Christmas Wishes at Pudding Hall

by Kate Forster

  Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites and cream of tartar at medium speed until the mixture is fluffy and holds very soft peaks. Add sugar, one tablespoon at a time, beating until whites hold stiff peaks and look glossy.

  Gently whisk a quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Fold in remaining whites in two additions, then transfer batter to prepared dish. Rub your thumb around the inside edge of the dish to create about a ¼-inch space between the dish and the soufflé mixture.

  Transfer dish to baking sheet in the oven, and reduce oven temperature to 190ºC (375ºF). Bake until soufflé is puffed and centre moves only slightly when dish is shaken gently, about 25 to 35 minutes. (Do not open oven door during first 20 minutes.) Bake it a little less for a runnier soufflé and a little more for a firmer soufflé. Serve immediately.

  28

  ‘We’re going back to America,’ Marc told the boys as they came inside after Christa left.

  ‘No,’ the boys cried and tears followed but Marc didn’t listen to their protestations.

  Simon had stumbled to the kitchen and Avian followed him.

  ‘I’m calling the police,’ she screamed at Marc.

  ‘Good, please do, tell them I said hi,’ he answered her as he took a packet of frozen beans from the freezer and put them on his knuckles.

  ‘You go with Avian and I’ll stay with Marc,’ whispered Adam to Paul who had followed them to the kitchen but Marc heard him.

  ‘I don’t need babysitting,’ he snapped at Adam as he took the stairs two at a time to his study.

  ‘I’m not babysitting you, I’m seeing if you’re okay,’ Adam replied. ‘You did just hit someone and screamed at your children and…’

  ‘And?’ Marc stood in his study and crossed his arms.

  ‘Nothing,’ Adam said.

  ‘Bullshit, what were you going to say?’ Marc demanded.

  ‘Forget about it.’

  Adam sat on a chair. ‘So you want to go home? Want me to organise a plane?’

  Marc didn’t answer as he sat in his desk chair and looked outside at the grey day.

  ‘I’m sick of it here anyway,’ he said. ‘I need some sun.’

  He couldn’t believe that wasn’t Christa’s soufflé. He swore he could have tasted anything she cooked and known it was her. There was something special about her food; it was thoughtful, not flashy yet elegant, just like her.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, not looking at Adam, ‘you can put this place on the market. I don’t think I’ll come back here again.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Adam said. ‘Stop this crap. Go and see her, talk to her. It was a stupid bet; it doesn’t mean you won’t see her again.’

  Marc spun around in his chair, staring down Adam. He was furious at his feelings for Christa being so exposed when they were so new, so he did what any man would do: he denied and deflected.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Christa!’ Adam cried.

  Marc turned away from him again. He could see Bill in the distance, riding the mower towards the top fields.

  ‘This isn’t about her,’ said Marc. It was mostly true but there was one thing he couldn’t get over. That he was wrong. He was never wrong but apparently he was this time, about someone that meant more to him than anything else.

  Adam sat in silence while Marc gathered his thoughts into something that wasn’t a volcano that resulted in him using his fists on Simon again.

  ‘She didn’t have to go,’ he said to Adam finally.

  ‘She did,’ said Adam. ‘How can she stay here with that idiot around?’

  Marc knew Adam was right but he didn’t know how to fix it. He wanted to leave but he wanted the boys to have their mother here on Christmas Day and if he kicked Simon out then Avian would go too and the boys wouldn’t have their mother for Christmas Day. If he asked Christa to come back he would be exposing her to Simon who was one of the worst men he had ever met – and he grew up in Las Vegas. There was always someone around with his father, making a deal, selling something at the pawn shop, talking up a new opportunity, wearing their flashy clothes and using their smooth patter and his dad was one of the worst of them.

  He would sell his grandmother for a deal and he had no doubt Simon would sell Christa out for his own benefit.

  ‘You know,’ said Adam slowly, as though choosing his words carefully, ‘this is the first time you haven’t asked me to do a background check on a woman you’re interested in.’

  Marc laughed a little. ‘I never even thought about it,’ he admitted. ‘I just wanted to get to know her in time, began to look forward to seeing her and getting to hear her opinions or learn about her life.’

  There was a knock at the door and then Paul put his head around.

  ‘Come in,’ said Marc and Paul closed the door behind him.

  ‘Simon is lying down in bed with a pack of frozen broad beans on his nose.’

  ‘What the hell are broad beans?’ he asked Adam.

  ‘The opposite of string beans?’ Adam answered, shrugging.

  ‘Where are the boys?’ asked Marc. ‘I need to speak to them.’

  ‘They are in their room, saying they won’t leave and that they are writing a letter to Adam to ask for a divorce from their parents,’ Paul said.

  ‘Definitely. I can sue said parents also, if the boys want?’ Adam offered but Marc ignored him.

  He walked through the corridors of Pudding Hall, decked in boughs of holly and pine, with pinecones and red ribbons. Paul had done a lovely job on the decorations, maybe he could bear the next few days until Christmas and then head back to San Francisco for New Year’s.

  He knocked on the door of the boys’ bedroom. They had one each but always ended up together planning grand schemes and whispering into the night.

  ‘Go away,’ he heard one of them say.

  ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘No,’ the boys said in unison.

  Marc waited for a moment and then leaned his head against the wall.

  ‘I’m sorry I said we would leave,’ he said. ‘We can stay until the New Year.’

  There was silence for a moment and then whispers that he could hear but not make out.

  ‘Can Christa come back?’

  He closed his eyes. ‘She can’t.’

  More furtive whispering was heard and then a note was slipped under the door.

  Marc stepped back and picked up the piece of paper.

  ‘Bite ya bum, Dad.’

  He tried not to laugh and he carefully folded the paper and put it in his pocket. He wished Christa was there to see it and he wondered how he could solve this enormous mess three days before Christmas.

  29

  Christa drove to the only person she really knew in York.

  Petey was walking down the street pulling a wheeled shopper of food, and singing to himself when she arrived. She jumped out of the car and watched him. She called him but realised he couldn’t hear her, so she waved and then he stopped, smiled broadly and took two earbuds out of his ears. ‘Was listening to a bit of Burt Bacharach. I love him,’ he said.

  ‘Earbuds – that’s so modern of you,’ said Christa. She had trouble setting the clock in her car so a seventy-odd-year-old man using Bluetooth technology was impressive.

  ‘What are you doing here? Come in for a cup of tea?’ he said as she walked with him to his gate. He pushed it open and she followed him and his little cart of supplies inside.

  ‘I’ve resigned from Pudding Hall,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Petey turned to her and frowned.

  ‘Let’s go inside and I will tell you – it’s freezing out here,’ she instructed.

  Once inside Petey turned on the kettle and Christa helped unpack his groceries. He bought many of the same items her dad used to buy.

  Yorkshire tea, HP Sauce, cherry Bakewells, white bread, cheddar cheese, some apples, and a few bananas.

  ‘I will make the tea while you tell me what happ
ened,’ said Petey bustling about the kitchen.

  Christa told him the whole sorry story, from her marriage to Simon, to the restaurant, and up to now, over three cups of tea, two cheese sandwiches and a Bakewell tart.

  Petey sighed and shook his head when it was finished.

  ‘You had to leave. You can’t stay there with him, no matter how much you like Marc and the boys.’

  Christa nodded. ‘Thank you for saying that. It’s exactly what my dad would have said. I needed to hear it.’

  Petey patted her hand. ‘Now, you can stay here until you get sorted. It will be easier for you and I would enjoy the company.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Petey. You have your life; I have to find mine.’

  ‘Let me help you for a while,’ he said. ‘You don’t have anyone else here and you’re a friend to me. I hope I’m one to you also.’

  Christa grabbed his worn hand. ‘You are a friend. A real friend, Petey.’

  ‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘I can show you to the little guest room. It’s not much but it’s clean and warm.’

  She followed him through the small home to the bedroom next to his, which housed a small single bed with a yellow chenille bedspread and daisy wallpaper.

  A white bedside table sat next to the bed and a matching wardrobe.

  ‘The sheets might need changing, been on there for a while, but it’s all yours until you figure out what to do next.’

  ‘Thank you, Petey,’ she said feeling her throat ache and eyes sting from the tears threatening to fall again.

  ‘It’s no Pudding Hall but it’s mine,’ he said.

  ‘This is better than Pudding Hall,’ she said. ‘I’m calling it Petey Hall.’

  He chuckled. ‘Petey Hall – I like that,’ he said.

  *

  That night Christa tossed and turned in the small bed. Not from lack of comfort – it was warm and soft and cosy – but from the vision of her soufflé and its failure to rise like Simon’s. Perhaps she had overthought it, or overwhipped the egg whites. Maybe she was too arrogant and this was the little-known God of Soufflé reminding her she wasn’t as good as she thought she was.

  Was there a God of Soufflés, she wondered, staring at the daisy wallpaper.

  She thought about the day she had been accepted into Le Cordon Bleu. Marc had asked about it as though he cared; he had thought she was successful. She didn’t know why so many memories had sprung up since she’d been in York. Perhaps she had time to listen to what they had to tell her now.

  The day she found out she was accepted into the course, she had woken up and forgot for a few seconds her father was gone. When she’d remembered, she’d cried. She had cried for the previous four months but always in secret, using the shower to weep or the storeroom at work, amongst the flour and grains.

  But that day she’d cried wrenching sobs until finally she was out of tears. Walking to the kitchen to get a glass of water, she’d seen the letter on the table.

  She had picked it up, headed back to bed and lain down, placing the letter on her stomach, trying to divine what was inside it based on her gut.

  Her stomach wouldn’t tell her anything though. She would have to open it and find out for herself.

  Sitting up in bed, she’d turned on the light and opened the envelope, careful not to rip the paper. She hadn’t known why she’d felt she needed to be careful but the emblem and words on the crest made her respectful of the process.

  She’d pulled out the letter and opened it and her eyes scanned over the words.

  Congratulations.

  We are pleased to inform you.

  Accepted for the Grand Diplôme of Cuisine and Pastry.

  £30,000.

  ‘You got what you wanted, Dad,’ she’d said looking out the window at the snow.

  He had told her to apply before he was diagnosed but she’d told him they couldn’t afford it. Then, when he’d was told he was dying, he’d announced that he had a life insurance policy. It wasn’t much but it was enough to put her through the course and help her live in the rented flat for a year or so.

  ‘Dad, I can’t think about that now,’ she had said to him, as she had helped him into bed.

  ‘You have to think about it. You love cooking and you love caring for people.’

  ‘So I can cook in a nursing home or something,’ she’d said.

  He had gently swatted her hand. ‘Go and learn all those techniques I see you watching on the television and the computer. Your croissants would make the French jealous.’

  As she lay in the small bed in the house of an old man whom she hardly knew, she wondered what her dad would make of her success now. He would have hated the way she gave her life up for Simon to control.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ she whispered into the darkness.

  She wondered what Marc was doing. Just thinking about him made the shame rise inside her and she closed her eyes and sighed. What must he think of her?

  The vision of Simon’s gloating was burned into her memory and she wished she could get him out of her mind and think about all the nice things about Marc instead.

  His hand in hers, the shared glances, the laughter, the teasing, the flirting.

  Who was she kidding? Marc was never going to stay in York and Avian and the boys would return to America. Why was she pretending this would be happy families forever and ever?

  She looked at her phone next to the bed. Ten missed calls from Marc. More texts. She didn’t read them or listen to the messages. She was too embarrassed.

  Closing her eyes again she lay on her back and took some deep breaths, slowing down her racing mind by thinking about the garden at Pudding Hall. The orchards and the maze, the dell with the shared company of the fantastic stag.

  She didn’t know what she was going to do next but she had to choose a future that spoke to her heart and soul; one that helped her put good into the world.

  The selfishness she had seen from Simon and Avian and even Marc at times wasn’t anything she wanted to be around.

  She’d enough of the self-involved. She wanted to make a difference and even though the pub was now sold, she could work towards that, couldn’t she? She would speak to Zane in the morning to find out what was needed and how she could help beyond the van. She would get out of her head and into the world.

  30

  ‘Dad?’

  Marc looked up from his laptop in his study.

  ‘Not now, Ethan, we’re busy.’

  Adam was sitting opposite him, tapping furiously at the screen.

  ‘No, Dad, we need to talk to you.’

  Seth’s face appeared now.

  ‘If it’s about Christa, I can’t get her back here. She isn’t returning my calls or my texts, so you will have to deal with shepherd’s pie until I get a new chef.’

  ‘Dad, it’s not about Christa,’ said Ethan.

  ‘Well, it’s kind of about her but it’s also about the douche,’ Seth added.

  Marc didn’t bother to correct them because Simon was a douche and had been so unbearable since he won the soufflé competition the day before that Marc and Adam and Paul and the twins went out for a very sombre dinner at the local pub.

  Marc sighed. ‘I know he’s annoying but he will be gone after Christmas.’

  The twins were in his study now and they closed the door behind them.

  ‘Dad, I need to show you something,’ said Ethan, his face troubled.

  Marc closed his laptop and pulled the child to him. He had been distracted and he had been rude. He would have been furious with the boys if they had ignored him like he had ignored them. They deserved better than that dismissive side of him.

  ‘Okay, buddy, what is it? I’m sorry I tried to brush whatever it is away. Tell me, what’s up?’

  Seth put the video camera onto the desk.

  ‘Dad, you need to watch this.’ Seth looked at Adam. ‘Can you plug this into the monitor?’

  Adam took the cable from the camera and did as Seth ins
tructed and then Ethan pressed some buttons and the Pudding Hall kitchen came into the view and there was Christa.

  ‘When was this?’ he asked, his heart aching to see her again.

  ‘It’s the soufflé competition,’ said Seth as Ethan fast-forwarded through the footage, giving Marc a view of what had been happening when Marc was in the dining room waiting to judge the final dishes.

  He watched Christa and Simon cook. He noticed her concentration and precision even on fast forward. She barely looked up while Simon seemed to be performing as though he was on camera.

  ‘Did they know you were filming this?’ asked Marc, still watching.

  ‘No,’ Ethan answered. ‘I set up on the mantelpiece so I could edit it later. I wanted it to be natural, so I didn’t tell them.’

  Marc nodded as they kept watching. He didn’t know what was coming but he was pretty sure it wasn’t good for someone who was cooking.

  Ethan stopped fast-forwarding and Marc saw them put the soufflés in the oven and then Christa’s knees buckled. She spoke and then rushed outside and Adam and Paul and the boys followed her.

  ‘What happened? Why didn’t you tell me she was upset?’ He turned to Adam, furious.

  ‘She said she needed air. We offered her water but she said she was just nervous.’

  The camera was still filming Avian and Simon who didn’t seem bothered by Christa’s near collapse and instead he could see them talking by the bench. Avian was gesturing wildly and Simon was shrugging and throwing his hands up at her.

  And then it happened.

  Simon went to the oven while Avian watched the door and he swapped the soufflés.

  ‘You slimy mother fu—’ Marc started to say.

  ‘We can sue him. We can sue him for fraud, for misleading you, and anything else I can think of,’ said Adam his face bright red.

  Marc turned to the boys. ‘Thank you for showing me this,’ he said and he hugged both of them.

  ‘I think you might have just saved Christmas, boys.’

  The boys looked pleased with themselves but Adam stepped in.