‘That seems to have gone down well,’ said Eve with amusement.
‘Brilliant,’ said Jacques. ‘I love it. Look, Eve.’ He passed the joke to his wife who smiled when she got to the punchline. The joke was right on his level.
What do you call a hen staring at a lettuce?
Chicken Caesar salad.
‘Palma wrote that,’ said Annie. ‘She decided our jokes needed updating.’
‘Palma?’ asked Jacques. ‘The girl we met at the scan? With the pink hair.’
‘Yep, that’s her,’ said Eve. ‘Our Christmas Pudding Club buddy.’
‘It’s like two worlds colliding,’ said Jacques, clapping his hands together. ‘Crackers and Christmas puddings. I love it. We should all be married to each other.’
‘We think we could have a cracker shop in the park, don’t we, Jacques?’ said Eve, bringing him back to earth. ‘You can brand them with our Winterworld logo, can’t you?’
‘Of course,’ said Joe. ‘Anything you like.’
‘Maybe two qualities for two pockets,’ decided Eve. ‘Fun ones and luxury ones.’
‘We also have these for special occasions,’ said Annie, putting a sparkly box on the table housing two much larger crackers. ‘These are his and hers crackers or his and his or hers and hers or undecided and undecided. And we also have individually boxed ones for super-special occasions. I can’t tell you how many engagement rings we’ve packed into them.’
‘I wish I’d thought of that,’ said Jacques, slapping his forehead with his hand. ‘Imagine the surprise.’
‘There was no surprise. You told me you were going to marry me the first time we met,’ Eve reminded him.
‘And I was right, wasn’t I?’ he dabbed the top of her nose affectionately. ‘Just as I’m going to tell you that your next wedding is one you’ll never forget as long as you live.’
‘We are renewing our vows,’ Eve explained. ‘I like these a lot.’ She picked up a square-sided cracker.
‘They sit very good in the box,’ said Joe.
‘Yes, these for the more expensive ones and these’ – she picked up a round one – ‘for the cheaper lot.’
‘Both the same quality of snap though,’ said Joe. ‘It’s all about the snap.’
‘No, the toys,’ argued Jacques. ‘And the jokes. Chicken Caesar salad . . .’ and he let loose a fresh burst of laughter.
‘It’s everything,’ said Annie. ‘You don’t want to be let down on any of the components.’
‘Hand-rolled or not?’ Eve turned to Jacques.
‘If I might advise you on that,’ put in Annie. ‘The hand-rolled are a lot more labour intensive and that pushes up the price. These days the pre-cut cracker templates are very good and we can do you a much better deal on them.’ Plus we don’t have the workforce to do the hand-rolled at the moment, Annie didn’t say. ‘I mocked up some white ones for you.’ She pulled a glossy white cracker out of her bag with holographic snowflakes printed onto the card. The ends were tied with glittery white ribbon, ‘Winterworld’ had been written on it with a silver pen, and there was a 3D sticker of a snowman stuck on the front.
‘It’s a rough prototype, but you get the idea. You can have Winterworld printed on the ribbon or we can have it printed on the card. It can be obvious or subtle so it shows up only when the light catches it.’
‘I like the ribbon idea,’ said Jacques. ‘Glittery crackers though.’ Subtle was a swear word to Jacques.
‘We can do that of course,’ said Joe, flapping his hand as if to imply he could do glittery crackers in his sleep.
‘I agree,’ said Eve. She looked at the novelty samples which were so much better than the usual tiny plastic combs and rubbish spinners. Not to mention the sexual-expertise-predicting red cellophane fish. The tiny books and miniatures were fabulous.
‘Let’s start with a small initial order,’ she said. ‘Ten thousand for December, staggered delivery from October, is that okay?’
Annie and Joe did a synchronised gulp. ‘Of which sort?’ Joe asked.
‘Both. Ten thousand of each. To begin with. Is that okay?’
‘Can we do it?’ asked Joe after the train had deposited them at the front gates.
‘Of course we can. At a push. We couldn’t turn the business down,’ said Annie. ‘The machines can handle the rolling, it’s the stuffing and the tying that is going to be the main problem – as always. I’d better get cracking on a design straightaway.’
Joe muttered something worried and Italian.
‘We will have to find some outworkers,’ said Annie. ‘Either that or put some speed in Iris’s hot chocolate.’
Joe shook his head. ‘I can’t believe we’ve said we can do this.’ He dropped his car keys, his hands didn’t feel capable of gripping anything. ‘We’re struggling as it is with the orders we need to finish already, and we have a workforce of one Italian slave, two pregnant women and a pensioner.’
‘We will do it, Joe,’ said Annie. ‘If this year has taught us anything it’s that the impossible is doable.’ She reached up and placed her hand on his dear cheek. ‘We are going to expand and grow along with my waistline, Joe Pandoro. There are other Palmas out there and we will find them. And what’s more, I think that Miss Palma Collins is our lucky charm. She’ll help us to get what we need, I’m sure of it.’
‘We can but ask her to try,’ said Joe, opening the car door for his wife and their heir incumbent.
Chapter 35
‘What are you grinning about?’ asked Iris, as she studied Palma from across the table.
‘I’m just happy,’ came the reply.
‘Sex,’ Iris exclaimed, as if she was suffering from a rogue spasm of Tourette’s. ‘That’s what it’ll be. Who with, that’s what I want to know?’
Palma laughed. ‘No, it’s not sex.’ She screwed the top off her bottle of pink lemonade and took a long sip, knowing that Iris was desperate to find out what it was then, if not sex.
‘Come on, spill the beans,’ said Iris impatiently. ‘I might not be here much longer and I don’t want to die not knowing.’
‘Okay,’ said Palma, standing to reach a reel of ribbon from one of the shelves behind her. ‘I have got a fella.’
Now it was Iris’s turn to grin. ‘Aw, what nice news. Not one of those internet men though? Sally Birtwistle at Golden Surfers got herself involved with one of those. Turned out to be a conman. Stole all her mother’s jewellery when she had him up to the house for a roast.’
‘He’s an old school friend. I ran into him recently.’
This was the most Palma had talked about her personal life and Iris was going to take full advantage of the flow.
‘Come on, you’ll have to tell me a bit more: name, what’s he do for a living and does he know you’re up the spout?’
‘He’s called Tommy Tanner and he’s a boxer. He’s the British welterweight champion and lives at the top of Dodley. You might have seen him in the papers. And yes, he does know I’m having a baby.’
Iris lifted up her glasses and studied Palma’s midriff. ‘You’d have had to tell him though because you aren’t showing yet, are you? I bet you’re one of those who doesn’t. Our Linda didn’t show much. I think it was because what she lost in fat she gained in baby. She’s always been a big unit, has our Linda.’
Palma laughed again. She’d had a smile on her face since Tommy had turned up on Friday. He hadn’t stayed for long after he’d asked her permission to call them a couple, because he had a big training session the next morning and then a night out with his sponsor. But he was free on Sunday, he said. Could he take her for lunch? Then he’d kissed her, a short, sweet kiss on the lips and left her grinning, much as she was doing now.
‘He took me out for lunch yesterday,’ said Palma. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t put on a stone with what we ate. Well me, anyway.’
‘Anywhere nice? We sometimes have a carvery. My little great grandson Freddie loves them. He has a plate a grown man couldn’t sh
ift and straight after goes bouncing in the play area. How he doesn’t throw up in the ball pool, I have no idea. Anyway, less about us and more about you – where did he take you?’
‘The Little Cygnet, do you know it? On the road to Wakefield.’
‘Not come across it,’ said Iris after a quick hunt through her mind. ‘Was it one of those posh places where they stick a piece of lettuce on your plate, call it summat fancy then charge you a tenner for it?’
‘Quite the opposite, Iris. It was a lovely country pub with everything home-made. I had a mushroom stroganoff with wild rice. And onion. Then I had a piece of cheesecake that was more slab than slice and I wolfed the lot. Tommy said that if he’d known I could eat so much, he probably wouldn’t have asked me.’ She sighed a Disney princess sigh and Iris was glad to see her looking so cheerful. There was no sad aura hanging about her today.
‘I’m glad for you, love. And enjoy it whilst you can because once you get to thirty, you only have to look at a cheese and onion crisp and your hips will start swelling.’
They heard a car draw up outside.
‘Boss is back, best look busy,’ said Iris with a chuckle.
Annie walked in, Joe lingered behind, talking on his phone.
‘Yes, Jacques, we can do wedding crackers. How many you want? . . . Yes, we can do those for you . . . Okay, I meet with you in secret . . . I’ll tell her not to say anything . . . Goodbye.’
‘How did you get on?’ called Iris.
‘Very well,’ said Annie with a doleful tone that didn’t match her words. ‘Too well in fact. A starter order of twenty thousand by Christmas.’
Iris’s busy hands stilled. ‘How the heck are you going to do those?’
‘We’re going to have to get more staff. Palma, can you help us? Where do we go? I’m not asking the agency again.’
‘Let’s advertise via the website’ said Palma. ‘I’ll update it to invite people to apply and then spread it on social media.’ She thought of how hard it had been for herself to get a job, especially when she had first found out she was pregnant. Maybe there were a whole lot of people out there who couldn’t get a job because they were housebound – or even pregnant – despairing that they were on the scrapheap when in fact their services were very much in need. ‘If you’ll let me have fifteen minutes to do it, I can set the ball rolling now.’
‘Go right ahead,’ said Joe. ‘Use my office.’
‘Palma, we bought you a sandwich, do you want it now?’ asked Annie.
‘No, I’ll have a break when I’ve finished,’ said Palma, disappearing. ‘Okay to shut the door so I can concentrate?’
‘Of course, love,’ said Annie, before turning to Iris and Joe. ‘She’s a wonder, isn’t she?’
‘Aye, she’s a good lass,’ said Iris, leaning forward to impart a confidentiality. ‘She’s got herself a fella. A boxer. Someone she’s known from school. He’s a British champion, she says. Tommy somebody or other.’
‘Not Tommy Tanner?’ asked Joe, who was a boxing aficionado. ‘He’s the British welterweight champion. She’ll be able to get tickets for the ringside. We have to stay on the good side of Palma now.’
‘And he knows she’s up the spout,’ Iris went on. ‘I think I like him already. I hope he doesn’t bugger her about. He’ll have me to deal with if he does.’
‘What were you saying on the phone to Jacques, Joe?’ asked Annie.
‘He wants us to make some wedding crackers because he and his wife are getting married.’
‘Eh?’ said Iris.
‘They’re renewing their vows, but he doesn’t want Eve to know what he’s planning, so I’m going to meet with him in secret to discuss a design. I’ll go and put the kettle on.’
‘You renewed yours, didn’t you?’ said Iris.
‘We did, in Jamaica,’ said Annie.
‘Why though?’ asked Iris. ‘I’m just curious. Our Linda’s friend Gaynor says couples only do it when one of them has done the dirty. That model . . . the one with the big boobs . . . she’s renewed them every time her and her husband have got back together. They must have clocked up fifteen ceremonies because he can’t keep it in his trousers. I bet she’s bloody sick of the sight of wedding cake by now. I’d have booted him out because you can’t patch up a marriage with royal icing and marzip—’ Iris’s hand flew up to her mouth. ‘I’m not saying you two are like them. I only wondered what other reasons people had to go and do it.’
Iris and Gill had both started working there five years ago, after all the trouble. They’d never known what the Pandoros had been through.
‘We had a rough patch, Iris, and we wanted to start again on a new footing. No one else involved, just life and pressure and all that disappointment that we couldn’t have a baby.’
‘And look at you now, eh?’ beamed Iris. ‘You’re not half starting to show. You’ll be feeling it soon. Nineteen weeks I was when I felt this little thing shift in my stomach. Scared me to sodding death.’
Annie knew she was starting to show now. The skirt she had on was one she’d kept – for whatever reason – from when she was at her fattest and it was snug. She’d ordered some clothes from a pregnancy store on the internet and they were due to arrive that week. Some nice empire-style dresses, expanding trousers and loose-fitting tops. This old skirt was going straight in the bin when she got home. She pulled out the order book and slotted the Winterworld crackers into the schedule. Now all they needed was the manpower.
Palma emerged from the office. ‘Okay, I’ve put an advert on the website and I’ve tweeted it and spread it on Facebook. Maybe you could get in touch with the Chronicle and the Sheffield Telegraph and the Trumpet because it would make a great story.’
‘The Trumpet?’ exclaimed Iris. ‘The only thing they get right is their name and I’ve seen a couple of times when they haven’t even done that.’
‘Anything is worth a shot,’ said Annie. ‘I’m on it.’
‘The numbers and the email addresses of the features editors are in the back of the telephone book on the desk,’ said Palma. ‘I thought it might be good to have them to hand so I wrote them in.’
Annie gave her head a small shake. ‘I absolutely do not know how we managed before you came along,’ she said.
‘She’s not that great at sticking a kettle on though,’ Iris’s voice rang from behind. Hint taken, thought Palma.
The Knackers Yard, the cracker-making firm on the Maltstone Business Estate are looking for home-workers to assemble and stuff crackers from the comfort of their armchairs.
Joint managing director Jose Pandoro said that he was hoping that people would apply who might be finding difficulty in getting work because they were housebound or pregnant when finding employment might be difficult.
Jose Pandoro told the Daily Trumpet he is looking for workers from homes with no smoke or pets. ‘Cracker erections and stuffing might sound simple but they have to be right,’ he said. ‘We pride ourselves on the quality of our products.’
In the first instance please phone or email. Details in our Weekly Directory page on page 4.
Chapter 36
Whilst Eve was at her antenatal appointment, Jacques was busy planning the wedding with the help of Myfanwy. He had discussed the crackers with Joe Pandoro, he had the cake arranged already; Eve’s cousin Violet and her mum, Auntie Susan, were sorting out the dresses. He had flowers ordered, the reception menu chosen and the weather booked. Of course there would be snow because the snow machines would take care of that. He still had plenty of time to do other mad things and Jacques being Jacques would take full advantage of any Christmassy element he could stuff into the proceedings. That included getting Stephen, one of the rescued snowy owls, to fly to the front of the chapel with an eternity ring when he’d chosen it. He thought he had a handle on what Eve might like: something classy and beautiful, like her, with emeralds as green as her eyes. He was clicking through some pages on his iMac when the door opened and in she walked so he flicked ov
er to the Sky news page.
‘Hiya, darling, how did it go?’
Eve was grinning from ear to ear. Her face was getting chubbier, though he didn’t mention that in case she thumped him.
‘All good,’ she said. ‘And I heard the baby’s heartbeat. It was going ten to the dozen but apparently that’s quite normal. It was so strong, I wish you could have heard it too.’
‘I’ll hear it soon enough,’ said Jacques. ‘I can’t wait.’
Eve looked tired today. She’d not slept well. She was having dreams about the baby being born with two heads, or no head. Then a few nights ago, she dreamt she had given birth to an enormous slug. Watching The Fly hadn’t helped.
‘Is there anything going on with Davy and Cariad?’ asked Eve, as she hung her jacket up on the coat stand. ‘I’ve just seen them both outside the ice-cream parlour. Davy was pacing up and down and he seemed very agitated and Cariad looked as if she was trying to calm him down. What do you think all that is about?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Jacques, thinking back to the beginning of the week when he’d seen them together in a close embrace. He wondered if he should try and find out, though.
*
Following the advert in the Daily Trumpet – which might have got some of the details wrong, but thankfully neither the email address nor the telephone number for applications – there were quite a few enquiries about the position of ‘cracker erector’. Iris had also had the foresight to ring Hilda, who cleaned her daughter’s house once a week, to ask if any of the girls who worked for Lady Muck might fancy a spot of outwork which they could do at a time to suit. Hilda said she’d ask around. Within the half hour someone introducing herself as Astrid had phoned Joe asking if she could apply. At first he thought it was a joke phone call because Astrid had the strangest accent he’d ever heard in his life – a cross between broad Yorkshire and deepest Black Forest German.
The Mother of All Christmases Page 19