A Proper Family Christmas Read Free

efficient, neat dark curls just hinting at grey. She had the air of a prep-school mistress perhaps, kindly but detached.
    â€œChrist! When did I become matronly?” Hilary glared at the figure, who frowned as if about to give her a hundred lines.
    She went down into the kitchen, craving the comforting warmth of the Rayburn. Ben’s cousin Julia had been horrified when they first showed her this room, shortly after they had moved in. “Oh dear, a basement kitchen! Never mind, you’ll just have to make everything as light as possible. White paint everywhere, with perhaps a hint of blue in the curtains, and you should get away with it…” Instead Hilary had installed dark wooden furniture, with thick plum-coloured curtains and cushions and deep William Morris wallpaper. It was a room to shut the world out of, an underground burrow. Ben had teased her about its womb-like atmosphere, saying she must be compensating for having lost her mother at an early age.
    Tonight it suddenly seemed oppressive. She was aware of the weight of the whole house heavy on top of her - layers and layers of empty rooms above her head. She hurried back upstairs, needing at least one floor beneath her to regain some control of the house.
    But up here she felt too exposed. She and Ben had deliberately made the living-room as large and light as possible by knocking the two ground-floor rooms into one, with big windows at each end. Now the space looked ridiculously vast, and the dark panels of uncovered glass dangerously expansive.
    People had tried to persuade her to move after Ben died. There had been an awful family meeting, when Ben’s cousins had decided to ‘rally round’ and arrived en masse one morning, bearing alcohol and good-will. Still in the coma of bereavement, she had let them in, hoping for some sort of comfort. Instead they rearranged her life as if she had no part in it.
    â€œDarling, you simply must get out of this house!” Julia had looked about her with a shudder. “Every single thing must remind you… Oh, it’s ghastly! Tony’ll find you somewhere cheap near us in Wimbledon. …Not that I mean…” catching her husband’s eye, “but what a pity about the Life Assurance! If only you’d come to us, Tony would have got you a really good deal.”
    Tony winked at Hilary, whether in confirmation or reparation for Julia’s tactlessness, she wasn’t sure.
    â€œMind you, I suppose there isn’t anything cheap in Wimbledon - not our end, anyway,” Julia abandoned her scheme regretfully. “What you must do, Hilary, is sell up here - this would fetch a bit, wouldn’t it Tony? You are just about in Fulham, after all. You can pay off the loan on the printing business, and buy a lovely little house in the country! It would be wonderful for Daniel. You could grow things, and make your own wine, and we’d all come and visit you.”
    â€œA lot of this stuff could go,” said Lesley, then new to the family and revelling in this opportunity to validate her position. “Stephen and I will help you clear things out if it’s too painful.”
    If Hilary had had any idea of ridding herself of her last memories of Ben, the thought of Lesley going through their things would have put it to flight for ever. Daniel, with all the outraged fire of seventeen, threatened to rush down to Oxford, when he heard, and turn out Lesley’s cupboards. Hilary had laughed in spite of herself, and in a way the incident had given her the jolt she needed.
    Certainly she had no intention of losing her home as well as her husband. So much of Ben was in this house - not only the things they had bought together, which would have moved with her, but their positions in each room - little corners of familiarity. She was surprised to realise how much they mattered to her.
    She drew the curtains quickly, turned on the stereo and poured herself a drink, then