Free Staying Away at Christmas by Katie Fforde

Staying Away at Christmas
    ‘IF YOU COULD just stop moaning for a minute and keep a look out for the turn,’ said Miranda to her eldest daughter, ‘I don’t want to miss it.’ She was creeping down the Devon lanes looking for the holiday home they’d had such fun in that summer. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon but it was already dark. And these winding country roads were bad enough to navigate in the light. ‘I know you don’t want to be here, you’ve told me, but could we at least get there before we have the whole argument again?’
    Isa, who was sixteen, sighed. ‘I just think if we couldn’t go to Granny’s it would have been better if we’d stayed at home for Christmas. Then at least we’d be able to see our friends.’
    ‘I know, darling, but we’re here now. Is Lulu still asleep?’
    Isa looked over her shoulder at her sister. ‘Yup. Shall I wake her?’
    ‘Let’s get there first.’ Miranda glanced at Isa, feeling guilty for what could have been the wrong decision. ‘We’ll make it fun, really we will.’
    Isa grunted. ‘Well, it wasn’t all that great at Dad’s last year.’
    ‘You got lovely presents, though,’ said Miranda, secretly relieved that the gifts showered on her daughters by their father and his new wife didn’t make it a great Christmas.
    Isa sighed. ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ came a voice from the back seat. Lulu had obviously woken up.
    Isa giggled. ‘Silly! And yes we are, if we don’t go wrong.’
    Miranda relaxed a little. Now Lulu was awake, Isa would be less teenagerish, although at sixteen, she was entitled to be.
    ‘I think it’s here.’ She slowed to a stop by a narrow turning, barely visible from the road. ‘Do we agree? This is the last turn?’
    ‘Yes!’ yelled Lulu, filled with ten-year-old confidence. ‘There’s the white stone in the hedge!’
    ‘Well spotted, Lu,’ said Isa, and Miranda turned into the lane.
    After what felt like at least a mile of uneven driveway, they pulled up in front of a converted barn, framed by two little bushes with fairy lights on them. The light above the door was on, and there was a wreath on the door.
    ‘Oh wow!’ exclaimed Miranda as she struggled with the key. ‘Sheila’s really made it Christmassy.’ As the door opened she said, ‘Come on girls, it’s lovely and warm inside.’
    Together they went into the hall and from there into the huge room which was a kitchen first, a sitting room in the middle and a dining room at the end. The kitchen was separated by a half wall so you could cook and still chat to people in the sitting room but you didn’t have to look at the dirty dishes while you ate. In the summer they’d kept the French doors at the end open and watched the swallows in the evenings. It had been a brilliant holiday.
    ‘It looks amazing!’ said Lulu, running into the place that, ever since the summer, had somehow felt like it was theirs. ‘I wasn’t expecting a Christmas tree!’
    Miranda wasn’t either, although Sheila, the woman they’d hired the house from, had said she’d do her best to make it Christmassy. There was not only a tree but other decorations as well, and with the several sets of fairy lights which Miranda had packed, they’d soon make the house festive.
    It was hard being a single parent at Christmas when everything on television and in every magazine assumed everyone was part of a family with two parents. It was all right – sort of – when they could go home to Miranda’s parents because they recreated something similar to the Christmases Miranda and her sister had shared as a child. But that year her parents had been invited to spend Christmas with old friends and when Miranda discovered this, and that her mother was planning to refuse, when really, she yearned to have a Christmas off, Miranda said she was taking the girls away and it would be a great adventure.
    The girls had not been enthusiastic but eventually Miranda’s best friend had