It Must Have Been the Mistletoe

by Judy Astley

  He ran his fingers through his wet hair. It was going into long twirly curls. He must be freezing, she thought.

  ‘Right – I’d better leave you to get dry and warm up again,’ she said. ‘When are you off to Paul’s, and’ – she looked up towards the snowy hilltop – ‘how will you get there? Is the road clear?’

  He laughed. ‘Not clear at all. Even the Landy wouldn’t make it back up the hill to here on the way back.’

  ‘So it’s walking distance then?’

  ‘Not quite. But it is skiing distance. I’ve got some cross-country ones that I’ve just hauled out from the back of the barn. I never thought I’d get to use them in the UK, that’s for sure.’

  ‘No, not a lot of call for skiing in Cornwall, I guess. Anyway,’ Thea said awkwardly, feeling she was holding him up but reluctant to lose his company, ‘I hope you have a good day. I guess you won’t be back tonight.’

  He looked surprised. ‘Unless my head-torch breaks, in which case I’d be a loony to ski in the dark, I’m planning to get back later. I don’t want to leave my clients – that’s you lot – overnight, not in this weather, so I should be back. Late, though. See you tomorrow?’

  ‘OK. Yes. On our list – the famous list – is a barbecue lunch on the beach, just simple things like sausages in buns, that kinda thing. You could join us if you’re not busy. Just a thought.’ She felt suddenly shy about the suggestion. He surely had plans of his own and now she wished she hadn’t asked because she didn’t want to hear him say no.

  ‘I’d like to. Thanks. And’ – he gave her a grin – ‘could I ask you something in return?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Will you unzip me, please?’ he said, turning and pointing to the neck of his wetsuit. He looked at her over his shoulder. ‘And that’s not something I ask just any girl.’

  ‘No,’ she said, returning the grin. ‘I can imagine it isn’t.’

  She left Sean chatting to his mates on the beach and walked quickly back up the hill and into the house through the back door. As she started up the staircase she heard the sounds of low giggles and whispers, and as she reached the first floor the connecting door to the staircase opened and Charlotte and Alec then started coming down towards her, dressed for the cold outdoors.

  ‘Oh hi. How was the church?’ Thea asked.

  ‘Oh, you know, sort of carolly?’ Charlotte said, clearly trying not to laugh.

  ‘Lots of people there?’

  ‘Mmm. One or two,’ Alec said. Charlotte giggled.

  ‘We’re just nipping out to look at the view,’ Alec continued. ‘Won’t be long.’ And the two of them passed her on the stairs and went out through the back door, heading for their usual ciggy spot on the back terrace overlooking the bay.

  They’d looked pretty shifty, Thea thought. It was nothing to do with her what they got up to, but she was overcome by a nosiness that she wasn’t very proud of feeling but was going to give in to, all the same. Instead of going to her room she veered off along the landing and ran quickly down the front staircase. She looked up at the mistletoe, wondering if her mother was right and that it had powers. You certainly couldn’t miss its presence, and it was witness to all the comings and goings both inside the house and of those on their way out of it.

  As silently as she could, she opened the front door and went outside into the snow. There were plenty of footprints close to the house from earlier when she and Emily and Milly had been out with the bike. But the only ones further down the driveway were her own from when she’d taken Rich’s call only a couple of hours earlier.

  So, as there wasn’t another way out to the road from the house, it looked like they hadn’t gone to the church after all. Thea went back inside, took off her boots in the porch and ran up to her room to change into something drier and more party-ish than the damp-edged jeans and big comfy jumper she’d worn to the beach. It looked like Charlotte and Alec had changed their minds about singing carols. She imagined they’d probably opted for a bit of peace, just some time to slob about on the sofas, possibly with a sneaky drink and some of the smoked salmon from the fridge and without being surrounded by a large and overwhelming family that wasn’t their own. Good for them. But why on earth had they not thought they could say so?

  After so much time on the freezing beach, Thea was feeling as if her bones were chilled right through, so she went upstairs and had another quick, hot shower, fluffed up her hair and put on her purple Zara dress. It was shorter than she remembered and she thought for a second it was a bit of a waste not to have someone who would admire her legs in it, her black tights with a silver thread running through and some clunky silver jewellery and plenty of make-up.

  Down in the kitchen, Anna had made up a big plate of smoked salmon with brown bread and lemon as lunch was going to be later than planned. She was carrying it through to the sitting room, behind Thea who held a bottle of champagne and glasses, when there was a knock on the front door. Thea handed the bottle and glasses to Elmo to take in to the others and she opened the door.

  Sean came in, looking slightly shy. ‘Sorry to interrupt you all,’ he said, ‘but could I ask a favour, Thea?’

  ‘Is it to do with zips again?’ she asked and then immediately blushed, horrified at how that must sound. Anna, still behind her, looked at her with eyebrows raised and a broad smile.

  ‘Gosh, tell us more,’ she said. ‘Or maybe it’s best not to.’

  ‘Mum, please,’ Thea murmured. ‘Sean, come in. Would you like a drink?’

  ‘No, thanks, better not. I’m about to get under way and I don’t want to be drunk in charge of skis.’

  Anna and Elmo had gone into the sitting room, leaving Sean and Thea alone. ‘And no, it’s not zips this time,’ he said, chuckling at her.

  ‘Sorry, you must think I’m mad.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t, Elf, I don’t … but your family might,’ he said cheerfully, ‘but I expect they’re used to you.’ He stood back then, looking as if he’d only just noticed her. ‘You scrub up bloody well, you know. Great dress. And you’ve’ – he looked down – ‘got some actual legs. I wouldn’t have known – I’ve only seen them hidden away. I was assuming you weren’t the dress type.’

  ‘I have my moments.’

  ‘You do, don’t you?’ He carried on staring, as if he’d forgotten what he came over for. ‘Sorry, you just look so – well, you know – gorgeous.’ He looked awkward as soon as he’d said it.

  ‘Thank you. So do you.’ The draught from the outside breeze set the mistletoe swinging gently and it crossed Thea’s mind that it was as if it were reminding them – as they stood beneath it – what it was there for.

  ‘It’s Woody,’ Sean said, then put his hands over his face and laughed. ‘Oh God, that sounds so wrong! I mean the cat. Shall I go outside, knock on the door and start again so we can both cut the double entendres?’

  ‘Too late now!’ she said, giggling. ‘But I take it you mean your cat?’

  ‘The cat. Yes, the cat. It’s just in case I don’t make it back tonight. I’m intending to come home but if there’s a blizzard I’m not leaving Paul’s place to end up dying in a ditch, so if I give you the key to the Stables, would you mind feeding Woody in the morning if I’m not there?’

  ‘Of course I will; I’ll be glad to.’

  ‘Thanks. His food is in the cupboard over the sink, and he likes to drink from the downstairs loo, so maybe you could flush it so it’s all fresh for him?’

  ‘Wow, that’s a new one – there must be things I didn’t know about cats.’

  ‘He is a bit mad. He’ll drink from the loo and also water from the shower. Never out of his bowl, though there’s always some in it.’

  ‘Right. Loo flushed, food. Got it.’

  ‘Thanks, Thea.’ He handed her the key. ‘Happy Christmas again, Elf. Hope the meal goes well.’

  ‘Thank you, surf dude. And you have a good time too.’

  Sean didn’t seem in a hurr
y to go and Thea wasn’t in any hurry to let him so she felt very happy when he smiled, pointed up at the mistletoe and murmured, ‘It would be rude not to, wouldn’t it?’ He pulled her gently towards him and kissed her. This time it wasn’t awkward and mis-aimed but was soft and tender and exciting enough for her not to want it to stop, but of course it did, all too soon. She knew it was just a friendly gesture, just a thank-you about the cat. Just plain lovely, though, and it felt fabulous to have her heart thrilled, racing like that after far too long.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Elfie,’ he said, opening the front door. The snow was falling again. He looked at it and frowned. ‘With luck …’

  FOURTEEN

  It was all going out of control and Emily was feeling twitchy and tense. Anger at nothing in particular was building up and she felt as if she were a terrible person because she knew perfectly well you were supposed to enjoy Christmas Day. You were especially supposed to enjoy it when you had a family of whom you were deeply fond, a loving (if a bit casual in general attitude) husband, brilliant children who were healthy and bright and for whom you could provide a warm home and love and good food and enough toys to brighten their lives, but not so many that they’d be spoiled and sullen. You shouldn’t feel like she did – that you want to slide out of the house and run away, alone.

  Emily lay on the bed and tried calm logic on herself, breathing slowly and deeply and joining her forefingers and thumbs together as a gesture of spiritual connection. She only, she surmised, wanted to get out of the house and race off for miles in the car because at the moment, given the snow that refused to thaw or even to stop falling in entire clouds-worth quantities, she absolutely couldn’t. It was the locked-in feeling that was getting to her. That was all. And maybe it was perfectly reasonable to feel like this. Perhaps everyone in the house was feeling something similar. Perhaps they were only just keeping a lid on this sense of being isolated and imprisoned, and it was rattling away beneath their surfaces just as it was in her.

  She sat up and arranged her legs into a lotus position, thinking that some yoga might help, but her thighs ached. To stay supple you had to do this every day and she hadn’t done any since they got here. That was something else that chewed at her mind, the sense that if she didn’t keep all the plates of her own life and those of the children madly spinning, then the whole lot would crash down. She unfolded her legs and stretched them out in front of her, leaning slowly forward and placing her hands across the top of her feet. That thigh pull again. And she couldn’t put her nose to her knee either, whereas she could this time last week, she was sure. It would come back, but it would take work. You couldn’t take a single thing for granted, not even that. Nothing stayed the same, especially the children. Just as you think you’ve got the hang of your child, just as you are used to how they are, they change and are on to their inevitable next stage, and they’re gradually moving away from you all the time, and will eventually fly from the nest like a winter robin. What parent of young children could bear that thought? She tried not to think of the Abba song, ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’, which always made her cry – but this never stopped her playing it when she felt like poking at a melancholy mood till it really hurt.

  She could almost laugh at the irony – that she felt frustrated about the speed at which Alfie and Milly were growing up, but that she had this chance to do it all over again and was thoroughly frightened by the idea.

  She got off the bed and went into the bathroom where the pregnancy test kit was hidden at the bottom of her sponge bag. A pee on a stick, that’s all it took to find out whether you were about to make a whole new person, maybe a major cultural figure: an artist who’d change all creative perspectives or a giant of political importance. Or a serial killer or a shoplifter or someone emotionally fragile who couldn’t get a grip on life. All these possibilities were inside her right now and she was fearful already for who her baby would become. She’d settle for ordinary. Healthy and ordinary would be a blessed bonus because having another baby was pushing the Luck Fairy very hard. Or maybe she wouldn’t settle at all. When you’d already got everything you’d hoped for in your children, wasn’t it a huge risk to go through it all again? What about Sam? Suppose it was the one extra thing too far for him?

  The lines would appear on the little white wand; Emily didn’t really need to do the test because her body was already telling her what it was up to, but it was part of the process. Once the evidence was there in its own little plastic form of writing, then she could decide what to do. One thing she wouldn’t do, on this day of all of them, was say anything about it to Thea.

  The table looked wonderful, thanks to the efforts of Elmo and Rosie. The long white cloth was decorated all down the centre with holly and ivy. There were scarlet and gold crackers and gold paper napkins that the small children had folded into star shapes under the patient and expert guidance of Thea. Rosie had finished it all off by scattering silver paper stars over the whole lot. Mike couldn’t help wondering if a bit less foliage would have been a good idea if they were to have somewhere to put all the dishes of vegetables.

  ‘Will you take some photos,’ Anna asked him as she drained the carrots, ‘before we all sit down and clutter it up? I thought I might make some sort of collage thing out of the pics of this Christmas.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ he murmured, coming up close, out of range of Charlotte, who was uncorking another bottle of red. ‘Will it be one you really want to remember?’

  She poured the carrots into a serving dish, applied butter, tarragon and pepper to them and turned to look at him. ‘Well, I was thinking I might. Would I do better to forget all about it?’ She gave him a questioning look.

  Mike felt flustered. ‘No. I mean, we are talking about Christmas here, aren’t we? Are we?’

  ‘I don’t know. Are we?’

  ‘What are you two whispering about?’ Charlotte came and linked her arm through Mike’s. Although he wished she hadn’t, this wasn’t a moment to wriggle away from her – that would be unkind and uncalled for. Besides, he was very fond of her brash personality and he admired the way she’d got stuck in and pulled her considerable weight, domestically speaking. She was a trouper, he’d give her that. All the same, he did wish she hadn’t made this ‘claiming’ gesture right now, and right in front of Anna.

  ‘We were just discussing whether the carrots need nutmeg,’ Anna lied, but it was only a white one. ‘I say they don’t, because nutmeg is a hallucinogenic and the children are wired enough today as it is, without scrambling their brains even further.’

  ‘You old hippies.’ Charlotte laughed. ‘You know some crazy stuff. I bet you once smoked banana skins and tried to get stoned on morning glory seeds. I read about that somewhere, some history thing about the end of the nineteen sixties.’

  ‘I didn’t know that about morning glory,’ Anna admitted, deciding she’d ignore the idea that her teenage years now counted as ‘history’. ‘And I grow them every summer too. I must remember to give it a go next year.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Alec asked. ‘Isn’t it dangerous?’

  ‘Probably,’ Anna said vaguely. ‘Or not. If it really worked, they’d have taken them off sale long ago, life being all about health and bloody safety these days.’

  ‘Here, let me take that and put it on the table,’ Charlotte offered, taking the carrot dish from the worktop. ‘And are you all traditional and the senior man carves the turkey, or do you do it, Anna? Whoever does it, don’t give me any, will you. I don’t eat meat.’

  ‘You’re a vegetarian?’ Anna glared at Mike. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

  He shrugged. ‘Why me? I didn’t know. I’ve never seen her eat.’

  ‘Now that I find hard to believe,’ Anna said, glancing at the ample rear end of Charlotte as she leaned over the table to put down the carrots.

  ‘And anyway,’ Mike went on, ‘as I didn’t know she was coming till yesterday there wasn’t much I could do about it.’

  �
��I am in the room, you know,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘I’d have made you something special this morning if I’d known,’ Anna told her, feeling rather grumpy. There seemed something a bit passive-aggressive about Charlotte keeping this little piece of information to herself when they were about to have a meal where the star of the event was a massive meaty bird – and then coming out with it right at the very last minute. Still, it was too late now, and come to think of it, why would she be expected to do special catering for an uninvited vegetarian? Her own upbringing told her the answer to that: in her head she could hear her mother firmly stating that if someone is staying in your house you do what you can to make them comfortable. Back in those days, though, Anna would have been pretty certain it didn’t include dithering about whether or not you should be tucking them up in bed with your husband.

  ‘No need, it’s only the turkey I won’t eat. There’s masses of other stuff – but if there’s an extra one of those little vol-au-vent things going, I wouldn’t mind putting my name on it.’

  ‘It’s yours, no problem. Have as many as you like.’

  ‘OK – everyone got a glass?’ Mike said once they were all sitting down and just before they began to eat. ‘Can we have a toast to the cooks – to all of them? Emily, shall I pass you some wine?’

  ‘Er, no. I’m OK, thanks. I’m sticking to water for now.’

  Thea looked at her. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Fine. Bit of a head still, you know.’ Emily indicated the children who hadn’t stopped moving, shouting and playing all day.

  ‘Cheers to the cooks,’ was the toast, and Mike then looked a bit awkward. ‘And thanks to … ahem … whatever deities any of us might believe in for, well – all this. We might be snowed in but we’re a lucky bunch, aren’t we?’

  Charlotte hiccuped and stifled a giggle. Alec, sitting beside her, gave her a nudge.

  It took an amazingly short time to reduce the beautifully decorated table to a wreckage of screwed-up napkins, the carcases of crackers, spilled gravy (Milly), spilled wine (Rosie) and a line of rejected sprouts on the tablecloth (Alfie). All this effort, Thea thought, for what was essentially just a rather big roast dinner and it was a scene of near-devastation in no time. But it was happy devastation; everyone seemed very jolly and positive, which was quite an achievement, given the dynamics of the situation. Even Elmo, for once, hadn’t sneaked in his phone to play with under the table, and Jimi hadn’t got a pen ready beside his plate and a newspaper open at the puzzles page tucked down the back of his chair, in case of quiet moments where no one would notice what he was doing.