A Christmas Cracker

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘In for?’ I repeated blankly. Had Mercy told everyone I was fresh out of prison, or did I have ‘ex-con’ written all over me, so that it was totally obvious at first glance?

  ‘Now, Freda, you know Madam wanted us to put all that behind us when we made a fresh start here, and I’m sure it’s just the same for Tabby,’ chided Job, picking up a tray containing a rack of toast and a boiled egg in a pottery cup shaped like a chicken. ‘I’d best get this to Mr Silas while the egg’s still hot.’

  Freda pulled a face at her husband’s departing back. ‘Like we all had our memories wiped when we got here! But you can tell me what you were doing time for, because you must already know we’re all ex-cons in Hope Terrace.’

  ‘I – you are?’ I stammered. ‘No, Mercy didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘Oh, yes, the whole family are benevolent Quakers so they’ve always employed ex-cons in the factory when they could. But there’s only the seven of us left now and we’ve all been here a long time, so you were a bit of a surprise, like.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I said, relaxing a bit. No wonder Ceddie had thought of me! ‘I was convicted of helping to run a scam, selling fake vintage champagne,’ I explained.

  ‘Classy!’ she commented, seemingly without sarcasm. ‘I was done for persistent shoplifting and I met my Job in a hostel when I came out. He was a proper butler to a titled family till drink got the better of him and he absconded with the silver. But he took the pledge when Mercy offered him a job here and he’s been sober as a judge ever since.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ I said.

  ‘And there’s nowhere here to shoplift, unless you drive into a town, so that knocked that habit on the head,’ she added chattily. ‘There’s the village shop, up in Little Mumming, of course, but that Oriel Comfort what owns it has eyes like a hawk, even if I was tempted by her stock, which I’m not.’

  ‘No, I suppose it isn’t likely to be very exciting,’ I agreed.

  ‘At first, Job and me worked in the cracker factory, but now we’re semi-retired and work in the house, though we do lend a hand with packing the boxes if there’s a rush order on.’

  ‘Does that often happen?’ I asked curiously, in the light of what Mercy had told me about the business running down like an unwound clock.

  ‘Practically never lately, now I come to think about it,’ she said, looking vaguely surprised. ‘Job looks after Mr Silas – gets his breakfast and a bit of lunch and dinner, though when Mercy’s home, he comes out of his rooms and has afternoon tea and dinner with her. I get in any shopping needed and let the cleaners in Wednesdays, and bag up the laundry, that kind of thing.’

  The cat-flap rattled and Pye oozed in, stopped dead at the sight of a stranger and stared hard at her.

  ‘Is this yours?’ Freda said, surprised. ‘He’s a strange-looking cat and no mistake, with those funny eyes.’

  ‘Yes, he’s called Pye.’

  Pye continued to stare at her and then said something that was probably uncomplimentary, if you understood cat.

  ‘He doesn’t exactly look nice as pie, does he?’ she said, returning the stare assessingly.

  ‘He can be a little … tricky, till he gets used to new people,’ I conceded, ‘and he’s very vocal, so he certainly makes his presence felt.’

  ‘I remember when Mercy had a big Siamese cat – that was noisy too; yowled like a banshee sometimes.’

  ‘She did say she liked cats.’

  ‘There are two down at the factory, to take care of any mice trying to get into the place,’ Freda said. ‘Bing and Ginger. It’s to be hoped if they meet yours that they don’t fight, though those two rarely stray from the factory side of the bridge.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll all get on fine together,’ I assured her, which I was – so long as the two resident cats accepted their sudden demotion to the bottom of the pecking order. ‘Did you say there were seven former prisoners working at the cracker factory?’

  ‘Only five, if you don’t count me and Job, and the others are all a bit long in the tooth. They work ten to four on weekdays, from February to November and manage the orders all right, but there used to be a lot more workers when business was brisker.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Mercy told me.’

  ‘Well, she told me she was bringing in someone young and artistic to come up with new ideas for the crackers. Not that everyone’s that keen on new ideas …’ she mused. ‘But I suppose you’ll get to meet them soon, and you can size each other up.’

  That sounded ominous. I wondered what the others had been to prison for, but I was about to be enlightened.

  ‘Me and Job live in the first cottage and Dorrie Bird in number two – her daughter Arlene’s married with a family and lives in Great Mumming, but she comes and works in the factory office three mornings a week. Dorrie was done for running a house of ill repute,’ she added conversationally. ‘But she said she never did, it was just the flat was in her name and she let her friends rent rooms there. It wasn’t her fault if they brought their boyfriends back.’

  ‘Unlucky,’ I said, fascinated.

  ‘At number three is Bradley Dudge. He drives the delivery van when needed, keeps the garden here tidy and likes to tinker with his old car, but mostly he keeps himself to himself and gets fits of depression when he remembers what he did.’

  ‘What did he do?’ I asked, without meaning to.

  ‘Killed his wife, though they brought it in as manslaughter. Heard a noise upstairs where she was with her lover and thought it was a burglar. He was holding a heavy golf trophy in one hand he’d just won …’

  ‘He hit her with it?’

  ‘No, he threw it at her, but don’t worry, he’s never remarried, so he’s not going to make a habit of it,’ she assured me. ‘Then there’s Lillian in number four and Joy in five, both the wrong side of seventy. We all are, come to think of it,’ she said. ‘Still, I expect seventy is the new fifty, isn’t it?’

  ‘So they say,’ I agreed.

  ‘Lillian swindled thousands out of the benefits system and blew it on holidays, horses and men, and Joy used to stay in posh hotels, passing herself off as a toff, and then abscond without paying.’

  ‘Enterprising,’ I commented, riveted.

  ‘They’ve always been pally, though they fell out a few years back when Phil, in number six, was widowed, but he told them he wasn’t in the market for a new wife so it simmered down again. Ex-navy, he is, and must have been a firebrand when he was younger, because he killed someone in a fight. But there, we’ve all mellowed now and we often meet up of a Friday or Saturday evening for a drink and a game of dominoes in the Auld Christmas.’

  ‘The Auld Christmas?’

  ‘The pub in Little Mumming. With your young legs you can get to it up the footpath behind the factory in about fifteen minutes, but we oldies need to drive round by the road. Job can use the big estate car whenever he likes and Bradley, he’s got a car too. Phil’s more of a motorbike man and Lillian’s always glad to get her arms round a bloke, so when the weather’s fine she goes pillion.’

  ‘I won’t be going anywhere in the evening for a couple of months, because I’ve been tagged,’ I told her.

  ‘Well, it beats having to report to a probation officer every five minutes,’ she consoled me.

  Mercy came in and looked pleased to find us both there, chatting.

  ‘Oh good, you’re getting to know each other already.’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Freda comfortably. ‘Tabby says she’s going to help you make some changes at the factory.’

  I didn’t remember saying anything of the kind, but Mercy nodded and beamed.

  ‘She’s my Girl Friday and very artistic, so I hope she’s going to come up with some great ideas to liven up Marwood’s crackers. I’ll be taking her down to the mill after breakfast and introducing her to everybody.’

  Freda shook her head. ‘The others aren’t likely to take to being livened up.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure yo
u’re wrong,’ Mercy said briskly. ‘I’ll call a meeting as soon as Tabby’s had time to think things over, and I’ll want you and Job to be there, too.’

  ‘Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away,’ Freda declared. ‘Right, I’m off to the supermarket for a few things and I’ve got the list off the fridge. Was there anything else you was wanting?’

  ‘Did I put crumpets on there? You can’t get a crumpet in Malawi,’ Mercy explained to me. ‘One of the things I most missed, along with a bit of fried bacon and a potato cake.’

  Freda took the list and went. Our conversation had certainly been illuminating. I was also starting to understand some of the problems Mercy might face in making changes, when everything had been the same for so long.

  My new employer was now getting out eggs and bacon and a frying pan. ‘I thought we’d have a good cooked breakfast this morning, to set us up before we start,’ she said, tying on a tartan pinny.

  She wouldn’t let me help her cook it, but effortlessly produced eggs, bacon, and potato cakes cooked in the fat, with half a grilled tomato, which was delicious.

  While we were eating, I confessed I’d used the expensive French soap in the shower, plus the robe and towels.

  ‘Well, of course you did, dear – I put them there for your use,’ she said. ‘Consider yourself as part of the family while you’re under my roof. And I constantly get soaps for Christmas, but there are only so many bars one person can get through in a lifetime.’

  ‘You are so kind,’ I told her, tears coming to my eyes.

  ‘Not at all – you’ll be doing me a kindness, and it’s so lovely to have a young person under my roof again.’

  ‘I’m not that young,’ I said. ‘I’ve just turned thirty-seven.’

  ‘So has my nephew, Randal – what a coincidence! My goddaughter, Liz – short for Liziuzayani, did I tell you about her? – usually stays here in the school holidays and it will be so nice for her to have some younger company.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Sixteen, and I have her at a very nice Quaker boarding school near Pontefract. She wants to be a doctor and is a very serious kind of girl. Other than that, our only other regular visitor is my nephew and he’s back now from wherever it was he went – I forget – and wants to come and discuss his plans with me next week. I expect we’ll have all kinds of suggestions of our own to make by then, won’t we?’

  She beamed, obviously relishing the challenge.

  ‘First, a quick tour of the house,’ she said, when we’d stacked our crockery in the capacious dishwasher. ‘It won’t take long because, as I told you, it’s not huge.’

  ‘It seems very big to me.’

  Pye, who’d been hanging around in the hope of sharing our breakfast, elected to accompany us.

  ‘Now, you’ve seen this wing, though you may not have noticed that that door there in the passage isn’t another cupboard or storeroom, but leads down to the cellars – there’s electric light down there and the boiler …’ She shut the door again. ‘And you’ve been upstairs to the bathroom, so you could see that all the bedrooms and two more bathrooms are off it. At the far end, past the top of the main stairs, you come to my nephew’s rooms in the east wing. When my husband died, I thought it fitting to give them over to Randal, since all would one day be his. Mine is the Rose Room – there’s a little plaque on all the doors of the main bedrooms – should you need me in the night.’

  We went through the dining room, where Mercy opened a door in the panelling to let me peep into a small parlour that looked out at the back.

  ‘The ladies of the house used to like to sit here in the mornings, I’m told, but it isn’t much used now unless I’m doing some sewing and want to be out of the way. I store any old sewing machines in there as I collect them, too, until I have enough to send out to Malawi.’

  In the drawing room, the dark, shadowed corners had been dispelled by the bright rays of sunshine that were falling through the mullioned windows and warming the muted but lovely colours of the carpet.

  ‘Now, as you saw last night, this passage with the stairway leads from front to back of the house – we think it’s the oldest part, because that was the way the houses were built then, with the family in one side and the animals in the other. But you can explore the garden later. Bradley keeps it tidy, he’s keen on gardening, but it’s not extensive.’

  She opened yet another door. ‘This is the library, which my nephew seems to favour quite a bit. Are you a great reader?’

  ‘Yes – in fact, I got most of my education by working my way through the small branch library near my home as a child, because I had to miss quite a bit of school and we didn’t have much money to buy books.’

  ‘The public libraries are a great asset that should be cherished,’ she said. ‘Silas’s apartment is down that corridor, but we won’t disturb him. He has a small sitting room, bedroom and a tiny kitchenette, where he can make himself a hot drink or a snack, if he can be bothered. And there are the usual offices – the wing was extended at the back in the days when listed buildings were not beset by all these silly rules.’

  ‘What does he do all day?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘He’s compiling a genealogy of our family, the Fells, and also the Marwoods. The internet has speeded up that kind of research remarkably in the last few years.’

  ‘You can get on the internet here?’

  ‘Yes, though it’s far from fast. In fact, Freda usually does the main weekly supermarket shop via the internet and it’s all delivered – so convenient, just like when I was a little girl and the tradesmen brought what you ordered round in a van.’

  ‘I suppose it is,’ I agreed, thinking how wrong I’d been to equate age with a lack of computer skills. I suspected I was in for a surprise, and so it was.

  ‘Job went on an evening course for beginning computing and passed on what he learned to Silas, and Freda seems to have a natural bent for it. But there, I picked it all up from young colleagues out in Malawi, so it’s not at all difficult. When my ward, Liz, is home she keeps me up to date on all the latest technology.’

  ‘I think you’re probably more up to date than me, then,’ I said ruefully. ‘Jeremy – my ex fiancé – had an old laptop he gave me, but I notice it wasn’t packed up with the rest of my things, so he must have kept it. And my phone’s just a basic pay-as-you go one.’

  ‘You can use the desktop in the library – the password is stuck to a piece of paper under the mouse,’ she offered.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, though I didn’t know who I might email, other than Emma, if horrible Desmond was away and not likely to be looking over her shoulder.

  ‘The phone signals are another thing – the hill behind the house seems to block them, so you need to walk down to the main road before it becomes really reliable. I rely on the landline, but when I go further afield there are always a million missed calls and text messages on my mobile.’

  She laughed merrily. I had clearly fallen into a nest of silver surfers and techno babes.

  ‘I must dig out my charger, my mobile is dead as a dodo,’ I said. ‘But I can see I don’t need to rush.’

  ‘No, and you can make free use of the landline, dear. There,’ she added, ‘that’s the whole place, bar the orangery, which is really just a glassed conservatory, at the side here. It should be full of plants, but with my being away so much I don’t bother. When Liz brings a school friend to stay, they often go in there – like a den, I suppose. There’s an old sofa and some wicker garden furniture. But do explore the whole house at your leisure later,’ she added.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It is lovely – quite big, but somehow friendly and homely, too.’

  ‘I’m glad you feel that. Now, let’s put on our coats and go down to the factory,’ she said inexhaustibly. ‘You must meet the workforce and get a feel for the lie of the land and the business, so that when I show you my nephew’s plans after lunch, we can have a jolly good think.’

  ‘Wonde
rful,’ I said faintly.

  Pye followed us into the hall, watching us put on our coats without comment or, it appeared, undue worry.

  I think he was starting to forgive me for abandoning him, and also to understand that this was where we both lived now and I wasn’t suddenly going to vanish again.

  Mercy handed me a piece of dry bread from the pocket of her baggy moss-green corduroy trousers.

  ‘For the ducks. Come along!’ she said, and trotted off, the lights in her trainer heels flickering like fireflies.

  Chapter 11: Cat Flight

  Q:What do you get if you cross Santa with a duck?

  A:A Christmas quacker!

  We went out by the huge front door into a perfect early spring day, though there was as yet no warmth in the bright sunshine and a chilly breeze was stirring a nearby stand of sheltering trees. My coat was a short wool one, the vivid scarlet of holly berries, and Mercy complimented me on the colour.

  ‘I’ve only seen you wearing black before, but that is such a nice, cheerful shade and it suits you.’

  ‘It was Mum’s. She liked a pop of strong colour. I do wear a lot of black, but it’s from laziness really, so I don’t have to think about what goes with what. I brighten it up with a T-shirt or scarf or something when I remember.’

  As we crossed the bridge over the moat the ducks instantly appeared from underneath it and we threw them the scraps of bread before walking on down the drive.

  ‘This was originally a stable block, but it’s now garages, where we keep the estate car and my small hatchback,’ Mercy said as we passed some ancient brick outbuildings and a sweep of gravel. ‘Do you drive?’ she added.

  ‘I can, because we used to have a little car when Mum could still get in and out of it. She liked Southport, where I could park overlooking the beach, and I think I mentioned that she loved to go up to the top of Snowehill Beacon, before she became too ill.’

  ‘You did, and it’s such a coincidence that you should know the village.’

  ‘We didn’t go into the shop or pub because we always took a picnic to save money. It’s years since I’ve been there now,’ I said, and my mind went back to the chilly autumn day when I’d fulfilled Mum’s last wish, the sad grey clouds scurrying away, as if they’d wanted no part of it …