‘What’s that on your collar, Pansy?’ I asked, picking her up to look – and found a slightly chewed, though still legible, cardboard tag, which read:
To Meg,
Wishing you a very happy Christmas.
If you accept Pansy as my gift, I’ll know you really have forgiven me.
Lex xx
I stared at it, especially those two kisses at the end.
‘Did Lex put you in my room?’ I asked Pansy, and she wriggled till I put her down and then ran to the door, looking back at me as if inviting me to follow. When I opened it, I was somehow not surprised to find Lex standing on the other side, as if uncertain how his present had been received. I left him in no doubt.
‘Oh, Lex, thank you!’ I said with heartfelt gratitude. ‘You couldn’t have given me anything I wanted more than Pansy – but she was so expensive. You really shouldn’t have!’
‘Sybil gave me a family discount,’ he said with that familiar, sharp smile. ‘So … you’ll accept her and my apologies for the past?’
‘Of course I will. There’s nothing left to forgive. It was all a misunderstanding and we’re friends again now, aren’t we?’
On impulse, I stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, but instead our lips met … and then I was lost again in his arms, which held me close.
‘Uncle Lex! Uncle Lex! Are you coming downstairs?’ called Teddy’s voice and we fell apart, staring at each other. My heart seemed to be doing some kind of gymnastic routine and I was having trouble breathing.
‘We’ll have to stop meeting like this,’ Lex said, his voice sounding strange.
Teddy came to a halt in front of us and demanded, ‘Why were you kissing Meg? There isn’t any mistletoe up here and anyway, I think that kind of thing’s soppy.’
‘I kissed Lex to say thank you for giving me Pansy for Christmas.’
‘You mean, she’s all yours for ever?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, she’s a special early present, but if you want to see what you’ve got for Christmas, you’d better go and get dressed, hadn’t you? I think everyone’s getting up now.’
He shot off and, seeing Lex looking at me with a serious expression, as if he was trying to work something puzzling out, I said quickly, ‘I’d better get dressed too – and my hair’s drying all over the place, so it’s going to look like a pink haystack.’
And I whisked into my room and closed the door, fortunately with Pansy on the inside.
Whoops, I’d done it again! I mean, apart from that brief kiss Lex had given me in the car on the night of the Solstice, a friendly salute to mark the end of hostilities, I seemed to be the one making the first moves, though he wasn’t exactly pushing me away when I did.
Did that mean he still had some feelings for me? I knew now that if I let myself, I could fall really hard for Lex. But even if he felt the same way, could we allow ourselves to fall in love when the ghost of the past would be forever haunting us?
38
Entirely Engaged
I had to damp my hair again before I could do anything with it, then took a while dressing in my new jewel-coloured patchwork corduroy dress in honour of the day, before going downstairs with my very own dog at my heels.
Everyone was now down and a space was made for me at the table. I’m sitting here with my family, I suddenly thought. My new family.
In the general confusion of thank yous for the stockings, and Sybil telling everyone how she’d been sworn to secrecy by Lex when he’d bought Pansy for me, there was no time for introspection.
The New Zealand branch of the family rang while we were still in the kitchen – Clara’s sister, Bridget, and her husband, Lex and Zelda’s parents, were spending Christmas at their elder son, Christopher’s, house and the phone was passed around the table.
After that, Teddy didn’t let us linger long in the kitchen and we carried our coffee through into the drawing room, where he was finally allowed to open his presents, while a CD of carols played quietly in the background.
There was a frenzy of paper-ripping, though Tottie sat nearby and listed who had given him the various gifts, so that Teddy could write thank-you notes later.
Lex and Den brought in our presents from the hall and soon we all had a little heap next to us, even River, the unexpected guest.
Teddy ran over with each new treasure to show us and, if the giver was there, to thank him or her.
The castle from Clara and Henry, with the dragon family provided by Den, was greeted with ecstasy. Then the art box from me, and a folding artist’s easel and a pack of small canvases from Lex … jigsaws, books, puzzles and games … Soon the floor around the tree was piled high with his spoils and he was down to the last few. By then, he was wearing the geologist’s goggles that were one of Zelda’s presents to him, along with the pirate’s hat from the game he’d so much wanted.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘Daddy’s sent me a light-up sword and a picture of his friends.’
It was a Star Wars light sabre and the picture was a signed one of some of the cast. One of Daddy’s friends was extremely hairy.
‘I expect Daddy will ring you later, Teddy,’ said Clara. ‘They’re several hours behind us there, I think.’
‘Radnor’s got a wife and family over there. They were separated when I met him, then got together as soon as he went back,’ Zelda confided to me in a low voice, though Teddy had gone back to his presents and probably wouldn’t have heard her if she’d shouted through a megaphone.
We were sitting on the same sofa, our heaps of presents between us, and she’d just put on a pair of earrings with dangling silver llamas and was looking at herself in a jewelled pocket mirror, another gift.
‘He didn’t believe Teddy was his until the DNA test proved it, but he does keep in contact with him now; just birthdays and Christmas really, though.’
‘I suppose that’s better than no contact, and at least Teddy knows who his father is.’
‘Yes, I’ve always been entirely open with him,’ said Zelda, earnestly. Then, after a pensive moment when she was clearly following some inner thought, she added dreamily, ‘Mark said he’d try and come over early.’
Teddy’s last present, a small rectangular one, was a joint gift from Tottie and Sybil. Inside was a framed photograph of a sturdy brown pony with a long mane and tail.
‘That’s Conker,’ explained Tottie. ‘He’s an Exmoor and he’s coming here on long loan at half-term to be your pony.’
‘You can graze him with my horses, like we did with the Shetland we borrowed,’ said Sybil. ‘In fact, he’s coming from the same friends, whose youngest has just outgrown him.’
‘I’ll buy you a new riding hat and paddock boots when he arrives,’ promised Tottie.
‘And we’ll cover any insurance and vet’s bills,’ said Clara. ‘What a lovely idea!’
Teddy was so delighted by this that after a speechless moment he was moved to kiss both Sybil and Tottie, despite his earlier assertion that such goings-on were soppy.
Then Lex helped him gather up all the discarded wrapping, so that we didn’t feel adrift in a sea of lurid Santas, reindeer, snowflakes and penguins.
Teddy settled down on the floor with a jigsaw puzzle of the Rosetta Stone and a chocolate selection box, while we all finished our own unwrapping in peace.
Clara had a lovely long string of chunky real amber beads from Henry, to whom she gave a cashmere jumper in the same colour as his eyes. My sketches seemed to be a hit with everyone and River was pleased with the book about ley lines that I’d bought him.
It became increasingly obvious that several shopping sorties had been made to Preciousss over the last few days, as a stream of pretty, useful or just interestingly bizarre items emerged from their wrappings.
River had chosen a theme and stuck to it for his offerings: everyone got a small smooth pebble painted in Gothic script with words like ‘Blessings’, ‘Peace’ and ‘Tranquillity’. Mine said ‘Love’. He’d also brought me a pair of long blue velv
et gloves in an Elizabethan gauntlet style, the cuffs quilted and sewn with pearls, which had been made by one of the craftworkers at the Farm.
To Teddy, he gave a set of reed panpipes, and since he’d already demonstrated the paper accordion several times, I could see we were in for a noisy Christmas, though the breathy sound of the pipes was definitely the less irritating of the two.
Tottie had also given everyone the same thing, a knitted rainbow scarf, though she pointed out that she’d helpfully sewn on name labels so we didn’t mix them up.
Den offered to swap his new leather driving gloves for the velvet gauntlets, but he was only joking. He had the hands-free torch that Lex had given him strapped around his head, the light like a kind of bright Cyclops eye in the middle of his forehead.
I’d kept the bag from the Farm till the last. It held a terracotta ocarina, a small, hand-turned bowl made of sycamore wood, a pair of moonstone and pearl earrings, and various hand-made face creams, bath lotions and hand balm. The craftworkers at the Farm were very diverse in the things they made.
But finally, the unwrapping was done, the paper collected and tidied away, the dogs calmed down – they’d had special Christmas chews – and we could have more coffee and relax for a while.
When Den and River went off later to make a start on dinner, I helped Tottie to lay the dining table, now extended as far as it would go, to accommodate the extra guests.
There was a special crimson damask tablecloth and a long runner embroidered with snowflakes and gold tassels hanging down at each end.
When the shining cutlery, festive paper napkins and crackers were all laid out, I thought it looked quite perfect. Tottie added the centrepiece, a real log decorated with holly, snowy cotton wool and glitter, which Teddy had made at school.
Lex suggested he and I take the dogs out after that, before our guests arrived, and we took them down the fields at the back of the house, where the snow still lay in drifts. We didn’t talk and I wished I knew what he was thinking about our earlier kiss … if he was thinking about it at all. But our silence was companionable and at one point, when I slipped and nearly fell, he took my hand and didn’t release it till he had to open the gate on the way back.
We dried off the dogs in the garden hall before we let them into the rest of the house: legs and tummies, in Wisty and Pansy’s case, but all of Lass, since she’d been rolling in the snow.
Mark must have arrived early, because he, Zelda and Henry emerged from his study just as we had shut the still slightly damp dogs into the kitchen. I thought perhaps he’d been showing them the latest additions to his bauble collection. One of them, shaped like a hot-air balloon with a basket beneath, had especially taken my fancy.
Just before half past one, Flora drove up in her aunt’s car with Rollo and Piers.
Rollo looked pale and interesting after his illness – a look he’d spent his entire life striving to achieve – and had a tendency to gaze adoringly at Flora.
I was relieved to see he seemed subdued, and when introduced to Henry, shook hands in a quiet and respectful manner before seating himself next to Flora. I suspected she’d given him instructions.
Piers, who was a little glassy-eyed, glanced uneasily at Flora and then drifted hopefully towards the drinks cabinet at the other end of the room.
‘Piers would insist on a drink before we came,’ Flora told us in a low voice. ‘And his hands shake a lot, so I think he’s a near-alcoholic! He’s finished the last of the Bombay gin now and at this rate his bar bill alone is going to be into three figures before he leaves.’
‘He’s an awful old man, but you manage him wonderfully well, darling,’ Rollo said adoringly.
Darling? That was quick work!
Flora gave me a complacent – even smug – sideways smile, a marmoset Mona Lisa.
‘You’re so sweet, Rollo,’ she cooed.
Lex leaned over the back of the sofa and murmured in my ear, ‘Love is in the air, and not just Zelda and Mark! Flora already seems to have her claws firmly into Rollo.’
I turned my head and looked up at him. ‘She doesn’t hang about, does she?’ I whispered.
‘At least it doesn’t look as if he’ll make a nuisance of himself with Henry, so if we can keep Piers from getting near Sybil, everything should be fine.’
There had been no room for Piers on the sofa next to Sybil, when he returned from the drinks cabinet, having helped himself uninvited to a whisky, for she had Tottie on one side and River on the other. I could hear snatches of their conversation: River seemed to be translating the strange symbols round the hem of his purple tunic to them, with occasional interpolations from Clara, sitting opposite.
Piers had had to settle for the less-favoured man-eating sofa, and when Den beat the gong for dinner it didn’t want to disgorge him. It must have spat him out eventually, though, because he arrived in the dining room just as we were taking our seats around the table, at Clara’s direction.
Sybil was placed at the opposite end to Piers and next to River, while Piers was safely corralled between Lex and Mark. The old convention of alternating male and female guests was not something Clara went in for anyway.
In honour of the occasion, we drank rich ruby elderberry wine with our dinner, with lemonade for Teddy. Piers took a sip of his wine and pulled a face, then drained the rest in one.
That was no way to treat something so delicious. I bet River asked Tottie for the recipe later.
We pulled the crackers, which were the ones Teddy had chosen at the Friendship Mill and contained small vintage wind-up cars, hats and jokes.
Everyone, even Piers, put on their paper crowns and read out the bad jokes while we were eating our hot mini salmon en croûte. Then Lex and River helped Den bring in the main course: the large, capon-shaped nut roast had turned out perfectly and sat on a lordly willow-patterned platter. It was flanked by dishes of glistening golden-brown roast potatoes, sprouts, bread sauce, glazed carrots, and a large blue and white striped jug of thick gravy. There were jars of relish too, including the Fiery Fiesta chilli one I’d brought with me. I hoped the picture of a red chilli wearing devil horns and holding a pitchfork on the label would warn everyone about the strength of the contents.
The elderberry wine was obviously strong too, for after Henry filled Piers’ glass a second time, his nose and cheeks became even redder and his eyes more glazed.
The curtains were drawn to gain the full effect of the flaming Christmas pudding when it was carried in. I’d never actually eaten it before and it was very rich and solid, served with white sauce and brandy butter. I could have had trifle instead, but I thought the pudding would be worth experiencing, even if I had indigestion for a week after this crowning moment of gluttony.
At the end, when the plates had been cleared, champagne glasses were put out and a bottle of Tottie’s elderflower champagne poured for a toast.
‘Happy Christmas, everyone,’ said Henry, and we all echoed him and clinked glasses. Then he tapped a spoon against the bottle for silence and said he had a second toast to propose: ‘I’m delighted to say that Zelda and Mark are engaged.’
This was unexpectedly fast, though of course not really a surprise to most of us except Teddy, who stared at his mother, brow wrinkled, as if trying to work out the implications of this news.
We all offered our congratulations. Then Flora called down the table to Henry, in her sweet, carrying voice, ‘You have another toast to propose too – Rollo asked me to marry him earlier today!’
Rollo took her hand. ‘Yes, this wonderful woman has agreed to take me on!’
That sounded more like she’d accepted the position of his nanny, but then, I suppose in a way she had because she must have grasped what he was like by now: needy, self-obsessed and not quite as talented as he thought he was.
‘We knew we were right for each other from the moment we met, didn’t we, Rollo?’ she said.
‘We did and now I’ve told Mother our news, she’s longing to meet
you even more than before,’ he agreed.
Good luck with that one, Flora, I thought, but maybe she’d be equal to the task.
‘Good heavens, that was quick!’ said Tottie, and I thought Zelda and Mark looked slightly put out at sharing their special moment.
Henry hastily proposed the toast. ‘Rollo and Flora!’
‘Rollo and Flora!’ we all echoed, except Piers, who had remained slumped silently in his chair, drinking the elderflower champagne in small sips as if it was medicine.
By now the proceedings finally seemed to percolate through to what was left of his brain, for his eyes suddenly focused on Sybil at the far end of the table, whose hand River was squeezing as he murmured in her ear – probably assuring her that the Goddess had arranged the union of Zelda and Mark and would pour blessings down upon their heads – and he said loudly and commandingly, ‘Sybil!’
She started and turned her head to stare at him like a rabbit in the headlights.
‘I believe we also have something to celebrate, my dear, do we not?’
Sybil turned ashen and her mouth opened and closed silently.
‘Sybil and I decided yesterday to tie the knot, for why live apart when we can live together?’ Piers said, only slightly slurring the words. ‘We will be able to divide our time between Underhill and my flat in Chelsea, the best of both worlds.’
The reaction to this announcement was not quite in the same league as the previous two. In fact, there was a stunned silence, broken only when Mark stared at his mother aghast and demanded to know if this was true.
‘You can’t possibly want to marry Piers, Mum!’
‘Why wouldn’t she?’ said Piers. ‘I’m a damned good catch.’
‘Piers did … suggest it yesterday, when we had a little chat, Mark,’ she faltered. ‘But I – I mean, I didn’t say … nothing was decided. And …’
The Christmas Invitation Page 41