The Christmas Invitation

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘We’ll have to bring you back another day, dear, so you can have a better look around,’ promised Clara. ‘After Christmas, when they reopen.’

  ‘That will be New Year – if you’re still here by then, of course,’ said Lex.

  ‘We hope she will be,’ Henry said. ‘Come on. Teddy’s just vanished into the Christmas shop.’

  ‘The entrance to Santa’s Grotto is just off it,’ Lex explained to me as we threaded our way through racks of sparkling baubles, a rainbow of tinsel, festoons of fairy lights and great stacks of the various kinds of Marwood crackers. ‘I always take him in and keep him occupied while Clara and Henry look for stocking fillers.’

  Teddy reappeared from behind an illuminated wire polar bear and, taking both our hands again, urged us towards the arched door hung with the ‘Santa’s Grotto Entrance’ sign.

  ‘Looks like you’re both going,’ said Clara, amused. ‘See you later.’

  There was a queue of excited children that stretched from the entrance, along a snowy scene of lit fir trees and fairy lights and over a small wooden bridge to the door of Santa’s cottage. When we’d shuffled nearer, we could see the man himself when the door curtain was drawn back to let in the next child, sitting in a big chair by a flickering fake log fire.

  The children and parents were admitted through the door by a tall, green-clad teenage elf with a dark-skinned, serious face, horn-rimmed glasses and a very sweet smile.

  The children must have made their exit from the other side, for no one came out again. It probably led straight back into the shop, I thought, as we inched over the bridge and stopped by a tableau of large reindeer.

  The nearest one suddenly made a whirring noise and, moving its head up and down, said cheerily, ‘Hi, I’m Rudolf!’

  ‘Hello, Rudolf,’ said Teddy, regarding him doubtfully, but that seemed to be the extent of his repertoire, for he fell silent until we heard him repeat himself ten minutes later as we finally arrived at the doorway.

  ‘Are you ready for the next one, Nick?’ asked the door elf, turning to look behind her through a gap in the curtain.

  ‘That’s Santa’s real name – Saint Nicholas,’ Teddy whispered to me. ‘Uncle Henry told me.’

  ‘Send ’em in,’ said a high-pitched, fluting voice.

  It was dark in the grotto, but we could make out Father Christmas by the light of the fire and a few dim lanterns. He was a tiny and ancient-looking man with what was clearly his own silvery-white hair and long beard. He had been having a refreshing cup of tea, but handed the empty mug to another elf and said, ‘Ho, ho, ho, and who do we have here?’

  Teddy approached him. ‘I’m Teddy Mariner and I’m eight.’ He frowned and then added suspiciously, ‘You’re very small and old, and you don’t look the same as you did when you came to my school yesterday.’

  ‘Good grief, have I changed size again?’ exclaimed Santa, with commendable quick-wittedness. ‘When I’m away from Lapland, I never know what I’m going to look like from one day to the next. I could even be tall and black tomorrow.’

  ‘You can change colour, too?’ Teddy asked, impressed and round-eyed.

  ‘Yes, it’s one of my magic powers.’

  ‘I think you look nice now, even if you are smaller than your elves,’ Teddy told him.

  ‘Thank you. Perhaps I’ll stay like this today, then.’

  ‘Can I ask you something, Santa?’

  ‘Fire right ahead,’ said Santa warily.

  ‘Do you think Mummy will bring me a pony when she comes for Christmas? I put it at the top of the list I sent you.’

  Father Christmas pursed his lips and ruminated. ‘How is she travelling? Car or train?’

  ‘Train, because she doesn’t drive.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Santa, shaking his head. ‘They won’t let ponies on the train. I think she’ll have to bring you something else off your list instead. Remind me of one or two other things you put on it?’

  ‘A castle, and some dragons to live in it. A real geologist’s hammer and goggles … and all the Narnia books in a box. I’ve seen them in the shop in Great Mumming and they’ve got a pirate game with a real wooden treasure chest and gold coins.’ He paused. ‘If I did get the pony, I’d need a new riding hat, because my old one is too small … Oh, and I’d like some proper paints like artists have, because I’m too big for poster paints and anyway, they run. I might be an artist when I grow up, like Meg.’ He gestured to me, standing in the shadows with Lex. ‘I was going to be a jockey, but Lex says I’m going to be too big, like him.’

  ‘I suspect he’s quite right, if you’re eight now, because you’re nearly as tall as I am.’

  ‘But you’re not very tall for a grown-up, are you?’

  ‘No, that’s true: I think living above the Arctic Circle must have stunted my growth.’

  ‘But all your elves are very big – don’t they live there, too?’

  Teddy looked at the nearest helper, who was a tall, pale girl who reminded me of forced rhubarb and had pointed ears attached to her green hat. Then he leaned over and whispered, ‘I know that lady’s just pretending to be an elf, because she usually works in the Christmas Shop, but the other one at the door is a real one.’

  ‘I have to get stand-ins sometimes to help me,’ Santa whispered back gravely. ‘Most of the real elves are still busy making the last toys to go in the sleigh.’

  ‘But you only bring the presents that go in the Christmas stockings, don’t you?’

  I was starting to feel that whatever they were paying Santa, it wasn’t enough. I wondered if he got this kind of inquisition from a lot of the children. No wonder the queue had moved so slowly!

  ‘You’re right, I bring enough presents to fill the stockings, and perhaps one or two more for children whose families are too poor to buy any,’ he said.

  Teddy sighed. ‘I think the pony was too big an ask. They cost a lot of money.’

  The tall, pale elvish helper was showing signs of restiveness, so we had clearly had our time – and a bit.

  ‘Say goodbye to Santa, Teddy,’ Lex said. ‘There are lots of other children waiting to see him, too.’

  Teddy, who had been leaning confidingly against Santa’s red velvet-clad shoulder while they talked, straightened reluctantly.

  ‘I bet they’re surprised too when they see he’s so small. Goodbye, Father Christmas, see you next year.’

  Santa reached down into a hessian sack and handed Teddy a brightly wrapped parcel. ‘Here’s a little gift to be going on with.’

  Even the subtle Christmas Shop lights seemed dazzling when we exited through another curtain, and I blinked.

  ‘Come on, time for lunch,’ said Lex.

  Henry and Clara were waiting for us at a table upstairs in the café, bags of shopping next to their chairs.

  Teddy told them all about Father Christmas and his amazing size- and colour-changing powers. Then he unwrapped his present, which was a large silvery egg, containing a purple and gold plastic dragon, whose wings were hinged and could be lifted up and down.

  ‘He does know what I want, so he must read all the lists,’ Teddy said, impressed. ‘Do you think it means I’ll get the castle, too?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Lex. ‘You’ll have to wait and see.’

  Teddy had a special children’s packed lunch, which came in a reindeer-patterned card box. The rest of us settled for cheese and tomato toasties in thick wholemeal bread. They must have super toasters, and after I’d eaten I felt as if I’d had my roughage quotient for a week.

  Afterwards, Henry and Clara took Teddy to select another glass bauble for the tree and a box of crackers, while Lex and I had a second cup of coffee in peace, before taking a look at the craft gallery and workshops.

  The waitress who brought the coffee over greeted Lex familiarly and gave me daggers.

  ‘Another ex-girlfriend?’ I suggested sweetly, getting my own back for the digs about Mark. ‘Like the waitress at the pub?’

&nbs
p; He shrugged and said simply, ‘I get lonely sometimes.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard about Teddy’s nanny too – Flora, wasn’t it?’

  He looked startled and then embarrassed. ‘Oh, that was just a misunderstanding. Flora was about seventeen when she came to Starstone Edge to live with Deirdre and I was … off doing things by then. She was the same age as my kid sister, so later, when she was Teddy’s nanny, I just carried on thinking of her that way.’

  He brooded for a moment. ‘She was always pestering me to do things, like run her into Great Mumming or take her out for some driving practice before her test … and I did once or twice. That was it: anything else was a figment of her imagination.’

  Well, he should know all about that, I thought.

  ‘I’ve given up asking anyone out now, because they all want more commitment than I can give. It doesn’t seem fair to them.’

  I suppose that when you’ve lost the love of your life in tragic circumstances, it would make it hard to settle for second best, even after all this time … especially if you’re still carrying a load of guilt about your late wife around with you.

  ‘What about you?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Are you seeing anyone? I mean, other than Mark.’

  ‘Look,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘stop winding me up about Mark! I’ve only just met him and I’m not remotely interested in him romantically. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ he agreed. ‘I’m not sure he feels the same way about you, though.’

  ‘He’d better learn to, then,’ I said. ‘And no, I’m not seeing anyone.’

  Then I thought my answer might have given him the impression it was because no one was interested, rather than the choice it really was, so I said, ‘I got engaged to Rollo Purvis six years ago. We might have done it earlier, except his mother really didn’t like me and she was the one who paid for his flat and car and everything.’

  ‘Didn’t it work out?’

  ‘No, but not because of his mother. He asked me just before he went off to do his annual summer stint at a creative writing retreat in the States, then something happened just after he got back and … I broke it off.’

  He didn’t ask me what had happened. Perhaps he could see from my face that it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about.

  ‘But he’s still around, isn’t he? Clara mentioned he’d rung you at the house.’

  ‘We kept in contact, but only as friends – that was his idea – but not any more since he tried to use me to get access to Henry!’

  ‘So, if you haven’t been seeing anyone since you broke off your engagement, what do you want out of life?’

  He seemed genuinely to want to know, so I said, ‘I’d like a little cottage in the country. All my friends are married and having families and some have moved out of London already. Fliss was the last – remember Fliss? Tall, sandy hair and freckles, doing graphic design?’

  He nodded.

  ‘We’ve been sharing a flat for ages, but she’s just got married and I realized there’s nothing holding me to London, now.’

  ‘But isn’t it easier to get commissions if you’re based in London?’

  ‘Not any more, and I do have connections there now: there’s a gallery that will show my work. Anyway, I’m on the Royal Society of Portrait Painters website and get most of my commissions through that. It’s where Clara found me after seeing the portrait I’d painted of one of her friends.’

  ‘One of life’s strange coincidences,’ he said, a trifle sardonically. ‘Of all the painters that must be on their site, she chose you.’

  He regarded me for a moment, frowning as if he was trying to puzzle me out again, then he rose to his feet. ‘Come on, let’s have a quick look round the rest of it.’

  The gallery and craft shop could be reached from a door on this level, but I wasn’t allowed to linger for long in either, though some of the paintings looked excellent and there were several amazing papercut pictures, one or two of which were literally leaping out of their frames.

  ‘Those are made by Tabby, the wife of Randall Hesketh, who runs the mill. She’s got a workshop downstairs,’ Lex explained. ‘We haven’t got time to browse today, though, because the others will be ready to go shortly.’

  ‘I’d love to come back and have a better look around, but I don’t suppose I’ll be here long enough,’ I said, reluctantly following him out and down the stairs. There was a mix of workshops on the ground floor: jewellers, potters, leather workers, painters … The last one we came to was that of Tabby, Randall’s wife. The workshops had stable doors, presumably so that the people working inside could open the top for viewers, or not, as they liked. Tabby’s was open and at the far end of the studio, with her back to us, sat a tall slender woman with long, dark brown hair, intent over something on the table before her.

  Papercut pictures hung along the walls, materials were stacked and rolled everywhere and scraps of paper littered the floor around her feet. She was so absorbed, I didn’t think she even registered when anyone looked in.

  ‘We won’t disturb her,’ Lex said softly, moving away. ‘I occasionally meet up at the pub in Little Mumming with Tabby and Randall, and Jude Martland and his wife, Holly, other friends who live nearby. But not recently, because Tabby and Randall had a baby boy a few months ago, and Holly’s on her third, so my friends are procreating like mad, just like yours.’

  ‘It’s an age thing,’ I said absently. ‘We hit the mid-to-late thirties and realize if we want children we need to get a shift on.’

  He gave me an unreadable look, but didn’t say anything. As we went through swing doors and back into the mill, we spotted Clara and Henry waiting for us. Teddy was watching another cracker demonstration and we collected him on the way out.

  ‘I saw Mercy in the shop,’ Clara said to Lex. ‘She had Tabby’s baby with her – a sweet little thing.’

  ‘We saw Tabby in her workshop, but we didn’t disturb her,’ he said.

  We all piled back into the car and Lex into his pick-up and we followed him back down to the road, though by the time we’d waited for a cyclist to pass and pulled out, he’d vanished.

  ‘I’ve told you the Martlands lived up at Little Mumming, haven’t I?’ Henry said, driving past the turn to the village. ‘They hold a special ceremony on the green on Twelfth Night every year, but they don’t encourage outsiders to go, so I never have. We wouldn’t want to be swamped with outsiders for our Solstice rites, after all.’

  ‘Fat chance of that, when the weather’s so bad that sometimes even Fred from the pub can’t get over to take part in it, and there’s only a handful of people,’ said Clara.

  ‘Before the reservoir, anyone in the village capable of climbing the hill went,’ said Henry. ‘There was a torch-lit procession. Someone went up earlier to light the fire and the torches round the stone first, of course.’

  ‘Nowadays, someone usually pops up on the Underhill quad bike,’ Clara said. ‘And Old Winter goes with them to get in the cave before the rest of us arrive.’

  Teddy was worn out with excitement and half asleep in the back next to me, holding his plastic dragon.

  We went the long way round to get home, but Lex must have braved the pass, because he’d got there first. I hadn’t realized he was coming back, but had assumed he’d go straight to Terrapotter.

  ‘Lex has been quick! He was stopping to pick up our holly on the way,’ said Clara, surprised. ‘I hope he didn’t forget.’

  But we found him in the hall next to a heap of holly – red with bright berries – and another of tangled ivy, for Tottie had collected some from the Underhill estate with Sybil that morning after their hack.

  Den had walked Lass already, so Henry disappeared straight into his study. Clara said she’d delegate putting the greenery up to me, Lex and Tottie.

  ‘Well, that’s why I came back here, after all,’ Lex said, and went to fetch the stepladder.

  Teddy went to watch a DVD in the morning room and I suspected he’d fall asleep to th
e sound of Disney-style singing.

  Using green florist’s wire, Lex twined ivy and holly round the big wooden wheel of a chandelier in the hall, while Tottie and I decorated the mantelpieces and stuck sprigs of greenery all over the place, until the house looked even more festive than before.

  Teddy, flushed with sleep, reappeared just as we’d finished and then Den came out of the kitchen with the tea trolley. At the sound of the rattling crockery, or possibly the smell of hot, buttered crumpets, Clara and Henry’s doors opened too, and for a few moments the hall was exactly like one of those wooden weather houses, only with multiple occupants popping out of doors.

  Lex said he’d meant to go home way before tea, but he couldn’t resist the crumpets. Afterwards he asked to see Henry’s portrait.

  He stood in front of it in total silence for ages, then gave me another of his long, puzzled looks.

  ‘I’d forgotten how good an artist you were until I saw Clara’s portrait, and this is going to be just as brilliant. You always took your work seriously, even when we were students.’

  ‘So did you,’ I reminded him. It had been something we’d had in common and we’d often been part of the small band of students who carried on working late until the caretaker threw us out into the night. It had made a bond, that unstoppable creative urge.

  I could see he was remembering that and finding it hard to square with the person he’d thought me all these years.

  He stared at me, frowning for a few moments, then turned and left without another word.

  I felt too tired to settle to anything after that, so I sent Fliss a long email, telling her about the mill, and Lex’s needling me about Mark, and finally what he’d said when he’d seen Henry’s portrait …

  It was all a bit tangled, but I sent it anyway.

  At dinner, Clara said that while we were festooning the house with greenery, she’d written a little more of her memoirs and the part she’d reached now was causing her to come to a few interesting conclusions. This was mysterious, especially when she added enigmatically that presents came in all shapes and sizes, but were always welcome. I think her mind must have wandered off on to another track.