They stared at one another.
‘You look wonderful,’ he said.
‘ You look like a snowman.’
They smiled.
‘Before we say anything else, would it be okay if I got warm? Thawed out a bit?’ Joel indicated the log fire. The wind was howling down the chimney, making the flames leap and dance. ‘I’ve had a hell of a journey.’
‘You grab a seat. I’ll get you a drink. And food.’
Within a few minutes they were knee to knee beside the fire, filled glasses and plates and another bottle of champagne on the table. Mitzi wanted to touch him, hold his hand, kiss him, feel his arms around her.
She managed merely to lean forward and look enquiring. ‘I thought you were in Manchester?’
‘I was. I came back.’
‘Was it that bad?’
‘Not at all. My parents were delighted to see me and my ex and my brother were holidaying in the Maldives.’
‘So, why—’
‘I have absolutely no idea. Except that last night, within minutes of arriving, I felt that I had to come back here. Had to.’ He emphasised the words. ‘Like there was some weird force telling me that I should be in Hazy Hassocks. Not in Manchester. It was bloody spooky.’
‘Fancy that …’
‘I’ve missed you so much.’
‘I’ve missed you, too. It’s been hell. I’m so sorry about—’
He leaned forward and placed his fingers on her lips. They were icy cold. They felt like fire. ‘Don’t. Not now. We’ll do all the explanations and apologies later. I’ve been such a prat.’
‘Two prats together, then.’ Mitzi felt herself unravelling with love and happiness.
Joel drained his glass and filled them both again. ‘Here’s to Doll and Brett. And us.’
‘Doll and Brett. And us. It was a shame you missed the wedding.’
Joel looked round the packed pub with everyone still whooping it up like billy-o. ‘It was – but it looks as though I’m in plenty of time for the best bit.’
‘We always save the best for last in Hazy Hassocks.’
Joel grinned. ‘I saw you on stage in Hair.’
Mitzi felt the shame wash over her. ‘I know. Please don’t. I looked awful. Terrible …’
‘You looked adorable.’ Joel took the glass from her and put it on the table. Then he held her hands in his, his fingers stroking hers. ‘You looked wonderful. Sexy, pretty, happy, absolutely bloody perfect.’
‘But you left.’
‘Of course I did. I was hurting so much because we’d finished. It was just bloody torture watching you, seeing you, loving you, wanting you – and knowing … thinking – that you didn’t want me. I’m a dentist. If I want torture I’ll do my own root canals without anaesthetic.’
Mitzi sighed. ‘I’ve been such a fool.’
‘No fool like an old fool – ouch! – oh …’ Joel’s eyes met hers, and the wanting was mutual. He kissed her. Mitzi, melting with lust and longing and love, kissed him back.
‘I love you.’
‘I love you, too.’
He laughed. ‘Not very original, are we?’
‘Sod originality,’ Mitzi giggled. ‘I’m a traditionalist.’
Aware that Doll and Lulu had noticed Joel’s arrival and the kiss and were nudging each other delightedly, laughing across the pub, Mitzi waved to them. They waved back.
‘Do I have to wave?’ Joel pulled her even closer.
‘No. Just kiss me.’
He did and Mitzi sighed with total happiness. It was, without doubt, the happiest day of her life … she’d got exactly what she’d wished for … God bless Granny Westward.
The music suddenly stopped. The dancers didn’t.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Otto barked down the microphone. ‘Just a little word. The police have phoned us. The roads are now impassable. The snow has drifted and they’re expecting more. The good news is that we’ve definitely got a White Christmas. The bad news is that I’m afraid you’re all going to have spend the night here.’
The cheers and whoops and screams of delight were deafening.
Boris took over the microphone. ‘We’ll keep the fire stoked up and we’ve got pillows and blankets for when you’re ready to call it a day – or night. There’s plenty of food and drink – so I hope you’re all good friends because you’re all going to be spending the night together!’
The screams of delight were even louder.
Joel grinned at her. ‘This is sheer magic. It’s all been magic since I met you. You’ve put a spell on me.’
‘Moi?’ Mitzi smiled blissfully. ‘Not guilty.’
‘But if were staying all night, what about Richard and Judy? Shall I see if I can get through the drifts?’
Mitzi wanted to kiss him to death. ‘They’ll be fine – more than fine. We all put down food before we left for the church. And the heating’s on. They’ll probably have a far more comfortable night than we will. But thank you for thinking about them.’
‘I’ve grown – er – rather attached to them actually. And I didn’t want you to worry.’
‘I’m not worrying – about anything. So where were we?’
‘About here, I think …’ Joel kissed her. ‘And – um – this isn’t quite how I imagined we’d be spending our first night together.’
‘Nor me,’ Mitzi said softly. ‘Which is a whole other story. Still, we’ll have loads of time to do it properly, won’t we?’
‘We will.’ Joel nodded. ‘Loads of time. All the time in the world, in fact. Maybe even for ever and ever.’
‘Happily ever after?’ Mitzi snuggled against him. ‘ Sounds like a proper fairytale ending to me …’
Boris turned the music on again. There was a moment’s silence, then, magically, The Faery Glen was flooded with the haunting strains of ‘Witchcraft’.
Epilogue
Mitzi opened her eyes and stretched luxuriously amid the glorious cosiness of tangled white sheets, two blankets and a quilted eiderdown. For a fleeting, frightening moment she wondered where she was. Then she remembered and smiled.
There was no sound. Everywhere was eerily silent: a cushioned, uncanny, muffled silence. The unfamiliar room was filled with a muted white light. The heavy plum velvet curtains, not quite meeting, allowed a pale shaft to slide across the polished floorboards.
A strand of light across a bedroom floor.
She turned her head and smiled sleepily into the huge feather pillow. It was Christmas morning, it was snowing, and she wasn’t at home, or alone.
Tentatively she inched her foot across the vast bed until it made contact with Joel’s naked leg. Reaching out to touch another’s skin.
Mitzi sighed with pure happiness.
Joel slept bedside her. She allowed herself the luxury of watching him breathing, naturally ravishing in sleep as so few people are after childhood. Breathing out as she was breathing in.
If this first love could be my last …
It was, and had been, everything – absolutely everything – she’d dreamed of. ‘Amoureuse’ to the last, sensual, haunting word.
Carefully, not wanting to wake Joel, she slid out of bed and waited to be frozen. Surprisingly, the room was blissfully warm, so she padded naked to the window and pulled back a corner of the thick curtain.
Overnight Hazy Hassocks had turned into Winter Wonderland. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Dawn was just breaking, a heavy yellow light over the hillocky whiteness, the snowflakes still falling slowly in a gentle haphazard way to rest on the drifts. Icicles, huge stalactites, hung from every one of The Faery Glen’s windowsills, and the northerly wind still blew sub-zero temperatures across the village.
Downstairs, no doubt, all her friends and family were still sleeping under the piles of blankets and duvets provided by Otto and Boris. It probably wasn’t the way Doll and Brett had expected to be spending their wedding night. Still, she knew they’d been offered a room on account of the special occasion and the p
regnancy but they’d turned it down and carried on partying into the early hours with everyone else.
Well, nearly everyone else.
Joel murmured in his sleep. She turned and looked at him. God, he was gorgeous. He wriggled comfortably, flung his arm across her pillow and slept again as well he might, Mitzi thought with a flush of remembered pleasure.
And before he woke she’d have to lock herself in the en suite and repair some of the ravages. Where was her handbag? Oh … how had it got up there? Had she thrown it? Kicked it? Crikey …
Shivering a little from the arctic scene outside rather than the actual temperature, she grabbed Joel’s sweater from the wild abandon of clothes on the floor. It was soft and slithered over her nakedness like a hug. As a makeshift peignoir – a word, she felt, which befitted a night of such wantonness – it would do perfectly.
In the bathroom, naked again, ablutions completed, Mitzi winced at her reflection.
Living ‘Amoureuse’ may have been wonderful last night with the shadows and the champagne and the heightened passions – but nothing, nothing at all, could disguise the devastation in the morning’s stark snowy light.
Having no toothbrush, no toilet bag, no emergency supplies of Oil of Olay, Mitzi had scrubbed herself with The Faery Glen’s oatmeal soap, cleaned her teeth with a cotton bud, and rubbed away the mascara shadows with a damp forefinger. Her hair was slicked back from the shower, and in the bathroom’s unforgiving mirror every line, wrinkle and southward-slip of her body was thrown-up in exaggerated relief.
Dear God! Her bottom had cellulite on the cellulite!
She surveyed her body from every angle and shrugged. For her age and having had two children, it wasn’t bad. It was her. She would always try hard to keep it trim and moisturised but time would, naturally, take its toll. She couldn’t, and wouldn’t, go down the Tarnia-route to eternal youth. Maybe Granny Westward had some concoction she could use to hold back the years. But then again, probably not. There hadn’t been this obsession with personal vanity in Granny Westward’s day, had there?
Ah well, it was her body, it was all she’d got, and she was comfortable with it. And anyway, Joel had seemed more than satisfied with it, hadn’t he?
She grinned wickedly at her reflection.
Having darkened her eyes with kohl and a flick of mascara, and rubbed balm into her lips, she sprayed herself lightly with Opium. It had been the perfect scent for the wedding – it was probably too heavy for this morning, but it was sexier than oatmeal.
Slithering into the sweater again, Mitzi opened the bathroom door. Joel was still asleep. The bathroom activities hadn’t woken him. She’d love to use the tiny kettle and make coffee but didn’t want to disturb him. Instead, she sat on the wide windowsill and watched the snow.
The high street was unrecognisable in its new white and silver sparkling livery. Somewhere in the distance a snow-plough was chugging, and the excited shrieks of children echoed through the silence. The church bells started to peal their chime of celebration across Hazy Hassocks. The vicar must have made it through the snow. How many of his once-a-year congregation would manage to be there this morning? Mitzi wondered, slipping and sliding their way through this fairytale landscape to give thanks for the age-old miracle.
Still, if this morning was ethereal, then last night had been sheer magic.
Joel had danced with her to ‘Witchcraft’, and they’d moved, close together, with no inhibitions. She’d felt happier than she ever had in her life. Doll and Lu had watched them dancing, and smiled hugely. And when later, in the middle of ‘Do You Believe In Magic?’, Joel had disappeared to the bar and had a whispered conversation with Otto and Boris, she’d simply assumed he was ordering more champagne.
It had been a complete surprise when he’d held out his hand and led her away from the wildlypartying bar and into The Faery Glen’s snaking, low-beamed corridors.
‘Did anyone see us go?’ he’d grinned at her.
She’d shaken her head.
‘Good.’
Still holding hands, they’d climbed the narrow, oak-panelled staircase and Joel had unlocked a door at the end of the passage.
The bedroom – white-walled, low-ceilinged, crisscrossed with dark beams and decorated in rich plum and cream – was illuminated by tiny lamps.
‘Oh!’ Mitzi had looked at the sumptuously draped four-poster bed in amazement. ‘Oh …’
‘It’s not the bridal suite,’ Joel had looked slightly worried. ‘Otto and Boris have reserved that for the happy couple if they change their minds, but it’ll do, won’t it?’
Unable to speak, Mitzi had nodded.
Joel had pulled her towards him. ‘I’ve had plenty of time to think about why you – well, why we – well, what went wrong after Lorenzo’s.’
‘It was my fault. I was being stupid and I should have explained—’
‘Nothing to explain,’ Joel had bent down and kissed her gently. ‘Not now. I wasn’t too happy that night about the prospect of being interrupted by Lulu and Shay either. I’d wanted it to be special too. I guess in the lust of the moment the special bit got rather lost, but that’s men for you.’
Mitzi had curled her arms round his neck. ‘I thought you’d think I just didn’t want you.’
‘Oh, I did. For quite some time. It was your right to change your mind, of course, but I wondered what I’d done wrong. However,’ he’d kissed her again, ‘I’m a persistent sod, and I still wanted you, loved you, couldn’t just walk away and forget you, although I gave it a damn good try. So, I’m trying to make amends for my macho-crassness now.’
‘Thank you – it’s fantastic.’ Mitzi had looked around the room, and then up into his beautiful face. ‘I don’t deserve you. I – I did want it to be special that night … but there were other things as well …’
‘Such as?’
‘Oh, stupid stuff like it not just being a one-off and not wanting to be hurt and—’
‘This is as real as it gets for me,’ Joel had said. ‘This is a forever commitment as far as I’m concerned. I’ve veered away from serious involvements because I didn’t want to be hurt again, either. It was a huge risk for me, too. But one I was prepared to take because I loved you so much.’
Mitzi swallowed. ‘But the age difference …? What if you wanted to have children with a new partner? What if—’
‘Life’s full of what-ifs, Mitzi. It’s also very short. If you’re given the chance of happiness, you can’t ruin it by thinking of the what-ifs. And the age difference is minimal and totally unimportant. And no, I’ve never wanted children. And stop making excuses. I love you.’
‘I love you, too,’ she’d sighed with relief and love and sheer happiness. ‘So very much …’
He’d kissed her then, and she’d kissed him, and clothes had been shed with haste and happiness and heightened passions, and nothing mattered. Nothing mattered at all.
Vaguely, Mitzi remembered as they’d tumbled onto the four-poster’s cushiony eiderdown, she’d thought one day she’d tell him about ‘Amoureuse’. One day.
‘Good morning.’
The night’s blissful memories faded and she turned quickly from the windowsill. ‘Good morning to you, too.’
Joel was sitting up in bed, looking as all men did after a night of passion – absolutely sensational. It wasn’t fair, Mitzi thought, that women always looked wrecked while men …
‘You look gorgeous.’ He hauled himself out of bed, and padded towards her. ‘Get back into bed and I’ll make coffee. Oh – do you prefer coffee in the morning, or tea?’
‘Coffee,’ Mitzi giggled as he kissed her. ‘Isn’t that amazing?’
‘Amazing,’ Joel agreed, glancing out of the window. ‘As is that. And this …’
She ran back to the bed and tugging off the sweater, rearranged the pillows and snuggled beneath the sheets, watching him, wanting him, loving him.
The coffee was surprisingly strong and hot. They managed to drink it while cudd
ling together, trying not to spill any.
From somewhere deep in the depths of The Faery Glen, Otto and Boris were awake and breakfast was being prepared. The mouth-watering aroma of frying bacon wafted up through the floorboards.
‘Breakfast …’ Joel kissed her damp hair. ‘Would madam like it in bed?’
‘Absolutely,’ she grinned at him. ‘And before everyone else in the village wakes up down there and rampages up here.’
‘You’ll have to wait just a little bit longer. Anyway, the door’s locked and I’ve got both the keys. You’re now at my mercy.’
‘Oh, good … I wonder if Doll and Brett will be able to make it to the New Forest for their honeymoon. Or if we’ll be able to do the lost-and-lonely Christmas lunches, or—’
‘Plenty of time to find out about that later.’ Joel gently removed the coffee cup from her fingers. ‘And as you well know, nothing’s impossible. Not for you. Now can we prove that last night wasn’t just the result of some pagan spell you cast on me?’
‘Absolutely,’ she sighed with bliss, wrapping her body round his as he pulled her towards him and kissed her. ‘Oh, and happy Christmas.’
‘Happy Christmas, Mitzi Blessing …’
Author’s Note
As I’ve said in my acknowledgements, HUBBLE BUBBLE was inspired by my Nan’s sorties into ‘magical cooking with natural ingredients’. This seemed to involve snatching strange, unrecognisable, growing things at first light – ‘best with the dew still on ’em, duck’ – from the hedgerows and other people’s gardens. As her eyesight was iffy, and her culinary skills practically zero, we in the family were always careful to avoid any of her ‘herbal specials’. Sadly her neighbours weren’t so wary and she became – quite rightly – known as The Herbal Poisoner of Wessex Road.
The recipes included in HUBBLE BUBBLE are all based on dishes from my Nan’s collection – but have been heavily fictionalised to fit into my story and will definitely make you VERY ILL INDEED – they are not real recipes or real magic. Make and eat them at your peril!!! You have been warned …
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