The Magic of Christmas

by Trisha Ashley

  It was the sheer unreality: Tom had gone missing so many times, it was hard to believe he wouldn’t just walk through that door at any minute with the TV remote control in his hand (he secreted it away somewhere in his workshop when away), and sit watching endless films on Sky, which he’d had installed soon after he got the giant TV.

  He’d always been supremely selfish. Even the Tom I fell in love with, charming though he’d been, really only thought about himself for at least ninety-five per cent of the time, which is why he always did exactly what he wanted and apologised afterwards.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Annie agreed when I shared this gem with her, together with the rest of the bottle of gin, after Jasper had gone up to bed (or at least, back up to the Batcave). ‘But when he was around he seemed to cast a spell of charm, so people didn’t realise it until later. Or if they did, they didn’t mind, because they thought he wasn’t doing it intentionally to hurt anyone, it was just how he was.’

  The gin might not have been such a good idea after all, for my past life seemed to take on a darkly ominous pattern. ‘Why?’ I demanded. ‘What have I done to deserve this? Why do I have to lose everyone? I know I didn’t love Tom any more, but I didn’t want any harm to come to him either!’

  ‘We all have to die,’ Annie pointed out soothingly, passing me the plate of ginger parkin she’d found in the fridge while looking for something to blot up the alcohol. I must have sliced and buttered it earlier, on automatic pilot.

  ‘Yes, but why don’t my loved ones die naturally of old age? Look at my parents! OK, Daddy was a diplomat, but of all the British Consulates in all the world, why did they have to be sent to that one? And having got there, why did they have to immediately sit in the wrong restaurant and get blown up? Couldn’t they have settled for baked beans on bagels at home, and then lived nice, peaceful lives and been more than a few faded snapshots and some stored furniture to their only daughter?’

  ‘But you had nothing to do with it — you’d just arrived for your first term at St Mattie’s,’ she pointed out. ‘You weren’t even in the same country. Stop imagining you’re some kind of Angel of Death! What would Daddy say if he could hear you?’

  From past experience I could confidently predict that Annie’s father would go wandering off into a scholarly monologue on angels of death, the existence and symbolism of, which would be soothing, but not precisely helpful.

  Annie gave me a hug. ‘It’s not your fault that Tom was killed and you did your best to save your marriage. I know what it’s been like the last few years, and you’re a saint to have stayed with him.’

  ‘I’m not a saint. I stayed for Jasper, really, and because we both loved living here.’ A tear rolled down my cheek and landed onto the half-eaten slice of parkin I was holding, though I didn’t remember taking a piece.

  ‘I’m sure for the first few years Tom did love and need you, Lizzy. He wandered off, but he always came back again.’

  ‘Perhaps, but there were always other women. I tried to shut my eyes to it, but it hurt, Annie.’ I swallowed hard. ‘But I think I’m grieving for the Tom I married, even if the man I thought he was never existed. And I still feel guilty for being so relieved that it was Tom, rather than Jasper.’

  Annie comforted me as well as she could, and I have a vague recollection of her helping me up to bed, where I must have passed out.

  When I staggered down next morning, feeling like Lady Lazarus, everything had been cleared and tidied and washed up.

  There’s probably a Girl Guide badge for coping with a friend’s bereavement too, together with the Advanced Award for staying in control of your faculties while under the influence of damson gin.

  Chapter 7: Loose Nuts

  Candied citrus peel makes a good gift and although the traditional process is messy and time-consuming, there is a quick method, which I have used with some success. When candied, the pieces can be dipped in good dark chocolate for a tasty treat.

  The Perseverance Chronicles: A Life in Recipes

  ‘Oh, my husband was really selfish,’ I said to PC Perkins, when she came back again later that day for what she called ‘a little background detail’. This, oddly enough, seemed to consist of asking me what Tom had been like, but I expect she’d been on some kind of Dealing with the Victims of Bereavement course, or something.

  I’d finished quick-candying the orange peel left from yesterday and today’s breakfast juice, and was just writing the recipe up for the latest Perseverance Chronicle, so even the sitting room, when I led the way into it, still smelled enticingly of citrus and hot sugar.

  I seemed to be going through the motions of normal life, but most of the time my brain was entirely absent, so I must have been doing it on automatic pilot.

  Jasper, who had phoned up the dig earlier to explain his absence, followed us in and loomed about protectively. After the previous night’s hair-down, damson-gin-fuelled wake with Annie, I had given up trying to hide things from him. I don’t think it worked in the first place.

  ‘Oh, really?’ she said encouragingly, seating herself on the armchair Tom had favoured for his telly watching. I made a mental note to do something about that giant blank screen, which was like having a dead eye in the room …

  I shuddered and she eyed me speculatively.

  ‘You don’t make your husband sound terribly attractive, Mrs Pharamond!’

  ‘Actually, he could be very charming, and when I fell in love with him I thought the way he used to vanish for days without a word was endearingly absent-minded and eccentric. But really, he was just too wrapped up in himself to bother doing anything he didn’t want to, a bit like a cat.’

  ‘But you can still love a cat,’ Jasper pointed out. ‘Most cat owners seem to think their cats love them back, too.’

  ‘He did seem fond of me, in his way, until the last few years — and of you, too, Jasper, when you were small,’ I assured him, wiping a runny tear away. ‘Some men just aren’t good with children.’

  ‘I expect we’d have got on better if I’d surfed, or was interested in weird folk-rock music and stuff — fitted into his interests,’ Jasper agreed. ‘History and archaeology bored him.’

  ‘Yes, and he wasn’t even interested in food, was he, except from the eating it point of view?’

  The police officer, who’d been listening in a sort of fascinated silence, now broke in, notebook at the ready. She seemed to have an agenda of her own. ‘Just a couple of questions, Mrs Pharamond — and I’m sure you have a few you would like to ask me.’

  She gave me a reassuring smile, though it contained no warmth. Yesterday she’d seemed so kind and sympathetic, so maybe she could switch a façade on and off at will, like Tom. She also had coral-pink lipstick on her front teeth and it was so not her colour.

  ‘Perhaps your son — Jasper, isn’t it? — could make some tea,’ she suggested.

  ‘I think I’ll stay here,’ Jasper said thoughtfully, settling down on the sofa next to me.

  ‘Can you tell me what time your husband left here on the Wednesday? You said you last saw him then, didn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know when he left, because I went for a walk in the late morning — a long walk in the woods — and when I got back my car had gone.’

  ‘Did he often borrow your car?’

  ‘No, practically never, because I usually made sure he couldn’t find the keys. His van had broken down, that’s why he took mine.’

  ‘So you were surprised to find your car gone?’

  ‘Yes, and annoyed when he didn’t come back in time for me to go and collect Jasper from the dig … or at all. I needed my car.’

  ‘He would probably have come back in good time if the accident hadn’t happened, Mum. His mobile was in the workshop and I expect he’d have taken it with him if he hadn’t just popped out for something,’ Jasper said. ‘Wonder where he was going. I checked it for messages, but he’d wiped them, so that was no help.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said dubiousl
y. ‘He probably just forgot his phone.’

  ‘Where do you think he might have been going, Mrs Pharamond?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. But he told me earlier he had to finish a surfboard to deliver this weekend, so I was surprised when he didn’t come back.’

  ‘Finish a surfboard?’

  ‘He customised surfboards for a living. You know — spray-painted designs on them? He was a keen surfer, too …’ I stopped, having a sudden vision of Tom freewheeling into space off the quarry road and wondering if he found the sensation exhilarating? I wouldn’t put it past him, and of course he’d never expect anything he did, however dangerous, to actually kill him.

  ‘And you were here all evening?’

  ‘Yes. After I got back from the Mystery Play Committee meeting in the village hall I was experimenting with candyfloss, so I was pretty busy.’

  She gave me a strange look but didn’t follow that one up. Instead she turned her attention to Jasper.

  ‘And you were at this archaeological site all that day?’

  He nodded. ‘Occasionally I cycle there in the mornings, but Mum usually picks me up in the evening. The narrow roads round the site have become a bit of a rat run since everyone got satnav and she thinks I’ll get knocked off the bike,’ he said tolerantly. ‘When I got home she’d been making lemon candyfloss. Yummy.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, scribbling away. I nearly asked her if she would like me to whip her up some Cornish Mist, but I could see she had no sense of humour.

  ‘So, Mrs Pharamond, you must have been angry about your husband taking the car?’

  ‘I was, and even more so when he didn’t come back. But I knew if I didn’t turn up at the dig, Jasper would cycle back, he really didn’t mind.’

  I was starting to feel strangely worried, despite knowing I had nothing on my conscience other than guilt for that profound moment of relief I’d felt on hearing that it was Tom who’d had the accident and not Jasper.

  ‘Jasper, perhaps tea would be a good idea? Or coffee. Would you mind?’

  He gave me a look, but rose to a gangling six foot and, stooping under the low beam, went to the kitchen, though he left the door ajar. This is not a cottage where you can have private conversations … or indeed, private much of anything.

  ‘Can you tell me how the accident happened yet? I thought he must have had a seizure, perhaps, or a heart attack, even though he seemed a bit young for that? Or perhaps the brakes failed, or something?’

  ‘Actually, it looks as though one of the Citroën’s wheels came off.’ Her eyes were fixed on my face to gauge the full effect of this pronouncement.

  ‘A wheel came off? But would that have caused him to veer off the road?’

  ‘Not necessarily. It’s usually possible to drive on three wheels to a safe halt.’

  A sudden, rather nasty, thought struck me. ‘Do you know which wheel came off?’

  ‘The front driver’s side.’ She looked at me intently again, and I realised I must’ve turned pale. ‘Why?’

  ‘I had a flat tyre … it must have been that same morning, so I changed the wheel for the spare and took it in to be mended. Jasper undid the last nut — it was stiff — but I changed the wheel and put the nuts on again,’ I said firmly. ‘Jasper had gone back into the house by then. And what’s more, it was absolutely fine on the drive to the dig and back!’

  ‘Mrs Pharamond, I’m not accusing you of anything!’

  Wasn’t she? It began to sound amazingly like it!

  ‘Isn’t it just possible you didn’t tighten them up quite enough, so they slowly worked loose? Accidents do happen.’

  ‘You mean I might have accidentally killed my husband?’

  Now I saw which way she was heading with this, I thanked God it was me who had tightened the nuts and not Jasper!

  ‘If they were a bit loose, then the tight bends of the quarry road could have completed the job,’ she said. ‘It’s a possibility. We haven’t found any of them yet.’

  ‘But I’m sure they were tight, because I used a wheel br—’ I stopped as Jasper came back in carrying a battered tin tray of mugs and an open carton of milk.

  ‘Yes, they were,’ he said, putting the tray down on the coffee table with a thump that slopped some coffee over the rims. ‘I could hear what you were saying from the kitchen and Mum put the wheel back on and tightened the nuts. And then when she went in to wash her hands, I tightened them up even more.’

  We gazed at him, though presumably not with the same mixed feelings of affection and exasperation.

  ‘Oh, Jasper,’ I said, ‘I’m not being accused of anything except carelessness, so you really don’t have to try and protect me!’

  ‘I’m not, Mum, it’s quite true. I left you putting the wheel back on, but I checked it was tight enough later, when you weren’t about.’

  I wondered how often he’d felt he needed to check up on me, and from my expression he deduced that he ought to add something. ‘It was fine — I thought it would be.’

  ‘Of course it was! Any idiot can change a wheel,’ I said indignantly.

  PC Perkins had lost interest in the ins and outs of our dispute, and turned to Jasper, notebook at the ready. ‘So you are quite sure that the wheel was in a safe condition?’

  ‘Absolutely. And I often checked them and the tyre pressure since I passed my test, for the practice.’

  ‘So, how do you account for the same wheel coming off?’

  ‘I don’t — that’s your job, isn’t it? But we don’t know how long he’d been out, so he could have left the car standing about, and loosening the wheel nuts might have been someone’s idea of a joke.’ He shrugged. ‘Mum’s car was ancient, so who knows? Maybe the threads had gone or something, even?’

  I stared at him, thinking that he certainly didn’t get his coolness and sang-froid from me or Tom — but, of course, my father was in the diplomatic service.

  She closed her notebook with a snap. ‘Once the post-mortem has been completed, if everything is in order, an inquest will be opened and adjourned and an interim death certificate issued,’ she said briskly, by which I presumed she meant unless they found I’d been feeding him Cyanide Chutney for months. (Or Polly Darke’s poisonous tomatoes. Pity I hadn’t thought of that one!)

  ‘The funeral can then take place, and the inquest proper will open at a later date.’

  ‘Must there be another inquest?’

  ‘Yes, it’s standard procedure in cases of this kind.’

  ‘Which kind?’ I demanded, when I heard the kitchen door suddenly burst open and crash back against the wall, rattling all the china on the dresser. Then Polly Darke stumbled over the sitting-room threshold like a dishevelled, shrink-wrapped Bacchae, all billowing green chiffon sleeves, stick-thin legs and enormous boobs.

  ‘Well, stay me with flagons,’ I said, surprised (damson gin for preference), for even Polly wasn’t usually this avid to garner news.

  Her slightly prominent eyes passed over the policewoman and fixed on me. ‘Is it true?’ she demanded thrillingly. ‘Is Tom really dead? They’re saying he had an accident — in your car!’

  Presumably this was rhetorical, for with an anguished cry of, ‘Tom! Tom!’ she threw herself into the nearest chair and burst into hysterical sobs.

  Jasper and I exchanged glances. Attention-seeking taken to extremes, combined with a raging desire to know what was happening was, I’m sure, our first thought.

  ‘This is Polly Darke, Officer,’ I explained resignedly. ‘She’s a novelist and lives near Mossrow.’

  Polly looked up, her face like a drowned flower (a slightly withered pansy). ‘I can’t believe it. Only the night before last Tom was with me, and now he’s gone. Gone!’

  ‘Why was he with you?’ asked Jasper, puzzled. ‘I thought he’d finally finished those Celtic murals you asked him to do ages ago?’

  ‘Because he loved me!’ she exclaimed tragically and began to sob gustily again.

  ‘He was with you the night b
efore last?’ I stared at her, my mind whirling faster than a tumble dryer. ‘Good heavens, don’t tell me that you, of all people, are Dark Heart? No, it can’t possibly be you!’

  ‘Yes it is! Why not?’ she demanded belligerently, straightening from her pose of utter despondency. ‘I could give him what he needed—’

  ‘Tie him up, tie him down?’ I suggested a bit numbly. You know, I’d never even considered her as a possible suspect, because to me she was a rather pathetic and ludicrous creature, though perhaps men might see her differently? But not young men, apparently, for Jasper looked even more incredulous than I was.

  ‘Dark Heart?’ he queried.

  ‘Yes, your father was having an affair with someone, but though I found a note in his pocket on the morning of the day he vanished, it was only signed “Dark Heart”, so I didn’t know who it was.’

  ‘You mean, Dad was having an affair with her?’

  ‘Evidently, but I certainly thought it would be someone younger.’

  I’m quite sure Polly is much older than I am — well the other side of forty — even if she does try to hold back the years with every ancient and modern art at her disposal.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded indignantly, glaring at me. ‘I’m only thirty-five!’

  ‘And the rest,’ Jasper said drily.

  I’d entirely forgotten the policewoman was there until she interjected into the sudden lull in the proceedings, ‘So you knew your husband was having an affair, Mrs Pharamond?’

  Her notebook was open again, I saw, pen poised.

  I glanced uneasily at Jasper. ‘He … well, he had had lapses occasionally in the past, but they didn’t mean anything. Then I found out about a more serious affair about five years ago, when my son was ill — and I’m so sorry, Jasper: I didn’t want you to find out about your father’s affairs, especially like this.’

  ‘Oh, I knew all about the women, Mum,’ he said calmly. ‘I even caught him at it with that girl out of the Mummers once, when I walked in on them in the workshop.’