by Jennie Jones
She sidestepped as they walked, getting a little closer to Jamie. ‘Ted’s the one having the feud with Mr Penman, right?’
‘Right. Ted’s our town committee chairman. He has a lot of ideas.’ Jamie sounded sceptical, but the humour was still in his tone.
‘He must be liked though, to be the chairman.’
Jamie laughed. ‘It was Ted who set up the committee. I don’t think the townspeople had much say in who they wanted for their chairman.’
They were coming up to the group now, and Jamie lowered his voice. ‘He’s not a bad sort… Good morning, Ted.’
‘Ho hum.’ Ted Tillman turned, belly first. ‘There you are.’
Kate hid her smile. He looked like a near-balding Santa even without the costume and the beard. And like Santa, there was no way Ted would get down a chimney.
‘Been waiting on you,’ Ted said to Jamie with a beady-eyed frown. ‘Everything’s in place. Everyone’s here. What you need to remember, Jamie, is that we’re all working to a deadline.’
‘Thanks for the tip, Ted. I’ll remember that. So who’s getting the tree off the ute?’
Ted coughed up some remorse and Kate flicked her gaze off him in case she started laughing.
‘Well now. I suppose I could lead a team, once I’ve formed one,’ Ted said. ‘Penman can’t help though. He had to nip back into the shop to try for a you-know-what.’ Ted rolled his eyes.
‘He’s been nipping in and out for the last hour,’ Mrs Tam said, stepping to the fore, spatula in hand. ‘Poor man. Hello Kate, have you met everyone? My, don’t you look gorgeous.’
‘Um. Thanks. Hello everyone.’ Kate lifted a hand in greeting and smiled at the people who’d followed Mrs Tam, forming a semi-circle around Kate, Jamie and Ted. ‘I’m Kate. Sammy’s friend.’
‘Jamie’s girlfriend,’ someone said, which created a lot of head turning Kate’s way.
‘No! Really, no. Just a mistake in holiday arrangements.’
‘Are you hungry, dear?’
‘No, thank you. Smells great though.’
‘We like to make a day of it,’ Mrs Tam said. ‘Although this year we were hard pressed,’ she threw a penetrating look at Ted, ‘to get the decorations up before Christmas Eve got to us.’
‘Hurrumph,’ Ted answered. ‘If it wasn’t for Penman…’
Jamie stepped forwards. ‘How about I get a couple of the guys to help me take the tree off the ute and carry it down Main Street? Would that suit your plans, Ted?’
Kate wondered how Jamie had got it on the ute all by himself. Perhaps the farmer had helped.
‘It would, Jamie. It would indeed. See?’ Ted said to Mrs Tam, brushing the air with his plump, work roughened hand. ‘Organisation, that’s what was needed. Diligence. That’s what I’ve been waiting for.’
‘Organising?’ Mrs Tam said, looking flabbergasted as she wiped her hands on a yellow pinny patterned with teacups and saucers that was tied around her middle. ‘How much organising do you think it took to get all this under way?’ She threw an arm behind her, indicating the cooking bacon on the grill and the women standing behind trestle tables, handing out hot sandwiches and…ooh, were they croissants? Kate’s mouth watered.
‘A sight more diligent than getting your Christmas tree put up, I’ll bet,’ Mrs Tam finished in what Kate recognised as a very huffy manner indeed.
‘Where’s the tree going?’ Kate asked, butting in before it got too heated. The sun was already high in the morning sky, burning down on eighty-odd heads. Any further arguments or feuds might set the tinsel alight.
****
While Jamie and three guys off-loaded the four-metre tree and carried it down Main Street, Kate settled on the steps of the walkway opposite where she had a grand view of the open space between the stock feeders’ and the pioneer cemetery. She alternated between munching on a slice of crispy bacon she’d pinched off the grill, and twirling strands of red and white tinsel together. She was making candy-cane striped lengths for the women who were decorating the walkway railings. All around her, Main Street looked like an industrious scene from Santa’s grotto. The Swallow’s Fall elves were energised and lively with a happy temperament, working as though Christmas might pass them by if they didn’t get a move on.
The shopkeepers had strung fairylights around the windows and doorways of their businesses, and stuck fluffy fake snow and snowflake decals onto the windows. Kate had been right about them draping tinsel everywhere but had to admit they’d done it carefully and with some consideration. The shopkeepers didn’t seem to be fighting over fancy window displays either. Each had the perfect little white lights and similar decals of snow scenes. The overall effect was cooling, which helped, in this heat.
There was a lot of hearty male humming going on too, Ted having told his committee choir to exercise their vocal chords while they worked.
Kate smiled, a sort of heartfelt contentment settling inside her as she worked alone, sitting on the steps. But she didn’t feel outcast or snubbed. They’d thrust sacks of tinsel at her when she’d offered to help, and left her to get on with it. And anyway, sitting here she had a grand view of Jamie and his muscles as he hefted and levered the tree into position by the pioneer cemetery gate.
Kate scrunched her face as she considered her childhood. Christmas in Australia meant long summer holidays from school, the beach and vacations. They’d been in swimming gear as they stood next to Christmas trees for family photos, not woolly hats and muffs. Although she’d spent many Christmases in Paris, England, Milan and New York as an adult and had seen all the snow stuff, the roasted chestnuts and the Ho Ho Ho winter wonderland scenes, she preferred Australia’s Christmas. Probably mostly because it was the one she recognised. A tableau of sunshine, melting ice cream, cold beer and steaks on the barbeque. Didn’t mean there was no Christmas spirit, just because they were in a different hemisphere to the traditional winter Christmas. Just look at little ole Swallow’s Fall.
Kate felt almost comforted by the knowledge she was helping them decorate their town. And the feuding was fun to watch too. She’d clocked Mrs Tillman and Mrs Penman earlier, stuffing white sacks with wadding and making fake snowmen. Wassailing over how to get the carrots to stick in the stuffed sack faces and how big the black felt patches for the eyes should be.
Ted’s voice suddenly bellowed through the choir’s humming and everyone’s chattering, bringing the to-dos down Main Street to a momentary halt. ‘Why are Christmas trees like bad knitters?’ he asked. Nobody answered.
‘Because they both drop their needles!’ he bellowed, laughing.
Kate groaned, but a smile hovered.
‘Nice one, Ted,’ some accommodating man yelled. ‘But no more, eh?’
‘Just getting us into the spirit,’ Ted said.
‘Something we should have had two weeks ago!’ called a woman.
Kate saw Mrs Penman throw a withering look at Mrs Tillman. The women on the walkway behind Kate sniggered, resumed their quiet chatting and began twirling their candy-cane tinsel around the railings once more. The male choir started humming ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’.
Jamie hauled the tree into place with a lifting tackle. Holy smoking gumboots look at the muscles bulge in his arms!
Kate chewed and swallowed the last of the grilled bacon, wiped her fingers on a paper serviette and got back to the task of tinselling.
****
Two hours later and her hands were numb from braiding the tinsel and uncoiling forty metres of rope lights which would be used on the tree. It had been years since she’d used her fingers for dress-making when they’d had the nimbleness needed for picking up pins. Thinking back now, to those days when she’d started out as a designer, she missed the poverty. Strange thing to reflect on, let alone miss, but the youthful keenness and the constant hoping and working damned hard to find a way forwards had given her an edge. It was the edge she was missing now, because of Fat Jacques. Although, she couldn’t put blame entirely on the scumbag.
What sort of woman built a successful business and lost herself on the way? How did that happen? How could that happen? Had she ignored clues while devoting herself to the things she loved most? The lively opinions, the style, the discussions. The thrill as one of her young designers punched through the window of opportunity and hit a high with his or her designs.
Had she ignored the greed, the gossip and the cruel spitefulness that had infiltrated her beautiful business over the last year? Yes, she had. How could she not have seen the hammer falling? Did she want to continue to be the woman she knew? The one who would fight, stilettos swinging.
If she didn’t give in to his demands, Jacques would take the business off her and she wanted to let him. But she hadn’t been quite convinced of her reasons for letting go. If she left her designer world what would she do? Travel. Great — by herself? Not so great. So she’d checked out of her business and the unwanted dilemma and escaped into the country.
‘Nearly done?’
Kate looked up at Jamie who stood in front of her, a plastic coffee cup in his hand like the one she had on the step next to her, and a plate of…oh, boy. Talk about tickling a woman’s fancy. And she didn’t mean her landlord’s muscles.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, scrunching her eyes at the feast he held and counting the calories in her head.
‘Mid-morning snack. Since you didn’t eat breakfast.’
‘I ate toast, know-it-all,’ she said in a tone meant to provoke. ‘And stop trying to make me eat more than I want to. What’s wrong with you?’ She took a pink-iced croissant though. And grinned at him. The sweet frosting melted in her mouth along with the soft, buttery pastry of the croissant. ‘Who makes these?’ she asked. ‘She or he ought to be prime minister.’
Jamie laughed. ‘I think Mrs J’s daughter, Lily, made them.’
Mrs J! ‘Where is Mrs J?’ she asked. Mrs Johnson was the tall, sometimes unhappy-looking and sometimes quite ornery townswoman who kept a pig on a lead. A damned big pig. ‘And where’s Grandy?’
‘They’ve driven into Cooma. Picking up the Christmas presents to go beneath the tree.’
‘Prezzies for the children?’ Kate asked.
‘For everyone. I told you Ted wasn’t a bad sort, once you get beneath the huff and the puff.’ He looked at Kate. ‘He organises this every Christmas, apparently. Gets each family in town to donate fifty cents per person per household a week. He conjures up over two grand by doing that.’
‘Perhaps he’d like a shot at running my fashion house.’ Although she’d need a lot more than two thousand dollars to keep it going. If she kept it going.
‘Hey,’ Jamie said, his voice soft and comfortable enough to make Kate’s heart flutter.
‘What?’ she asked, forcing herself to look at him and trying not to let her breath catch in her throat as she bit into her raspberry-iced croissant.
‘You’ve got tinsel bits all over you. You look like a cheer leader who’s lost her pompoms.’
Kate laughed, happy to find him back to his comfortable and friendly frame of mind. She wiped her mouth, swallowed the second bite of her mid-morning snack and brushed the shiny strands of white and red off her polka-dot shorts and thin summer top.
‘Are you having fun?’ he asked, easing down to sit on the step next to her, his plastic cup of coffee in his big tanned workman’s hand.
‘You know what? I am. It’s kind of restful, sitting back and watching everyone do their country community bit. Not so fond of Ted’s jokes though.’
Jamie chuckled. ‘Where do elves go to vote?’ he asked, his grin cheeky.
Kate shook her head. ‘Oh, that’s bad. Real bad.’
‘You don’t know, do you?’ He poked her in her side. ‘Where do they go, Katie?’
She flicked his hand away before she laughed. ‘The North Poll,’ she said, punctuating the words with as much disdain as she could manage through her grin.
****
By mid-afternoon the town glittered. The multi-colours of the buildings and the forest green of the tree stood out against the star-studded silver of the tinsel and the fairylights. Difficult to see the twinkling effect the lights gave in the sunshine though. Maybe she could persuade Jamie to drive them into town tomorrow night, so she could see the efforts and work she’d had a hand in come to life in the dark.
The grill had been switched off, cleaned and put away. The tree was draped with the curl of the rope lights Kate had untwined. She made a note to suggest that someone put the lights back into the box in a more uniform manner when it came time to take all the decorations down. She sort of had a hankering to be around when that happened. It would be a shame not to help clean up and put away what she’d helped to produce.
Jamie made his way across the street, an ice cream in his hand. It looked vanilla white with curls of pink in it.
‘We’re having salad for dinner,’ she said, taking the ice cream off him.
‘Are we?’
‘You’re darn tootin’. I’ve been eating junk all day.’
‘Hasn’t done you any harm, from where I’m standing.’
‘Huh, any more of this and I’ll be twice the size of Ted.’
As though on cue, Ted’s voice with its seemingly insatiable need for jollity rang out. ‘Why is Christmas just like another day at the office?’ he bellowed.
People paused in their tasks, looked around, perhaps waiting for someone else to offer an answer. Or perhaps they were just sick of his jokes. If you could call them jokes.
‘Because,’ the committee chairman said, looking chuffed that nobody knew the answer. ‘You end up doing the work and the fat guy in the suit gets all the credit.’
Jamie guffawed. Kate shot him a look.
‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘That was a good one.’ He sank to the step next to her, leaning an elbow on the step above.
They sat peaceably in silence for a few minutes. He was obviously taking a break, and he deserved one with all the heave-ho-ing he’d been doing with the tree. Watching him work had reminded her of the possibly suggestive suggestion he’d made about Kate sleeping with her landlord. Which in turn reminded her of the framed photograph he kept in his bedside drawer.
‘If you’re a journeyman stonemason,’ she said, making use of the calm, rest-awhile moment they were sharing, ‘how come you chose to buy the house, and why Swallow’s Fall? Did you have an epiphany or something?’
‘I’m still a journeyman. I don’t intend to live in the house full-time. If my work takes me anywhere in Australia, I’m following it.’
‘Me too,’ Kate said, licking her double scoop raspberry-ripple ice cream. ‘Not that I think I’ll end up living in the country mind you. I don’t think we understand each other.’ Although she’d already got a mighty regard for Silver Bells House. But it wasn’t hers and she doubted she’d find anything like it elsewhere in Australia. Not without a time-consuming search. ‘But I’d hate to stop travelling.’
‘Me too,’ Jamie said.
‘So how come this quaint ole place?’ she asked again, indicating Main Street with her ice cream cone.
‘Here.’ Jamie handed her a paper serviette. ‘You’ve got ripple on your chin.’
‘Thanks.’ She grinned at him. ‘Raspberry anything is my favourite anything in the whole world.’
‘That and pretzels, huh?’
‘And Chardonnay. And stop changing the subject. Why did you settle down in Swallow’s Fall?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’
‘Let me guess.’ She licked, rolled the ice cream in her mouth, and swallowed. ‘Woman trouble.’ Oops. Might be a bit close to the knuckle but she’d said it now and couldn’t swallow it away.
‘Sort of,’ he said as casually as if he’d answered a question on why he’d chosen granite for the kitchen bench tops.
‘Didn’t mean to pry,’ she said by way of an apology and opening the road for further discussion on the issue should he wish to take it.
‘So?’ she asked, exasperation making her nudge his arm with her elbow. ‘Why here?’
He looked at her and grinned. ‘I saw a shooting star.’
‘Ha! You’re taking the Michael and it’s not funny. It’s rude to make fun of other people’s dreams and aspirations.’
He just kept grinning. ‘Okay then. I chose this town because…’ He looked across the street at the tree and the scuffle going on between Mrs Tillman and Mrs Penman and the Santa suit. ‘They make me smile.’ He took a breath and sighed it out, crossing his arms over his 48-inch chest. ‘And I needed some smiles around me.’
Kate quietened and concentrated on the bottom scoop of raspberry-ripple. So it was a woman.
‘At least I think that’s why I chose it. Come on.’ He stood and held a hand out to her. ‘Let’s get the lights lit. And I did see a shooting star,’ he added in a softer tone as she stepped down the walkway stairs behind him, her hand in his.
‘He can’t help his condition,’ Mrs Penman was saying as they arrived at the base of the tree.
‘Well, of course he can’t,’ Mrs Tillman said. ‘But neither can he sit for more than ten minutes at a time.’
‘Let’s not argue,’ Mr Penman said, hands raised, lanky legs crossed. ‘I give in. Let Ted do it.’
‘Now, now,’ Ted said. ‘We don’t want to raise our voices and spoil the day.’
‘Perhaps they could share the job?’ Mrs Tillman said to Mrs Penman. ‘Twenty minutes each.’
‘But that isn’t going to help my husband, is it?’ Mrs Penman answered. ‘What if he has to you know what in his twenty minutes?’
‘If you’ve got any red material,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll make you a second Santa suit. That way, there’d be two Santas available at all times, giving either the chance to nip off for a rest break.’
Every head in town swivelled Kate’s way.