by Judy Astley
‘It’s OK, I know what you mean and you’re not wrong.’ Thea picked up the cake tin of mince pies from the larder and was relieved to find it didn’t weigh as little as she’d dreaded. She didn’t much want to make any more, not after six batches of the damn things. She would if she had to, but felt she was in danger of turning into one. She took out ten and put them in a Tupperware box then collected a bottle of champagne from the fridge. She wasn’t convinced – after the run-in with Emily – that mulled wine and the possibility of the alcohol having evaporated in the heating process would quite hit the spot.
‘I only realized when I was on the train,’ Alec said to Anna, ‘that daffodils weren’t the best choice of flowers. They’ll have come from down here, been sent up to there and now I’ve brought them back again.’
There were masses of them, just beginning to open, the earliest ones with the subtle scent and the very short but sweet life. Anna arranged them in a vase on the console table in the hallway high enough up so that Alfie wouldn’t reach them. She liked them – they didn’t smell of cat pee like the Paperwhites always seemed to.
‘They haven’t suffered from their travels,’ she told him, ‘and it was so sweet of you. I love to have flowers in the house over Christmas. It makes me feel all happy that spring won’t be long.’ She thought for a minute about home and how she would miss the best of her Christmas-flowering hyacinths that she’d left behind on the kitchen window-ledge. There was always a moment when they started to go over and the scent went from gloriously overpowering to slightly decaying. She’d probably arrive home in time for that stage and they’d have to be banished to the terrace to complete their decline. She’d almost brought them with her but had forgotten them in the mêlée of packing the car and arguing with Mike about whether to take the A303 route or the M4.
Anna was conscious that she and Alec seemed to be skirting around one another. It all felt a bit awkward and she wished she knew how not to make it so. Anything more intimate than the brief hello kiss at the station had to be out of the question here among her family. He couldn’t expect anything different, surely? She was one person when she was back in London and out alone with him and with no one else to answer to, but quite another here in the middle of her closest people. It was going to be a tricky few days, trying to be all things to everyone and probably failing at every turn. Thank goodness for Thea’s list. She had found a Trivial Pursuit box in a cupboard and, as no one had come up with a better selection of quiz questions than the Guardian’s Quiz of the Year – and Sam had filled in most of those already – they were supposed to be playing that later after supper. It was old-fashioned and a bit daft, and probably most of them would rather slob out and watch vintage comedy repeats on TV while getting quietly sloshed, but if they divided everyone up into three teams it should be kind of … bonding. That was what they were all supposed to be here for, after all. Though nobody had anticipated bonding with a pair of interlopers as well.
The massive clump of mistletoe couldn’t help but be directly over the head of anyone who was pretty much anywhere in the hallway, and right now, with the wall lamps on, it was casting several spooky circular shadows of itself across the wood floor as if to give any kiss-ditherers a nudge. You can’t get away from the damn stuff, Anna thought slightly crossly. Its size made it seem bossy. She was half-inclined to take the kitchen scissors to it in the night when everyone was asleep, to stand on a chair and cut it back to a less brazen size. It was hanging there being too seductively vast, demanding attention. And even if she and Alec weren’t going to give it the satisfaction of some serious snogging, she’d bet any money that Charlotte would be planning to.
‘You know what? We should get out there and make a snowman,’ Alec suggested, peering through the window. ‘It would be wrong to be given all this snow and then find it’s melted away by morning and no one’s been out and played in it.’
‘I have a feeling there’ll be plenty of it still,’ Anna said. ‘According to the radio, there’s a lot more to come. They’ve even got it on the Isles of Scilly and that’s practically unheard of. I can’t remember the last white Christmas I saw.’ She could, actually. She was just getting into her teens at the time but she was pretty sure it was the year before Alec was born, so she decided not to draw attention to the age gap.
‘Come on, let’s go and look.’ Alec opened the door and a gust of freezing air blew flakes of snow in and set the mistletoe swaying above them.
He took her hand and they stepped out under the porch roof. She didn’t much want her hand held, not here. And if she was going to make a snowman she didn’t wish it to be with just him; the children would love to join in and she’d want them to.
‘We’ll need boots,’ Anna said, putting off the moment but at the same time thinking how mumsily sensible she was sounding. If she were back home, out alone with him, she’d probably be skipping about in the snow with her face to the sky, letting the flakes fall on her tongue. But even then, she probably wouldn’t be racing outside to the icy wetness in flimsy scarlet ballet flats.
‘There’s a boot room here, just behind the larder, with a shelf of wellington boots in every size, so in the morning we could all come out and build something out here. Even Charlotte,’ she said with a grin, picturing her as she’d first met her with her bin bags over her feet. A snowball fight, that’s what they really needed. Some good old-fashioned, tension-busting violence. It would make them all feel better. She’d add it to Thea’s list of things to do in the morning.
‘You’ve brought champagne as well as the mince pies?’ Sean looked surprised as Thea offered him the bottle.
‘Sorry. I felt the need in case your wine was a bit lightweight.’ She explained, ‘I’ve had a bit of a run-in with my sister. But I’d love to try your mulled wine first. It smells fabulous.’ And it did – the scent of cloves and cinnamon filled the room.
He led her through the kitchen to the sofas and she sat down, settling into the cushions and feeling tensions seep away as the warmth of the big log fire blazed at her. Woody jumped onto her lap and purred, narrowing his blue squinty eyes as she stroked his back. He settled and squirmed against her thighs, leaving a feathering of pale fur on her black jeans. Sean arranged the mince pies on a plate and put them on the coffee table in front of her.
‘Families, eh? Can’t live with them. Can’t live … with them.’ He ladled the warmed wine into a glass. ‘Here, try this. Let me know – honestly – what you think.’
Thea took a slow sip. It was tangy and soothing and nothing like the thin, slightly bitter one she’d had at her neighbours’ party, nor thick and cloying and low on alcohol like the one at the pub.
‘Oh wow, that’s gorgeous.’ She sighed, having a bit more. She mustn’t have too much, she warned herself; there was still supper to get through. Maria had left them some sea bass and Anna had delicious-sounding plans for it.
‘New people have joined you, I see,’ Sean said.
‘Ah. Yes. The unexpected extras.’
‘What – they just landed themselves on you?’ He was laughing. ‘They are friends of yours, though?’
She gave him a short version of who was who and he frowned, concentrating to take in the details while munching a mince pie.
‘So they weren’t invited – they just rocked up? These pies are fabulous, by the way. Eat your heart out, Delia, Nigella and Co.’
‘Well, not quite, but actually, yeah, that’s not so far out. Definitely in Charlotte’s case,’ she said, leaning back and closing her eyes.
‘Aw, you look so sleepy, poor Elf,’ Sean said. ‘It must be pretty knackering, dealing with that lot. Why don’t you stay over here for the whole evening and let them all get on with it over there? You can stagger back later and say you got stuck in a snowdrift or a blizzard or something. I could roll you in the snow for dramatic credibility.’
She opened her eyes. His face was surprisingly close to hers and she wanted, very suddenly, to put her arms round him,
to rest her head against his warm body and simply be for a few minutes. She resisted. She had to – or he’d think she was completely loopy and that her Gaydar had tripped a switch.
‘Tempting, but I can’t just bail out on them all on Christmas Eve.’
‘Would they put you on the naughty step?’
‘Probably. And they’d ask a lot of questions.’
He laughed at that. ‘I can imagine. The youngest in the family always cops it, long after they’re grown up. It’s like they’re forever about to ask if you’ve finished your homework before you’re allowed to watch TV.’
‘I’m not the youngest, though, Emily is. She’s only a couple of years younger but she’s the family baby. Apart from her own children, that is, obviously.’
‘Is she? I thought she looked older than you. She looks …’
He foundered for a moment and then together they both said, ‘Cross.’
‘So true,’ Thea said ruefully. ‘She’s always worrying and thinking everything’s a disaster. Maybe it takes it out of you. Gives you lines or something. Or it’s the nights up with babies. That’ll be it.’
‘But is it a disaster?’ He got up and put another couple of logs on the fire. Sparks crackled and Woody jumped down from Thea and went to lie closer to the flames, his tummy facing the blaze.
‘For her? No. She’s pretty damn lucky, y’know. Lovely husband, top job, house, children. It should be the full package.’ Thea suddenly felt she’d been disloyal. It must be the wine. She’d almost finished her glass and was feeling welded to the sofa and all soft and mellow. ‘She definitely does appreciate her luck, somewhere inside. I just wish she didn’t look on the downside all the time. But it’s pretty freaking annoying if you’re actually going through a massive personal downside of your own and she’s fussing about the ribbon on Milly’s plait coming undone as if it is the end of the world.’
She drank the last of her wine and wriggled herself more upright so she could get out of the squashy depths of the sofa. ‘I really should be getting back,’ she told him.
He made a disappointed face. ‘Shame. Sure I can’t tempt you to stay for a bit longer? I’ve got sausages.’
‘Blissful idea, and thanks for the thought, but I really can’t. And anyway, aren’t you supposed to be with Paul?’
‘Not till tomorrow. I thought I’d do the professional thing and stay on the premises in case the hiring party in the house – that’s you lot – have any problems due to the snow.’
Thea giggled, realizing the wine had been quite strong. ‘Well, it’s still outside the building so I don’t think it’ll turn out to be that much of a problem, will it?’
‘Power cuts are a possibility – snow on the lines, all that. This is Cornwall, after all – none of your underground cables here. So I’m on duty tonight to do the manly bit with candles and torches should the worst happen. They’re in a box in the room where all the boots are, by the way, just behind the larder. I might as well tell you. Power-cut kit – torches, matches, candles, all there.’
‘Thank you. Sorry to screw up your Christmas arrangements. Please send apologies to Paul.’
‘It’s not the only reason I stayed.’
‘Oh?’ She wished she didn’t keep forgetting he was gay. Why did he have to look at her as if she was even more delicious than the mince pies? It was so disconcerting and completely out of order.
‘No. It’s the surfing, tomorrow morning. We all do it. Christmas Day is a given, down in the cove.’
‘What? You’re going in the sea in this weather? Won’t you die?’
‘But I’m in the sea pretty much every day,’ Sean pointed out. ‘It was my job, don’t forget. The only months you really feel the cold out there are February and March. The sea takes a long time to chill right down from the summer. And the summer was a pretty good one, wasn’t it, this year?’
Thea thought back. Not so good for her, not after what happened and with Rich leaving and all. Weather-wise, she’d barely noticed. She wished she had – a beautiful summer deserved better than to be ignored and endured with misery.
‘Hey, you look sad, Elf,’ Sean said, taking her hand. ‘Why don’t you skip down to the beach with me now and we’ll check out the waves for tomorrow? It’ll blow the glooms away.’
Thea checked her watch. She was on washing-up duty later and wasn’t needed for any cooking so she had time, just. It seemed a mad idea but he was probably right. A few blasts of fresh air would clear Emily and her comments from her head.
‘OK, let’s do it,’ she said, standing up. The warmth in the room made her head spin. Or maybe it was the wine. She pulled her coat on, wondering if he’d mind if she went back to her room for a scarf.
‘Hang on, I’ll get you some more wrappings.’ He must have read her mind and after a few minutes came back with a hand-knitted scarlet bobble hat and a tartan cashmere scarf, both of which he put on her as if she were a child, carefully pulling out the front fronds of her hair from the hat and tweaking them into shape. ‘The front bits look like Tin-Tin,’ he said, laughing at her.
‘Oh, thanks – a small boy. My favourite look!’ she said, blushing, which was more from enjoying the soft touch of his hands on her hair than from real embarrassment.
‘Trust me, Thea, you don’t look anything like a boy.’
Sean picked up a bag from the kitchen and the two of them set off through the snow along the path to the beach. Woody trotted alongside, picking his feet high up and occasionally grabbing at the snow as if fighting it. The night was now clear and bright. The snow had stopped falling, and more and more stars were visible as the clouds began to clear. It was hellishly cold but Thea still had the remnants of the warmth from Sean’s log fire and the mulled wine. It was exhilarating to be out, striding down the path. Sean took hold of her hand on the sheerest bits of the path and she was grateful. It was a tricky enough descent in daytime, let alone on snow and in the dark, but at least with the whiteness she could see the ground. Without it, she’d have been terrified of tumbling the twenty feet to the shore.
‘Wow, look – snow even on the actual beach,’ she said as they got to the bottom. There wasn’t that much of it and it petered out a few yards away towards the sea, but all the same, it was a sight she’d never seen before, and in the soft glow from the moon it looked as if a white volcano had erupted on the hillside and poured great tongues of pale lava across the shore.
Woody was still picking his way through the snow, occasionally stopping to wash a paw.
‘He doesn’t like it, does he? He must have freezing paws,’ Thea commented as she watched him. ‘Or does he like the taste, do you think?’
‘I guess it’s just water. I wonder if cats know never to eat yellow snow?’
Thea laughed out loud. ‘You can’t tell a cat anything. They know it all.’
‘Cat gods,’ Sean said, putting the bag down beside a rock and starting to gather some snow together. ‘Come on, help me roll a big ball of it. We’ll make something – got to be done, hasn’t it?’
Together they rolled and rolled a ball of snow along the beach and back till it was as high as Thea’s shoulder. Then they rolled another and put it on top and added some pointy snow ears. Thea found pebbles for eyes and sticks for whiskers, and Sean shaped a tail at the back.
‘There you go, Woody,’ he said when they were breathless and pink from the effort. ‘That’s for you.’
The cat took a look at it, turned and trotted away back up the path, distracted by a sound from high above them.
‘We’re being watched,’ Sean murmured, pointing up towards Cove Manor. Out on the dark back porch, away from the lights of the sitting room, two cigarette ends glowed in the dark.
‘Hmm, that’s probably Jimi having a sneaky cig. He still feels he has to slide out to smoke in dark corners in case Mum and Dad tell him off, like a teenager. Wonder who he’s with?’ And when a blast of laughter cut through the quiet: ‘Ah, that’ll be Charlotte. No mistaking that lau
gh.’
‘Good sign – they’re all getting on,’ Sean said.
‘Hope so.’
‘Hey, I brought this for us.’ Sean cleared snow from the rock and spread out a large bin bag on it. ‘Sorry about this,’ he said, pulling her down beside him. ‘I don’t usually expect to need a picnic blanket in December, so this is the best I could find at a moment’s notice.’
He produced Thea’s champagne and two glasses from his bag.
‘I thought we’d just have a quick glass of this to celebrate Christmas. It seems the perfect spot for it, don’t you think?’ He opened the bottle and poured the wine into the glasses, handing her one.
‘It does,’ she agreed, staring out to sea. The waves were hurtling in, coming up to high tide and washing away the edges of the snow.
‘A toast to the Woody-god.’
‘Here’s to Woody,’ she said, as they clinked glasses.
Sean chuckled. ‘I bet you had no idea that this was how you’d be spending Christmas Eve, did you? I certainly didn’t.’
‘It definitely wasn’t something I’d planned, back earlier in the year, no.’
‘Did you have something else you’d expected to do instead?’
Thea thought for a minute. She could tell him. It was another topic that wasn’t being mentioned by anyone else and it felt wrong for it to be so completely unacknowledged.
‘Actually, yes,’ she said. ‘If all had gone as it should have done, right now I’d be having a baby.’
ELEVEN
‘I saw you earlier,’ Jimi whispered to Thea, halfway through supper. ‘What were you doing on the beach?’
‘You were on the beach?’ Rosie, overhearing, didn’t go in for whispering and the others all turned to look at Thea.
‘You went down there in all the snow? Why?’ Emily looked anxious. ‘Are you all right?’
‘She means, were you sulking?’ Charlotte put in. ‘I heard you two having words earlier.’ She pointed her knife at Emily. ‘I think your sister was a bit upset.’