Christmas for Beginners: Fall in love with the ultimate festive read from the Sunday Times bestseller

by Carole Matthews

  Lucas comes back to us and his eyes are bright.

  ‘That was brilliant,’ I say. ‘Were you pleased with how it went?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He shrugs, feigning nonchalance, but I know that he’s happy.

  Aurora throws her arms round him. ‘I’m so proud of you,’ she says and Lucas grows in stature in her embrace.

  ‘I’ll get us some drinks,’ I say and, after taking their order, slope off to the bar.

  While I wait, I watch them together. Aurora is flirty, confident. Lucas looks to be in awe of her, grateful for her attention. My heart squeezes.

  I love having this boy in my life and as soon as he’s here, I’ll have to deal with letting him go. It’s wonderful seeing him testing his wings, ready to fly, but part of me wants to hold him at the farm for ever. I don’t know if he’ll resume his studies and in the future, go off to university. Or whether another job will take him away from me. But, for now, I should enjoy what I can of him.

  I return with the drinks and Lucas is getting a little more anxious now. The judges take their places and the lights are dimmed once more.

  The compère takes the mic. ‘In no particular order, the poets through to the next round are . . .’

  He reels off some names and there’s clapping and cheering from the audience. Lucas grows quieter, paler. I dig my fingernails into my palms.

  ‘ . . . and the final place goes to Lucas Dacre.’

  Aurora and I cheer loudly and Lucas grins shyly. The poets are called to the stage one at a time and they’re all good. Each one of them seems to have upped their game and I’m nervous for Lucas. He looks nervous for himself too.

  Eventually, it’s his turn. He wipes his palms on his jeans and whispers, ‘Wish me luck,’ as he heads into the spotlight.

  Lucas stands at the microphone again and takes a couple of steadying breaths before saying, ‘This one’s for Molly.’ He glances up at me through the heavy curtain of his fringe and my heart tightens. ‘“The Laws of Chaos”.’

  Every action I take;

  every movement I make,

  has a universal consequence

  riding in its wake.

  Every tree that I shake;

  every twig that I break,

  puts the intricately interwoven

  balance at stake.

  Each innocuous flake;

  every tremulous quake,

  has a repercussion for

  the environment’s sake.

  So every species we slake,

  our existence we forsake;

  not to appreciate this law

  will be our final mistake.

  Again, he seems to have the most enthusiastic applause from the audience, but I may just be biased. Now we have an anxious wait while the judges confer. There’s some heated debate going on. Then, after a few minutes, the compère steps up to the mic and announces, ‘The winner of the King’s Arms Poetry Slam with a slot at the prestigious Green Scene Literary Festival is . . .’ Agonisingly lengthy theatrical pause. ‘Lucas Dacre!’

  Lucas looks at me in shock.

  ‘You’ve done it,’ I say. ‘You’ve done it!’

  Stunned, he goes to the stage and they give him a trophy. He looks at it as if it’s an unexploded bomb.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says and then stares at the audience as if it’s the first time he’s seen them. For once, he’s completely lost for words, so comes off the stage.

  ‘I knew you could do it,’ Aurora tells him.

  I don’t think that I’ve ever seen Lucas grin so widely. Everyone starts to drift away and we follow. Out on the street, Lucas and Aurora are still hand-in-hand.

  ‘I’ll go and get the truck and come back to pick you up.’ That will give them a few minutes alone together without me playing gooseberry.

  ‘Aurora’s going to drive me home,’ Lucas says.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Have you got a problem with that?’

  ‘Er . . . no. Of course not.’ In truth, I feel slightly put out that he’s not coming in the truck with me, but remind myself that this is part of letting go. Why wouldn’t he want to be with his girlfriend? He clearly dotes on her. Coming back to the caravan with me for celebratory tea and toast probably holds little appeal.

  ‘We might stop off at her place,’ he says. ‘Don’t wait up.’

  He’s sixteen. Do I give him a curfew? Would that embarrass him in front of Aurora? Would it embarrass me? Where’s Shelby when I need his advice?

  There’s no doubt that Lucas is as pleased as punch and glowing. Tonight has given him such a boost of confidence. He deserves to have fun with someone his own age.

  ‘I’m so proud of you,’ I tell him.

  ‘Thanks.’ Bashful again. ‘I’m pretty proud of myself.’

  ‘So you should be.’ As I prepare to leave them to their own devices, I say as nonchalantly as possible, ‘Can I tell your dad?’

  ‘No,’ he answers.

  And that’s pretty much the end of that.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  So I head to the car park, find the truck and drive home alone. I’m buzzing and I wonder what it feels like to perform on stage and then come off feeling high and invincible. How do you come down from that? I think of Shelby and am sad that I couldn’t be there for him. As soon as I’m home, I’ll text him to find out how he got on.

  Hope Farm is in darkness as I approach, but a security light flicks on as I get to the gate and the dogs start to bark. I park, and as soon as I open the caravan door, they all mug me, bouncing up and down as if they’ve been abandoned for years.

  ‘Calm down,’ I say. ‘I’m home now.’

  Before I make tea or text Shelby, I should take them out across the fields. If they’ve been cooped up for a few hours, they’ll need to run off some steam or they’ll be restless all night.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Let me put my warm coat on and then I’ll be with you.’

  So I pull on my coat, kick off my trainers and don my boots. Within minutes, I’m striding across the fields and, as always, my soul settles. The night is bright and clear and, in the bottom of the vale, frost tips the skeletal branches of the trees. There’s a cloud above the dogs from their warm breath. On our way back, I call into the barn to check on everyone else. They’re all tucked up and asleep, only a few of my charges rousing as we go in. I stand and watch them all snuffle and wriggle for space in their sleep. This is how it should be and this is where I should be. I’m not one for crowded pubs or swanky parties. I’m happiest when I’m here, straw in my hair and mud on my boots.

  When we go back to the caravan and the dogs are settled once more, I text Shelby. Hope you had a fabulous opening night. Thinking of you. Call me. M xx.

  I make a cuppa, get ready for bed and stress that Lucas isn’t home yet. It’s nearly one o’clock and it’s not long before I have to get up again. I hope that nothing’s happened to them. More specifically, that they’re not upside down in a ditch somewhere. I chew at my fingernails. Should I call him? I don’t want him to feel that I’m checking up on him but, of course, I do want to check up on him. I stare at the phone willing it to ring – with either Shelby or Lucas at the other end – but it doesn’t.

  I read, but keep the light low with the hope that I might slip into sleep but, as soon as I start to snooze, every little noise jolts me awake. Finally, just before 3 a.m. the dogs go barmy and I assume that Lucas has finally come home. I lift up the curtain on my window, just in time to see him vaulting over the gate. He waves to Aurora as she flicks her headlights and then reverses away down the track.

  He crosses the yard, a spring in his step despite the hour. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have him home. It took me all my strength not to ring him earlier.

  The door bangs and I hear him murmuring to the dogs. Then he’s outside my bedroom door.

  ‘I know you’re not asleep, Mols.’

  ‘No.’ He knows me too well. I put the light on and he opens the door. ‘Are you OK?’
r />   ‘Yeah.’ Lucas comes to sit on the edge of my bed. His face is flushed and his eyes are bright. I hope this is only to do with his success at the poetry slam, but I can’t be sure. He does look really very happy. His hair was artfully tousled before, but you should see it now.

  ‘I just wanted to say thanks,’ he says. ‘You know, for everything.’

  He sounds a little bit drunk. I think he had that double voddy – or two – after all.

  ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I forgot to thank you for dedicating the second poem to me. That meant a lot.’

  ‘I’m sorry when I’m a tit to you. I don’t mean it.’

  ‘I know. All part of growing up.’

  ‘I don’t want to be like my dad. I want to be kind and caring,’ he says.

  I want to tell him that he has his father all wrong. That Shelby is a good man, but now isn’t the time. When Lucas is older he’ll understand that.

  ‘Thanks for being like a mum to me when I’m not even your kid.’

  ‘Come here,’ I say and he snuggles in for a hug. ‘I love you to bits. I’ll always be here for you.’

  ‘I know.’ He peels himself away from me. ‘Better go to bed. I’m knackered.’

  ‘You’ll struggle to get up in the morning.’

  ‘I do every day,’ he points out.

  ‘Sleep tight.’

  ‘I’m gonna let Little Dog sleep on my bed.’

  ‘OK. He’ll fidget.’

  ‘I’m so tired, I don’t think I’ll notice.’

  ‘Will you read out your poems for the students tomorrow? I want to be all boasty about your success.’

  And he must be feeling mellow as he says, ‘Yeah, sure.’

  Then he goes and, as I put down my book, a text comes in from Shelby.

  It was a triumph. Still at the party. Speak tomorrow. S xx

  That must be some party, I think. We’re all going to be tired tomorrow. And so, at last, I turn off the light and go to sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Everyone is in a bad mood. Lucas, after his erudite and spectacular performance, has returned to grunt mode. He’s barely said a word this morning. His eyes are red with tiredness and he’s grumping around the yard doing nothing in particular in an irritable manner like a tetchy teenager.

  The students are all stroppy today too and I’m exhausted from dealing with them before the day even starts. They’re all squabbling about nothing. Even the sheep are bad-tempered and Anthony the Anti-Social Sheep has escaped his pen and headed off to the corner of the field where he currently has his head down ready to ram anyone who approaches. I’m going to leave him to his own devices, but have put one of the students on watch to make sure he doesn’t make a bolt for the road. The geese are trying to nip everyone who passes and the donkeys are braying at the top of their voices. It’s mayhem. Welcome to another sunny day at Hope Farm. Except it’s pouring with rain. The huge Christmas tree might be doing its level best to be festive, but there’s not much Christmas spirit here this morning.

  Even Bev and Alan aren’t immune to the dark cloud hanging over us today. They arrive wearing different band T-shirts.

  Lucas nods towards them and mutters, ‘Some serious shit must have gone down there.’

  He might be right. If they’ve not discussed what they’re wearing today, I’d say it’s a sure sign that all is not well in their world. To be honest, Lucas and I were too tired to even have our usual bet this morning.

  Alan disappears into the barn without a word, not all that unusual, but Bev also disappears into the tea room with nothing more than a wave and a curt shout of, ‘Leave me alone. I’ll talk to you later.’

  So I do just that.

  I hope the rain stops soon and we can get the kids doing something that burns off their energy, shifts their mood. The barn feels a bit dark and gloomy due to the grey day, but if I string up some fairy lights in here and have a cleaning and cuddling session with the bunnies that might cheer everyone up. Thankfully, the rabbits don’t seem to be having any issues today.

  Then, just as I’m feeling pleased with myself for thinking how to turn this around, a fight kicks off. Two of the girls, Lottie and Erin, start a full-on brawl in the yard. There’s slapping, kicking, name-calling and swearing. Neither of them are much over five feet tall, but they’re like banshees.

  I dash to intervene and, as I try to pull them away from each other, get my own hair pulled and Lottie gouges the back of my hand in the process. ‘Stop,’ I say. ‘Stop that right now.’

  It’s days like this when I dream of a nice, quiet office job.

  ‘She started it,’ Erin says, petulantly.

  ‘Did not.’

  But I’m in no mood to listen. ‘You both need to calm down,’ I say in my most placating tone.

  ‘You can fuck off,’ Lottie says. ‘And you can stick your Christmas thing up your arse.’

  ‘I’m not doing it either,’ her opponent adds, now that they’re ganging up on me. ‘No one believes that Father Christmas is real now.’

  Calling on all my reserves of patience, I calm the girls down and give them a little talk about boundaries, respect, violence, use of bad language and not taking chunks out of each other while they both glower at me. If looks could kill I would be stone dead.

  ‘You don’t have to take part in the open day or the nativity,’ I say. ‘That’s entirely your choice, but I think you’d be missing out.’

  That worries them more than anything – FOMO. Fear of Missing Out. Something all modern teenagers dread. Though now I have given myself another problem in that I have to think of something that two make-up-obsessed teenage girls might miss out on. I wish Bev had never come up with this. Christmas is stressful enough without all this added pressure.

  Then I notice that someone’s left the door of the chicken coop open and, even though it only takes me seconds to respond, the chickens are running free and my pep-talk is sharply curtailed. Instead, I’m running round – rather like a headless chicken – as thirty-plus of our sparsely feathered friends scatter to the four corners of the yard.

  ‘Who let the chickens out?’ I howl.

  Little Dog and Betty Bad Dog decide to help round them up and bark excitedly as the chickens flap about which, of course, only serves to make things worse.

  ‘Down, dogs,’ I shout. So they jump up a bit more. Oh, to have animals that take a blind bit of notice of me. If that’s not enough, then the geese join in, throwing back their heads to honk loudly and flap their wings, spooking the chickens even more.

  I stop and watch the chaos around me, helplessly. Why can’t I go back to bed and lie with the duvet over my head until tomorrow?

  ‘Help,’ I say to the students who are looking on, mouths gaping. ‘Grab a chicken! You know how!’

  But knowing how and actually being able to do it are two different matters. When chickens don’t want to be caught, you are definitely up against it. Even our one-legged hen, Peg – who can topple over when standing still – can hop at an impressive rate of knots when she puts her mind to it. ‘Go in the coop and grab some lettuce! Wave it at them!’

  The students manage to do that and chase the chickens with lettuce offerings, but on this day contrary to every other day of the year, lettuce doesn’t do the trick.

  I don’t know where Lucas is, but he’s not here when I need him. ‘Lucas!’ I shout. ‘Lucas!’

  Our blind chicken, Mrs Magoo, is running round aimlessly, flapping her wings in fright. I need to catch hold of her before she does herself some damage.

  Mrs Magoo makes a dash towards the gate and I can’t let her get that far, so I hurl myself towards her. At the same time, so does Little Dog and, in a terrible accident of timing, I go flying over him and land full-length in the muddiest of puddles. I lay there in the cold, muddy water that smells of manure, weary down to my bones. If I don’t laugh about this, then I will cry. My late night has left me tired and emotional. This threatens to push me over the e
dge. Not knowing quite what else to do, I sit myself up in the puddle and let the water seep through my jeans. I might not be able to catch the chickens, but I need to catch my breath. Muddy water drips from my hair. Betty Bad Dog decides to sit in the puddle with me. Her broad smile and waggy tail indicates that one of us is enjoying it rather more than the other.

  Right at this moment, a car pulls up at the gate and the mayor gets out. Of course he does.

  When he sees me, he leaves his car where it is and climbs over the gate. ‘You look like you could do with some assistance,’ he shouts.

  So he comes across to me, picking his way through marauding animals, barely able to supress his smile, and offers his hand.

  As I grip onto him, he hauls me from my puddle. ‘Thanks, Matt.’

  He regards me with concern. ‘You’re not hurt?’

  ‘Only my pride.’ I start to brush myself down and then give up. It is beyond brushing. Hosing is more in order.

  ‘I’ve got this,’ he says and, in a calm and collected manner, he starts to round up the chickens and usher them back towards the waiting coop. ‘Come on, ladies,’ he coos. ‘Calm down.’

  I stand and watch with admiration and he works some kind of Dr Dolittle ninja magic on them. He gets the kids to join in and soon my surly bunch of obstreperous humans are giggling away. Hmm.

  In case you’re wondering, I do actually help too. I head to the hedge and pick up Mrs Magoo who has ensconced herself there and carry her safely back to her home. Soon, with minimum fuss, the hen house is back in its usual order, all our chicks clucking contentedly. Matt comes out, making sure to close the door securely behind him.

  ‘There,’ he says. ‘All quiet on the western front.’

  ‘I don’t know how you did that. I’m very impressed.’

  He dusts off his hands. ‘My dad used to call me the chicken whisperer.’

  That makes me laugh out loud.

  ‘I’m serious,’ he says, feigning affront. ‘It’s a much underrated skill.’

  ‘Well, I for one am very pleased that you have it. I think you’ve earned a cuppa and a piece of cake.’

  ‘Any other miracles you’d like me to perform before I take my reward?’