His brown eyes seemed sincere and he laughed when I said suspiciously, “You might just want to charm the rest of Maud’s recipes out of me.”
“Not at all – and it’s not simply an excuse to see you again either, though I really want to. Why don’t you come over tomorrow?”
“I might,” I conceded, though by the time we finally went our separate ways that evening, wild horses wouldn’t have kept me away – and even if they had, I’m sure Liam would have come in search of me.
Suddenly it seemed that the lonely Christmas I’d secretly been dreading would have more than a dash of relish and spice about it, after all!
7
NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS
“Oh no,” Nick said firmly, setting his jaw and crossing his arms over his chest in the darkly brooding and very Mr Darcy way that Rosie usually found extremely attractive. “We can’t possibly have another dog – two are more than enough!”
“But Nick, one more won’t make that much difference,” she pleaded. “And poor Tiggy’s been in the kennels for over a year now, just because he isn’t the prettiest of dogs. No-one ever seems to see beyond that to his lovely nature.”
Rosie was a vetinary nurse, but she also often volunteered at a pet rescue centre on Saturday mornings, which is where Jimmy and Flo, her two Jack Russell terriers, had come from. But since she’d already adopted them before she met and become engaged to Nick, it had been a case of ‘love me, love my dogs.’
“Anyway,” she added defiantly, since Nick’s expression was showing no sign of softening, “I’ve already told them that if no-one else offers Tiggy a home by January, I’ll take him.”
“What, you told them that without consulting me?” he demanded angrily. “I’m very fond of Jimmy and Flo, but the costs mount up, what with micro-chipping, insurance, food, and kennels if we go away – and we’re supposed to be saving for a house deposit.”
“Then what about your flying lessons? They cost an absolute fortune!” she retaliated. “If you can have an expensive hobby, I don’t see why I can’t have another dog.”
“Flying is something I’d always wanted to do,” he said defensively, “I told you so the first time we went out together – and you told me about your dogs, but you never said you intended to have a pack of them.”
“I don’t think you can call three a pack,” Rosie said coldly.
“Well, I’m sick of coming second to the ones we do have,” he snapped and then, somehow, the argument just spiralled until in the end Rosie packed her stuff and the dogs into her car and flounced off to stay with her Great-aunt Emily.
Since her mother had remarried and gone to live in Spain, Rosie had taken to spending Christmas at Aunt Emily’s rambling old cottage in a village a few miles away anyway, where she and the dogs were always sure of a welcome.
Of course, Aunt Emily had invited Nick to spend Christmas with them too this year and had been looking forward to meeting him, so she was going to be very disappointed about that.
However, Aunt Emily had an elderly Springer spaniel of her own, so Rosie was sure she would sympathise with her about Nick’s hard-heartedness …
*
But to Rosie’s surprise, Aunt Emily said she could see both sides of the argument and they were equally valid.
“I do deeply sympathise about poor Tiggy,” she assured Rosie, “but I do think that since you are engaged, you should have discussed the matter with Nick first, before you definitely said you would take on the dog. I am sure you could have persuaded him, if you had gone the right way about it.”
Rosie, now her first anger had cooled, had been coming to much the same conclusion, though she wasn’t going to admit it to anyone, and especially not to Nick!
“I don’t see why I should have to, when he spends all that money on flying lessons!” she said stubbornly.
“But it is good for a man to have a hobby, and he usually has the lessons on Saturdays when you are at the rescue kennels, doesn’t he? So you both spend time doing what you most want to. And flying …’ She paused and an oddly dreamy, reminiscent smile crossed her face. “Flying is such wonderful fun!”
Rosie stared at her small, elderly, silver-haired aunt in astonishment. “You mean – you would have liked to have learned to fly?” she asked tentatively.
“I did fly,” Aunt Emily said, her blue eyes twinkling with amusement. “I know you think I’ve spent my entire life here in the village, going to WI meetings and knitting, but I was a young woman during the war and we all had jobs to do! Mine was in the Air Transport Auxiliary: I was an Attagirl!”
“An Attagirl?’ Rosie repeated, puzzled.
“That’s what we became known as. There were over a hundred women among the pilots who flew the new planes to the airbases, and damaged planes back for repair – and we could fly anything from a Spitfire to a Lancaster. But Spitfires were my favourite – they were wonderful planes,” Emily said enthusiastically and Rosie suddenly saw her as the eager and brave young girl she had been during wartime.
“I’m amazed,” Rosie confessed. “But why on earth have you never told me about it before?”
“I loved flying so much that after the war I couldn’t bear even to think about it, because I couldn’t afford to carry on. My father – your grandfather – had been killed fire-watching during an air raid, so I had to help support my mother and my younger sister.”
Emily got out some photograph albums and showed Rosie pictures of smartly uniformed young women and men, standing next to a variety of aircraft. In fact, in one a recognisable but dark-haired and youthful Great-aunt Emily was actually sitting astride the nose of a small plane, wearing a jaunty peaked hat and waving!
Rosie couldn’t help thinking how fascinated Nick would be by all of it …
*
Sheer curiosity (and a slightly guilty conscience) had driven Nick to visit the Happy Paws dog rescue centre, where he was now eyeing the rival for Rosie’s affections through thick wire mesh.
When Rosie had told him Tiggy was not the prettiest dog ever, she’d been wildly over-estimating his attractions, for Tiggy was the least prepossessing mutt he’d ever seen in his entire life!
He was small, with rough brown fur, a squished face, most of one ear missing and a bent tail. He also had short bandy legs and a disproportionately long body. In fact, it looked as if the worst elements of every known breed of dog had gone into his making.
“And she chose you over me?” Nick said aloud, incredulously.
Something in the tone of his voice made the little dog flatten his ears (or what was left of them), hang his tail and slink off into the furthest corner of his concrete pen, trembling. Nick immediately felt horribly guilty.
“Poor old Tiggy,” said a passing kennel maid. “Some dogs just hate being in kennels and he’s been here so long. He’s a lovely dog really: looks aren’t everything, are they? But luckily for him, if he doesn’t find a new home by January, one of the girls who volunteer to work here is going to adopt him.”
“I know,” he told her. “I’m Rosie’s fiancée.”
He might have added that he was not too keen on the idea of adopting another dog, especially the ragamuffin one in front of him – or even that he wasn’t too sure any more about his status as Rosie’s fiancée either. But just then Tiggy turned his head and gave him another shivering, pleading look from his round, dark eyes.
Something came over Nick and to his horror he heard his voice saying, “Actually, I know she’s really fallen for him, so I wondered if I could take him home with me now, as a surprise Christmas present?”
“Really?” Her face lit up eagerly. “Of course, we don’t usually rehome dogs just before Christmas, but in this case … brilliant! Come on!”
And before he knew it, Tiggy was signed over to him and he’d spent a small fortune on a collar, lead, food and a cosy new dog-bed.
He wasn’t sure how Rosie’s other two dogs were going to feel about the disreputable new arrival – assuming Ros
ie took him back, of course! – but he thought Tiggy might just do the trick …
And since Rosie’s Aunt Emily had called him one day and informed him in no uncertain terms that she still expected him to arrive on Christmas Eve as they had arranged, despite the quarrel, he would have the perfect opportunity!
Meanwhile, he and Tiggy had a few days to learn to get on together … or not.
He glanced over his shoulder before pulling out of the car park to find that Tiggy was now curled up on the parcel shelf like a slightly grotesque nodding dog.
He looked slightly less cowed and, as their eyes met, his tail tentatively and bravely thumped a couple of times.
*
By Christmas Eve, Rosie had given up any hope that Nick would contact her to say he was sorry – and she was too proud and stubborn to beg him to have her back.
Also, she had a new worry, for she was beginning to suspect that Aunt Emily, who had always been as sharp as a tack, was now losing the plot. She’d been talking as if she still expected Nick to turn up later, and now she had just told her that she and Nick could have the rest of the house deposit they were saving up for as a wedding present!
“So perhaps now that problem is out of the way, you needn’t resent the cost of Nick’s flying lessons,” Aunt Emily continued, “and equally, he may be more accommodating about the dog. But if not, I will take him – he will be company for Patch.”
The old spaniel, who was lying in a comfortable, snoring heap before the fire with Rosie’s two dogs, half-opened his eyes at the sound of his name but then drifted back to sleep again.
“It’s very kind of you, Aunt Emily, but actually, since Nick hasn’t contacted me at all since we argued, there clearly isn’t going to be a wedding!”
“Silly me,” Aunt Emily said, but only a moment later she was asking if she’d remembered to put out fresh towels in the room she’d prepared for Nick, and whether she’d bought the kind of whisky he liked.
All in all, Rosie thought it looked set to be the worst Christmas ever, but she would just have to try and put a brave face on it!
*
Aunt Emily was expecting someone round for drinks later, so when the doorbell rang and she said, “Could you just get that darling, while I go into the kitchen and warm the mince pies?” Rosie got up and opened the front door, ready to welcome one of her aunt’s elderly friends from the village.
Instead, she found herself staring at Nick, who was standing on the doorstep, feathery flakes of white snow flecking his dark hair. For a minute she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, by showing her exactly what she really wanted to see. But when she blinked he was still there, looking gravely down at her.
“Hello, Rosie.”
“What on earth are you doing here?”
“Aunt Emily called me and insisted I come,” he told her. “And actually, I wanted a chance to tell you I’m really, really sorry I was so horrible and unreasonable to you – and to give you your Christmas present.”
“I’m sorry too,” Rosie admitted. “Once I’d talked to Aunt Emily I started to see things a bit differently. Oh – and I’ve found out something about Aunt Emily you’ll find fascinating: she flew planes in the war!” Then she broke off, registering for the first time that he was holding in his arms a small bundle wrapped in a tartan blanket – and it was wriggling.
Out popped a familiar, ugly head on a wrinkled neck adorned with a jaunty red bow.
“Tiggy!” she cried.
But Tiggy barely spared her a glance: instead he was looking adoringly up into Nick’s face.
“There’s gratitude for you,” said Nick with a sudden grin. “I brought him as your Christmas present, but actually he’s such a character I don’t think I can part with him. He tried to eat the sofa cushions the first night I took him home and now he won’t let me out of his sight,” he added dotingly.
Rosie felt a sudden pang almost of jealousy and suddenly understood how Nick felt when he heard her talk so fondly to the other two dogs – but then she laughed.
Nick came into the hall and put Tiggy down and he sauntered sedately past them, while the other dogs yapped excitedly from behind the sitting room door.
“But if I can’t part with him, you’ll have to take us both,” Nick said hopefully, putting his arms around her. “And you know what they say: a dog isn’t just for Christmas – and neither am I.”
“No, you’re forever,” agreed Rosie and gave him a kiss.
“Attagirl,” said Emily’s voice approvingly. “Now, shut that door before all the warm air escapes and come into the sitting room: I think this calls for a celebration!
8
FOOTSTEPS IN THE SNOW
When you’re nine years old you haven’t grasped that there’s some kind of line between magic and reality, especially with a Pagan grandfather like mine, who actually practiced magic – or so he said. Granny always told him he should practice more, because most of it didn’t work.
Anyway, my best friend Poppy and I were in that dizzy stage of pre-Christmas excitement when we wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if the Angel Gabriel had knocked on the door with an invitation to pop up the street and join Santa and his elves for a bit of a party.
Poppy was staying for a couple of nights, because her mum had fallen off her horse and broken her arm so badly that she had to have an operation. My mother was away too – I forget why, but it was bound to involve some man – so we were in a bedroom in the main part of the house near Granny, rather than in our little flat over the garage.
It wasn’t much past bedtime, but we’d had what we called a Midnight Feast, lit only by the dim glow of the nightlight, with a bottle of lemonade and some Jaffa cakes purloined earlier from the kitchen. We were about to hide the evidence and go to bed, when the soft susurration of snowflakes brushing the window drew us to pull back the curtains and look out over the old churchyard, which backed onto the house.
Granny said it made for quiet neighbours and it didn’t usually bother us because we were used to it, but tonight it all looked very different and a little eerie, with the snow already settling gently on the ground, while the last of a swirling mist writhed about the granite obelisks and white marble angels as if reluctant to leave. And someone or something was moving lightly towards us, a pale figure most definitely not made of marble …
“Wings!” breathed Poppy, misting up the glass, so she had to rub it clear again.
“It’s an angel,” I whispered back positively as it stopped below the window, looking up, its face grave and beautiful but somehow remote.
I was enchanted, but Poppy suddenly whimpered, “Oooh, I’m scared!” and bolted for her bed.
“Don’t be daft, it’s not scary at all,” I hissed scathingly and then the door opened and Granny came in.
“Now girls, what’s all this noise? It’s long past time you were asleep,” she chided gently.
“There’s an angel outside, Granny,” I explained excitedly. “Quick – come and see.”
“I know, lovey, the churchyard is full of angels,” Granny said.
“No, there’s a real one,” I insisted urgently, but when we looked out again, the figure had vanished.
“It really was there, wasn’t it, Poppy?” I asked her.
Poppy’s sandy head emerged cautiously from under the bedclothes, her blue eyes as round as saucers. She nodded.
“Then you were very lucky to see it and it was a holy sign,” Granny said comfortably. She was of gypsy descent and a staunch Catholic, battling my grandfather’s paganism by covering every available surface in the house with religious statues and crosses. “Quite likely it was your guardian angel telling you not to listen to anything your grandfather says, but to keep your feet firmly on the path to righteousness.”
I glanced back out of the window again hopefully, but the last eddies of mist had long vanished and the snow had stopped. Everything looked as if it had been sugar-frosted, including the heads of the marble angels standing s
tolidly on their plinths.
“Could I wait up for a bit and see if it comes back, Granny?” I coaxed.
“You won’t see it twice,” she stated firmly. “Now, to bed with you and both of you go to sleep.”
“You’re not still scared are you, Poppy?” I asked after Granny had tucked us up and gone out, leaving the nightlight on and the door to the landing ajar.
“No, not really, because angels are good things, right?” she said bravely. “It just looked a bit – stern.”
Poppy’d said the same about the maths teacher at school who petrified her. But I hadn’t thought our angel scary in the least, it just looked as if its mind was on other, deeper, things.
*
As soon as we’d had breakfast next morning, Poppy and I dashed out into the old graveyard to search for any trace of our celestial visitor – and then excitedly dragged Granny out to see what we’d found.
“There are footsteps in the snow, right where the angel stood last night!” I told her. But by the time she’d put on her coat, scarf, hat and warm boots, the snow had begun to sag in the sunshine and the marks could have been made by any creature.
“They were there,” I insisted and Poppy backed me up.
“I believe you all right,” Granny said, before going back into her warm kitchen.
“Do you think she really believed us, or she was just being kind?” Poppy asked.
“I don’t know, it’s just a pity the footprints melted before she got here,” I said.
But Poppy and I had seen them clearly: the crisp imprints of a pair of narrow, bare feet, turning and running across the snow to stop suddenly, with a deepening pressure, where our Christmas angel had leapt into the air and soared away.
9
SLIGHTLY CRACKED
I met Carl at a party and was immediately smitten – and I’m sure he was, too, because we had one of those eyes-across-a-crowded-room moments before we were drawn together faster than a pair of magnetic ladybirds.
Footsteps in the Snow and other Teatime Treats Page 4