“I don’t think food will be a problem…” she began, wondering why Julia had tried to make it one.
“Whatever’s going on in the dining-room?” Julia interrupted suddenly.
In fact the sounds had been so faint that Hilary doubted if William would have noticed them unprompted.
“Poor Daddy! You can’t get any peace, can you? I suppose you’ll want to go and see what’s happening.”
Tony paused at the dining-room door, put a finger to his lips and winked at Frances before flinging it wide.
“Oh!” He drew up short. “- Leo!”
“Is that who’s causing all the trouble?” Margery clicked her tongue. “Bloody typical!” She pulled Oliver into the room. “This is the ceiling I was talking about…”
“But - do you know him then?” said Frances, considerably taken aback.
“Yes, it’s Julia’s cousin Leo - Aunt Margery’s son,” said Tony.
“Her son?” Frances stared from Leo to his unconcerned mother, busily showing Oliver the tiles round the fireplace. “Then why on earth was he climbing…? I mean…” Was the whole family mad?
“Will somebody get this blasted cat off me?” interrupted the burglar through gritted teeth.
“Leo rather likes to be unconventional,” Tony explained. “I expect he thought the front door was a bit too mundane…”
“It wasn’t like that at all. None of you would answer the damn bell! If this stupid girl hadn’t decided to act so hysterically…”
Frances, not for the first time that day, found herself wishing she could have spent Christmas somewhere quite, quite else - Antarctica, perhaps. That awful misunderstanding about her and Tony had been bad enough, but then to have taken Margery’s son for a burglar! Now that he stood in full light she could see that Leo had the Shirburn nose so prominent in his mother and William, and to a lesser extent in Stephen, but she really didn’t know how she could have been expected to recognise a member of the family climbing unannounced through a window.
“You can’t blame Frances,” Tony chuckled, moving to put an arm round her. She stepped out of reach, thankful that Margery was preoccupied with Oliver at the other end of the room, and Hilary didn’t seem to have followed them in.
“What a splendid cat!” said Oliver suddenly, bending down to click his fingers at Scratch.
“Do you like cats?” said Leo hopefully. “Perhaps you could get this one to go away.”
Scratch looked from one to the other, weighing up the possibilities. He hadn’t had time to exploit the full potential of Leo, and people who professed to like cats were in danger of sweeping one up and subjecting one to undignified excesses of affection. On the other hand, this man was new and was wearing a very attractive coat…
“Thank Christ for that!” said Leo, getting up and stretching. “It’s been a nightmare in here, I can tell you. There’s the weirdest of noises coming from that cupboard.”
“What are you lurking about in here for, anyway?” Tony asked him.
“It’s all Julia’s fault. She said I had to hide from William,” said Leo, with an air of grievance. “I can’t think why the old bugger’s taken it into his head he doesn’t like me! - I suppose it’s because I can’t help speaking my mind. Old people always think they can be as rude as they bloody well want,” He lowered his voice so that Margery wouldn’t hear. “and they can’t stand it when they come up against someone who just isn’t prepared to be intimidated… Oh! Hello, Uncle William!”
“Harrumph!”
William surveyed the scene in his dining-room and was not pleased. Margery had promised him Leo wouldn’t turn up and there he was, hopping about in that irritating way of his, embarrassed yet attention-seeking. Julia’s husband was ogling the poor little nanny. Margery was prodding the woodworm in the shutters and had a stranger with her who must be that pansy friend of Rofford’s. He was perched on the edge of the table letting the cat take ecstatic liberties with the corner of his coat.
The man stood up when he saw William and held out his hand. William backed away.
“Don’t look so grouchy,” said his elder sister. “I didn’t bring Leo. He came with Hilary, I gather. This is Oliver Leafield. We’ve started to look round, but the place is even worse than I remembered. Did you know that there’s woodworm in these shutters?”
Tony sidled up to Hilary with a grin. “So you’re responsible for Leo, are you?”
“No, I’m not. I only…”
“We mustn’t be horrid to Hilary about it.” Julia squeezed her waist. “There’s no reason on earth she shouldn’t pal up with Leo, just because the rest of us are so beastly.”
“But I haven’t. He only gave me a lift…” It was so unfair! Even the nanny seemed to be eyeing her reproachfully.
Tony winked, and Julia frowned at him. “Not another word! It’s a pity we couldn’t keep the dread news from Daddy, but you were all making such a noise in here. I really don’t know how he’s going to manage Christmas with all these people,” she went on, in a voice only just subdued. “He shouldn’t have let everyone dump themselves on him like this! What with Margery’s architect friend, and Stephen and Ratso insisting on bringing their nanny…”
“Hi…!” Everyone turned to the doorway. The single syllable was long drawn-out, a little plaintive, designed to attract the full attention of everybody in the room. A girl in an outrageously short tight skirt was posing with an arm against the door-jamb, like the guest star in an American sit-com waiting for her entrance to be applauded before carrying on with her scene. “What’s going on?” Her eye ranged across her audience, pausing speculatively at the most eligible-looking man.
Hilary nearly laughed out loud. Leo’s expression couldn’t have been more horrified if the girl had offered him a good time behind Kings Cross Station.
Oliver’s lips twitched, as he was dismissed in one assessing glance. Margery’s mouth curled in undisguised disgust. Tony said “Hi there, Shelley! Been having a snooze? You’ve missed all the fun.”
A flicker of something in Shelley’s eyes - a kind of smug recognition - gave Hilary a flash of insight. ‘She’s had him already,’ she thought.
“This is Posy’s nanny,” said Julia, “ - our wonderful Shelley! You haven’t found Posy, have you darling? Hilary’s longing to see her - and dear little Tobias, of course.”
“No,” said Shelley, eyeing Hilary without interest - a mere woman, and middle-aged at that. Hilary smiled ruefully.
Despite her conversation with Tony, Frances felt a pang of conscience at the mention of Tobias. It was past his bed-time now, and Lesley must have been coping with the trauma of bathing him in the cavernous bathroom, finding him something he would eat and settling him into bed, all without the assistance of his nanny.
On the other hand they might have been calling for her for ages. She wished she could catch Shelley’s eye, or get to the door, but it meant either crawling under the dining-room table or pushing past the waspish Leo.
“I wouldn’t open that if I were you,” he was saying to Oliver, who was about, at Margery’s invitation, to investigate the china-cupboard. “There’ve been the most extraordinary noises coming from it - rats or something.”
“Have you got rats, William?” asked Margery accusingly.
“Of course not! What do you think I keep that great cat for?”
Scratch, who had had to abandon the coat when Oliver moved, looked up guiltily from Leo’s shoe-laces.
“I tell you there’s something frightful in there.”
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic, Leo!”
“Open it, someone, for heaven’s sake!” said Julia. “I can’t stand the suspense.”
Oliver, apparently without fear, opened the double doors of the cupboard. He revealed Posy and Tobias, a picture of innocent childhood, in the process of holding a tea-party with some of the little coffee cups.
“Oh Posy, you naughty girl! We’ve been searching for you everywhere,” said her mother untruthfully.<
br />
“I was in here with Tobias. Who’s that man?”
Tobias, blinking in the sudden light, eyed the assembled company and found them deficient. “Where’s my Mummy and Daddy?”
“They went to look for you - in the cellar…” Frances tailed off. If the children hadn’t been there, why had Lesley and Stephen never come back?
From the look of amusement on Tony’s face she saw that the same awful possibility had just struck him. He whispered in Julia’s ear and winked at Frances.
“Oliver,” he said, “we’d like you to open another door for us!”
CHAPTER 8
Hilary recognised the face at once. Pale, gaunt and desperate, it bore all the signs of long and hellish incarceration. Stephen looked no better. Hilary stepped back a little as the pair emerged, grubby and dishevelled, and scanned the crowd for someone to blame.
“You stupid girl! You knew we’d gone down to the cellar. What on earth possessed you to shut the door?” The poor nanny was first in line.
“But I didn’t…”
“Why doesn’t it have a handle on this side, anyway? This place is an absolute death-trap!” exclaimed Stephen, thumping the door-frame irritably. “Father shouldn’t be living here, if he’s going to let everything go to rack and ruin. …It isn’t funny, Julia. We could have been in that cellar for days!”
Julia and Tony were succumbing to a justifiable, but untimely fit of the giggles. Hilary turned to frown at them, but only succeeded in attracting unwelcome attention in her own direction.
“Hilary, I’m sure it was you wandering round outside!” Lesley accused her. “Didn’t you see us calling for help? You must have done! …Oh, for God’s sake! Can’t anybody keep that animal under control?”
Oliver stepped forward and seized the cat by one protesting leg, just before he disappeared into the exciting new domain behind the usually closed door. Lesley, suddenly conscious of a stranger in their midst, broke off her tirade with an embarrassed cough and looked at the rest of them for enlightenment.
It was left to Hilary. “This is Oliver Leafield, Margery’s friend.”
She felt for Lesley, faced with this attractive man caught in such a ridiculous situation, with smuts on her forehead and cobwebs in her hair.
“Oh, - the journalist.” She dealt with it by shaking hands churlishly, and resuming her role of outraged victim. “I suppose the very last thing you’ve all been doing is trying to find poor little Tobias while we’ve been shut down there! He could be lying dead somewhere, for all we know…”
But her son gave the lie to this by appearing at that moment, hand-in-hand with his cousin Posy. He squeaked as his mother swooped forward and swept him up in a possessive embrace.
“There you are, Mummy’s precious boy. We was so wowwied about you. …How could you let her take him away like that?” She glared at the young seductress’s parents, who were breaking into renewed giggles at the bizarre sound of baby language coming from Lesley’s thin lips. “You know Tobias isn’t old enough for Posy’s rough games! …And now it’s well past our bath-time, - if you wouldn’t mind, Nanny.”
“Hope you’re up to the job, Frances,” said Tony, with a mischievous lift of the eyebrow in Lesley’s direction.
“I’m going to have my bath with Tobias,” announced Posy, taking his hand again.
“No, I don’t think that’s a very…” But Lesley was too drained to put up much of a protest, and Posy was already leading the way upstairs.
After a derisive ‘Pah!’ at their stupidity, Margery hadn’t stayed to watch Stephen and Lesley’s release from the cellar. Hilary found her in the kitchen, hectoring William.
“…What? No, of course I didn’t say we wouldn’t want feeding! You can’t invite someone like Oliver Leafield, and not offer him a decent meal.”
“I didn’t invite him,” William was quick to remind her. “And I’ve already eaten, thank you.”
“Well you may not be hungry, but the rest of us are. We’re certainly going to want dinner. And something proper, not those tins of muck you keep in your store-cupboard. …Has Mrs. Thing gone? - Oh never mind, here’s Hilary.”
She must have seen her mouth drop, and flapped an impatient hand. “No, I didn’t mean you had to do it all. There’s no reason Julia and Lesley can’t help. Are they still messing about in the cellar? They must come and make themselves useful. …And you can’t skulk in here, William, with visitors to entertain! You men must come and be polite to Oliver. He’ll want to hear all about the house…” She shepherded him away, a relentless force.
Hilary grinned as she heard her giving orders to the troops outside. Margery would be outraged at any suggestion that she wasn’t at the forefront of women’s rights, but the concept of equal allocation of domestic chores would simply not have occurred to her.
“Isn’t she an old bossy-boots?” said Julia, duly coming into the kitchen with a sulky-looking Lesley. “Never mind. Let’s make a lovely meal, shall we? …I wonder if Daddy’s got any candles, and there must be some napkins somewhere.” She began to rifle through drawers.
“The question is what to cook,” said Lesley, raising Hilary’s hopes that she had more practical priorities. She opened the fridge, and sighed with irritation. “There’s absolutely nothing here that Tobias is going to be able to eat. I suppose these fish things might do at a pinch, but they’re full of colouring…”
“I don’t think we can feed everyone on fish fingers!” said Hilary.
“No, there wouldn’t be enough.” Lesley hastily snatched the packet and clutched it to her. “And he’s got some frozen peas. Thank goodness…”
“Now, I’m going to make the table look absolutely beautiful!” declared Julia, as if it was a favour, and disappeared with an armful of draperies. Lesley snorted, and began to search William’s cupboards for a saucepan, tutting at what she found.
Hilary, realising that it was going to be left to her, mentally began to count up the number of people in the house who might be expected to want dinner, and groaned aloud.
“What on earth are we going to give them all? Loaves and fishes?”
“No, Tobias needs those, I told you.” One would like to think Lesley was being funny, but Hilary knew better. Had she been so one-track minded when her own child was small? It was hard to believe. …Daniel! God, he would be half way up a mountain by now. Would anyone have William’s number, if there had been an accident? Was there any point in trying to reach his mobile on top of a Cairngorm? This was the age when one really worried about them, - no longer under one’s constant eye, still young enough to seek danger, and too old to be ordered not to.
“Margery isn’t seriously expecting us to get a meal for everybody, is she?” Lesley was suddenly back on the planet. “I don’t know what with. We can hardly start on the turkey!”
“William’s got plenty of potatoes,” Hilary had discovered, “and some onions, and lots of that nice strong cheddar. What about a cheesy potato pie?” It wasn’t exactly Christmas fare, but Hilary had always found it a useful dish when a horde of Daniel’s hungry friends descended unexpectedly. She only wished he was here to eat it now.
“Yes, that sounds fine,” said Lesley, not in the least interested so long as it didn’t involve fish fingers.
“Lovely, darling,” said Julia, when Hilary had taken the trouble to go next door and ask her. “…Do you think the big candelabra looks best here on the sideboard? We could do with some holly.”
There didn’t seem much point in asking for help peeling the potatoes.
“Oh, that’s a good idea!” said Lesley a few minutes later, turning from the grill to see Hilary at work surrounded by bowls and mounds of peel on a corner of the kitchen table. “If you do a couple extra, Tobias can have mashed potato with his fish fingers.”
“He could have had some of this with the rest of us,” said Hilary.
“Oh no, I don’t think so. …What is it you’re making?”
“Cheesy potato pie. It�
�s Daniel’s favourite.”
Lesley shook her head. “No, Tobias has never had that. He doesn’t like things he hasn’t tried before.”
“Oh dear, how very inconvenient,” said Hilary, trying not to sound too sarcastic.
“We don’t find convenience an issue, when it comes to bringing up a child.”
No, - one couldn’t accuse Lesley of that. Hilary watched as she prodded the fish fingers with the tip of her own, cut one in half to make quite sure it was cooked, and turned them carefully onto a plate. Now she was bending down to… Oh hell!
“Hang on, Lesley, - you can’t use the oven. We’ll need it for the pie.”
“Oh! …But I need to keep Tobias’s meal warm until he’s finished his bath.”
“Yes, but the rest of us have got to eat too!”
Lesley stared at her, struggling with the concept that the requirements of her child might not take first priority in this household.
“Your thing isn’t nearly ready,” she concluded at last, pointing to the pile of potatoes yet to be peeled. “It’ll take you ages to do the rest of those, and I’ll have finished with the oven by then.”
Julia swept in at that moment with an armful of holly. “Look at all this? Isn’t it lovely? I remembered the tree from when we were children, and it’s twice as big now. What a shame that good berries are supposed to mean a hard winter! …Sorry Hilary darling, but I’ll just have to have the big table. You don’t mind moving your stuff, do you? I can see that you’re making us something wonderful. Aren’t you lucky to be able to cook!”
Hilary resisted the temptation to pick up the bowl of potato peelings and add them to Julia’s holly arrangement with some considerable force.
Having disposed the sexes to her satisfaction, Margery had gone for a rest, leaving the men in uncomfortable non-camaraderie in the sitting-room. William was damned if he was going to make polite conversation to Oliver, whom he didn’t know, or Tony and Leo, whom he disliked, and he sat down and picked up the paper. Leo coughed at his choice of reading material and tried to include the others in a superior grimace, but Oliver was busy tickling the cat, and Tony had obviously been about to grab the Daily Express himself.
A Proper Family Christmas Page 9
