by Rebecca Tope
‘She didn’t, Mum. It wasn’t a competition.’
‘Well, that’s how it felt.’
‘And what happened to Stanley?’
‘Nothing. He’s about ninety-two and fit as a flea, as they say.’
Both girls waited tensely, expecting Thea to defend herself further. Instead, she clapped her hands, and said ‘Off you go, out of here. I’ll come as well. We can have two rounds of presents, before I have to peel potatoes – right?’
‘Let’s get on with it, then,’ said Drew, leading the way. He settled onto his knees beside the tree and reached at random for a parcel.
‘Hey!’ Thea objected. ‘We’ve never done it like that,’ referring to her years with Carl and Jessica. Drew had assumed it was perfectly acceptable for two or three people to open presents at the same time – wrongly, according to his second wife. Stephanie hurriedly put a hand on her father’s arm and said, ‘I think Thea’s way is best.’ She leant towards her young brother. ‘It’ll go more slowly like that, don’t you think? It’s horrible when everything’s opened.’
‘Wise child,’ said Jessica, and Timmy nodded.
‘Indeed,’ said Drew, slightly rueful. Everyone silently acknowledged the ghostly presence of Karen, who had somehow become obscurely in the wrong for failing to enforce due present-opening discipline when she was alive. ‘So, we start with the youngest, then. Let’s find something for Tim first.’
‘You’ll be Santa, Dad,’ said Timmy, handing his father the traditional hat. ‘Find me one from an aunt.’
And thus another tradition was born. Drew unearthed a cube-shaped parcel wrapped with silver paper. ‘To Timothy from Auntie Jocelyn,’ he read.
‘Good old Joss,’ murmured Thea. ‘She’s always wanted more nephews and nieces.’
The present turned out to be a kit for making a model of the London Eye, with small pieces of metal. ‘Wow,’ said Jessica. ‘Looks complicated.’
‘Expensive,’ added Thea with a quick grimace. Her younger sister was not particularly well-off, and if she spent this much on a step-nephew, what was she giving to her own children?
‘Good start,’ said Drew in a Santa Claus sort of voice.
‘Now me,’ said Stephanie.
She was handed her gift from Jessica – which was a bit higher up the ladder of likely value than Stephanie might have wished. It was much better to start with the small things and work upwards to the main event. She unwrapped it to find a denim rucksack decorated with embroidered motifs. She held it up dubiously. ‘Great,’ she said.
‘Girls always need bags,’ said Jessica. ‘You’ll be off travelling any time now, and this can be your day bag.’
‘Travelling?’ echoed Drew, as if worried that he’d missed something.
‘She’s joking,’ said Thea. ‘It’s perfect for staying overnight with schoolmates, or visiting relations.’
‘No,’ said Stephanie. ‘I’m going to use it for school. Thank you, Jessica. It’s lovely.’
The round continued, followed by another one, with all five expressing delight. Thea then went back to the kitchen and applied herself to peeling potatoes. Stephanie drifted after her a few minutes later, and noticed a rather gloomy expression on Thea’s face. Was she perhaps feeling sad about Carl, Stephanie wondered. It must be as hard for her as it was for Drew and his children, missing Karen. Carl had obviously been just as nice as her own mother. How strange, she mused, the way some people died when they were only forty and others lived to ninety-two. How uncertain it made everything seem, when you couldn’t ever know which group you yourself might fall into.
‘Are you thinking about Jessica’s dad?’ she asked warily.
Thea looked at her with a warm smile. ‘Not really. Are you thinking about your mum?’
‘A bit. It’s sort of like they’re watching us, don’t you think?’
Sudden tears filled Thea’s eyes, evidently startling her as much as they did Stephanie. ‘Gosh – I didn’t see that coming. You’re right, though. They do feel closer, don’t they? And they both loved Christmas, didn’t they?’
Drew came into the kitchen, looking reproachful. ‘I heard you. You’re talking about dead people, aren’t you? Give us a break – eh, Steph?’ He grinned at his daughter, but the smile didn’t look very genuine to Stephanie. The red hat with white fur trim struck her as ridiculous.
‘We were feeling a bit sad,’ she told Drew. ‘In quite a nice way, really.’
‘She started it,’ Thea accused, with a sniff. ‘Now go and play with your new toys while I baste the turkey. You’ll make me forget some vital procedure if you stay in here talking.’
‘I haven’t got any new toys,’ said Stephanie with dignity. ‘How long are you going to be? We want to open more presents.’
‘Five minutes.’
Over the next hour most of the parcels were unwrapped. It was all over far too quickly, and even with the big meal still to come, there was a growing sense of the best being over already. Stephanie’s main present had been a lavish chess set with onyx pieces and board. She had started to learn to play over a year earlier, and was proving to be more than capable of plotting moves and grasping the big picture. ‘Who’s going to play with me?’ she demanded.
‘Who do you think?’ said Drew, who was less than averagely competent at the game. ‘You’ll have to get the school to start a club.’
‘I think there is one already, but they’re all Year Nine and above. I told you that before.’ But she was deeply happy to be the owner of such a handsome set. It made her feel almost adult and determined to become an excellent player.
The next thing was the complex task of bringing the kitchen table into the living room. Drew and Jessica took an end each, and by twisting and tilting it, they got it through the two doorways. A gleaming white damask tablecloth was produced, and the cutlery laid out. Jessica disappeared, only to return holding a creation made of pine cones, baubles, beads, ribbons and gold-sprayed evergreens. A red candle stuck up from the middle of it.
‘Your centrepiece!’ Stephanie cried. ‘It’s fabulous!’
Everybody clustered round to admire it, repositioning glasses, mats and tablespoons to accommodate it. The candle was lit, and the table deemed ready for the ceremonial presentation of the turkey, along with plates, bowls and dishes containing all the necessary accoutrements. Thea wiped the sweat from her brow, and let Drew take over the carving.
As with the presents, so with the food. It was all gone in no time, with the unsightly wreckage stacked uncomfortably on all the kitchen worktops. ‘I’ll need that table back again before long,’ said Thea.
‘Shouldn’t somebody be taking the dog out?’ Jessica asked.
‘Feel free,’ invited her mother. ‘After you’ve done the washing-up, of course.’
‘I love you too,’ said Jessica.
At Crossfield, Ant and Digby were making very little effort to celebrate Christmas. Everything felt wrong. They could barely even be civil to each other, with the undercurrents and anxieties making them both sharp-tempered. Poor Percy found the situation increasingly worrying. Nothing was going as usual. His devoted mistress was absent for much too long. People came and went, leaving the atmosphere even worse than before. He hadn’t had a decent walk for days, and when he tried to encourage Ant to play a ball game with him, the response was chilling. And he had a sore foot. Nobody had noticed that he was constantly licking at it, to the point where pink skin was now showing through. He’d scarcely noticed when the damage had first been done, but now it was getting more painful every day.
Ant was impossibly restless, roaming the house like a small child searching for his mother. He went into her bedroom, with the vague idea of finding a clue as to her whereabouts. Standing by the bed, he tried to form a telepathic link with her. Where are you, Mum? he thought, forming the words silently on his lips. What have you gone and done?
Something was different in the room, he slowly realised. There was a gap where there shouldn’t be
one. Seconds later he was downstairs again, confronting his father. ‘Aldebaran’s ashes have gone!’ he shouted. ‘What’s happened to them?’
Digby blinked up at him from his customary chair. ‘What? What do you mean, gone?’
‘They’re not there. The shelf is empty. They’ve gone.’
‘Never. They never have.’
‘Go and see for yourself. You’re telling me you don’t know where they are?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea where they are. I haven’t touched them, if that’s what you mean. Your mother must have moved them to somewhere else. Maybe she found them upsetting, sitting there like that.’ The elderly man was thinking more quickly now. ‘That’ll be it. She’ll have put them in a cupboard somewhere. They won’t have gone, as you put it. We went to too much trouble to get them for that to happen.’
It was true that there had been a wealth of paperwork, expense and argument before they could take possession of Ant’s sister’s remains. They had been transported across the Atlantic by special courier and submitted to intense scrutiny by the British customs people. There had even been an article in the newspaper about the whole exercise, when Beverley decided to make the matter public in an attempt to highlight the insane levels of bureaucracy.
‘I’ll find them if so,’ said Ant, who proceeded to ransack every cupboard in the house. Twenty minutes later he reported that they were definitely nowhere on the premises.
‘Well, it’s a mystery to me,’ said Digby crossly. ‘Now can we have something Christmassy, do you think? I got you this, look.’ He thrust a badly wrapped parcel into his son’s hands.
‘Oh! I nearly forgot. Hang on a minute.’ He went to the slightly crooked Christmas tree that had been part of his own stock, and sifted through the modest pile of parcels at its foot. ‘Here,’ he announced finally, proffering a small item wrapped in sparkly gold paper.
Each man unwrapped his present with an air of going through a wholly irrelevant ritual. ‘Hope it’s not a gold necklace,’ Digby muttered.
‘Very funny.’ Ant was holding up a cellophane pack containing a pair of trousers that appeared to be old-fashioned moleskins. ‘Great, Dad! Thanks very much. Just what I was needing.’
‘That’s good. There’s more, look.’ There were two T-shirts still inside the wrapping, one blue and one black. ‘Should be the right size.’
Ant held them up against himself. ‘Perfect,’ he said. Then he watched his father picking carefully at his own present, intent on keeping the paper from getting torn. It was a family joke the way Digby still kept paper of every sort to be used again. ‘I can’t help it,’ he would say. ‘My mother drilled it into us from infancy.’
Finally, a leather pouch was revealed, and from inside that Digby extracted a penknife made of something dark brown and a large compass in a silver case. ‘I got them in a junk shop in Cirencester,’ Ant said. ‘The knife’s made of Bakelite. It’s very unusual.’
Digby opened the knife and inspected the blade with his thumb. ‘Nice and sharp,’ he approved. Then he examined the compass. ‘For when I go yomping about on the wolds, I suppose? Lovely case.’
‘It’s solid silver. Nineteen-o-six, according to the hallmark.’
‘Beautiful. Thanks, son.’ He seemed genuinely moved, blinking rapidly and shaking his head. ‘Very thoughtful. You know I’ve got a thing about Bakelite.’
‘I do.’ Digby’s collection of unlikely objects made of the early form of plastic was arranged on a shelf in his bedroom, along with old radios made of the same material. When Ant listened to young Timmy Slocombe talking about his Pokémon and other accumulations, he realised that some men just never quite grew up.
‘Let’s have some more of that port, then,’ Digby said after a few moments. ‘It was intended to be drunk, after all. What time do you think we should eat? We’ll have to cook that goose, if it’s not to go to waste.’
Ant groaned. ‘It’s already too late to have it ready for lunchtime. It’ll have to be dinner. Say six o’clock. We can have ham and eggs or something now – a sort of brunch.’ He eyed the remaining parcels under the tree. ‘Are we going to open any more of them?’
‘Best not. If I remember rightly, goose has to be done slowly. It’ll be in a cookbook somewhere. I know we did one a few years back, and it was disappointingly tough.’
‘That was about twelve years ago now. Deb was still here.’
‘Tastes a lot better than turkey, even so. Lovely skin, if you get it right.’
‘You can find some instructions on the Internet, I suppose. We might not have all the right ingredients, though. They’re sure to say garlic and fancy spices.’
‘Could be your mother ran off just to get out of having to cook a goose,’ joked Digby. ‘I know she wasn’t looking forward to it.’
‘I think she expected you to do it, all along.’ Ant knew better than to take his father seriously, or offer any sort of argument or reproach for his flippancy. But inwardly he winced at what felt like a lack of concern over something that he personally was finding very worrying indeed. The disappearance of his sister’s ashes had compounded the mystery tenfold, as well as deepening his dread. If Beverley had taken them with her, that could all too easily mean that she never intended to come back.
It was late in the afternoon when they finally attempted to eat the goose. It was at least thoroughly cooked and much less tough than Ant had expected. He was, he had to admit, hungry. The past hour had been filled with tantalising smells that his empty stomach had yearned for with increasing urgency. He realised that he had half believed his father’s assurances that Beverley would come walking in sometime during Christmas Day, with a supremely rational explanation of where she’d been. But darkness fell on a household that still only contained two men and a dog.
Chapter Fourteen
Mid-afternoon found the Slocombe family amid a sea of wrapping paper and new possessions. Thea had issued each child with a cardboard box to put their presents in. Jessica had a big canvas bag for hers, while Drew and Thea were making piles on the sofa. Thea was starting to think she should phone her mother, who was spending Christmas with Jocelyn, her youngest daughter. Everything had run smoothly all day, the two different sets of expectations and habits combining without much friction. And then Jessica spoilt it.
‘I wonder how your friends in the cottage are getting on,’ she said unthinkingly to Thea, thereby opening a box worthy of Pandora.
‘Poor Ant,’ sighed Stephanie, making it worse. ‘He must be awfully worried.’
‘It’s ever so sweet of you to think of him,’ Jessica told her. ‘Not many people your age worry about others the way you do. Kids are generally completely self-absorbed. I know I was.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’ Drew asked, looking from face to face.
‘Ah,’ said Jessica. ‘Sorry. We weren’t going to bring that subject up until tomorrow. I forgot.’
‘So why is my daughter so sweetly worrying about him and why should I not know about it?’ He was addressing his wife, under no illusion that the answer lay with anyone but her.
‘It’s a long story. There’s been a lot of trouble over at Crossfield since you went off the day before yesterday. A world of woe, you might say.’
‘I honestly hadn’t given them a thought until now,’ Jessica claimed, as if that made any difference.
‘I have, a bit,’ Stephanie admitted. ‘I was wondering if Mrs Frowse has come back. And I was a bit sad for the Russian lady, even if she is rather nasty.’
‘You’re too good for this world,’ said Jessica. ‘Drew – you’ve bred a saint.’
‘It’s just the way we brought her up,’ said the proud father, momentarily diverted from the main issue. ‘She watched me arranging funerals for weeping families from a very early age. It made her realise that sad feelings are normal and nothing to be scared about.’
‘Hmm,’ said Jessica, with a sceptical tilt of her head. ‘Or maybe it’s just her natural character,
and nothing to do with you at all.’
‘Can I humbly suggest that we do not raise the matter again until tomorrow?’ begged Thea. ‘We all agree that Stephanie has very fine sensibilities, that put us all to shame. Let’s leave it at that.’
‘Suits me,’ said Drew, with a little frown of irritation.
Stephanie was powerfully affected by this exchange, taking it to heart and brooding over it for the rest of the day. There had been no hint of mockery in it, or any criticism that she could discern. It was pleasing, on the whole, to have such close attention for a few minutes. It made her feel more substantial, more of a person. At Drew’s acceptance of Thea’s edict, she sighed with relief and returned her gaze to Timmy, who was sitting with a good-sized box on his lap. ‘What’s that?’ she asked him.
‘A game.’ He frowned. ‘Something to do with trains. It’s from Jessica. You saw me open it before lunch.’
‘Oh, yes. I forgot.’
‘We can play it later,’ said Jessica. ‘A friend of mine in Manchester’s got it, and it’s really good. It takes a while to set it up and get the hang of the rules, but it’s not too complicated, compared to some.’
Timmy nodded. ‘I do like games. Thank you very much.’
‘We can play it in a little while,’ said Thea, who had been sitting with her dog, watching them all. ‘If we’re not too sleepy after stuffing ourselves with turkey. At least you lot can – five’s an awkward number for most games.’
‘Why? Where are you going to be?’ It could have been any one of them asking this startled question, but in fact it was Drew.
‘Here, of course. I never said I was going anywhere, did I?’ The fact that they had all assumed that that was what she had meant was alarming in itself. It made Stephanie sad on Thea’s behalf, that they all thought she was so unreliable, so anxious to be somewhere else. But it was still true; even the way she sat gave the impression that she was about to jump up and leave them. The way she was obviously thinking about other things even when talking and laughing with Drew and Jessica made her seem perpetually detached.