The Magic of Christmas

by Trisha Ashley

  I went into the post office to mail Jasper the box of giant rum truffles I’d made that morning, and an Advent calendar with a chocolate behind every window. I only hope he doesn’t get zits. The post office was busy and everyone in the queue was still talking about my near-roasting, though the news of Nick’s TV appearance had also got out and was causing much excitement. I said I expected it would all come down to a brief glimpse of him among the also-rans, then realised how sour grapes that sounded and shut up.

  Of course I wanted him to win it, since clearly it meant so much to him. Of course I did …

  On the way back home I noticed that Gareth’s car was parked outside the vicarage and, on impulse, paid him a visit.

  He gave me tea and I got right down to brass tacks.

  ‘Look, Gareth, I hope you don’t mind my speaking frankly, but Annie is my oldest friend and all this dithering about is making her miserable. So I want to know whether your intentions towards her are honourable. Is Barkis willing?’

  He choked on his arrowroot biscuit, but when I could get any sense out of him it was just as I thought: they were both pussy-footing around, each thinking the other one only wanted to be friends.

  ‘She loves you, you dimwit, she told me so,’ I said plainly, but he was so modest it took a while to convince him. When it finally did, he stared at me with dawning hope in his blue eyes.

  ‘She’ll be at home now, having lunch,’ I said casually. ‘I know she’s got a busy afternoon, because she’s covering my pet-sitting jobs as well as her own today, but I’ll be fit to work again tomorrow. I’m …’

  But I was talking to myself, because he’d gone without so much as grabbing his coat or saying goodbye. As I let myself out, I only hoped he had a key. We didn’t want our vicar arrested for breaking into his own home, did we?

  Annie phoned me up between pet-sitting jobs, almost incoherent with happiness, to announce that Gareth had proposed and they were now engaged. They’re trying to get through to her parents to give them the glad tidings, but communication with that remote area of Africa is a little difficult at present.

  But I’m sure when they do hear they’ll be very happy and, if anyone deserves wedded bliss, I’m sure Annie does.

  As for me, I remembered a recipe in one of my books for rabbit with chilli-chocolate sauce — and it was definitely different.

  Chapter 25: Crème de Coeur

  Sunday started bright, crisp and frosty, so I really threw myself into tidying up the garden, raking up dead leaves for compost and clearing the annual herb beds, accompanied by a lot of hopeful hens.

  In the afternoon, I covered my own Christmas cake and the six individual ones I’d made for the WI hampers with marzipan. Then, having some left, I made petits fours by sandwiching marzipan between two walnut halves and put them in paper cases.

  The Perseverance Chronicles: A Life in Recipes

  I found it hard to sleep on Saturday night, despite having spent the entire evening making yet more rum truffles — this time little ones for the WI hamper goody bags.

  Every time I closed my eyes, lowlights of the night before kept running on a loop through my head and I became conscious of all the aches and pains of my poor bruised, singed and battered body.

  There was little work to do in the garden now that winter had arrived, but on Sunday I still found enough both there and in the kitchen to keep myself occupied. That night I did finally fall asleep, exhausted and still smelling of the rum truffles I’d been putting into little Cellophane bags tied up with silver ribbon.

  Monday’s post brought me a card depicting the Tower of London with a Crème de Coeur recipe scribbled on the back, but I decided Nick could keep his heart to himself — if he’d got one.

  At the CPC meeting I handed over all the little bags of truffles to Marian, another task done. I’d gone braced for lots of discussion of my Bonfire Night mishap, but luckily the news of Annie’s engagement and Nick’s forthcoming TV appearance were much more exciting.

  We toasted the bride-to-be with the bottle of elderflower champagne I’d taken with me for the purpose, though of course she hadn’t yet got a ring to show off.

  ‘But I gave Gareth my little silver dolphin ring for size, and he was going to buy one today,’ she said, looking rosy-cheeked and very pretty, though I think the latter partly attributable to her having finally listened to my advice about growing out her fringe and abandoning the pudding-bowl haircut.

  ‘Do you trust him to get something you’ll have to wear for the rest of your life?’ asked Faye.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said simply. ‘I’m sure it will be lovely.’

  We discussed the wedding pretty exhaustively and also the impossibility of Gareth marrying himself, though of course if Annie’s parents got back in time her father could perform the ceremony.

  ‘I’d really love that,’ she said wistfully. ‘To be married by daddy in his old parish — that would be so special!’

  ‘Well, I don’t see why not, if that’s what you want,’ Miss Pym said.

  We had a second elderflower champagne toast and then, since we were once again at Faye’s, we had another ice-cream tasting. The rum and raisin had the edge on the toffee apple, but they were both good.

  Faye said my champagne had given her an idea and next year she might try concocting an elderflower ice cream, which she thought would have a delicate but interesting flavour.

  I hadn’t been home for long when Unks rang up and absolutely insisted I go up to the Hall to watch the awards ceremony on TV with him, Mimi and Juno that evening so, rather than upset him, in the end I agreed.

  We all crowded round the big set in his den, which is decorated with a mixture of old racing prints and early Pharamond’s Butterflake Biscuit posters, reflecting the varied strands that make up the family character.

  The Cookery Writer of the Year award was just one among many, so we had to sit through Sport, Fashion and goodness knows what, before we got to it. It was just as well I’d taken up some of the walnut petits fours I’d made on Sunday evening and a big slab of very gingery parkin.

  The cameras kept panning around the room and I caught a brief glimpse of Nick at one of the tables. I’d seen him in a dinner jacket before, of course, but never at a distance. It was like looking at a stranger … and I had a better chance to examine the effect when he went up to collect his award. Yes, he won the thing.

  ‘I knew he would,’ Mimi said complacently, through a mouthful of parkin.

  ‘You can’t have known,’ Juno said. ‘He’s not the only good cookery writer around.’

  ‘He’s in a league of his own,’ she said loyally. ‘And don’t you think he looks handsome in his dinner jacket, Lizzy? He’s the best-looking man in the room.’

  He was certainly the tallest and though with those strongly marked features you couldn’t in all fairness call him handsome, he was possibly the most attractive-looking man there. I realised I was sitting forward and leaned back again, casually.

  ‘He scrubs up well,’ I agreed grudgingly.

  ‘He’s coming home in a couple of days and bringing some people with him,’ Unks told me. ‘He asked me if I would mind if they decorated the hall, kitchen and dining room up as if it was already Christmas, so they could photograph it for an article.’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit late for that? I thought magazines did everything well in advance.’

  ‘It’s for the Sunday magazine he writes for and they were ready to feature some footballer or other; only now he’s involved in a big sex scandal and his wife and children have left him, so they asked Nick instead.’

  ‘It will be such fun, like having two Christmases,’ Mimi said rapturously. ‘Will we have presents too, Roly?’

  ‘No, it’s all fake. Don’t get your hopes up. They’ll bring everything they need to decorate the place with them, including a pretend Christmas dinner. Lizzy, Nick said to ask you if you would come, because they need extra guests for the photographs. And perhaps Annie and the vicar,
too?’

  ‘Kind of him,’ I said drily.

  ‘We’ll all be in the magazine,’ Mimi said, ‘pulling crackers and opening parcels.’

  I seemed to have already pulled a cracker and I hadn’t recovered from the big bang yet.

  Unks may have detected a certain lack of enthusiasm, because he asked anxiously, ‘You will come, won’t you, Lizzy? And Jasper too, of course, if he’s home.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think he will be, though he’ll be back for the real Christmas, of course.’

  ‘I’m going to wear my blue lace dress,’ Mimi announced.

  ‘You’ll have to: it’s the only decent dinner dress you’ve got left,’ Juno pointed out. ‘I keep telling you not to garden in them.’

  ‘Well, you’ve only got that black thing. Unless we buy new ones? What about you, Lizzy?’

  ‘I don’t have anything suitable at all, so I’d better not come,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m sure Nick won’t want me there, anyway.’

  ‘He said to ask you specially,’ Unks said and they all seemed to be looking at me meaningfully … though, of course, they knew about the accident, for news travels fast round here.

  ‘He was so brave at the bonfire, wasn’t he, Lizzy? If he hadn’t been so quick-witted you might have been badly burned,’ Mimi said, reading my thoughts.

  ‘Then he carried you back to your cottage after you fainted,’ Juno sighed. She clearly has a much more romantic streak than her bluff exterior would lead you to believe.

  ‘Yes, he’s a real hero. He even spent the night on the sofa afterwards, in case I was suffering from shock and needed anything,’ I added pointedly. This was quite true, though of course I didn’t mention that I had spent the night there too and, unfortunately, had needed something … or someone.

  Mimi looked very thoughtful, but before she could say anything else I said quickly, ‘Did you all know about Annie’s engagement to the vicar?’

  This proved distraction enough to keep them going until I went home.

  I’d put the phone down on Nick twice since he’d left. When I heard his voice I couldn’t think of a thing I wanted to say to him — or nothing polite, anyway. He got the message eventually and stopped phoning. Good.

  He missed yet another Mystery Play rehearsal, though we were all word-and position-perfect, and into sorting out the costumes and props, ready for our final dress rehearsal before Christmas. This we always do up at the Hall, in two sessions in random order, as ordained by Clive and Marian, and Adam and Eve are sometimes excused from wearing their skimpy outfits on this occasion, because of the cold. (I was so hoping it would be cold! The less exposure in my new Spandex outfit, the better.)

  Mimi and Juno must have been at a loose end, because they came down to watch the rehearsals again and Juno kindly read Nick’s part in her big, deep voice.

  ‘Might as well come along to the pub with you afterwards for a quick snifter,’ she said heartily when we’d all finished.

  ‘Actually, I’m going to the Butterflakes café-bar with Ritch, tonight,’ I said, slightly self-consciously, though there’s nothing particularly secret about our occasional friendly drinks. And I certainly didn’t want Nick thinking that there weren’t lots of other men interested in me, even if he wasn’t …

  ‘Oh, that sounds such fun!’ Mimi said. ‘I’ve never been to the Butterflakes bar. Why don’t we go too, Juno?’

  ‘Oh, we couldn’t possibly intrude on Lizzy’s evening,’ Juno said, and Mimi’s face fell.

  Ritch was awaiting me outside, but when I turned round to introduce Mimi and Juno they’d vanished. Somehow I wasn’t completely surprised to find them already ensconced at a corner table at the café-bar when we went in. They smiled and waved.

  ‘Friends of yours?’ asked Ritch.

  ‘Roly Pharamond’s sister, Mimi, is the one with silver curly hair. Juno is her companion — and I’m starting to suspect they’re here tonight to keep an eye on me.’

  ‘Do you need keeping an eye on?’ he asked, brightening. ‘Got anything interesting planned for later tonight?’

  ‘No, just a drink, a chat and then home — alone,’ I said pointedly.

  ‘Oh, well, worth a go. Dora told me Nick Pharamond was the hero of the hour at the bonfire and you and he are, as she put it, only waiting for your six months’ mourning to elapse before naming the day.’

  ‘Dora said that?’ I gasped, because if so, then the whole of Middlemoss probably thought the same! How on earth did these rumours get about?

  ‘Yes. Sounds like something straight out of Cotton Common, doesn’t it, though you should be wearing widow’s weeds to look the part.’ He glanced at me curiously. ‘So, are you and the Young Master going to get hitched, then?’

  ‘No!’ I said forcefully.

  ‘Well, you needn’t bite my head off, I didn’t suggest it! Though come to think of it, he does give me jealous looks whenever he sees me talking to you!’

  ‘That’s just a sort of general disapproval,’ I explained. ‘He thinks of me as part of the estate’s goods and chattels.’

  When we left, Mimi and Juno followed us out, though they could hardly hitch a lift in Ritch’s sports car.

  Juno stooped and said to me through the window, ‘Might just call in on the way home, Lizzy. Roly wanted some more of that lemon marmalade and it slipped my mind earlier.’

  So I was definitely being chaperoned! But I was sure it was entirely their own idea, and they couldn’t keep it up twenty-four hours a day. It did the trick tonight, though, because Ritch dropped me off and left immediately. I think he found Juno rather alarming.

  When the terrible twosome turned up ten minutes later, Mimi had a miniature paper umbrella behind one ear and was full of exotic cocktails, giggly and overexcited, but I thought she’d go out like a light once her head hit the pillow.

  I should be so lucky.

  There didn’t seem any way of getting out of the photoshoot, especially since Annie and Gareth were very excited about it, but I had no idea what to wear and neither did Annie.

  None of our clothes looked smart enough, especially if Juno and Mimi were getting dressed up in their best. In the end we thought we’d better buy something new, and I drove us both over to Southport in the Land Rover.

  Annie wanted to look in bridal shops anyway, because she and Gareth hoped to get married in January, if Annie’s parents could get back for it, and that didn’t leave a lot of time for the preparations. She wanted me to be chief matron of honour and the rest of the CPC to form her bridal retinue, preferably dressed in pink, like a posy of slightly passé flowers. But her thrifty little soul was shocked by the high prices so we gave up after a while and searched out our dinner outfits instead.

  Annie chose a midnight-blue chiffon tunic top with matching palazzo trousers, cinched in around her narrow waist (her shape is a very curvy hourglass) with a gold chain belt. Mine was a dark, clingy dress in a holly-leaf colour that made my eyes look very green. It had interestingly draped bits and looked like nothing on the hanger, but it certainly made the most of what assets I possessed when it was on.

  In fact, it was dead sexy, and not at all the sort of thing I would normally wear, but in it I felt armoured for any eventuality.

  When Nick came back very early on the Thursday morning, he instantly threw the Hall into a flurry of preparation for the Christmas photoshoot, though they didn’t have to put any decorations or a tree up, because everything was supplied and the house was to be professionally ‘dressed’.

  Mrs Gumball had sent Joe down for some eggs, which is how I knew Nick was back, and after a few hours he finally managed to tear himself away and walked into my house without a by-your-leave.

  I gave him one glance, as he lounged in the doorway in dark thundercloud mode, and then concentrated on beating my fruitcake mix to death: when he was wearing his Mr Rochester expression it was never a good sign.

  ‘Why did you keep putting the phone down on me, Lizzy? Don’t we have something to talk
about?’

  ‘We have nothing to talk about, Nick,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Yes we have! The other night—’

  ‘Shouldn’t have happened, and as far as I’m concerned it never happened,’ I interrupted firmly. My arm was starting to ache by now, so I stopped beating and began buttering the cake tin instead.

  ‘But, Lizzy—’

  ‘Look, I don’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it!’ I snapped, crashing the tin back down on the tiled work-surface and glaring at him.

  ‘Why? What was so wrong about—’

  ‘I’m not discussing it,’ I said. ‘Just forget it, OK?’

  He gazed at me, black eyebrows drawn together in a ferocious frown. ‘Forget it? Come on, Lizzy, it must have meant something to you!’

  ‘Shock makes people do the strangest things, Nick. But if you like, you can put it down to an excess of gratitude that you saved me from serious burns,’ I suggested.

  ‘I don’t want your damn gratitude,’ he snarled, and then slammed out, making everything on the dresser rattle.

  After putting the cake in the oven I sat down and scraped the mixing bowl clean. It tasted salty — but that was probably all the angry tears dripping into it.

  Chapter 26: Crackers

  It’s best to leave a few days between covering your cake in marzipan and icing it, but it works perfectly well even if you don’t. Mince pies freeze very well and defrost quickly, so I usually start to bake batches of them around mid-November. I’ve heard some people put sugar in their shortcrust pastry, but that sounds too sickly for words: the sweetness should come from the mincemeat filling. Nor do I dredge the tops of mine in yet more sugar … The whole world seems to have gone sugar-crazy!

  The Perseverance Chronicles: A Life in Recipes

  In the morning I had just begun icing the Christmas cakes when Mimi and Juno popped round to describe how the family had been banished to the kitchen and small morning room, while the hallway, staircase, drawing room, dining room and family silver were all being buffed up to a high polish.