The Christmas Invitation

by Trisha Ashley

  Back in my room, I debated what to wear for dinner. I suspected anything would be acceptable, which was just as well, since I’d left the Diors and Balenciagas at home, and as for the pleated silk Fortuny dress, it was at the cleaners …

  I wear jeans and Converse sneakers most of the time, and my smart clothes are an eclectic mix of styles from the hippy to the vaguely trendy, though the latter is usually by accident. Tonight I put on a sea-green velvet tunic and darker green leggings, malachite earrings and scuffed Chinese velvet Mary Janes with a button strap. I was a symphony of verdant green from hair to toes.

  I wondered if there was a Green Lady in mythology as well as a Green Man. I must ask River.

  Clara and Henry were, it seemed, both thoughtful and friendly hosts, and I left my room with a calm sense of anticipation of the evening ahead.

  7

  In the Soup

  Before I went downstairs, I couldn’t resist looking at the sitting room in the pepper pot tower. A narrow spiral stair took me up into a tiny circular space with one slit window to the front, should I feel like some archery practice. It was simply furnished with a comfortable old tapestry armchair, footstool and small table.

  It was so cute that I lingered longer than I should have, so that by the time I finally made it to the drawing room, I found everyone already gathered, imbibing sherry or whisky and soda, both of which I refused. Teddy generously offered to share his orange juice with me.

  ‘No, that’s OK, Teddy,’ I said, and instead accepted a minute conical cocktail glass of golden mead from Tottie, which she had made herself.

  I sipped it cautiously, but it was even better than the herb-infused kind that River makes to a very old Welsh recipe, though I wouldn’t tell him that for the world: he’s very proud of it.

  Teddy had exchanged his school uniform for a rainbow-striped jumper, dark tracksuit trousers and Mickey Mouse slippers with sticking-out ears.

  He saw me looking at them and said, ‘I don’t really like Mickey Mouse, but my dad sent them from America and I’ve only just grown into them because he got the size wrong. Clara said I should wear them till my feet have grown again and then I can choose my own.’

  ‘I like them,’ I said. ‘If someone sent me Mickey Mouse slippers, I’d wear them.’

  ‘He doesn’t know how big I am because he never visits,’ explained Teddy.

  ‘But it’s nice of your father to send you gifts. And he has been to visit you, but you were so small, you’ve forgotten,’ said Clara.

  Teddy looked unconvinced.

  ‘Teddy’s father is Radnor Vane, an American actor, though I think he’s moved into directing now,’ Henry said.

  ‘When he came over here a few years ago he met Zelda, my niece,’ Clara chimed in.

  ‘Zelda shares a small flat with three other actresses in London, so it wasn’t really suitable to bring a baby up in, especially since she’s so often on tour. So Teddy lives with us and Zelda comes when she can,’ said Henry.

  ‘Mummy’ll be here for Christmas,’ Teddy said. ‘She thought she was going to be Snow White in a pantomime, but she didn’t get the part.’

  ‘Well, lucky for us,’ Clara said cheerfully.

  Henry was still wearing the washed-out corduroy trousers, blue shirt and Fair Isle jumper he’d had on earlier, but his white hair was now sleeked back from his handsome, pared-down, interestingly bony face … one that would be very good to paint.

  Clara and Tottie had changed for dinner, the former into a long red and black kaftan that looked as if it had been made from two bedspreads sewn up the sides. Tottie had on black velvet trousers, somewhat shiny and rubbed on the seat and the knees, and a lavender silk blouse, which did nothing for her complexion. Over this she sported a frilly flowered pinafore, which she now seemed to notice for the first time, for she took it off and stuffed it behind a cushion.

  Immediately outside the door, someone suddenly beat merry hell out of a gong, apparently a signal for everyone to drain their glasses, put them down and rise to their feet. Four feet, in Lass’s case. I hadn’t noticed her lurking under the coffee table till she wriggled out.

  ‘Dinner!’ announced Henry happily. ‘Come along, Meg. I’m ravenous and I expect you are too, after your long, cold drive.’

  Den was standing outside in the hall with a dimpled and shiny copper gong in one hand and the stick in the other. I’m sure the air was still vibrating; the gong certainly was.

  ‘’Urry yerselves up or the soup’ll have gorn cold,’ he said. ‘I’ll fetch the bread, won’t I?’

  He vanished towards the kitchen and we trooped into the dining room. Henry and Clara disposed themselves at either end of the long table, which showed bulbous carved legs beneath a somewhat incongruous flowered oilcloth covering. Teddy, raised higher by a fat cushion, sat next to Tottie, while I was opposite, next to Henry. You could still have got several more people around that table.

  As if she’d read my mind, Tottie said, ‘This is as small as the table goes, but you can make it much bigger by putting in extra leaves.’

  There was a soup tureen and a stack of bowls in front of Clara. She took off the lid and began to ladle soup into the bowls and pass them round.

  ‘Has the soup got hard bits of bread in it?’ Teddy asked suspiciously.

  ‘No, it’s not the kind you put croutons in, darling,’ Clara said.

  ‘And even if it was, you could just sink them till they go soggy,’ Tottie pointed out. ‘I always do.’

  Den came in with a silver filigree basket filled with bread rolls and went up and down with a pair of green Bakelite tongs, placing one on everyone’s side plate. I took my napkin out of its carved wooden ring and found it was a square of kitchen towel.

  ‘Run out of paper serviettes again, ’aven’t we?’ Den explained, depositing a warm roll on my plate, so that the scent of fresh bread tantalized my nostrils.

  ‘Napkins,’ Clara corrected.

  ‘Napkins yerself,’ Den said amiably. ‘Napkins is fer babies.’

  ‘If it was serviettes, napkin rings wouldn’t be called that,’ Clara observed.

  It was obviously a long-running difference of opinion, because Den sang a throaty snatch of ‘You say pot-a-toes and I say poe-tar-toes …’

  ‘You haven’t set a place for yourself,’ Henry remarked. ‘Aren’t you joining us tonight, Den?’

  ‘Nah, I’ve ’ad beans on toast, ’aven’t I?’ he said. He’d changed the brown cotton overall for a large blue and white striped cook’s apron, which enveloped his slight figure from neck to ankle, like a strange Eastern robe.

  ‘I might take a drop of soup and a bit of pud back with me fer me supper.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Henry.

  ‘Going back to my place as soon as I’ve stacked the dishwasher,’ Den added. ‘Got something on the telly to watch, ’aven’t I?’

  ‘There’s a TV in the morning room, but Den has the only decent-sized one on the premises,’ Clara told me. ‘He’s addicted to football, darts and the soaps.’

  ‘He can get the telly because of the masts growing on the highest hills,’ Teddy explained to me. ‘They grow there so they can make invisible waves bounce.’

  ‘Satellites can bounce them too, and the masts didn’t grow there, people put them there for communication purposes,’ Tottie said instructively.

  ‘Like the Starstone?’ Teddy asked.

  ‘I suppose so, in a way, though whether people wanted to communicate with each other, or with something beyond their knowledge, is a moot point,’ said Henry, interested, then explained to me: ‘The legend about the stone on the hill says that if on the Winter Solstice you can see the brightest star, Sirius, through the inverted V of the stones – there are actually two stones, leaning together – good fortune will bless the valley. Of course, you’d have been seeing it from Starstone village, so you can’t view it from that angle any more.’

  ‘Unless you’re a fish,’ said Teddy helpfully.

  �
�Very true, Teddy,’ said Henry. Then he continued, ‘The stone is directly on an ancient ley line – do you know about ley lines, my dear?’

  ‘Yes, River’s very keen on them.’

  I’d read the classic book on them too, The Old Straight Track.

  ‘Then you know a ley line connects a lot of ancient sites, monuments, or geographical features in a straight line – too many for coincidence. The Starstone originally lined up with a carved monolith in the graveyard in the drowned village – it’s now in the grounds of Underhill – then the church at Great Mumming, which has ancient foundations, and then on to the white horse carved out of the hill above Little Mumming too, though there’s much debate about the age of that. It could be relatively recent.’

  ‘I’ve always found ley lines fascinating,’ I said. ‘There’s something magical about all these invisible threads crisscrossing and connecting the landscape.’

  There was a pause while we all drank delicious soup and Teddy was admonished by Tottie for spreading butter as thick as mortar across his bread roll.

  ‘Den says butter’s good for you, and he lets me sprinkle sugar on top too when I eat it in the kitchen,’ he said hopefully.

  ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that tooth-rotting revelation,’ said Clara.

  Henry polished the bottom of his soup bowl with the last of his bread and then resumed his lecture on the history of the Starstone.

  ‘The ceremony that takes place on the night of the Winter Solstice has very ancient roots.’

  ‘It’s not much of a ceremony, darling,’ Clara said. ‘Just five men from old local families, going up to the stone, circling round it and … well, saying a few words.’

  ‘Rhyming doggerel – and now it’s four men and one woman, since I took over as the last of the Gillyflowers,’ said Tottie.

  ‘True, the Gillyflowers started to take part when an older local family died out,’ agreed Henry.

  ‘There’s a bit of a bonfire on the ledge below the stones, where the onlookers gather,’ said Clara.

  ‘Yes, and don’t forget the sixth performer, Old Winter,’ said Tottie. ‘He’s waiting in a cleft in the rocks at the back of the ledge, Meg, and when the others go up to the Stone he suddenly appears and walks round the fire, until they come down again. Then the Green Man, who I suppose represents the New Year, or the spring, or something, banishes him.’

  ‘It’s all about renewal, rebirth, fertility and that kind of thing,’ Clara said. ‘The whole village used to turn out for it, but very few of the original inhabitants are left and so it’s mostly just those taking part and their families. Everyone goes to Underhill afterwards for the Gathering and has hot toddy and treacle cake.’

  ‘Sybil’s kept that up since George died, but will Mark follow the custom?’ Tottie asked. ‘And he should be the Green Man instead of Henry, now he’s home.’

  ‘Good point, Tottie,’ Henry said. ‘I must speak to him about it, because although I haven’t minded filling in for him it would be good to just watch the proceedings this year.’

  ‘I did ask him and he said he wasn’t interested in all that old rubbish,’ said Clara.

  ‘George wasn’t really, either,’ said Henry, ‘but he was superstitious, so he did it anyway. And Mark might come round to the idea. I’ll talk to the boy.’

  ‘He certainly should, because going up there in the dark and the freezing cold dressed in robes and a lot of green frondy stuff isn’t going to do you a lot of good at your age, Henry,’ said Clara.

  ‘If I have to do it, then I’ll wear my thermals underneath.’

  ‘I’ll be all right, because other than the bird mask I traditionally have a cloak, so I can wear a lot of warm clothes under it,’ said Tottie. She began to count off the members of the group on her fingers. ‘There’s me; Henry, filling in for Mark; Bilbo; Fred from the Pike with Two Heads; and Len Snowball, who is the gardener-cum-groom at Underhill … and then, since the last member of another old family has moved away, Lex had to be Old Winter last time.’

  I was just pondering whether I’d heard the name Bilbo correctly when she mentioned Lex again. If he was taking part in the ceremony there would be no avoiding him. In fact, all conversational roads at the Red House seemed to lead to Lex, so I really needed now to confess that I knew him – or had known him.

  But the conversation had flowed on and Tottie was saying, ‘Mark’s told Sybil that if she wants Len to give her a hand with the horses, she’ll have to pay him herself. But I expect, if it comes to it, we can manage the horses between us,’ she added comfortably. ‘We do most of the work, anyway.’

  The soup had long since been removed and we’d eaten the main course, a very delicious vegetable stew with savoury dumplings. I was beginning to feel my waistband tightening and now Den brought in the pudding and a big jug of rich yellow custard.

  ‘You get off to your flat now, Den,’ Clara told him, ‘or you’ll miss the start of your soap. We’ll clear up and stack the dishwasher.’

  ‘But Tottie’s coffee’s disgusting,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Mine isn’t, though,’ said Clara. ‘Off you go!’

  ‘Cheek!’ said Tottie as he vanished, already untying the strings of his long, striped apron.

  By now I was starting to feel extremely sleepy. My illness, the long drive, and the shock of seeing Lex Mariner again – all were combining to make my head swim and the voices come and go in a dreamlike way.

  ‘Dear child, you’re all in,’ Clara said as we got up. ‘You should go straight to bed and get a good night’s sleep.’

  I was too tired to resist and the thought of bed sounded so wonderful that, declining her offer of cocoa, I did just that.

  And I did no brooding over the past that night, but instead slept like the dead in my catafalque of a bed … much like Lex’s extremely late wife, Lisa.

  Clara

  We were a self-sufficient community in the valley, who helped each other in hard times and made our own amusements, mostly connected to the church year and the seasons.

  Being so high up, Starstone could often be quite cut off from autumn to spring – and how we revelled in our freedom when the schoolteacher was unable to get over from Thorstane!

  There was a pond on the Underhill estate where we and the other village children could skate when it froze hard, and an abundance of slopes to toboggan down.

  Large, glassy icicles hung from every eave and window ledge, for central heating was uncommon back then. We would break an icicle off and hold it in our hands until it began to melt and our knitted mittens would be soggy and smell of damp wool …

  Back in the vicarage kitchen, thawing out by the fire, we’d roast chestnuts on a small, perforated metal shovel until the sweet softness burst from the pierced shells.

  Simple pleasures …

  Christmas then was not so much about mass consumerism and eating and drinking to excess, but a magical time that started with the Winter Solstice ceremony in late December, was followed by the Christmas church services, Nativity and carol singing, then ended with Twelfth Night.

  The origins of the Starstone on the hill and the annual Winter Solstice ceremony held there were hidden in the mists of time, but the whole village would attend. I remember the excitement of the bonfire on the plateau below the summit, the strange figures performing their torchlight ritual around the Stone and then my being carried home, half-asleep, through the dark night.

  If the weather allowed, we would be taken to Great Mumming just before Christmas and the shop windows would be wonderfully exciting: the piles of jewel-bright apples and satsumas in the greengrocer’s, the display of ribbon-bound boxes of chocolates in the sweet shop … not to mention the delights of the toy shop!

  Henry’s mother was a frail, gentle woman who died young, but she adored Christmas, and the tree at Underhill was always the biggest and most lavishly adorned in the village. I expect that’s where Henry’s love of the Christmas traditions and his interest in antique and vintage gl
ass baubles really began.

  We had a tree at the vicarage too, and it was a high treat to decorate it with the collection of Victorian glass spheres, bells, trumpets, birds and icicles that lay nestled in tissue paper for the rest of the year. I have them now – or rather, they are in Henry’s extensive collection of old glass baubles.

  8

  Old Shades

  Next morning, after some confused nightmares in which I was attempting to flee from a nebulous but terrifying monster, my escape hampered by deep snowdrifts in which I floundered helplessly, I slowly surfaced to the sound of howling wolves …

  I was certain there weren’t any wolves living in the UK any more, so after a dazed moment or two, I realized this howling was actually the wind wuthering shrilly down the chimney. It rattled the diamond-paned casement windows too, but since they were behind panels of secondary glazing, no draught stirred the drawn-back folds of the velvet curtains.

  I seemed to recall that wolves played a part in my nightmare, too, so my subconscious must have registered the wind getting up in the night, and, since I was buried under a deep down duvet, that probably accounted for the snowdrifts. The ancient purple satin-covered eiderdown that had been on top of it, as an extra though entirely unnecessary layer of insulation, had either slithered off, or been thrown off by my struggles, for it was in a heap next to the bed.

  I lay back against the plump pillows and thought about my arrival yesterday afternoon, and Lex Mariner.

  I’d never expected to see him again or wanted to. He should have stayed firmly buried in my past, not returned well over a decade later, bringing back a memory I’d done my best to bury.

  Now I felt again the hurt and anger of that time so long ago, and while it was true that I didn’t have an entirely clear conscience about my behaviour on that night we spent together, the episode had been distorted and blown out of all proportion by Lex and his friend Al.