‘Really?’ I said, interested. ‘Maybe we could stock that in our Christmas shop in the mill.’
‘Pace-egging is about fertility too. Oh, look,’ she added, ‘it’s the last race and this time it’s for everyone who’s still got an egg in one piece.’
‘That rules me out,’ I said, and if it was true that it was all about fertility, then I’m not sure that the way my egg exploded first time out of the starting gate boded very well.
Chapter 25: Going Spiral
Q:What do you get if you cross an elephant with a mouse?
A:Great big holes in your skirting board!
Next day, it being Easter Monday, the mill was shut and the workforce amusing themselves in their own various ways, but Liz and I decided to carry on clearing the stockrooms anyway.
I’d now moved into the second one and I think Liz thought I’d find treasures in there, which actually I did, all the time, only not the kind she hoped for.
I was methodically sorting the first row of shelves in the way I’d found worked best – one shelf at a time, starting at the top and moving downwards – but every so often, one of us couldn’t resist taking a lucky dip into the last room, which I don’t think anyone else had even looked into for at least half a century. We weren’t just moving back through the rooms as we worked, but back through time, too.
The cobwebs were phenomenal, like festoons of tattered, dirty lace curtains, so I hated to think how big the spiders might be …
Not bigger than Pye, Bing or Ginger, I hoped, who were usually hanging around hoping for a tasty tarantula snack.
I was the first to weaken today and discovered a whole pasteboard box of moulded papier mâché Father Christmas tree-toppers, with hand-painted robes and beards. Liz followed me in and found a hoard of glass tree ornaments shaped like bunches of purple grapes, lemons and oranges, of a type I’d never seen before. I put the Santa box back where I found it for the moment, but Liz wanted to take the baubles up to the house, so I just made a note of where they’d been found.
‘Grandmother lets me decorate the Christmas tree and there are lots of lovely old decorations,’ she said. ‘These should join them, because they’re very pretty.’
‘I think both the Santas and the glass baubles are late nineteenth century,’ I said. ‘The mill switched from cotton to making fancy goods well before that, but they weren’t producing crackers at first. They might have made the Santas themselves, but I don’t know what the glass ornaments are doing in here.’
‘Is late in the nineteenth century still Victorian? I forget,’ she asked.
‘I think so,’ I said, and then just at that moment Silas appeared, so we could show him our finds and ask him.
He’d commandeered Job to push him down in the wheelchair, so he could see how we were getting on and get some preliminary ideas about where the information boards and the display cabinets would go, so as to create a story.
‘I thought in this first room we could lead the visitors through the early days of the mill, when it was for cotton production, and also relate the history of the Marwood family, with their Quaker connections and interest in the welfare of their workforce,’ he said.
‘Yes, illustrated with some of those wonderful photographs you found and perhaps one or two mementoes of the family,’ I enthused.
‘Then there will be the decline in the cotton trade and the subsequent switch to the manufacture of fancy goods, leading eventually to Marwood’s Magical Crackers. The second room can then be dedicated to the history of the cracker itself and the various types of scraps and other ephemera the Marwoods also produced,’ he finished.
‘I thought a large glass case in the middle of the second room to display boxes of Marwood’s crackers through history would look good,’ I suggested. ‘I’ve just started finding wartime boxes now and I’m sure there are all kinds of weird and wonderful ones further back.’
‘When I first came to live here, they made at least twelve different varieties of cracker, priced to suit all pockets, from inexpensive to luxury special-edition ones,’ Job put in, his deeply mournful voice startling us, since I’m sure we’d all forgotten he was still there. ‘Of course, that was a long time ago now,’ he added lugubriously.
‘I expect Tabby’s already found samples of those in the first room, if you want to go on a nostalgia trip,’ said Liz, but he shook his head and told her it was always better to move forward.
‘Well, speaking of moving forward, Liz and I will push Silas back up the hill for lunch, Job, if you’d like to get off,’ I suggested, and he said he would, since in a rash moment he’d offered to drive Freda, Joy and Lillian to some huge shopping mall.
Dorrie was in Great Mumming, spending the weekend with Arlene and spoiling her grandchildren with a dragon’s hoard of gold-wrapped Easter eggs.
‘I hate those big shopping places, but I’ll sit in the car and read a good book,’ he intoned gloomily.
‘Have you got a good book?’ I asked, interested.
‘I’ve got a murder on the go: Death Comes to Pendle.’
‘Isn’t that Pemberley?’
‘No, you’re thinking of some other book,’ he said, and went off, leaving us to wheel Silas back up the hill. We were escorted by a trio of cats, though Bing and Ginger stopped on the mill side of the bridge. Pye leaped onto Silas’s lap for the last steep bit up to the house: he’s not stupid.
Mercy had made a stack of sandwiches and heated some soup, so we all lunched together, before going our separate ways for the rest of the day.
I had a papercut to finish and beams of golden sunshine were lying invitingly across my worktable. Out of my little sitting-room window I again caught glimpses of Bradley, trimming away with what looked like the same tiny pair of metal snippers. This time he was working on one of the four spiral bushes at the corners of a knot and it could be Christmas by the time he’d finished it.
Enjoyment comes in many strange forms.
The second that Easter was behind us, work started on the mill interior, with the main floor about to be partitioned off with the cracker factory on one side and the Christmas shop on the other.
And out in the foyer, the toilets were getting a total makeover, including turning a large walk-in windowless storage cupboard opposite the office into a disabled loo.
The ladies’ convenience was to be the first for revamping, and when Dorrie, Joy and Lillian heard that they would have to share the gents for at least a week, followed by the men having to share their toilets once they were completed, they voted as one woman to just go home when the call of nature struck.
Soon, whenever I emerged from the stockroom, there seemed to be people everywhere, walking round with notebooks, measuring, drilling, hammering, trundling wheelbarrows of broken tiles though the lobby to a skip outside …
As Mercy said cheerfully, it would have to get worse before it got better.
‘The sooner they’ve installed this screen with the glazed viewing windows down the middle of the mill floor, the better,’ Phil said.
‘Yes, at least that might shut us off from some of the rumpus,’ grumbled Bradley.
‘Just wait till they start building a café on the mezzanine floor and putting the lift in,’ I told them.
Then, that having really made me think about it, I went to find Mercy to tell her that when they made the café, they’d have to put a temporary ceiling of draped plastic sheeting over the cracker factory area, or the dust would get everywhere.
But this was just one of many things that cropped up as we went on, and as fast as Mercy crossed one thing off her list, twenty more took its place.
But she seemed to be positively thriving on the pressure; she was everywhere, the lights in her trainer heels sparkling firefly bright.
Liz had been such a huge help, as well as good company, that I was sorry to see her leave to spend the last few days of the holidays at her best friend Maisie’s house.
I was starting to suspect Maisie’s parents
were loaded, because when I asked Liz what they got up to there, she replied that there were dogs to walk, ponies to ride – though personally she’d much rather walk – an indoor swimming pool and tennis courts. Then she asked me to email her and keep her up to date with what was happening, before getting into the back of the car with Mercy. Job was driving them, wearing an incongruous peaked hat on his glossy, flat black hair.
Thunderbirds were go.
‘I had an email from dear Randal this morning,’ Mercy told me at breakfast next day. ‘Of course, I’ve been updating him with our progress at the mill, because even though he’s so far away, I still want him to feel involved. It’s a pity he couldn’t resign his job immediately, but I do understand that he feels he must first complete his current obligations.’
‘I bet he told you to keep an eye on me again,’ I said ruefully. ‘He really doesn’t trust me – in fact, he told me before he left to watch my step, because he was onto me!’
‘He’s got entirely the wrong idea of your character,’ she agreed. ‘But you’re quite right: he suggested I check the books, the petty cash in the office – not that we keep more than enough to buy stamps – and watch my handbag.’
‘I was prosecuted for fraud, not for being a common thief,’ I said indignantly. ‘And even if I had done it, why would he think I’d now be going in for a spot of petty larceny?’
‘Goodness knows. I don’t know what’s got into the boy. Perhaps you’ve just got off on the wrong foot. He was perhaps a little peeved that we changed his wonderful plans,’ she added indulgently.
‘Yes, I noticed that.’
‘But I reminded him that none of my workers has ever relapsed … or not totally. There may have been a little backsliding at first when temptation was too much, like the occasion Dorrie picked up a sales rep in a pub in Great Mumming. But Arlene was the result and, once she arrived, Dorrie put her past behind her and was a model mother.’
‘I can’t imagine Dorrie picking up men in pubs – she’s so dignified!’
‘I think she missed the bright lights of the city when she moved here – she was born and brought up in Liverpool, you know.’
‘She only has to open her mouth to make that clear,’ I said.
‘But as I say, once Arlene arrived she settled down, and of course she’d never have brought the man back to her cottage because my late husband was very clear that the terrace should only be occupied by married couples or single people, and they’ve respected that.’
Now I’d got to know the workers much better, I suspected that there had probably been some rather complicated flings in the cottages between Bradley, Phil (after he was widowed) and Dorrie, Lillian and Joy. But of course I didn’t say so, because now the occupants of Hope Terrace seemed to have settled into a tightly knit, if strange, community.
I reverted to the original subject, still feeling aggrieved. ‘I wasn’t part of the fake champagne scam and I certainly didn’t have an affair with my boss, but I don’t suppose Randal would believe me if I told him.’
‘I know you didn’t, for I’m a great judge of character, and so I told him,’ Mercy assured me.
‘You’re kinder to me than I deserve,’ I said.
‘But you’re such a good investment, dear,’ she said with a smile. ‘Only look how hard you work for your modest salary. And you have brilliant ideas.’
‘So does Arlene,’ I said. ‘Oh, I do hope it’s all a great success after this, or I’ll feel so guilty!’ I sighed.
‘There’s no reason why you should, since bringing you here was my doing. But I’m convinced it will be a big success and then you’ll be able to work full time on your lovely paper pictures instead.’
‘That would be my idea of heaven on earth,’ I said.
I’d decided which of the proposed workshops I’d like when the second phase of the redevelopment begun. It was a large, airy space with windows onto the woods at the back of the mill, directly under what would become the gallery.
‘Perhaps by then I can find a little cottage of my own to rent.’
‘I suppose one of the cottages in Hope Terrace might come free eventually, though we know that would mean a sad event, unless Dorrie decided to live with Arlene and her family,’ she said. ‘But you know that you’re very welcome to make your home with us for as long as you wish.’
Not if Randal has anything to do with it, I thought.
‘Where is Randal now?’ I asked. ‘Is he still in darkest Peru, pursuing the last, elusive and endangered Paddington Bears?’
She smiled. ‘You are so amusing, dear! And I’m afraid I entirely forgot to ask, so he may have arrived in Mexico, or wherever they were sending him next. I don’t know why he can’t travel from one country to the next in a logical manner, but no, they must send him hither and thither randomly.’
‘Random Randal,’ I said, but she didn’t hear me, having given in to Pye’s blandishments, and was busy presenting him with the last snippets of smoked salmon from her savoury scrambled eggs.
Guy had gone quiet for a couple of days and I thought he’d given up on me, but no, when I drove over to Great Mumming to collect a sewing machine for Mercy, a whole flurry of texts dropped into my message box.
He said he would be back in Little Mumming later that day and hoped I’d be in the Auld Christmas, but if he didn’t see me, he suggested he pick me up tomorrow morning. He didn’t say for what.
I was a little bit flattered by his refusal to take no for an answer, but that’s what I sent him again, though wrapped up politely.
‘Sorry – I’ll be otherwise engaged this weekend,’ I texted.
And I was otherwise engaged, too: I had a lovely morning with Pye and my art work, then walked up the track through the woods to the Auld Christmas for lunch with Lillian and a couple of the others. She told me Guy had been in briefly the evening before, looking for me and I wasn’t altogether surprised when he turned up now.
‘The elusive Tabitha Coombs,’ he said, bringing his drink over. ‘You said you were doing something today?’
I laid my knife and fork neatly on the empty plate – another Nancy special had hit the spot – and said, ‘I am doing something, as you see.’
‘I meant to come over to Mote Farm earlier and winkle you out, but my brother’s cutting up rough. He’s gone all Patriarch of the Family and says he’s tired of me treating Old Place like a hotel, and if I’m not there for the Gathering of the Ancients at lunch, I can kiss my weekends in Little Mumming goodbye.’
‘Then shouldn’t you be there and not here?’ I asked.
‘I made a temporary escape by offering to collect the old family nanny and the retired vicar from the almshouses over the road,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to go and get them in a minute, or Old Nan will be getting agitated. Henry doesn’t know what day of the week it is most of the time, so he’ll have forgotten he’s going.’
‘Then you’d better get off. Have a nice lunch – mine was wonderful and I’ve just ordered dessert,’ I said brightly.
‘I suppose I had better go,’ he said, looking at me in a dissatisfied kind of way. Then he leaned close. ‘But listen, I’ve got an idea: I’ll tell them I’ve got to leave earlier this afternoon than I thought I would, and then I can pick you up and we can go somewhere quiet away from here, where we can get to know each other better. I’ve been thinking about you ever since we met.’
His aftershave was intoxicating and his handsome face only inches from mine, his dark eyes intent … but on what? I strongly suspected the chase was the excitement and the more disinterested I seemed, the keener he was.
I mean, I might float some men’s boats, but I was hardly the face that launched a thousand ships.
‘No, thanks,’ I said resolutely, and he looked at me in a baffled sort of way, before putting down his empty glass and getting up to go.
‘Well, I do love the thrill of the chase,’ he said, confirming my fears. ‘One day I’ll get you on your own,’ he added, with a fetching
smile.
‘I think we know what he wants to do with you if he does,’ Joy remarked primly as we watched him go.
‘Tempting, isn’t he?’ Lillian said with a grin. She was sitting next to me and, like Joy, had been eavesdropping shamelessly. ‘Pulled out all the stops for you.’
‘He might have done, but I’m convinced he’d lose interest five minutes after I said yes,’ I said.
‘Funny you should say that, because he’s got past form. He sneaked off with his brother’s fiancée a few Christmases ago and then he dumped her after they got engaged.’
‘I’m surprised his brother still has him in the house then!’
‘After Jude met his wife, I think he felt grateful he hadn’t married the other girl,’ Joy said.
Chapter 26: Lukewarm
Q:How do snowmen get around?
A:They ride icicles.
On Monday I worked on for an hour or so after the others had left, letting myself out of the empty building around five and locking the door carefully after me. I was certain Randal would have been horrified to know I had a key – but then, he probably didn’t realise that practically everyone else had one, too!
I supposed eventually security would be tightened and new locks and burglar alarms installed, but for the moment, no one was likely to break into the mill to steal a carton of crackers.
Pye had been with me earlier but had long since gone back to the house, probably hoping it would be smoked salmon sandwiches again for tea, though never having been used to regularly eating halfway through the afternoon, on the whole I’d rather save space for my dinner.
The late afternoon shadows cast by the hill lay in darkest-violet pools over the valley as I walked down to the road to stretch my legs, get some air and check my phone, though I didn’t expect anything except junk calls … including Guy’s.
I headed for a big, rectangular block of smooth grey stone a little way along, half sunk into the grassy verge, which was handy to sit on. I didn’t know what it was doing there, unless it had fallen off a passing wagon years ago, and they couldn’t lift it back.
A Christmas Cracker Page 17
