The Christmas Menagerie

by Minna Howard

  She arrived at last and joined a small stream of children wandering in. A few came for breakfast and some were dropped off by their parents on their way to work.

  As she walked across the playground to the door, she saw Jules and Dickon ahead. They reached the door and opened it and Jules turned around and saw her. He smiled.

  ‘Morning, Amelia, it was a tricky drive this morning, I wasn’t expecting it to be so icy.’

  ‘No, me neither. Fortunately, Rufus is still staying with us and he defrosted the car for me.’

  ‘Hope we can build a snowman.’ Dickon was looking more like the cheerful, talkative boy he’d been when she’d first met him. ‘I wanted you to come and watch Britain’s Got Talent with us but Dad forgot to ask you.’ He frowned at his father.

  ‘What a lovely thought,’ she said, surprised, smiling at him.

  At the same moment, Jules said, ‘It was such short notice and I expect you are busy at weekends, but you must come over another time.’

  ‘Thanks, but I should have you all over to my house,’ she said.

  ‘Will any animals be there?’ Dickon said.

  ‘Look, you’ll be late, off you go, enjoy your day.’ Jules patted him on the shoulder, saying he’d come pick him up.

  ‘Bye, Dad.’ Dickon took a deep breath, went to the staircase and up to his classroom.

  Amelia watched him go a moment, her heart going out to him. She must get on, she still had time for a coffee before her class.

  Jules asked, ‘Did you enjoy the concert the other night?’

  ‘Yes, it was wonderful, though,’ she shrugged, ‘I’m not very knowledgeable about music and I couldn’t really get to grips with the second half.’

  ‘Me, neither.’ He watched her a moment, seeming poised to leave and yet he did not. ‘So, all well with David? I haven’t heard from him since that evening,’ he asked lightly.

  She paused, children, some with parents, nannies or au pairs, swarming round them. She said, ‘Just as we left the concert, his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend, whatever, rang and said she’s getting married. It really upset him.’

  ‘Lucile?’ Jules frowned.

  ‘I think that was her name. Perhaps he thought after a short time apart they’d be back together. He’s never really spoken about her… though he did say something about relationships having a life span. This news obviously came as a blow.’

  Jules looked thoughtful. She went on, ‘He was pretty shaken, I was worried about him driving home alone. I don’t know where he lives, but Sophie and Rufus were in the house and he didn’t want to come in.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I always thought that Lucile was a rather fickle girl, the sort of “you’ll do until a better bet comes by” person. I’ll call him.’ He put his hand on her shoulder, his expression serious now. ‘Thanks for telling me, Amelia. I’d better get on, got a string of animals to see today.’ He grinned. ‘Only farm ones, though, no pets. See you.’ Then he was gone, striding through the crowd of children streaming through the hall, and she realised she was watching him until he was out of sight.

  She pulled herself together. If she went quickly now to the staff room, she’d have time to have that coffee. She felt a hand on her arm. It was Mrs Russell, the mother of Will who’d fallen over in the playground and grazed his knee last week. There would be no time for a coffee now.

  *

  The day had seemed very long, the children were excited about the snow and dashed out into the playground at break, but by then, what snow was left was slushy and soft and useless for building anything. Many fell over and came back inside wet and cold.

  Amelia, on pick-up duty and sorting out the wet clothes for the children to take home, saw, to her disappointment, Cynthia crossing the hall to collect Dickon. Seeing her, Dickon opened his bag, pulled out a green scarf and thrust it at her.

  ‘You left this behind on Saturday. Uncle Giles said to give it to you.’

  ‘Oh, thanks.’ She took it from him. ‘Right, are you ready?’ She sounded impatient.

  Amelia busied herself in sorting out Andy’s shoes which he’d put on the wrong feet. She remembered Dickon saying he wanted her to come round on Saturday, but would Jules really have asked her if Cynthia was there?

  Dickon came to shake hands with her before he left, and he said. ‘Will the kennels be open again soon? They were very unsafe, weren’t they? All the animals would have got out, with all those broken bits and the roofs off.’

  ‘They are a complete waste of everyone’s time,’ Cynthia said, eyeing her coldly as if she was responsible for trying to open them again. ‘Jules has far more important things to do than put up with crowdfunding and various other time-wasting efforts to get them open. The old couple has retired and left the district, so the best thing for it is to sell the whole place.’

  Amelia, standing up after changing Andy’s shoes, said, ‘Now their nephew has arrived and will be living there, it’s surely up to him and the owners what to do.’

  ‘Then Luna could go there when we go on holiday, unless we leave him with you, Amelia… Mrs Meredith.’ Dickon remembered he must call her that at school.

  ‘Let’s see what happens.’ Amelia smiled at him.

  Cynthia threw her a scorching look. ‘Just don’t keep bothering Jules with all this, he’s sick to death with it all.’

  32

  It was such a relief that it was the weekend. The first couple of weeks of a school term, especially after the Christmas holiday, were always fraught, while the children settled down to a more structured life. Last term had ended with them razzed up with excitement of the anticipated jollities ahead, which often ended rather abruptly when it was all over and normal life resumed.

  Also, Dom was coming for the weekend.

  ‘Looking forward to seeing him,’ Amelia said cheerfully when Sophie told her. ‘I don’t seem to have seen him for ages… since you moved in together.’

  ‘He’ll be here late Friday night,’ Sophie said. ‘You know what it’s like, everyone leaving London for the weekend.’

  ‘Yes, and in the dark and this wet weather, too.’ Amelia felt a tinge of concern for him. She always slightly worried that there’d been an accident if one of the girls was later than she said she’d be. Esmond would tease her about it, saying why should there be? They were probably late because there was too much traffic, road works or a diversion which got in the way, or maybe they’d stopped for a snack or the loo or something.

  ‘We never stressed about things like that before mobiles,’ he’d say, going on to remark on how he and his friends met up much more often than people did today, as it was the only way. Long telephone calls to each other on the home phone were frowned on by parents.

  ‘It will be lovely to see him.’ Amelia said, wondering if he would persuade Sophie to go back to London with him.

  Dom arrived in time for a late supper. He’d managed to leave straight from work having borrowed someone’s parking space outside his office.

  It was good to see him. He and Sophie had been together for some time. Although they’d got engaged in the summer, no date for the wedding had yet been fixed, of which Amelia was relieved. Sometimes she wished that they could have met a few years later when both of them had lived a little, but love was love, and it was better that they had found each other now than never.

  She watched the three of them joshing with each other round the table and though Rufus joined in, he did not seem as chilled out as he had before. Part of her wished Sophie would go back to London with Dom, to avoid any complications with Rufus. She wondered how it would all pan out. If Sophie stayed down here fighting her new cause of reopening the kennels with Rufus, would her feelings for Dom change?

  Sophie had not earned much in her job before Christmas and most of her money had gone on buying Christmas presents. Unless she got a job locally, she’d have no money coming in while she was here trying to get the kennels up and running again, if that was even possible.

  When Jamie a
nd Wilfred came to inspect her garden, Sophie tried to persuade them to give them a donation to rebuild the kennels, telling them they were working hard to set up some crowdfunding.

  ‘Cleo was very happy with your mum,’ Jamie told her, after rather reluctantly handing over a twenty-pound note. ‘It was more homely and peaceful than the kennels. It used to get very noisy and upset her there when there were lots of dogs barking.’

  ‘But Mum can’t look after them when she’s at work,’ Sophie said. ‘We plan to have the kennels open all the time. You never know if someone needs to leave a pet in an emergency.’

  ‘All very true, darling, but they’ve got to be built first and…’ Jamie wagged a finger at her. ‘Don’t forget, it’s got to pass Jules’s conditions.’

  ‘He could have left the district by then,’ Sophie said. ‘He’s been offered another job away from here.’

  Amelia felt a stab of dismay and scolded herself for it. Jules had always said he might not stay. But Dickon had settled into the school now, made friends and surely it would be unfair to uproot him again to start somewhere else?

  ‘Well, we might get someone worse,’ Wilfred said darkly. ‘Jules is a very good vet. Cleo loves him. He takes great care of her.’

  ‘Oh, has she been ill?’ Amelia wondered if she’d caught something while she’d been with her.

  ‘She has regular check-ups, as we do with that nice Doctor Austin,’ Jamie said. ‘Now let’s get out into the garden before it gets dark. First thing to go, dear, is that dreadful Aucuba. Nothing ages a garden – and not in a nice way – more than them. Everyone had them when I was a child, dreadfully depressing plants.’ He opened the door to the garden and went outside with his mobile, noting down the things he disliked on it. ‘And a yew tree. Don’t tell me this was once a cemetery, darling?’

  ‘I do hope not, I was planning to get rid of it, I find it rather gloomy . I concentrated on getting the house right last year,’ she said, hoping Jamie wasn’t going to completely strip the garden and start again as no new plant would do much in its first year and she quite liked one or two corners, the lilac bush and a climbing rose that raced down the back fence, covered in flowers in the summer. She also wondered if she was to pay for some of this service, or were they doing it as a favour for taking in Cleo at such short notice?

  It was very cold, but the sun was out brightening up the garden. Clusters of dead leaves hid in the corners and here and there tiny green shoots pushed their noses out from the cold earth.

  ‘Last year when we had the builders in, they dumped lots of their stuff all over the garden so many things couldn’t grow, but I see things are coming up now. I’d like to leave them and see what they are before deciding what to keep and what to pull up.’

  Wilfred had now joined them. ‘That’s all very well, Amelia, but we have to get things started. All that ivy too,’ he pointed to the wall, ‘poison my dear, poison. It certainly needs a lot doing to it, so why don’t you leave it to us? This is our present to you for taking in Cleo and looking after her so well.’

  It was certainly a very kind offer, but it meant Amelia would have to give them carte blanche and let them do whatever they pleased. She had a feeling too, that if she suggested anything they might react with scorn. Their garden at the garden centre was very imaginative and she did like their taste even if it was a little OTT.

  The two men stood in the middle of the lawn side by side, Jamie with his iPad, Wilfred with a pair of secateurs, and every so often he’d lunge at a plant and snip a piece off.

  Jamie said, ‘When the spring comes, go and look at Giles’s garden, we did that one a few years ago, though it is much bigger than yours and a different shape.’

  ‘I saw a bit of it at Christmas. It had lots of berries and things looked very good for a garden in the winter.’ She thought if she asked to see it, she might see Jules, find out if he really was leaving the district, though why should she mind what his plans were, especially as Cynthia was hovering in the wings. What about Dickon? He’d said he’d wanted her to go round to watch television with them, but had Jules forgotten to contact her because he’d already asked Cynthia over?

  33

  Dom came into the kitchen while Amelia was finishing off cooking Sunday lunch. He and Rufus had laid the table and Sophie made an apple and blackberry crumble – the blackberries taken from the freezer which they had picked from the hedgerows in the autumn.

  He hovered round her, asking if there was anything she needed help with, making her guess that he had something he wanted to say to her.

  ‘So, you’re enjoying your job. You sound as if you have settled in, and you like the people there,’ she said, having heard a few snippets about it when they were all together.

  ‘I am enjoying it… but…’ He paused, looking awkward, hands in his pocket, feet shuffling. She sensed he was about to say something important, something difficult, that she might not want to hear.

  She moved the potatoes from around the lamb into a dish while the joint ‘rested’ in the oven. She felt a prickle of alarm, guessing that whatever it was he wanted to say was going to change how things were now. She waited, but still he said nothing. She put a lid on the dish of potatoes, put them on the hot plate and turned to him.

  ‘Dom, we’ve known each other so long. From the time you and Sophie first started uni, when you were both struggling with homesickness, but you both got stuck in, passed your exams and are now adults living your own lives.’ She smiled. ‘Whatever it is you want to say, just say it.’

  He gave her a hesitant smile, took a breath, said, ‘The thing is, my firm are sending some of us to their US office. Not immediately, I don’t think, but in a few months if they think we are up to it. I’ve hardly travelled anywhere. I’ve had holidays abroad, but I’ve never lived in another country. I’d love to go – if I’m chosen – but the thing is…’ He paused, bit his lip.

  ‘You couldn’t take Sophie with you even if you were married?’ she asked, to help him, having heard of such arrangements before.

  ‘Something like that. I mean I’m told unmarried or unattached people have more chance of being chosen.’

  ‘I can understand that, after all you are very young and I suppose the others just taken in by your firm, are the same, fresh from uni,’ Amelia said. ‘What does Sophie think?’ She guessed he hadn’t told her because Sophie hadn’t said anything. She would perhaps think that he did not love her enough to give up going to the States to stay with her, which would be unfair. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have a good job and no doubt could go far if he stayed in the UK, but probably would go further if he went where his firm asked him to go and the States were an exciting place to be.

  ‘I haven’t told her,’ he said. ‘I thought I would this weekend, but she’s so fired up about this kennels lark and there’s been no opportunity. I am going to tell her before I leave, if I can get her alone. Rufus says he’s going over to his aunt’s house with some of his things this afternoon, so I’ll have a chance then.’

  ‘You are both very young,’ Amelia said. ‘I’m very fond of you, you’re like a son, and Esmond liked you too, but I understand. You must go the way you think best. Strong relationships can stand a lot.’ She remembered someone she’d met, who’d spent months on surveillance under the sea and knew very little of how their family was getting on. It happened; some relationships might even last longer if people only lived together for short periods. Who could tell? She and Esmond were so blessed with what they had; relationships were fickle things, and if Dom didn’t go, he might resent Sophie and sour their love that way.

  ‘Thank you for understanding, Amelia.’ He looked relieved. ‘I’m not suggesting we break up, it’s the last thing I want, but I’d like to try it out, work in the States. Anyway, it looks like Sophie wants to stay here for a while, fighting for the kennels.’

  ‘She does for the moment, but I don’t know how it will work out. As you must have seen, when you went over yesterday, they’ll
need to find a good sum of money to fund it.’ Amelia wondered what would happen if it came to nothing. How would Sophie take that?

  After lunch, mostly highjacked by Sophie and her plans for the kennels, Rufus said he was going over there to get into the house.

  ‘We’ll come with you,’ Sophie said eagerly, ‘we didn’t see much yesterday as it was raining.’

  ‘No, don’t come today. I need to pack up a few things for my aunt, she’s sent me a list of things she needs, get them ready for the removal van.’ Rufus glanced in Dom’s direction.

  Dom said, ‘I’d like to go for a walk; I need my fix of country air before I go back to London.’

  Amelia said now it had stopped raining, she was going to be in the garden. She wanted to see if anything else had come up which she might want to keep, before Jamie and Wilfred came back with their plans for it.

  She wandered round the garden feeling troubled, wishing Esmond was here to talk it over with. He’d known Dom before he died and liked him. Neither of them then had thought they might still be together or get engaged so young. Esmond had made the mistake of marrying too young the first time himself. It had ended in many tears and he would not want that to happen to his daughter. If only he was here to help them make the right choices.

  Sophie and Dom came back when it was almost dark. They were holding hands in an almost desperate way as if they were about to be torn apart. Both looked subdued. Sophie said, ‘Dom’s told you, Mum, about him possibly going to the States to work. I don’t know what to think… wait until it happens, I suppose. He might not be chosen to go there, after all.’