It Must Have Been the Mistletoe

by Judy Astley

  ‘He means does it have the powers once Christmas Day is over. You know, are you still allowed to grab a cheeky snog or is it all over till next year?’ Charlotte explained to Rosie.

  ‘Oh. Right. I don’t know. I suppose the powers – if you think it’s got any – last while it’s up. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, no reason. Just wondered,’ Elmo mumbled.

  ‘It’s probably valid till Twelfth Night,’ Thea said as she shoved some bread in the toaster. ‘That’s if it doesn’t go all crumbly and fall down first.’

  ‘I suppose if it’s gone stale, then so would the lerve.’ Charlotte was sitting at the table, putting on purple nail varnish. ‘What do you think?’ she said, holding up her hand to show Thea and Rosie. ‘A bit tarty? Or a bit vampire?’

  ‘A bit of both. I like it, it looks great,’ Thea said. Charlotte had pretty hands, plump and soft, and with several large-scale silver rings.

  Charlotte sighed. ‘Bloody snow. I’m starting to feel thoroughly stir crazy, aren’t you? I can’t help thinking that if I hadn’t taken that stupid panto job, I could be in my own flat in London now, getting ready to go out to a Boxing Day party or something. Or’ – and she looked wistful – ‘better yet, I could be outside Selfridges, getting crushed in a queue, waiting for the doors to open for the sale. Oh, the bliss of fighting through the hordes for a bargain handbag!’ She closed her eyes, looking ecstatic at the very thought.

  ‘Who’d fight for a handbag?’ Emily came into the kitchen with Milly and Alfie. ‘Sales are just ghastly scrums with nothing in them but stuff nobody wanted first time round.’

  ‘I’d fight for a handbag if it was a knockdown price. In fact, right now I’d almost kill just for a bigger selection of nail varnish than what I’ve got here with me. I need to shop!’ Charlotte declared, as if excess vehemence was all it would take to make it happen.

  ‘You could trudge up the lane and see if the village post office is open,’ Emily suggested. ‘You never know what they might stock. There could be a whole rack of cosmetics to choose from.’

  ‘Yes, and it’s all so likely to be Lancôme and Chanel, isn’t it?’ Charlotte said, sounding a bit snappy. ‘No, thanks. I’ll stay in the warm. I don’t want to risk too much excitement, do I? I might go mad in the shop and be tempted by tinned peaches and a sliced white loaf. But I would like to make an effort for tonight.’

  ‘What’s on tonight?’ Rosie asked, rubbing at her head. ‘Whatever it is, I hope it won’t be loud.’

  ‘The pub,’ Thea told her. ‘They’re having a music thing and Dad said he’s arranged to play a couple of songs.’

  ‘And I’m going to sing a bit,’ Charlotte added. ‘I shall need more glitter than I’ve brought with me. I didn’t expect to be putting on a show.’

  ‘It’s a village pub,’ Emily pointed out from over by the sink where she was breaking eggs into a jug to make scrambled eggs for the children, ‘and half the village will be too cut off by snow to attend. It’s hardly going to be the Albert Hall.’

  ‘Darling,’ Charlotte said, ‘a performance is a performance. An artiste always gives of their best even if it’s for two pensioners – oops, no offence to any of the occupants here, I must be careful after last night – and a farting dog. The show’s the thing and all that.’

  ‘Are we all going? I’m not sure about the children. It’ll be way past their bedtime,’ Emily fretted.

  ‘Oh, let them stay up,’ Charlotte said, giving the bottle of nail polish a vigorous shake. ‘It’s only Christmas once a year and they can fall asleep on a sofa at the back. Never did my boy Louis any harm.’

  ‘I’ll stay and mind them, Emily. I don’t think I can face a crowd,’ Rosie volunteered.

  ‘Well that’s very sweet of you, thanks. But are you sure? I doubt that whoever gets through the snow and ice will constitute a crowd, but we shall see.’

  Effectively, this was their second-to-last day here, Anna thought. They were supposed to leave in two days but the snow didn’t seem to be going anywhere and the sky was looking threateningly leaden again. Surely there couldn’t be more of the damn stuff up there? It had already been a record-breaking Christmas for snow in the south-west, and the snowy Cornish coast had made it into the world news reports. Now it looked as if the weather was intending to make it a record-breaking New Year as well.

  Anna suddenly longed to be home again, sitting on her own squashy sofa with tea and something on the TV that involved period costumes, coquettish girls who said, ‘Oh la, sir,’ to would-be rakish seducers, and a shockingly bad script with delightful anachronisms to spot. She and Alec had, one day in London, spent a happy half-hour in the pub, laughing about an Elizabethan drama they’d both watched in which the heroine had flounced out of a castle room wearing a ruff and farthingale and shouting a sulky ‘Whatever.’ These meetings would almost certainly not happen again once they were home, unless there was a break for a while and afterwards they could become friends – but definitely without benefits from now on.

  Anna put a couple more logs on the fire, then wandered round the sitting room, picking up more of the children’s toys and putting them into the big plastic boxes that Emily had brought with her for the purpose. The Christmas trees were looking a bit depressed now, as if they too had had enough of the weather, but it was more likely to be because the house was so warm. They were shedding little spikes of pine and Alfie had already had one stuck in his tender bare foot and howled like a lost wolf cub at the pain.

  ‘Do you think we’ll be stuck here till the New Year and beyond?’ Emily came in and asked. ‘This could go on for ages.’ She was chewing at her thumb. Anna remembered she always did that as a child and had had to have plasters put on to save the skin that she’d bitten down to blood level.

  Anna knew she just wanted reassurance but it was hard to give it with any conviction, because she simply didn’t know any more than anyone else what would happen. The weather forecast on the radio had said something about a cold front being ‘stuck’. Not encouraging.

  ‘Oh, it won’t, Em. Don’t worry.’ But Anna remembered the winter of 1963 which had seemed an eternity of freezing, increasingly grubby snow.

  ‘The children have to go back to school on the third. And I have to work. It’s all right for Sam, he can file copy from here if he has to, but I’ve got my stupid, lazy January late clients to deal with and I’m not feeling particularly …’ She stopped and went to the window.

  ‘You do look a bit pale,’ Anna said, going to look out at the view next to her. ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘No. I’m not ill. I’m fine.’

  Anna gave her a sharp look. ‘Pale but fine. Right. What does Sam think?’

  ‘There’s nothing to think,’ Emily said firmly. ‘Look, that snowman from last night has still got his hat on. You’d think it would have blown away, wouldn’t you? That’s a sign the weather’s completely static.’

  ‘So you haven’t told him yet.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. Leave it, Mum, please.’ She pointed at the bird table, still determined to avoid whatever subject she thought Anna was raising. ‘Look, at least someone’s getting the benefit of the weather. Elmo’s been topping up the bird table. He’s such a love when he’s not being Silent Teen.’ Some feisty robins and a couple of starlings were bickering over scraps of bread and bacon rinds out on the terrace table.

  ‘He is a good boy.’

  ‘Boys are so easy, definitely easier than girls,’ Emily said, half to herself.

  ‘Girls aren’t difficult, they just question things a lot and that’s to be encouraged. But it’s not good to stereotype them, to think ahead about how you reckon they’ll be. Milly is a delight – she’s bright and funny and moody and imaginative. Who wouldn’t want that in a daughter? She’s a lot like you were.’

  ‘Really? I hope she doesn’t get all anxious like me. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.’

  ‘She’ll be fine. Right now she’s really looking forward to the lu
nch barbecue. Thea’s got her in the kitchen, teaching her and Alfie how to fry onions.’

  ‘She’s brilliant with them. I wish she had her own.’ Emily’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You know yesterday was her baby’s due date?’

  ‘Oh, poor girl. I’d guessed it must be around now, because it was eleven weeks when she lost it, but she hadn’t actually said. I wonder if she thought about it? She didn’t let on.’

  ‘She doesn’t. She just gets on with things. And yes, she did think about it.’

  The kitchen door opened and Alec came in, wafting with him the scent of frying onions.

  Emily went even paler. ‘Oh God, that smell!’ she said, rushing from the room.

  ‘Ah – so I wasn’t wrong,’ Anna murmured.

  SIXTEEN

  After being on the ground for several days now, the snow no longer looked so pure, fresh and sparkly. The novelty of it had thoroughly worn off and Thea longed to see greenery and earth and stone. She felt as if she were being thoroughly ungrateful to nature, but so much white – and now shabby white – was getting on her nerves and she was beginning to understand Emily’s anxiety about being stuck in one place for eternity. She went out to the garden to pick up the paper hat that had fallen from the snowman’s head and was now lying soggy and ripped on ground that was jagged and scuffed by so many footprints. The white was tinged with mud, greyed from the salty sea air, and looked like sheets that had been slept in for far too long by somebody fevered and grubby. She wouldn’t want Milly and Alfie rolling about in it now, as they had so joyfully done a few days before.

  ‘The grass under that will be wrecked.’ Sean came out from the Stables, carrying bags of bird food to top up the terrace feeders. ‘Paul tells me that walking about on snowy grass makes it go all black in the shapes of the footprints. He could be wrong, though – I don’t see why it’s any worse than walking on it when it’s wet.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Thea said. ‘There was a bit of a snowman event and we scuffed it all up a lot. I expect the snow’s all packed tight on it.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind. Grass recovers fast enough and I can always re-seed in the spring. Or I can work out which footprints are yours and put a special frame over them to treasure them for all eternity as reminders of your stay.’

  ‘You’re completely barking, you know that?’ she told him.

  ‘I know. But I really don’t care about the grass, because the snowman – well, it had to be done, didn’t it? After all’ – and he smiled at her as he poured peanuts into the feeder – ‘we made ours, didn’t we? Only fair the rest of your family should get a go at one.’

  ‘We completely did.’ It felt like ages ago now. Those mad moments on the moonlit beach.

  ‘I think it’s still there,’ he said. ‘We can check it later, yes?’

  Thea felt a bit awkward, wondering if Paul had said anything to Sean. But why would he?

  ‘We can.’ She ran her hand along the low terrace wall, gathering up snow in her gloves to make a ball and then chucking it at the snowman. One of his pebble eyes fell out.

  ‘Hey, you’ve hurt him!’ Sean said. ‘You have to put that back or his vision will be all skewed.’

  ‘OK!’ she said, laughing as she skidded down the steps and went to restore the poor thing’s sight.

  ‘Sean?’ she said, watching him concentrating on pouring seed into one of the bird-food containers. ‘What happens if we’re stuck here after tomorrow?’

  He turned and looked at her. ‘The snow, you mean? You’ll have to stay here for ever, I guess.’

  ‘But haven’t you got new clients coming in for New Year?’

  ‘Not this time. We advertised a bit late so most people had got themselves sorted. If you have to stay on, it’s fine. In fact …’ and he came down the steps and stood close to her. ‘I’d really like it if you did.’

  ‘There are a lot of us,’ Thea said.

  ‘I didn’t mean all of you,’ he replied, ‘though of course I know that if you can’t go, neither can they. If it’s the weather that’s keeping you, that is.’ He turned away, stamping across the snow-chunked lawn. ‘I’m making a mess of what I’m saying, aren’t I?’

  She laughed, feeling quite elated by what he’d said but confused at the same time. ‘You are, a bit! But thanks – it’s good to know we won’t have to go and camp in the woods or beg the pub landlord to give us a cupboard to sleep in.’

  ‘No, it won’t come to that,’ Sean said, ‘but this morning’s forecast does say we’re in for a change soon – winds and so on. That usually means warmer weather. Unless it’s from the east, of course.’

  ‘Charlotte will be thrilled. She’s feeling trapped and missing shops,’ Thea told him.

  ‘Which one’s Charlotte?’

  ‘The red-haired, rather plump one, Dad’s – er, friend. She’s a mistake who shouldn’t be here but her lift home got snowed in so she ended up staying.’

  ‘A mistake?’

  ‘Yes. Alec is the other one. He’s my mother’s mistake.’ Thea felt she’d said too much, but at the same time Sean seemed to be finding the information entertaining, so what did it matter, in the big scheme of things?

  ‘Wow, your family is quite something,’ he said, looking rather admiring. ‘You cover pretty much all the bases between you, don’t you?’

  ‘Do we? What other base is there?’

  ‘Well, there’s you.’

  She grinned. ‘I’ve got the maiden aunt slot, that’s all. Nothing special about me.’

  ‘Oh, there is, Elf, there is. What time’s the barbie? I might go down to the beach early, pretty soon, and collect up some wood to make an extra fire. Call it being a good landlord going the extra hospitable mile. Do you fancy coming along and giving me a hand?’

  ‘I do. Yes.’

  ‘I’ll see you in ten? By the cliff gate?’

  ‘Date.’

  Sean went back to the Stables and Thea stayed in the garden for a few minutes looking out to sea. In the distance she could see a ship making its slow way across the horizon. It was a dark one, all squared off, probably stacked with containers. Would it be colder out there on the sea than it was here on the land, or warmer? If she were Emily, she’d be imagining the crew having to be careful on an icy deck. Emily would be seeing them slipping, sliding towards the rail, falling, tumbling beneath the rail and into the freezing sea. Thea felt quite sorry for her, always seeing the danger side of things, and she wondered if that was something to do with fearing the worst for your children, once you’d got them.

  Maybe she should have been less breezy and confident herself, when she’d been pregnant, then it would have been less of a horrendous shock when it all went wrong. She didn’t lack imagination herself, but apart from the mild superstition of not wanting to tell anyone until she’d had her first scan, she had assumed – being young and healthy and pretty damn fit – that the baby would stay cosily inside her until it was ‘cooked’ and at the right time to come out. ‘Some of them just don’t stick,’ the midwife had told her after she’d come crying to her, looking for reasons, any reasons, as to why the mis carriage had happened. Was it something she’d done? Something heavy she’d lifted? Benji tugging just that bit too hard on his lead and wrenching something? ‘Chances are, you’ll be perfectly all right next time,’ she’d been told. But would there be a next time? Thea did hope so.

  She went back towards the house to get more warm clothes. If she was going to be spending a long time on the beach she’d need the furry hat and possibly warmer socks. She could hear sounds of a ping-pong game going on in the barn and remembered that there’d been talk of a table-tennis tournament, but somehow it had been forgotten. All the same, someone had remembered and was giving it a go. As she passed the open door, she briefly looked in and saw Elmo playing against the girl who had come to the house with Maria on their first morning. Delia? Daisy? Definitely Daisy. They were both laughing and racing to hit the ball, giving it plenty of competitive effort. She watched for
a few minutes until Daisy won a point and they stopped for a second to change servers.

  ‘Who’s winning?’ she asked.

  ‘I am,’ Elmo told her, looking pleased with himself.

  ‘Only just,’ Daisy said. ‘Ready?’ She served and aced him.

  ‘No wayyy!’ he said, laughing at her. ‘Right, this is war …’

  Thea left them to it, pleased he’d made Daisy a friend. Someone for everyone, she thought. Almost.

  She didn’t like the expression on his face. Sam was looking angry, hostile, challenging.

  ‘Were you going to tell me?’ He faced Emily in the bedroom. He was holding the pregnancy test kit box and pointing it at her like a dagger. ‘Or did you think you’d let me hang on till I started wondering if you’d been eating all the pies?’

  ‘Of course I was going to tell you.’ Emily sat on the bed, folding children’s clothes that she had just taken out of the tumble dryer. They were still warm. She held them soft in her hands, imagining feeling the shapes of her children’s limbs in the sleeves of jumpers. ‘You seriously thought I wouldn’t?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’ve kept it bloody quiet. When you were pregnant with the other two you couldn’t wait to say something. One day overdue and you were bouncing around like a kid waiting for … well, Christmas. I don’t get it. Surely you didn’t think I wouldn’t be happy about it? That I’d not want to know?’

  Emily flicked her finger against her thumb, trying to stay calm and logical and also not to cry. She didn’t want to cry. He didn’t like her easy tears and associated them with angling for her own way. Right now, she didn’t even know what kind of ‘own way’ she wanted. He didn’t say anything about pregnancy: she wished he’d express something so she had a clue how to feel.

  In the background, from downstairs, she could hear the sound of Mike’s guitar. He was singing one of his favourites, Pink Floyd’s ‘Arnold Layne’. He’d sung it to her when she was little and she associated the song with lying snugly in bed, being gently lulled to sleep. It had been quite a strange feeling years later to realize it was a song about a man who stole – and wore – women’s underwear. But that, as Charlotte would probably say, was hippie parents for you: none of that ordinary Golden Slumbers lullaby stuff.