Christmas at Mistletoe Cottage

by Lucy Daniels

  By the end of the session, Mandy could grasp the kitten’s head, open his mouth wide and slip a finger in to deposit a sliver of tuna on his tiny pink tongue. Potential new owners would be taught how to practice so that when they eventually needed to give the cat a tablet, it would think it was a game. So long as there was something tasty to slip in as soon as the tablet was swallowed, then it would be far easier than starting out with the medicine itself. Mandy repeated the process with the second kitten, a larger female tabby. Both of them were so sweet. Repetitive as it might be, this was one of the best parts of the job.

  Next, she spent some time with Tango, encouraging him to eat. His blood sample had come back clear, so it was possible he was just depressed. Some cats found it hard to settle in to kennel life. Mandy now took him out every day into reception and let him meander around while she did other work. He seemed to eat better when he could wander free.

  When she had put Tango back, she pulled her mobile from her pocket. She should give Sally Harper a ring, she thought. The last order had eventually arrived, but she would need to make another before Christmas. Sally was very attentive. ‘If anyone tries to change the order this time,’ she said, ‘I’ll speak to them myself. And don’t worry, I won’t cancel or change anything unless I hear it directly from you.’ Mandy felt grateful as she ended the call.

  She must ring James, she thought, to tell him about Emily. He was predictably relieved. Mandy was happy to be able to give him some good news.

  As she was putting her phone back in her pocket, the door of the rescue centre swung open. Helen stood in the doorway.

  ‘Your dad’s back from Twyford and I’ve brought you some cake,’ she announced.

  ‘Ah, just the kind of visitor I like.’

  ‘It’s great news about your mum.’ Helen had brought a slice of chocolate Yule Log for herself and one for Mandy. ‘Has Jimmy been in touch yet?’

  Mandy blew out her cheeks. ‘He turned up in that awful storm on Saturday, dripping all over the place. We had the most awful row.’ The memory made her feel sick.

  ‘I heard something bad happened at Running Wild,’ Helen told her. ‘I don’t know the details, but someone was taken ill.’

  Mandy didn’t know what to say. Last week, when she had been waiting for Jimmy to call, this information might have made sense. But after Friday night, and then the appalling visit on Saturday, she couldn’t see that it made any difference. A tape played in her mind: the image of Jimmy’s hand on Molly’s back. The two of them holding hands across the table. ‘Was the person okay?’ Her voice sounded flat, even to herself.

  Helen shook her head. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘The person I spoke to didn’t know much. Didn’t Jimmy mention it? You said you had a row on Saturday, but didn’t he explain anything at all?’

  ‘Not about that,’ Mandy admitted. ‘He admitted he had been with Molly.’ She paused to look at Helen, who had just taken a mouthful of cake. ‘He told me I was so determined to do everything myself that I pushed people away.’

  Helen swallowed, then shrugged. ‘There may be a grain of truth in that,’ she said, ‘but it wasn’t you who pushed him to Molly. He did that all by himself. I hope you gave him a piece of your mind. If I see him, I might give him a piece of mine too.’ She grinned. ‘You should try this cake though. It’s delicious.’ Mandy found herself smiling. It was hard to feel down when Helen was around.

  Afternoon surgery came and went and at the end, Seb Conway arrived.

  ‘What can we do for you today, Seb?’ Mandy came out from her consulting room on hearing his cheerful voice. Really, Helen and Seb were ridiculously well-matched.

  ‘I’ve got a present for you,’ Seb replied. ‘In the van.’

  Together, they went out to the vehicle which was parked at the side of Animal Ark. When Seb opened the door, a tiny terrier was shivering inside. She cringed away from Mandy’s hands at first, but with time and coaxing, Mandy was able to draw her out of the cage. She could feel the dog’s ribs through her wet fur, and when Mandy picked her up, she weighed almost nothing.

  ‘She was found this morning,’ Seb explained. ‘She was in a ditch with a brick tied round her neck, poor little thing.’ He reached out a finger and stroked the matted coat. Now she was out of the cage, the little terrier seemed less distressed. Carrying her inside, Mandy examined her. Other than a wound on her neck, and her extreme thinness, the little terrier seemed in good health.

  ‘She’s only young,’ Mandy said, pulling back the dog’s lip to reveal healthy pink gums and clean white teeth. Fetching the chip reader, she ran it over the terrier’s neck, but there was nothing.

  Helen sighed. ‘Probably someone going away for the Christmas holidays and couldn’t be bothered to find a kennel,’ she said. It was the only time Mandy heard Helen sounding bitter, when she learned that an animal had been maltreated. Mandy knew how she felt. Utter, utter bastards.

  With Seb’s help, she set about cleaning up the dog’s fur. When she was dry and fluffy, and her neck wound had been seen to, she looked very sweet. Her newly washed coat was a delicate shade of silver.

  ‘She’s a lovely colour,’ Helen commented.

  ‘I’m going to call you Birch,’ Mandy told the little dog. Birch pricked up her rather long ears as if she approved. ‘We’ll take you out to meet the other dogs,’ Mandy said.

  Whenever she had a new inmate, she tried to introduce him or her to the other dogs as soon as possible, especially the ones in the neighbouring cages. There was a small kennel beside Twiglet, but as she carried Birch into the room, her attention was caught by Flame. The golden lurcher stood up, her tail wagging, and gave a single loud ‘wuff’.

  Mandy looked at Flame in amazement. Though some of the dogs barked frequently, Flame had never, ever joined in. Now she was staring at the little silver bundle in Mandy’s arms, her tail waving faster than ever. For a moment, Mandy wondered if Flame thought Birch was some kind of prey, but Flame bowed down her front end in an invitation to play. Then, as if realising she had to be quiet to be introduced, she lay down in her kennel.

  With Birch in her arms, Mandy let Flame out and together they went through into the reception area. Once it seemed that they were friends, Mandy set Birch down. She watched, ready to interfere if Flame showed any sign of predatory behaviour, but the two dogs, one lanky, one miniscule, greeted one another nose to nose. Within moments, Flame was licking the newcomer as if she was a puppy. After a few moments of playing, Mandy took the two of them back through to the kennels. They squeezed into Flame’s cage and lay down together on her bed. Mandy could hardly bring herself to move Birch. She would take them outside together tomorrow, she decided.

  With a feeling that Birch’s arrival might be a good thing for Flame, Mandy scooped up the little dog and popped her into the smaller kennel opposite. They settled quickly, looking at one another across the passageway.

  Seb, who had accompanied Mandy out to the rescue centre, had watched all this with delight. ‘You really are working wonders with these animals,’ he said.

  Mandy sighed. ‘They’re working wonders for me,’ she replied. It was true. There was nothing she could imagine that would give her more pleasure. If only everyone was as happy to have a rescue centre near them.

  As if reading her mind, Seb spoke. ‘I know you’ve been having some trouble,’ he said. ‘Helen told me.’ Mandy hoped Helen had only divulged her problems about the centre and not about Jimmy.

  ‘I’ve already spoken to Ellen Armstrong,’ Seb went on. ‘I’ll give her any help I can with the investigation. She told me she’d found out about some kind of rumour in the Fox and Goose, but I’ve not heard anyone say a word against you.’ He scratched his head, running his fingers through the spiky hair. ‘There are some odd people around,’ he concluded.

  That was the truth, Mandy thought. Anyone who tried to sabotage what she was trying to do must be very odd indeed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Mandy rose early on
Sunday morning. Outside her bedroom window, there was thick frost on the grass. Everything in the paddock seemed to be sparkling. Holly and Robin were standing nose to tail, basking in the morning sunshine. Mandy felt equally sunny, with the good news about Emily’s diagnosis and the donation from James’s café. Although she was still sad about Jimmy, she was starting to accept he was no longer in her life. Molly deserved better, she thought, but she wasn’t going to interfere. And there hadn’t been any signs of sabotage for a while now. She was starting to hope that whoever it was, they had got bored and gone away.

  Susan Collins was due round later with her son Jack. Over the past months, Susan and Jack had been visiting the animals on a semi-regular basis, to Mandy’s delight. She and Susan got on well, and Mandy wanted her rescue animals to be socialised with people of different shapes and sizes. Mandy was careful to keep Jack away from any animal that seemed distressed, or might put him at risk, but most of them adjusted well. There was no objection from Jack. He seemed thrilled with the whole enterprise. He was surprisingly good, especially with the kittens, who needed gentle handling. Today, he had asked especially to come and see the donkeys.

  As Mandy walked downstairs, she heard a chirp from her phone. Halting halfway, she pulled it from her pocket. The message was from Jimmy, the first since the stormy night last weekend.

  Avoiding him forever wasn’t possible. He was an Animal Ark client with his dogs, for one thing. And he worked so close to Upper Welford Hall that Mandy was bound see him sooner or later. But right now, she was trying to ignore him. With a feeling that she could be entering a minefield, she clicked on the message.

  ‘I think there’s been a misunderstanding,’ the message read. ‘Can we talk?’

  Mandy gripped the bannister and continued downstairs. The kitchen was empty. Pulling a croissant from a packet on the side, she put it in the oven to warm and set the kettle to boil. Sitting down at the scrubbed pine table, she pulled her mobile back out of her pocket. What should she reply? She didn’t know what to say.

  It was difficult after the row they’d had. Not just because of Molly. His words haunted her. She couldn’t accept help and pushed people away. Even Helen had admitted she thought there was some truth to them.

  She didn’t want to do everything on her own, she thought. Was that the impression she gave? She sighed. She knew how much her family helped her. Friends too. They were all wonderful, but to have had Jimmy as a partner would have been even better. He was someone she could have shared her worries with. Yet he wasn’t who she thought he was. He had let her down, just when she needed him most.

  For a moment, she toyed with the idea of calling him. He had asked to talk. Her thumb hovered over the screen for a moment, but she couldn’t bring herself to press call. With a sigh, she texted back, ‘Sorry, but I don’t want to yet. I will get back to you when I’m ready.’ She looked at the message for a moment, then clicked send. He would wait, she thought. He would understand that she needed time.

  Standing up, she opened the oven and pulled out her croissant. Wrapping it in a piece of kitchen roll, she pushed her feet into her boots and made her way out to the centre.

  A few minutes before Susan and Jack were due to arrive, she went out to the donkeys. Whenever they saw her, they came racing over, though Mandy rarely took titbits of fruit and veg for them now. They seemed to enjoy her attention without any food. Both of them were quite willing to put their heads into their headcollars. Within a couple of minutes, she had them both caught and tied up. This was a new skill they were learning. Robin quickly got tired of standing still so Mandy didn’t leave them for long, but they needed to learn that they should wait patiently when they were put somewhere.

  Mandy was walking round Holly, lifting up the donkey’s feet, when she heard voices. It was remarkable how much Jack’s speech had come on in the last six months. As he rounded the corner, Mandy could see that Susan was holding his hand to prevent him from rushing over. Mandy unclipped the donkeys so they were loose in the paddock, then joined Susan and Jack on the other side of the gate.

  ‘Donkeys!’ Jack was jumping up and down in his little red wellington boots and blue woolly mittens.

  Susan, also in wellingtons and a warm hat, smiled at the excitement in the little boy’s dark eyes. ‘Donkeys indeed,’ she agreed. ‘This one is called Holly and this is Robin,’ she added.

  ‘Holly and Robin,’ Jack echoed. He always seemed solemn when he came near the animals. However excited he was at a distance, as he approached he became calm. A lot of adults could learn from him, Mandy thought.

  ‘Mary rode a donkey to Bet-lem,’ he announced, looking up at Mandy.

  ‘That’s right.’ She nodded.

  ‘She was pregmant. With Baby Jesus.’

  ‘Pregnant,’ Susan told him. ‘He’s going to be in the nativity,’ she explained to Mandy.

  ‘I’m the innkeeper,’ Jack said. He held up his little hands. ‘No room! No room!’

  Mandy grinned. ‘I bet you’ll be a great innkeeper,’ she said. ‘Do you want to stroke Holly?’

  Jack’s eyes opened wide. ‘Yes please,’ he said.

  Taking him by the hand, Mandy led him through the gate. Holly regarded Jack for a moment with one ear back. ‘Stand very still.’ Mandy crouched down beside the small boy. ‘Don’t stare. Wait for her to come to you.’ They stayed together until Holly put her ears forwards and took a step towards them. ‘It’s very important with donkeys and horses that you don’t stand behind them,’ Mandy told Jack.

  ‘’Cos they can kick,’ Jack told her.

  ‘Very good.’ He had been listening, Mandy thought with amusement. Holly padded delicately over to them. Reaching out her smooth, light coloured muzzle, she sniffed at Jack’s hair.

  Jack’s face transformed with delight. ‘Can I touch her?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes.’ Mandy stood up and scratched Holly in her favourite place, below her ear. ‘Stroke her here,’ she said. ‘She likes it.’

  The small hand reached out. Mandy watched Jack’s eyes grow huge as he touched the soft fur. ‘Why doesn’t Father Christmas use donkeys for his sleigh?’ he asked Mandy.

  She wanted to laugh. He was so sweet. ‘I think reindeer have special feet so they can run on snow,’ she told him. ‘Donkeys just have tiny feet. Look.’ Together, they inspected Holly’s hooves. They were indeed very small.

  ‘I saw Father Christmas,’ Jack said. ‘There were no reindeers anywhere.’ He sounded crestfallen.

  ‘It must have been exciting to see Father Christmas, wasn’t it?’ Mandy prompted.

  ‘Sort of.’ Jack’s face brightened. ‘He gave me a present,’ he told her. ‘It was a horsey.’

  ‘Well, that was lucky,’ Mandy said. ‘I bet not everyone gets a horse for Christmas. Is it going to live in your garden?’

  Jack frowned. ‘It wasn’t a real one, silly.’ His voice was stern. Mandy wanted to laugh again.

  Pulling herself upright, she opened the gate and Jack trotted back to Susan. ‘Would you like to come in and see the rabbits?’ Mandy offered.

  ‘Yes!’ Jack shouted gleefully. Had she been the same when she was that small, Mandy wondered.

  ‘He was quite disappointed with Father Christmas,’ Susan told her as Jack fed the rabbits and then the guinea pigs. ‘We went to the grotto at the garden centre and there were no animals. The only thing he wants for Christmas at the moment is to feed the reindeer some carrots. No idea how I’m going to organise that one on Christmas morning. We’ve been going on “reindeer hunts” in the meantime. We’ve been all round Welford without any success.’

  Mandy laughed. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I can do dogs and cats, rabbits and guinea pigs. I can even do donkeys, but I’ve never seen any reindeer in Welford.’

  Susan gave her a mock glare. ‘Really,’ she said, ‘I don’t think you’re trying hard enough.’

  ‘Do you think they might be out on the moor, Mummy?’ Jack had turned his head to look at them.


  ‘Maybe they are,’ Susan called, suppressing a grin.

  Jack turned back to the cage, holding out a small piece of carrot. Snowy the white guinea pig pushed her stubby nose towards him and took it, shuffling backwards and watching him with her shining eyes as she munched her way down the stick. Bubble, who was chestnut brown with a smooth coat except for two rosettes on his midriff, came over. Jack gave him a carrot stick as well.

  ‘I think it’s time to go now,’ Susan told him as he crouched down cooing at the two friendly creatures.

  He turned his dark eyes to her. ‘Must we?’ he asked. Then he stood up and dusted off his knees, looking like a tiny old man. He sighed with the weight of all three of his years. ‘Okay then, Mummy,’ he said.

  ‘Come back soon,’ Mandy told him.

  ‘What do you say to Mandy?’ Susan prompted.

  ‘Thank you, Mandy.’ Jack stretched up to offer his cheek for a kiss. Mandy pressed her lips briefly against his cool, soap-scented cheek and straightened his woolly hat. She opened the door for them and waved as they walked down the path. Jack was skipping beside his mum, chatting about the donkeys.

  Mandy was sitting at the desk when she heard the door open and close again. Looking up, she expected to see Jack and Susan, returning to find something they’d forgotten. But to her surprise it was Brandon Gill, Rachel’s fiancé.

  ‘Hello, Brandon.’ Mandy stood up.

  As ever, Brandon looked faintly awkward, standing in his overalls among the Christmas decorations. It wasn’t like him to come in at the weekend and it was even more unusual that he had come to the rescue centre. So far as Mandy knew, Adam and Emily were both in the cottage.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked. ‘Is it one of the pigs?’

  Shuffling his feet while simultaneously gazing at them, Brandon eventually managed to glance her way. ‘It’s about the guinea pigs,’ he muttered.

  Mandy frowned. ‘The guinea pigs?’ She hadn’t known he had any.