The Magic of Christmas

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘Oh God!’ Ophelia said predictably, opening the door and staring at me, ‘Oh, no, oh God!’ and fell to chewing her lower lip.

  Oh, my ears and whiskers!

  ‘Hello, Ophelia,’ I said bracingly. ‘Can I come in? Only I’ve brought you some spare fruit, vegetables and salad stuff, which will do you good. And eggs, though I wasn’t sure if you ate those.’

  She fell back rather reluctantly and I stepped straight down the one worn step into the tiny living room. It smelled of unbleached calico and herbal tea. A sewing machine was set up by the window, and white material was festooned everywhere. A clothes rack on castors crammed with the finished product swayed slightly in the breeze from the open door.

  ‘That’s kind — that’s so kind!’ she said, and for a horrible moment I thought she was going to burst into tears or embrace me, or something equally embarrassing. Instead, she wrung her hands and stared at me despairingly. ‘But Ted, the old gardener next door, he says that Mr Pharamond will give me notice to quit the cottage because I was … well, he won’t want me here.’

  ‘No, didn’t you get my message? I’ve spoken to him and he’s no intention of throwing you out, so you don’t need to worry about that. We’ll see what happens after the baby arrives — which will be when, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know really — January, maybe?’ she said vaguely. ‘I didn’t realise I was pregnant for ages and then I thought I’d just sort of wait and see …’

  I frowned. ‘Wait and see what? Have you visited your doctor?’

  ‘Oh, no! I believe nature should take its course. One of my friends will come for the birthing.’

  ‘The birthing? Come on, Ophelia, this isn’t the Dark Ages! You need to see a doctor and have the baby in hospital. Nature’s way may turn out to be pre-eclampsia, or something like that.’

  She stopped chewing her lower lip and looked stubborn.

  ‘I hope you’re eating well, anyway? Couldn’t you give up the vegan stuff for the duration?’

  ‘Vegan is healthy. There are lots of vegan mothers.’

  ‘Then make sure you vary your diet as much as you can. I’ll keep leaving you fresh fruit and vegetables on your doorstep every week, a bit like one of those organic delivery services.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ she began, blinking nervously. Her big pink eyelids reminded me of those festooned blinds.

  ‘No, but I want to. Whatever you did isn’t the baby’s fault, is it?’

  ‘Noooo …’ she muttered, walking backwards until she was half-enveloped among the hanging smocks. ‘No, no, no!’

  ‘There you are then, that’s settled,’ I said soothingly, following her and thrusting the basket into her arms.

  ‘I’ll — I’ll unload this, so you can have it back!’ she gasped and, fighting her way out of the folds of material, escaped into the lean-to kitchen.

  I looked in from the doorway. Although basic, it was at least clean and tidy, though yet more eternal rabbits had been stencilled everywhere. On the little gate-leg table lay a roll of familiar-looking recycled yellow paper, a big black felt-tip pen and a coil of silvery gaffer tape — and something clicked in my head.

  ‘Ophelia, when Jojo and Mick said you’d been sleeping with the enemy, meaning Caz Naylor, did they mean because you three are all members of ARG?’

  She dropped the bunch of baby carrots. ‘No, no no … not me. Not us. No, I—’

  ‘You’re a terrible liar,’ I said dispassionately. ‘I recognise the paper on the table from the posters you put on my barn and my car — and even over my front door!’

  ‘No, no, no!’ she jabbered, backing away, her prominent eyes starting. It is a pity she didn’t say ‘no’ more often when men were around; it would have saved her a lot of trouble.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ I said firmly, quite certain now. ‘So, Ophelia, let’s get this straight: you’re living here on the Pharamond estate and, as a member of ARG, targeting not only the owner of that estate but also his gamekeeper, with whom you’ve been having an affair?’

  ‘Oh, no! He — we didn’t! Or only once, when Caz caught me putting up a banner on the Hall gates and … and I don’t know what came over me! But I said I wouldn’t go with him again, because he was evil and persecuted the poor woodland creatures!’ she whimpered.

  ‘Once?’

  ‘Or … maybe twice … three times,’ she conceded, which reminded me of the joke about only being unfaithful once, with the Household Cavalry. ‘And Caz’s not really murdering the grey squirrels, he catches them and takes them away!’ she said earnestly. ‘I still have to put the posters up, though, because the Pharamonds are on the ARG hit list, but Caz takes them straight back down again, like he was doing with the ones at your place.’

  ‘I suppose you might have some kind of case for targeting Caz and the estate, though it’s a pretty shaky one to my way of thinking, but none at all for me. I mean, there are battery hen farmers and goodness knows what else in the area. Why?’

  ‘S-someone said that you were cruelly exploiting your hens and the poor little quail, but when I said I wouldn’t do it unless ARG told me to, this person made me do it …’

  I frowned, while she stood there wringing the feathery stems of the carrots between her hands. I’m not entirely sure I’d trust her with a small baby when she’s overwrought. ‘So someone made you target me? Who? And how? Do they know something about you?’

  ‘No — yes, oh God!’ Ophelia went white. ‘If ARG find out I’ve been targeting someone not on the hit list, I’ll be expelled from the organisation!’

  ‘Jolly good idea, especially in your condition. Who exactly is this person with a spite against me?’

  She pressed her lips together firmly and said nothing.

  ‘You know,’ I said to her severely, ‘there are better and perfectly legal ways of campaigning for animal rights, aimed at the people who really do abuse animals …’

  Then I remembered something I’d read in the local paper. ‘Ophelia, were you involved in that big raid at the end of last year, on the lab rat farm over near Skem?’

  If possible, she went even paler. ‘Nooo …’ she moaned. ‘I wasn’t there — she didn’t see me — there wasn’t any proof!’

  ‘Ah, I see. So it’s a she, and she knows you were involved in that raid?’

  She moaned again. ‘I was the last into the back of the van and her headlights caught me.’

  ‘Don’t you all wear masks, or something?’

  ‘I forgot my balaclava and the scarf slipped,’ she said rather sulkily. ‘But now Caz says I don’t have to do anything she says any more, because he’s got something on her, so she can’t make me — and now I know the truth about her, I wouldn’t anyway!’

  ‘So Caz knows all about it, and who this person threatening you is?’ I said, trying to disentangle her sometimes cryptic and convoluted utterances. I had a growing suspicion that I knew who it was now, too.

  ‘He already knew most of it, he’d been watching me … following me! He made me tell him everything,’ she said, blushing.

  I didn’t ask how. ‘At least Caz seems willing to take some responsibility for you.’

  She went pink and looked away. ‘He’s not so bad really — not now I know what he does with the squirrels.’

  ‘What does he do with the squirrels?’ I asked, then added quickly: ‘No, don’t tell me, I don’t really want to know!’

  She snivelled. ‘I thought Tom loved me, I really did, but I see now it’s just like Jojo and Mick said: I was a handy bonk.’

  ‘At least you seem to have grasped the realities of the situation,’ I agreed. ‘I suppose it’s none of my business, but since Caz rescued you the other day after the funeral, he must care about you.’

  ‘He’s furious with me for making a scene and saying that about … about Tom,’ she whispered, twisting a strand of dishwater-blond hair around her fingers. ‘Only I was so angry, hearing those two going on as if they meant something to him, when I was t
he one who was pregnant!’

  ‘And did Tom really say he loved you?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘He said I knew how he felt about me, and so I thought he meant he loved me. But he wasn’t any different to me afterwards — and sometimes he could be very cruel, even though he didn’t really mean it!’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ I wondered how many times Jojo, Mick and Caz had … No, even I couldn’t ask that, though it seemed that the odds on it being Tom’s baby were at least three to one. We would just have to await the birth and guess. Or do DNA tests, or something. If it were Caz’s, I suspect the entire Naylor clan would instantly know it anyway, in a very Midwich cuckoo way, just like they recognised me the second they saw me.

  I walked home, thoughtfully swinging the basket. Someone had been angry or jealous enough of me to force Ophelia to include Perseverance Cottage in the ARG campaign, which was an act of petty spitefulness. And when it came down to it, I could only think of one likely person.

  I’d love to know what Caz has got on her, but I don’t suppose he would tell me even if I asked.

  Chapter 13: Raspberries

  September means the last of the late-fruiting raspberries and picking blackberries for jams, crumbles and wines, and the making of damson gin by Miss Pym, one of the CPC members, to a secret family recipe. It is so delicious that the barter rate is very high!

  The Perseverance Chronicles: A Life in Recipes

  When I got home Nick’s car was there and he was just walking out of one of the outbuildings, brushing light-coloured feathers off his sleeve. When he saw me he stopped dead and looked slightly taken aback, though goodness knows why: it was my house, after all.

  ‘Oh, hi, Lizzy! I was just talking to Caz.’

  I expect he meant that literally, since he was unlikely to get a complete sentence in exchange, let alone a conversation. Caz often makes me feel like a Shakespearean actor embarking on a long monologue, although of course he does nod, shake his head or scratch his nose from time to time.

  ‘It was kind of you to let him have that big freezer to store stuff in,’ he added, carefully closing the door behind him.

  ‘Well, why not? I wasn’t using it any more now I don’t grow so much. The other one in the larder is quite enough.’ I turned to lead the way to the cottage, since I was hot and thirsty after my walk. ‘God knows what he puts in it, but I’ve a horrible feeling it might be all those grey squirrels from the humane traps.’

  ‘Oh, no, not squirrels,’ he assured me, so I assume Caz had let him see into it, which was quite a relief, really. I expect it is just rabbits and stuff, for the pot. (And I thought again what a strange mismatch it was that vegan, animal rights Ophelia and carnivore Caz should ever have come together!)

  ‘I’ve been downsizing the fruit and vegetable production for nearly two years, ever since I realised I was going to have to leave Perseverance Cottage. Only now, of course, I don’t have to. Unks is so kind.’

  He followed me into the kitchen and leaned against the fridge, arms folded and glowering darkly, like Mr Rochester in a strop. ‘I hadn’t realised things were quite so bad between you. You should have told me. Caz says when he’s been down here in the evenings he’s heard Tom being really abusive.’

  That accounts for the feeling I often got that our arguments had an audience — and also why Unks was not surprised that I had intended to leave Tom, because Caz must have given him a hint. I really should draw the downstairs curtains more, though you tend to forget when other houses don’t overlook you. But who knows when Caz might be flitting past on his nocturnal activities?

  ‘I was suspicious when you had that bruise on your face and were so evasive about how you got it,’ Nick said.

  ‘That wasn’t intentional! He was never physically violent — what sort of doormat do you take me for? I’d have left immediately with Jasper if he’d tried anything like that,’ I said indignantly.

  ‘No, sorry, I expect you would. But I also thought you might have told me what was going on.’

  ‘It was none of your business. What could you have done?’

  ‘Probably made things worse,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘It was pretty clear that Tom didn’t want me around here the last few years, so I thought you both might patch things up if I gave you a wide berth.’

  ‘No, things just steadily got worse. Do you want some ginger beer?’ I offered, as a peace-making gesture. The top came off and it fizzed gently into glasses. I simply love the sensation when the bubbles get up the back of your nose and ginger explodes in your head.

  ‘I still think you could have told me things were so bad that you were going to leave him, Lizzy.’

  ‘Like when?’ I demanded. ‘I could hardly have bellowed out the information while we were all sitting round the dining table up at the Hall over a Sunday lunch, with Tom turning on the charm for Roly’s benefit, and you in and out of the kitchen worrying over the roast beef and whether the horseradish sauce was just a trifle too “piquant”. Maybe I should have sent you a postcard?’

  He ran a hand through his black hair so that it stood up like a cockatoo’s crest and said more reasonably, ‘After what you said at the hospital, I thought it was best to distance myself a bit — especially after Tom accused me of having had an affair with you.’

  ‘He did? I hadn’t realised … But did you also know he suspected Jasper was yours?’

  ‘Yes, but I told him he was mad, so I hoped he’d quickly come to his senses.’

  ‘Well, you might have told me that you knew.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure how much he’d said to you, so I thought it better not. And, of course, I didn’t know then that my wife was having an affair with him,’ Nick added. ‘But when I found him in Leila’s restaurant that night it all sort of clicked into place, even though she denied it.’ He looked sombrely at me. ‘Perhaps he only started the affair in the first place to get revenge on me for something he imagined I’d done — and I’m sorry she made that scene at the funeral, Lizzy.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t your fault, was it?’

  ‘No, but I brought her, and I knew she was still lying when she insisted there was nothing between them, although I didn’t know then why she wouldn’t agree to the divorce.’

  ‘And then it turns out she was sharing Tom with Polly Darke, and Ophelia Locke was the slightly wilted side salad! Oh — you did hear about Ophelia’s revelations — the pregnancy?’

  He nodded. ‘Roly says she’s deranged and invented it.’

  ‘No, but she deluded herself into thinking a quickie meant something deeper. She seems very naive for her age. There’s a good chance the baby isn’t Tom’s, though. We’ll have to wait and see.’

  ‘She’s spread her favours a bit?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s capable of saying no. But at least Ophelia is just credulous and silly, while with Polly and Leila it all boils down to greed and self-interest, doesn’t it?’ I said sadly. ‘And the ironic thing is that Tom thought Unks was going to leave him the cottage outright when he died, and even I could have told him that he would never have split the estate up like that!’

  ‘No, and I’m afraid my poor father scuppered his chances of inheriting by giving us his plans for turning Pharamond Hall into apartments,’ Nick said ruefully.

  ‘I expect Unks will leave it to you, because you wouldn’t do that to it, would you?’

  ‘No, of course not! I love it the way it is. And actually, Roly says he is leaving it to me, though keep that to yourself. Which means that I do have every right to worry about your welfare, if only because you live on the estate,’ he added. ‘And that, I suppose, puts Jasper in line as next heir, by rights, since it’s not entailed.’

  I stared at him. ‘Don’t you dare put that idea into his head! You’ll remarry, probably to some young, skinny model type like that photographer who came to the Hall last year for that feature on you — Lydia, was it? — and have a multitude of children.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said shortly.


  ‘Famous last words. Well, I’m certainly not getting married again. It’s the single life for me from now on. Pretty much as before, really, only without the threat of intermittent verbal abuse hanging over me.’

  ‘And I married a woman who was so territorially defensive she insisted on keeping her own flat on and pencilled me into her schedule if I wanted to see her! But now Leila and I are divorcing, I’ll be spending most of my time up here in Middlemoss. I might even sell my London flat, because Roly never uses it, he prefers his club. I send most of my work in by email these days, so I can base myself anywhere.’

  Nick picked up his glass and absently drank his ginger beer down in one go, which made his eyes water because it’s good, strong, peppery stuff. ‘My God, you are just so Enid Blyton at times, Lizzy! Aren’t you going to offer me a sticky bun and an adventure, too?’

  ‘No, but there are Choconut Consolations in that tin, if you want one?’

  ‘No, thanks, you know I don’t like sugary stuff much.’ He finally sat down, uninvited, on a spindly old kitchen chair that groaned slightly. ‘Lizzy, didn’t it occur to you that Unks would have been sympathetic if you’d told him what was going on? He would certainly have helped you and Jasper to find somewhere else to live, for instance.’

  ‘Since Tom was always his old, charming self to me whenever Unks or anyone else was around, I wasn’t sure he would believe me! And I didn’t want to tell him about the affair, especially since I had no idea who it was … and — Oh, Nick, I’m so sorry!’ I exclaimed. ‘I keep forgetting it was Leila.’

  ‘Among others. And I don’t really care any more, except on your account. I’ve been trying to get her to agree to a divorce for ages, so one good thing has come out of all this.’

  ‘The last couple of years with Tom have been fairly hellish, but all’s well that ends well … though I suppose I shouldn’t say that when it is Tom’s death that’s made everything come right. It makes me feel so mixed up — guilty and relieved and sad, all at once …’ I sniffed and took a gulp of ginger beer.