Sally finally accepting Ruth's suggestion that there is no need for her to clean the house from top to bottom as she usually does, or in other words ensure that every speck of dust has been sucked into the vacuum cleaner, means that all Ruth has managed to do in the time between her starting and finishing, is to prepare and put a casserole into the oven, sweep the back patio and ring Caroline to ask her how her packing is coming along.
To say that Ruth is grateful for Sally's enthusiasm is understatement because like learning to ride a bike, to her housework has always come under the heading of a necessary evil. But today it hasn't been the sound of the vacuum cleaner that has been uppermost in her mind but that she is going to ask Sally if she and Jacob would like to spend Christmas with her and Harry? Only achieving her aim after she makes them all a cup of tea and insists that Sally sits down to drink it.
Not expecting the usually reticent Sally to respond without giving it some thought, both she and Harry are surprised when she says, 'we'd love to.' Only for her to add, 'it's got to the stage where I dread Christmas and not just because it was when my Robbie was killed.' Which leaves the reason or reasons hanging in the air until, 'one day Jacob is going to ask me why he hasn't got a dad,' she tells them. Before painting an altogether picture of the man who Maurice had described by saying, 'Robbie was a chameleon so I never knew from one minute to the next how he was going to behave other than when he'd got a drink inside him.'
The inference being that she firmly believes that had her husband been alive now, he would have eventually lost his temper with Jacob.
Expecting an equally shocked Ruth to say something, Harry looks to where Jacob is fast on asleep on the sofa. After what has been a discussion between the two of them as to the number and names of the reindeer and when Santa arrives in the village how will he know which house he lives in? A conversation which had required Ruth mid-way through talking to Caroline, to mime both Prancer and Dancer from the other side of the room. Not without some embarrassment on her part and amusement on his. Whereas now all he can see is a sweet and vulnerable little boy that more than ever he wants to protect.
Which means that saying to Sally, 'you'll find the right words when the time comes,' is so at odds with how he copes when it really matters, that he can barely believe he said it.
Not expecting her to ask him, 'are you speaking from experience?' Which reminds him that he still needs to tell his own children that not only has he handed in his resignation, but he is living in Norfolk with a woman they know nothing about.
Only for Ruth to bail him out and prove yet again that she knows him as well as he knows himself by saying, 'what Harry means is that we understand and we'll be here for you if you need us.' Which in Ruth speak means that she believes his fractured relationship with Graham can be mended.
Only for Jacob to wake up and not only relieve the tension but bring the smiles back on all their faces by saying, 'I'm hungry Mummy.'
A theme which continues because despite Harry being the person who normally answers his constant stream of questions, Jacob has recognised Ruth as the one who is going to help him plant up his garden. And what better way to find out how this is going to happen than to line up the vegetables from the casserole around the edge of his dish in order to get her opinion on the merits of growing carrots as well as onions and ask her why are peas so small? Before eating them and the chicken which also comes up during the discussion in terms of how do you plant them? Despite everything including the gravy having gone cold.
Follow that with a lot of arm waving and giggling when Malcolm's recently fitted security lights come on, when Harry is going to drive him and his mum home, with the promise that when she brings him back in the morning before she takes her neighbour to the hospital, that they will show him exactly where his garden is going to be and better still let him choose what he wants to plant and Ruth has forgotten that in less than twenty-four hours the plan to get Lucas to explain his actions will be well underway.
But what she can't despite being able to mentally multi task, is that in amongst her thoughts about what size of tree will fit in the corner of the room, the extra shopping now that Sally and Jacob are coming for Christmas, is what Sally said and the implication that the constantly questioning Jacob would have become a target for his father. Which is why as soon as Harry gets back, she asks him 'how could Maurice not have known what was going on?'
'Perhaps he did but because Sally never said anything he chose to ignore it. Or maybe when he was in their house, Robbie played the devoted husband. Whatever her reasons I think Sally blames herself for the way that Robbie behaved which in a small village where everyone knows everyone else, telling anyone local would have seen tongues wagging and fingers being pointed. And we both know how that feels and how difficult is to find someone to confide in as we do with Malcolm. That first day when she asked us if she could bring Jacob with her and we said yes straight away. How we are almost always here and how confident she is about us looking after Jacob and taking him out. I think she was telling us in the only way she knows, that she has waited for what is almost four years to find someone she really trusts.'
.
'Tots Town is a unique role play centre. Think supermarket, doctor's surgery, town square, café, shoe shop, fire station and theatre. All in miniature and the perfect place for your child to push a trolley full of shopping or pretend to be a firefighter or a doctor,' Ruth is in reading out loud for Harry's benefit, having taken her laptop up to bed. Harry having said he was going to make them both a drink and that they needed to decide where they were going to take Jacob in the morning.
'Better than getting into a debate about planting chickens and providing it has an actual café where we can have something to eat Jacob will love it.'
'So, you won't want to sit in a fire engine?' she asks him, turning the screen round so that he can see a child of about Jacob's age in a room which in her imagination is what the interior of a fire station probably looks like, minus the pole that firefighters are reported to slide down.
'Ros would say we need our heads tested,' he says, refusing to be drawn into a conversation about whether when he was a child, he had wanted to be a firefighter or fireman as they had been called. Before women were given the option of joining the fire service. At the same time imagining Ros who if called upon would have run into a blazing building if needed. In the same way that she had stayed with Andrew Lawrence.
'I'm sure Ros would have plenty to say if she could see us and no doubt will when we take Caroline to see where she's buried.'
'Um,' says Harry, which suggests that he is thinking about the force of nature that was Ros, when he no longer is.
Thoughts which once Ruth has fallen asleep veer away from a second proposal to Jacob who is a fixture in their lives, Graham who he would like to be and with tomorrow looming large Lucas. Which once he falls asleep turn into a nightmare where he is standing on a bridge being asked choose one from three to save.