The Magic of Christmas

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘Yes … I suppose it might if he felt about me like that, which he doesn’t. And I don’t really feel newly widowed, now I’m over the shock, since Tom and I were so estranged.’

  ‘If Nick was a dog, he’d be a big, dark, Irish wolfhound,’ she said inconsequentially. ‘Ritch is a bit of a tomcat.’

  ‘I don’t like the way your mind’s working,’ I said severely. ‘Gareth has been a demoralising influence on you. I’m afraid poor Juno’s feeling a bit demoralised too, because she rang Unks and told him she had to explain precisely what Mimi was doing to someone’s stately garden with nail scissors. You know, I thought I saw her holding something metal up when the coach pulled away the morning they left. She must have got them in the corner shop when she was buying sweets.’

  After she’d gone I got out the copy-edits of my book and went through them for errors for the second time, before parcelling them up and taking them down to the post office. The cover I pinned to the kitchen notice board in the hope it would grow on me, but it hasn’t yet. Nor do all the flowers depicted in the cottage garden bloom at the same time anywhere other than in the artist’s demented imagination — or not in this hemisphere, anyway.

  Jasper seemed to be settling in well, and I sent off a box of chocolate-coated candied peel. I hoped he was eating properly and not pickling his liver with spirits, like many students do.

  I’d decided Annie was right about my apple pies and you couldn’t improve on perfection, so Nick winning first prize must have been a fluke. The final one I tried that night, though, using dark Barbados sugar to sweeten the apples, had an interesting slight toffee-apple flavour, which made a nice change.

  A policeman who sounded like that boy who favoured finger food called to say that one of the 2CV’s wheel nuts had been handed in by a metal-detecting member of the public and added, in a seemingly casual aside, that it appeared to be in a perfectly good state of repair, the thread undamaged. Then he informed me the inquest was set for the end of January, and rang off.

  The light was fading fast. I put on a warm coat and went to lock up the hens and, as I did so, Caz emerged slowly from the shadow of the barn. Since my slight contretemps with Nick I had entirely ignored Caz when he was around, which hadn’t seemed to bother him in the least — if he’d even noticed.

  Now I ran my hand distractedly through my tangled hair and said, ‘Oh, Caz, the police have found one of the missing wheel nuts — or rather, I think someone found it and handed it in — and the thread on it looks fine. I’m sure they still think I loosened them on purpose and encouraged Tom to take my car!’

  Caz glanced at me in his usual obliquely wary yet not unfriendly way, then said, ‘Don’t you fret, our Lizzy, it’ll all come out in t’wash,’ and loped off towards the woods, his gun under his arm.

  I stared after him: if he continued getting so garrulous, we might soon be able to hold an entire conversation.

  He’d probably be back later, too, because the Mummers would be coming round to the workshop to practise. I hoped Ritch came too and popped in as usual for coffee and chat afterwards. I felt like some company.

  Ritch not only stopped by, he took me out to the café-bar in the former Pharamond’s Butterflake Biscuit factory, which was very pleasant now I had firmly established my unavailability for his healthy sex rota.

  Or at least, I think I have …

  Of course this didn’t stop him flirting with me, but actually I found that quite enjoyable now that Nick had suddenly gone even more morose and distant than usual. And also, of course, now I knew Ritch had stopped his more dubious habits he had regained a little more of his previous attraction!

  ‘You look great tonight — that top really shows off your curves,’ he said, leaning forwards towards me across the table. ‘I’ll butter your pie dish any time you give me the word!’

  I grinned. ‘Hanging round my kitchen has given you a whole new vocabulary!’

  ‘And a whole new taste for real home-baking,’ he agreed.

  Afterwards Ritch dropped me off at the cottage and I let him have a good-night kiss, though I didn’t want to make a habit of it … well, not if Caz was watching.

  There was no sign of him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still lurking about somewhere.

  Mimi and Juno got back from their coach tour late on the Saturday, then walked down next afternoon to give me my present of a pair of flower-patterned gardening gauntlets, and for Juno to show me the photographs she had taken on her digital camera.

  Mimi was, as usual, not only unrepentant about her bit of petty plant-pilfering, but entirely failed to understand what the fuss was about. ‘I don’t suppose they will take, because it is the wrong time of year, but anyway, gardeners should share things,’ she said.

  ‘It might have been politer to ask first,’ Juno said patiently.

  ‘Oh, they didn’t really mind,’ Mimi said. ‘I promised them some cuttings from my rare lavender when it’s the right time to take them — and then perhaps Tom could drop them off next time he is heading in that direction.’

  ‘Tom’s dead, Mimi,’ I said gently.

  ‘Oh, is he? Then perhaps if I wrap them in wet kitchen towel and a plastic bag and post them, they will be all right. Not that the postal service is all it used to be,’ she added.

  We had to have the next CPC meeting at Marian’s, because she had boxes and boxes of big green apples a friend in the WI had given her and she was desperate to get rid of them.

  ‘Maggie said they were eaters, but they cook well too, and it was such a bumper crop this year that she didn’t know what to do with them,’ she explained. ‘So I said I was sure we could divide them up among our group.’

  ‘There are an awful lot of them,’ Fay said, ‘and I’ve got more than enough of my own to be going on with.’

  ‘Me too,’ I agreed, but since there were loads left even after the others had all taken some, I ended up with the lion’s share, simply because I couldn’t bear to see them go to waste. I couldn’t imagine what I was going to do with them.

  I spent a large part of that Tuesday filling the freezer with apple pies, purée and crumble, yet had hardly made a dent in the apple mountain …

  And Nick was not at the Mystery Play rehearsal, because he’d gone off on his travels yet again, according to Mimi, who’d come down to the village hall with Juno, being in one of her restless phases. Then she added meaningfully that he was catching up on things he should have done before, only he hadn’t wanted to leave Middlemoss, so I expect he’d finally just got bored and restless.

  ‘Oh, it’s the nativity, my favourite bit!’ Juno said, as the vicar called, ‘Shepherds and angels to the crib, please!’

  As they gathered round, I noticed for the first time that the Nine Angels of the Annunciation all had bright white patches on their wings where they had repaired them with fresh sturdy new feathers.

  ‘See yonder breet light shining on t’owd stable?’ said the First Shepherd, adjusting his tea-towel headdress.

  ‘Aye, I do that, and a right bobby dazzler it is an’ all!’ replied the Second Shepherd, then nudged his friend as the Three Wise Men appeared. ‘Hey up, we’ve got company.’

  ‘Why wasn’t there a Wise Woman too?’ Mimi asked in a penetrating whisper.

  ‘I don’t know — perhaps they didn’t fancy riding a camel all that way?’ suggested Juno.

  By the end of a very hectic week, the larder shelves were groaning with apple-based jams and jellies, apple sauce, apple chutney, apples in wine and spiced apple … you name it, and I’d made it.

  Of course I’d had to keep up with the pet-sitting and gardening too, but apart from escaping to Butterflake’s for an hour or so again one evening with Ritch, the days passed in a sticky haze.

  Then suddenly I was down to the last few apples in the bottom of a box, and made a batch of fritters with them, which I ate sifted with brown sugar, drizzled with honey and blobbed with thick cream. After that I felt completely appled out and never wa
nted to see another one again, unless, of course, it was as apple wine.

  I ceded the apple pie prize to Nick in perpetuity. And speaking of Nick, I’d heard nothing from him for days and then suddenly had a spate of postcards all at once — every single one bearing some kind of tart recipe! Perhaps that was what his next article would be about?

  I gave all my CPC friends a jar of apple chutney at the next meeting, but I had a feeling I’d still be trying to offload the remainder next autumn.

  Nick was back next day, just in time for the Mystery Play rehearsal but, like Ritch, appeared to have lost interest in going to the pub afterwards. I wasn’t finding it very tempting either, because I could only take playing gooseberry to Gareth and Annie for so long, no matter how kindly they went out of their way to include me in their conversation.

  As we came out of the village hall, I thanked Nick for all the postcards, then asked curiously, ‘But why are all the recipes for tarts?’

  ‘I thought you deserved them,’ he said shortly and then strode off into the night, looking distinctly Mr Rochester again.

  I don’t know what was biting him, unless he’d heard about my occasional friendly drink at Butterflake’s Bar with Ritch, and misconstrued it?

  I spent the rest of the evening catching up with the next Perseverance Chronicle, having not had time to keep up with it while so preoccupied with apples — and apples formed the basis of most of what I wrote! I also made a few more notes for Just Desserts, because I needed to get going with that soon, before Senga started snapping at my ankles.

  If Nick hadn’t been sulking I could have asked him for some ideas, but at least he’d provided the inspiration for a whole chapter devoted to tarts …

  Chapter 23: Put Out

  The vicar is delighted to announce that due to an anonym ous benefactor, this year’s Senior Citizens’ Christmas dinner (to take place on 1 December) will be roast goose with all the trimmings! As usual it will be cooked by Mrs Eva Gumball up at the Hall, most kindly assisted by Mrs Lizzy Pharamond and also, adding that touch of cordon bleu, Mr Nick Pharamond! It will be delivered piping hot to the village hall, courtesy of our friendly local Meals on Wheels volunteers.

  Mosses Messenger

  The dankness of early November set in and the children had been collecting firewood for Friday’s Bonfire Night for the last week or so. I thought Jasper might come home for that, but he said he was too busy, though busy with what, he didn’t inform me, and it was probably better not to ask.

  Still, he seemed to have settled down very happily at university and was enjoying his lectures. He told me what had been discovered about the Vikings’ dietary habits, from excavating their cesspits at York, at more length than I really wanted to know. It’s quite amazing what passes through the digestive tract more or less whole, isn’t it?

  Marian brought the latest issue of the Mosses Messenger and pointed out the announcement about my involvement in cooking the Senior Citizens’ Christmas dinner. It was a fait accompli, because once it had been proclaimed in the parish magazine, there was no getting out of it … unless they were to forget about my helping by then? It was almost a month away.

  Saying I never wanted to see another apple again was obviously tempting fate, for Marian then asked me to make toffee apples for Bonfire Night — she runs a little refreshment table with the proceeds going to charity. As usual, Miss Pym would provide a tray of treacle toffee, Annie gingerbread pigs for the children and Faye would bake parkin. There was usually someone roasting chestnuts too and I absolutely adored those.

  Marian had yet more apples in her car to give me, but I didn’t mind really, especially after I thought up a variant, Treacle Toffee Apples, and added it to my Just Desserts collection. Then it occurred to me that the Bonfire Night celebrations in Middlemoss would make a whole chapter of the next Chronicles, if I included a few other interesting snippets of information, like the fact that we always burned an effigy of Oliver Cromwell, warts and all, and not Guy Fawkes like everyone else.

  It was not so much that the villagers were all staunch Royalists in the Mosses, just that they knew how to enjoy themselves and deeply resented the Puritans, or anyone else, trying to put a damper on their fun, and especially the Mystery Play.

  And speaking of the Mystery Play, the Tuesday rehearsal went very well … and in my experience, if the November rehearsals go well, then the final dress rehearsal is a total disaster! But the performance itself on Boxing Day would go down wonderfully, whatever happens, because everyone would be well oiled with mulled wine and marinated in anticipation by then.

  But on Tuesday even Nick had cut out the innuendo from his interpretation of Adam and played it straight. Sombrely, even. He appeared to be still sulking, though I wasn’t sure what about, and he went off again straight afterwards. There was no Ritch in the pub, either, so I played gooseberry with Annie and Gareth for a while, then went back home, where I ate two toffee apples. Just as well I’d made a lot.

  I sent Jasper some of the treacle toffee left over from the apples, which I’d moulded into a square and then broken up, plus a rawhide bone for Ginny — might as well blunt her teeth before he brought her back for Christmas. I was missing him so much. It seemed to hurt more as time went on, though part of me was also, of course, happy that he was having a good time at university.

  The toffee and treacle-toffee apples were all wrapped in circles of Cellophane and piled back into the empty apple box by Thursday, when Marian collected them after the second Mystery Play rehearsal of the week. Apparently that one had also gone swimmingly, so we were both now convinced that the dress rehearsals were doomed to some kind of disaster.

  Bonfire Night, the following day, was likely to be freezing, and I felt increasingly sure my guess about another cold, snowy winter would be right: the amazing number of berries on everything was a dead giveaway.

  Annie never went out on Bonfire Night, staying in to comfort Trinny, who clearly associated loud firework bangs with some unimaginable terror from her past and became a shivering heap. She said Gareth would show his face at the event, before joining her to roast chestnuts over the fire and watch the home videos Annie’s parents had sent her of their VSO work in Africa.

  I expect there will be at least a chaste foot of sofa between them.

  Unks was away and Juno wouldn’t bring Mimi down for the bonfire, since she got much too excited, but instead would treat her to a short private display of Emerald Cascades and Glittering Fountains in the walled garden before cocoa and an early night.

  What Nick was doing I had no idea, and nor was I even remotely interested, so I set out on my own at seven, torch in hand, my innards warmed by a strong slug — or maybe two — of Miss Pym’s rightly famed damson gin: last year’s had been an excellent vintage, but I was down to the last couple of bottles.

  The fire was well alight when I got there and the first of the fireworks were going off, under the direction of Clive Potter. There was quite a crowd about and the refreshment table was doing a roaring trade. I didn’t buy one of my own toffee apples, but I did purchase a plastic cup of mulled wine.

  Looking round the faces brightly lit by the fire I spotted many familiar ones, though some, like Polly Darke and her friends, were not so welcome. On the other side of the bonfire I could see Jojo, Mick, and almost the entire Mysteries cast. In fact, most of the Mosses residents had turned out as always, though I expect the event wasn’t sophisticated enough for Ritch and his crowd.

  From time to time, one or two of the more rebellious teenagers sneaked off into the darkness outside the firelight to set off explosive fireworks, and were yelled at for their trouble: it was all much as usual.

  I sat on a log and peeled hot chestnuts out of a paper cup, then got another tumbler of punch and began to feel a lot happier. ‘This is fun, isn’t it?’ I said, finding myself standing next to Ophelia, who was swathed head to foot in a Tolkien-style woollen cloak with a tasselled hood. It looked pretty weird by firelight, but probably
not as odd as the full-length knitted coat that I was wearing, a labour of love presented to me by Annie last Christmas. It had lots of little hanging daggy bits like a raddled sheep, and the strident colour combination meant I could only wear it in the dark.

  Ophelia’s white face was upturned and rapt, watching a sunburst of stars. ‘Oh … it’s sooo beautiful!’ she sighed rapturously. ‘Beautiful, beautiful stars. Stars …’

  Then as the firework flickered and went out she turned to me and said excitedly, ‘Star! Of course! I’ll call the baby Star!’

  ‘Star Locke?’ I said doubtfully, though of course it might by then be a Star Naylor. ‘If it’s a boy, it might sound a bit odd.’

  ‘No, no … beautiful!’ she murmured, and another firework shot up into the sky and exploded into a galaxy of pinprick lights. ‘Better than Rambo …’

  ‘That’s very true,’ I agreed, beginning to feel a bit muzzy and wondering if my earlier shots of damson gin hadn’t been such a good idea. Or perhaps the punch was stronger than usual. Whichever it was, I had the feeling the chestnuts were sloshing about in an awful lot of liquid, and it was probably about time to call it a day and go home … especially since Nick had suddenly materialised out of the shadows nearby like the Prince of Darkness.

  He was looking at me with what appeared to be acute disapproval: so nothing new there, then.

  ‘Must find Caz and tell him about stars,’ Ophelia said, looking around her vaguely, though you’d need ESP to find our chameleon of Middlemoss if he didn’t want to be found.

  She wandered off and I too turned to go, but had only taken a step or two away from the firelight when something landed with a thud just where we’d been standing and immediately exploded with a horrendous bang and a shower of bright sparks.

  I put my hands over my ears and staggered, almost falling — and then was suddenly knocked flat by someone large and heavy. He landed on top of me and rolled me over and over and even winded, shocked and with my face pressed into icy mud, I somehow knew it was Nick. After what seemed like ages his weight was removed and urgent hands ripped my woolly coat off.