The Magic of Christmas

by Trisha Ashley

  Chapter 19: Stirring

  We’re heading towards October and I’m catching up with the garden: clearing away the finished crops and storing layers of carrots in boxes for the winter. At the Christmas Pudding Circle the small cake tins changed hands yet again and soon we will have enough for all the Senior Citizens’ hampers. When Marian first suggested we bake the cakes we also offered to make individual Christmas puddings; but it turned out that when the WI asked them for likes and dislikes, they all preferred bought microwavable puddings and cartons of ready-made custard.

  The Perseverance Chronicles: A Life in Recipes

  I passed on the warning about gifts of possibly tainted bottled goods being left on doorsteps by the simple method of mentioning it one morning at the Christmas Pudding Circle meeting. Marian especially is permanently plugged into the local grapevine via the post office, so by afternoon everyone within a five-mile radius would know, like dropping a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples spread.

  After that I hadn’t intended to give the matter much further thought. In fact, I was half inclined to think Ophelia’s jar of tomatoes had been a gift from some well-meaning villager, who’d simply reused a gingham circle from something of mine. Goodness knows, I’ve supplied enough preserves and pickles to village fairs, fêtes and bazaars over the years!

  But then Leila phoned me out of the blue in mid-afternoon while I was making a carrot cake and, to my complete astonishment, apologised for what she’d said at the funeral.

  ‘Of course, much of it was true, but it was not the time or place for such matters. I had come simply to pay my last respects.’

  ‘Quite … and … thank you,’ I replied cautiously, though not sure quite what I was thanking her for.

  ‘I see clearly now I was deceived by Tom and also, perhaps, by Nick. But that is life, so now I am resolved to stay single. Nick says he will still review my restaurant in his articles; it will not make a difference, our divorce,’ she added, sounding surprised and slightly scornful of his magnanimity. ‘So, we should all bury the hatchet and move on, yes?’

  ‘Er, yes … and it’s nice of you to phone me,’ I said doubtfully, wondering if there was a catch, for example, exactly where she meant to bury the hatchet.

  ‘I could do no less, after you sent me the peace offering, though a pot of blackberry jam, that is not sensible to put in the post, even packed so well.’

  ‘Jam?’

  ‘It says “Blackberry Jam: Middlemoss Autumn Fête” on the label, so I knew it must come from you.’

  I’d provided some to be raffled off for charity, so it must be one of those. ‘You haven’t eaten any, have you?’ I demanded urgently.

  ‘No. I do not eat jam, it is not in my diet regime.’

  ‘Then don’t! I didn’t send it, someone else did — and I’m afraid it might be … tainted.’

  ‘Tainted? You mean poisoned? Someone is trying to kill me? But that is ridiculous!’ she said witheringly.

  ‘No, I’m sure she doesn’t intend to kill you, just make you sick and pin the blame onto me. She’s tried the same thing with Ophelia Locke, but I wasn’t sure—’ I broke off. ‘Oh, you don’t know Ophelia, do you?’

  ‘I know of her. I have been told she claims to be carrying Tom’s child, but she sounds a type most hysterical and neurotic.’

  ‘I suppose she is a bit,’ I agreed, wondering who Leila’s spy in the village was. ‘But she is pregnant and there’s a possibility it could be Tom’s — about one in four, if you want the odds. But anyway, she found some bottled tomatoes on her doorstep the other day and assumed they were from me, and they weren’t. And then I remembered once having a bad experience with bottled tomatoes someone gave me, and I got suspicious. Only it seemed so incredible that then I thought I must be imagining it.’

  ‘But you are confusing me with all this talk of bottled tomatoes! Who — and why? And …’ There was a pause. ‘It is Tom’s other woman doing this, that weird person, Polly something?’

  ‘I think so,’ I admitted. ‘I can’t imagine who else it could be, and there are a few too many coincidences. She’s been blackmailing the local animal rights campaigners into targeting me, too, so I wouldn’t put it past her.’

  ‘I will set the police on to her!’

  ‘There isn’t any proof, so I don’t think they could do anything, but I’m going to let her know that she’s found out, so she’ll think twice before trying anything else!’

  Leila still maintained that the police should be involved, but I was wary: what if they thought I’d done it myself, as a sort of double-blind?

  But in the end she agreed she would do nothing for the present, and rang off, after adding that if I was ever in the vicinity of her restaurant there would always be a table free for me, an offer I thanked her for but was unlikely to take up.

  When I next popped into Annie’s cottage on the way to see to Flo, I told her exactly who I’d meant when I’d warned them at the CPC meeting that someone was leaving poisoned preserves on doorsteps. Then I retailed my conversation with Leila.

  ‘Poor, poor woman!’ she said sadly.

  ‘There’s nothing poor about Leila!’

  ‘No, I meant Polly, to be so consumed with spite and jealousy that she could do such awful things!’

  ‘Well, that’s one way of looking at it,’ I said. ‘Trust you to feel sorry for her! And it’s all very well playing these pranks on me and Leila, but Ophelia’s pregnant and it might have made her really ill or harmed the baby! Goodness knows what she put in those tomatoes.’

  ‘That’s true, and she might do something else! Perhaps I ought to tell Gareth so he could go and reason with her?’ she suggested doubtfully.

  ‘Absolutely not! There’s no way she’s going to cast herself upon his bosom and weep tears of repentance, and it would be like sending Daniel into the lioness’s den.’

  ‘What are we going to do, then?’

  ‘I’m going to speak to Polly, preferably in a public spot with other people about. I’ll tell her I know about her tricks, and if she does anything else I’ll report her to the police. That should stop her.’

  ‘Oh, I hope so,’ Annie said earnestly. ‘Perhaps it will shock her into realising how badly she’s been behaving, so she can move on.’

  ‘I wish she would move away,’ I said, getting up. ‘Well, must go and see to Flo on my way home. Ritch isn’t going to be back until late and she’s probably got all four paws crossed by now.’

  ‘You really aren’t falling for him, are you, Lizzy?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘No, of course not, though if celibate widowhood ever palls on me, it’s nice to know my options for random sex are still open.’

  ‘Lizzy! You wouldn’t!’

  ‘Probably not — especially if he continues with all his dubious habits.’

  In the afternoon Nick rang and demanded I go up to the Hall and taste his newest version of coffee granita, but I declined, since I was in the middle of a huge quince jelly-making operation by then and could hardly down tools at his bidding.

  He slammed the phone down, but strode into my kitchen not ten minutes later, carrying an insulated box cradled in his arms like a baby.

  ‘This one’s perfect!’ he said, the light of battle in his eyes and his dark hair sticking up in an angry crest. ‘I defy you to find fault with it!’

  ‘Look, I’m up to the elbows in this, I can’t sit down and eat,’ I protested, so he followed after me around the kitchen, feeding me teaspoons of granita as if I were a stubborn toddler. Much though I would have liked to find fault, however, I couldn’t. The colour, taste and texture were all pure perfection.

  When I said as much he tossed the spoon into the Belfast sink with a clatter, grabbed me and planted a triumphantly emphatic kiss on my lips before I could fend him off with the ladle.

  ‘Mmm … you taste of the perfect coffee granita!’ he murmured, half-closing his eyes.

  ‘I don’t know what else you’d expect, when
you’ve been force-feeding me the stuff for the last ten minutes,’ I snapped, taking a step back. We unpeeled rather stickily.

  ‘You’re a very messy jam maker,’ he said severely.

  ‘And you are a very messy cook, full stop. I’ve never seen anyone use so much equipment to make even the simplest dish.’

  ‘Like my apple pie?’ he said, a gleam in his eyes. ‘Come on, Lizzy, you know there was nothing wrong with it last Sunday.’

  ‘It wasn’t bad,’ I conceded, then I smiled at him innocently and asked, ‘That granita … just what did you add to make it taste like that?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know!’ he said tantalisingly. ‘Well, see you at the play rehearsal later, Eve!’ Then, picking up his cold box, he walked out.

  He was still being exasperating at the rehearsal — and so were the Nine Angels, who kept gurning at each other when they thought I wasn’t looking.

  I didn’t go to the pub afterwards, because I simply wasn’t in the mood, but sneaked out of the side door and dashed home. Anyway, the kitchen was still a sticky mess and I wanted to clear that up and then, while still in quince mode, make some wine.

  Friday was Jasper’s last day at the dig and he returned smelling of real ale and with some kind of excavation certificate, with which he was highly pleased. I knew he’d been feeding Ginny pork scratchings at the pub after the dig, because she threw most of them up behind the kitchen door.

  Jasper went straight off after dinner to stay for a couple of days with his friend Stu, whose family lived in Ormskirk, and although I wanted to spend every precious moment left with him before the start of his first university term, I didn’t try to persuade him not to go. Instead, I drove him there and dropped him off myself, hoping Stu’s mum was expecting Ginny, too — and thank heaven she came ready-house-trained.

  I also hoped Jasper would behave himself, though frankly there are not many dens of iniquity in the lovely old market town of Ormskirk. But before he left home Unks gave him a huge amount of spending money. He must have had a win on the horses, to have so much cash about him.

  ‘You’ll be sensible, won’t you, Jasper?’ I said, hugging him before he got out of the Land Rover, which he suffered me to do in a resigned sort of way.

  ‘It’s not me who needs to be sensible, when that Rainford man’s forever dropping in and hanging out with you, or chatting you up in pubs,’ he protested. ‘Not to mention phoning you up and asking you to go round to his house all the time!’

  ‘He’s just being friendly, Jasper, and I only go round to his house to look after the dog.’

  ‘I don’t see why he can’t look after his own dog.’

  ‘Well, neither do I, really — or get one of his many girlfriends to do it.’

  ‘So you do know about all the girls he takes back there, then?’ He sounded relieved.

  ‘Honestly, Jasper! I’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to, even if Dora Tombs didn’t tell me. The whole village is talking about him, which at least means they’ve moved on from going over what your dad got up to with Leila and Polly, and taking bets on who the father of Ophelia’s baby is,’ I said tartly. ‘Now, you stop worrying about me, because anyone would think I was some naive innocent out of a Victorian melodrama, about to be taken advantage of by the villain of the piece!’

  ‘He does do that all the time in Cotton Common.’

  ‘But not in real life,’ I said firmly. ‘And I’m not interested in Ritch that way — or any other man. I just want to be left alone with my hens, my garden and my recipes.’

  Especially the search for the perfect apple pie and coffee granita …

  ‘Try not to fall out with Uncle Nick while I’m away,’ was his final admonishment as he removed his holdall and slammed the door. He must have been reading my mind — and bossiness seems to run in the Pharamond blood, just like cooking.

  I didn’t get a chance to fall out with Nick, since it turned out that he had left for London and was then going on to Cornwall in search of fish recipes for some forthcoming article.

  I felt a bit … piqued, I think is the word. I’d sort of got used to having him around again, annoying though he is, because he’s someone to bounce food ideas off and argue with. Annie’s interested in food, but I wouldn’t call her a creative cook, and she’s so even-tempered I couldn’t pick a quarrel with her even if I tried.

  Mind you, since every second word she utters these days is ‘Gareth’, exasperation might eventually lead me to smother her to death, probably with a hassock.

  Ritch was off in London too, shooting some cameo role for a film, so Dora Tombs and I were taking care of Flo between us. On Sunday I joined the depleted party up at the Hall for lunch and Mimi and Juno were full of talk of their holiday and deep in planning the installation of a water feature in the walled garden, while Unks was happily doing his own thing, as usual, mainly involving studying racing form.

  I was still extremely busy myself, perpetually preserving, storing, gardening and pet-sitting, but it gave me a foretaste of what it was going to be like once Jasper went off to university …

  I suspected Nick wouldn’t give up his flat in London after all, but go back to dividing his time between there and the Hall. Eventually, once the divorce was finalised, he’d marry someone young and beautiful and start a family. I was quite convinced this would happen, because even I had to admit he was wildly attractive, except when he was annoying me … so it was just as well he annoyed me most of the time, wasn’t it? And clearly he had no great interest in me, whatever my misguided relatives thought, since he couldn’t even be bothered sending me postcards any more!

  Anyway, I liked being on my own, and Jasper wouldn’t be a million miles away, so I couldn’t imagine why I was feeling suddenly so depressed.

  But of course I wasn’t totally alone, for I still had my friends in the Christmas Pudding Circle, and at the next Monday meeting Miss Pym gave us all a surprise gift of candied angelica. Marian had brought me her giant round two-part metal Christmas pudding mould, too, so the following afternoon I abandoned everything else and made a huge spiced fruit cannonball instead. The smell of the ingredients took me right back to happy times at the vicarage with Annie’s family, and was very comforting.

  Stirring, I made a wish.

  Chapter 20: Freshly Minted

  I have been preserving apples in wine and making green tomato chutney, before clearing away the tomato plants. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the bare patch where the huge glasshouse used to stand, but I’m very tempted to turn it into a little apple orchard, with several unusual old kinds.

  The Perseverance Chronicles: A Life in Recipes

  The most dreadful thing! Gareth called to tell me that Tom’s mother and stepfather had just arrived in the UK and were on their way down to pay their respects at Tom’s grave!

  ‘What? But why didn’t they call me?’ I asked, stunned. ‘I haven’t heard a word since the funeral — and it’s years since they saw Jasper, too, and he’s away at the moment. If only they’d let me know they were coming!’

  ‘I don’t know, but I thought I’d check to see if you knew about it, because they didn’t mention you and you ought to be there. I gave Mr Barillos directions to the graveyard. They’ve hired a car and were only about an hour away when he rang.’

  I ran a distracted hand through my tangled hair. ‘Well, thanks for telling me, Gareth. They’re such odd people that I suppose them behaving like this shouldn’t surprise me, but you’re right and I’d better meet you at the graveyard.’

  I hoped they wouldn’t be too disappointed that the stone has not yet been erected. It’s ordered, but these things do take time.

  Quickly I changed into something clean, though equally unsuitable for the occasion, and set off, collecting Annie on the way for moral support.

  Gareth was standing by the grave, which did indeed look forlorn, especially on such a grey, cold October day as this one: a grassy mound in the Pharamond corner. I intended planting s
pring bulbs there, once it had its stone, and possibly a bit of lavender. I don’t much like cut flowers left dying on graves, or in those little stone urns.

  I wasn’t sure I would have recognised the Barilloses if I’d met them in the street, but on a gravel path in an old country graveyard, they stood out like sore thumbs. For a start, there was something glossily expensive about their clothes and, although it was not a sunny day, they both wore huge, wraparound reflective sunglasses.

  The skin visible on Tom’s mother’s face looked stretched, smooth and peachily tinted, while her skittish curls were a rich brassy blond. Her husband looked positively withered and prune-like in comparison, apart from having a head of hair like black Astroturf.

  Gareth stepped forward and clasped their hands in turn, murmuring a few earnest words. Then, since they were pointedly ignoring me, he gestured and said, ‘And here’s your daughter-in-law, Lizzy, come to meet you and her friend, Annie Vane, whom I don’t think you’ve met.’

  ‘Well, Elizabeth, I didn’t expect to see you here,’ Jacqueline Barillos said coolly.

  ‘My wife did not wish to see her — you should not have told her we were coming,’ argued her husband.

  ‘But she’s Tom’s widow,’ began poor Gareth, baffled. ‘Who better to offer comfort and—’

  ‘But we know she did not care about him and was a bad wife,’ interrupted Jaime Barillos. ‘We have had many beautiful letters from the woman he did love, whom he wanted to marry. We know how grieved he was when he found out about his wife’s affair and realised that even his own son was fathered by his cousin!’

  ‘Now, just a minute!’ I broke in angrily. ‘I think I can guess who’s been telling you this pack of lies, but it most definitely is not true!’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Annie defended me stoutly. ‘It was Tom who was the unfaithful one, not Lizzy, and Jasper is Tom’s son.’