A Christmas Cracker

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘We like the little doggy, don’t we, Pye?’ Mercy said, dividing a bacon rind between them impartially.

  Pye gave one of his lost soul yowls, so I don’t think he was in entire agreement.

  ‘This place has become a madhouse,’ Randal muttered.

  I went to the Friends’ Meeting that morning with Mercy, Silas, Job and Freda.

  Randal and Lacey were driving up to Old Place before lunch to see Jude’s studio – he was quite a well known sculptor – so Job dropped Silas and Mercy off there on our way back.

  Mote Farm was wonderfully empty and quiet, apart from Pye and Pugsie, who’d been abandoned again.

  I had a tuna sandwich for lunch, blandished into sharing some of it with Pye and Pugsie, but then a strangely restless feeling came over me and instead of working on my picture, I decided to go down to the factory and undercoat the second museum room.

  Pye and Pugsie elected to come with me and Bing and Ginger appeared soon after we got there, but after a while watching paint dry must have palled on the two factory cats, who vanished again.

  I was getting on well, singing quietly and whizzing the paint roller up and down the second wall, when a light, attractive male voice called, ‘Tabby! Where are you?’

  My heart sank into my Converse trainers, though I supposed it served me right for not locking the door behind me when I came in. But Phil and Bradley had been out by the garages, tinkering with bits of engine, so there hadn’t seemed any need.

  Guy popped his head into the doorway of the further room and spotted me through the archway. ‘There you are! I thought you said you were going to paint pictures, not walls?’

  ‘I don’t paint pictures, I do papercuts, and I wasn’t in the mood, so I thought I’d get on with this. These two rooms are going to be a museum about the family and cracker making, and I’m dying to get it finished so we can start to set it all out.’

  ‘Fascinating!’ he said, coming through and smiling at me, as if sure of his welcome.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, laying the wet brush down across the top of the tin. ‘I thought you’d still be having lunch at Old Place.’

  ‘I’ve had it, but I left them before they got to the coffee stage and now I’m on my way back to London.’

  ‘Well, don’t let me keep you,’ I told him.

  ‘Ah, but I didn’t have to leave for London early, it was a cunning ruse to get a bit of time on my own with you,’ he said, coming closer and then suddenly putting his arms around me.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ I demanded, and I’d have stepped back, except then I’d have been stuck to the wet wall like a bluebottle on flypaper. ‘Let go, Guy!’

  ‘But you look so cute with paint on your nose,’ he said, smiling down at me. ‘Mercy’s just told me you’re her Girl Friday, too – and a girl who’ll do anything she’s asked to is truly irresistible.’

  He closed in for a kiss, but I pushed him away with more force than tact. ‘Anything my employer wants.’

  ‘How about anything I want,’ he said huskily, undeterred. ‘You’re driving me mad and I don’t think you even realise how attractive you are.’

  ‘Oh, I do – I’m Mona Lisa and Marilyn Monroe all rolled into one,’ I said sarcastically, ducking another attempted kiss, so that it fell on my cheek instead. ‘Now, would you mind letting go of me? I want to get on.’

  ‘Why don’t you wash that paint off and come out with me for a couple of hours, instead?’ he suggested. ‘I know a nice, quiet out-of-the-way motel—’

  ‘Motel?’ I repeated, wondering if I’d heard him right – or even if I’d somehow managed to give him the impression I was that cheap!

  ‘Yes, somewhere we can really get to know each other.’ He gave me that confident smile.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Guy – no means no,’ I snapped and was just contemplating a spot of violence to release myself, when Pye solved the problem by sauntering over and deliberately swiping his claws into Guy’s leg.

  He yelled and this excited Pugsie so much that he joined in, too, darting at Guy’s ankles and nipping them sharply.

  Guy backed away, trying to fend him off. ‘What the hell …?’ he began angrily.

  ‘That’s Lacey’s pug,’ I told him, grinning. ‘Good boy, Pugsie! And thank you, Pye,’ I added. ‘Nice claw-work!’

  ‘Mrrow,’ said Pye, then fluffing himself up to the size of a panther, he began to stalk after Guy, his odd eyes fixed on him in his most unnerving manner.

  Guy picked up the broom that was leaning against the wall and prepared to defend himself.

  ‘If you hurt my cat, I’ll kill you,’ I warned him seriously.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt either of them, I just wanted to protect myself,’ he protested. Then his eye fell on Ginger and Bing, who had now joined the others and he added nervously, ‘Why are all the cats staring at me like that?’

  ‘They think you’re funny.’

  ‘There’s nothing funny about having your ankle ripped open by a monster cat!’

  ‘Serves you right,’ said Dorrie, and he swung round.

  ‘How long have you been there?’

  ‘Since the cat took a swing at you and I reckon you probably deserved it, luv,’ she said. ‘Tabby’s a nice girl, not the sort you can mess with. That fool Phil shouldn’t have told you she was in here on her own, but as soon as he let me know, I came right over.’

  ‘Thank you, but I was all right, I can take care of myself,’ I said.

  ‘God, anyone would think I wanted to rape the woman, not take her out for a drink and get to know her better,’ he said furiously.

  Then he pulled up his trouser leg to reveal he was bleeding from deep claw marks, though Pugsie’s little teeth didn’t appear to have left a lasting impression.

  ‘Bloody hell, I’ve been savaged!’ he said, before rolling the trouser leg back down and regaining his temper with an obvious effort.

  ‘Look, Tabby, I apologise, though I’m not sure exactly what for,’ he said.

  ‘And I’m sorry you got clawed, though it was your own fault,’ I told him. ‘Let me see you out.’

  ‘If you can keep this menagerie in here with you, I’ll see myself out,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Persistent, he is, but he’ll be back, sniffing around, mark my words,’ Dorrie remarked when he’d gone.

  He’d spurned my offer to get the disinfectant from the first aid box and clean his wounds, so I hoped he didn’t get blood poisoning.

  I gave up on the painting after that and went back up to the house, and while Pugsie snored on my sitting-room hearth rug and Pye drowsed in his fur igloo, I began a papercut of Sleeping Beauty, a favourite theme.

  This time she’d be tangled up on an island, surrounded by a shark-infested moat …

  It was not an image likely to appeal to the greetings card market.

  I worked on until Mercy tapped on the door when Randal and Lacey were about to leave, in search of Pugsie, though the little dog seemed more than reluctant to go.

  When we’d waved the car off we had afternoon tea, just the three of us again – four if you counted Pye. Bliss.

  Chapter 37: An Absolute Cracker

  Q:What does the word minimum mean?

  A:A very small mother!

  Next day I received a bunch of velvety red roses, accompanied by a heart-shaped box of chocolates, which arrived at the house by courier.

  They proved to be an expensive apology from Guy, though I was still unsure that he’d grasped quite what he’d done wrong.

  The card said, ‘Roses red and chocolates too – see, I really do love you!’

  Mercy, who didn’t know about our little tussle in the mill, was amused and started referring to Guy as ‘your admirer,’ though she also cautioned me that, joking aside, he had not always proved to be constant in his affections.

  ‘I know, everyone keeps telling me about the time he ran off with his brother’s fiancée, so I’m not taking him seriously.’


  ‘I’m relieved to hear it … though I suppose even a leopard may change his spots, and this time he might be sincere,’ she suggested, revealing herself to be a true romantic at heart.

  ‘It would take more than a bunch of flowers, a box of chocolates and a bit of bad verse to convince me of that,’ I told her. ‘Even if I wanted to be convinced, which I don’t.’

  Nor did I like the idea that Lacey and Guy appeared to have been a lot closer acquainted previously than she’d let on to Randal and Mercy …

  However, sheer good manners made me walk down to the road later so I could text Guy and thank him for his gift. I added that I hoped his scratches had healed, but since I received a flurry of messages back, he evidently hadn’t died of blood poisoning, so I deleted them unread.

  I sent him one final one, saying that I expected I’d see him around, Little Mumming being a small place. (Though not, of course, if I saw him coming first.)

  Then I went back and ate the chocolates.

  During the ensuing days I found myself missing Pugsie, but not Randal, with his habit of glowering suspiciously at me, as if I might pop the family silver into my pocket if he didn’t keep an eye on me.

  Mercy told me he was returning briefly on his own the following week, before he jetted off to Vietnam, or wherever it was that was next on his schedule, so they could go and talk to the accountants and solicitors and get things onto a legal footing.

  ‘We must make some decisions about the café design and installation, too, in case he’s abroad when planning permission is passed,’ she added.

  ‘He was looking at the plans and drawings for the café in the kitchen, the evening before he left,’ I said.

  ‘Since he’s going to invest some of his own money in the redevelopment, then it’s only right that he becomes a director. His moving to Mote Farm and managing the mill will be exactly what my husband would have wanted.’

  Then she looked pensive. ‘There’s just the question of the location of Lacey’s business to be resolved … but I’m praying about it and eventually I’m sure the way forward will become clear to all of us.’

  I only hoped she was right.

  Tons of gravel were delivered, tipped out with a loud, swooshing susurration of sound and then spread all over the newly extended car park, which had been edged with a split timber border to retain it.

  The procedure produced clouds of dust, but the result looked very good. The three garages near the terrace were screened off with a trellis fence, so that in their free time Bradley and Phil could take their engines to pieces without an audience.

  Everything still seemed chaotic inside the mill, but at least the finishing touches had been put to the newly revamped loos, including the sort of driers that blow your skin back like wrinkled gloves, though as Dorrie pointed out, most of them already had hands that looked like that.

  After lots of trials and discussions, the designs for the first new ranges of crackers were decided, a rather more ambitious start than we’d at first envisaged. But the orders for the materials has gone off, so the die has been cast in more ways than one.

  The chosen cracker designs were: Marwood’s Luxury Victoriana, in a retro box based on one from the stockroom, containing gold and silver crowns and quality gifts; Marwood’s Magical, a revamped version of the existing ones, with simple magic tricks, plus a magic wand in every box; Marwood’s Motoring (Bradley and Job came up with this idea) with wind-up thirties-style plastic racing cars, a fold-out racing course and a chequered flag – and then, the favourite among the workers, Marwood’s Musical Crackers, filled with miniature mouth organs, ocarinas, kazoos and penny whistles.

  There were also two kinds of small foil tree crackers, one brightly coloured and designed for children, filled with plastic toys like jumping frogs and monkeys that could hook onto things by one hand, while the adult one came in sophisticated silver and black and contained phone charms.

  The stockroom was filling with cartons of the old design, so that there would be enough to fulfil all the current orders, but no more were being taken. There was a nervous sense of being on the edge of a venture that could sink or swim …

  ‘I expect we’ll sell less to some outlets, who like cheap and cheerful, but a lot more to those who are looking for something luxurious and a bit different,’ I said encouragingly one day to the others, when I’d just made a totally perfect cracker in under five minutes for the first time.

  ‘Even when money’s been tight, people have still pushed the boat out with their Christmas crackers, going by the old catalogues I found in the stockroom,’ I added.

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, dear,’ Mercy agreed, stopping by my bench and examining my latest cracker with an expert eye.

  ‘She’d better be,’ Bradley said gloomily.

  ‘Of course she’s right,’ Lillian told him. ‘You can see how much prettier and more interesting all these new designs are, and it’s not like they’re more difficult to make, is it? Anyway, I like a bit of variety; those cheap ones are monotonous.’

  ‘Lillian’s right, a cracker’s a cracker,’ agreed Joy. ‘Outer paper, cardboard tube, hat, novelty, snap and joke: roll them up, glue, tie, embellish, put them in a box – Bob’s your uncle.’

  It wasn’t actually that simple – I’d got in a sticky mess with the glue gun several times while learning, and tying up the ends neatly was the really tricky bit, but all the others could do it in their sleep.

  ‘I think they’ll take off like a rocket and we’ll end up having to hire extra staff,’ predicted Arlene.

  ‘It’s possible, especially if we start to develop crackers for wedding favours and other celebrations eventually,’ I agreed. ‘But first things first!’

  I went to another Quaker meeting with Silas and Mercy and I’m getting better at emptying my mind and waiting for something more than inspiration for a papercut to fill it.

  And afterwards, I went up to Old Place with them for lunch, because Holly Martland rang me and said Mercy had told them all about my wonderful papercuts and they’d love to meet me.

  I’d assumed they’d just included me in the general invitation before from kindness, or maybe prompting from Mercy, but now it seemed they really did want me to go. Mind you, I still wouldn’t have, except that I knew Guy wasn’t coming up this weekend.

  At first sight, there seemed to be dozens of people at Old Place, which was a large and interesting house. Some looked slightly familiar, like Jude, Holly and Becca, but I was also introduced to Noël and Tilda from the lodge, and Old Nan and Henry, the retired vicar of the parish, who lived in the almshouses.

  Then there was the baby, whose name was Hereward, but who was called Herrie. He was plump and very amicable, and was passed around the table like a parcel at a party, but without being unwrapped.

  When he got to Old Nan she cooed over him and was reluctant to part with him again, even to eat her dinner. Afterwards, she said I was a bonnie lass, and almost tall and dark enough to be a Martland, which I took as a compliment.

  Jude talked to me with interest about my papercuts and said I must go and see his studio, which was in a converted grain mill behind the lodge, and I told him how Mercy had promised me the workshop of my choice when they developed the studios at the mill.

  I helped Holly carry out some coffee cups to the kitchen, where she said that Guy had mentioned he’d met me and then proceeded to give me the usual warning about his tricky little ways.

  I was starting to think they could save themselves a lot of time and trouble by simply sticking a large sign on his back saying, ‘Untrustworthy in Relationships’.

  Anyway, her words were kindly meant, so I assured her I’d just come out of a disastrous engagement and the only thing I intended engaging in at the moment was my own work and helping Mercy make the mill a huge success.

  While the cracker making was shut down for the May Bank Holiday, Mercy called in the professionals and had the workshop area freshly repainted in white and the
grime of years cleaned from the long windows.

  I popped in to see how it was looking on the Monday, while on my way for a walk up to Little Mumming, and found it finished, and Bradley and Phil pushing the racks of drawers and shelves back against the walls.

  There was still an opaque ceiling of plastic sheeting overhead, which made it feel a bit like being in a cocoon, but I supposed that would have to stay to protect the workshop until the mezzanine floor had been completed.

  When I got up to the village I sat and drew the church, the small row of quaint almshouses and the old humpbacked bridge over the rushing stream, then I had a cheese toastie for lunch in the Merry Kettle, before heading up to the top of Snowehill.

  I remembered to turn my phone on when I was halfway there and found a couple of brief messages from Emma, saying things were OK and she would catch up with me after Des had left again. I also had a few missed calls from Luke Dee.

  I wished my past would stay past and they’d all now leave me alone, but he rang yet again while I was sitting on the edge of the stone monument, eating a Mars bar and admiring the view down to Great Mumming on the other side.

  ‘Hi, Luke,’ I said with a weary sigh. ‘What is it this time?’

  But, of course, I’d half guessed already: he’d finally twigged that Kate was not actually living in Jeremy’s granny flat, but in the house, and they were having a full-blown affair. I was only surprised he hadn’t realised what was happening sooner, but he was such a dim bulb that I suspected that even now Kate had arranged the accidental disclosure, because she’d decided Jeremy was a better marital prospect.

  ‘I went over there to beg her to come home, but there was no answer from the flat or the house, so I went round the back to see if Jeremy was in the garden … and there they were, just the other side of the French doors, at it like rabbits!’

  ‘Thank you for putting that graphic image into my head,’ I said. ‘But that doorbell didn’t always ring, because the wiring was faulty.’

  ‘You don’t sound shocked?’