Christmas by the Lighthouse Read online

  OTHER TITLES BY REBECCA BOXALL

  Christmas at the Vicarage

  Home for Winter

  Christmas on the Coast

  The Christmas Forest

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Rebecca Boxall

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542009614

  ISBN-10: 1542009618

  Cover design by Lisa Horton

  In memory of Prinny (1981–1990)

  And for my family – Dan, Ruby, Iris and Joey

  Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  PART TWO

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  PART THREE

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  PART FOUR

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgments

  About the author

  PART ONE

  FALLING

  APRIL–MAY 2017

  Chapter One

  JERSEY, TUESDAY

  JUDE

  He was alive, but he wasn’t living.

  He was thirty-six years old and he’d never even been in love, for goodness’ sake! Still, he had a decent job – which he was determined to be grateful for, given the perilous state of the economy. Never mind that it bored him to tears.

  Jude was trained as a teacher but for the last four years he’d worked as a call centre operative for the international banking arm of Hedgeleys Bank, where he sat all day long dealing with calls from unhappy customers. Or, if he was lucky, from clients who couldn’t be bothered to check their account balances online so who called him up instead. He felt his soul being destroyed with every day that passed.

  His colleague Derek, who’d sat in the pod next to him until recently, had clearly felt the same. He went out to get a sandwich one lunch break, leaving his jacket behind on his chair, and never returned. Jude envied Derek. He’d told his sister, Daisy, all about it the day it happened, calling her just before she started her shift at St Thomas’s Hospital in London.

  ‘Why do you envy him?’ she’d asked. ‘Jude, what the hell’s the poor sod going to do now? He won’t get a reference, will he? And he’ll have to buy a new jacket.’ Daisy was always one to consider practicalities.

  ‘I suppose I just admire anyone who has the gumption to actually do something to change their life if it isn’t working for them.’

  ‘Come on, Jude. There’s loads you could do to change things if you really wanted to. You could join an online dating agency, find a new job. Why not rent an apartment by the sea instead of mouldering in that grubby little basement flat in town?’

  Jude laughed. Daisy had a knack for using particularly descriptive words, emphasising them in her naturally dramatic way. ‘Mouldering’ was a definite Daisy word.

  And it was true; he could do all of those things. In an island with some of the world’s most beautiful beaches, it made no sense to be living where he did with an urban view of St Helier’s rusting cylindrical gasholder.

  But he just didn’t have the energy to change. Perhaps he was depressed? But didn’t that mean you couldn’t even get out of bed? He always got out of bed eventually. He religiously kicked off his duvet after pressing his ‘snooze’ button three times, then took a deep breath before hauling himself into the shower, listening to Chris Evans’s breakfast show. This always perked him up a little but he definitely wasn’t one to whistle or sing in the shower. Instead he tended to bow his head, resigning himself to the day ahead and letting the water pour over him, into his eyes and down his body, until his allotted five minutes of hot water ran out and he was forced to search around blindly for his towel, put in his contact lenses and, shivering, run to his bedroom to dress.

  The fact he’d never been in love was at the top of his list of personal failings. It was something he was deeply ashamed of, suspecting it indicated a significant flaw in either his looks or his personality. Actually, he thought it must be the latter (surely worse than unfortunate looks) as his friends had told him that, of all of them, he was the one who attracted women on a night out. The rest of his mates would take full advantage of this, while by the end of the night it would be Jude propping up the bar alone, staring into his drink.

  On this particular Tuesday morning, having now showered and dressed in his Marks and Spencer’s suit, he checked himself in the hall mirror before leaving the flat. He tried to view himself objectively. Tall, for a start. That was considered an advantage on the whole. Hair once described as ‘tousled and golden’ by an ex, though he deemed it messy and dark blonde. Chameleon eyes that were green or blue, depending on his surroundings, with long lashes that by some stroke of luck were dark despite his fair hair. A square jaw sporting ‘designer’ stubble (laziness when it came to shaving). Slim, though not very muscly – again, too lazy. He really should take some exercise. But overall not too bad, all things considered.

  He grabbed his umbrella and locked the front door behind him, ruminating on the shortcomings of his personality on his fifteen-minute walk through the rain-lashed streets of St Helier to the office. After all, a little critical self-talk was just the sort of start to their day a possibly depressed person needed.

  He was lazy. He was directionless. He was boring. This last self-criticism horrified him the most. Was he boring? He certainly led a dull life, but did this make him dreary as a person as well? He would have to ask his friends. But hang on, no – that would just add another couple of unattractive characteristics to his growing list: needy and insecure.

  Having set himself up for the day with such turgid introspection, Jude arrived at the bank. He’d decided that Tuesdays were even worse than Mondays. At least
Mondays offered the chance to chat with colleagues about the weekend. Okay, so in his case this was unlikely to be a riveting conversation, principally centring on what he’d watched on Netflix, but it allowed for a little light banter by the photocopier. By Tuesday, though, the weekend was dealt with and no one in their right mind would be optimistic enough to discuss plans for the following one.

  He entered the open-plan office, sighed, and switched on his computer – blanching at the white light that had started to give him headaches – then waited twitchily until he could log in and set himself up with his headset, ready for the first call of the day. Then he checked his watch. He had seven minutes – just enough time to get himself a hot drink.

  But before he’d managed to take one step away from his desk he found himself blockaded by Helena from two pods down, who pressed an envelope into his hands while she stuffed down a chocolate muffin, heedless of the crumbs she was leaving to fester on the carpet beneath his desk. She was looking particularly hard done by today.

  ‘Jude, can I have a word?’ she asked, looking shiftily from left to right. Then, not waiting for Jude to answer, she continued. ‘It’s Peggy,’ she whispered. ‘I said to her yesterday, I haven’t had an appraisal in three years. Three years. It’s an abomination. The appraisal policy clearly states that everyone should get one on an annual basis. Have you had one?’ she asked, clearly suspecting herself of being singled out as a victim of this management failure.

  Jude thought about their manager, Peggy. She was a complete workaholic and a terrible stickler for the rules, but Jude had nurtured a soft spot for her ever since she’d given him the job in the bank at a time when he’d been in no fit state to be offered a position anywhere. ‘Er, no,’ Jude replied. ‘But I’m not that fussed really . . .’

  ‘Not fussed? This is your career!’ Helena told him, unable to maintain her whisper in her indignation. ‘Your career! And you’re not fussed? It’s that kind of passive behaviour that management relies on to get away with their continued scandalous conduct.’

  Abandoning the envelope on his desk, Jude began to edge around Helena, still hopeful for a coffee, but she was not so easily deterred. As he snuck past her, towards the corridor, she abandoned her muffin and followed him. Jude wondered if she was actually going to stalk him all the way to the kitchen but he soon realised, with relief, that Helena had spotted Peggy arriving for the day.

  She was walking into her office when Jude saw her clock Helena stomping towards her: the poor woman looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights and, despite her numerous shortcomings, Jude couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. He checked his watch again. Only two minutes to go. He’d have to forgo his coffee.

  Back at his desk he picked up the envelope Helena had left with him and spotted the note attached to it asking for a cash contribution and his signature on the greetings card within. He opened it. You’re having a baby! the front of the card screamed, stating the bleeding obvious to whoever the recipient was. He wondered who it might be. He checked inside. Ann.

  ‘Who’s Ann?’ Jude asked Suki, Derek’s recent replacement, who’d just arrived for the day and was in the process of logging in. She’d only been working there two weeks but she seemed to know who Ann was instantly. She flicked back her mane of glossy black hair, parted in the middle and clearly influenced by the Kardashian sisters, and stared at him through enormous Deirdre Barlow glasses (so geeky he assumed they must be cool).

  ‘Dur! Ann, of course!’

  This wasn’t particularly helpful. Suki was fresh out of university (‘uni’, as she called it) and seemed remarkably stupid considering she’d come away with first-class honours. Jude thought it must be an enormous effort to come across as so ditzy when she was actually extremely clever. She was on the management trainee programme and hadn’t been there long enough to lose faith in being ‘fast-tracked’. Jude had been promised the same when he’d started four years before, though he’d cared very little then and was certainly past caring now.

  ‘I don’t know anyone called Ann! She’s not on this floor, is she?’

  ‘Er, like, yeah! She’s the one with, like, the fat belly? Waddles around, moaning about her back? One of the client managers?’ Every statement was a question as far as Suki was concerned.

  Jude literally didn’t know who Ann was, and the office wasn’t even very big, but he decided to save face.

  ‘Oh yeah! Of course,’ he replied. Oh well. He wrote along his usual lines: Dear Ann, Congratulations! All the best, Jude. He got so bored of writing ‘Congratulations!’ in these cards that he’d once used his thesaurus to look for another expression. But ‘Whoopee doo’ sounded slightly sarcastic so he’d stuck to boring old ‘Congratulations!’ Most of the time, if he knew the person, he was genuinely pleased for them. But he couldn’t help but wonder when it would be his turn. Surely one day he’d be on the receiving end of a ‘Congratulations!’ for something or other: getting engaged, tying the knot, fathering a baby, passing some more exams, having another baby. The only one that seemed inevitable was retirement, but that was still a long way off and he didn’t want to accelerate the ageing process, no matter how keenly he desired a Hallmark card signed by a floor-full of reluctant colleagues.

  At the end of the day, having achieved very little, Jude plodded home. He ate beans on toast, watched a series of tedious TV programmes and was in bed by nine. What the hell is happening to me? he wondered, as he drifted off to sleep. When exactly had his life come to this?

  Chapter Two

  ENGLAND, TUESDAY

  SUMMER

  ‘Can you see my glasses anywhere?’ asked Summer, groping around on the bedside table. She screwed up her bright-blue eyes but it was no good; she couldn’t see a thing.

  Seth rummaged around on the duvet between them and passed her the dark-framed glasses.

  ‘You always just leave them in the middle of the bed when you conk out,’ he complained. ‘One of these nights I’ll squash them when I roll over.’ Seth picked up the romance novel Summer had also left in the centre of the bed and inspected it with a grimace. ‘Never judge a book by its cover, I suppose,’ he remarked as he passed it to Summer rather gingerly, as though concerned his superior intellect might be contaminated just by touching the thing.

  ‘Thanks,’ she smiled, ignoring Seth’s scathing remark about her perfectly acceptable reading material and plonking the glasses on to her nose. They were a little smeared, but she could see a lot better than without them. She pushed back her dark hair and jumped out of bed.

  ‘What’s your day looking like?’ Seth asked next, as he pulled himself up in the bed and watched Summer dress. She preferred a nightly bath to a morning shower, so she always got ready for the day immediately. She searched around for her ‘uniform’, as she thought of it – the kind of clothes she found dreadfully dreary but which she’d learnt were considered acceptable for a headmaster’s wife. She pulled on a stripy blue-and-white T-shirt, a navy cardigan and some dark denim jeans, then made her way through to the bathroom to put in her contact lenses and wash her face.

  ‘I have to file an article by lunchtime,’ she called back to the bedroom. ‘Then it’s the Tuesday Group at one and I’ve promised to take a pudding. I opted for Eton Mess. Surely even I can’t cock that up?’

  ‘But you hate Tuesday Group.’

  ‘Of course I do. I hate most of the things expected of me as a headmaster’s wife but – angel that I am – I do them all anyway.’ She poked her head back round the bedroom door with a smile.

  ‘I don’t deserve you,’ said Seth, with a rather heavy sigh.

  ‘Probably not,’ Summer agreed light-heartedly, though she paused and looked at her husband as he sat frowning on the bed. She could remember falling for him as if it were yesterday – attracted by the gravitas he seemed to exude. Summer had loved her hippy childhood but there had been a gap that hadn’t been filled until she’d met Seth – that funny dweeb of a boy fresh from boarding school, on his gap year
before heading out into the world.

  Seth had told Summer later that when they’d met that fateful day, when he’d spotted her at the side of the road after her orange camper van had broken down, he’d never even kissed a girl before! And there Summer had been, with her hippy clothes and carefree smile, a whole world of experience behind her despite the fact she was almost two years younger than him.

  Seth had always maintained that he’d fallen in love with her in the blink of an eye and she’d often wondered if he’d regretted committing to someone so different from him, though he’d always stuck by his ‘opposites attract’ cliché. For Summer, falling for Seth had been a slightly slower process. Seth had helped her tow the van to the nearest garage and he’d pressed her for her phone number, though she hadn’t made it easy for him.

  ‘Can I get your number?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t have a phone, I’m afraid,’ Summer replied.

  ‘Well, your address then?’ Seth tried.

  ‘I’m kind of here, there and everywhere,’ Summer explained, then she realised she was probably putting him off when she didn’t necessarily want to. He wasn’t her type at all, but he had lovely dark looks and an earnest expression that was rather appealing.

  ‘Look,’ Summer said, ‘I drink at the pub down by the river quite a bit – you know, the Cuckoo? Maybe I’ll see you there some time. I definitely owe you a drink. You’ve been amazing! Goodbye, serious boy,’ she said, laughing at him gently. And she’d kissed him on the lips, just like that.

  Seth had been hooked and had gone to the Cuckoo every night for two weeks, his doggedness finally paying off. Summer had been there with a group of friends, daringly drinking alcohol even though she was only seventeen. When she’d seen him turn up in the pub and realised how much effort he’d put into finding her, she’d been charmed. After that, it hadn’t taken long for her to become as smitten as him.

  Now, Summer turned from the door and made her way along the hallway with a view to FaceTiming their boys: the twins she’d become pregnant with the very first time she and Seth had gone to bed together. She’d sometimes considered whether the many contrasts in their personalities might have put an end to their relationship early on if it hadn’t been for that accidental pregnancy.