The Christmas Spirit Read online

  THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

  by

  SUSAN BUCHANAN

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publisher, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  First published in 2013 by Susan Buchanan

  Copyright © 2013 Susan Buchanan

  Susan Buchanan has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  Table of Contents

  THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Other Works from the Author

  Note from the Author

  Dedication

  For baby Antonia

  On your first Christmas

  Lots of love, Mummy

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks go to Brad Covey for cover design

  http://www.bradcovey.com

  Yvonne Betancourt for eBook formatting

  http://www.ebook-format.com

  Julia Gibbs for proofreading

  http://www.facebook.com/proofreaderjulia

  Terry, Tracie, Sam, the Chicklit Goddesses, Judee, Laura, Tony for putting up with my seriously unsociable hours and mood swings, and last but not least my Twitter and Facebook followers and all the book bloggers who help spread the word.

  Chapter One

  1st December - NATALIE

  D-Day!

  Well, my D-Day anyway, thought Natalie.

  Every year on this day, December 1st, her raison d’être and her job, as such, began. It only lasted a month, but her personal deadline was always twenty-four days. The other week was just to ensure there was no unfinished business.

  Natalie hoped this Christmas would be a good one for everyone. If she had anything to do with it, as in the past, those she chose would have a Christmas to remember.

  This year she would be working in the small town of Winstanton about twenty miles north of Glasgow; more of a village really, with its carefully tended lawns, idyllic cottages and splendid views over Loch Lomond.

  Each year Natalie had to choose a different country. This was her first visit to Scotland. She hoped she would get used to the Scottish accent and that her own would go unnoticed. Speaking several languages came in handy, but it was even better to blend in like a local.

  Although Natalie’s job actively only lasted one month per year, her preparation lasted ten months. Well, she did get some holidays. Ten months in which to research, narrow down and shortlist her candidates. It was no easy task, as although a small town, Winstanton still had fifteen thousand residents and Natalie could only choose four. Now, she couldn’t possibly check them all out, could she? No. Natalie had a gift which helped her. She could feel other people’s happiness. The downside was, she could also feel their unhappiness. Marvellous, eh?

  Natalie readjusted her handbag on her shoulder and grabbed hold of the handle of her carry-on case, dragging it along the deserted platform of Winstanton train station. She had picked up the keys to her new one-bedroom cottage earlier that day in Glasgow. Now all she had to do was make her way there. There wasn’t a taxi in sight; not surprising, since she was the only person who had got off at the station. Fortunately there was a phone box, an old style red one - how quaint. Even luckier, it hadn’t been vandalised and it had a Yellow Pages in it, which hadn’t been ripped to shreds. Natalie had never got around to getting a mobile phone. There was no reception where she lived most of the year, so there seemed little point. Taking out a piece of paper from her purse, she dialled the first taxi number she’d come across in her research of the area; she was nothing if not prepared. In her job she had to be. She was looking forward to her new role. Her job was always a job within a job; a little difficult to explain, but it was kind of like a secondment.

  The taxi arrived soon after. Natalie could imagine there wasn’t much doing for a taxi driver on a Sunday night. A cheery old man, probably in his sixties, greeted her. ‘Miss Hope?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘Let me help you with your case.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Natalie, when he swung it with some effort into the boot.

  ‘What have you got in there, bricks?’

  Natalie laughed and said, ‘Wouldn’t you like to know!’

  He looked as if he would indeed like to know, but was too polite to push it further.

  They arrived at Rose Cottage within ten minutes.

  ‘Five pounds eighty, hen.’

  ‘Worth every penny,’ Natalie pronounced. She handed him seven pounds and told him to keep the change.

  ‘Do you want me to wait until you see if anyone’s home?’ asked the driver, eyeing the darkened cottage.

  ‘No, it’s OK, thanks, although that’s kind of you to be so thoughtful. I have a key.’

  ‘No problem. Have a nice night.’

  ‘You too. Hope it’s a busy one for you.’

  The driver’s expression conveyed that was unlikely to be the case.

  She noticed he didn’t leave until she was safely inside the cottage and she’d switched on the hall light. Nice soul, obviously a happy man. He wouldn’t be needing her help.

  Natalie closed the door behind her and surveyed her new living quarters. The darkness had made it difficult to notice much about the garden outside and the driving rain had made her keen to get inside as quickly as possible. She found herself in a small hallway, with a deep pile carpet, mocha in colour. She couldn’t wait to slip off her boots and luxuriate in the feel of the pile between her toes. Her feet ached from the journey; it was rather a long way.

  An antique mirror, was it real? she wondered, hung from a hook in the hallway, which was dimly lit by a fake gas lamp. Off the hall were five doors. The first turned out to be a cupboard, also home to the boiler. The second led her into a country kitchen, complete with French dresser and pine table and chairs, with an Aga taking centre stage; well-equipped and quite spacious, considering it was a one bedroom cottage. Natalie exited the kitchen and tried the next door - her bedroom for the next month. A double bed, a large wardrobe and two bedside cabinets made up the room, nothing special, but comfortabl
e enough. On the other side of the hall, the first door she tried led into the bathroom.

  Oh, what a treat! A tiled wet room.

  For a cottage, it was modern; a rare mix of old meets new.

  The last door led her into a large living room with a bay window overlooking the front garden. She hadn’t been aware of how far up the hill the driver had come, but now she could see, even in the dark, the splendid views over Loch Lomond. Lights twinkled in the distance; she assumed they were from moored boats, or a boathouse perhaps.

  The living room welcomed her with a coal fire. Lovely. It required extra effort, but was definitely worth it. Natalie planned on cosy nights in after work, although she did expect to be working long hours, relaxing in front of the fire with a good book, or cooking on the Aga. Bliss. The corner sofa wasn’t to her taste, but was new and clearly from the period when corner sofas were back in fashion recently. Heavy curtains hung over the bay window, keeping out the cold.

  Yes, this’ll do nicely.

  She returned to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Aw, the lady who had leased her the house and the bakery had put a few goodies in for her first night. How sweet, and much appreciated. Natalie realised she was worn out from the journey, and checked out the cupboards to see about pots and pans. Two bottles of red wine greeted her when she opened the first door and she made a mental note to thank the landlady; just what she needed to go with her first meal and help her unpack. Tomorrow would be a long day and a new start.

  Chapter Two

  2nd December - STANLEY

  Midday. Not that time meant anything much to him anymore. Midday was much the same as one o’clock, which was similar to three o’clock or five o’clock, for that matter. Stanley didn’t have big events in his day - the most he had were his three meals, and even those weren’t exciting. He simply didn’t have the stomach for them anymore. In fact, he had little interest in anything anymore; not since his Edith passed away back in July.

  They’d been married sixty-five years; childhood sweethearts. She’d waited for him during the war. Many hadn’t. He knew lots of fellows who had returned from the war to discover their sweetheart had taken up with some other man in their absence. Some got fed up waiting, others were misinformed that their beloved had perished. There had been such confusion during the war, both for the troops and the civilians. It had been difficult to keep abreast of such matters. But not his Edith; his Edie. After the end of the war, as soon as it was decent, they had married. He had always known he wanted to marry Edie, from the moment they were introduced at a friend’s party.

  Stanley poured himself a cup of tea, Typhoo, Edie’s favourite brand, and then poured a cup for Edie. He knew she wasn’t sitting opposite him in body, but she was there in spirit and in his memories. Some would call him a daft old codger, but he found it comforting. He didn’t go as far as to make her meals, though. That would just be plain crazy, but a cup of tea was one of the traditions they had enjoyed most together. Everything could be fixed with a cup of tea. Well, almost anything. The cancer had taken his beautiful Edie, on the twenty-eighth of July, a Sunday. She had battled it for five years on and off, thought she’d beaten it, but in the end it had still claimed her. A tear came to his eye, as he remembered just how brave she had been in the face of the disease that had wracked her small body. Far braver than him. Here was he, alone and unable to cope with the little things he needed to do on a day-to-day basis. Edie had done so much for him. He had always appreciated her, but never more than once she had gone. His angel. Today was 2nd December and he was glad to see the last month of the year arrive; he couldn’t wait for this year to be over, for all it signified. But he was dreading Christmas. Edie had loved Christmas. How could he have one without her? How could he bear it? It didn’t even warrant thinking about. He felt too desolate to have Christmas. As far as he was concerned, Christmas was cancelled. Edie would be cross with him, he knew, but some things couldn’t be surmounted. He couldn’t act full of the joys of spring, or in this case, Christmas, if he didn’t feel it. And he needed his Edie to feel it. With a sigh, he picked up his newspaper and made a futile attempt at reading. Everything was such an effort these days.

  Chapter Three

  2nd December - MEREDITH

  Meredith Storm finished signing the papers her PA had placed in front of her and barked, ‘Anything else?’

  Sophie shook her head and retreated.

  Meredith didn’t see Sophie, nor did she acknowledge all of the extra tasks Sophie completed for her at a moment’s notice. Sophie was a cog in the wheel. She did what was asked of her, that was what her role was, as far as Meredith was concerned. She would never ask of anyone something she wouldn’t be prepared to do herself. That left little, as Meredith was a workaholic. She never took days off, had to be forced almost at gunpoint to go on holiday, never called in sick, nor had time off for dental or hospital appointments. She was a machine. She started at six in the morning and finished at eleven at night, five days a week. On the weekends she went easy on herself, working from home for a great part of the two days. She saw nothing wrong with calling Sophie up on a Saturday night and asking her to run off a report on the percentage increase and/or decrease of monthly sales over the past year in Ghana, and have it across to her within half an hour. She wasn’t like the rest of us. Sleep appeared to be an alien concept to her; she could often be found in the park at five o’clock in the morning doing yoga, or depending on her mood or her need for adrenalin, running or cycling through Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. Her food shopping was delivered - one of those ‘fresh food to the door’ mob. She didn’t cook, but she did eat out at the weekends, or ordered in to the office when she worked late. But a lifetime of takeaways, albeit healthy ones, hadn’t given Meredith a lardy physique. Au contraire, she had the silhouette of a catwalk model. She couldn’t care less; she wasn’t out to impress anyone. She used men as and when she needed them, and women could bitch all they liked about her; it made no difference. Ambition was her drug of choice and she thrived on achievement.

  CEO of her own telecommunications company at the age of twenty-five, Meredith made sure everyone knew about it. She delegated when essential, but she didn’t really trust anyone to do as good a job as she could do herself. Her staff tolerated her, all twenty-nine of them. She had a fear of flying which she wouldn’t admit to anyone, and had undergone hypnotherapy as well as other measures to get her on a plane. She still needed to pop a few pills, now and then, before boarding. She was the epitome of a workaholic and never let anyone get close. She had been married once and that had been her at her lowest ebb. Never again would she let someone get inside her head like that. Theo had broken her heart, typical Frenchman; lying, cheating scumbag. Didn’t she know it was OK for Frenchmen to have mistresses? he’d asked her. Of course, her being English, how could she understand? he had said.

  She hadn’t known there was anything wrong. They had a fantastic sex life, they got on well, they shared many interests. Theo would buy her flowers, jewellery, sexy lingerie. Outwardly he had the aspect of a man in love. Why would he stray? Sure she worked a lot, but so did he, as sales director at a leading food retailer. Had he felt emasculated by her and her success? Now, at forty, she didn’t care what anyone thought. She had never let anyone else in and had a preference for men who couldn’t get too attached to her. Married men were perfect as a distraction, usually eager to indulge in clandestine sexual encounters, no strings attached. Perfect. And they left her alone on the big occasions, Christmas topping the list, Valentine’s Day - the Hallmark holiday as she had nicknamed it - what a waste of time, and their birthdays; saved her splurging on them.

  Although generous with her money, Meredith couldn’t understand the concept of generosity of time. Her family were forever inviting her to social occasions; she had a large extended family who met often at her parents’ sprawling house in the country. Meredith rarely attended, preferring instead to pore over spreadsheets, participate in conferenc
e calls with Japan and Brazil, and keep an eye on the competition. Christmas was just one such occasion where she neglected her family. This year, twenty-one of them would gather at her sister Amelia’s house, filling it until it almost burst at the seams. They would be pouring out of the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room, and the kids would probably take over the bedrooms to play the latest computer games. She knew this only because she had been told it all before. She’d only been once. The rest of the time she spent Christmas at her house, watching whatever American crime drama she was into that year on box set, sipping Pinot Noir and preparing a Waitrose meal for herself. It would be safe to say she wasn’t a Christmas person. No tree, no decorations, no turkey, no carols, no Queen’s Speech. The only Christmas-related tradition she respected was giving presents. She was great at choosing gifts. She enjoyed picking out presents, although she did most of it online these days. Snippets were garnered from her family on the few occasions when she saw or spoke to them, about other family members’ interests, and she always managed to select the perfect gift. She had a knack for wrapping them and always gave an elaborately wrapped box, with bows, stars, and flowers stuck to it, so out of character with everyone’s opinion of her; hard and stern. She was a contradiction all right, an enigma.

  Chapter Four

  2nd December - JACOB

  Jacob hated signing on. It was so degrading. Even as a twenty-two year old, he could feel the shame. He knew that for people in their fifties who had worked all their days, then found themselves out of work due to this damned recession, that it galled them to have to ask for help from the state. But they needed to, and so did he. It wasn’t much, but it helped.