Wedding Tiers

by Trisha Ashley

  Of course I lost Noah instantly, because he was off taking photographs, but I joined forces with Hebe Winter and Dorrie, who were also guests, having got to know Freddie through the Women’s Institute meetings. They said they’d come straight on from the annual Christmas Eve morning bash at Winter’s End, which is apparently quite an event. Hebe was her usual tall, hawk-nosed, dignified self, but Dorrie’s best beret was tipped over one eye and her cheeks were flushed, so I suspected she’d been at the festive punch.

  However cynical about love I might have become, I have to admit that Freddie, her healthy outdoors complexion innocent of any makeup apart from a dusting of powder and a dab of soft pink lipstick, looked absolutely glowing in a cream silk shantung suit. Her colonel, silver-haired, handsome and upright in neat tailoring and a regimental tie, beamed on her with fond and proud eyes.

  Afterwards we all repaired back to the Ponderosa Kennels, where there was much sherry and a buffet of tiny pork pies, triangular sandwiches and vol-au-vents filled either with scrambled egg or what looked suspiciously like undiluted condensed mushroom soup.

  The Cavalier cake stood on a table of its own and Noah photographed the happy couple cutting it. It was much admired and all the kennel maids wanted a slice with a spaniel sitting on it, which I noticed they wrapped up in paper napkins to keep, before eating the rest of the cake.

  You never knew where Noah and his Leica would turn up next—or from what angle you would suddenly find yourself being snapped, a sagging vol-au-vent halfway to your mouth—but his antics seemed to amuse the guests rather than annoy them. In fact, I barely spoke to him until late in the proceedings, by which time I had managed, without any effort at all, to click with a good-looking young farmer. It’s amazing what a few new clothes and a bit of slap can do…and maybe just a smidgen of confidence in your powers of attraction.

  Maybe Libby was right about using some of the money I was making on augmenting my wardrobe and updating my makeup.

  Anyway, I was just getting the hang of flirting when Noah broke abruptly into the conversation and dragged me off to Neatslake, saying we would be late for dinner! He meant he would be late for dinner, for despite Libby showering me with invitations over the Christmas period, I’d accepted only the one to go to tea on Boxing Day. Dorrie accepted a lift back with us, since it would save Hebe driving her home, and sat in the back, flushed with sherry and goodwill, quietly singing something jolly and repetitive in French.

  ‘It’s still quite early; I don’t know what the rush is,’ I complained to Noah.

  ‘Sorry if I dragged you away from your latest conquest,’ he said shortly, ‘but if you didn’t manage to exchange phone numbers, I expect Freddie can help put you in touch.’

  I turned my head and looked at him in astonishment. ‘Don’t be silly. He must be at least ten years younger than me, even if I was seriously interested—which I’m not. And neither was he. It was just a bit of a flirt!’

  ‘Like Rob Rafferty?’

  ‘Well…yes, I suppose so, though since I explained to Rob about having just broken up with Ben, he said he’s happy just to be friends.’

  ‘I bet he is,’ Noah said darkly. ‘Good tactics.’

  I laughed. ‘After he dropped into the cottage and tasted my scones and cakes, he’s now much more interested in my baking skills than me personally! And that’s fine by me, because I don’t want any more than that. I keep telling you—I’m done with love. Love sucks’

  That last bit came out very forcefully—I must have drunk more dry sherry than I’d realised.

  Noah’s face, which had been fixed into a frown as he stared ahead over the steering wheel, relaxed into a grin. ‘Down with love?’

  ‘Long live love!’ suddenly chimed in Dorrie from the back seat, stopping singing for a moment. ‘Vive l’amour!’

  ‘Quite right,’ Noah said, pulling up outside my cottage. ‘I’m all for it.’ He told me to wait while he got something out of the boot, then handed me a large, flat, gift-wrapped parcel, kissed me chastely on the cheek and departed. It was just as well I’d left a last-minute present for him at Blessings, when I dropped off Libby’s gifts!

  In my absence Harry had been in the cottage and left a large gift under the tree too, so what with Libby’s presents and those from the Graces, Dorrie, Pia and even Gina, there was quite an exciting-looking array of them. There must be still a lot of the child in me because I adore getting presents and, despite Ben’s absence, could hardly wait for morning!

  After all that rather odd party food I wasn’t terribly hungry, but I prepared the sprouts ready for next day and put the whipped cream on the sherry trifle, which Harry is very partial to, and decorated it with little edible silver balls and hundreds and thousands.

  Then I watched some mindless telly before going to bed on a great, comforting wave of elderberry 2005. On top of all that sherry, it certainly did the trick, and even if Santa had got stuck in the chimney, I would have slept right through it.

  I was up early on Christmas morning, but not as early as Harry, who I could hear outside whistling ‘I Saw Three Ships’ as he fed the hens.

  I made porridge with nutmeg and honey, the way I like it, then put on my Christmas music CD before allowing myself to open my presents, sitting on the floor by the stove in the living room, a cup of coffee on top to keep hot. Thanks to Noah there was a whole basket of firewood ready nearby; I didn’t have to stint.

  With a feeling of gratitude I opened his gift first. As I’d guessed it might be from the shape, it was a nicely framed photograph of me at Libby’s wedding. I remembered him taking it, on the steps when I had just come out into the sunshine. Unlike the ones of me with Aggie, this was in colour. My eyes were wide open and startled and the wintry sun had made my dark auburn hair glow like a dark flame. I looked startled and half poised for flight, the heavy dress swirling out at the hem.

  I hadn’t realised I could look like that. It was odd, like seeing a stranger.

  Setting it down carefully on top of the sideboard, I started opening the rest. I loved everything: Pansy’s crocheted shrug with the bobbly buttons, Violet’s jam jar string container, Lily’s patchwork holdall and the tiny hanging cupboard with a fretwork top and little drawer underneath that Harry had made.

  Dorrie had given me a bar of rose soap with petals pressed into it, which I think she got from Hebe—she makes a lot of that kind of thing to sell in the Winter’s End gift shop when the house is open to the public. Libby and Tim’s gift (though I would be surprised if Tim had any idea what he had given me) was a gardener’s radio shaped like a watering can, and Gina’s a big box of those crunchy amaretti biscuits, which might be a bit like coals to Newcastle when I bake so much myself, but I expect she noticed how many of them I ate when I was at Blessings!

  Harry and I had a very cheerful chicken dinner with all the trimmings, neither of us mentioning Ben’s empty chair at the end of the table, or past Christmases. One of his jobs had always been to carve the chicken, but this year I did it myself, not trusting Harry’s eyesight with a sharp carving knife.

  Under the table, Mac noisily chewed on the rawhide bone that had been in his doggy stocking. Harry was wearing his minesweeping medal pinned onto the warm jumper I’d got Pansy to knit for him, and she’d made him matching socks from an excess of the same wool.

  After we’d eaten ourselves practically into a stupor, he went off back home for a snooze and to follow his usual Christmas afternoon habit of telly and snacking before the fire, while Mac and I set out for a walk.

  It was a grey, cold day, with the lights already on in several of the houses and not many people about. I walked quite a long way with Mac, feeling solitary but not lonely, as if I’d suddenly reached a poignant but tranquil place.

  Noah had been around in my absence and pushed a sprig of mistletoe through the door with a note saying, ‘Consider yourself virtually kissed!’ And when I went round to take Mac home and lock the hens up, so Harry didn’t have to go out into the c
old again, there was another big basket of chopped firewood by the back door and a new heap in the woodshed.

  When I phoned Libs up to wish her happy Christmas, I asked her to thank him.

  Boxing Day was pretty much a repeat of the day before, in that Harry and I ate a huge lunch and then he retired to his house, while Mac and I tried to walk off the excess calories.

  But in the afternoon I went up to Blessings for tea. Harry was invited too, but instead went to see the widow of his friend Bob, and said he would have his dinner at the Griffin later—they do a good meat and potato pie there, with mushy peas and gravy—then have an early night in with the telly.

  At Blessings everyone was gathered in the Great Chamber, including Dorrie and Noah. Pia had just been dropped off by Jasper and was actually wearing her rainbow jumper, hat, scarf and mittens so that it seemed my birthday and Christmas presents had been a resounding success.

  I’d given Libby a knitted French poodle toilet roll cover in Lurex-spangled white yarn, so she could start her own collection (whether she liked it or not), and all the menfolk rum and raisin fudge I’d made at the last minute, plus a long narrow striped scarf apiece—a muted, manly version of Pia’s. Luckily Pansy knits them one after the other on automatic pilot when she’s watching telly, so always has a good stock to hand.

  When Gina came in, she said my wine and petits fours were just what she needed, now her family were here and eating her out of house and home, and I thanked her for the amaretti biscuits (most of which I had already eaten; I was sure I would have regained all my lost weight by New Year!).

  We all ended up playing board games, because there’s something about Christmas that seems to make you want to, though perhaps it’s just having the leisure to do that kind of thing. I’m not bad at Scrabble and Cluedo, but with Monopoly I always buy the colours I like best, so that I’m either a resounding winner or, more often, lose my shirt. It was all fun, anyway, right up to the moment, over the Earl Grey and Christmas cake, when Libby dropped a bombshell.

  ‘Noah’s going to rent the gatehouse for a few months,’ she said, pouring tea from a large, flowery pot. ‘His next exhibition will be photographs of wedding receptions, so he’s going to be taking pictures at most of the Blessings ones—and he’s going to include one or two he took at ours as well.’

  ‘And Freddie’s,’ he put in. ‘I think I got some good ones there.’

  I turned and stared at him. ‘You’re going to live in Neatslake?’

  ‘Well, I’ll be going up and down a bit to my studio in London during the week,’ he said. ‘I’ll divide my time.’

  He sounded just like Ben, with one foot in the country, and one in the metropolis. I think I was probably scowling, because he added, ‘But I won’t if you hate the idea, Josie!’

  ‘You’ve no objection, really, have you, Josie?’ Tim looked surprised, as well he might.

  ‘Me? Not at all—why should I? The people in your photographs might, though, Noah. Some of your angles are not exactly flattering.’

  ‘Oh, no, they’ll be so made up that the great Noah Sephton is going to photograph them that they’ll sign a disclaimer,’ Libby said. ‘Or most of them will, anyway.’

  Noah smiled modestly at me, which for some reason made me feel like hitting him over the head with the Monopoly board…

  ‘What’s more, he’s going to update the gatehouse a bit at his own expense,’ Tim put in, ‘have a shower put in, and so on. It’s a bit basic right now, to say the least.’

  Noah shrugged. ‘I like to be comfortable and, who knows, if I like living here enough I might take out a long lease on it, if you’ll let me. I intend moving in sometime in March, just before Old Barn Receptions is launched. I want to be here from the first!’

  He sounded terribly enthusiastic now, but I expected that once he’d got enough pictures, he would be hightailing it off back to the bright lights again.

  ‘How is the barn coming along?’ I asked Libby ‘I’ve been too busy the last few days to go and see.’

  ‘There’s still lots to sort out. A permanent stage and sound system are going in next, but the workmen aren’t here over Christmas, of course. I’ll be lucky if they’re back after the New Year!’

  ‘What about that advert you were going to put in Glorious Weddings?

  ‘It’ll be in the February issue, which is out in mid-January, so we should start getting some early bookings,’ she said hopefully. ‘And I’ll be starting local advertising in the New Year too, when the brochures have arrived from the printers.’

  It did sound as if it was all pretty well on track and she didn’t really need my help that much, except as a sounding board, prop and stay, which had always been my main function as Libby’s friend! However, she did tend to get carried away with the finer detail instead of sorting out the basics first, so once the New Year was over I would have to make sure she hadn’t missed out anything vital.

  After tea, Pia and Noah both said they would like some fresh air and elected to walk me home, then came in for a glass of wine. Pia ate a gingerbread star and two chocolate watches from the tree, while telling Noah about some of the zanier presents I’d given her for Christmas and birthdays over the years.

  ‘One year, when I was about eight, she sent me a little Paddington Bear fibreboard suitcase for Christmas, and she’d filled it with lots of tiny wrapped presents.’

  ‘How sweet,’ Noah said. He looked quite at home on the sofa, lying back with his long legs stretched before him, ankles crossed, a glass in one hand and a half-eaten gingerbread star in the other.

  ‘Well, the suitcase was, but I was into practical jokes about then—a horrible childhood stage—and so there were things like severed fingers and plastic doggy-do. I’m not sure Mum has quite forgiven either of us for the fake ink blot, because I put it right in the middle of a brand-new huge cream leather sofa and she nearly had a seizure. Then there were the realistic plastic bluebottles…’ Pia, who had been a little imp, smiled reminiscently.

  ‘Not so sweet, then,’ he said, amused.

  ‘Ah, but it was the very last little parcel in the suitcase that was the best thing—the dried scorpion.’

  ‘Josie sent you a dried scorpion for Christmas?’

  ‘That’s what it said on the brown paper packet. Only when I started to undo it, it made a horrible scrabbling and rattling noise as if it was alive in there and trying to get out, so I screamed at the top of my lungs! I was petrified.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ I apologised.

  ‘Oh, I loved it! And of course when it stopped making a noise and I found out it was just a wound-up piece of elastic and card, I tried the trick on everyone and it got them all going every time. I’m surprised I didn’t scare you with it too, Noah. I mustn’t have seen you until the novelty wore off and I’d moved on to something else.’

  ‘I’m glad I missed that one! But I do seem to remember you playing tricks on me at one time, and now I know who to blame.’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow at me.

  ‘I think I must be the world’s worst godmother,’ I said guiltily.

  ‘No, the very best,’ Pia said warmly.

  When they left, Noah lingered slightly and said, ‘I’ll say goodbye for the moment, Josie, because I’m off early in the morning. I did chop you extra wood today, to keep you going.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed, thank you for that. I’m going to miss you,’ I added.

  ‘I’d be flattered if I thought that was for myself, rather than my wood-chopping abilities,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘No you wouldn’t, you’d run a mile. It’s much better just to be friends, you said so yourself.’

  ‘Did I? Well, I’ll be up occasionally to see how the gatehouse renovations are coming along, then I’ll be settling in by March, so you won’t have to do without my log-splitting skills for long.’

  He bent his dark head and kissed me goodbye and, perhaps because of Pia’s interested gaze, it was almost brotherly.

  The
n he wound the striped scarf I had given him around his neck and sauntered off, looking as if he’d sprung out of an Armani advert.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chicken

  Sprouts are best picked and eaten fresh the same day—or at least they are when they are not frozen hard to the stem! However, when I have a glut of them I do freeze a lot, especially the small ones.

  I know the New Year has really begun when there are Seville oranges in the shops (not something you can grow in our climate!) and I have jars of jewel-coloured marmalade lined up in the larder once again.

  ‘Cakes and Ale’

  Harry and I spent a quiet New Year together, after which he retired to his shed and filed seven days’ worth of metal off his minesweeping medal before displaying it, framed, on his living-room wall, together with the entire MOD correspondence. So many people had been to see the collection that he was thinking of charging an admittance fee.

  My days were fully occupied with the usual busy round, including making lots of jars of lovely, deep-orange marmalade—plus keeping Libby grounded over the Old Barn conversion.

  Then there were lots of enquiries about wedding cakes, most of them generated by that article in Country at Heart magazine. But I took Libby’s advice and put my prices up, turned down any boring commissions or troublesome-sounding customers, and stuck to my guns about only delivering locally. Having to collect the cake put a lot of people off.

  I still get internet fan mail too, though I thought it would have tapered off by now. It still seems odd to me that I should have a cult readership interested in the way I live my life, just as Ben and I once pored avidly over John Seymour’s self-sufficiency books and Lizzie Pharamond’s Perseverance Cottage Chronicles. We were too late for the first great wave of self-sufficiency, but now I’m a kind of guru to the next generation!

  I suppose my lifestyle seems more accessible than that of the earlier self-sufficiency experts, since I live a truly green life only about eighty per cent of the time, if I’m lucky, so even city dwellers can follow some of my ideas.