Mince Pies and Mistletoe at the Christmas Market

by Heidi Swain

  ‘The absolute scoundrels!’ scowled Gwen, sounding outraged. Minnie, tucked as always under her arm gave an extra little growl to demonstrate that she agreed with her mistress. ‘Thank goodness your dad spoke up when he did, Ruby.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ joined in Jude. ‘When he showed us around the shop I said to Simon that he looked like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.’

  ‘And you were right,’ said Simon, slipping his hand in Jude’s, ‘what a burden he must have been carrying all this time.’

  I had no idea how he’d done it, or whether it actually had anything to do with something Dad had done at all, but somehow the rumour mill had launched him from zero to hero and it looked as though I was going to have the opportunity to enjoy my last few days’ trading, even though I knew we hadn’t heard the last of the market saga just yet.

  Chapter 29

  Ever since I was a child I’ve always been acutely aware that the final few days before Christmas somehow managed to take on a surreal, almost unreal feel all of their own, and with everything that was happening in and around Wynbridge, at home, at the market, in the café and in the papers, this year was certainly no exception. With that in mind, I’d decided to give the trip to The Mermaid after late night opening a miss. Even though a sip of Skylark Scrumpy would have been most welcome, I wasn’t sure my already frayed nerves could cope with hearing my family being dissected and devoured as the current talk of the town.

  Just as Bob had predicted, and I had feared, we certainly hadn’t heard the last of the sordid council saga and the next morning rumours were rife that another bigwig was going to fall from grace before the end of the day. The newspaper might only have been in print every Thursday but its online presence, along with the piqued interest of the local radio and television stations, meant it was all that anyone could talk about.

  However, I was relieved to discover that with far bigger salaried fish to fry, Dad’s name had slipped from top of the gossip-mongering list to considerably further down but I still couldn’t make head or tail of his unexpectedly upbeat attitude. I kept expecting to find him in bits, but for a man who had dedicated his life to his council career and lost it, he was certainly sounding remarkably chipper.

  ‘Can you hear him?’ I said to Mum the next morning as I was getting ready to head to the market for the penultimate day’s trading. ‘He’s actually whistling.’

  ‘I know,’ said Mum with a cursory glance up the stairs towards where the sound was coming from.

  ‘I’ve never heard Dad whistle in my life, not ever,’ I said. ‘Something’s not right.’

  ‘Lots of things aren’t right, Ruby,’ Mum tutted.

  ‘Oh, you know what I’m getting at,’ I hissed, ‘you know exactly what I mean.’

  Mum ignored me and carried on filling my thermal cup with hot chocolate.

  ‘You know as well as I do that there’s more to this situation than he’s letting on,’ I persisted. ‘Since when would Dad have given up his job without a fight? And what about planning a revenge assault on the newspaper? Shouldn’t he be stocking up on new highlighters and forming a battle plan by now?’

  Mum bit her lip.

  ‘I have asked him,’ she whispered conspiratorially, ‘a hundred times, but he insists he’s told us everything.’

  ‘Well, he must be cracking up then,’ I said, checking the lid on my cup was secure and not noticing how she was suddenly clearing her throat and discreetly shaking her head.

  ‘Not just yet,’ said Dad, smiling broadly as he appeared in the doorway as if by magic, ‘maybe I’ll give that a go at the end of the month. I wouldn’t want to ruin Christmas!’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ I frowned, ‘very funny. Not.’

  ‘I thought you were always telling me to lighten up, Ruby,’ he laughed, picking up my car keys. ‘I hardly think it’s fair that you’ve started complaining now that I have! Get yourself sorted and I’ll go and de-ice your car.’

  ‘See,’ I said to Mum, as we listened to him crashing about in the utility room and pulling on his wellies, ‘definitely not right.’

  That day the footfall through the town and the market was so high I didn’t have time to draw breath from the second I finished setting up until the moment I’d sold the last iced and spiced bun. The wonderful winter weather was helping to play its part as overnight the snow had continued to fall, and by day the temperature plummeted under clear, azure skies, meaning the entire town and surrounding Fens had taken on a fairy-tale winter wonderland look.

  Jemma’s popular bakes were barely out of the oven and bagged before they were sold and Lizzie was sewing stockings and Christmas bunting as fast as her fingers could work. If my takings and the weight of my money belt were anything to go by, the locals were definitely in the mood to celebrate and spend.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Lizzie, when she slid and slipped her way across the square mid-afternoon. ‘I’m done. Jemma’s going to bake for tomorrow but I reckon there’s just about enough of my stock left to last the day.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I said, looking over the few bits we still had left. ‘You could always pack anything away that you don’t sell for next year.’

  ‘Oh, I like your optimism,’ she laughed, passing me the bag full of her pretty handiwork, ‘but who could we possibly find to replace the inimitable Miss Ruby Smith, even with a whole year’s notice?’

  I gave her a comic little salute as she rushed back to the café. It would be a real shame if the Cherry Tree stall was packed up on Christmas Eve with no prospect of reappearing. I really had meant what I’d said to Harriet and Rachel about celebrating Valentine’s Day and having a Spring Fair, complete with chirping chicks and leaping lambs.

  ‘Have you heard?’ Bob shouted over to me.

  ‘Heard what?’ I asked tentatively.

  ‘Two more have been sacked this afternoon!’

  He was clearly delighted that his earlier prediction had been right.

  ‘Two,’ I said shaking my head. ‘Crikey.’

  ‘Yep,’ he said, showing Simon, who had joined him, the screen on his phone.

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Doesn’t say,’ shrugged Simon, ‘but I’m sure we’ll know soon enough.’

  ‘Hey, Tom!’ called Shirley at the top of her voice. ‘Do you know who’s got the chop this afternoon?’

  ‘Afraid not,’ he said, pushing Noah over in his pushchair, ‘I finished for Christmas yesterday and to be honest, I’m just grateful to be out of the way.’

  ‘Goodness knows what you must think of my dad,’ I blushed. It was the first time I’d clapped eyes on Tom since the story had broken.

  ‘I happen to have a very high opinion of your old man,’ he said, grinning from ear to ear before checking himself. ‘Well, I’d better get on,’ he mumbled, looking guilty. ‘I’m supposed to be collecting Ella from the café and cooking dinner tonight.’

  I watched him walk away, feeling more convinced than ever that I still didn’t know the full story.

  ‘Pub?’ asked Jude, giving me a hopeful little nudge.

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded, suddenly not caring a jot for the gossiping hordes, ‘why not?’

  I had expected the pub to be heaving by the time I finally arrived, but it was really rather quiet.

  ‘Where is everyone, Evelyn?’ I asked, hanging my coat on the hook behind the door and hopping up on a bar stool.

  ‘We were packed last night,’ she explained, ‘but I dare say you’d already worked that out for yourself.’

  I nodded but didn’t say anything. Given what she said, I was glad I’d decided to give the place a miss. It had been hard enough trying to ignore the exchanged glances and head nods in my direction on the market. Being trapped at a table watching it all play out in front of me would have been torture. Perhaps I did care a little more than I was willing to admit after all.

  ‘I would imagine everyone’s at home making sure the cupboards are full and the presents are all wrapped up,�
�� Evelyn continued sagely, ‘but you wait until tomorrow when the reality of impending in-laws and rushing about for forgotten cranberry and carrots sets in. They’ll be flooding in here in droves.’

  ‘I guess you’ve seen it all before,’ I sighed, reaching in to my jeans pocket for some change.

  ‘A hundred times,’ she laughed. ‘The folk might change but the stories are pretty much the same!’

  I couldn’t help thinking that if she was right then we humans were a pretty predictable lot.

  ‘What can I get you, love?’ she smiled.

  I looked around to double check I hadn’t missed Jude and Simon sitting ensconced behind a table somewhere, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  ‘If you’re looking for Jude,’ said Evelyn following my gaze, ‘she was in here earlier but had a phone call and had to go. She said you might be expecting to see her.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said, ‘I hope everything’s all right.’

  Evelyn smiled and shook her head.

  ‘Dodgy fridge door apparently. Simon’s arrived home tonight to discover the cat has got his paws on a considerable amount of smoked salmon and devoured the lot.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I sympathised, ‘that’s not good, is it? Better make it just half a cider for me then, please,’ I added with a nod to the pump.

  ‘Like I said,’ smiled Evelyn, ‘the folk on the merry-go-round might change, but the stories don’t. If I had a pound for every time Minnie had got to Gwen’s dinner before she had I could be on a lounger in the Bahamas right now!’

  I guessed my own decision to rush off to the other side of the world was a story that had been told here many times before: the local girl who drops out of university or her job and decides to spread her wings. I shuddered at the thought of turning into a cliché. It wasn’t even as if I could go all out and do something shocking before I left town because Dad had already very definitely stolen my thunder on that front.

  ‘Crikey, it’s like a morgue in here,’ observed Steve as he rushed through the door with a sharp blast of Wynbridge winter air. ‘You all on your lonesome, Ruby?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ I nodded, ‘but according to Evelyn this is how it always is the night before Christmas Eve.’

  Steve looked thoughtful for a moment, as if he was trying to think back over previous years.

  ‘Anyway, I’m glad I’ve seen you,’ I told him. ‘I have something for you.’

  ‘That sounds promising,’ he grinned, giving up on trawling back through the memory bank and straddling the stool next to mine. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Go and have a dig about in my coat pocket,’ I ordered, ‘and you’ll see.’

  What with everything else that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I’d completely forgotten that I had been fretting over his conversations with Paul Thompson. There were far bigger things to worry over now. He looked at me quizzically, then hopped off the stool and began rifling through the coat pockets as instructed.

  ‘Aha!’ he laughed, when his fingers met his quarry.

  ‘I thought you might be having withdrawal symptoms,’ I said, taking a sip of my cider. ‘It’s been a few days, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yep,’ he said, sitting back down and ripping into the bag of mince pies I had been holding back for him. ‘It sure has.’

  I watched as he sank his teeth into the first one and started making appreciative, but ever so slightly suggestive, yummy noises.

  ‘You’d better make the most of them,’ I insisted as he made a grab for his second, ‘that will probably be the last lot you get this year.’

  ‘Oh, what?’

  ‘Jemma will be baking for the stall tomorrow, but given the speed I sold out today I can’t guarantee a supply beyond these last few.’

  Reluctantly he returned the second pie to the bag, crinkled the top together and pushed it away.

  ‘In that case I’d better pace myself,’ he tutted. ‘Pint please, Evelyn.’

  ‘Good plan,’ I smiled.

  ‘Do you think you could spare me a minute, Ruby?’ he asked once he’d paid for his drink. ‘Only I’d like to talk to you, if that’s OK.’

  ‘We’re talking now, aren’t we?’ I shrugged, ‘but yes, come on. Let’s grab a seat by the fire. I’d like to talk to you too.’

  Sitting either end of the squashy sofa in front of the roaring log fire we both took a long sip at our drinks and eyed each other over the rim of our glasses.

  ‘If it’s all right with you,’ I said eventually for fear that we’d be sitting there all night if one of us didn’t start talking again, ‘I’d like to clear the air and say I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what,’ he frowned, ‘what on earth have you got to be sorry about?’

  ‘For not listening,’ I explained, ‘for snapping your head off and not really believing what you were trying to tell me about what Dad was up to for so long. I know you were only half right but you were definitely on the right track and if I’d just taken everything on-board sooner we might have been saved some of the mess from the last few days.’

  Steve shook his head, put his glass down on the table and sat further back on the sofa.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m the one who should be apologising. The way I went about it that first time was all wrong. I was just so convinced of it all in my own mind that I launched off without a thought for how you were going to feel about what I was saying. I’d completely disregarded that fact that I was talking about your dad and that no matter how you might feel about him at the moment, at the end of the day he’s still your flesh and blood.’

  I was grateful that he’d realised that.

  ‘And anyway,’ he added, leaning over, ‘between you and me I think I’ve probably got it more than half wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I’ve been thinking it all through,’ he said, biting his lip and picking up his glass again, ‘and it doesn’t add up. None of it adds up at all.’

  I was still thinking the same myself but had come no closer to discovering if my hunch was right.

  ‘Your dad loves this town,’ Steve went on, turning his attention to the flames licking up the chimney, ‘and he loves his job. I know we’ve never exactly hit it off but even I know that he’s not the sort of bloke who would throw away the things he cares most in the world about for the sake of a few quid.’

  ‘I do have to agree with you there,’ I nodded. ‘And he seems so ridiculously upbeat about it all.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘Yes. He’s going around smiling and whistling as if this is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.’

  ‘What does your mum have to say about it all?’

  ‘She’s suspicious as well, but she says she’s asked him and he’s sticking to his story. He’s even planning to put the house on the market in the New Year so they can downsize and find a way of living comfortably on their reduced means.’

  ‘I can’t believe for one second that would really be a prospect he would be looking forward to!’

  ‘I know,’ I shrugged, ‘me neither.’

  ‘He’s a very driven bloke, your father, a man who’s used to always getting his own way.’

  ‘That’s something else I’ve had confirmed since I’ve been back,’ I sighed.

  Steve turned to look at me, his eyes searching my face. His cheeks were flushed from sitting too close to the fire.

  ‘You know, don’t you?’ he said eventually.

  ‘What,’ I croaked, ‘what do I know?’

  He didn’t elaborate, just carried on looking at me, silently willing me to confess.

  ‘Oh all right,’ I caved, ‘yes, I know. I found out last Sunday. He said he’d done it with the best of intentions. He also said he’d only told you to let me go because he thought parting us was going to be the best thing for me in the long run.’

  ‘As did I,’ Steve swallowed, ‘that was why I went along with him.’

  ‘It’s a shame neither of you thought to sit down
and ask me if I had an opinion on what was best for me, wasn’t it?’

  ‘God yes,’ he said, running his hands through his hair.

  ‘I wish you had,’ I said, my eyes brimming with hot tears. ‘I so wish you had.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Steve, his hand reaching across the cushions towards mine, ‘I wish that more than anything. What would you have said?’

  I swallowed hard, my brain trying to formulate an answer that would put an end to all the wondering once and for all. Just as I was poised to begin, Bea came bursting through the door, her usually tidy hair escaping from its tight bun and her eyes furious and aflame.

  ‘Where is he?’ she demanded, banging the door shut behind her.

  ‘Evening, Bea,’ smiled Jim, as he ran a tea towel over the stack of glasses on the bar in front of him.

  Steve and I sprang apart before she spotted us and I quickly blinked away my tears.

  ‘Don’t you “Evening, Bea” me,’ she said, pointing an accusatory finger at the pub in general. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘I assume you’re talking about Sam,’ guessed Jim, ‘but I don’t know why you’d bother asking me. I’m just your affable landlord. No one tells me anything.’

  Bea’s eyes swivelled around the room and came to rest on Steve.

  ‘Aha,’ she said, marching over. ‘You’re the other half of the dynamic duo. What have you done with him?’

  ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ I suggested, budging up a little. ‘Get your breath back.’

  I had worked out she was on the warpath searching for her beloved Sam but I also knew that if she carried on making such a show of herself she’d soon regret it, even though the pub was practically empty. Decorum and modesty, at least in public, were all important to a girl like Bea.

  ‘I don’t want to sit down,’ she seethed. ‘I just want to know where he is.’

  ‘Well, where have you looked?’ asked Steve.

  And if he carried on using that tone of voice I knew he was going to get more than he bargained for when Bea worked herself up to answering him. Or was he?

  ‘Everywhere,’ she sniffed, flopping down on the chair opposite and dropping her many shopping bags in a muddled heap around her feet. ‘He promised me he wasn’t going to be working over Christmas and that we’d spend some proper time together, but now he’s just disappeared. Vanished. I can’t find him anywhere.’