by Fiona Walker
Petra had turned off the WiFi once or twice to test the claim. The ping delay from power-down to teenager’s primordial wail was less than a second, indicating that messaging, gaming and streaming were ongoing. But she had to hand it to Fitz: he’d got his head down and worked incredibly hard all term. They both had, her first ninety thousand words of the racy Civil War trilogy currently languishing with her publisher, out of sight and mind. Christmas would be a celebration.
Humming along to ‘The First Noel’ now, she went to check the wall calendar, catching her reflection with a bleat of alarm as she passed the mirror – helmet hair, sallow-skinned, baggy-eyed and with a spot. The last frantic fortnight’s writing to meet her deadline had taken its toll. Who got spots at forty-four? She knew each generation was a time-travelling reinvention of the last, so being seventy was ‘the new fifty’, sixty ‘the new forty’ and so on, but being newly pubescent in middle age was not a good thing. Lots of slap and a statement dress had been Petra’s stock-in-trade since her student days. Her Louise Brooks bob had been shorter then, and her body leaner, but she’d kept the same basic look. It simply took a lot longer to decorate the tree and turn the lights on, these days. Petra would be giving it the full false-eyelash cat’s eyes and red-lips war-paint this Christmas.
December’s picture on the RSC wall calendar was a poster for an old production of Twelfth Night, falling apart after a busy family year. She cast her eye over it, wistfully remembering the early days when Charlie had rushed home for the holidays as soon as the decorations had gone up, demanding that she wear nothing but the light-up Santa hat in bed, an annual running joke between them, which had once driven him potty with laughter and lust. As well as missing the candlelit church service, he had missed the Hunt Supporters’ Supper – ironic given that he was the country sports fan – and the village panto at which he traditionally hissed and booed loudest of all the Gunns because he thought the acting appalling.
Tonight, faced with the prospect of a slow march around the village, singing the low parts of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ and eating his weight in mince pies, the case in London had mysteriously dragged on, or been uncorked to breathe.
Petra secretly rather enjoyed going solo socially with her children. Charlie was very bad at small-talk and a terrible clock-watcher. Their pews at last year’s candlelit service had been treated to a disco show of his phone screen flashing on and off as he checked the time. This year had felt inclusive and unhurried by comparison, ten-year-old aspiring actress Prudie reciting her prayer so theatrically that the congregation hadn’t noticed her younger sister Bella eating the sweets off her Christingle and pulling an I’m-so-embarrassed face, and Ed had played a jazzed-up version of ‘Fairytale of New York’ on his trumpet with such aplomb that the Reverend Hilary Jolley had danced in the aisles and sung along – even, Petra had noted with delight, belting out the ‘your arse’ line. Only Fitz – too cool for school – had stayed at home. Like most of Petra’s friends’ older teens, he had an incredibly busy, complicated social world that met occasionally, spoke more regularly and was in almost constant visual and messaging contact. He lived on his mobile, and occasionally on hers, which she suspected was when he ran out of credit. She found it irritating although her iPhone was a fount of purity, these days.
Bay had all but given up texting, which saddened her more than it should – she couldn’t help dwelling on the magnificent Obelisk of Luxor she would never set eyes on, and the forbidden kiss that still woke her sometimes, her lips warm and swollen – but was a relief overall. Ronnie would never forgive her a relapse. Their occasional dawn dog walks, often accidental but always a shot in the arm, had been the highlight of writing exile. She only wished Ronnie was coming tonight, but she was frustratingly antisocial for somebody with such a natural capacity for vivacity and friendship.
Petra belted out the final chorus of ‘The First Noel’. This year’s pre-carol-singing drinks were being hosted by village do-gooders Brian and Chris Hicks, which, according to rumour, meant weak rum punch and unheated Aldi mince pies, but she had a secret assignation for a very strong G-and-T with fellow caroller Gill first, a good catch-up long overdue with her favourite cynic, bad punner and tireless rallier of spirits. Petra adored Christmas in the Comptons, which made friendships feel all the lovelier, especially those on your doorstep.
Pulling on a padded coat, she went out to feed the horses. It was almost dark now, frost already hardening as she carefully carried hay nets across the slippery concrete. Heads bobbed and steamy breath rose, with deep, rumbling whickers and much door-kicking.
‘Hello, you mad old bat.’ She flicked on the lights, ducking as the Redhead swung round eagerly, already pulling on the net. Petra unbolted the door and squeezed inside as the mare barged forwards eagerly, and they both waded through thick straw with noisy sweeps to the wall ring, collaborators who played dare and double dare, who argued and made up regularly, who usually disagreed about what was frightening and what wasn’t, and who needed one another symbiotically.
Having harboured her Black Beauty daydream for so long, Petra never took it for granted. Even mixing feeds on the coldest, wettest mornings, she still counted her blessings on frozen fingers. Her daughters, who did take it for granted, were joy riders; Charlie, who grumbled that she smelt like a muck heap when she came in, would only help out if she severed a limb. The boys probably wouldn’t notice the severed limb. But Petra didn’t mind. The horses provided the closest to me-time she got. And after she’d finished a book, it felt like the ultimate reward.
It always struck her as ironic that, when she’d finally earned enough to move her family from London to the country to buy into the lifestyle she’d always dreamed of, she’d found that juggling a young family with the long work hours required to pay for it meant she had almost no time to ride. Charlie didn’t seem to have the same problem with shooting – just his marriage and his children. Petra pushed the thought away. With her fictional world taking over in recent weeks, there had been less space for day-to-day worries about her ever-cooling marriage, and she wasn’t ready to let them back in. It was Christmas. There were log fires, mulled wine, molten mince pies and hot toddies to warm them both up again.
Petra watched the mare eat, foot stamping and ear twitching, the rhythmic grinding of her jaws a comforting beat. When she watched Charlie eat, equally greedily, equally ungrateful, she felt far less contented.
Earlier in the year, she’d scandalised a group of London girlfriends over lunch by explaining that neglected Cotswolds wives fell in love with their horses in inverse proportion to falling out of love with their husbands. Lots of rising trot hardened one’s thighs for infidelity, she’d explained to shrieks of delight.
The Redhead was letting out similar-sounding squeals now, if less rapturous as she objected to the greedy Shetland raising his nose to the open grille between their stables, desperately trying to inhale her feed.
‘Squeeeee!’
Petra looked at her curiously. ‘Are you in season?’
‘Squeeeee... eeeeee... yip!’ A hoof slammed against the partition and then she turned her rear to the Shetland, flashing intimately like a speciality act in a Patpong hostess bar. The Shetland, who couldn’t see over the grille, moved back and forth, tossing his head in frustration, like an excited tussock.
‘You are in season.’
It had happened before. While most mares’ fertility cycles took a break over winter, coming into season only between April and September, a few, like the Redhead, threw random winter heats that turned her into an obnoxiously predatory, coquettish Miss Piggy.
‘You and me both.’ Petra sighed.
Back in the kitchen, her phone was vibrating against the granite worktop of the island – which was odd because she was sure she’d left it on charge – and playing Mozart’s Horn Concerto, Gill’s long, stern, please-don’t-take-a-photograph-of-me face on the screen.
‘Can’t come tonight.’ She was on her car-phone, Land Rover eng
ine roaring and dogs yapping in the back. ‘Colicking hunter near Micklecote. Been hammered far too hard today. They should have called off the meet in this frost. Ground like concrete and no decent scent.’
‘Sounds like the Christmas party at Charlie’s chambers.’ Petra stood on tiptoe to stretch her calves, still aching from a long shift in heels making small-talk with fifty pinstriped legal clones whilst eating on-trend pickled finger food, so close to deadline she’d belted in and out of London on the train, only realising when she’d got home that she’d forgotten to speak to Charlie. The combined effect of corporate aftershave had been asphyxiating. In her experience, criminal lawyers always smelt divinely of wood-lined corridors and leather-bound volumes; commercial lawyers smelt of Mr Sheened boardroom tables and calculators. ‘Can’t Paul cover it?’
‘He’s dealing with a ruptured tendon near Ludd-on-Fosse. There’ll be a bun fight getting neds onto hoists for surgery when we get back. I’m following mine’s horsebox to the clinic now.’
‘I can’t face it without you,’ Petra pleaded, eyeing her spaniel in his basket. ‘Wilf’s wearing the furtive look of a dog that may have ingested more than one Christmas tree decoration. I may have to stay in and monitor him. And the Redhead’s in season, can you believe?’
‘’Tis the season to be trolleyed.’ Gill laughed, a sharp fox bark. ‘I’ll leave a stiff drink out for you when you drop the kids round with mine.’
‘They’re coming singing with me.’
‘Don’t be cruel. Carolling when Brian Hicks is in charge is like a singalong on a pensioners’ coach trip. It’s hell on under-sixteens. Dixie’s organised a pyjama party and a sleepover. She’s been baking gluten-free cupcakes all day. Didn’t Ed say?’
‘He probably did, but I need a translator nowadays.’ She sighed at the thought of packing overnight bags. ‘Everything’s sick, dope, lit and hundo-p goat in Ed’s world.’ The Gunn and Walcote children regularly pooled together in the holidays, which at Christmas meant lolling in front of endless Netflix movies in Upper Bagot Farmhouse, or doing battle on games consoles in the Walcotes’ rambling, much-extended cottage in the Compton Magna hinterland where broadband was hopelessly slow.
‘Dix is hoping Fitz will come.’ Gill had a wry smile in her voice.
‘I’ll pitch it, but I fear not.’ Petra knew her son didn’t get out of bed for anything less than ten megabits per second. ‘Don’t tell Dixie, but I think things are hotting up with Sophie the pop-up girlfriend.’
She and Gill sighed in unison, the dream of being joint mothers-in-law to a star-crossed Fitz and Dix – which they’d agreed sounded like a trendy deli chain – fading for now. Poor Dixie’s growing crush had gone unnoticed for a year and looked unlikely to be requited. As far as Petra could tell, Sophie – whom Fitz had met doing his Duke of Edinburgh gold award – was more of an Instagram flirtation than a serious relationship, but she still felt a pinch of maternal loss and a burning curiosity as her son read messages that made him blush and retreat from the room.
Spotting a dropped packet of blinis, she realised he must have been down for a fridge raid while she was feeding the horses.
‘Now promise me you’ll behave if Bay’s there tonight,’ Gill lectured.
‘He won’t be, will he?’ She gulped, ashamed to find her first thought was what to wear instead of the warm velvet trousers that made her bum look like a two-seater sofa.
‘Probably not, but it’s best to be prepared.’
‘I will,’ Petra promised, wondering if she had time to wash and blow-dry her hair.
*
@GunnPoint No unusual activity to report. Friendship still active. Fitz sent the direct message to his grandmother’s Twitter account. He was feeling increasingly sick at the shortening count-down to Christmas and the big reveal Gunny intended to stage, if his father did nothing about Lozzy. He checked the app constantly. The relationship was clearly in its death throes, yet it limped on, his father too cowardly and placating to change his ammunition from stun to kill.
Switching to Messenger, Fitz felt a degree of hypocrisy that he was doing the same to Sophie, replying only now to the bathroom-mirror pic she’d sent four hours ago. Things had gone a bit stale now they’d taken off about as many clothes as they were prepared to on camera, and he knew his horoscope was lousy until the end of the year. They were down to exchanging a few scattered emojis and a selfie a day, neither wanting to break up with the other until after Christmas. He sent a few smiles and an abs shot.
He then spent twenty minutes searching horse GIFs while he ate his way through a packet of smoked salmon – the blinis had gone missing somewhere – a dozen Baby Bels, some cocktail sausages, crisps and two slices of cheesecake.
‘You asking your lynx to GNOC?’ hucked a deep laugh from the door.
Not bothering to look round, Fitz threw a cushion at his little brother, hard enough to hear a grunt on impact.
‘You coming to the Walcote squad’s tonight?’ Ed went on, cheerfully undeterred. ‘I think Dix will boinky-boinky again, if you ask. Can I watch this time?’
He threw another cushion, harder and faster, and the door closed with more hucking. Having already boinky-boinkied on that sofa and been put off his stride when the Walcotes’ three large dogs tried to join in, Fitz preferred a quiet night in.
Settling on a GIF of a horse bursting out of a Christmas cracker, he sent it to Carly.
She sent a thumbs-up and a little x back. He hugged both tightly to his chest and started on the Tunnocks tea cakes.
His chest vibrated as Gunny replied. @Fitzroving Thank you, William. I’ve sent a friendly reminder. Stop snacking in your room.
He looked round nervously.
49
Anticipating a good burst of body warmth from his gathered carollers, Brian Hicks had turned down the heating at number six, the Green, and the cottage was now so cold that steam rose off the weak rum punch.
‘Better add another jug of water to that, poppet,’ he told his wife, Chris. ‘We don’t want anyone tipsy. It’s very icy underfoot out there.’
Chris did as she was told, exchanging a sympathetic look with their elderly West Highland terrier, who was glued to a cold radiator.
Number six was one of a chocolate-box run of thatched cottages with leaded windows and much-photographed walled front gardens that were now almost all weekend or holiday homes. The Hickses had lived there for over forty years, proudly clinging to their woodchip, black-painted beams and chintz slice of Old England amid the Farrow & Ball and stripped-wood, shabby-chic makeovers to either side of them that attracted exorbitant Airbnb rates. They were now the last of the old guard on the east side of the Green, refusing to sell out to a local property boom. Their house was worth at least a hundred times what they’d paid for it in the early seventies, when seeking somewhere to raise their children close to Brian’s accountancy firm in Birmingham. Now that he’d retired, Compton Magna was their world. Brian was a church warden, chairman of the parish council, passionate campaigner for more dog waste-bins and outspoken activist against the Compton Magna Eco Village. Chris, who spoke little and only protested when told to, was his unswerving support.
Through the leaded window, a figure turning into the Hicks gateway was briefly stunned by his 1000-watt PIR security light that burst on, like a paparazzi flash. Brian – who never missed an episode of Crimewatch – clocked the large foil tray, determined chin and not unpleasing figure.
He threw open his door to his first guest, proud that he had such a good memory for names. ‘Welcome, Mrs Edwards!’
‘It’s Ms,’ said a voice from behind a huge mountain of hot, freshly baked mince pies. The smell coming off them was delicious. Brian’s mouth watered.
‘Come in! Let me relieve you of this. You really shouldn’t have.’ He took the tray and handed it to his wife, nodding towards the kitchen. They’d keep the mince pies for their visiting children and their families: plenty of nibbles were already laid out on the sideboard, al
ongside photocopied song-sheets and a discreet flyer about his anti-eco village campaign.
He turned back to Pip. The snub nose and overactive-thyroid eyes made her look like an eager pug. ‘Let me take your jacket, Miss Edwards.’
‘It’s Pip.’ She started to take off her duffle coat, then clearly thought better of it.
Pip looked around the room eagerly. Her parents, who had never socialised, had been deeply suspicious of people like the Hickses, who came round every few weeks rattling tins or asking for tombola gifts – ‘They’d bleed us dry, Pauline’ – but Pip found them incredibly welcoming.
‘Have some punch.’ Brian ladled something that looked like orange squash into a plastic cup. ‘You know my better half, Chris?’ His small, mousy wife materialised behind him from the kitchen, like Debbie McGee popping out from one of Paul Daniels’s magic cabinets.
‘You have a lovely home.’ Her heart lifted as she recognised the hallmarks of her parents’ generation: the antimacassars, the G-plan furniture and the Worcester figurines crowding the mantelpieces amid the lovingly polished silver-framed photographs of children and grandchildren. Here she felt the same curious sense of homecoming as she did watching Terry and June repeats on Freeview.
The doorbell chimed, and the village started invading, loud voices, talk of snow, wine bottles whipped away into the unseen kitchen while more lukewarm, low-alcohol orange squash was ladled out. Eager to help, Pip offered round the trays of anaemic supermarket mince pies and distributed song-sheets eagerly, but she’d never found conversational opening lines easy, even though she loved to talk.
She retreated to the corner with another beaker of winter punch, slugging it back and looking at the photographs again. There were more on the walls. There was a son and a daughter, both in possession of Brian’s long nose and Chris’s thin, mousy hair. They were clearly much loved, childhood, graduation, marriage and parenthood tiled between decorative plates and Welsh spoons.