Having stretched and wriggled and got herself half sorted, Hallie looked out at the indigo sky as darkness fell. It was the week before Christmas, and multicoloured fairy lights were being switched on. From here, she had arguably the best view of the village: to the left, the high street; to the right, the River Windrush with its low stone bridge and the row of honey-coloured shops, hotels and houses on the other side of the water. She could watch everyone coming and going, keep track of people she knew, and also view the progress of tourists making their way around Carranford, the self-styled jewel in the north Cotswolds’ crown.
Not so many visitors during the winter months, of course, but still enough to keep the people-watching interesting and the tourist-friendly shops open. A coachload were currently milling around, taking endless photographs, diving in and out of shops and buying souvenirs they didn’t need, as well as Christmas presents for friends and relatives back home. By the looks of things, plenty of them would be opening a festively wrapped umbrella this year, printed with scenes of Carranford. Bea must have sold over a dozen today alone.
Eight days to Christmas. Hallie tried not to wonder if this one might be her last, basically because such thoughts were unanswerable and never helpful. Apart from anything else, the answer was always possibly.
Then again, that applied to everyone on the planet.
Banishing the question from her mind, Hallie switched on the iPad and checked her emails instead. Several more had arrived this afternoon from visitors to the website. Brilliant, something to keep her occupied until Bea turned up. Never mind wondering if this Christmas would be her last; there were far more important problems to be sorted out, like how a girl should handle the discovery that she’s inadvertently been dating twin boys, and the best way for a middle-aged man to divide his time over the festive season between his dull wife and his enthralling mistress.
Hallie had set up the website during a prolonged and particularly tedious hospital stay. Didn’t everyone enjoy reading advice columns? She always had. She loved them, and loved coming up with solutions to problems too. When the columnist neglected to mention a useful suggestion, it always killed her not to be able to jump in and add a reply of her own.
The answer to this particular dilemma had, therefore, been to create the web page and begin dispensing advice herself.
She hadn’t done it as poor-tragic-Hallie-with-the-manky-lungs-and-limited-lifespan either. This would only have inhibited questions; she’d known that from the word go. No, when people had problems in their lives, those problems were overwhelmingly important to them and everyone simply had to respect that. They certainly mustn’t feel as if they couldn’t compete with the person doling out the advice.
So she’d been anonymous from the start, and had remained so. All her readers knew was that she was female. The website was called www.threethingsaboutyou.com, and everyone writing in for advice with a dilemma was asked to include three things about themselves. Whether they chose to reveal big or small details was entirely up to them, but it was always an interesting indicator of character, and Hallie used them to more fully understand the people who were asking her to advise them.
Of course, for the first few weeks there hadn’t been any readers, nor any problems being sent in, simply because no one knew the website existed. She’d had to make up dilemmas, borrow and adapt some from old magazines and reply in her own words to people who’d never confided in her in the first place.
But before long, interest had started to grow. Thanks to the power of social networking, people slowly discovered the website and, deciding they liked it, spread the word to their friends. The number of hits steadily increased, and readers began submitting their own problems, which was good of them and freed Hallie up to spend more time researching the relevant issues and compiling the best possible answers.
Since then, the popularity of the website had continued to grow. Hallie was known to her readers as Rose, which was her middle name. Visitors to the site were welcome to contribute their own advice, but she was the one who decided whether or not it was posted. It was generally agreed that Rose’s replies were great and her rapport with the contributors second to none. She had warmth, wit and compassion, and the readers appreciated this.
Almost as much as Hallie appreciated them in return.
She clicked on the first email:
Dear Rose,
I’m a fireman.
I play rugby.
I’m afraid of the dark.
I’m forty-six, married for almost twenty years, and my wife doesn’t know I like to wear women’s underwear. Well, no one does. My problem is that last week my mother-in-law took it upon herself to wash and clean my car while I was out at a works event. Being the thorough type, she took out the spare tyre in the boot and found the bra and knickers underneath.