Christmas on Rosemary Lane. Ellen Berry

plate.

      ‘Bath’s ready, Sam,’ she said now, to swerve them off the subject. ‘You’re first in tonight.’

      ‘He’s always first,’ Marnie bleated in the doorway. ‘I don’t want to go in cold water.’

      ‘It won’t be cold. We’ll put more hot in—’

      ‘He pees in it,’ she moaned, and Lucy wondered yet again where Ivan had got to. She was more than ready for him to take over tonight. The children were much more compliant for him – willing, helpful, eager to please, the way they were with Rikke too; basically anyone who wasn’t their mother. Mums always seemed to get the raw deal.

      ‘I don’t pee in the bath,’ Sam muttered.

      ‘You pooed in it once,’ Marnie crowed from the landing, which was true – but he’d only been two, and there was no need to bring it up now.

      ‘I didn’t,’ he growled.

      ‘You did! You pooed!’

      ‘Josh isn’t allowed to say poo,’ Sam added, referring to a boy in his class.

      ‘What does he say, then?’ Lucy asked as she folded towels in the bathroom.

      ‘Chocolate sausage.’

      ‘You’re kidding,’ she spluttered, at which Marnie guffawed in the doorway. ‘Is that true?’

      ‘Yeah.’ Lucy handed him a towel as he clambered out of the bath. ‘He has to say, “I need a chocolate sausage, Mummy.” And he has to put up his hand, even at home!’

      The children were giggling now, fuelled by copious quantities of refined sugar, and God knows what kinds of chemical compounds went into those neon-bright jelly snakes. While Lucy was grateful they weren’t bickering, she was now clearly visualising the glass of red she would be enjoying soon, whether or not Ivan brought a special bottle home with him. They always had a few in stock, and Friday nights certainly warranted a treat.

      Knowing they would be eating later than normal – due to the party and parade – Lucy had planned a quick meal of fresh tuna steaks, seared with olives and peppers. Their weekend evenings were lovely, and she treasured them. They rarely went out, preferring instead to cosy up at home – sometimes sitting out in the garden on warm summer’s nights, and in the colder months cuddling up on the sofa by the fire. She checked the time again – it was nine-forty – and willed Ivan to hurry home.

      Sam had sloped off to choose a story now, and Marnie was splashing idly in the bath. ‘Can you try and wash off that face paint please?’ Lucy said.

      ‘It is off,’ Marnie said, which was clearly untrue. There was some gentle wiping with a flannel – ‘Ow!’ she screamed, as if she were being attacked with nettles – and finally, bath time was over and the finishing post was in sight.

      Lucy usually tried to make their bedtime stories exciting, with her children snuggled on either side of her, tucked up in Sam’s bed. However, she might as well have been reading the boiler instruction booklet for all the feeling she was putting into it.

      It was her husband Lucy was thinking about on this cold, wet December night. She yearned for him to hurry home and be with her, and to know that everything was all right.

       Chapter Seven

      James Halsall was relieved to see the Christmas lights of Burley Bridge glinting in the distance. It had rained steadily the whole drive from Liverpool, and now he just wanted to pull up at his dad’s and be reassured that everything was okay.

      He had pleasant memories of long-ago summers in the village, spent stealing redcurrants from Rosemary Cottage’s garden. However, a lot of James’s childhood hadn’t been fun, and he’d been relieved to leave the place for good the minute he’d found a means of escape. These days, he only came to visit his father who still lived here in a clapped-out farmhouse a mile out of the village. Despite the fact that they were hardly close, James had still seen him regularly – dutifully – over the years.

      Until a few months ago there had been a sort of system in place. The unspoken agreement was that he and his older brother, Rod, would alternate visits, passing their father back and forth like a parcel that could potentially blow up in their faces at any moment. Then Rod had moved in with their dad – temporarily, he was keen to stress – and the last time James had visited, everything had seemed fine.

      At least, fine-ish. Although hardly domesticated, Rod seemed to have things reasonably under control. But the phone call that morning had alerted James to the fact that everything was far from fine after all.

      ‘Sorry to bother you,’ Reena had said, ‘but I’m really worried about your dad, James. Is Rod meant to be around at the moment?’

      ‘Um, yes, as far as I know. Why, what’s happened?’ James had asked, immediately alarmed. Reena lived in the village but had a holiday cottage close to his father’s place that she rented out. She had never called him before, and he didn’t know her too well. James hadn’t even known she had his number.

      ‘I went up to the cottage this morning to say goodbye to my guests,’ Reena explained, ‘and they told me there’d been a bit of an altercation last night. Your dad had been at the door, trying to barge his way in—’

      ‘Into your holiday house?’ James exclaimed. ‘But why? What did he want?’

      ‘He … he was convinced it was his place,’ she said apologetically. ‘That he lived there, and they shouldn’t have been there at all. He was quite, um, insistent. He used some terrible language …’

      ‘I’m so sorry …’ James was aware of a sinking sensation in his chest.

      ‘But finally,’ she continued, ‘they persuaded him that he’d made a mistake, and he wandered away. I wish they’d let me know last night. They just assumed it was some local eccentric, but by their description – the big beard, the gold earring – it was pretty obvious it was Kenny.’

      ‘Did he seem drunk, do you know?’

      ‘No – just confused, I think.’

      ‘Okay, thanks, Reena,’ James said, rubbing at his cropped dark hair. ‘I really appreciate you calling.’

      ‘I had to look you up online. You took some finding!’

      ‘Yes, well, I’m glad you have my number now. Please don’t worry. I’ll try and get hold of Rod and find out what’s going on.’

      Perhaps it was just as well his father resembled a latter-day pirate, he’d thought bleakly as he called his brother’s mobile; it made him distinctive. But Rod’s number just rang out. Time after time, James tried it, but no joy.

      At forty-four, Rod was three years older than James, and the golden boy as far as their father was concerned. When they were younger, James had wondered if it had simply been an age thing; Rod had done everything first, and had the gift of the gab and a knack of charming everyone. Whilst not wildly academic, he had talked his way into working in ‘investments’ – James had never quite grasped what this entailed – and made a mint, apparently, which had clearly impressed their father. Weirdly, for someone who had possessed the same pair of slippers since about 1973, Kenny Halsall took a keen interest in money.

      Meanwhile, James had been more of a practical type, good at fixing and making things. At seventeen he had gained a joinery apprenticeship in Liverpool through a family friend, and fled.

      It wasn’t that his childhood had been terrible. Whilst Kenny had hardly been the nurturing type, even as a child James had managed to grasp that raising two boys on his own wasn’t easy, especially with his various one-man businesses to attend to. As it was, James and Rod had enjoyed virtually limitless freedom from the ages of six and nine. Even when their mother had still been there, she hadn’t been one to establish