A Cornish Christmas (15 page)

‘
M
r Everton
,' I said in dismay, entering the kitchen only to find Stuart asleep, with his face resting on an old eighteenth-century cookbook. He was obscured by flour and pastry, surrounded by the littered bodies of discarded Cornish pasties, haphazardly piled on every available surface. I brushed the flour off his forehead, worried.

He opened his tired, red-rimmed eyes – long black eyelashes now white with dust – and sighed. ‘I had to try making pasties,' he said, shaking his head morosely, deep in the mire of self-pity.

‘You had to try making pasties,' I echoed, shaking my head at him.

He propped his head up on his elbow and slumped. ‘But why though? Why did I have to try making pasties? And on the day before the competition?'

I shrugged, smothering my smile. ‘Because, well, you're... you. Not enough to enter the mince pies – you had to go for gold.'

He gave a long sigh and slumped even further in his chair. ‘I wrote before I could spell.'

I nodded. ‘You pipped before you could pipe.'

He quirked his eyebrow. ‘I sang before there was song.'

‘This metaphor abuse could go on a while...'

He sighed again, eyes downcast as he considered the piles of discarded pasties. ‘You've an excellent point.'

‘These look rather nice though,' I said, glancing at four-dozen pasties that looked like they'd come through unscathed.

He gave them a long-suffering look. ‘They look all right.'

‘But?'

‘They are not pasties.'

I raised an eyebrow, picked one up, and took a bite. ‘They taste... very close,' I said with a shrug. ‘They're quite yummy actually.'

‘No cigar... they're not your mum's,' he pointed out.

I shrugged. Mum's were indeed rather legendary, but these were very good. ‘You're far too hard on yourself... these are almost perfect.'

‘Almost is not good enough,' he replied sadly. He sighed. ‘You can't be Cornish and not make a proper pasty.'

I frowned. ‘But you're not Cornish.'

He looked at me with wounded eyes. ‘Well, technically no, but spiritually, I am.'

‘Ah, I see,' I said with a grin. ‘Well, I'm Cornish, er, spiritually and otherwise, and I can't make them.'

He grinned back. ‘But that's different.'

‘Why?' I asked, nonplussed.

‘Because you're... you,' he quipped.

‘Very funny.'

‘And there's always one...' he added, eyes amused.

‘One?'

‘Black sheep in the family.'

‘Very amusing.' I narrowed my eyes. ‘Come,' I said, lifting his arm and trying to drag him off the kitchen stool. ‘Bed.'

‘Bed?'

‘Bed,' I agreed.

He followed behind me meekly; looking a little conquered, and fell asleep almost immediately, bathed in flour.

When I crept into the studio that night, to my surprise there was already a message waiting for me.

Swede, never... ever carrot

Waxy potatoes

Lard and margarine together

Worcester sauce

‘Mum?' I asked in surprise. What was this?

Never lost the Cloudsea Christmas Fair competition in my life

Not about to start now

Hurry

I shook my head, laughing aloud, and ran out the room to wake poor Stuart. ‘Get up – you've got to try making them again.'

He groaned and snuggled deeper into the pillows. I poked him in the side.

‘I've consulted with my mum.'

He wiggled away closer to Muppet, whose tongue lolled onto the coverlet speckled with flour, and from under the mountain of blankets I heard, ‘Mmmmh?'

‘You used carrots right?'

He turned, painstakingly slowly, and opened a bleary, bloodshot eye in surprise. ‘Yes.'

I shook my head. ‘You are never ever to use carrots. She was rather horrified...'

‘She
was
?' he asked, somewhat amused. ‘So what did she say to use instead?'

‘Swede.'

‘Swede?'

‘Swede.' I nodded. ‘A far better use than for your turnip jam.'

He laughed. ‘Swede – I have some that have just come up in the winter patch.'

‘Good. You'll also need lard apparently, with margarine and waxy potatoes.'

‘Lard with margarine?'

I nodded solemnly.

He stared at me. ‘Did you find your mum's recipe... her super-secret recipe that she took with her to the grave?' he asked, hopeful.

I gave him a pointed look. ‘She never wrote it down, you know that. But let's just say, as you lay there, coating our sheets and dog in flour, I got in touch with my Cornish inheritance.'

‘Did you phone May?'

‘May is Irish,' I reminded him.

‘Winifred Jones?'

‘You're joking! She's one of the judges.'

‘Robyn?'

‘She'd be a good one, but she's entering too. Also, I'm not going to lie, her baking is amazing; her cooking, not so much.'

‘Um, pots and kettles?'

‘You have a point.'

‘Mmmh,' mumbled Stuart, then, ‘Flavia?'

‘Italian.'

‘Abigail?'

‘She's American.'

‘God, what is The Thursday Club, the bloody United Nations?'

I shrugged. ‘Mum felt sorry for all the emmets. Also, she liked to drive Winifred Jones and Mrs Aheary bonkers.'

Stuart laughed. He smiled a sleepy smile and closed his eyes. Suddenly he opened them again, thinking aloud. ‘Lard, not shortening. That could work – moist, flavourful...' He sat up and gave a heavy sigh as he looked regretfully at our sleeping bulldog. ‘Okay, let's do this.'

I opened wide eyes, wrong-footed. ‘Let's? As in me and you?'

He laughed. ‘You wake me up and tell me to try again...' he looked at the bedside clock, ‘at three fifteen in the morning and what... you thought afterwards you'd just jump into bed and leave me to it?'

I shrugged, with a sheepish grin. The honest answer was,
Yes
. Yes, of course I did. But at his expectant look, I sighed theatrically, like he would, so that he smiled and held out his arm.

We made our way down to the kitchen, where I put on a fresh pot of coffee and Stuart went to fetch potatoes and swede from the vegetable drawer. He got started on remaking the pastry, which, once finished, would need to rest for two hours, but while he waited, he did a test run on the stove for the filling, just to see if the taste would be right.

I fell asleep standing up, my face pressed against the kitchen cupboard. I woke up with a little jolt, to see Stuart preparing the pastry cases.

‘Falling asleep on the job?' he asked.

I nodded with bloodshot eyes and poured us another cup. Suddenly I remembered I had forgotten something important. ‘Worcester.'

He looked at me oddly. ‘Worcester?'

I nodded slowly. ‘Yes, sorry, I forgot to tell you about the Worcester sauce.'

His eyes widened, a light seemed to dawn. ‘That's it,' he said in wonderment.

‘That's it?' I asked.

He nodded. ‘I tried everything I could think of...'

I gave him a puzzled look, then realised, ‘Her secret sauce?'

He nodded. ‘How did you know?'

I shrugged. ‘Told you, Mum and I had a little chat.'

‘Oh really? You just went and chatted to your mum for a bit and she told you about the waxy potatoes and to use margarine with lard and not shortening. Oh, and not to forget her super-secret ingredient, which you almost did.'

‘Yup,' I said truthfully.

He shook his head. ‘I almost believe you, especially with this,' he said, giving the test pasty filling a taste. ‘Perfect, absolutely spot on.'

Then he loaded the pasties with the raw mixture which needed to bake in their pie cases.

Four hours later, nine judges had agreed. We re-entered the competition tent at the Cloudsea Christmas Fair to find not just one, but
two
blue ribbons. One for his mince pies and the other, accompanied by the rare golden ribbon – the highest accolade at the fair – was sitting next to a scrumptious mound of perfect Cornish pasties, making Stuart the only non-Cornish winner to win in the fair's history.

Which was precisely what Juniper Barnsley had to say on the subject when she found out. Her coarse grey hair was scraped back into an all-purpose bun and her boulder-sized arms were ringed with at least a dozen blue ribbons. She looked at Stuart with black gimlet eyes, making it clear that, as far as she was concerned, a non-Cornish winner was nothing to be celebrated. She had reason to be put out though, she explained with a false trilling laugh, as she had won the golden ribbon for the last five consecutive years. ‘A fluke,' she commented on Stuart's win, ‘but a very lucky one,' she added, in the manner of someone trying, but failing to be a good sport. Her words edged with forewarning that next year we weren't to expect a repeat performance.

It was true that she'd won it for five years, I admitted. Though, as I pointed out rather cheekily and with a smile: much to her annoyance, Mum had won it every single year for at least twenty years before that. So really, now that we had moved back, we were just bringing it home to where it belonged. Her lips compressed into a tight smile and she stomped off without a goodbye.

Stuart laughed and whispered in my ear, ‘What do you reckon that next year the competition will only be open to native Cornish citizens after this?'

I shook my head, linking my arm through his. ‘I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't think it'll fly.'

‘Why not?'

‘Well, for one, she'd have to disqualify her own husband.'

‘Really? Bill?'

‘Oh yes,' I stage-whispered. ‘He's foreign.'

‘He
is
?' he asked, dark eyes frowning as he straightened to look over at Bill Barnsley across the rows of trestle tables that lined the tent. Bill was helping himself to some of his own prize-winning mulled wine, an air of defeat about his shoulders, while his beribboned wife stood with beefy legs akimbo, gesturing expansively in our direction.

‘Oh yes,' I grinned. ‘He's from
Devon
.'

Stuart gave me a lopsided smirk. ‘Hilarious.'

We went home with the two ribbons, over fifty orders for mince pies, Stuart's first ever fixed culinary contract (with Terry, the owner of Salt, to supply them exclusively with Cornish pasties), and two heads held firmly high.

W
inter is
Cornwall's best-kept secret. The beaches are almost deserted and you can walk for miles on the golden sand with only your thoughts and the jagged coastline for company, surrounded by wild beauty from all fronts. But it's the night-time festivals that herald the light, and like them, in the magic and the moonlight during the dreamlike hour that was meant for Mum and me, I too came alive.

Every night, with bated breath, I rushed to my studio, fearful that the postcard wouldn't write, that our precious sand in the hourglass would run out. But she was always there, as the clock struck three, since that first night.

Not every message was profound, or laced with hidden meaning, yet each one lodged itself in my heart. And so, for the first time in years, Christmas re-entered our lives.

Sometimes, but not always, I got to speak to her as I did on that first night. It was like, somehow, she knew, after my fight with Stuart, how much I needed to speak with her. I told her that I wished that we hadn't have had this argument, that Stuart had simply told me about the job offer he'd gotten, so we wouldn't have had to have gone through that. Or that Genevieve could have just left it alone, and she replied:

S
ometimes things have
to break before they can mend

Sometimes, tiny eruptions, from a distance, look like cracks or breaks in the surface

When what has really occurred has just shaped and moulded what was underneath into something stronger, something near impenetrable

Sometimes in the darkest places the most beautiful things are formed when pressure is applied

Like a diamond

Or a heart, tempered by love

‘
O
h Mum
,' I cried, dashing away my tears, ‘I would give anything to just hug you right now.'

Her response was so human, so heartfelt, that I truly began to cry.

Me more

I
spent
all week working on my lantern. I constructed it from paper, light and cut-out stars, creating a mystical heroine for the annual Christmas Lantern Parade, which had been a part of our lives for as long as I could remember. As a school teacher, Mum had played a prominent role in the festivities each year in Cloudsea and the children had always looked forward to her creations at the Festival of Light that launched the Christmas season.

Taking a leaf out of Mum's book, I had texted Dad Mum's message shortly after our visit with the obstetrician. Short and mysterious: ‘You'll find it in the cupboard under the stairs.'

‘What?' he'd texted back.

‘What you're looking for', I responded.

In his typical philosophical fashion, he didn't reply. I'd hoped that he'd actually look; he was just as likely to stand and wait for an epiphany as to rumble through the contents that lurked beneath. But on the day of the parade, when we called past to fetch him, I saw what he had found. All the trees and the borders of the garden path were studded with twinkly lights. The little wreath that Dad had placed on the back door was replaced with the handmade one Mum had made years before. Here, in my childhood home, where for so many years it hadn't come to visit, Christmas had arrived.

I stood on the little cobbled path, a grin plastered across my face. Dad came and gave me a hug; we didn't need to say more as we made our way to the parade with smiles held in our hearts.

The night was filled with lanterns of every shape, colour, and size, dotting the streets with their golden light. We parked on a side street and met Catherine, Richard and the three boys, who would all be forming a convoy as a dragon lantern; they always took part of the celebrations while on holiday with Catherine's father.

‘Aunty Ivy,' squealed Ben, large green eyes dancing with excitement, as he raced to me and gave me a hug, ‘I'm the head... the dragon's head!' he exclaimed in delight, his short red hair shimmering brilliantly in the dim lantern light.

‘Aren't you lucky?' I said. He nodded gleefully. I looked at Catherine and had to laugh, eyeing her outfit. ‘If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?' I joked, with a raised brow.

She nodded and gave me a wink. She, Richard, and the three boys were all wearing white T-shirts that read ‘The Talty Five' in luminous, sequined pink with matching pink tutus.

‘I wish Claire Thomas could see you now.'

She quirked a brow, mouth suppressing a laugh. ‘I made sure she did.'

I laughed. ‘Really, how?'

She grinned. ‘Sent a photo of us all on our rather awful “Yummy Mummies” WhatsApp group... She must have gone puce, specially as all the other mums had only nice things to say.'

‘Good lord, a Yummy Mummies WhatsApp group?' I replied in horror, to Catherine's rather resigned, ‘'fraid so.'

I laughed, ‘Well, good for you!' noting Ben's happy smile as he raced to be at the front in utter boyish delight.

As the Taltys got into position for the parade, Stuart helped me unfurl the lantern I'd spent days creating. Even I didn't know how it would look when we added the light. My mouth parted in surprise as it came alive. The dark tresses of the mythical woman I'd created were transformed, from darkest amber to radiant gold, animated by the gentle breeze. The folds of her dress were made of stars and tiny cut-out owls, and when the light shifted her face rippled in the moonlight and I gasped to see, not Athena, goddess of owlish wisdom, but a face as familiar as my own, and for just a second, I could have sworn she winked.

Dad stood rooted to the spot, his face pale, as if he'd seen a ghost. ‘Alice,' he breathed, lifting a hand to touch the whimsical lantern that seemed alive.

‘Did you... Did you mean to do this...?' he asked, Mum's face reflected in his eyes.

I swallowed and shook my head. ‘No, not on purpose.'

He shook his head in wonder. ‘It's so strange, but this year it's like...'

‘What?' I asked, laying a hand on his jersey-covered arm. He was wearing his old maroon jersey that Mum had knitted for him years before. He always wore it for the festive season. ‘I just feel like she's here,' he said simply, his grey eyes saying so much.

My eyes were bright, laced with tears. I nodded. ‘That's because she is.'

T
hat night
, when 3 a.m. rolled around, there was a message waiting for me in the moonlight.