It is a truth universally acknowledged that the more freely flowing the booze at a charity dinner, the more money stands to be raised, and even though it involved the sacrifice of some of Colton’s wine collection, it turned out to be quite an incredibly lucrative night for Pam and Charlie’s charity, and Pam, who had been rather looking forward to dispensing “What a shame they can’t handle that big place on their own. It’s just such a pity, isn’t it?” stories all over town, was reduced to admitting that in fact everyone had had a brilliant time and that the stag head was fine, although the heads of many people waking up in the morning were not.
The more obvious effects over the next couple of weeks were found in the kitchen. It had been, it turned out, surprisingly galvanizing. Konstantin realized that if he was sacked, everything was going to get massively worse for him and Bjårk massively quickly, and he set about trying—just a tiny bit, and he wasn’t very good at it (it would still never have occurred to him, for example, to make his own bed in the morning)—to try harder.
He practiced his chopping till he found, after many bloodied fingers and a lot of strangulated swearing, that he could chop everything quickly and efficiently—if not up to Gaspard’s standards, certainly a step up from his own.
IONA GOT ON it the day after the dinner. This was exactly what they needed, she figured. She’d tag it a million times. She remembered that viral video that was just a dog running around a park. This would be much better. And it would show off the beautifully curated shots of the island and the hotel itself. She was looking forward to this.
She posted it at nine P.M., the time statistically most people were scrolling lazily through their feeds, looking for something to distract them. And she ran it all in capitals. OMMMGGGGGG FUNNIEST VIDEO EVER! YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS!!!!!! she typed, hashtagging it a million times with #funnyvideo #funnydogvideo #dogvideo #restaurantfail #hilariousvideo #manfallingover and literally everything else she had ever heard of, posting it simultaneously to her Facebook and her mum’s Facebook. Her mum was amazing at sharing all sorts of crap and had about nine thousand old lady friends around the world who also loved sharing absolute crap, so even though there was absolutely nobody Iona’s age on Facebook anymore, she expected it to get good currency nonetheless. And she sent it to the Twitter accounts of all the newspapers she could think of. Sometimes they had more space to fill than people realized. Iona liked Mure, in a faintly haughty fashion, but she knew she was destined for greater things. This was just the start she needed.
Nothing. After an hour she crossly shut down her phone and went to bed.
The snow lying was such a surprise. It was usually cold enough—that was rarely a problem on Mure. It was instead whether the wind would cease for long enough for snow to fall and lie on the roads, across the fields, gently papering everything in its soft and lovely gentleness.
Bramble had barely seen snow, and being particularly old, and also a dog, he couldn’t remember if he had or not and charged out into the lower field, rolling on his back and tossing himself around, paws in the air, like a much younger dog. Then it soaked in and he stopped liking it so much and slinked back in to dry himself off in front of the fire. It did not smell good.
THE CHILDREN WERE having such a good time up at the school that Lorna, the headmistress, gave up on trying to get anything done and took the two classes outside for a healthy snowball fight—no hitting in the face and no rocks in the snowballs and no putting down necks were the rules, but there were still a few tears here and there. Mrs. Cook, the only other teacher at the school, already had the urn on for hot chocolate, so tears were assuaged and little pink hands and noses warmed after the laughter and exercise of the morning, and Lorna resumed reading The Dark Is Rising, their Christmas book, although as the room warmed up and the hot chocolate took effect, more than a few of the little heads began to nod. It had been a long term, after all; everyone was more than ready for the two-week Christmas break. And she still hadn’t heard from Saif.
SAIF, FOR ONCE, wasn’t thinking about Lorna. Instead he was staring, for the umpteenth time, at his most recent letter from the Home Office, asking him to come in for a visit. It wasn’t for him—he had his indefinite right to stay. It wasn’t about the boys. Which left . . . what? Was it his wife?
A scientist by bent, a doctor by profession, he had been rigorously trained not to speculate but to deduce, carefully; never to jump to wild conclusions.
It was proving extraordinarily difficult.
UP AT THE hotel, it was quiet—Gaspard was talking to suppliers, and there was no dummy lunch service that day. And Isla knew today was the day the Christmas trees arrived—everyone on Mure knew, it was quite the excitement—so was happy to be heading down to the port to see everyone.
She pulled on her old gray coat, which looked jollier when she added her tam-o’-shanter and a red scarf. It had been a present from Flora the year before, and she thought it was a little showy—red was such a big color—but it suited her dark hair and pink skin, and it was made of very good lambswool.
Just as she left the Rock she happened upon Konstantin, who was out throwing a stick across the wide white lawn for Bjårk, who was gamboling toward it in a leisurely fashion. He was rather overweight for a dog, but Konstantin tossed the stick over and over again regardless, his long arm stretching up into the air of the now bright blue sky, sending the stick far and true.
He looked boyish and, for the first time, truly carefree, not shackled to a kitchen he despised, in a world he didn’t understand. The hangdog look was almost completely gone.
She found herself watching him for a while; there was nobody in the hotel on this side, he obviously didn’t realize he was observed.
“Sing med myg!” he shouted. “Mitt hjerte alltid vanker . . .”
He sang loudly and quite well. To Isla’s amazement, Bjårk immediately sat his capacious bottom down on the snow, pushed back his head, and howled loudly along to the sky.
“I Jesus føderom . . .”
“Aooo!”
Isla couldn’t help it, she giggled aloud, and Konstantin whirled round, his cheeks bright red, his white teeth showing.
He stopped as soon as he saw her and his face immediately took on that closed look again, and she remembered once more with horror how he had overheard her talking to Iona.
In fact, for an instant, Konstantin hadn’t recognized the shy little scullery maid who hated him in this pink-cheeked laughing girl in the beautiful red scarf, her long dark hair streaming underneath it down the back of her coat. His first instinct was to smile, then he’d realized awkwardly who it actually was and set his face.
Bjårk had no such compunction and bounded up to her happily. You couldn’t really ever say a Mure person was frightened of dogs; there were so many dogs it would be ridiculous, like saying you were frightened of sand, but nonetheless Isla remained a timid sort and her mother had always warned her away from them. Gingerly, she put her hand out a little. Bjårk sniffed it, disappointed as soon as he worked out there was no treat in it, but nonetheless wormed his way under her hand and pushed his ears in her direction so she could scratch underneath them, which, slightly tentatively, she did.
“You’re a very bad singer,” she whispered to the dog, who minded not in the slightest. “Uh,” she said, as Konstantin still stood there. “Sorry to interrupt. I was just heading down to the village.”
“Oh,” said Konstantin, who had a whole day free and not a clue what to do with it without friends or money. At the spur of the moment he said, “Well, so am I.”
Isla didn’t look pleased, he noticed. For goodness’ sake.
“Or maybe not,” he added pointedly.
“No, no, come with me,” said Isla immediately, feeling miserably aware of having fallen short with her manners. It had just flashed through her mind that if she said he couldn’t come, he’d just end up walking about three paces behind her, given that there was only one road down into town anyway. But what would he think of everyone being so excited to see a few trees? She told herself she didn’t care and carried on.
The island looked so pretty, though, if you were wrapped up, the fresh snow scrunching cheerfully beneath your soles, the clear imprints of paws and birds’ feet that had gone before you, including the lovely squishy shape of the ducks’ footprints, plopping along on duck business.
Conversation was sporadic as they neared the little port, where quite the crowd was forming.
“What’s the crush?” said Konstantin. “Has someone got the island’s first computer? Be careful nobody panics when they see a moving train.”
Isla looked at him crossly, but her expression was hidden underneath her hat and he didn’t notice in the slightest.
“Hello!” shouted a small voice. It was Ash, the younger of Saif’s two sons, who had spent many a day while Saif was handling an emergency more or less being babysat at the café, so he knew Isla well.
It was hard not to have a soft spot for Ash, who still had a limp from a badly set leg in Syria and a desperate, confused desire never to have to go through his bad experiences again. In Ib, his older brother, this manifested in a certain wariness and sullenness. In Ash, an openness to the world that made him friendly as a Labrador. On the tiny island of Mure, this was always happily reciprocated in a way that made Saif alternately happy and then worried all over again for when his darling boy had to face the real world and found out everyone wasn’t quite so friendly.
“Hello, Ash,” said Isla, tousling the boy’s too-long dark hair.
“The trees are coming!”
He turned to Konstantin.
“Trees are big things that grow in the ground,” he began confidently. There were, of course, no trees on Mure; it was simply too windy. “You put them up at Christmastime. They’re for hanging lights on,” he continued.
Isla expected Konstantin to be wearing his usual annoyed frown, but to her surprise he had an interested, engaged look on his face. Ash stretched out his arm as the ferry got closer.
“All the trees are coming!” He lowered his voice. “I is going to be at the front for the biggest one.”
Konstantin looked at him. “How are you going to carry that?”
“My daddy will. He’s ’normous,” said Ash of his pleasantly tall but in no way enormous father. “I will sit on it till he is here.”
“That’s a brilliant plan,” said Konstantin.
Ash narrowed his eyes as the ferry started to chug in reverse. “Don’t take the biggest one.”
“I won’t take the biggest one,” said Konstantin. Ash held his gaze meaningfully as Konstantin turned back to Isla, smiling.
“Do you normally take the biggest one?” said Isla.
He smiled ruefully. Konstantin always took the biggest one. “Well . . .”
More and more people gathered as a huge pile of Christmas trees started to be unloaded onto the dock. People were trying to look unconcerned about it, and not be casting too beady an eye, while all mentally planning exactly which one they wanted. There was a beauty at the top.
“Where are these from?” said Konstantin to the cargo loader who was ticking things off his inventory.
“Came out of Bergen last night, ken,” said the man, and Konstantin briefly wondered why the man thought his name was Ken, but still, there was something about seeing the beautiful trees, their dark green needles already tumbling out onto the dock, that made him even more homesick than usual.
“Okay,” he said, staring sadly.
Flora had arrived—Fintan was still in bed—and made straight for the dispatcher. “I’m going to need the ten-footer for the Rock.”
“I wanted that!” said old Mrs. MacGregor, who didn’t see quite as well as she once did.
“But you live in the mill cottage,” said Flora as gently as she was able. “There isn’t space.”
“I can chop it up and have it twice,” said the old lady mutinously.
“I have a lovely five-foot tree for you,” said the dispatcher smoothly. “Don’t worry about it.”
More and more people were arriving on the docks now, picking up their beautiful trees with cries and shouts; a tractor was called into service by Hamish, who loaded up the farmhouse’s six-footer with a huge grin all over his face. Flora had harbored hopes of decorating it before Agot got home from school and put her special stamp on it, but didn’t hold out much hope for that happening.
KONSTANTIN WATCHED SADLY.
The palace at Christmastime was ridiculously overdone. Partly it was because they had so many visitors, some paying, some local schoolchildren. Grand companies held their Christmas parties there, so his father pointed out it made sense economically. But deep down Konstantin knew it was because he loved it, because his mother had loved it so much.
Trees four meters high lined the huge, ornate staircase at the main entrance to the palace, with heavy green ivy wreaths wound up the delicate filigree banisters on both sides. Similar heavy wreaths were pinned perfectly along the walls, and the trees were lined with both artificial lights and real candles, lit up only on Christmas Eve eve, when just the family gathered round to exchange early gifts and eat lutefisk in preparation for Christmas Day itself, the main event.
His mother had loved the traditional songs and booked the local choir repeatedly to come and sing julesanger. She had said it was for the visitors, who filed through the public rooms to see the palace come to life throughout December, but Konstantin had always known on some level that it was for her; she hummed the songs wherever she was in the house.
It had been so much . . . Well, he was a kid. He hadn’t known anything.
It was special to live in a palace, he knew that. People mentioned it all the time. But actually, the really special thing had been having a mother who loved and adored him. He’d taken that completely for granted, not given it a second thought.
It occurred to him to tell everyone where he was from, get them to stop treating him like an idiot. But would they, though? The horror of it, thought Konstantin, if they didn’t believe him or, worse, thought it was funny. Laughed at him. He couldn’t bear it. Better they thought he was a drifter than an absolute loser who’d been banished by his own father. He bit his lip, hard.
“Uhm, are you okay?” said Isla eventually, realizing how quiet he’d been. Even Bjårk wasn’t gamboling anymore. She thought Mure looked beautiful—always did this time of year, when the lights were slung up along the lampposts on the quay. It was just the one string, and usually something was wonky, but it was like a fairyland to Isla. It always cheered her up.
“I miss home,” he said simply. Then he looked around the docks. “Are these all the lights there are? Is this it?”
“I like it,” said Isla.
He fell silent.
“What’s home like?”
“It’s amazing,” he said suddenly. “Where I’m from, up near Bergen . . . there are thick pine forests everywhere, up the mountains. You can smell the fir trees too. Everything smells of pine and fresh white snow. It’s dark like here but not so windy, and you can ski every day. It’s not flat like this place.”
Isla frowned. “Well, we’ve got the ben,” she said, referring to the hill behind the MacGregor farm, which was misleadingly treacherous to climb, and led to the spine up the northwest side of the island of craggy hills that bristled with heather in the spring but now were dull and bare. Konstantin looked at them like they were puddles.
But the dock grew busier and happier. Enterprisingly, Iona had set up a table with mulled wine and hot chocolate for sale while people waited to bid on the tree they wanted. Few were the children who, on seeing another child with a cup filled with marshmallows, cream, and cinnamon, didn’t immediately pester their parents for one. Although more than one parent pointed out that it was absolute highway robbery, most gave in with good grace. It was a part of it, and ritual was important at Christmastime.
“Okay, six-footer, would suit a flat or lovely front room,” bellowed the dispatcher again.
Several people stepped forward; some held back in case there was a fatter, greener tree beneath. Isla waved at Lorna, who was buying two: one for her lovely little flat to sit on the table, and one, out of her own pocket, for the school. She and Mrs. Cook, the other teacher, came in on the second Sunday of advent and decorated it in secret, partly to give the children a wonderful surprise on Monday morning, as if it had happened by magic, and partly because if you invite thirty-five children to help decorate a Christmas tree, nothing good happens, and there’s a lot of needles involved.
Inge-Britt sidled down lazily from the Harbour’s Rest hotel. It needed a big tree, and she would only bother to decorate one side of it, because really, who would see the other side? And she’d have to make two trips up to the attic, which would seriously impinge on her afternoon nap. Inge-Britt was a brilliant person but temperamentally highly unsuited to running a clean hostelry—something Flora was very much hoping to capitalize on with the Rock.
The women clustered together, as both Lorna and Inge-Britt put their hands up for a big tree.
Lorna, however, was momentarily distracted; if little Ash was by the quayside, it meant his father, Dr. Hussein—oh, who was she kidding—Saif, the man she was desperately in love with, couldn’t be far behind.
“Hey, Lorna,” shouted Inge-Britt, holding up a hand to indicate that they would share catching the big tree as the dispatcher moved over the ten-footer, expecting her friend to catch it . . . but Lorna’s head was turned in a dream and she wasn’t there to catch the tree as it fell.