by Fiona Walker
‘You looked so sweet when you were soaked through – like a mermaid.’
‘The terrapins weren’t so chuffed to find themselves on dry land once their home had been deposited on me, though.’ Tash pulled on her gloves sulkily.
Niall looked sheepish. ‘Sorry.’
She grinned, able to forgive him anything when he looked at her like that. ‘I’ll see you in half an hour or so.’
An hour later, Alexandra and Pascal arrived to find Niall smoking a furtive Camel Light and reading an old copy of the Marlbury Weekly Gazette in the freezing cold. Tash was nowhere to be seen. A large white turkey was standing in the empty, black fireplace, its head cocked, listening to a droning Christmas sermon on the radio. A second turkey – smaller, plucked and frozen – was sitting on a polystyrene tray on the Rayburn, dripping on to the plate lids, from which a low hiss was burbling as the water ran down to meet the heat.
‘Allo, Niall, mon brave.’ Pascal picked his way into the tiny cottage, stepping over a tide of mess in his hand-made Italian shoes. ‘Eet is cold, non?’
But before Niall could look up and answer, Pascal was overtaken by his wife, wafting Arpège and flurried excitement.
‘I’ve left Mother in the car with Polly – they’re engaged in a frantic game of I Spy and won’t come out until one is declared overall victor. Hi, Niall darling – Merry Christmas. Gosh, you’re still in your dressing gown. I’m so sorry. Are we early? Is Tash still in bed?’
‘No, you’re late, Alexandra angel.’ Niall rose from his knees and kissed her on both cheeks, admiring the butterscotch skin which was still as smooth as her daughter’s. ‘And I’m afraid you’ve caught me about my prayers, as it’s the day of the birth of our Sacred Mary’s only child, so it is.’ He glanced guiltily down at the newspaper he had been reading and then beamed up at her.
‘Gosh, how gloriously devout.’ Alexandra looked at him in wonder and slight disbelief.
‘And Tash is just at the Moncrieffs’ farm saying hello to her horses now – giving them a Christmas carrot.’
‘How lovely – she always did that for her ponies as a child.’ Alexandra flicked back her short, glossy brown bob and caught sight of Giblets, who was pecking hungrily at the West Berks Advertiser.
‘Good grief, is that lunch?’
‘No, no.’ Niall flipped a casual hand towards the turkey in the fireplace. ‘He’s a pet.’ He headed towards the stairs, adding over his shoulder, ‘That’s lunch.’ And he pointed out the dripping, goose-bumped pink lump on the Rayburn.
‘The lunch, he ees frozen solid,’ Pascal announced with a shudder as, still wearing his leather driving gloves, he prodded the wet, icy bird.
‘Oh, dear!’ Alexandra gazed around forlornly as she listened to Niall creaking about in the bathroom overhead. ‘I mean, it’s terribly romantic but it’s a bit of a hovel, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a bloody dump, ma chérie,’ announced a warbling baritone from the door as Etty Buckingham tottered in, swamped by her squishy grey fox fur, bearskin hat worn at a rakish angle. She was an amazingly glamorous octogenarian, false eyelashes batting up a gale as she calmly took in the mess, hollow cheeks sucked in so that her cheekbones seemed higher and more angled than ever, like two wing mirrors. ‘I weel take you all out to lunch in a local ’otel.’
‘Rubbish, Mother,’ Alexandra said kindly. ‘You’re far too poor, and everywhere will be booked up by now anyway. Pascal will cook.’
He puffed out his tanned cheeks, watery grey eyes widening under his chaotic mane of greying hair. Turning up the collar of his beautifully cut cashmere coat and shivering against the chill, he stalked into the tiny kitchen.
‘I brought in ze wine, Maman,’ chirruped Polly from the door as she came staggering in under the weight of two magnums of champagne. The raven-haired little girl, as delicate and ravishing as her mother, was wearing an elf’s costume which was rather marred by the latest high-fashion trainers and the personal stereo attached to her leather elfin belt.
‘Ah – what a lovely Christmas! I can tell it’s going to be quite my favourite so far,’ Alexandra sighed happily, reaching out for her daughter’s load.
‘You were the funniest thing at midnight mass!’ Penny told Tash as they stuffed Snob with Polos, trying to keep hold of their wine glasses which he was keen to examine with his snapping pink muzzle. ‘Lolling around in the back pew singing a solo rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” while the hip vic was giving yet another camp sermon about loving thy neighbour of either sex. Godfrey Pelham got such giggles he was eating his hassock.’
‘Glad I was so entertaining,’ Tash said weakly, ducking as Snob gnashed his teeth towards her hair, keen on the waft of apple shampoo. His startling zig-zag blaze bobbed like a stabbing sword.
The big chestnut stallion, as headstrong and temperamental as his stable companion, the Drunken Hunk, was mild and polite, rolled his purple-brown eyes and backed off sulkily, presenting Tash with a stained chestnut rump, flaxen tail twitching angrily, white hoof stamping almost silently into his thickly banked shavings.
Tash’s two horses were the only ones not turned out for the day – Snob because he fought so much with all the others, and the yard comic, Hunk, because he was confined to stable rest with an injured tendon. Out in the Moncrieffs’ hilly, frosted fields the rest of the yard’s occupants were huddling together for warmth or nosing through piles of hay, swathed in heavy New Zealand rugs, some with protective hoods so that they resembled medieval chargers in low-budget armour. Tash noticed that the bottom field’s trough, which Penny had smashed into with a hammer just minutes earlier, was already developing a thin crystal film of ice again.
‘Come back in for another drink,’ she urged, hooking her arm through Tash’s. ‘Zoe was still goose-stuffing half an hour ago, so lunch is yonks away. God, I wish you still lived here. Christmas was such fun last year.’
‘I loved it,’ Tash confessed, remembering a meal that had lasted from the Queen’s Speech to Close Down, with no more domestic responsibilities than peeling the odd sprout and helping to wash up. Penny’s sister, Zoe Goldsmith, was the farm’s odd-ball cook and had produced a vast turkey stuffed with whole apples, garlic cloves, and, most controversially, green chillies. Last year, Zoe’s kids had orchestrated a hysterically blue amateur Nativity play with Niall and Gus as the donkey, collapsing under the weight of a very tight Penny. Tash, as the Virgin Mary, had giggled so much that she’d burst out of the slinky underwear Niall had given her that morning – as ever two sizes too small; he had a flatteringly minimalist image of how slim she was every time he hit Rigby and Peller.
Penny and Gus Moncrieff ran their eventing and training yard on a thread of a shoestring. They were both immensely dedicated and professional, but long hours and talent only went so far in a profession that really required sponsors who did not mind pouring money into a sometimes bottomless pit as horses costing ten thousand pounds to buy and several thousand a year to keep, failed to make the grade, or got injured, or simply went stale. Very few horses became international, and Snob was one of the very few; Tash knew that she owed her job in part to her boisterous chestnut horse and his rapid rise to success, his stud fees and his popularity with spectators. She would be forever in his debt for enabling her to work for the tall fair-haired duo who kept laughing and joking throughout the season, whether they won or lost.
Tash adored Gus and Penny, who were always tired, always thin and too stressed, yet inevitably welcoming and willing to put themselves out for others. They were two of the best-liked people in the sport, and attracted friends and acquaintances like tourists to a sunny cove. Penny had once represented England in the World Equestrian Games, but she no longer rode at the top level, preferring to breed and train youngsters. Her sister Zoe lived with them, doubling as cook, groom and secretary and adding to the glamour of the yard with her London connections and minor celebrity as an erstwhile columnist and feature writer. They always attracted a huge crowd at Chris
tmas, and this year was no exception. They had eighteen for lunch and Zoe was frantically cooking two geese and a twenty-pound turkey in the farm’s unpredictable coke-fuelled range. Tash simply didn’t have the heart to ask if she could borrow a couple of wings and the parson’s nose.
‘Matty’s coming down today, isn’t he?’ Penny asked smoothly as they wandered towards the sagging farmhouse, their wellies crunching through frosted straw. ‘Are you going to whistle him up a soya-bean drumstick?’
‘God, I hadn’t even thought,’ Tash groaned. ‘He’ll just have to have a double helping of veg.’
She supposed that hosting a dinner for her mother’s entourage plus her brother’s brood was a tad ambitious as a first foray into independent yuletides. She wished now that she had stuck to Niall’s idea of heading for Ireland and taking in the hospitality of his raucous family, or simply holing up in the Old Forge together and staying in bed all day. Either was preferable to the task ahead.
‘I’d really better get back,’ she sighed ruefully. ‘My mother – given her unpunctuality – will just about be arriving now. My brother – given his – will storm into the village in less than an hour.’
‘Just come in for one more drink, huh?’ Penny’s wet berry eyes gleamed cheerfully through her untidy dark-blonde hair, worn down for once. ‘Gus will want another Christmas kiss, and you must collect your presents.’
‘Oh God, I left yours at the Old Forge!’ Tash remembered the Selfridge’s bag with a wail.
Polly, who had by now opened all the presents destined for Penny, Gus and Zoe at Lime Tree Farm, was starting on the ones under the threadbare tree, which was still undecorated.
‘Are these for my maman?’ she asked, holding up the extremely flimsy lace underwear that Niall was intending to give to Tash far later that day, when once again alone with her.
‘Don’t be silly, chérie.’ Alexandra was helping herself and Etty to two more huge gin and tonics as Niall clearly wasn’t too good at refilling glasses. ‘Those are far too young for me.’
‘I don’t know.’ Pascal cocked a rather excited furry eyebrow as he placed garlic and salt-encrusted potatoes on to a roasting dish and doused them in olive oil and rosemary.
Perched on a very scruffy sofa beside her daughter, Etty shivered slightly from the cold and sniffed disapprovingly. The place smelled very stale, she noted, and there were five unwashed mugs gathering mould on the table beside her. She clutched her gin and tonic – smeary glass, too – to her fur chest, unwilling to place it amidst such contamination. Whilst fearfully dishy, her grand-daughter’s Irish partner was rather odd. It was now after one and he still hadn’t dressed.
Niall, who had built a large fire that was smoking slightly more than he was in Tash’s absence, was tugging on his fifth Camel Light and wandering round in his striped dressing gown, getting under Pascal’s feet as he tried to make them both a strong black coffee. They were now out of instant and the filter machine had broken weeks ago, so he was forced to improvise with grounds through a tea towel, generating a great deal of gritty brown mess.
‘I wonder where Tash has got to now?’ He looked up fretfully as there was a commotion of motorised clanks outside, followed by the sound of a car being reversed into a wheely bin.
This was soon replaced by the banging of car doors and the excited chattering of children. The next moment, Sally’s pretty, rose-cheeked face was peering through the frosted windows and Matty, loaded down with baby equipment, elbowed his way through the front door.
‘Hi, all.’ He dropped a massive packet of nappies in at the door and scratched his head under his crocheted hat. ‘Something smells good. Christ!’ He caught sight of his grandmother and tried not to look too horrified.
Etty glowered back at him. They had never been the best of friends.
‘Matty darling!’ Alexandra sprang up from the sofa and rushed across the room to hug him which Matty, despite stiffening slightly, took in festive good humour.
‘You look great, Mother.’ He grinned, taking in the usual impracticality of her heavy silk jacket, bottle green wool trousers and high suede mules.
‘’Lo, everyone!’ Sally appeared through the door carrying Linus in his carry cot, her messy honey-blonde mane already falling out of its scrunchy, grey eyes merry, denim dress covered in baby food. ‘Merry Christmas! The kids are busy peering at the puppy in the Mercedes. Isn’t it a bit cruel leaving it there in the cold?’
‘Probably warmer than it would be in here,’ Niall laughed, greeting his friend Matty with an affectionate arm around the shoulders and kissing Sally on both her pink cheeks.
‘Christ, the puppy – I quite forgot!’ gasped Alexandra, rushing outside to rescue her present and welcome her grandchildren.
‘Get dressed, you lazy slob.’ Matty grinned at Niall, pleased to see him looking so well. ‘Tash still in bed?’
‘Why does everyone think that we spend our entire time in bed?’ Niall sighed, wandering back to his coffee-making.
‘Because you more or less do,’ Sally pointed out, kissing Pascal hello and making a tentative approach to Matty’s grandmother. ‘Hello, Etty. What a lovely surprise – we didn’t expect to see you here. Are you well?’
‘Closer to death than ever, ma chérie.’ Etty, still wearing her bearskin hat, peered up from her gin. ‘Xandra and James came to Scotland to rescue me from ’aving to spend anozer Christmas with Cass and ’er ’orrible ’usband.’
‘Pascal, Grandmother.’ Matty smiled weakly.
‘I thought he was called Michael?’ Etty gave him a cursory welcoming nod. ‘You look too thin, Matthew.’
‘Cass’s husband is Michael,’ Matty said patiently, watching as Niall, clutching his coffee, wandered up the narrow, twisting staircase to get dressed, followed by what appeared to be a large white turkey. ‘My father is called James, Grandmother. Mother and he have been divorced for years. She’s married to Pascal now.’ He pointed to his step-father, who was grumpily teaching Polly how to peel sprouts. ‘Xandra and Pascal came to rescue you from Scotland.’
‘That’s what I said, you stupeed child.’ Etty stretched up a creased, rouged cheek. ‘Now give me a kiss and bugger off and wash your hands – zey’re filthy.’
‘I had to change a tyre.’
Sally tried hard not to giggle as her husband’s twitching face made contact with his grandmother’s heavily made-up one. Matty loathed Etty, blaming her for bestowing the excesses of extravagance and bohemian wilfulness upon Alexandra. Etty, a ravaged French aristocrat who had been sent across the Channel by her impoverished family between the wars to marry a rich Englishman, was monstrously vain, bigoted and devious. She had made Matty’s childhood hell by continually favouring his sisters above him and pretending that it was he and not herself who secretly laid into the gin supply during her stays with the Frenches. But Sally felt a great affection for the woman who had, if her stories were to be believed, spied for England during the Second World War, played poker with Lord Lucan, eaten oysters with the Mitford sisters, and been approached by a young Mitterrand as a potential mistress.
‘Are you his latest, chérie?’ Etty asked Sally rather grandly.
Sally gaped at her. ‘I’m Sally – Matty’s wife. You came to our wedding, Etty. And to Tom’s christening.’
‘Oh, did I?’ Etty smiled blithely. ‘I cannot remember. One attends so many society weddings that family ones seem rather piffling.’ She gave Sally a huge wink and jerked her head towards Matty, who was testing Pascal’s cranberry purée with a boot face, his rage barely controlled.
Sally grinned broadly.
Tash, who had cut through a rock-hard ploughed field to get back to the Old Forge in less time, clambered rather clumsily over a frost-dusted fence and suddenly caught sight of her mother’s green wool bottom poking out of the rear door of a silver Mercedes, which was badly parked in the narrow lane. Attached to Alexandra’s shapely ankle was the small, rotund shape of Tor, Tash’s hyperactive blonde niece, her jaunty
little pig-tails flopping over her chocolate-smeared face.
Tash drew in a guilty breath. That meant everyone had arrived, and she hadn’t even begun to cook. She wished she hadn’t spent quite so much time giggling with the Moncrieffs and their guests around the vast table in their warm, welcoming kitchen, putting off the moment she had to return to the icy forge. The slight body flush from two glasses of fizzy wine cooled to a shiver once more and, as she slithered off the railed fence, her gloved hands lost their grip on the bag Penny had given her. Her family’s presence always sent her nerves through the roof. She could feel her fists clenching, and the cheap glass ring that she’d just won when pulling a cracker with Zoe’s son, Rufus, scratched against the second and fourth fingers of her left hand. Faced with her turbulent family – especially Matty – Tash always felt like a shy, fat teenager again.
As she stooped to collect some of the presents that had tumbled out of her bag and on to the frozen verge, she spotted Tor’s brother Tom galloping out from behind a green Audi – even more badly parked, Tash noted. Slithering to a leggy halt by the open boot, he saw her and let out an excited, war-like wail before stalking forwards and shooting her with one of his Christmas presents – a super-charged, repeat-action water rifle, of which his father strongly disapproved.
Drenched through, her Puffa as heavy as a bullet-proof vest, Tash mustered a brave smile.
‘Hi, little rat.’ She wiped her wet cheeks and bent down, kissing thin air as he ducked away with squirming shyness. ‘I love your hair – it’s really cool.’
‘Think so?’ Tom looked proud, beaming a toothy smile just like the one his father so rarely gave.
Tash actually thought the trendy cut made him look like a little thug, his shiny brown pudding basin having been shorn off to just a few stubbly millimetres. But she knew how to suck up to her younger relatives. At times, it seemed, they were her only allies in the pushy, selfish babble of her family.
