It Must Have Been the Mistletoe

by Judy Astley

  He quickly sent back a brief text saying all was hectic – luckily she couldn’t see him sprawled comfortably on this huge purple sofa with his feet up on a squashy footstool, a glass of wine and his favourite acoustic guitar to hand – and that he hoped the job was going well and that they’d get together soon. Then he switched off the phone, feeling slightly bad about her. It couldn’t be a lot of fun, being shacked up in a cheap B&B for the panto season, but she wouldn’t be on her own. There were the rest of the cast, all equally far from home for Christmas, and Charlotte wasn’t short of the skills required for making new friends. She’d be fine.

  Thea stretched out under bluebell-scented bubbles in the bath and closed her eyes, then flashed them open immediately, suddenly convinced she would drift off to sleep and drown. Sean hadn’t been wrong – this was a bath to hold parties in and she felt rather guilty about the amount of hot water she’d used. Rich had had a thing about it, tending to twitch if she said she was off for a bath as if she were being thoughtlessly profligate. He always took showers instead and for the shortest possible time, as if brevity in such matters was a sign of virtue. ‘No need to waste the resources,’ he’d say, and to be fair, you couldn’t argue with that – well, not with him, anyway. She’d once snappily accused him of having his own metaphorical cable car for swiftest possible access to the moral high ground.

  His attitude struck her now as depressingly joyless. He’d been a lot more fun when they’d first got together but, looking back, she wondered if he’d mainly thought of her as ticking all the boxes for good wife material rather than being someone he adored madly and couldn’t bear to be without. He’d liked that she could cook, that she was buying her own house (thanks to Granny J who’d by-passed Anna and left her money to her grandchildren on the basis that they had more need of it), that she had a job that was ‘sensible’ and which, he’d once noted approvingly, came with a decent pension. The one thing he had never commented on in what she now recognized as an inventory of her suitability, was whether or not she had good childbearing hips. As it turned out, this had definitely not featured on his list of requirements. Such a shame she hadn’t been a champion standard poodle, all things considered. He’d have been hugely keen that she had at least a couple of litters of puppies.

  Thea climbed out of the bath quickly before she went further down the path of thinking any more about Rich. He belonged to her past. A book and a good night’s sleep were the immediate future and she didn’t need to think more deeply than that. She brushed her hair, put moisturizer on her face and went back into the bedroom. As she reached out to pick up the white towelling robe she’d left on the bed, it suddenly moved. Something beneath it was making it shift and ripple. Her hand stayed in mid-air and her tummy did a nervous flip – till she remembered what Sean had said. Carefully, she moved the fabric aside and the long creamy body of Woody the cat rolled over voluptuously and purred. He narrowed his blue eyes, something she’d once read was a cat’s equivalent of asking you out for dinner, though she suspected that in this case he was merely attempting to charm her into leaving him where he was. She was tempted, especially if she could get him to sleep across her feet and keep them warm, but – suppose he wanted to go out in the night? Suppose Sean and Paul woke in the early hours, realized he was missing and worried he’d been eaten by a fox? Though frankly she wouldn’t fancy a fox’s chances. For a Siamese, Woody wasn’t a small cat – weren’t they supposed to be skinny and slinky?

  She put on her robe, tied it around her middle, shoved her feet into her cosy sheepskin boots, then picked up Woody, tucked him firmly under her arm and went to find this back staircase Sean had told her about. It wasn’t easy, holding a cat, finding the light switches and negotiating un familiar, twisty stairs. Luckily the cat was still sleepy so he hung like a long floppy cushion, though he was more awake and grumpy by the time she got to the door and it was awkward holding him with one hand and dealing with the catch with the other. At last she managed it, but as she regained her two-handed hold on Woody he seemed to realize he was being evicted and got hold of her finger in his claws and clamped his teeth over it.

  ‘Ouch, Woody. No need for that!’ she said, trying to calm him by rubbing his ears. He wasn’t having any of it and grabbed hold of her hand again, wrestling with it. She was outside now, in the cobbled courtyard, opposite the door of the stable block. Should she simply set the cat free or knock on the door? Lights were on and she could hear the muffled sounds of music. In the end Woody made his own decision and struggled out of her grip, jumping down and running across to the Stables’ front door where he yowled loudly. Thea was just beginning to feel the chill of the night air and was about to go back in to bed when the Stables cottage door opened and Sean came out.

  ‘Ah, it’s the maiden aunt! Having a wander round?’ he asked. ‘Or are you running away?’

  She pointed to Woody who was sitting looking innocent and peaceful on the doorstep.

  ‘He was sleeping on my bed so I thought I’d better bring him back in case he wanted to, y’know – go out in the night.’

  ‘Oh, right, thanks. Sorry about him – he does like to make himself at home wherever he can sneak in. I should do something about it, start locking him in before the day we get a screaming cat-phobic guest who’ll sue us for a full refund and ten years’ counselling.’

  Thea licked at her bleeding fingers. ‘Why not include him on the Cove Manor website,’ she suggested, ‘then they’ll know what they’re getting and they’ll have the choice? It would be a bit unfair to imprison him if he’s used to being free-range.’

  ‘Hey, yes, good plan. What happened to your hand? It’s bleeding. Come on in, I’ll put something on it. Did Woody do that? Bad cat.’

  She grinned at him. ‘I think I’m lacking in cat-carrying skills,’ she said. ‘Once he woke up properly in my hands he decided he wasn’t comfortable. Honestly, it’s fine. I’ll go back up and run it under the cold tap.’

  ‘No, really, you need some antiseptic on that. Cats are pretty toxic. Come on in.’

  Thea followed him inside, frankly curious to have a look around but also conscious that under the robe she was completely naked. She’d been too hot from the bath to want to put her nightie on immediately and anyway, she hadn’t exactly had meeting someone and having a conversation in mind at the time. She quickly tied a firmer knot in the belt as Sean led her into a large kitchen and open-plan sitting room that was painted calamine-lotion pink and fitted, at the kitchen end, with cupboards made from what looked like driftwood. The door and drawer handles were in the shapes of silvery shells and starfish. Music – Joe Jackson – was playing from an Apple Mac on a desk. An untidy collection of paperwork was heaped on a big pine table along with cookery books that had Post-it notes sticking out to mark pages, and there was a trug full of sweet chestnuts, still in their shells. A pale green Aga (smaller than in the main house) heated the kitchen to maximum cosiness. On the window-ledge was a long planter with several pots of hyacinths which were in full bloom and filling the room with a heady scent. The rest of the room had rather well-worn leather sofas, shelves with masses of books, several brightly coloured naïve paintings and one wall hung with surfboards. There was a fire blazing in a woodburning stove.

  ‘It’s in here somewhere …’ Sean said, opening a high cupboard and pulling out a first-aid box. ‘You’ve got one in the kitchen over there too, of course. It’s in the cupboard under the smaller sink.’ He looked across at her and smiled. ‘Come on, sit here,’ he said, patting a long bench beside the table. ‘Nurse Sean will see you now.’

  He washed his hands then came and sat astride the bench, his thigh against hers, and he took her hand, gently cleaning the scratches with antiseptic lotion. He was so close to her that the scent of his hair conditioner overtook the hyacinths. His touches were soft and soothing and she realized it had been a while since she’d had attentive skin-to-skin contact with a good-looking man. She certainly didn’t count the grotesque mauling
from Robbie Over-the-Road.

  ‘Cat scratches can easily go septic,’ he said, looking up and smiling. His eyes were the colour of the flowers on the ledge and for a moment she couldn’t quite reply. I’ve got no knickers on: the thought flashed across her mind as Sean stroked ointment into her cuts and then applied a plaster to the worst of it. But then she reminded herself that the knicker-thing wasn’t relevant; of course, Sean wouldn’t be remotely interested.

  ‘Thanks so much. It’s really kind of you to do this,’ she said, starting to get up.

  ‘Aw, don’t go yet. You need something for the shock. Fancy a medicinal glass of wine? A cup of tea? Or are you really in a rush to get to bed?’ He was looking at her in a teasing sort of way and she wasn’t sure how to interpret it.

  ‘Er, well, no, no great rush. A glass of wine would be good but’ – she looked at the paperwork and the cookery books – ‘aren’t you busy? I don’t want to interrupt.’

  ‘Oh, that’s Maria’s stuff,’ he said, taking glasses from a cupboard and wine from a large blue Smeg fridge. ‘She’s the one who cooks your evening meals. She organizes it back at her place in the village and she just wanted me to look over some of her recipe ideas. You’ll see her in the morning when she drops off tomorrow’s supper.’ He picked up a book, one of Rick Stein’s. ‘Though as you’re the client, maybe I should let you loose on this.’ He led her to a sofa close to the fire and quickly fluffed up some cushions before she sat down, with him beside her.

  ‘Well, tonight’s lasagne was fabulous, so if that’s anything to go by, I think she’s far better qualified than I would be,’ Thea told him. She wondered where Paul was – there didn’t seem to be any sign of him. Perhaps he was already asleep, or somewhere else at the other end of the building watching something Christmassy on TV.

  ‘So are you a surfer or are they Paul’s?’ she asked, looking at the boards on the wall.

  ‘Paul’s? Ha! No chance. He thinks the sea is purely for looking at from a stylish deck through a glass of Pimm’s. The boards are mine. I used to be a pro but it’s a younger man’s game. Was great while it lasted and I got to see a lot of the world.’

  ‘A professional surfer? Wow!’ Thea was impressed but not that surprised. If anyone wanted to draw a picture of a surfer, they’d probably come up with someone who looked a lot like Sean. ‘I didn’t know you could be a professional at it.’

  ‘You get sponsorship deals, if you’re good. And I was good,’ he said, looking distant for a moment. ‘But nothing’s for ever. At least, not in sport.’ Woody came in, jumped on the back of the sofa and settled himself down along the cushion as if keeping an eye on them. Sean reached back behind Thea’s head to stroke the cat, who started to purr in her ear.

  ‘So now you’ve got this place. You and Paul.’

  He reached over for the bottle on the coffee table and topped up her glass. ‘Yep. Finally got it sorted, I think. It was originally going to be a hotel but no one in their right mind wants the constant beck-and-call thing you get with hotel residents, or at least I didn’t. It would drive me nuts. So for the last year it’s been a regular holiday let for big parties of people, but after one hen group too many we came up with a kind of halfway idea. Self-catering, but with the option for evening meals, picnic lunches on request, that sort of thing, daily cleaners just for a bit of a tidy-up – whatever options the clients choose. It’s not been going in that way for long. In fact’ – and he hesitated – ‘I probably shouldn’t admit this but your family is the first to sample the new system. You’re the guinea pigs.’ He gave her a shy smile. ‘Now you’ll go straight back and tell them all we don’t know what we’re doing.’

  She laughed. ‘Of course I won’t! Anyway, I owe you for the medical treatment. You can have my silence in exchange. Cove Manor is very sumptuous.’

  He grinned. ‘You’re dying to know how we managed to afford to change it from the aristo ruin to designer glory, aren’t you? Everyone looks at me and wonders that. How did the scruffy surf dude end up with this?’ Thea twiddled with the robe’s belt, guiltily acknowledging that this was exactly what she’d wondered. ‘The film business is the answer,’ Sean went on. ‘This place has been rented out as a location for everything, from Cornish historical dramas to porn for the Japanese market. It’s worked bloody hard, this old house.’

  ‘Well, you and Paul have done a fabulous job with it. We all love it.’

  ‘Good to know,’ Sean said. ‘Make sure you tell me if anything’s missing, anything more we could have done. I wasn’t sure how far to go with making it Christmassy. Paul said everyone has their own ideas on that so in the end we just did the trees. There’s one thing you could probably do with, though …’ He looked at her speculatively.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘Mistletoe. Got to have mistletoe at Christmas, haven’t you? And I know just where to get some.’

  ‘I don’t suppose we’d get much use out of it!’ Thea joked. ‘My parents are divorcing, my sister and her husband are up to here in small children and my brother’s wife Rosie seems to have a permanent headache.’

  ‘Sounds like some of them need to do more kissing then. Sorry, that’s not for me to comment,’ he said, looking at her. ‘And then, of course, there’s you.’

  ‘Me? Oh, I’m just …’

  ‘… the maiden aunt, the family spinster. Yes, I know – though from what I’ve read about them in old books they don’t usually have bits of purple in their hair and look like teenage elves. And anyway, being unattached is all the more reason to have a massive bunch of the stuff in the house. You never know who’ll turn up over the holiday.’

  ‘I suppose there might be a passing postman, a lost stray rambler or something,’ she said, putting on a comedy-glum face. She also put her empty glass back on the table. It was time to go before the wine went to her head and she fell asleep on this sofa in front of Sean’s wonderful fire. ‘Thanks for the wine and the medical attention,’ she said, clambering out of the old sofa’s depths while trying to keep her robe modestly closed.

  ‘It’s a two-man job, that’s the thing,’ Sean said as he followed her to the door.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The mistletoe. I know where the best stuff is but I’ll need someone to hold the ladder.’

  ‘Is Paul a good ladder-holder?’

  ‘Paul? Oh, bless you, I don’t think so. Not if it means his fabulous Gucci shoes will be at risk of mud damage. But’ – and he eyed her battered old sheepskin boots – ‘if you’re up for it, it could be fun?’ He was looking terrifically eager, like a small boy planning an illicit adventure.

  ‘Is it, er …?’

  ‘Legal?’ He shrugged. ‘Well, yeah, I think so. It’s wild-growing stuff, isn’t it? So – how about tomorrow night, if you’re not busy? Either before or after supper? Any time from four, once it’s dark. It won’t take long.’

  Just before supper was the time assigned to show Anna’s DVD of past family holidays and events. Thea could probably miss some of that – it wasn’t as if she needed to see Emily’s wedding all over again. Actually, being there on the day had been quite enough, given that Emily had made her wear strapless plum-coloured satin which needed underwear so tight it was practically scaffolding, and she’d spent the whole event barely breathing … but Emily was bound to make a fuss about her copping out. She wouldn’t go so far as to say Thea was deliberately avoiding watching weddings but she’d probably think it. No, Thea decided, she’d join in, she’d watch and enjoy and – apart from the not-breathing thing – it had been a truly lovely day.

  ‘OK, they want to eat early because of the children. I don’t think anyone will miss me if I go out after, though. About seven thirty?’

  Sean walked her across the freezing courtyard and opened the house door for her.

  ‘Excellent. See you tomorrow then, maiden aunt. Sleep well.’

  SIX

  Anna stretched out like a big kiss-shape X under the duvet, relishing th
e luxury of so much space to herself. It still felt like a novelty, having a double bed with just her in it, after more than four decades of sharing her sleep with the big lumpy body of Mike. It wasn’t that he’d been a snorer, particularly. Nothing much more than some forgivable sighs and harrumphs, but he was quite an unsettled sleeper, either too hot or too cold, forever turning over and back again while half-asleep, dragging the duvet this way or that, or flipping a pillow over and slapping it into shape as if completely unaware that there was someone else in the bed who might find that annoying.

  The first few nights after they’d come to their arrangement about living independently, albeit in the same house, she’d been surprised to find she didn’t miss his bed-presence at all. She’d imagined lying there having maudlin thoughts about how this was the way it would be if he’d died: that she’d spend the rest of her life feeling lonely on an excess of mattress, and why bring that loneliness on by insisting on it now? Instead, she’d had her new room – the big front bedroom which was actually larger than the one they’d shared for years but which they had rejected as their own because it overlooked the road rather than the peace of the back garden. She’d painted the walls a soft lavender-grey, made new curtains and gone mad on crisp new white bedlinen from the White Company sale. It had all felt like a treat, like a present. And it still did. She felt very lucky. Not many people could have such a convivial running down to a massively long marriage. In her head she could picture her own mother, tutting and shaking her head, reminding her to think about which side her bread was buttered and that independence only had so much going for it. But this wasn’t about disliking each other, about losing touch. There was no rancour, no recrimination, just a warm and happy agreement that there would be more ahead in life for each of them than silent suppers on a tray while watching Masterchef (oh, the irony there) and an approaching old age of bickering in Tesco over which washing powder to get. Instead of the snippy claustrophobia that they’d noticed in so many other couples, they’d always be close and loving friends. It felt right. Definitely. All they needed to do was convince the children that this would work for everyone and that they’d still be one happy family.