‘Oh, Emma, that’s not good!’ I said. ‘He seems to have changed so much from the man you married. We all liked him then and he seemed to adore you.’
‘I know you all thought I’d remarried much too quickly after Ricky died – and you were quite right. I think I was just grasping for the love I’d lost and he came along.’
‘You were happy enough at first,’ I said.
‘It was OK then, it was only when he started working abroad so much that he slowly became more jealous about what I was doing and who I was seeing while he was away.’
‘And checking up on you, or trying to.’
‘Yes, the supply teaching gives me my own income and independence, but he snoops around my phone bills and bank statements when he’s home. Last time he even asked Marco who Mummy had been talking to lately. Marco clammed up and said he didn’t know, but I was really furious when I found out.’
‘Emma, if he’s not even nice to Marco any more, maybe it’s time to cut and run?’
‘Don’t think I haven’t thought about it, because I’m starting to wish we’d never married. If we’d just lived together I could have asked him to move out, because it’s my house, but if we divorce, he might have a claim on it.’
‘I know you love your home,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you need to chat to a solicitor and really see where you stand.’
‘I thought I’d give Des a chance first, by suggesting to him that we go to Relate together when he’s home, but I can tell you that’s not a conversation I’m looking forward to.’
‘I suppose it’s worth trying, but at least if the worst comes to the worst and you divorce, he’s never officially adopted Marco, so he can’t apply for custody or anything like that.’
‘Marco wouldn’t want to see him anyway and I expect he’d tell the judge so, in no uncertain terms!’ She sighed. ‘It’s hard to recall why I loved Des so much … or thought I did.’
‘Well, just look at me: I was madly in love with Jeremy and now I simply can’t understand what I saw in the miserable little twerp.’
‘He is handsome, even though he isn’t very tall.’
‘Small, handsome and wearing a permanently peeved expression,’ I said with a grin. ‘Guy Martland, that man who keeps texting me, is smallish, dark and handsome. I seem to have a type.’
We caught up with Marco, who was engaged in an imaginary sword fight with an invisible opponent, and walked up the track behind the factory, where there were lots of exciting fallen trees and rocky outcrops to explore on the way to the village.
As we strolled, I told Emma I’d had another card design accepted and been able to pay Mercy back for the storage charge horrible Jeremy had levied.
‘He’s such a cheap man, and I’m sure Kate has only moved into the flat so they can carry on their affair more easily, whatever tale she spun to Luke about them just needing some time apart.’
‘Well, it’s not your problem any more,’ she said. ‘You’re free of them all and as soon as that tag comes off your leg, you can put the past behind you and move on.’
‘I’m going to begin saving up for a little car of my own, and maybe our book will be a huge success one of these days, too,’ I added, for we had started planning a joint venture, where Emma would write a story for a pop-up book and I would do the graphics and paper engineering.
‘Only if we stop talking about it and actually get on with it,’ she pointed out. ‘But I think it’s definitely time for a really good new children’s pop-up book and I don’t see why we shouldn’t be the ones to produce it.’
By the time we got to the village, the Merry Kettle tearoom next to the village shop was open, so we had lunch there, before carrying on up to the summit of Snowehill and showing Marco the magical red horse cut in the hill.
This time I didn’t do an Alice and fall down a rabbit burrow, which is just as well, because Marco got tired on the way home and we took it in turns to carry him piggyback for the last part of it. Luckily he’s very light; a good gust of wind would blow him away.
We were back at the house in time for tea, as arranged, and Silas was not only there again, but had picked out a Victorian children’s book about explorers and inventors with a lovely embossed and gilded cover. He presented Marco with this, so the little boy must have gone down very well.
Marco was quieter now, though, tired after the long walk and the fresh air, but his manners were very good and a credit to Emma.
When they left, Mercy invited them to come over any time they wanted to.
‘Thank you so much,’ Emma said. ‘I’d love to see the cracker factory next time.’
‘Yes, there wasn’t time today. Emma is quite arty, too,’ I said.
‘I do craftwork, really. I like to knit and sew,’ Emma said. ‘I haven’t got Tabby’s artistic flair. But I’m trying to write for children – I’m a nursery teacher by profession, though I’ve just been doing supply teaching since I had Marco.’
‘Then come during the next school holiday and you can see the crackers being made and how much progress we’ve achieved on the mill conversion,’ Mercy said.
‘Yes, do: some of the dust may have settled by then,’ I said drily.
Chapter 28: Winding Up
Q:What do snowmen eat for lunch?
A:Iceburgers!
I went with Mercy and Silas to another Quaker meeting, since the last one had seemed to have a tranquillising and calming effect on me, and goodness knows, what with Luke stirring the past up again and Randal still warning his aunt that I was a snake in her bosom, I needed it.
This time no one got up and said anything for an entire hour, but although I tried to empty my mind in order to let in any Higher Thoughts that God might direct my way, as the instruction booklet for new attenders suggested, ideas for a whole series of three-dimensional papercuts filled it right up again.
I could visualise what I wanted to create quite clearly against the soft white walls of the meeting house: at the heart of each picture would be books – spilling their words out in cascades onto the floor, bursting out like a cuckoo from a clock, or with characters leaping out and escaping … I felt very excited.
I knew I’d need more time and also my large workshop space to explore what I wanted to do – not to mention the gallery, when it was opened, to sell my work from.
I confessed to Mercy and Silas on the way home that instead of thinking selfless thoughts about bigger issues, I’d been filled with ideas for new pictures, but Mercy said not to worry, because God moved in mysterious ways.
Then Silas remarked that it sounded like my pictures might do much the same if they were spilling right out of their frames, and gave the odd, sealion bark of amusement that had both amazed and enthralled Marco.
I’d taken to walking down and checking my phone occasionally and had now embarked on a desultory (on my side) conversation with Guy, conducted entirely by text.
It had started when he’d changed tactics, stopped pestering me for a date, and asked me what my idea of fun was.
I’d replied, ‘Talking to my cat. Cutting holes in paper. Walking in the woods, or on a beach. Eating out, though nowhere fancy.’ (Until I met Jeremy, my idea of classy was fish and chips at Harry Ramsden’s.)
‘Can do the last two,’ he replied, ‘learning to talk Cat might take a little longer. Grateful for any pointers you can give me.’
This made me laugh and warm to him a bit, but not to the extent that I lay down and rolled over, even metaphorically speaking.
There was only one message from him today which read, ‘How is my little Tabby cat this afternoon?’
That was a good one, seeing as he was only a couple of inches taller than me! Wouldn’t it be fun if the next time I saw Guy, I could fluff myself out to twice my size like Pye did when he wanted to look scary?
I was debating whether to bother answering this missive or not, when four delayed messages from another caller tumbled into the inbox.
Jeremy.
They sai
d, in order: ‘Call me.’ ‘Call me.’ ‘Call me.’ ‘Don’t you ever answer your damned phone?’
It was only just the time of day when teachers emerge blinking into the light, so he must have sent them off in a five-minute salvo the moment he got home – and he rang again, even as I was thinking he couldn’t possibly be calling for any good reason and my fingers were itching to press Delete.
‘Tabby, is that you at last?’ he snapped.
‘Hello, voice of my past,’ I said. ‘I’d sincerely hoped never to hear from you again.’
‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t have contacted Luke, stirring him up with all your lies about being innocent and casting poor Kate as a liar and meddler.’
‘Don’t be stupider than you can help,’ I said, astonished. ‘He rang me. He said I was to blame for his breach with dear, sweet, innocent Kate.’
‘I don’t know what you said to him, but he came round and told Kate he thought she’d got it wrong about your having an affair with your boss at Champers&Chocs and it had made him wonder about the rest of it.’
‘Wonders will never cease,’ I said sarkily. ‘I thought you both just echoed what Kate said, like a pair of Midwich Cuckoos.’
‘Kate would never lie, but the whole situation is very difficult.’
‘I bet it is,’ I agreed.
‘I think I’ve smoothed him down now, so if you butt out and leave us alone, things will soon go back to being the way they always were.’
‘Before I came along?’ I finished for him. ‘But I’ve no interest in any of you, and the boot is on the other foot, because I wish you would all butt out and leave me alone. So goodbye, Jeremy – I hope for ever, this time,’ I said, and turned off the phone.
It’s true what they say: there’s nowt so queer as folk.
The following day Mercy announced that there had been an indication that planning permission for the mill site to be altered and opened to the public would be granted, though I wasn’t sure how she knew this: perhaps the town hall flag was hoisted partway, or the smoke from the chimney turned a different colour.
However, this news seemed to embolden her to press on even harder with the work. The following week the car park in front of the mill was to be gravelled. I even caught Mercy and Arlene in the office, picking out picnic tables on a website for the flat, grassy area just above it, which I told them was putting the cart before the horse.
‘I’m thinking of the redevelopment as a whole, or the first phase of it, at any rate,’ Mercy explained. ‘I’d like everything finished and open to the public at the same time. Then we can crack on with the second phase, converting the attached buildings to workspaces for craftspeople and a gallery shop.’
‘And we’ll get a special deal if we order all the signage to the mill from the road and the site map board for the car park at the same time as the display boards for the museum,’ put in Arlene. ‘It makes sense.’
‘So many things are falling into place already and soon Randal will be home again and we can discuss the café with him then, since that will be his special preserve,’ Mercy said. ‘I’m so looking forward to meeting his fiancée at last, too.’
‘When will he be back?’ I asked. I mean: pretend I care.
‘I think he said early next week, though I expect he has business to attend to before he can think of coming here. And now we’ve got half a dozen types of sample crackers made up and designs for the display boxes, it will be good to have his opinion before we go into production.’
Since he’d been the one determined to shut the cracker factory down, I didn’t really think his opinion was either here or there, so I just made a non-committal noise.
Then Mercy said she’d come with me to look at my latest discovery in the last stockroom: a hand-printing press of great antiquity, with a set of plates for old-fashioned Christmas card scenes depicting horse-drawn coaches in the snow. It was destined to be cleaned up by Bradley and become a central point of the museum display.
Dorrie asked me when my tag was coming off, so I could go to the pub with them on a Friday or Saturday evening, whenever I felt like it.
‘You’re a young thing, so you must miss going out and a bit of life.’
‘I’m not that young,’ I said, ‘and I’ve never been much of a one for discos and nightclubs. My ex-fiancé was a champagne bar and fancy restaurant kind of guy and so were his friends. It was OK, but on the whole I’d rather curl up at home with Pye and a good book.’
‘It takes all sorts,’ said Dorrie, shaking her head. ‘You’d be surprised what I used to get up to at your age.’
I didn’t think I would, now I’d got to know her better and heard some of her stories, but I didn’t encourage her to give me the lurid details.
‘They’re supposed to come and remove the tag at the end of this month,’ I said. ‘I’ve sort of got used to it now, though I never forget it’s there even for an instant, and I’m counting down the days till I can get rid of it. It would be wonderful just to be able to go for a walk in the evenings now it’s staying light later, maybe stroll up to the woods …’
Walking, especially in the early dusk, had always given me great pleasure, and now that I was actually living in the country the prospect was even more enticing.
Randal had returned to the UK and, typically, he has chosen to bring his fiancée to stay at Mote Farm on the same day my tag was to be removed.
‘It will be humiliating if they arrive just as they’re untagging me,’ I said to Mercy. ‘It’s supposed to happen between three and seven.’
‘I don’t think there’ll be any need to hide away then, dear, because Randal said they were leaving London late and having dinner on the way, so we weren’t to wait for them.’
‘Oh, good,’ I said, relieved. ‘I’m hoping the tagging people come earlier rather than later. And, of course, after dinner I’ll go to my rooms and leave you to greet your future niece-in-law with Silas, anyway.’
I was naturally curious to see the woman who had captured the bluff (and admittedly, even though underweight at the moment, buff) Randal’s heart, but it could wait. Mercy was still convinced she must be the sweetest girl in the world and I sincerely hoped she was right.
‘Oh, no, you must wait with us, because you’re quite one of the family now and it would look very odd if you weren’t around in the evening … unless, of course, you have things you wanted to do?’
Actually, what I’d have liked to do was go to the pub with the others once my tag was removed, but the tag people might be late … or even not turn up at all until another day. I’d been told one or two cautionary stories while I was in prison.
‘I thought perhaps you might see Lacey to her room for me, while I made coffee,’ Mercy suggested. ‘They’re bound to want refreshments after such a long drive.’
I didn’t want to seem churlish in the face of her generosity so, even though I was quite sure that neither Randal nor his bride-to-be would either expect or welcome my presence on their arrival, I agreed I’d happily do that. I still intended taking myself off at the first opportunity afterwards, though.
We’d done a final check on the room that was to be Randal’s fiancée’s earlier, and either modern manners had not invaded Mercy’s consciousness, or more likely, she disapproved of sex before marriage, because it was in the west wing and about as far as she could put her from Randal, with herself in the middle. But the bedroom allotted to Lacey was a very pretty one, done in a blue and white French paper with toile de Jouy curtains and a matching coverlet on the bed.
There was a sort of wooden shelf, shaped like half a royal crown, sticking out over the head of the bed, from which hung matching drapes, held back by blue silken ropes.
Mercy, thoughtful as ever, had added a blue Delft bulb pot full of hyacinths to scent the air and when I told her everything was perfect, she was pleased.
‘I want her to feel very welcome in what will soon be her home,’ she said and I, like a cuckoo in the nest, felt a sudden
pang. One day, I’d be the one pushed out of the nest by the newcomer … or maybe Randal, I could feel it in my bones.
I woke with a strangely Christmas-morning feeling on the Thursday and told Pye, who, having nudged me to the edge, was lying in an abandoned way across the centre of the bed, that my tag was to be removed later that day.
‘Just imagine what it would feel like if I made you wear a collar all the time,’ I suggested. ‘One without any elastic, so you could never take it off.’
‘Ppfft!’ said Pye, which translated as, ‘Just you try it!’
Mercy and even Freda seemed more excited by the prospect of seeing Randal’s fiancée than in my imminent freedom, but I was in such a fever of anticipation that I was back from the mill long before the earliest possible time the untaggers might arrive.
And after all that and a lot of floor pacing, they arrived only minutes before dinner, though the deed was quickly done. There was no time just then to savour my freedom alone, but I vowed that the very second I’d done my duty to the visitors, I was slipping off to the kitchen wing and then right out of the door with Pye, to roam freely in the gloaming!
Chapter 29: Thrown
Randal
On the long drive up to Lancashire, I tried to impress on Lacey the need for tact during this first visit to Mote Farm … or at least, I did once she’d stopped sulking because I’d been cross about her not telling me she was bringing her overweight, wheezing little pug dog with her.
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ she’d said. ‘He goes everywhere with me.’
It was a pity he didn’t walk everywhere with her, instead of being carried, so the poor thing might not be so out of condition.
‘Not quite everywhere – you’re always leaving him with your housekeeper,’ I pointed out, because she had a long-suffering Latvian lady who cooked, cleaned and mopped up after the not always continent Pugsie.
‘Maid, not housekeeper,’ she corrected me. ‘And she’s not so good that I wouldn’t get rid of her, if it wasn’t impossible to get decent staff these days.’
A Christmas Cracker Page 19