A Proper Family Christmas

by Jane Gordon - Cumming

  “Actually, I was thinking profiteroles.”

  “Good God!” She and Lesley gaped at each other. “Do you know how to make them?”

  “It’s not very difficult.”

  “You’ll need chocolate, won’t you, for the sauce?” Lesley began to scan the shelves herself.

  “Drinking chocolate, - that’ll do at a pinch.” Oliver pulled it out. “…Let’s see if he’s got a baking tray. The secret is to run it under cold water first, and to have the oven really hot. Can we turn it up a bit, do you think?”

  “Oh, of course!” Lesley leapt to obey. “I’ll take out these fish fingers.”

  Frances and Shelley brought the children downstairs, to find the kitchen a hive of culinary activity. Hilary was at the table, scattering grated cheese over a huge potato pie, with Lesley beside her decanting things from a baking-tray onto a plate. Scratch was engaged in the task of clearing some stray curls of cheese from the floor, while Oliver stirred an exotic-smelling pan on the stove.

  “Hello, darling? Did you have a nice bath?”

  “No, it was fri…”

  “The water wasn’t very hot, I’m afraid,” Frances put in quickly. “But we’ve got some nice warm clothes on now.”

  ‘We’ couldn’t be said to include Posy, who had refused to don anything but a skimpy tee-shirt and some flip-flops. “Dressing-gown? That’s not something kids wear, is it?” had been Shelley’s response when Frances had suggested that this might not be adequate for the rigours of Haseley House. “And she grew out of her slippers years ago!” They might have been talking about rompers.

  “Would you like some nice fish fingers for your supper?” Lesley asked her son. “Mummy’s got them all ready here, with some mashy potato.”

  “I don’t know.” Tobias wasn’t going to make it as easy as that. He surveyed the kitchen to see what else might be on offer. “What are those round things?”

  “They’re profiteroles, darling. I’m not sure you like them.”

  “Oh, I think he might!” said Hilary, clearly irritated by this pre-closing of doors. “Oliver’s made them specially for our pudding,” she explained to Tobias. “They’re going to have chocolate sauce on, and cream in the middle, - if we can find it. Why don’t you try one?”

  “I’m going to have lots and lots,” declared Posy. She bounced up to investigate the pan, rubbing herself sinuously against Oliver at the same time.

  “You’ll go pop then, and we’ll have to scrape your insides off the walls!” Shelley told her, making Tobias giggle and Lesley frown.

  “Are they going to eat in here?” asked Frances, looking doubtfully at the cluttered table, and wondering if she should start trying to make some space.

  “Good lord, no!” said Lesley. “Julia’s set the table in the dining-room. You can take these in, if you like.” She handed her Tobias’s plate of fish-fingers, peas and mashed potato, a neat meal for one. Presumably some other provision was being made for Posy, - and the rest of them, come to that.

  The dining-room looked stunning. Julia was putting the finishing touches to a scene that wouldn’t have been out of place illustrating Christmas in one of those ‘perfect home’ magazines. Every available surface was decorated with candles, sprigs of berry-laden holly and artistic trails of ivy. At the table, each place was set to perfection, with matching china, linen table-napkins and rows of silver cutlery and bone-handled knives, and an intricate centre-piece had been concocted out of pine cones and ribbons and gold-painted leaves, - Julia must have brought a spray-can with her.

  She turned when she heard Frances’s gasp of admiration, and pointed gleefully to the Christmas crackers she was laying beside each plate. “Aren’t these fabulous? We got them in this gorgeous little shop in Wimbledon, - you’d love it! …Don’t worry, there are plenty more for Christmas Day.”

  Worry about the supply of crackers wasn’t chief among Frances’s concerns at the moment. She hovered uncertainly with Tobias’s fish-fingers, reluctant to introduce such a prosaic note onto this splendid table.

  “What have you got there? Your supper?” Julia enquired kindly.

  “No, it’s Tobias’s. I was just wondering where to put it. Have you set him anywhere particular?”

  “Oh, the littlies won’t want to eat in here with us old grown-ups!” Julia assured her. “Posy won’t want more than a biscuit anyway. She never does.”

  “It’s just that there isn’t room at the kitchen table, and Mrs. Shirburn thought…”

  “Oh dear, trust Lesley!” Julia made a comic face at Frances. “Well there isn’t room at this one, either, I’m afraid. I’ve only just managed to fit everybody round. - We’re such an awful crowd!”

  The news was not received well in the kitchen.

  “And whose fault is that? Nobody asked her to bring their mob down to Haseley!” said Lesley, perhaps forgetting that two of the Britwell contingent were among her audience. “I really don’t see why Tobias should be excluded from his own family dining-table, as if he was some kind of second class citizen!”

  “Perhaps we could make a bit of room at this corner,” suggested Frances, aware that Tobias’s meal was getting cold.

  “No of course we can’t!” snapped Lesley. “ - Not with all this cooking stuff around. It’s unhygienic.”

  Frances saw Hilary and Oliver exchange a glance of wordless amusement, and was a little puzzled. It wasn’t that Lesley’s remark hadn’t been amusingly silly, but she’d been under the impression that the two of them had only just met, and here they were looking as if they’d known each other for years.

  “Sorry about the mess. We’ll clear some of it away.” Oliver turned off his pan and came over.

  “No, no!” Lesley flapped an embarrassed hand. “It’s extremely good of you to undertake the cooking. We’re all most grateful.”

  “Oh, I’m only the under-chef,” Oliver protested at once. “It’s Hilary you need to thank.”

  Lesley didn’t waste more than a nod in that direction. She had opened her mouth to resume the debate, when Stephen came in, and hovered near the door looking anxious.

  “Could I have a word with you, Lesley, do you think? …In the dining-room.”

  “Oh - um - yes.” She followed him out.

  “Wonder what’s got his pants in a twist?” Shelley expressed the thoughts of all of them. “Come on, Tobe. You going to eat them fish fingers before the cat gets them, or what?”

  “Can I have one?” asked Posy. “I’m starving!”

  “You can have some of this pie as soon as it’s hot,” said Hilary, who was putting it in the oven. “But I don’t know where you’re going to sit. Is there really no room next door?” she asked Frances.

  “I’m afraid not. Actually I could only see eight chairs.”

  “So where are me and you supposed to eat?” Shelley, like her, had realised this barely covered the remaining adults.

  Oliver looked across at Hilary, a questioning gleam in his eye.

  “Oh yes!” she exclaimed. “There’s a table in there. …Come on, guys. - Bring your plate, Tobias. Oliver and I have got a secret hideaway, but we’ll let you use it as a dining-room.”

  “Is it the china-cupboard?” asked Tobias, obediently picking up the plate.

  “No, - a bit bigger than that, so you can all sit down. It’s called the Butler’s Pantry.”

  “The butler used to keep his underclothes there,” Oliver told them as they followed her out, but only Frances grinned.

  Lesley met them in the passage. “Where are you taking Tobias?” she demanded sharply, apparently addressing Oliver.

  Frances explained, and waited for her to find some reason to veto it. But to her surprise, having ascertained that only the nannies would be present, Lesley now seemed to like the idea of the children being separated from the other adults. She shooed Oliver away almost rudely when he offered to fetch more chairs, hustled the rest of them into the pantry and shut the door behind her.

  Only one of Wi
lliam’s irritating visitors now remained in the sitting-room. Stephen, having grown increasingly fidgetty, had eventually given in and left, muttering something about having ‘a quiet word’ with Lesley. Tony, not wanting to miss the fun, had made the excuse of seeing whether Julia needed any help. But the most irritating person of all seemed determined to stay and give William unwanted company. He buried his head in his paper, hoping Leo would get bored and go away.

  “So, what has the Express got to tell us about the world?”

  William hadn’t failed to notice the slight ironic emphasis on the name of his newspaper. He gave a non-committal grunt, but unfortunately this was enough conversational interchange for Leo.

  “You don’t find their political comment a trifle - lacking in impartiality, shall we say?”

  William wouldn’t say anything on a subject in which he had no interest at all.

  “Myself, I prefer to stick to the jolly old Grauniad.” This must be some kind of joke, by the way he tittered, but it was lost on William. “You would have been interested to read an article in there the other day about the Net Book Agreement…”

  William doubted it. In fact by the time Leo had imparted every detail, he was quite sure he wouldn’t. He abandoned his paper, and put the TV on, turning the sound up a little higher than even he usually had it.

  “You don’t really want to watch that rubbish, do you?” William had found one of those rather amusing quizzes. “The News is on Channel 4 now.” Leo had to shout to make himself heard. “If you press the button saying ‘4’ on the remote…” He came over, as if to do so. William swept it out of his reach.

  “I know how to work my television, thank you very much.”

  “Pity you don’t know where the volume control is,” Leo muttered, sitting down again.

  William proved him wrong, by turning it up a little more.

  After a while Leo stood up and began to pace the room. “It’s a sad reflection on modern life the way technology has killed conversation.” William didn’t respond. “I said, it’s a sad reflection on modern life…” he began to repeat more loudly. “Oh, never mind! Perhaps I’ll go into the study. One might get a bit of peace in there.”

  William waited till he heard the door close, then turned the TV back down to a reasonable level.

  Hilary, too, had been surprised that Lesley hadn’t put up any opposition to the idea of the children eating in the pantry. She left her settling them down at the table, and went to see how the pie was doing.

  Oliver smiled as she came into the kitchen. “I think this is nearly hot actually. Shall we put some in a separate bowl for the nursery contingent? You’d better take it in though. I don’t seem to be very popular in there.”

  “Oh don’t be silly..!” Hilary began to protest. But it was true, Lesley had been acting rather strangely. One minute she’d been all over their distinguished visitor; the next she seemed to be anxious to keep him at more than arm’s length. Hilary was sure that she and Stephen had now realised how advantageous a flattering article might be to whoever inherited Haseley House, and had resolved to be charming to Oliver. So why, so soon after her ‘word’ with Stephen, had Lesley virtually thrown him out of the pantry?

  “…Ah! I get it.”

  “What?” Oliver was spooning potato pie into a dish.

  “I’ve suddenly realised why Lesley’s so keen to keep you out of there.”

  “Well, I’d love to know.”

  But before she could get a chance to tell him her theory, Stephen came in with Julia and Tony.

  “We must have wine,” Julia was saying, “and I know Daddy’ll have nothing decent in. …Oliver, darling, I bet you’re an expert, aren’t you? Why don’t you and Stephen pop down to the pub in the village and see what you can lay your hands on?”

  Hilary wasn’t surprised to see Stephen’s mouth drop in dismay. She was sure he knew nothing about wine. Why send him?

  “We’re just about to serve dinner,” she warned Julia. “If you and Tony want to zip down to the village…”

  “No, we can’t go. We’re busy doing the table. …You don’t mind, do you, Oliver? Stephen knows where the pub is. He’ll hold your hand.”

  “Um - I’m actually in the middle of helping Hilary,” said Oliver, with an eye on Stephen, who looked as if someone had just despatched him to Antarctica without an overcoat.

  “Yes, we can’t do without the pastry chef,” said Hilary firmly. “And I really don’t think there’s time for anyone to start disappearing now.” Why did Julia always make these elaborately inconvenient plans?

  “What’s all this?” Lesley came in. “I thought we were about to have dinner.”

  “Julia wants me to go down to the village and buy wine,” Stephen had found his voice at last. “ - with Oliver.”

  “What? No, of course you can’t go!” Lesley glared at poor Oliver as if it was his fault. “We don’t need wine. There’s plenty of fruit juice.”

  “It’s not quite the same.” Tony was trying to engage Hilary in a conspiratorial glance, but she wasn’t having it.

  “I bet you’ll find William’s got wine anyway,” she said. “Why don’t you have a look in the pantry, Oliver? There are all kinds of bottles in there.”

  “Oh no, I’ll go!” said Lesley at once, satisfyingly confirming Hilary’s suspicions. Lesley clearly didn’t want the architectural expert to get too good a look at the Butler’s Pantry, with that nasty patch of damp behind the door.

  William wasn’t left in peace for long. Margery emerged from her nap, fully refreshed and keen to take issue with him about the state of the upstairs rooms. She wasn’t as easily despatched as Leo.

  “Turn that thing off! It’s very rude to watch TV when you’ve got visitors.” She snatched the remote and did it for him. “…No, don’t pick up the paper! Listen to me. You’ve got to get in a good firm of builders, - one of these specialists that are used to dealing with broken down old houses. Oliver probably knows somebody. It won’t cost you more than twenty or thirty grand, and it’ll be money well spent…”

  She carried on remorselessly, brushing aside any of William’s objections with a peremptory “Rubbish!” There was nothing to be done. He knew as well as anybody that once his sister was fired up, one had little option but to wait until she ran out of steam.

  But well before that happened, rescue came in the form of Julia, announcing that dinner was ready.

  “Oh bother!” said the woman who had been so insistent on its preparation. “We can’t come now. William and I are busy talking.”

  “It’ll get cold if you don’t. Come and finish your talk in the dining-room.”

  “Oh all right.” Margery stood up to obey. “…If you really think the building work would be too disruptive, you’d better book into a hotel for a month or two.”

  But William didn’t want to hear the rest of Margery’s plans for his discomfort, or eat a meal he didn’t need. He settled down, and reached for the remote control.

  “Buck up, William, I’m holding the door!”

  “You go ahead. I’ve had supper already.”

  “Oh no, Daddy, you’ve got to have dinner with us!” pleaded Julia. “Hilary will be so hurt if you don’t. She’s cooked it specially.”

  “Of course you must come and show your face! Good heavens…” Margery hurried across to chivvy him out of his seat. “What are your guests going to think, if you don’t bother to turn up to your own dinner party?”

  William scowled when he saw the way that his dining-room had been taken over by the Spirit of Christmas Present. It wasn’t a room he used much, but he still didn’t like to see it decorated with all those silly painted leaves and things. And there was a perfectly good electric light, so why fill the place with candles? …Crackers, though. William had a bit of a weakness for crackers.

  The room was already crowded with people, hovering uncertainly behind the chairs, waiting to be told where to go. William was about to take his place at the head of the t
able, but Julia touched his arm.

  “I’m afraid Hilary and Oliver rather seem to have taken over tonight,” she murmured apologetically, “so they’ll have to sit at either end and play host. It means you and Aunt Margery being squashed up in the middle, unfortunately, but what else can one do?”

  William didn’t quite see her logic. Being a thin person, he wasn’t particularly bothered by the lack of elbow-room, though he would have preferred not to be seated next to Lesley. But Margery was plumper, and didn’t look at all pleased to find herself jammed between Stephen and Tony. Why couldn’t Julia have put her on the outside in Stephen’s place? And wait a minute… William grinned to himself. One member of the family was missing altogether!

  CHAPTER 10

  “No, of course you must sit there! You’re in charge tonight.”

  Hilary was absolutely horrified. She’d brought the pie in, to find everyone else squashed up along the sides of the table, leaving a huge empty space at either end. Julia was patting the place beside her determinedly.

  “Nonsense! We’re only the cooks.” Hilary exchanged a desperate glance with Oliver, who was following with warm plates. “There’s no need for us to sit anywhere special. I really think William and Margery should be at the head…”

  But Julia wouldn’t have it. “No, you’re the stars of the evening, cobbling together a meal for all us dreadful people! You must sit here and be Mother.” She pulled Hilary down onto the chair. “Pass the plates up, Oliver darling.”

  He obeyed and sat down at the far end of the table, looking equally embarrassed, especially when both Lesley and Stephen tried to shift away, giving him even more room.

  It was almost as if Julia had calculated her seating arrangements to give maximum annoyance, Hilary thought. Why put Margery between Stephen and Tony, two people she couldn’t stand, instead of next to her friend Oliver? Lesley was all but sitting on William’s lap now, - and what was he doing in here anyway, adding to the crowd in the dining-room, when he’d so firmly told them he’d already had his supper? She herself had been placed as far as possible from the person she would have chosen to be near, but at least Julia hadn’t seated her next to Leo. …Come to think of it, where was Leo?