The Little Christmas Kitchen

by Jenny Oliver

  Ella shook her head. ‘Yes, but we went out last night because he had a big deal come up at work,’ she lied, the rehearsed words rushing out too quickly. She paused, took a breath to calm herself down. ‘He’s flying out later,’ she added and instinctively her hand wrapped around her phone and she looked down to check it again. No messages. In fact barely any signal at all. She could feel Maddy watching her, looking her up and down. She wished that she’d changed into something more casual before getting on the plane. She felt foolish in her work clothes and it was making her defensive. ‘Can you take me to her?’

  Maddy scoffed. ‘I’m not your servant. You know where she lives.’

  Ella couldn’t at that moment admit that no, she actually didn’t know where she lived. She had never walked from here to the taverna, was unfamiliar with the network of back streets. When they came to stay they stayed at the five star hotel at the next beach where bougainvillea pouring like cherryade over the balconies, the waiters knew their names and there were aperitifs in the bar at six. Max always hired a boat and they would zoom up to the jetty, an arcing wake behind them, and she would step out wearing a sparkly maxi dress and a big sunhat and Max would tip one of the little kids on the jetty to tie up the boat and make sure it was secure because, while he liked to mess around, showing off in his speedboat, he wasn’t the best sailor and had no idea how to moor or when to drop anchor.

  No she’d never arrived in the town via the backstreets.

  Well, not in the last ten years anyway.

  CHAPTER 6

  MADDY

  Maddy could tell something was up. Ella never went anywhere without Max. Ever since they’d got together she clung to him like a limpet. As if, if she let go he might disappear into a puff of smoke and she’d be left sitting on a pumpkin with lots of mice running around her.

  She looked immaculate as always. Her clothes worth more than Maddy earned in a year. Her expression was disparaging, haughty. Like there was no way she would trudge through the streets on her own to get to their mum’s.

  Maddy swallowed.

  Dimitri once said, ‘Why do you let her get to you?’

  And Maddy had shrugged, looked away and said, ‘I don’t know.’ But she did know. Because on the one hand Ella terrified her and on the other hand Maddy so desperately wanted to be her, or at the very least be liked by her again.

  ‘Come on, I’ll take you.’ Maddy said in the end, conscious of her dust coated hair and make-up free face.

  Ella took a couple of steps forward, tottering awkwardly over the pot holes in her killer heels. ‘What is wrong with the bloody roads?’ she huffed.

  ‘The road is paved up here, it’s not usually like this,’ Maddy said, defensive of her island. ‘It happened in the storm.’

  Ella made a face as if it’d happened just to spite her.

  ‘People lost their houses.’ Maddy narrowed her eyes.

  Ella looked away.

  They trudged on another couple of steps, Ella taking tiny steps in her leather boots and dragging a Louis Vuitton case behind her.

  ‘Do you want me to take that?’ Maddy said as they got to the top of the sloping cobbled path that led down to the beach, the jetty and the taverna.

  ‘No I can manage.’ Ella said, the sharpness of her tone making Maddy flinch.

  CHAPTER 7

  ELLA

  There is no way I’m letting her make everyone think I can’t even carry my own bag.

  Ella bit the inside of her cheek. Her shoes were rubbing, her shirt was sticking to her back, her bag was getting increasingly heavy as she tried to stop it running away with itself on the sloping road.

  Maddy loped ahead of her, all sun-kissed beach-babe, scuffing her trainers on the cobbles almost trying to show Ella how casual and laidback her life was.

  I gave all this up because of you. The thought popped into her head as suddenly as the view of the taverna appeared before her, and, as she pushed it away, she found herself caught. Staring, involuntarily, at the sprawling building. She hadn’t looked at it in years. Really taken it in. Seen the terrace that led out into the sea like it was floating on the water and the lattice of vines that stretched up along one wall and over the roof. Gone were the rattan mats that had been nailed onto the awning as a makeshift defence against the rain and used to bash and shake in the wind, terrifying them in their beds at night. In their place was a sparkling new roof, beautiful terracotta tiles that curved like waves and thick new wooden beams that her mum had strung with coloured lights that swayed gently in the breeze. The stone walls had been whitewashed since she’d last been there and The Little Greek Kitchen had been slapped on the side in yellow paint.

  Maddy had come up with the name and Ella remembered being so jealous. Her suggestions had seemed so lame in comparison.

  ‘Are you coming?’ Maddy had paused ahead of her to look back.

  ‘Yes, I was just readjusting my bag.’ Ella said, making sure she hadn’t seen her gawping at the view and focused on hauling her case down the set of steep steps that joined them to the road leading to the taverna.

  It was the smell that knocked Ella for six. Warm pastry cracking and bursting in the oven and cheese melting into a soft, spongy goo. Summers spent sitting on the veranda of a villa they rented stuffing little filo pies into her mouth and jumping into the pool while her dad barbecued and her mum sat in the shade rubbing sun cream into Maddy’s tiny arms, wearing an old white linen shirt and no make-up, and looking stunning. It was on this island that Ella had dipped Maddy’s toes into the sea when she was a baby, it was where she’d reluctantly agreed to go on the donut rides that she hated so that Maddy would have someone with her, where she’d taught Maddy to play the card game Slam! and let her beat her just to be nice, and where, on the plane on the way home, she had held Maddy’s hand and listed all the good things they were going home to when she cried about the holiday being over.

  As Maddy and her mum stood side by side now, Maddy having gone over and tapped Sophie on the shoulder, Ella could see that their likeness had only got stronger as they got older. That even in looks now, she was the odd one out.

  ‘What is it?’ Sophie frowned, rubbing her hands clean on a tea-towel. ‘Why aren’t you at work?’

  Maddy nodded towards the doorway.

  Ella was standing between her granddad who was snoozing in an old armchair and a big bunch of conifer leaves that had been thrust into a pot of oasis and decorated like a Christmas tree, white lights sparkling, tiny rainbow coloured baubles winking as they bobbed in the breeze, and on the top branch the big gold star from their youth bound on with wire.

  There was always a joke that Ella got all the worst bits of both of her parents. Her dad’s pale skin that burnt with anything less than factor fifty. Her mum’s unruly hair. Her dad’s thick eyebrows. Her mum’s ankles. Her dad’s constant battle with his weight that had him in the gym every morning. Her mum’s belief that love always won out in the end. Was she still waiting? Ella wondered as she glanced at the star glinting on the top of the tree, remembered her dad bringing it home in a tatty brown paper bag, pulling it out like a magician pulling flowers out of a hat. They hadn’t had much spare money for decorations but he’d said with absolute authority that you couldn’t have a tree without a star and picked it up from the market stall outside his office.

  ‘Ella.’ Sophie said, hair all wild and scrunched up in a knot on top of her head, wearing a pale purple sweatshirt pushed up at the sleeves, and a pair of stone-washed jeans that had gone full circle since the eighties and looked fashionable again. ‘Lovely to see you.’ She smiled, as if Ella walked in every day.

  Standing in the doorway Ella had never felt more like an outsider, watching the look that passed between her mum and sister when Maddy said, ‘She’s brought a case with her.’ As if Ella wasn’t there at all.

  ‘Are you staying with us?’ her mum asked, looking past Ella at the dusty suitcase.

  Ella was too distracted thinking that she wished
for a moment that her mum could look at her and know what she was thinking. Know the crazy emotions whizzing round her head about Max without her having to say anything. Maddy and her mum seemed to communicate via telepathy. Always had.

  ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘It would be no trouble at all but we’re fully booked at the moment, honey.’ Her mum made a face of apology.

  Ella couldn’t work out quite how she felt at the term of endearment.

  ‘If you’d rung I could have saved you something but with this weather…’ Her mum pointed out the window towards the slowly sinking sun, ‘… you are more than welcome to share the upstairs room with Maddy.’

  ‘What?’ Maddy, who had been leaning against the larder door chewing on a stick of celery, suddenly stood up straight, incensed.

  ‘It’s a big room, Mads.’ her mum said, and Ella thought she saw her raise her eyebrows at Maddy as if telling her to suck it up.

  Ella nodded. ‘Oh don’t worry, I can try and find a room elsewhere.’

  ‘There’s nothing, Ella.’ Her mum shook her head. ‘Of the apartments that haven’t closed for the season, there’s nothing left. People are even letting out their own bedrooms to cash in at the moment. Honestly, the room upstairs is lovely and quite big enough for the two of you.’

  Maddy skulked away and stood in the doorway with her back to them.

  A yellow-eyed white cat jumped down from the sea wall and sauntered over to weave its way through Maddy’s legs.

  Her mum cocked her head to one side. ‘The only other place I can think ofwhere there might be something is one of the hotels on the other side of the island but really, you’re quite welcome to stay.’

  Before Ella could come up with a reasonable excuse and start calling round the hotel chains, there was a sudden hacking cough from next to her and a snorting sound that seemed to signal her grandfather waking up. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, ‘I forgot where I was for a second.’ Then rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he sat up further in his chair, reached for his glasses on the table next to him and said, ‘Well if it isn’t Eleanor, goodness me, look at you. All dressed up for this old place.’ he said, laughing the same croaky, husky laugh that Maddy had inherited. ‘You here, Maddy in London. I don’t know. Can’t keep up with any of you.’

  Ella watched Maddy’s head shoot up with a look of horror.

  ‘I didn’t know you were going to London, Maddy.’ Ella said, wondering whether she would have told her she was in town. Her next thought was that she didn’t want Maddy in London. London was hers, she thought. Then right deeper down, a tiny bit of her said that it wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going on her own, Maddy would be completely out of her depth. In the last however many years she’d only been off the island to go to Athens, as far as Ella knew. She ignored that voice.

  ‘She’s not going.’ Sophie said, emphatically, walking back to the counter, pausing to stroke Maddy’s hair absentmindedly as she went past.

  Ella frowned as she watched Maddy glance to one side, her jaw seemingly locked rigid in place.

  Instinctively Ella reached up and touched her ponytail, greasy now from travelling, and wondered when the last time her mum had stroked her hair was.

  Her phone beeped.

  She pulled her hand away from her ponytail and was reading the text in an instant.

  Max.

  Please don’t stay away too long.

  It was like a scene in ER. The phone defibrillating her heart back to life. Her blood was suddenly pumping through her veins again. Like she’d reached the surface and could breathe.

  ‘I’ve just got to reply to this, sorry, it’s work.’ she said, stepping outside for a second and turning her back so they wouldn’t see the beaming smile on her face.

  I need a couple of days at least to think. Ella wrote. She didn’t want to give in too easily.

  Understood. I’ll be at the club, flat too lonely without you. Tree v sad you’re gone.

  She smiled as she put the phone back in her bag. She’d let him stew for a bit, just give him time to put a stop to anything that might have been going on with Amanda, then go back for a Christmas full of apologies, make-up gifts, make-up sex. They could have that dinner at Claridge’s, go and buy oysters for Christmas Eve at Borough Market, stroll hand in hand down the Southbank, his arm tight around her shoulders, and then snuggle up in a black cab home. They’d be back on track. Back in their perfect life. He had chosen Ella. And for that she could turn a blind eye to a small hiccup, as he’d said, it was almost as if she’d expected it from him. Now though, she’d go back and be better. She’d never mention it again. In the cold light of her mum and Maddy’s life in Greece, suddenly home with Max seemed like the only place she belonged, and she couldn’t wait to get back.

  Looking up and into the dimly lit kitchen, she remembered what she’d been thinking just a second before and thought, what the hell? What was she doing fantasising about her mum touching her hair. Pull yourself together Ella. This isn’t you.

  She strutted back into the dark coolness of the room and said, ‘I will stay, thanks, I’m only here for a couple of days Maddy so it shouldn’t put you out too much.’ She was the grown-up, she was the guest, she was the mature one, and she was blowed if poor little Maddy wanting her room all to herself was the reason she wasn’t going to stay.

  ‘Lovely.’ Her mum smiled, glancing up from where she was dipping little baby squids in batter. ‘Do you want a glass of something?’ she asked, ‘Red wine? Beer? Retsina?’

  For a moment Ella thought how lovely it would be to just be able to sit down, pour a glass of chilled white wine into a little glass, pick at a plate of plump purple olives and silver anchovies and gossip and laugh and giggle like she remembered her parents and their friends doing. When she would watch from the door and then her mum would catch her and she would be called into the room and she’d think she was in trouble but actually they’d offer her something to eat and she’d perch on a chair in her nightie and they’d ask her questions and tell her jokes before her mum would take her hand, soft and warm, and put her back to bed.

  But instead she said, ‘Do you think I could just go up to the room? I’d really like to get changed, you know I’m here straight from work.’ She could feel her grandfather watching her. Could sense Maddy hanging around by the back door listening. Could see the look of disappointment flash across her mum’s face before she nodded and said cooly, ‘Of course you can. Maddy, sweetheart, can you show Ella upstairs?’

  CHAPTER 8

  MADDY

  Maddy hated seeing her mum upset. Dimitri would always be like, ‘She’s fine, look at her, she’s smiling…’ but Maddy could tell by the tilt of her head or the way she would swallow and look away. Maddy’s emotions were written all over her face but her mum and Ella, they had a way of just hinting at what was brewing underneath and it drove her crazy. Mainly because they were usually the cause of each other’s upset.

  ‘You could have had a drink.’ Maddy said as she sat down on the wooden chair next to the dressing table in the upstairs room.

  ‘I wasn’t thirsty.’ Ella replied without turning round. She’d put her suitcase on the small single bed in the corner that Maddy used as a sofa. ‘I take it this is where I’ll be sleeping?’ She unzipped her case and glanced back at Maddy then looked pointedly at the big double bed in the centre of the room, white gauze curtains hanging either side like a canopy, the material rippling in the breeze from the open French windows that looked out over the sea.

  Maddy bit the inside of her cheek and then said, ‘Ella, if it would make you feel better, you can have my bed.’

  ‘No no, I wouldn’t dream of it.’ Ella turned her back again and Maddy watched as she pulled out piece after piece of the most beautiful clothes. Kaftans that sparkled in the evening light, bikinis that looked dry clean only, a wide-legged silk pantsuit that draped like pouring water. She tried not to be jealous but she couldn’t help it, envy seemed to constr
ict her throat, making her have to swallow before she could say, ‘Take my bed.’

  ‘Really there’s no need.’

  ‘Honestly, take it.’

  ‘Ok.’ Ella picked up her suitcase, still open, and transferred it over to the double. ‘So…’ she said as she carried on unpacking and arranging, ‘Tell me about London.’

  Maddy didn’t want to tell her. Didn’t want to say it out loud because to Ella it would seem so nothing. A couple of nights singing in a bar. She would look at her as if she was crazy. Little Maddy in the big city attempting to follow a dream. She’d probably tell her not to get caught up in a prostitution ring or agree to any topless modelling. The idea actually made her smile a little – she remembered when the two of them sent off for a modelling competition in Just Seventeen magazine. Taking each other’s pictures and pouting for the camera. Where had they been when they’d taken them? She narrowed her eyes as she tried to picture the photographs. There was a Take That poster on cream wallpaper with gold stars. There were advent calendars that said Joyeux Noel at the top in swirly writing. Her dad’s flat. Her dad’s flat in Battersea. Dinner with Veronica. Maddy had refused to eat anything.

  When she looked up Ella was watching her, a collection of toiletries cradled in her arms. ‘Oh it’s nothing.’ Maddy said, shrugging the question off. ‘I was going to go but I’ve had some cash flow difficulties.’

  After that neither of them said anything for a while. A hundred different things floated in and out of Maddy’s head to say. She wanted to ask how their dad was, whether he was still with Veronica. She wanted to ask why Ella had appeared out the blue without Max, she wanted to know what she’d eaten at Claridge’s, if she’d even gone. Most of all though, looking at all of Ella’s beautiful stuff, she wanted to say, will you lend me the money to go to London. But instead she said, ‘I’ll get you some clean sheets.’