Melanie Hudson - The Last Letter from Juliet

But did I want to spend Christmas in IKEA this year?

Not really, no.

But the problem (and Gerald knew this, too) was that if I left the house this Christmas, then it would mark the beginning of my letting go, of starting again, of saying that another life – a festive one – could exist beyond James. If I had a good time I might start to forget him, but if I stayed here and kept thinking of him, if I kept the memories alive, re-read the little notes he left me every morning, if I looked through photographs on Facebook, replayed scenes and conversations in my mind, then he would still be here, alive, in me. But if I go away, where would that lead? I knew exactly where it would lead – to the beginning of the end of James. To the beginning of not being able to remember his voice, his smell, his laugh – to the beginning of moving on.

And I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

But still …

I knocked back the last of the Merlot while googling train times to Penzance and fished out the last card in a box of IKEA Christmas cards I’d abandoned to the dresser drawer the week before. It was the exact replica of the one I’d already sent him, a golden angel. I took it as a sign and began to scribble …

Dear, Uncle Gerald,

You are quite correct. This kind of thing is indeed ‘right up my Strasse’. Rest assure there will be no need to beg – I shall come!

I arrive in Penzance by the 18.30 train on the 17th and intend to stay (wait for it) until Boxing Day! By which time I am confident that, one way or another, I will have found a solution to your problem. DO NOT, however, feel that you have to entertain me all week. It’s very good of you but actually – and quite selfishly – this trip could be a blessing in disguise. I have been racking my brains for an idea for a new book – a history project to keep me going through the rest of the winter – and I have a feeling that hidden deep within the midst of Cornish myth and legend, I might find one.

Please thank Mr Lanyon for the offer of use of his cottage – I accept!

How are the cataracts, by the way? Are you able to drive? If so, I wonder if you could meet me at the station?

With oodles of love,

Your, Katherine

P.S. Wouldn’t it be funny if ‘The Cataracts’ were an old couple who lived in the village and I would say, ‘How are the Cataracts, by the way?’ And you would answer, ‘Oh, they’re fine. They’ve just tripped off to Tenerife for Christmas.’

P.P.S. Take heart in knowing that there is nothing simple about the apostrophe. It is punctuation’s version of the naughty Cornish pixie, and seems to wreak havoc wherever it goes. There is a village in America, for example, where the misplacing of the apostrophe led to full-scale civil unrest and ultimately, the cold-blooded murder of the local Sheriff. Let us hope for your sake that the situation at Angels Cove does not escalate into a similar scale of brouhaha!

P.P.P.S. Gin? I love you.

It turned out that the residents of Angels Cove were expecting not one, but two Katherines to arrive in Penzance on the evening of 17 December. My namesake Storm Katherine – a desperate attention seeker who was determined to make a dramatic entrance – would arrive late with the loud and gregarious roar of an axe-wielding Viking. Trees would crash onto roads, chicken hutches would be turned upside down, and the blight of every twenty first century garden – the netted trampoline – would disappear over hedgerows never to be seen again (it wasn’t all bad, then). I hoped Uncle Gerald wouldn’t see my concurrent arrival with Katherine as some kind of omen, but really, how could he not?

Stepping onto the train in Exeter, despite the forecast weather, I was excited. By Plymouth I was beginning to wonder if it had all been a dreadful mistake – the locals would want to chat, and the woman in the shop (there was always a chatty woman in a shop) would glance at my wedding ring and pry into my life with a stream of double negatives: ‘Will your husband not be joining you in the cottage for Christmas, then? No? Well, it’s nice to have some time away from them all, eh? And what about your children? Will they not be coming down? No children? Oh, dear. Well, never mind …’

That kind of thing.

By Truro, I’d decided to turn back, but Katherine’s advance party had already begun to rock the carriages, and by the time St Michael’s Mount appeared through the late afternoon darkness – a watered down image of her usual self, barely visible through the driving rain and sea fret – my excitement had vaporised completely. Gazing through the splattered carriage window, I was startled by the sight of my mother’s face staring back at me. Only it wasn’t my mother, it was my own aged reflection. When had that happened? Anxious fingers rushed to smooth the lines on my mother’s face, which could only be described as tired (dreadful word) and I realised that, just like St Michael’s Mount in the winter rain, I too was a watered-down image of my usual self, barely visible through a veil of grief I had worn ever since the morning James had gone.

I hadn’t needed an alarm call that morning. I’d been laying on my side for hours, tucked into the foetal position, the left side of my face resting on a tear-stained pillow, my eyes focused just above the bedside table, fixed on the clock.

I watched every movement of Mickey Mouse’s right hand as it made a full circle, resting, with a final little wave, on the twelve.

Mickey’s voice rang out—

‘It’s time, time, time, to wake up! It’s time, time, time to wake up!’

I’d never known if Mickey had been supposed to say the word ‘time’ three times, or if at some point over the past umpteen years he had developed a stutter, but I silenced him with a harsh thump on the head and lay staring at the damp patch on the ceiling we’d never gotten to the bottom of, just to the right of the light fitting.

I wanted to lay there and consider that phrase for a moment – ‘it’s time’. Two little words with such a big meaning.

It’s time, Katherine.

How many times had I heard those words?

My father had said them, standing in the kitchen doorway on my wedding day. He’d taken my hand with a wonderful smile and walked me to the car, a happy man. We were followed closely behind by my Aunt Helena, who was frothing my veil and laughing at Mum – who did not approve of the match – and who fussed along behind us, arguing about … I think it was art, but it might have been cheese. And now, twenty years later, the exact same words were used by Gerald, to direct me out of the house. To force me, my insides kicking and screaming for release, to slide into the long black car that waited in the yard – the car that would take us to James’ funeral, the sort of funeral that has the caption ‘But, dear God, why?’ hovering in the air the whole day.

I turned my back on Mickey and ran my arm across the base sheet on the other side of the bed. If only there was still some warmth there. An arm to curl into, a woolly chest to rest my head on. But the sheet was cold, and like everything else in my house in Exeter, retained the deep ingrained memory of centuries of damp.

But if I just lay there and let the day move on without me …

It’s time, time, time, to wake up!

Mickey again.

I stretched. Ridiculous thought. Mickey was right. The day wouldn’t move on, not if I didn’t wind the cogs and drop-kick the sun through the goal posts. I threw my legs out of bed, sat up, patted Mickey, apologised for hitting him on the head and I kissed him on the face. Poor thing. It wasn’t his fault James had been killed, even if he did insist in shouting at me every morning in his overly polite, American way.