‘Ahem,’ came from behind us. We broke apart, not guiltily, but with obvious reluctance. ‘I hope you two can behave yourself for an hour or so in the church,’ my father warned.
‘We’ll do our best, Tony,’ promised Jimmy.
‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ I assured him, tucking my arm under his as we walked down the path to Jimmy’s car. ‘I’m not going to embarrass you in front of the vicar!’
The pathway leading up to the church was lined with flickering tea lights in glass jars. The church doors were open and inside the choir were singing a familiar carol to greet the large congregation. I paused for a moment on the path, taking it all in: the church spire covered in snow, the glowing candles, the music and, of course, the man at my side.
‘So incredibly beautiful,’ I breathed in wonderment.
His eyes ignored our surroundings and everyone else, they were only upon me.
‘Incredibly beautiful,’ he echoed.
The service seemed unbelievably touching. I even cried at the reading delivered by children from the local primary school. And when I went to reach surreptitiously into my bag for a tissue, Jimmy already had one out and ready for me. I dabbed at my eyes, not ashamed by the emotion I couldn’t contain. Tears of happiness were nothing to be embarrassed about.
As we filed back out into the night, Jimmy drew me to one side of the path, out of the way of the emerging congregation, who were hurrying back to their cars to escape the falling snow. My father had been waylaid by an old friend inside the church and neither of us had realised he wasn’t behind us until we were already outside.
The temperature had dropped several degrees during the service and despite my warm coat and scarf I shivered violently. Jimmy drew me into the circle of his arms, pulling me against his body, whispering teasingly as he did so, ‘I think we’re all right with this, as long as we claim it was only to keep you warm.’
I don’t know if it was my lack of response or the stiffening of my body that alerted him that something was wrong. From my position in his embrace, I was now facing away from the church and was looking directly at the graveyard. Unbidden, the awful memories of standing beside Jimmy’s grave suddenly assailed me, so horribly vivid and real, that I forgot for a moment that Jimmy was actually still very much alive.
He carefully held me away from him, saw the pain in my face and in puzzlement turned to make out what I’d seen that had distressed me so.
He was intuitive enough to realise exactly what I was thinking as I stared in fixed anguish at the cemetery.
‘Is that where…?’
I nodded dumbly.
He threw a glance at the church doors and saw that my father had still not appeared. He took my hand and gave me a gentle tug. ‘Come on then.’
My feet remained rooted on the path, causing him to stop. ‘Are you serious?’
There was love and understanding in his eyes. ‘You need to see it.’
I shuddered. ‘I’ve already visited your gravesite, it’s not something I ever went to see again.’
But, as ever, his patient persistence was hard to resist. ‘There is nothing there, Rachel. Come and see.’
It wasn’t a long walk to the cemetery, but it was long enough for me to conjure up all manner of horrible outcomes. The one that fought for supremacy, and won by a mile, was what if I got to the plot and actually found his grave there? Would I then turn to look at the man beside me and find him gone? A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the weather. Wouldn’t that just be the perfect Christmas ghost story?
The idea that each step over the crunchy turf of the cemetery was leading me into peril was impossible to ignore.
‘Where was it?’ Jimmy asked softly; possibly the only person in the world to ask someone for directions to his own grave.
‘Over there,’ I indicated, pointing with a finger that visibly trembled. ‘Beyond that group of headstones.’
He led me gently but determinedly in the direction I had identified. I caught familiar inscriptions from the surrounding tombstones as we passed. I shouldn’t know what they said, but I remembered each one vividly: Dearest husband, Beloved grandmother, Much loved father.
My feet were leaden as I walked to the spot where the man I loved had been laid to rest, after giving up his life to save mine.
Jimmy’s hand was firmly gripping mine as I haltingly looked up. For a moment I could see it; I really could, the sparkling white marble tombstone was for an instant so real I felt I could almost reach out and touch it. I blinked my eyes and then saw nothing but an empty area of undisturbed grass.
‘So it was here,’ Jimmy said, his voice strangely humbled.