Home for the Holidays

by Sue Moorcroft

  Ben sat on a kitchen chair with the last kitten, ginger and white, and another doll’s bottle. He looked at her with wary grey eyes. ‘Are you OK?’

  She found it hard to look at him as she watched him gently deposit the kitten with its brothers and sisters. He could have died. ‘Nice and dry, now. I’ll get going.’ There didn’t seem much point in taking her coat off and getting comfy. Ben was OK. The kittens were OK.

  ‘You’re both heroes.’ Gabe glanced at his kitten, which looked as if it was just drifting off to sleep. Gabe, too, was sinking into his chair as if he wouldn’t be long awake himself once the last kitten was in its box.

  It seemed a good time to exit but Alexia only got as far as just outside the back door when a pair of arms came around her and turned her around. Then she was pulled into a hard hug. Ben was warm and well and surrounding her with his embrace. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured. ‘No point worrying Gabe with what a close call it was. You were the real saviour today. You kept your head when I lost mine.’

  She tried to laugh but it hiccupped out more like a sob. ‘I thought you were going to drown.’

  ‘The thought crossed my mind, too. The relief when I saw you coming with the truck …’ He pulled her harder against him.

  ‘I’m sorry I called you a moron.’

  ‘I forgive you.’ His laugh reached her through his body as well as through her ears. Then he pulled back so he could see her face and his expression sobered. ‘I put you in danger, too.’

  He tried to kiss her and she wanted to relax and enjoy it but she had to pull away because tears were trying to come again and they blocked her nose so she couldn’t breathe. To cover it up, she laughed. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  It wasn’t until she got back in the car that the tears broke her barriers, swamping her with their intensity as she reacted to the shock. From her left came the sound of the sudden opening of the car door then a large, warm body was in beside her, cuddling her close, while gentle hands stroked her hair and a deep voice murmured, ‘It’s OK. We’re all OK.’

  Alexia cried more loudly, hit hard by what she’d almost lost.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  In the warmth of Gabe’s kitchen Alexia turned one of Carola’s cards over in her hands. Edged with silver holly leaves it bore a picture of a cake stand full of cakes – including one shaped like a Christmas pudding and one like an angel – on one side and the invitation on the other.

  YOU ARE INVITED

  to the opening of

  The Angel Community Café!

  From 10 a.m. Saturday 23rd December

  Help us celebrate!

  Opening Day offer ~ complimentary drink with any cake purchased

  ‘You’re going to deliver one of these to every house in the village?’

  Glasses on the end of her nose, Carola looked up from her laptop on Gabe’s kitchen table where she was getting all pink and excited about making an order to the food wholesalers. She’d already bought crockery by the crate load as more money had come in from Ben’s latest offerings on eBay. ‘Well, yes. It’s only the 13th so I have ten days. And the girls will help me.’ In the past weeks she’d completed her food-handling certificates, helped to paint the last chairs and roller emulsion on the walls and ceiling at The Angel. ‘Charlotte and Emily and I have done some of the New Village already and we’re going to start on Port Road tomorrow. I need you to finish the tiling this weekend so the kitchen area can be fitted out. Then we can have a giant clean up, throw all the furniture in and put up the lovely jolly Christmas decorations. I’ve bought about a mile of tinsel.’

  Out of the corner of her eye Alexia saw Gabe grin and Ben roll his eyes. They all knew Carola would be great at running the café but she could be a teensy weensy bit bossy.

  December 23rd marked the crossover point when The Angel refurbishment project became The Angel Community Café. Alexia’s role would naturally end and Carola would get into her stride so Alexia decided not to bother pointing out that she was aware, thank you very much, having set the programme of works herself. In fact, she’d already grabbed an hour at The Angel today, inhaling the smell of fresh emulsion, stroking the newly varnished doors (not as gorgeous as the originals) and planning the tiling. She couldn’t wait to get going on that! She’d measured out and drawn the centre lines along the floor in pencil so she could dive in on Saturday.

  But now Alexia was feeling nervous and hoping Carola’s chatter about the opening would make everyone forget the time and date.

  Gabe, however, though still frail, proved to have too good a memory. ‘Time to turn the TV on for Alexia’s programme.’ Reaching over the kittens currently climbing up his trouser legs, he swooped on the remote control.

  Damn. Alexia would much rather have watched the first airing of Lemonade from Lemons alone. ‘Maybe I ended up on the cutting room floor,’ she said hopefully. Her face heated up just at the memory of yet another red-faced rant.

  ‘Here it comes.’ Ben nodded towards the TV, taking her hand reassuringly. In the last two weeks, since Ben had rescued the kittens and Alexia had rescued him, there seemed an unspoken need to touch each other more.

  Alexia covered her eyes with the other. ‘I can’t watch. You know Tubb’s putting it on the big TV at the pub, too?’

  Ben laughed and winked. ‘Lots of people don’t get satellite TV so he’s hoping you’ll be good for business.’

  The first part of the programme when other people were airing their stories wasn’t too bad. Alexia was in shot enough that the others got tired of exclaiming, ‘There you are, look!’ Carola turned back to her order and Gabe looked as if he might be dozing, despite the tabby kitten still swinging from his trousers.

  But after the commercial break something seemed to go awry with the timeline of the programme as she remembered it, because the person who’d told her story third never got her moment in the sun. Instead, the camera went straight to Alexia with a voice over from Kelli that must have been edited in post-production about the story being especially relevant with the approach of Christmas.

  The camera zoomed in on Alexia and she had to look at herself, eyes huge with fear in her white face. She groaned. ‘What a rabbit in the headlights. I can’t watch.’ And she screwed up her eyes and stuffed her fingers in her ears.

  The others were glued to the TV until the credits rolled.

  Then Ben pulled her hands from her ears and pressed his lips to her forehead. It left a little warm feeling. ‘You were great! A real hatchet job so far as Shane and Tim are concerned.’

  ‘Really excellent!’ chimed in Gabe. ‘Everyone was so indignant on your behalf.’

  ‘Did they show me get all shouty? I didn’t shut up when Kelli hinted I should.’

  Carola laughed. ‘You were animated! You were amazing. I wish I looked that beautiful when I get angry, sparks shooting from my eyes. I just look like a grumpy elf.’

  Then Alexia’s phone began to ring. Family and friends rang, her Facebook notifications showed selfies of her friends, the TV on over their shoulders.

  Then Jodie rang. Alexia felt a starburst of pleasure that Jodie had remembered to watch Lemonade from Lemons. ‘If you’re calling to tell me I acted like a diva, I know,’ she groaned.

  ‘Erm …’ Jodie hesitated, apparently nonplussed. ‘I’m ringing to say I’ve been to the police station today. They’ve got Shane and they wanted me to identify him from his mugshot, which I was totally, totally, totally happy and willing to do. Have they rung Gabe?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Alexia swung around to look at Gabe. ‘The police haven’t been in touch, have they? Jodie says they’ve got Shane!’

  She went back to Jodie. ‘No, Gabe’s shaking his head. Was it the TV programme? How could it be? It’s only just this minute aired.’

  Gabe, Ben and Carola all began talking and Alexia had to jam her finger in her ear to hear Jodie’s report.

  Finally, she rang off to pass on the news. ‘After all that it was nothing to do wit
h the programme. Apparently it was a terrific fluke they got him – something to do with a driving offence and going through an ANPR camera. Bad luck for him, he probably thought he was in Lincolnshire because he was up by Wisbech somewhere but he’d crossed into Cambridgeshire. A patrol car got behind him and the automatic number plate recognition kicked in so they tried to stop him. He panicked and drove off so he was arrested and taken to a police station and suddenly everything the Cambridgeshire police know about him began to match up. His real name’s Niall Radstock. The police are going to be in touch with you, too, Gabe, because they’ve got to put their case together.’

  She took a deep breath, hardly able to believe what she was about to say. ‘But, potentially, there’s some prospect of you getting some of your property back.’

  Everyone sat and stared at one another.

  Only Carola looked discontented. ‘All that work we’ve done to refurbish The Angel on the cheap and now you might get some stuff back and want to make changes again.’

  Alexia stifled a giggle. ‘Gabe will want to buy matching chairs and tables.’

  ‘Nooooo!’ Carola covered her eyes.

  Gabe unhooked the kittens from his trousers and returned them to their bed. ‘Now when did I ever care if everything matched? It would be nice to get some of that money back, though. That would be a Christmas present.’

  ‘It would be great for Jodie, too,’ Alexia agreed. ‘It must be scary having no reserves with a baby on the way.’ Then she rang Jodie back to go through the whole story again, just in case she’d missed anything out in the excitement of the moment and to loudly agree when Jodie said ‘I hope they put the bastard behind bars’.

  Later, she and Ben walked back to her cottage, huddled into their coats against a persistent sleet. She pointed at the halo around a streetlight. ‘Look at the tiny spicules glistening. Aren’t they pretty?’

  ‘Why would I be impressed by that when I have a hot TV star beside me?’

  She giggled as they turned up her path. ‘So you’ve got a thing about angry women?’

  ‘When you’re not angry with me.’ Then he cupped her buttocks through her jeans while she opened the front door and they fell into her hallway, laughing, before halting abruptly at the sound of a woman’s voice. ‘… I’m certain I recognise myself from your description so I hope you’ll call me.’ The voice reeled off a telephone number and a click and a beep followed.

  ‘Someone was leaving a message on the machine. I wonder what they were on about?’ Alexia pulled off her coat and gloves then crossed to the machine to play her messages. The first two were from villagers being complimentary about her five minutes of fame.

  The third was the message of which they’d caught the end. The unfamiliar voice seemed to fill the hall. ‘I hope you don’t mind me ringing,’ the voice said. ‘I took your number from your website. I saw you on Lemonade from Lemons tonight and was astounded. I’m a property investor and the man who heads up my team is called Elton. My name’s Verity Hart and his name’s Elton Cley.’ Alexia caught the turn of Ben’s head as he shot her an enquiring look and she nodded to indicate that Cley was indeed Elton’s surname. The voice went on: ‘I’d like to talk to you about what happened.’ Then followed the snatch they’d heard as they entered.

  ‘Wow.’ Alexia gazed at the now-silent machine.

  ‘Yeah.’ Ben gazed at it, too. ‘What are you going to do?’

  Slowly, Alexia hung her coat over the newel post. ‘I suppose I’d better ring her back.’

  ‘I’ll die of curiosity if you don’t.’ He dropped an encouraging kiss on her neck.

  Heart pattering right up in her throat, Alexia dialled, more than half expecting a recorded message to block her access to the person that until now she’d thought of only as ‘the money woman’ or Elton’s investor.

  Instead, it was answered promptly. ‘This is Verity.’

  ‘This is Alexia Kennedy.’ Alexia paused to swallow. ‘I was on my way into the house as you left your message. So I’m ringing back,’ she ended weakly.

  ‘Thank you! Am I right? Do you think you were talking about me?’ Alexia hadn’t, as far as she could remember, said anything rude about Elton’s investor so replied, cautiously, ‘Potentially. The Elton I referred to is Elton Cley. I met him at uni. He lives in Ealing now,’ she added as a cross-reference.

  ‘It all fits. He said he wanted to bring in someone to do the project management and I told him it had to be exactly the right person. The team we have is finely balanced and I didn’t want to disturb that. Suddenly he said it wasn’t going to work out and we dropped the idea.’

  They talked on and on, Alexia filling in the blanks in the story Verity already knew, perching on the stairs with the phone. ‘I didn’t mean to get Elton into trouble,’ she said at one point.

  Verity sounded surprised. ‘Who said he was? I just want to understand the situation.’

  By the end of the conversation Alexia had formed a good opinion of Verity Hart. ‘I do like her approach. I kept having mad thoughts about asking her to give me a second chance,’ she sighed wistfully as she returned the phone to its stand.

  A hesitation, then he smiled. ‘You could always call back. It would be great if you got what you wanted after all. You deserve it.’

  She batted the suggestion away. ‘But that would mean working with Elton and then I’d always be waiting for a knife in my back. I have my hands full with The Angel until Christmas, anyway. It’s too early to think about what happens after that.’

  The days ticked down to the opening of The Angel Community Café. Alexia couldn’t wait to see The Angel not only complete but decked in her Christmas finery.

  Thursday and Friday Carola delivered invitations while Alexia and Ben were at work. Then Ben took the rest of his annual leave to take him up to Christmas and let him share kitten-care with a still easily tired Gabe. Alexia took a risk and followed suit.

  From then it was all systems go. Tiling such vast expanses of floor as the Public, the Bar Parlour and the foyer made Alexia’s back and neck seize. Ben took over the grouting of the floor so at least she could stand upright and tile the kitchen area walls ready for the fitter. She and Ben madly grouted that together, using the waterproof stuff environmental health recommended and cursing when it wouldn’t easily wipe off the faces of the tiles.

  ‘It looks fantastic!’ Alexia gave Ben a joyful hug when they were finally able to step back and admire the random mix of shades of cream and brown with the occasional accent of sea green.

  Ben’s gave her a smile. ‘You’re really going to bring this project in on time. You’re amazing.’ Then he went off to begin laying a flagstone path outside ready for the customers they hoped would pile in while Alexia and Carola gave the bathrooms a white emulsion facelift.

  When the kitchen fitter arriving on the 19th, Alexia, Ben and Carola, instead of spending every spare moment at The Angel, had two days when they’d only be in the way if they turned up there. To celebrate, they, along with Gabe, met for a bacon butty breakfast at Alexia’s. Once her stomach was full, Alexia sighed. ‘I have done no Christmas shopping.’

  ‘Nor me,’ admitted Ben, wiping around his plate with toast. ‘I’ll have to hope I’m still in time to have things delivered as I don’t see myself getting down to Didbury to visit Mum and Dad before Christmas.’

  Gabe patted Ben on the back. ‘No worry. I’ve invited your parents to the opening on Saturday.’

  Ben looked blank. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they’re my family, too. And I’m really not feeling up to dragging myself down to Didbury.’

  A strange look stole over Ben’s face. ‘Is Lloyd coming?’

  ‘He’s invited.’ Gabe regarded Ben keenly. ‘Have you spoken to him lately?’

  Ben turned away. ‘I’ve been busy.’

  When the others had gone, Carola dropping Gabe at home before picking up her girls for a shopping trip, Alexia slid her arms around Ben’s solid torso. ‘If Lloyd comes at
least you’ll have the chance to ask him what you want to know. Finally get your curiosity satisfied.’

  ‘Suppose so. With Gabe being sick and then it being all hands on deck at The Angel I suppose I haven’t had so much time to think about it.’

  His closed expression didn’t encourage her to ask whether he’d heard any more from Imogen. Ben hadn’t mentioned her for ages and Alexia found she didn’t want to bring her name up.

  When they’d cleared up she drove them both to Peterborough, where they split up to do their shopping. The Queensgate Centre was heaving with shoppers even though the schools wouldn’t break up until that afternoon. Every hall and shop window sparkled in red, green, gold and silver. Christmas songs played in every shop and jolly cut-out Santas grinned from behind red-nosed Rudolfs and jingly belled sleighs.

  Alexia bought a new dressing gown for her mum and a framed charcoal drawing of Peterborough Cathedral for her dad. She found an angel made of spun glass for Carola and was so pleased with it that she bought another for Gabe. She wasn’t supposed to buy for him because he said he had ‘enough stuff cluttering up the place’ but she’d never been a do-as-you’re-told woman. She bought Jodie a Clarins gift set, reasoning that nice moisturiser might not be affordable for a while. She blazed a trail through The Body Shop for school and village friends and made a mental note to send electronic vouchers to her brother, Reuben, and his wife, Hanna, in Germany.

  Which left her with Ben to buy for.

  Hmm. What did you buy the man you were sleeping with, who you had zing with but no labelled relationship, whose contract would be up in May so he might move on and who you suspected had unpacked baggage about his ex-wife? After an hour’s drag around the shops she chose him an experience day at a falconry centre because of the owls pictured, as well as a tree made out of Maltesers, because how could that possibly be wrong?

  Then, remembering the night they’d met, she bought him two crystal whisky glasses because she admired their beautiful lines. Too much? Not enough? Determined not to fall for the trap of judging the depth of one’s affections by thoughtfulness and cost of gifts, as Seb always had, she paid some girl guides raising money with a wrapping service to deal with the presents while she wrote the labels.