_cacc5052-298f-5f36-8526-eb33b5fab8eb)

As the days had lengthened and Rosemary Cottage’s garden had started to awaken, so Lucy began to feel stronger again – more like her old self.

‘You’re doing too much,’ Ivan warned as she launched herself back into the business of readying their home for guests. ‘Slow down, darling. We can open when we’re ready – there’s no rush.’ But Lucy didn’t want to slow down. She wanted to get things kick-started and found solace in designing a website and setting everything up for online bookings. It was crucial, she felt, to be up and running in good time for the summer season. Being busy certainly helped her to deal with her grief, and by early May they were open.

For those first few weeks, bookings were sparse. But as the mild spring eased into a glorious summer, the guest rooms were generally full at least on Friday and Saturday nights. As well as looking after their visitors, Lucy had thrown herself into decorating the house with flowers and foliage from the garden. She had always loved having fresh blooms around her at home; back in Manchester, she had grown what she could in tubs and window boxes, but been frustrated by the lack of space. Even as a child, she had loved to snip nasturtiums and cornflowers from her parents’ neat suburban garden to plonk into jam jars and bring into her bedroom. Now, as something new seemed to burst into life every morning, her imagination began to run riot. This was the first time Lucy had ever had a proper garden of her own, and she adored it.

Her beautiful, cottagey floral arrangements started to be noticed by friends and guests. Through word of mouth she was asked to decorate the local church hall with flowers from her garden, which in turn led to her creating table centrepieces for a coffee morning at the village primary school. Several more occasions were in the diary. It was thrilling to her, how she was building this delightful side hustle, using little more than the natural resources around her.

Meanwhile, Rosemary Cottage was starting to become popular with hillwalkers, and her excellent breakfasts – prepared by Lucy while Ivan looked after the children – were proving quite a hit. As well as the traditional full English, she had introduced home-made creamy yoghurts and berry compotes, made from the currants that still grew in the garden, to be served with toasted brioche from the village bakery. There was also home-made granola, paper-thin crepes drizzled with molten dark chocolate, and fluffy vegan banana pancakes served with maple syrup and coconut cream.

It had all taken an enormous amount of thought and planning – but as the summer went on, Lucy was determined to offer something a little more special than the average B&B. She knew from reading numerous blogs that the days of the greasy fry-up served by a belligerent landlady-type were long gone. Guests were no longer thrown out into the rain straight after breakfast. It seemed that the most loved B&Bs combined the style and comfort of a boutique hotel with the personal welcome of a family home.

‘And I thought we’d just be able to throw them some Sugar Puffs,’ Ivan joked late one night, as Lucy prepared a batch of pancake mix for the morning.

From time to time, she still suspected her husband was missing his old life with all those client meetings and glittering ceremonies where Brookes had scooped numerous awards. While she chatted happily with guests, Ivan could be rather reserved and prone to hiding away in the tiny study upstairs. He had his freelance work to crack on with, she reminded herself, and perhaps he was still adjusting to rural life.

They grafted all through the summer, with the children spending much of their time playing happily in the garden with their new friends. Just as Lucy had as a child, Marnie and Sam viewed the garden as being full of hiding places, the setting for their imaginative games. ‘I used to climb over that wall when I was a little girl,’ she told them. ‘The lady who lived here used to chase us out!’

‘We’re allowed to play here any time we like,’ Sam remarked with a trace of pride, his lightly freckled face browned from the sun.

‘Yeah – we’re the luckiest,’ Marnie agreed. Her long, flowing light brown hair had turned golden and, like her brother, she glowed from a summer of playing outdoors. Since school had broken up, Lucy couldn’t remember seeing them wearing anything other than T-shirts and shorts. They had inherited their father’s rangy physique, with slender limbs and skin that turned honey-brown at the merest whisper of sunshine; Lucy was paler and curvier. Both of her children had celebrated their birthdays here in the garden, with vast picnics set out on blankets, bunting strung from the trees and what had felt like the entire village descending for afternoons of games.

It had been a glorious summer so far, and Lucy had grabbed any opportunity to tend to the herbaceous borders and pots of herbs she grew for cooking. Meanwhile, Ivan regarded the lawn as ‘his’ job – much to the delight of Irene Bagshott, a widow in her sixties who lived further down the lane.

‘D’you ever loan him out, Lucy?’ she asked with a throaty laugh as she passed by one August afternoon.

‘I’m sure we could arrange something,’ Lucy chuckled, while Ivan raised a flustered smile. Since she’d met him, he had never seemed aware of his visual appeal, and dressed practically – forever in jeans, a T-shirt or sweater – rather than with any concession to style. In fact, since moving here he was proving himself to be quite the handyman. Whilst Lucy certainly fronted the B&B, Ivan wasn’t averse to fixing guttering, replacing a cracked window or sawing a precarious branch off a tree. Whenever he didn’t know how to tackle a job, he read up on it or studied YouTube tutorials, then got stuck in. It had felt crucial to Lucy for them to make a real go of their business this summer, and they had, very happily, certainly achieved that. Next summer, she felt, they could take things to another level and start offering evening meals too.

Lucy even allowed herself to believe that Ivan had settled fully into village life, and that he wasn’t missing his old workplace – or life in Manchester – at all. However, it soon became apparent that other plans were afoot, which he hadn’t shared with her.

Late one warm September night, they were setting the communal breakfast table for the next morning when he sighed and fiddled with fistfuls of cutlery before finally blurting out, ‘I have something to tell you, Luce. A job’s come up. A really good one.’

She stared at him and frowned. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘It’s with Si Morley. Remember him?’

‘From Brookes, yes, I think so. Didn’t you used to go for a drink sometimes?’

Ivan took off his glasses and nodded. ‘He has his own agency now – it’s small but they’re doing incredibly well. A few of the guys from Brookes have already moved over to work with him.’

She nodded, wondering what this was leading to. ‘Have you applied for a job with him?’ she asked hesitantly.

‘God, no, I haven’t applied,’ Ivan said quickly. ‘I wouldn’t do that without saying anything to you, would I? No, Si approached me.’ He repositioned the cups and saucers unnecessarily.

‘But why?’ Lucy asked. ‘Doesn’t he know we’re living here now, and that you’ve gone freelance?’

‘Yes, of course he does.’ Ivan started to polish the glassware with a tea towel even though it was sparkling already. ‘He just thought of me when it came up,’ he added. ‘Apparently I was kinda the obvious choice.’ He pushed back his wavy hair that he wore longer now, since he had left his job. He was more stubbly, too, and his more weathered, outdoorsy look suited him.

‘Right,’ Lucy said. ‘Well, you know how valued you were at Brookes.’

He nodded absently, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. Lucy crossed the room to one of the two squashy powder blue sofas. As she plumped up the cushions, she tried to ignore the ball of anxiety that seemed to be forming in her gut. Surely he wasn’t tempted by this so-called ‘approach’? Ivan had agreed that he, too, needed a fresh start, especially after they had lost the baby. He wanted to spend more time with the kids and less on jumping to attention when his clients demanded it. His parents, who lived in the outer reaches of North London, had implied that Lucy had ‘forced’ him to give up his job – but it hadn’t been that way at all.

‘What is the job anyway?’ she asked lightly.

‘Oh, it’s a brand manager role. New client. A major repositioning so it’d be all hands on deck for a few months …’ He repositioned the ketchups, the HP sauce and mustards on the table, as if engaged in a simplified game of chess, with condiments.

When he wandered through to the kitchen, Lucy followed him. ‘So, who’s the client?’

‘A pretty dire hotel chain – you wouldn’t know them. They’ve been hit with a torrent of bad reviews and some of them are pretty disgusting. There’s been food poisoning scandals, outbreaks of bedbugs—’

‘Nice,’ she exclaimed with a shudder. ‘Shall I book us in for a treat?’

Ivan smiled. ‘Sure. Anyway, they’ve been bought out with a ton of new investment, and the actual properties are sound, so they’re looking to completely refurbish and re-launch as a collection of boutique urban bolt-holes.’

‘“Boutique urban bolt-holes.”’ Lucy gave him a bemused look.