Czytaj książkę: «A Merry Little Christmas»

Prologue

The last rays of a winter’s sunset sent streaks of orange and pink across the white fields. Dusk was settling as a motorbike roared its way through the snowy countryside. Large groups of birds took to the air as it sped past, and flocks of sheep ran wildly round in circles. The sound of the engine echoed down the country lanes, disturbing the chilly peace. The leather-clad rider wore a black jacket with a flaming sword emblazoned on his back which, along with his gold and orange helmet, made him resemble a modern day knight. As the rider stopped at the top of the hill overlooking Hope Christmas, he took off his helmet and stared down into the town. The Christmas lights were still twinkling in the High Street. The lamps from the houses down below gave the place a cosy homely feel, as if the whole town were drawing a collective sigh.

The rider flexed his hands, and smiled; the words, Dux, on one set of knuckles and Michael on the other, just visible underneath his fingerless gloves. He was good looking, with a dark complexion, devastating cheekbones, curly dark hair which tickled the collar of his jacket, and piercing blue eyes.

‘So Hope Christmas, long time no see,’ he muttered. ‘Uncle Ralph was right, it’s a beautiful little place. I shall look forward to renewing my acquaintance with you.’

He put his helmet back on, revved the engine, and roared down the road and into town, noting the quaint little shops; the antiques market, flower stall, the bookshop and market square where a Christmas tree stood proudly in the centre. The town was deserted, with only one or two brave souls prepared to come out on such a cold night. One of them, a pensioner tootling along on a mobile buggy, stopped to say hello.

‘Well, Michael Nicholas, as I live and breathe. Your uncle said you might be coming. It’s good to see you after all these years.’

‘And you, Miss Woods,’ Michael smiled a devilishly handsome smile. ‘It’s been far too long.’

‘Will you be staying a while?’ she asked.

Michael looked around him. ‘That, I think depends on who needs me,’ he said.

‘I think you’ll find there’s always a need,’ said Miss Woods.

‘Then yes, I think I’ll be here a while,’ said Michael, his smile crinkling up to his blue eyes.

‘I look forward to it,’ said Miss Woods. ‘Happy Christmas.’

‘And to you,’ said Michael, before climbing back on his bike and speeding off to Hopesay Manor.

It was good to be back.

New Year

Cat Tinsall unwound the fairy lights from her suddenly bereft Christmas tree, then carefully placed them in the Santa sack which was bulging with the rest of the Christmas decorations. She sat back on her heels and looked out of the large patio door onto her frozen garden, where a lonely looking robin pecked at the crumbs on the bird table. It was a grey cold day, the sort that sapped your soul in early January. She sighed and tried not to feel too bereft herself. Even the Shropshire hills (the view of which was one of the reasons they’d bought this old converted farmhouse when they’d moved up to Hope Christmas four years earlier) were shrouded in grey gloom.

Christmas, her favourite time of the year, was over once more. The bright shiny new year, which had beckoned so enticingly at Pippa’s New Year’s bash through a happy haze of mulled wine and champagne, now seemed less so; reality being grey and drab in comparison. Noel was already back at work, groaning as he’d left in the dark to look at a project the other side of Birmingham, where he’d be meeting Michael Nicholas, Ralph Nicholas’ nephew, for the first time. The kids were at school (Mel to mock-GCSEs for which Cat had seen no evidence of any revision over the holidays), and Cat herself had a pile of proofs to tackle for her new cookbook, Cat’s Country Kitchen. They’d been guiltily shoved aside in a pre-Christmas planning frenzy, but she knew she could ignore them no longer. She looked at the picture of herself on the front cover – thanks to the power of Photoshop, looking more glamorous and slimmer then she felt right now. No doubt it would add fuel to the tabloids’ ‘Top Kitchen Totty’ moniker that had haunted her since the launch of her first book, Cat’s Kitchen Secrets, three years earlier.

All in all it had been a good Christmas, Cat thought as she carried the Santa sack up the creaking stairs of their old country cottage, to put back up in the loft later. Even Mel’s moodiness had done little to put a spanner in the works. It was weird how a previously model daughter had morphed into the teenager from hell over the last year. From having once enjoyed a close relationship with her daughter, Cat felt constantly baffled by Mel now. Noel was always telling her she needed to relax and not force the issue so much, but she couldn’t help wanting to find out what was going on in her daughter’s head – while realising that the more she pushed, the further Mel retreated from her.

It was just that now, with her mum’s dementia having taken her away from them forever, Cat wanted that closeness with Mel even more. One of the most heart-wrenching sights this Christmas had been seeing Louise looking so bewildered as she sat down to join them for Christmas dinner. It still gave Cat such a pang to see her mother like this; to see her refer to Mel as ‘Catherine’, and watch her wander in to help with the turkey, stirred by some memory of Christmases long ago, then stand around with an air of uncertainty saying, ‘This isn’t my kitchen.’ None of this behaviour was unusual, but somehow it was always worse seeing her mother away from the home, where for the most part there could be at least a pretence that things were quite well. Cat knew she should be used to it by now. But she was not, and probably never would be.

The trouble was, every time she saw her mother, she remembered what they’d had, what they’d lost. It had just been her and Louise throughout Cat’s childhood, a two-woman united team, and Cat had always assumed she would share that same easy closeness forever – and when she had children of her own, replicate it with her own daughters. Mel was proving her wrong about that on a daily basis. Cat tried to think of any major moments of rebellion in her childhood, but there hadn’t been any. There had been no need. She loved her mum, knew how hard Louise had to work, and had no intention of making her life harder than it already was. Whereas Mel … Cat sighed. Where had she gone wrong with Mel? Maybe it was, as Noel seemed to think, that her daughter was jealous of the attention James had garnered as her cooking companion.

The TV company who’d produced her original series, Cat’s Kitchen Secrets four years ago, had pounced on James when they spotted how often he was in the background helping her out. With his cute (then) ten-year-old goofy grin, cheeky manner and angelic good looks, they’d realised he was ideal TV fodder. Mel, a gawky twelve-year-old, was far too self-conscious to appear on the TV, even though she’d been given the option to.

None of them could have predicted what a success James would have been. Now fourteen, he was relaxed in front of the camera, and having been a natural cook from an early age, had always showed far more interest in helping her in the kitchen than his sisters. The girls enjoyed baking but couldn’t be bothered to cook a meal, whereas James was developing his own creative ability to cook up tasty food. Although to be fair, his menus did include a lot of pizza and nachos. Consequently, a TV series of his own aimed at kids was in the offing, and he was already (with Cat’s help) writing his second book, James’ Top Tips for Hungry Teens.

Cat had tried really hard to ensure that the attention hadn’t gone to his head. Luckily James was a down to earth sort, just as happy kicking a football about with her friend Pippa’s sons, Nathan and George, as lording it in front of the TV cameras. And as for writing cookery books, that was clearly far too much effort, so Cat was writing most of it for him. Cat tried to make up for the attention James was getting by focusing as much on the other things the girls did, like Paige’s singing or Ruby’s dancing, and so far they seemed unaffected. Paige was so sure she was going to be on X Factor, and aiming at being twelve going on thirty that she couldn’t care less, while Ruby was still too young to notice.

Mel, on the other hand was another matter. One by one, she’d dropped the activities she used to enjoy, no longer playing tennis, attending Scouts, or to Cat’s great disappointment, playing the piano. Instead she spent far too much time mooching about in nearby Hope Sadler where she worked in a café at the weekends. On top of that, having initially mixed with a crowd of pleasant, hard-working girls when they’d first arrived in Hope Christmas, Mel seemed to have dropped them all to hang out with the rebels of the year. From what little Cat had gleaned, they seemed to mainly spend their time in the local parks, smoking and drinking. Mel always denied joining in, but Cat had long since given up completely trusting her daughter. Something she’d never before imagined could happen.

Cat sighed again and climbed up into the loft with the decorations. Time to get back to reality.

Marianne North drove into the large sweeping farmyard of the home she shared with Gabe, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Their ancient farmhouse had never looked more welcoming. Gabe had been home for a week already. It was difficult for him to take any time away from the farm, so he’d come back early, while Marianne had ended up stuck at her mum’s for pretty much the whole fortnight of Christmas, the longest time she’d spent there since university days. But Mum – feeling cheated that her precious grandchildren had missed their first Christmas at Nana’s (Marianne’s protestations that three-month-old twin babies were pretty nightmarish to take anywhere had fallen on deaf ears and despite an invitation to Hope Christmas, Mum had resolutely refused) – had been so martyred about how the twins’ other granny saw so much more of them that Marianne had had to capitulate and trek down to London this year. Gabe’s mother Jean, whom Marianne knew would miss the twins dreadfully, was fortunately immensely generous and said, ‘I’ll survive without you all. I do get to see the twins a lot more than your mother,’ which was true, especially as she looked after them twice a week while Marianne was working. ‘I had a demanding mother-in-law and always promised I wouldn’t be the same. David and I will have a nice quiet time together alone.’

Marianne had hugged her with gratitude, and they’d had a pre-Christmas lunch with Pippa and Dan and their family the week before the big day. Marianne had then set off two days before Christmas, and Gabe and Steven had joined them on Christmas Day. Poor Steven had been nearly as bored as she and Gabe were. There was precious little for an eleven-year-old boy to do in the drab London suburb where Marianne had grown up, particularly when he knew no one there. Then Gabriel had taken Steven over to his mum, Eve, for a few days. Eve, though in the past an unreliable mother, seemed in recent years to have sorted herself out, even managing to hold down both a good job and a rich boyfriend, Darren. Gabriel was much more relaxed about Steven visiting her now, and this time around Steven had leapt at the chance to go, Marianne noticed, a little sadly. She worried that since the arrival of the twins, Steven had felt left out, and it must be really hard to take on an extra set of grandparents, who, let’s face it, weren’t really interested in him. Though Marianne noticed, gratefully, that Dad had made huge efforts as far as Steven was concerned, but Mum just couldn’t help herself from cooing over the twins. You couldn’t blame her in a way, she’d waited a long time for grandchildren and then to get two for the price of one … Marianne loved her mother dearly, but it was the sort of relationship that benefited from distance – two hundred miles was just about right.

‘Hi Gabe, we’re home.’ Marianne unloaded the car, while the children slept in the back. So much crap for two little people who hadn’t reached the age of two yet; nappies, buggies, car seats, toddler seats for sitting at dinner, two travel cots … And that was without the presents Mum had insisted on buying – a pram set for Daisy and a toy car for Harry – nothing like clinging to stereotypes – as well as countless soft toys, rattles, shiny things with plastic knobs and buzzers on. Marianne felt sure her parents must be nearly bankrupted by the arrival of their twin grandchildren, but nothing she said would stop her mother from buying stuff for them. (‘You can’t spoil babies,’ she’d trilled when Marianne faintly tried to suggest that maybe it was all a bit much.)

‘And it’s fab to see you.’

Gabe. Her heart still did that funny little skipping thing when she saw him standing in the farmhouse doorway in a thick knit sweater and jeans, his dark brown hair slightly mussed up where he’d been running his fingers through it, those deep brown sensitive eyes. She loved that wonderful thrill of knowing he was hers.

‘God, I’ve missed you so much,’ said Marianne, burying her head in his shoulder as he enveloped her in a warm bear hug. ‘Never ever let me stay that long with my parents again. Next year they are so coming to us. The twins haven’t slept all week. I’m exhausted.’

‘Me too,’ yawned Gabriel. ‘I had a lamb born last night. The mother had gone off in the dark, and it took Steven, me and Patch ages to find her.’

‘Did Steven have a good time with Eve?’ Marianne felt a pang of guilt. She should have been back in time for Steven to start back at school – she normally was. But her mum had insisted she stay an extra day and come home on Monday. Steven and Gabe had assured her they could cope, but she still felt bad. Since she and Gabriel had got together four years earlier, she’d always been around for the start of term. It didn’t feel right staying away. But since having the twins and juggling her career with motherhood, Marianne had got used to a familiar feeling of being torn in two.

‘I think so,’ something in Gabe’s tone stopped her. He looked pensive, the way he used to when they first met, when Eve had left him and he was coping with being a single dad.

‘What’s Eve done now?’ said Marianne.

‘You remember that choir school she mentioned back in the autumn?’ said Gabe.

‘Yes,’ said Marianne, remembering a conversation about the impossibility of them affording to send Steven to a fee-paying school, however good his voice was.

‘She’s persuaded Steven he should try out for it,’ said Gabe. ‘She’s talking about moving up near Middleminster, and having Steven stay with her and Darren at the weekends. That means we’re going to be fifty miles away, and they’ll be on the doorstep. We’ll never see him.’

‘What does Steven say?’

‘He wants to go,’ said Gabriel. ‘She’s got him so excited about it, and I don’t want to bring him back down to earth.’

‘But surely we can’t afford it,’ said Marianne. ‘Even if we all pitched in together?’

‘There are scholarships apparently,’ said Gabriel, running his fingers distractedly through his hair. ‘I don’t know, Marianne, I know it’s a big opportunity. But to be away from us? I don’t think I could bear it.’

‘Maybe it won’t come to anything,’ said Marianne. ‘After all, he’s got to get in first.’

‘True,’ said Gabriel, ‘but he’s a clever boy, you said so yourself, and with your help he could do it. And Darren knows the Head of Music there. Eve seems to think he’s got a really good chance.’

‘Then you can’t deny him a shot at it,’ said Marianne firmly. ‘If that’s what he wants to do.’

‘I know,’ said Gabriel miserably. ‘I feel really guilty about this, but I don’t want him to go.’

Pippa Holliday slammed down the phone with uncharacteristic anger. ‘Of all the small-minded, patronising, bloody useless pieces of–’ A clicking to her left reminded her that Lucy was there, so she curtailed the expletive she was going to use and said, ‘Oh Luce, it’s that social worker.’

Lucy tilted her face to one side and pulled a grumpy face and shook her head.

‘No, we don’t like her,’ said Pippa with a smile. Lucy always managed to make her laugh, even when things were really grim. ‘She’s being so unhelpful.’

Unhelpful. That was one way of putting it. Yes, Pippa understood there were cuts. Yes, she also understood that Lucy’s case was only one of many that Claire King dealt with daily, and yes probably to Claire-I’ve-no-idea-how-you-do-it King, Pippa and her family weren’t a priority, living as they did in a comfortable house with a reasonably good income, and inconveniently Dan was neither an absentee father nor a wife-beater. Pippa knew she didn’t help her case by presenting a calm unhurried manner to the world, but it was the only way she knew of coping with the difficulties life had thrown at her.

From the first catastrophic moment when she and Dan had been told that their precious longed-for baby daughter had cerebral palsy, and would grow up needing constant care, Pippa had known she would manage, because what other choice was there? Besides, when she, to her everlasting shame, had fallen apart at the news, Dan had been so together, so strong for the two of them, she knew they’d get through it somehow. Without Dan, she doubted she would have been so calm, so capable, so coping. So many men in his position might have walked out on them, but Dan loved their daughter with a constant and devoted tenderness that Pippa could only marvel at and be grateful for. His support and love had kept them all afloat, making huge efforts to ensure the boys never missed out on activities because of Lucy; always trying to be there for hospital visits when he could, and running the farm to boot. Dan. Her perfect hero.

And they had coped and managed all this time because eventually, after long years and battles, Pippa had organised respite care for her daughter, giving the rest of the family precious time together. Pippa hated to use the word normal – but doing the things that other families took for granted, going for long walks in the country, having a pub lunch without establishing first whether they had disabled access, and having to face out people’s stares. People could be so cruel, even in this allegedly enlightened day and age. And now that was all about to be taken away from them, as Claire bloody King had just informed her that due to a tightening of budgets, Lucy might lose her precious respite care.

‘It’s not definite, but–’

Reading the subtext, Pippa knew Claire thought there were more needy, deserving families than hers. There probably were, but that didn’t make it right. Since Lucy had been going to respite care, Pippa had had some precious time for herself. Not a lot, but enough for her to be able to cope with the demands of her beautiful, gorgeous daughter, and feel she was still looking after her boys and husband too. Without that lifeline she felt she might sink.

‘I’m sure you’ll manage,’ said Claire, ‘you’re so calm. And you have so much support. It will be fine.’

‘And what if it’s not?’ said Pippa frankly. ‘Having the respite care is what keeps me calm. Without it I don’t know what I’d do.’

She put the phone down in frustration. There was no point taking it out on Claire. The woman was only doing her job. But still. She looked at her precious daughter, sitting in her custom-made wheelchair, sighing to cheer her up – Lucy had an instinct for sniffing out when Pippa was sad and stressed, which was one of the most lovable things about her – and wondered how they would cope. Lucy was nearly ten now and getting bigger all the time. There might come a point when Pippa couldn’t lift her or bath her, or do all the little jobs she needed. It was like having a toddler for life. A large overgrown toddler, with hormones. For the first time since that terrible day when Lucy had been born, Pippa really felt overwhelmed. What if, after all she couldn’t cope? What would they do then?