A Christmas Cracker

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘The women wear a huge sarong called a chitenge, generally in a bold pattern and often with a matching blouse and headdress. I wear mine with a T-shirt, though.’

  ‘It sounds lovely and I do like pretty things, it’s just that I feel I’m not the frilly type,’ I said ruefully. ‘My features are too bold and my hair’s so thick and straight, I can’t do a thing with it.’

  ‘I think you’d suit Malawian dress very well,’ she said, considering me. ‘And I can never do anything with my hair, either, so I keep it quite short, like Dorrie Bird. Last summer her daughter, Arlene, styled my hair in two bunches, like Mickey Mouse ears and I liked it so much I left it like that until I went back to school.’

  The unexpected smile that accompanied this revelation showed that the teenager was not that far beneath the surface!

  ‘I think I hide behind my hair most of the time,’ I confessed.

  ‘But it suits you the way you have it – I like the way your fringe graduates into your hair at the sides, so it’s not just straight across,’ she said, examining me with her serious, big brown eyes.

  After dinner, once Silas had retreated to his rooms, Liz invited me up to her bedroom to try on chitenges and when we went downstairs again to show Mercy, she said we looked like two beautiful tropical flowers.

  ‘Mmmrow!’ said Pye, looking at me in astonishment. ‘Pfft!’

  ‘Your cat talks!’ Liz said, giggling.

  ‘I think he was saying how nice you look,’ I said tactfully, but you never knew with Pye.

  It was actually fun shopping in Ormskirk with Liz: it was not like being trapped in an enormous mall, which to me is the stuff of nightmares, because the stalls were laid out along two streets, open to the sky and the weather.

  The university on the outskirts of the town had expanded hugely since I’d last been and so the shops and some of the stalls stocked the kind of clothes students liked.

  Liz lightened up as instructed and bought blue denim jeans and a retro-looking full skirt with a flowered pattern, which she said was for Sunday Quaker meetings. Then we had to find a jumper that went with one of the colours in the flowers, new tights and trainers.

  I bought a long green cotton jumper and a layered lace tunic top in a deep and wonderful purple-blue, which Liz assured me would make a great go-anywhere top.

  ‘Since I got this electronic tag on my leg, I don’t actually go anywhere,’ I said. ‘You know I’ve been in prison?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Grandmother told me,’ she said. ‘And I saw your tag last night, when we were trying on the chitenges, but I didn’t mention it because I was being tactful.’

  Mercy had given Liz money to take us both out to lunch and she picked Subway, another surprisingly teenage choice, so I didn’t think Mercy had anything to worry about.

  While we ate, she said, ‘Grandmother’s always told me not to ask any of the mill staff what crime they committed, but they told me themselves anyway. And as Mercy says, now you can see that the good in them has become stronger and the bad weak and helpless.’

  ‘I was sent to prison over a scam selling cheap fizzy wine as vintage champagne,’ I said. ‘My boss got a lot longer sentence.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem as bad a thing as some of the others have done,’ she observed. ‘And it was right that your boss should take most of the blame, even if you were helping him.’

  ‘The court believed that I’d thought up the idea, as well as being involved in it,’ I said. ‘But it wasn’t true.’

  ‘You didn’t think of it, or you weren’t involved?’ she asked with interest.

  ‘I didn’t think of it – I didn’t even suspect my boss was doing it until I found out accidentally. Then he told me he’d stopped … but he hadn’t, so I resigned. I was guilty of not reporting him when I first found out about it, but I felt a misguided sense of loyalty, because he’d been kind to me in the past.’

  ‘And then it was found out?’

  ‘Unfortunately I’d confided in a person I’d thought was a friend and she told a TV programme that investigated scams. Once they’d exposed what was happening, the police got involved and my boss implicated me – not to mention saying we’d been having an affair.’

  It was odd to find myself telling all this to someone so young, but Liz was very mature. She nodded understandingly.

  ‘You weren’t doing that, either?’ she guessed.

  ‘No, I was happily engaged to someone else.’

  ‘But the court didn’t believe you and sent you to prison? That seems very harsh.’

  ‘It was certainly a shock … but in the end Mercy came to the rescue and offered me this job when I was released.’

  ‘What happened to the fiancé?’

  ‘He believed the woman I’d confided in, who I’d thought was my friend, so that was the end of that. But I do have one true friend, called Emma, who lives in Merchester.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ she said warmly. ‘I also have my good friend Maisie, who I often stay with during the holidays. We tell each other everything.’

  ‘I didn’t tell Emma about the champagne scam because I didn’t want to burden her when she had troubles of her own – a difficult husband,’ I explained.

  ‘I don’t intend having a husband,’ she stated. ‘It seems, from my experience, that most of them are trouble, or want their own way in everything, and when I’m qualified and have a house of my own, I’ll want my own way.’

  ‘I must say, I feel the same now, and all I want out of life is to one day have my own little home with Pye and support myself with my artwork. Mercy’s promised me one of the new workshops in the mill buildings, but I can’t live up at Mote Farm for ever, especially when Randal gets married.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Mercy told me he was engaged, though even if they live in the house, it’s big enough for everyone, surely? When I first came here I’d never seen such a huge home, but Maisie’s parents have a bigger one so now I see it’s not that enormous at all.’

  ‘It’s big enough,’ I said. ‘Still cosy, though, and it has a welcoming atmosphere.’

  ‘Mercy will be happy for you to live there for as long as you want to. And now, as well as Emma, you have a friend in me.’

  ‘Thank you and it’s lovely to be with people who believe in your innocence,’ I said gratefully.

  ‘It’s obvious to me that you’re telling the truth, and though perhaps you should have told the police what was happening, you’re certainly not a criminal.’

  ‘I only wish your uncle Randal thought so,’ I said darkly, and then explained about the unfortunate coincidence of it having been Randal’s friend who exposed Champers&Chocs, and me with them, and how he’d recognised me from the gallery.

  ‘He’s probably been swayed by what his friend Charlie’s told him, and also, Mercy said he was a little cross that his ideas for the mill were changed because of your suggestions. I expect he’ll come round eventually,’ she said sagely.

  ‘I’m not that sure, especially if I’m still living in the house and under his nose when he moves back here,’ I said. ‘He’ll be wearing that grim “trouble at t’mill” look all the time.’

  She giggled. ‘I know just what you mean! Maisie’s father’s mad about old ships and often plays DVDs of an ancient TV series called The Onedin Line and there’s a captain in it who looks and sounds very much like Randal. He’s very rough and bossy, but his heart is kind, like Randal’s.’

  I hoped she was right about that, but I hadn’t seen much evidence of it so far.

  We returned home firm friends and later we found a few clips from The Onedin Line series on YouTube. She was quite right: Randal was just like Captain Onedin!

  Mercy found us giggling over it, but when we explained, even she had to agree to the likeness.

  Chapter 24: The House of Mirth

  Q:What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?

  A:You can’t wash your hands in a buffalo.

  Liz, looking pretty in her new skirt and
top, went to the meeting with Silas and Mercy next morning but I stayed home, partly because I thought it would be nice for them to be on their own together, but also to work, because my mind was bubbling over with new papercut ideas.

  They’d all been invited to family lunch up at Old Place afterwards, too. Apparently Liz is quite friendly with Jess, a girl a year or so older, who was also there for the holidays, though I hadn’t yet worked out what relation she was to the others. There were way too many Martlands, though Guy seemed determined to imprint himself on my memory with a succession of flirty texts.

  I went to the Auld Christmas with some of the cracker workers for my Sunday lunch again when they asked me, and very good it was, too.

  When Liz returned, she said Guy had been at Old Place – along with Becca, Noël, Tilda and Jess (who it turned out was Jude Martland’s niece) – and he’d seemed disappointed I wasn’t there.

  ‘I can’t imagine why he thought I would be,’ I said, surprised. Mercy had said that Jude Martland’s wife, Holly, would always be pleased to include me in any invitation, but I assumed she was just projecting her own conviction that the more total strangers you crammed round a dinner table, the better.

  ‘Well, he did, and he sent you a message, too. I was to tell you that you were cruel not answering his texts, but he’d definitely come and winkle you out, next time he was up. “Winkle” is a funny word,’ she added.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘I haven’t checked my recent messages, or I’d have told him I wasn’t going to be there and I didn’t want to meet him. In fact, charming though he is, I just wish he’d leave me alone, because I’m not the flirting type.’

  She nodded gravely. ‘That’s what Mercy told him, and Becca said he should leave the poor lass alone – that’s you – because he’d only love you and leave you, like all his other girlfriends.’

  ‘If that’s what even his family think of him, it’s just as well I didn’t take him seriously, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘And I’m not his girlfriend – I’ve only met him twice, once in the pub when he introduced himself, and then later the same day when he gave me a lift home from the village after I hurt my ankle.’

  ‘It’s because you’re so beautiful,’ she said, and I laughed.

  ‘No one could possibly call me beautiful! My nose and mouth are both too big, and short of shaving my eyebrows off and drawing them in with a pencil, there’s no way they’re ever going to arch.’

  ‘You are,’ she insisted, and then appealed to Mercy, who was just coming into the kitchen, for support.

  ‘Of course she is – and a kind and loving heart lends loveliness to every human vessel, so we’re all beautiful in the sight of God.’

  I felt like a ship – a brightly lit one – heading straight for a Randal-shaped iceberg.

  Mercy’s natural energy and impatience to get on with things led her to decide that she wouldn’t wait for the planning permission before starting to remodel the interior of the mill.

  ‘After all,’ she said, ‘it belongs to me and it isn’t a listed building, so I may do what I like with it. We’ll start by dividing up the mill floor and upgrading the toilet facilities off the lobby.’

  Then she handed me a long list of bathroom fitters, builders and the like to ring up. I think she must have been surfing the web for hours in the night. ‘We want as many estimates as possible before we pick the firms to do the work,’ she told me. ‘And warn Arlene that tradesmen will be coming in to do them.’

  That took a large chunk of the Monday morning, but I got back to my stockroom sorting as soon as I could and, over the next few days, discovered that having Liz at home was a huge advantage. She threw herself with Mercy-like enthusiasm not only into helping me, but also into the office with Arlene, poring over the internet for unusual cracker fillers and thinking up new corny jokes, which she proved surprisingly good at.

  It fell to Mercy’s lot to show around any officials, like the people from the planning department, but Arlene deputed Liz to deal with the hordes of tradesmen who descended on us and soon Mercy had handfuls of quotes from which to take her pick.

  She didn’t drag her feet, either, and the initial work was to start right after the Easter break.

  Liz and Mercy were out quite a bit over the Easter weekend and spent Saturday visiting Malawian friends who were staying in Liverpool.

  They invited me, but I said I was otherwise engaged – which I was, first trimming my fringe and then soaking myself in the huge claw-footed bath upstairs. By then I was totally accustomed to the naff plastic bracelet that warmly clasped my ankle like a strange parasite, but I could never quite forget it was there. I hoped it might drown in the bath and drop off, but it must have been able to breathe underwater.

  When I’d soaked myself scented and crinkly, I indulged in a bit more me-time, playing with Pye, chatting on the phone with Emma and working on my pictures.

  My table was set in front of the window and from time to time I looked up from my work and caught a glimpse of Bradley, bent double in the garden. He appeared to be trimming the box hedges round the knots with a pair of very small scissors.

  Pye was sitting on the end of the table watching him too, and after a while his curiosity got the better of him and he went out to investigate. I spotted him a few moments later, pacing up and down behind Bradley and pulling silent faces, like a ham actor.

  Whenever an unnerved-looking Bradley glanced over his shoulder, Pye stopped still and looked innocent.

  Mercy and Liz returned in good time for dinner, which was a huge homemade shepherd’s pie from the freezer that just needed heating up, and vegetables that I’d prepared ready.

  There had been no sign of Silas all day, but he shuffled into the kitchen in his scuffed leather slippers the moment the delicious smell of cooking wafted from the kitchens.

  ‘I’m going Pace-egging in Little Mumming tomorrow afternoon,’ Liz told me, passing the vegetables. ‘Do you want to come? It’s not just for children; everyone does it. Jess said she might be there.’

  ‘Pace-egging?’ I echoed.

  ‘Yes, it’s an old British tradition. You hard-boil eggs and roll them down a hill, and the first one to the bottom is the winner. You have to dye your eggs, or mark them with your name, so you know which is which.’

  A thought struck me. ‘Will Guy Martland be there, by any chance?’

  ‘Oh, no, he had to go back to London early this morning, didn’t I say?’ Liz said. ‘That’s why he sent you the message.’

  ‘In that case, I’d like to come,’ I said. ‘We could walk up – I was thinking of doing that anyway, if the weather is nice. We’d better boil our eggs tonight, I suppose.’

  ‘When I was a little girl, I seem to recall that we used to wrap the eggs in onion skins tied on with cotton thread before we boiled them, to make them go golden yellow,’ Mercy said. ‘And goodness knows, we have more than enough onions, since Freda seems to be under the impression that I live on them when I’m home.’

  ‘I only like them with lamb’s liver, fried till they’re just a little bit crispy at the edges,’ Silas said, distracted from chasing the last bit of cottage pie round his plate.

  ‘We were talking about using them to colour boiled eggs, Silas, for the Pace-egging,’ Mercy told him.

  ‘We’ll give it a try,’ I said. ‘I’ve got marker pens that should stay on the shell, too.’

  Luckily the box of mixed free-range eggs contained some white ones, which we thought would take the dye better. We wrapped four in onion skins after we’d finished dinner and boiled them and they did indeed come out quite yellow.

  We left them to go cold and I said I’d put them in the fridge when I went to bed.

  ‘But I’d better make sure they’re in a different place from the others, or Job might give one to Silas in the morning for breakfast,’ I said with a grin. ‘It would be as hard as rubber and he does seem to like them soft boiled.’

  Liz giggled. ‘You should give him one on April the
first,’ she suggested, and Mercy, who was making coffee to take through to the drawing room, smiled indulgently at us both and said it was lovely to hear laughter in the house again.

  Liz was duly presented with her large chocolate egg the following morning after she, Mercy and Silas had returned from the meeting and she said she would break it up and share it out after dinner, to avoid getting the zits to end all zits. I don’t think I’d been that generous with my chocolate, even at sixteen.

  Then later we decorated our golden boiled eggs with black marker pens, mine striped and Liz’s like leopard spots, before walking up to Little Mumming.

  The Pace-egging races were held on a slope near the back of the Auld Christmas and everyone seemed to take it very seriously. We didn’t win, but I have to admit it was fun.

  Liz introduced me to Jess Martland, who was a tall, skinny teenager with black hair, but there were also lots of people there that I recognised from the Auld Christmas, or the village shop when Mercy sent me on errands.

  ‘Look at Aunt Becca go!’ Jess said admiringly – and go she did, despite her age, bounding down the hill after her Pace-egg like a mountain goat.

  ‘There are loads more oldies in the village who aren’t here, but most of them don’t come out till spring. They’re hibernating,’ Jess said. Then she added, qualifying that statement, ‘Well, they come out for the Revels after Christmas, but then they have braziers and rugs and wassail to keep their insides warm.’

  ‘Wassail?’ Liz asked.

  ‘Hot spiced toddy. Jude says I’m not allowed it yet,’ Jess said darkly, and I could see this was a sore topic.

  ‘I haven’t even seen the Revels yet,’ Liz said regretfully. ‘Randal’s usually here for Christmas, but he’s gone by then and Grandmother won’t let me go up the track on my own in the evening. She and Silas say they would find it too chilly.’

  ‘It’s something to do with fertility anyway, according to my grandpa Noël, so they’re probably a bit past that,’ Jess told her. ‘He knows these things, because he’s written a whole book about the history and tradition of Christmas.’