The Magic of Christmas

by Trisha Ashley

  When I’d helped load Mimi’s haul into the Daimler I did a stint behind the counter of the hoopla stall, where the bags of candyfloss I’d made were hung up as prizes. (I’d given the borrowed candyfloss maker back to Annie, because it was such fun I’d splashed out on one of my own.)

  Annie usually got roped into organising the children’s races, where she was very popular, since she could always be guaranteed to have pockets bulging with little prizes for any disconsolate losers — sherbet dabs, jelly worms and flying saucers.

  I had quite a good view of the goings-on from the hoopla stall, but there was no sign of Nick, who is so tall that his dark head can usually be spotted above any crowd. And Ritch must have been working, for once, for otherwise I was sure he wouldn’t have been able to resist treating the peasantry to the sight of his golden magnificence.

  But Polly, brazen as ever, was there with a group of rowdy friends, though I noticed she avoided me — and Caz, when he emerged from the shadows of the beer tent to perform his part, with silent and ferocious concentration, among the morris dancers.

  The Mosses morris team eschew the traditional white clothes, hats and streamers in favour of all-black outfits, including leather waistcoats, and you really wouldn’t want to try to tie a bell on any of them.

  After this, Caz applied his skills to the coconut shy, awarding the resultant pink teddy bear to Ophelia, who seemed to be constantly near him while looking as if she didn’t know quite why. She also suddenly appeared very pregnant, even under the bunny smock.

  I noticed the way Annie and the vicar gravitated together between their various duties like those magnetic ladybirds — so it must be love, love, love! But if so, it’s a strange, old-fashioned, Jane Austen-ish love, with no declarations or physical contact whatsoever.

  While I’m sure they think their passion is a big secret (and it certainly seems to be a secret from each other), I expect the whole parish is indulgently watching the progress of their romance with almost the same avidity they confer on the twice-weekly episodes of Cotton Common.

  Annie’s cookery lessons now seemed to take place most evenings when Gareth wasn’t otherwise engaged, and they’d been seen together walking rescue dogs up near the RSPCA kennels. But they had not been observed holding hands, or engaging in any other lover-like activities.

  In the absence of her parents, I could see I’d soon have to ask him if his intentions were honourable, or this state of affairs could go on indefinitely. And if they married, that would be yet another change: for though of course Annie and I would always be best friends, since she had fallen in love with Gareth I already saw much less of her than I used to.

  Ever felt totally isolated in a crowd? I was just wallowing in a murky trough of self-pity when I was distracted by spotting something that made me doubt the evidence of my own eyes. So when Jojo and Mick came to try their hands at the hoopla (they were useless, but I gave them a bag of candyfloss each anyway), I said curiously, ‘I didn’t just see Caz and Ophelia sharing a hot dog, did I?’

  ‘Caz told her there wasn’t any meat in hot dogs,’ Jojo said, ‘and the stupid bat believed him, so God knows what she thinks they make them out of. ARG’s thrown her out. I shopped her — living with a gamekeeper on the hit list!’ He looked around furtively to see if anyone could overhear.

  ‘Your secrets are safe with me, Jojo,’ I assured him. ‘I’m glad ARG’s thrown Ophelia out and I hope you two aren’t going to do any more silly things. Can’t you just join the Green Party, and Friends of the Earth and that kind of thing, and lobby peacefully for what you want?’

  Mick gave me a pitying look but didn’t deign to answer this question. ‘I expect it’s just the pregnancy that’s made her go weird,’ he suggested. ‘She might be all right afterwards.’

  ‘Doesn’t that depend on how you define “weird”?’

  ‘Nah,’ Jojo said, ‘she’ll be shacked up with him by then. He’s already got her twisted round his little finger. He even hangs around your cottage on the nights when we’re practising, so he can take her home.’

  I could see there was a bit of jealousy going on, but you could hardly blame Caz for keeping tabs on a girl who so notoriously found it difficult to say no to other men. Somebody needed to.

  ‘He hangs around my cottage anyway,’ I said. ‘He has the use of the freezer in one of the outbuildings, and also it’s part of the estate, so he keeps an eye on things.’

  ‘He’s certainly keeping an eye on Ophelia,’ Mick said.

  ‘Are they really going to move in together?’

  ‘They pretty nearly are already — matter of time,’ said Jojo disgustedly.

  ‘Mum’s the word about ARG,’ Mick said, tapping his nose as they moved away.

  ‘Mummer’s the word,’ I amended, watching them shamble off. At least, unlike Tom’s avaricious surfer friends, they were mostly harmless. I didn’t feel any need to shop them to anyone, including Nick, because I was sure they’d given up targeting the estate for the moment, and targeting me had been all Ophelia’s doing.

  ‘We’re going home,’ Juno said, suddenly bobbing up next to me out of the throng, Mimi in tow carrying bags of popcorn, candyfloss and a half-eaten hot dog. ‘Forgot to mention, Nick said to tell you he was coming, but he’d be late.’

  ‘If he doesn’t come soon it’ll all be over,’ I said. ‘And I can’t see why he thought it mattered to me whether he was coming or not. I don’t care.’

  ‘Don’t care was made to care,’ Mimi chanted. ‘My governess used to say that.’

  ‘Well, come along — you’re overexcited,’ Juno said firmly. ‘Tears before bedtime!’

  ‘She used to say that, too,’ Mimi said, being borne away in the direction of the car. I would have said ‘sick before bedtime’ was more likely than tears.

  The flaps of the marquees had been firmly closed while the vicar and two other local worthies judged the exhibits, but were now thrown back. I felt fairly complacent about the outcome. After several years of walking off with golds in two or three categories, I was already counting my book tokens and debating whether to give them to Jasper, or blow them on myself for a change.

  So, when I was relieved of duty on the stall, I strolled over there, prepared to be gracious and modest as I collected my prizes. And I had won Best Fruit Chutney and Best Middlemoss Marchpane — but Nick, a surprise late entry, had beaten me into second place for Best Plate Apple Pie.

  I stared at the gilt-edged card with his name on, feeling surprisingly infuriated, as though he had performed a mean and underhand trick. Several local ladies were looking secretly pleased to see me pipped for gold this time, and there was some nudging and whispering as Nick, doing his silently materialising trick, reached past me and collected his prize.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said through gritted teeth, while fanning myself slightly ostentatiously with my own handful of cards. ‘Was that Mrs Gumball’s recipe?’

  ‘No, a variation of my own,’ he said, smiling modestly, then was engulfed in a tide of congratulatory and admiring women. I stalked out of the tent.

  Next year he wouldn’t find it so easy, as I told him when he walked home with me. Not that I wanted him to walk home with me: I pretended not to hear him when he called out, ‘Wait for me, Lizzy!’

  Catching up, he demanded, ‘Are you sulking?’

  ‘Why on earth should I sulk? And anyway, I never sulk!’

  ‘Oh, no? Isn’t this the cold shoulder because I won the pie prize? Do you have to be the queen of all the puddings?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, striding briskly off again.

  ‘You show me yours and I’ll show you mine?’ he said suggestively.

  ‘What?’ I exclaimed, coming to a stop and turning to stare at him.

  ‘Apple pie recipe,’ he explained innocently.

  ‘No way!’ I snapped.

  Apart from popping out to do a couple of pet-sitting jobs for Annie, I spent most of that Sunday making Christmas cakes: one bi
g one for us and the little ones for the Senior Citizens’ hampers. I knew I would need to pass on the small cake tins to someone else at the CPC next day, since we were all to make six each.

  My arm certainly ached after all that stirring, but the cottage smelled totally delicious, and Jasper scraped the mixing bowls out with a teaspoon, just the way he’d always done.

  ‘What gift is the WI giving the Senior Citizens along with the hampers this year?’ I asked Marian at the CPC meeting.

  ‘It’s some kind of fleecy blanket with arms to snuggle into while watching the telly, called a Slanket.’

  ‘I like the sound of that, I wouldn’t mind one myself,’ Annie said.

  ‘I never seem to sit down long enough to make it worthwhile,’ I said.

  ‘Me neither,’ agreed Faye. ‘Coming to the CPC meetings is the only time off I ever seem to get.’

  ‘If I feel at all chilly when I sit down with my bedtime tot of whisky to watch the news at ten, then I wrap myself in my pashmina,’ Miss Pym said. ‘It is light, but warm.’

  I certainly couldn’t imagine her wrapped in anything going by such an inelegant name as a Slanket!

  I handed over the little cake tins to Faye, who was next on the rota, and then we discussed what extra treats to make for the hampers — rum truffles, peppermint creams, petits fours and things like that. I already make most of those anyway, for ourselves and for gifts, so it would be no trouble to make extra.

  Afterwards, when everyone had gone, I rang Unks to remind him to get his solicitor, Smithers, to tell me how much Tom’s debts came to once he had wound up his affairs, but he said it would be a while yet, and not to worry about it.

  Tom really didn’t have any affairs to wind up, so I suspected Roly was going to take care of it and not tell me at all, but he was vague about it and hard to pin down.

  Still, after many delays, the insurance company had disbursed a paltry sum to compensate me for my lost 2CV — barely enough to buy a decent bicycle, let alone another car. Just as well I had had Tom’s van to swap for the Land Rover.

  But I used some of the money to order knitted silk long johns and a vest at off-season prices — quite a bargain. They were white and so I would have to tint them flesh pink when they arrived, so they wouldn’t look too obvious from a distance under my Eve bodystocking, wig and figleaves. This year, I would be a very well-padded Eve.

  They’d be useful afterwards in winter for gardening too, though not sexy, but since I wasn’t intending to show my underwear to anyone, sexy was entirely irrelevant. Anyway, I wouldn’t have the time or energy, since suddenly we were into the peak season of mellow fruitfulness so for the foreseeable future I’d be jamming, freezing, salting, chutneying, bottling and cordial making as though Famine were just outside waiting to knock on the door. Dried apple rings were already hanging in festoons above the stove; wine bubbled in every corner and bunches of onions, lavender and bay leaves dangled from the wooden rack above the kitchen table.

  I always felt much happier — sort of safer — once the cottage was full to bursting with a huge store of food and drink. I must naturally have a siege mentality.

  I dashed out between jobs to see to Ritch’s dog. He wasn’t there, but I had seen him once or twice on the evenings when he’d turned up to jam with the Mummers in Tom’s old workshop. He’d taken to calling into the cottage kitchen afterwards, where I plied him with food and drink while I worked, just like everyone else who dropped by.

  I rather liked the company. Jasper was out much more in the evenings, another foretaste of my solitary existence soon to come — and I didn’t mind the flirting now I knew it was just his manner, nothing personal. Besides, he was decorative to have around and he said it would be impossible to make a better apple pie than mine, it was perfect.

  While I was seeing to Flo, Dora Tombs told me Kylie had been spotted sneaking out of Ritch’s house at the crack of dawn, and said he’d better watch out when her soldier fiancé comes home on leave.

  ‘And she’s not the only one!’ she added darkly. ‘A regular harem, he seems to be running. He’s a charmer — like honey to humming birds, he is.’

  ‘That’s terribly poetic, Mrs T!’

  ‘Saw them when I went over to Canada, to see our Sara,’ she explained. ‘Vancouver Island — wings whizzing round like bike wheels.’

  ‘Ritch reminded me of Honeycomb Crunch the very first time I saw him. You know, a bit like cinder toffee?’

  She gave me a sharp look. ‘And what does Mr Nick remind you of, then?’

  ‘Nick?’ I said, surprised. ‘Oh, hot spicy curry every time!’

  ‘Better for you than toffee,’ she remarked cryptically. ‘Honey or not.’

  Clive and Marian Potter had got to hear the rumour about Kylie, and confided to me at the second Mystery Play rehearsal that they thought it conduct unbecoming, considering her role.

  ‘Just look at her over there, playing the Virgin Mary,’ Marian said, scandalised. ‘Butter wouldn’t melt!’

  ‘Mary, thou art chosen as the mother of the Son of God, so think thisen lucky,’ the Angel Gabriel was telling her.

  ‘By heck, then, thee’d better have words with my Joseph smartish and explain t’matter,’ she riposted forthrightly, ‘or t’wedding’s off!’

  ‘It’s probably just gossip,’ I told Marian and Clive, but when Ritch, who was waiting for us outside again, swooped down and kissed me a smacker right on the lips, they exchanged meaningful glances as if to say, ‘What, you too, Eve?’

  Actually, I thought the way he and Kylie avoided each other in public was much more obvious than if they’d been entwined for the whole evening. I was sure they had an assignation set up for later, because although Ritch sat next to me and flirted outrageously, when I got up to go he didn’t offer to walk me home this time — I went alone.

  Nick had already left, much earlier. Maybe he’d got the Lancashire hotpot recipe out of Marian? Mission accomplished.

  Jasper was home when I got there, eating cheese on toast with Ginny snuffling hopefully round his feet for crumbs. He said Nick had phoned to say he’d found a taker for the big greenhouse, and it was to be dismantled tomorrow morning and removed on a lorry.

  ‘I don’t see why he didn’t tell me that earlier!’

  ‘He said even with your clothes on he found you so distracting as Eve that he forgot, and goodness knows what he would be like at the actual performance.’

  ‘He did? What kind of thing is that to say to my son?’ I demanded, scandalised.

  Jasper grinned.

  ‘And he doesn’t mean it either,’ I said snappily. ‘He’s just being sarcastic and horrible.’

  ‘No, he’s not: he likes you, Mum.’

  ‘I think I know your uncle Nick by now and all his little ways,’ I said firmly.

  After dropping Jasper and Ginny off bright and early at the dig next morning, I went home and changed into my oldest jeans, ready to help dismantle the greenhouse.

  But the new owner proved to be one of those men who doesn’t recognise any woman’s existence in a business deal and so addressed himself totally to Nick, who was hanging around looking taciturn. I returned to the kitchen and my jam making.

  When they had gone and I went out, I found my little domain totally changed, with the last plants that had been inside it pathetically huddling together in the open, as if for warmth.

  It was another thing sorted out, though — and the huge TV has already gone, after I put a card in the post office window. On the proceeds, Jasper had chosen a small one with an integral DVD player to take to university with him. I only hoped he was going to work and not spend his entire student loan on films, drink and stuff.

  I’d begun to notice that if Jasper was home when Ritch called by, he seemed to be in and out of the kitchen all the time, and having six foot of sardonic teenage youth critically observing him rather cramped Ritch’s flirting. I didn’t know why Jasper disliked him, unless he had joined the ranks of those trying to
pair me up with Nick (I was not blind to all the hints various people, including Juno and Mimi, had been dropping), though I could tell them right then that this was only wishful thinking and not a horse that was ever going to run.

  But clearly everyone saw Ritch as some kind of threat, to either my heart or my virtue (or both), for when Jasper wasn’t there, Caz seemed to be hanging about the yard until Ritch left, instead.

  And I was forever finding Nick wandering about the place, as if he owned it … which I supposed he sort of did, come to think of it, though he didn’t own me.

  In fact, my cottage seemed suddenly to have become one of the most popular spots in the Mosses.

  I invented a recipe for potato and nut biscuits, which came out so well I tried making chocolate flapjacks with mash, too.

  However, Jasper said they were more like ‘mudflaps’, so a little more experimentation was clearly in order.

  Chapter 18: Simmering Gently

  I’ve been potting hyacinth bulbs and putting them away in a dark cupboard today — pink, blue and white. It seems indulgent to take the time, when there’s so much to do in the garden and the blackberries still cluster thickly on the brambles, begging to be picked and turned into wine, jelly and jam. But when they flower, they’ll be like a breathy promise of spring to come.

  And we might need it, for a heavy crop of berries on all the bushes means a hard winter, according to old country lore.

  The Perseverance Chronicles: A Life in Recipes

  The skiing underwear I’d ordered was sitting in a neat brown parcel on my doorstep when I got back from dropping Jasper at the dig one morning, so I went straight upstairs to try it on.

  It fitted tightly, but I had quite a job getting the old, stewed-tea-coloured bodystocking on over it (one of us was losing our stretch with age — or maybe both of us).

  When I looked in the mirror I saw that I presented a strangely padded and seamed appearance, like an unsuccessful home-made Cabbage Patch doll, especially once I got the totally unrealistic flaxen wig out of its storage box and completed the ensemble.